Thursday, Aug 19
players: Martin, Cy, Brian, Ben

We played with two protagonist, instead of a full four, which seems to work better for a one-shot, so everyone got to either be a Heart or the Mistaken. The conflict structure of Polaris always takes a little warm-up, but I think everyone got the hang of it pretty quickly.

One thing that this session really solidified for me is that Polaris doesn't need a tight preset plot -- in fact it's better without one. The protagonists and the experiences and relationships that emerge are the story, but it works better if you can just jump around loosely and throw out scenes. Half the time characters are just blank names, and their meaning only arises during play, which I think is cool. A plot may emerge, but you don't need to decide on one before you start. I think the courtship story line for Brian's Heart worked really well, but if we were playing more loosely, it could have been a thru line across a couple of game years, and that would give you more flexibility from scene to scene.

I think you're right. I was playing Polaris like Shock: There's some single thing my character starts out wanting, and he tries to get it. That works well for Shock, but less well for Polaris. The negotiation mechanic let you slip totally unrelated aspects in, but we didn't take advantage of it because both Heart and Mistaken were hellbent on a single facet of Alcor's life. So instead we built up a lot of facts around a single topic.

Also, we totally slipped into gritty feudal fantasy. There weren't any verified Mistaken in anyone's storyline other than the Ice Maiden. Next game I do, we're going to hammer that in: melting world, terrible demons, doomed crusades, evil bright thing circling in the sky. That's awesome and we should have more of it.