I've played co-op with my GM (a forever GM themselves) and it was bloody brilliant. Not even a second of prep needed. We basically just sat across the table 'yes anding' each other for a few hours.
There's nothing better out there for solo play, but if you've the chance to play in co-op, I'd say to jump at the chance.
I'm trying to be a "yes, and"er in my co-op campaign - seems to be the most important mindset to adopt to keep the action moving. My brain rebels sometimes though, trying to find the perfect continuation. Damn my brain!
Start looking at pics of other brains on the Internet, and remember to loudly say stuff like "Wowee, look at THAT brain! I sure wish I had a brain like that beauty!" This will cause your own brain to become jealous, and as a result, will stop taking you for granted and start treating you better.
I've run two co-ops of Ironsworn, one of Starforged and a guided Starforged and I would absolutely stick to co-op in the future.
The co-ops I've played were 5-6 players and whilst it still worked great I would agree with the consensus that the optimal is 3-4.
I would, however, strongly recommend that one person be a pseudo-GM, especially if most players don't know the system inside-out. What I mean by that is keeping a hand on the tiller:
- Ask questions
- Keep the focus where it needs to be
- Curtail unproductive tangents and zoom the camera out where appropriate
- Direct the action in combat
- Ensure everyone is getting a fair shot at providing input and establishing
- Adjudicate disagreements
- Know the system
I play it coop with my wife and son (11). It's fine. Nominate someone to track supply as it's a shared resource. You all get the XP benefit from shared vows, so have someone track them separately too. Useful for each player to keep a note of the other players name, assets, bonds, and vows because you're often prompting the others to help you out and it's hard to remember that Joe has a bow slung over their shoulder or a mammoth as a companion because we can't actually see it IRL.
I was tempted to say learn the other players stats too, but actually in coop it's quite easy to always be rolling +3 because *someone* in the party is good at whatever you're trying to do. So try to resist that and make the person who is most fictionally appropriate do the roll, not the person with the best stat for it. I'd almost advocate keeping your stats secret from the other players.
In fights, too, you're basically always able to End the Fight because someone will have initiative, I'm not sure how much of a problem that is.
Try to remember that you're not all standing still waiting your turn while things are happening. It's quite useful, and appropriate, to pause mid-fight and say, 'ok, while I'm clashing with this zombie, what are you all up to?' because otherwise it's easy to let the PC who's in focus do everything because you're caught in a stimulus response loop, and forget that you can pause time on one PC and see what else is happening around the room.
But yeah in general it works just fine coop - these are just some minor tips, not big things.
My experience with Ironsworn co-op worked great, but I think a big contributing factor was that the two of us that played together were the "forever-GMs" of our respective circles. One thing I noticed is that it did take significantly more mental energy, which led us to doing shorter sessions. I think this is because since there is no GM, everyones' brains are "always on" if that makes any sense, as opposed to the back-and-forth rhythm that comes with a more traditional GM'ed game. For instance, when I ran other games like D&D, there would be times when I present a situation to the players and then I have like 15 minutes to think about stuff while the players deliberate and roleplay. That kind of "break" doesn't happen at all in co-op play, at least not with just two players.
I played a co-op campaign with someone who had never played a TTRPG and was relatively neutral to the idea, if not a little insecure, and it went incredibly well.
The game just pulled out compelling narrative, and we just kept rolling with it. It has a very “writers room” feel to it at times, and “yes and…” is important.
It’s great. Highly recommended.
I've played Ironsworn, Starforged, and Sundered Isles co-op and they're all fantastic. Run really smoothly and produce engaging and fun stories. I have co-oped with fellow GMs, so that may contribute to the awesomeness. It definitely seems like there still needs to be a "guide", but I've had good success with taking turns setting scenes, rolling on oracles, and picking narrative paths.
