A Wanderer's Romance - Session 1 - A Burning Wish

I ran some A Wanderer's Romance, a 2011 game by Chris McDowall that you can find for free on his blog, and it was very fun! I first ran a campaign set in Rokugan using this system five years ago, although we did not realize you're not supposed to count multiple legendary styles as active at once normally or it sorta makes things pile up ridiculously fast. This time we're using the implied setting of wuxia island hopping wandering warrior-students. House rules for now are as follow:

- No mechanical penalties for breaking the Warrior's Code, it's an ethical thing, not a metaphysical one.
- Rolling snake eyes is a disaster, rolling boxcars is a success, regardless of totals.

Dramatis Personae

- Hanshi, student of the Leaning Crane. At her best, she represents perfect form and grace.
At her worse, her drive to succeed blinds her to her own passion.
"It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it."

- Lei, student of the Studious Mind. This one welcomes defeat as a learning opportunity, and while polite and respectful in demeanour, she has the ruggedness of those that practice amongst mountain beasts.
"With practice comes strength."

- Mun Cerule Mun, student of the Elephant Fist. He is a joyful giant and a bolsterous braggart. His apparent simplicity yet hides a strong heart and a stronger hand.
"Defeat all obstacles with poise and grace."

What Happened

- Our heroes set out from wherever they came from on a journey across the ocean, to get to the distant Island-City of a Thousand Paper Cranes, where the Trial of Emerald will be held (a renowed martial arts tournament). Caught in a tempest, they lost their ship, and poor Merchant Captain Feng Se was lost with it. The waves brought them across the Coral Reef on the coasts of Sleeping Giant. That part was skipped ahead in a short set of quick cuts of description.

- The tea-maker Maya found them, brought them to the Burning Wish (a Brothel / Gambling Den / Restaurant Pagoda) and nursed them back to health over three days. They are now endebted to Madam Min Ba Sei, who agreed to let them go with the next ship on the condition that they win and bring back the tournament's cash prize - but first they would have to defeat her own champion, Sing La, in personal combat. We played all of this out with mostly chatter going in and out of character, settling into the setting, taking time to describe the environment and characters. Some tension was resolved with the quick-thinking of Lei offering to serve as champion, or to train the guards.

- Before facing Sing La, they decided to figure out who was strongest between themselves. Lei fought Mun and technically won a very close and intense bout of a few assaults by hitting him over the head with her scabbard, although he did endure the blow with no trouble. Lei then faced Hanshi who swiftly put his blade to her neck in an instant. Before the first fight, every player introduced some element of description to the scene, coming up with cool ideas like bramble bushes, big boulders and a windswept cut wheat field. The first fight was "long", lasting about four rounds! It felt exhilirating as it was pretty close call after close call. Then Hanshi shined in a brutal first round and immediately defeated Lei. We started to wonder if Leaning Crane was particularly broken since I remembered it being used the last time I ran AWR, 5 years ago, and it also being pretty strong.

- At the dojo, Hanshi fought hard against the gentle and smiling Sing La, and after a critical mishap, lost her temper and the fight, getting knocked uncounscious. Not skipping a beat, Lei asked for a match and fared a bit better but also got knocked out - Mun observed as the very polite and graceful Sing La, student of the Gentleman's Tongue, started getting seriously into teaching "these kids" a lesson, behind her mask of softness. Then he punched her in the face and clocked her out in one hit, showing that sometimes, fancy sword play can be trumped by an honest and straightforward elephant fist. Sing La was shocked but played ball and let the Madam know that she would have better chances at getting the cash prize if she let them go and participate under her patronage. We realized at this point that every fighting style is "sorta broken" in a way that feels really funky and rewarding to play with (DICE WITCH bot helps a lot by providing visual representation of the dices, colorful too), and that it's fine that Leaning Crane is super strong on first round cause they suck afterward, and Elephant Fist is brutal but also very simple, and so on and so on. Just all-around fun mechanics to play with, which is very far from what I'm usually focusing on when playing adventure games.

- We ended on a cliffhanger: the next evening, we see a small party in the Pagoda, our heroes got warmer to each others and are dining together alongside other patrons as well as Maya, Lei is drinking a worrisome lot, and Mun is telling tall tales about his home. Then the SUN PIRATES show up, screaming and hooting and overall being scary thugs. Their leader, Don Pazzari, lets out a beast-like roar and lets everyone know "the party can get started" as he takes Mun's drink and steps on their table. Next time, things might start more violently.

Post-Session GM Thoughts

Not a lot to say so far - it's exciting and fun, it may be a campaign in the works as we have some structure and scheduling imperatives that make it doable for a small group to make it work, though only time will tell. It'll be bi-weekly so that still leaves me with time to get my unmedicated ADHD onto other game-things.