Explaining turn #6

Looking at the Basic Data

Not much of interest here, no surprising new entries and the player is getting good at reading the numbers, he notices this turn that the Vulture People have significantly more Dread Vulture Pets than the human Herdsmen and actually asks about the difference.

Looking at the description

The turn starts with a general description of the past hundred years and the conflict that led to the birth of the vulture men. A lot has happened since then. Lets take a look.

First off the Vulture Men have completely split off from the herdsmen though they are still trying to convert the people to their ways. The human tribe has pretty much made them boogy men and the two races are not getting along. The humans try to avoid the vulture men at all costs and the vulture people pretty much prefer it that way. Their numbers are small, but they are the chosen people and look down on those who refuse to see the obvious.

Among the human tribe big changes are going on as well. The men and women have settled down a lot. Given an outside enemy (the vulture people) to work against both sides have accepted equal prestige and consolidated. All the noble men are herdsmen and all the noble women are part of the order of flame. The common tribesmen who are left hunt and work tending the herds of the ranking families. These commoners though only make up 25% of the remaining tribe, a number the player should realize based on the answer he got to his question about Dread Vulture Populations. Every man and woman wants to marry up, nobody wants to remain a hunter, or worse yet be chased out of the tribe as the scavengers were!

The Conversation

Drethnor seems totally intent on the bird men this turn, which is good, their numbers are small enough that inbreeding really would be a problem in coming turns. However he either is unaware of the changes taking place in the human tribe, or feels they need time to settle down more before he acts. As the game master sometimes it's hard to tell exactly what the player has noticed and what has slipped by him completely.

The deal with using the soul was fairly clever. It really cements the relationship between the dread vultures and the bird men, even if the human tribe drops keeping these pets altogether the Vulture Men are likely to keep them forever. More importantly vultures guided by human minds are likely to be looking at things more interesting to Drethnor. After all the player isn't so very interested in dead elephants these days!

But the second action was more telling. The player made a very bold and daring move to address the low population. His solution was actually ideal but it came with some costs. The act was very complex and finicky. In order to get the numbers he really needed Drethnor had to make a deal with the game master. Deals like this can be dangerous but Drethnor is used to rolling with the punches and he managed to get a promise that whatever happened the change would not destroy his bird man population. Next turn he'll see what this devil's bargain actually got him; but he can already be sure that I'll take the opportunity to put my own stamp on his new race!

Most of the time the game master has to act within strict boundaries. It's his job to interpret what the players are doing and how the people would logically react. We have a lot of power within those limits, but the limit is very real. Given the real earth context I can't make up a race of giant carnivorous bats, they have to be made by some player or already exist on ancient earth before I can play with them. Now however I, as game master, get to take an active part in shaping what could be a major intelligent race upon the globe! It's very exciting.