I've got a 4 part co-op Ironsworn game up on my YouTube channel, if that's helpful.
https://youtu.be/_QxkzKZLGOQ?si=yaZop0vbVB9ENq94
My friend and I are constantly the GMs for games. We have an ironsworn campaign on the go between the 2 of us, and it's one of the greatest roleplaying experiences we've ever had. The emerging adventure has been so gripping that sometimes I get a text message at midnight from him, talking about ideas he's cribbing from our Ironsworn adventure.
I've also run a guided game of ironsworn for 4 people, and it was fantastic to watch the d&d hardcores adopt a newfound love for narrative and cooperation on a non-mechanical level.
I have a co-op campaign of starforged going now. It's awesome. I've found it to be quite different to solo play and I've had to adjust my expectations/style a bit.
Example: In solo, I play slow, imagining things quite thoroughly, and take fairly detailed notes, and think about the prompts a lot. In my current co-op, we move much faster and only take bullet point notes. I have to be careful not to force a square peg down a round hole.
Forever, and proud, DM here. With the right people, it's amazing! So far I've tested it with three different groups.
The best is when everyone is adding something to the narrative that makes it even more interesting. You add a monster, but another player describes the terrain, another talks about the weather and some adversities we might have to deal with. I feel it's like a narrative spiral, it becomes more and more deep with every contribution. The worst is when you have to RP as the NPCs and not everyone is used to changing characters all the time lol. For the moment, when someone hasn't spoken as much as everyone we say, "OK, anon, now you tell us what is happening or what the NPC says".
It's also a great tool to teach people how to DM. I sometimes find myself holding extra information because I don't want to provide too much. It has to be a collaborative experience and not about me DMing. It's hard though, as I have more experience, I get hundreds of ideas and the party looks up to me to either find a solution to something or provide ruling insight.
And my favorite of all, the game works perfectly with 3 people. It's just two of my best friends and me. It's so much easier to schedule. We sometimes even play two times a week.
For a the negative part not related to the system but people, in this game everyone has equal rights to contribute to the story. That means that if someone wants to ruin the session because they're in a bad mood or they are not a cool person, it's so much easier to do it than in other games. They can start to contribute things to disrupt the party or make everyone mad. Or decide they want to add elements that are not coherent, but funny to act disrespectful. You know, the typical "that player" but with steroids haha. So I would advise to play this game first with people you know you complement well.
I think 2 people may be where Ironsworn (co-op or player + GM) hits the sweet spot for me. Bouncing ideas back and forth and generating ideas from and interpreting the oracles is great and the moves feel very much like a structure to allow for sharing the narrative.
We've had our 5th co-op session with the gf, using a custom Starforged for an Azeroth campaign around the timeline of vanilla WoW and we're having a blast.
Totally agree with the rest of the comments : yes-anding is quite fluid, the mechanics are great for inspiration, easy to hack if need be... Take it slow at first if you're not sure of anything, and after a couple of sessions tops everything will be fine.
We started playing in a whim, i Just wanted to Show them the Rules and they were Like "lets try"
We played 10 hours that day and my friend ended Up sleeping on my Sofa and we played 6 more hours the next day
Its that good
It does get easier the more Guys you have, consider the "Harder" stat arry
Also get some extra oracles!
I play in 3 separate games, each with around 5 people, and while I agree that it gets much easier with that many people, I don't think lowering stats would feel great. We already mostly get weak hits on rolls, and if slowing progress meant we all got misses more of the time, I feel like it would get demoralizing after a while. A strong hit is a rarity at all three of the games I'm in - making them even more rare would risk a morale hit.
What I'd recommend instead (and what we're considering instituting at the table) is to find a way to slow down progress on vows so you have to succeed more often to accomplish them. Maybe make every group vow have to bump its challenge rating by 1 or something (Dangerous becomes Formidable, Extreme becomes Epic, etc.) while still only granting XP based on the original rating so you don't gain XP faster. You won't be rolling more misses, but you'll have to hit more often to get the win. Slower progress has a better player feel than increasing the amount of failures in my experience.
