I pondered about how to include the “Omen - Mechanic” in a One-Shot:
for now:
If it is a One-Shot, the Player will be allowed to state one (and only one) Theme, that will be incorporated into the next New Fire One-Shot.
Thanks again for running the game!
I did have fun and didn’t really want to kick of a big discussion at the end. 
Oh and BTW:
I think we didn’t really ask but did the (drunk) people at the flower festival actually get away? And what happened to the city?
You know - because of all the fire and burning deity-blood…
[quote=“Thopthes”]Thanks again for running the game!
I did have fun and didn’t really want to kick of a big discussion at the end. [/quote]
no problem
it was the first time playing New Fire as well
so feedback is encouraged
learning by doing
another thing I learned, is be more careful of “broad” Themes
especially during character creation
I am interested how the other players will do
maybe I will put together another New Fire one-shot for later
[quote=“Thopthes”]Oh and BTW:
I think we didn’t really ask but did the (drunk) people at the flower festival actually get away? And what happened to the city?
You know - because of all the fire and burning deity-blood…[/quote]
[spoiler=Major Spoiler]One of the Islands of Xochitlan (Place of Flowers) burned of, but most of the people escaped. They started running away, when Alrik/Necahual (Survivor) attacked one dancing Tzitzimitl (Geriatric Grandmother).
The Temple of Kwekweponiwitl (Blooming Feather) remained (stone), but the rest of the Blooming Feather Island was turned to ash.
It was a glorious night for the people of the light, since one of them H/Tlilpotonqui (Wears Black Feathers) sacrificed himself for the Sun and gave her the energy to defeat the Darkness … once again.
(So the citizens of Xochitlan (Place of Flowers) interpret these events as a proof of their divine superiority - instead of a dragic drama.)[/spoiler]
[quote=“Darthbinks”][quote=“Thopthes”]Oh and BTW:
I think we didn’t really ask but did the (drunk) people at the flower festival actually get away? And what happened to the city?
You know - because of all the fire and burning deity-blood…[/quote]
[spoiler=Major Spoiler]One of the Islands of Xochitlan (Place of Flowers) burned of, but most of the people escaped. They started running away, when Alrik/Necahual (Survivor) attacked one dancing Tzitzimitl (Geriatric Grandmother).
The Temple of Kwekweponiwitl (Blooming Feather) remained (stone), but the rest of the Blooming Feather Island was turned to ash.
It was a glorious night for the people of the light, since one of them H/Tlilpotonqui (Wears Black Feathers) sacrificed himself for the Sun and gave her the energy to defeat the Darkness … once again.
(So the citizens of Xochitlan (Place of Flowers) interpret these events as a proof of their divine superiority - instead of a dragic drama.)[/spoiler]
[/quote]
Puh. Dodged the bullet 
I agree, that was a really fun game! The setting is really imaginative, good combination of historical and fantasy elements. The mechanics are simple enough to get them fast enough so they can get out of the way pretty soon, and while I found the target numbers maybe a bit on the high side a few times… (I’d probably go with a base difficulty of 18, and only increase in steps of 4 or so. Needing a natural 10 in the bunch in order to be able to score even just a noon roll on the base difficulty really limits your chances. But these are mere nitpickings 
)
…on the whole, they produced interesting results. I get the feeling the “set one condition” mechanic may really bloom for a group who spent 2, 3 sessions finding their groove with it. If anything, I found that both dawn rolls and night rolls were a bit rare - but that may have been incidental, dunno?
Also the scenario was really well-made, pulling pretty much all the chars into the action rather quickly, and giving every char enough distinctness (okay, except maybe the two fighter girls) to do different things
Yeah, I thought about that too, afterwards. In the end, I think it was basically a case of unintentional misuse of the mechanic in question.
(Epilogues want to be big, final things. They wrap up loose ends and don’t have to be influencable later on. Omens however do well to be smaller, more malleable visions of the future - we’ll live to see them come true or not, and so they should be prone to interpretation, prevention, change…
Good mechanics reflecting either may safely be expected to be wildly different, I dare say 
)
But yeah, hindsight is 20/20 as they say, and I’m sure no harm was intended either way.
