Fane of the Heresiarch Play Report (SPOILERS)

It's like someone dropped a big bomb of Fane
all over the table.

A few days ago, I ran Fane of the Heresiarch for five players. None of them had played Fane before.

Instead of giving a play-by-play analysis, I'll jump into what made the game really fun for the players.

1. The dark theme. The players really enjoyed the dark theme of the game, even wondering if Sersa Victory had a really disturbed childhood. Who thinks up this stuff? Does this guy need therapy? Sersa, if you need therapy, please get it... but big favor.. can you wait until after you get Crown of Charon out? Thanks!

2. Humor and dick jokes. Fane is quite sexual. It's one of the Heresiarch's policies, after all. I joked that I was going to get kicked out of the gaming store and never let back in after all the jokes about "salty ball sacks". I laughed hard during this game, that kind of laughter that releases all those good endorphins. We had a table of all male gamers, so blue jokes flowed a little more freely.

3. Rumors. Rumors really engage the players right from the start. I can't imagine running a one-shot game ever again where rumors are not used. Heck, even if you run some character-based, plot-heavy, non-dungeon game, you can still pull in those rumors. Love it.

4. The spider's web of choices. Fane embraces a very non-linear style, and this engaged the players heavily. Where to go next? Of the things that I found, where do I use them? This run of Fane was NOTHING like the previous three runs I had, given that you can go in a large variety of directions.

The players got a score of 660, four planets, making it to chamber M before running out of time. I plan to re-run it again in July!

Three DMing techniques I tried and will keep:

1. Standing. I stood 99% of the time, and I think it helped with my emoting and narrative. I had more body language, could reach and point easier at things, could roll dice out in the open when needed.

2. Asking the players, "who else would like to...?" When one player asks, "Can I roll a history check to see if I know that person?", I say, "Yes, and anyone else who would like to do that, roll too." It saved time, as we got more rolls out of the way quickly.

3. Recapping the scene. More than in the past, I would try to say something in each chamber like, "Ok crusaders, you have doors to the west and south, a untouched tome over there, and a strange mural over here. What are you doing?" With a lot going on in a chamber, doing this helped keep things in the players minds and made it more fun for them. 

The saddest moment is when the game is over, and everyone leaves me with a table of maps, dice, and a desire to run the game again.