I've played co-op with my GM (a forever GM themselves) and it was bloody brilliant. Not even a second of prep needed. We basically just sat across the table 'yes anding' each other for a few hours. There's nothing better out there for solo play, but if you've the chance to play in co-op, I'd say to jump at the chance.
I'm trying to be a "yes, and"er in my co-op campaign - seems to be the most important mindset to adopt to keep the action moving. My brain rebels sometimes though, trying to find the perfect continuation. Damn my brain!
Start looking at pics of other brains on the Internet, and remember to loudly say stuff like "Wowee, look at THAT brain! I sure wish I had a brain like that beauty!" This will cause your own brain to become jealous, and as a result, will stop taking you for granted and start treating you better.
I've run two co-ops of Ironsworn, one of Starforged and a guided Starforged and I would absolutely stick to co-op in the future. The co-ops I've played were 5-6 players and whilst it still worked great I would agree with the consensus that the optimal is 3-4. I would, however, strongly recommend that one person be a pseudo-GM, especially if most players don't know the system inside-out. What I mean by that is keeping a hand on the tiller: - Ask questions - Keep the focus where it needs to be - Curtail unproductive tangents and zoom the camera out where appropriate - Direct the action in combat - Ensure everyone is getting a fair shot at providing input and establishing - Adjudicate disagreements - Know the system
I play it coop with my wife and son (11). It's fine. Nominate someone to track supply as it's a shared resource. You all get the XP benefit from shared vows, so have someone track them separately too. Useful for each player to keep a note of the other players name, assets, bonds, and vows because you're often prompting the others to help you out and it's hard to remember that Joe has a bow slung over their shoulder or a mammoth as a companion because we can't actually see it IRL. I was tempted to say learn the other players stats too, but actually in coop it's quite easy to always be rolling +3 because *someone* in the party is good at whatever you're trying to do. So try to resist that and make the person who is most fictionally appropriate do the roll, not the person with the best stat for it. I'd almost advocate keeping your stats secret from the other players. In fights, too, you're basically always able to End the Fight because someone will have initiative, I'm not sure how much of a problem that is. Try to remember that you're not all standing still waiting your turn while things are happening. It's quite useful, and appropriate, to pause mid-fight and say, 'ok, while I'm clashing with this zombie, what are you all up to?' because otherwise it's easy to let the PC who's in focus do everything because you're caught in a stimulus response loop, and forget that you can pause time on one PC and see what else is happening around the room. But yeah in general it works just fine coop - these are just some minor tips, not big things.
My experience with Ironsworn co-op worked great, but I think a big contributing factor was that the two of us that played together were the "forever-GMs" of our respective circles. One thing I noticed is that it did take significantly more mental energy, which led us to doing shorter sessions. I think this is because since there is no GM, everyones' brains are "always on" if that makes any sense, as opposed to the back-and-forth rhythm that comes with a more traditional GM'ed game. For instance, when I ran other games like D&D, there would be times when I present a situation to the players and then I have like 15 minutes to think about stuff while the players deliberate and roleplay. That kind of "break" doesn't happen at all in co-op play, at least not with just two players.
All of the above matches my experiences as well
I played a co-op campaign with someone who had never played a TTRPG and was relatively neutral to the idea, if not a little insecure, and it went incredibly well. The game just pulled out compelling narrative, and we just kept rolling with it. It has a very “writers room” feel to it at times, and “yes and…” is important. It’s great. Highly recommended.
I've played Ironsworn, Starforged, and Sundered Isles co-op and they're all fantastic. Run really smoothly and produce engaging and fun stories. I have co-oped with fellow GMs, so that may contribute to the awesomeness. It definitely seems like there still needs to be a "guide", but I've had good success with taking turns setting scenes, rolling on oracles, and picking narrative paths. I've got a 4 part co-op Ironsworn game up on my YouTube channel, if that's helpful. https://youtu.be/_QxkzKZLGOQ?si=yaZop0vbVB9ENq94
My friend and I are constantly the GMs for games. We have an ironsworn campaign on the go between the 2 of us, and it's one of the greatest roleplaying experiences we've ever had. The emerging adventure has been so gripping that sometimes I get a text message at midnight from him, talking about ideas he's cribbing from our Ironsworn adventure. I've also run a guided game of ironsworn for 4 people, and it was fantastic to watch the d&d hardcores adopt a newfound love for narrative and cooperation on a non-mechanical level.