In fact, it would be awesome to have a cool Epilogue mechanic, especially for these one-shots that we tend to see so many of here…
[quote]for now:
If it is a One-Shot, the Player will be allowed to state one (and only one) Theme, that will be incorporated into the next New Fire One-Shot.[/quote]
That seems like a reasonable compromise for the one-shot format. Although it depends on whether there will indeed be further one-shots (which I personally would find great!), cause else it probably never happens, and that might make it kinda moot.
Hm, now I’m thinking about a good Epliogue mechanic… maybe keep up the thing with “giving the dead chars’ player(s) the lead in it”, but have all players able to spend resources to challenge and inflect the dead guys’ narration? (i.e. not just the player being epilogued at can resist/influence the details, but maybe every one can?)
Then, have narration rights shifted… maybe like “when the [dead char’s player] says more doom than bright stuff in another character’s epilogue, this char’s player is next in line to narrate another char’s epilogue. Otherwise, he [the dead guy] retains narration rights for the next epilogue.”
Also, “for the next epilogue told, whoever tells it, switch the conditions [i.e. exchange “says more doom than bright stuff” for “says more bright stuff than doom”]”.
Funny things is of course, all the other player can use their dice (or whatever resources) to influence how much bright stuff vs. doom there is in the narrations! So you can never be sure of the outcome, even as you tell the prophecy
[quote]another thing I learned, is be more careful of “broad” Themes
especially during character creation[/quote]
Hm, interesting… do you mean “more” or “less” of them?
For the record, I felt that my character (Angry Bumblebee) seemed pretty balanced between “broad” (= usable in virtually every scene I’m in) (Manipulative Worldly Priest, Lust for Power), specific (Privileged Upbringing et. al.) and “highly situational” (Kick Em When Theyre Down e.g.)
Since we’re dissecting the game, one thing I noticed was that:
[spoiler]dusk rolls often seemed like they had more impact than noon or dawn rolls. I’m not just talking about things like “you can’t do X” as a condition for a successful “I do X” roll, which we were probably just overplaying, but more subtle things as well.
For example, I rolled a couple times for new leads in similar circumstances. One result was a full dawn roll, which wound up as the blood on the ceiling bit. (Again, sorry. The character pic made me do it.) Another was only a dusk roll, leading to the rabbit condition. Yet the dawn roll wound up being peripheral to the story - why was the floor clean, anyway? - while the rabbit helped drive the central plot.
I think the reason is that while there’s quite a bit of narrative control from the players, the DM is still guiding the main storyline, and adding an element to the DM’s narrative will most likely end up being part of that central thread, while things narrated entirely by a player can more easily wind up as just a side branch.
For the resolution of a concrete action, dawn rolls are clearly the critical-hit-esque they’re intended to be. But for less specific things that have more to do with influencing the story as a whole, I’m not sure that’s the case. It might just be almost the other way around. The next time, I might be more inclined to stay with a dusk roll in certain situations rather than try to raise.[/spoiler]
Anyway, just some impressions since feedback was asked for. I didn’t really see this as negative, just a quirk in the system worth mentioning.
I didn’t notice that during the game, but now that you mention it, I think it rings true. Your third paragraph especially feels spot-on!
And in response to your fourth paragraph: basically true, that noon roll (with the blood) ended up giving a lot of “color” (fluff details) to the scene, but didn’t really get carried along into the story very far (or at all). It allowed your char to interact with the things you invented, though (e.g. tasting the blood, all calmly…) but that’s really just more color i guess
It’s funny how sometimes one might indeed prefer to stick with a “worse” outcome, instead of Calling Up more Themes to perhaps get a better roll. But maybe that’s why it says in the rules “you’ll usually aim for making the roll with as few dice as possible… usually…” (quoted from memory, far too lazy to look up the exact wording right now 
)
But that’s not an entirely unfamiliar feeling for me - I have encountered situations in these “storygames” where I as a player actively prefer to let the GM have the lead in narrating something. Your example with “resolving conrete actions vs. finding hints to the main narrative” is probably one of the most frequent situations where this can happen
little less in some instances (e.g. “Determination” was really a little too broad ^^’)
Thanks for the feedback
i will run some other New Fire one shots in the future,
there is a lot in of Semanawak to explore : )
Wait, does that mean I can offer up a theme for tonight’s game?
