Hi All,
My apologies for the lateness of these recaps. I wanted to give the organizers so well-deserved rest before following up on some of the amazing events at Adepticon. Paul Wagner was kind enough to rejoin me for a quick recap of the Age of Sigmar Narrative event!
1. So how did the story go! What was the epic conclusion of the narrative?
The story went well! We gave the players a story to read before the event and had them choose sides. All involved chose to either fight on the side of the Dastardly Dawnbringer Crusader Brob D. Grungisson or the Vengeful Kal’Doe, the Chaos Cultist. Brob was luring Crusaders to his settlement in order to mine Voidstone from the Dome itself, while Kal’Doe was using his influence to destroy the mining, as it supplied his rivals in the eight points. Will and I made some cosplay costumes to get into the story and we also included mechanics for players to build up Reputation for their team as the event went on. At the end of the event Kal’Doe was victorious in overthrowing the influence that Brob had managed to take over his Dawnbringer Settlement and was never seen again! Well, never seen in the Dome again 😉
2. In your opinion what was the best moment of the event (ie. Epic save roll, narrative moment, etc.)
Both Will and I agreed on our favorite moment of the day which was the beginning of the third and final round of the event. Players had been assigned a Rival before play had started and engaged in conversation with their Rival in order to develop a narrative in which they would face off in a duel for victory at the end. Players then used the Reputation they earned and Path to Glory Quests and a Territory to build up their forces for this final battle. When the players came to the table for the third round, they knew who they were fighting, why they were fighting them in particular, and were able to use all of their games that day to help them bolster their abilities. Everyone was just so excited to play that last round it was a wonderful thing to watch.
3. Reflecting back on the day, what things went better than you had hoped?
The Rival mechanic worked better than I could have imagined. I would be remiss if I didn’t also say the Path to Glory system itself, it really gave a structure and narrative to each player’s army that allowed them to have control over how their army progressed. Previously I had written elaborate custom scenarios and realm rules, but the GHB and PtG system allowed those to be packaged in a much more digestible format for the players. I’ve never had an easier time running a narrative event! We even had time to read all the narrative that players handed in as well.
4. Do you think you will run this event next year? What things would you want to improve on?
I am definitely planning on running this event a fourth year. A simple Improvement would be to make sure players have enough time to finish their games. I had based my timeline on AoS 2.0 rules, but 3.0 requires more time than I realised to get all those turns in. Since we played doubles for all the games, taking out Matched play rules didn’t really speed things up. I think I always would like to emphasize the Rivals Mechanic even more by making the last game 1 on 1 instead of another Doubles game. We just didn’t anticipate how excited players were to face their rivals!
5. Are there any ideas, mechanics or hooks that you would recommend for other event organizers?
One of the things that WIll and I strove to do this year was to make sure that our event allowed the players to bring their narratives, and play them as they wanted to tell their story, not ours. That was a large consideration into using less custom rules for the event itself. The hooks we used were the ones GW has planted in their narrative in the last year so we wrapped those into our story, both the Dawnbringer Crusade Terrain and the Red Harvest Terrain being used on the boards. I had so much fun relaxing I actually wrote up the event as a one-off event pack for others to use. An all in narrative players can just show up and play. We’ve linked it here on our website. https://www.themortalrealms.com/events/2022/3/30/gibbering-dome-adepticon-2022 There’s also some fun pictures of the event itself.
6. How did the incorporation of the Path to Glory Rules work? Was there a big difference between armies that had these rules in their battletome and the armies that did not?
Path to Glory worked super well as referenced above, plus we added a couple extra tidbits to give players a reason to invest more in their rivalry. We didn’t notice a big difference between WD and normal as players were asked to start a fresh order of battle for this event instead of using an existing and experienced force. That is one of the things we may change for next year though, allow more experienced orders, but have a ceiling on which abilities they may using by taking advantage of the Stronghold rules more intentionally. Will and I also had talks about having casualties be more deadly in the short term to see more impact on players list during the event itself.
7. Are there any other Narrative AoS events you have circled on your calendar later this year?
I’ve got my eye on those US Open Narrative Events! Who knows, maybe you’ll be able to see me at one of them!
Sounds like an awesome event! I appreciate the effort Paul and Will put into this event and I am excited to hear more about their endeavors in the future!
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