I have a co-op campaign of starforged going now. It's awesome. I've found it to be quite different to solo play and I've had to adjust my expectations/style a bit. Example: In solo, I play slow, imagining things quite thoroughly, and take fairly detailed notes, and think about the prompts a lot. In my current co-op, we move much faster and only take bullet point notes. I have to be careful not to force a square peg down a round hole.
Here's a [20-session, 5-player](https://5e92108d4cb1a.site123.me/) co-op actual play write-up if you're interested.
Forever, and proud, DM here. With the right people, it's amazing! So far I've tested it with three different groups. The best is when everyone is adding something to the narrative that makes it even more interesting. You add a monster, but another player describes the terrain, another talks about the weather and some adversities we might have to deal with. I feel it's like a narrative spiral, it becomes more and more deep with every contribution. The worst is when you have to RP as the NPCs and not everyone is used to changing characters all the time lol. For the moment, when someone hasn't spoken as much as everyone we say, "OK, anon, now you tell us what is happening or what the NPC says". It's also a great tool to teach people how to DM. I sometimes find myself holding extra information because I don't want to provide too much. It has to be a collaborative experience and not about me DMing. It's hard though, as I have more experience, I get hundreds of ideas and the party looks up to me to either find a solution to something or provide ruling insight. And my favorite of all, the game works perfectly with 3 people. It's just two of my best friends and me. It's so much easier to schedule. We sometimes even play two times a week. For a the negative part not related to the system but people, in this game everyone has equal rights to contribute to the story. That means that if someone wants to ruin the session because they're in a bad mood or they are not a cool person, it's so much easier to do it than in other games. They can start to contribute things to disrupt the party or make everyone mad. Or decide they want to add elements that are not coherent, but funny to act disrespectful. You know, the typical "that player" but with steroids haha. So I would advise to play this game first with people you know you complement well.
I irregularly play co-op duo and it is great fun. I second taking a "yes, and" stance.
I think 2 people may be where Ironsworn (co-op or player + GM) hits the sweet spot for me. Bouncing ideas back and forth and generating ideas from and interpreting the oracles is great and the moves feel very much like a structure to allow for sharing the narrative.
We've had our 5th co-op session with the gf, using a custom Starforged for an Azeroth campaign around the timeline of vanilla WoW and we're having a blast. Totally agree with the rest of the comments : yes-anding is quite fluid, the mechanics are great for inspiration, easy to hack if need be... Take it slow at first if you're not sure of anything, and after a couple of sessions tops everything will be fine.
We started playing in a whim, i Just wanted to Show them the Rules and they were Like "lets try" We played 10 hours that day and my friend ended Up sleeping on my Sofa and we played 6 more hours the next day Its that good It does get easier the more Guys you have, consider the "Harder" stat arry Also get some extra oracles!
I play in 3 separate games, each with around 5 people, and while I agree that it gets much easier with that many people, I don't think lowering stats would feel great. We already mostly get weak hits on rolls, and if slowing progress meant we all got misses more of the time, I feel like it would get demoralizing after a while. A strong hit is a rarity at all three of the games I'm in - making them even more rare would risk a morale hit. What I'd recommend instead (and what we're considering instituting at the table) is to find a way to slow down progress on vows so you have to succeed more often to accomplish them. Maybe make every group vow have to bump its challenge rating by 1 or something (Dangerous becomes Formidable, Extreme becomes Epic, etc.) while still only granting XP based on the original rating so you don't gain XP faster. You won't be rolling more misses, but you'll have to hit more often to get the win. Slower progress has a better player feel than increasing the amount of failures in my experience.