You’ve probably already cast a covetous eye on one, didn’t you?
I used his first prophecy “Fire, Smoke & Ashes” 
I like it!
Additionally in a One-Shot the “Sacrifice”, who could tell the Omen, could give every other character one condition, they had to build into their Epilog.
Then every player tells his Epilog himself.
Another thing that I learned:
Do not use “one-word” Themes (especially for PCs)
They are one the one hand to narrow, and on the other can be far too broad.
Thank you all for playing with all of you guys 
I really had a great time with theese One-Shots.
btw. the Antagonists:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzitzimitl
Themes:
- Dance of Death
- Descend from the Stars
- Hate Defies the Sun
- Rattlesnake Trap!
The Core Themes of the Adventure were:
- Oktli is Flowing Freely
- The Marketplace is Crowded
- Sacrilege: Missing Sacrifice!
Thank you !
Here is a (google) translation of the presentation of the French game, Teocali, I talked about.
Teocali is a historical-fantasy game. Its universe, though imaginary, is heavely based on the Indian South American civilizations.
Teocali, an island, is lost in the middle of the ocean. Its inhabitants never left the island. A long time ago, they worshiped a single deity, but they stopped and got diverted from it. They got cursed in return, so that the souls of the dead could not reach the sun anymore, causing the island to sink into madness. A pantheon of six gods, Teotls, came to their aid and created the Huacans, statues can store souls.
In exchange for their Graces, the Teotls compelled the inhabitants of the island to respect divine taboos, including murder, violence or disrespect. Many moral principles that can make a happy and peaceful civilization.
But how to continue to respect these taboos when an invader, attracted by the gold and treasures of the island, use the worst meanness to reach its goal?
The players plays residents of Teocali. They will face the internal dissensions of the clans of the island and the violence of the invaders, while having to respect the taboos imposed by Teotls.
Source : Game presentation on the GROG
that sounds like a nice setting as well… interesting moral dilemma included. I like. Somebody should run that sometime… 
Additionally in a One-Shot the “Sacrifice”, who could tell the Omen, could give every other character one condition, they had to build into their Epilog.
Then every player tells his Epilog himself.[/quote]
Heh, that sounds like a good (and simple) way to go about it - Author Stance yeah!
[quote=“Darthbinks”]Another thing that I learned:
Do not use “one-word” Themes (especially for PCs)
They are one the one hand to narrow, and on the other can be far too broad.[/quote]
Seems reasonable! Using even just two or three words instead, forces you to be way more specific immediately - and adds to the style as well, I would expect…
Additionally in a One-Shot the “Sacrifice”, who could tell the Omen, could give every other character one condition, they had to build into their Epilog.
Then every player tells his Epilog himself.[/quote]
I don’t know, I’ve been thinking about this a bit, and as much fun as coming up with both those silly epilogs and a theme for the next game was, I’m not sure there should be any reward at all. It might wind up lessening the sacrifice, or even result in players competing with each other to sacrifice themselves.
I liked how in our session, the final sacrifice grew organically out of the game and the dialog. Had we known about the potential rewards, I’m not sure it would have worked as well.
What do you guys think?
ah true
In the second group i let the Sacrifice, Necahual (“Survivor”), give one condition to each epilog - but as with the first group, they didn’t knew the rewards before.
This worked really well .
So i guess I’l stick to allowing the Sacrifice to name (or add) a Theme to my next new fire One-Shot for now.
(except when I play with people a New Fire Oneshot for the first time - it is a nice extra to allow them to give one condition to the epilog).