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May 31, 2007
As though I needed another reason
[Breaking the Ice] - You proved me wrong!
When I initially heard about Breaking the Ice however-long-ago that was, my immediate gut reaction was "Oh, come ON! That won't be fun!" I don't know what it was about the game (or rather, the idea of the game) that rubbed me the wrong way. But there it is: me, monstrously predisposed to hating Breaking the Ice.The flip side of have strong gut reactions to lots of things is that you eventually learn that your gut isn't always right. So, when I had the opportunity to try the game out, I did.
It was really, really fun.
Someday, I hope to get a chance to play that game. Until then, I'll just carry it around and reread it. :)
May 30, 2007
Not playing WoW for the last three weeks is killing me...
but this is worse: if I hadn't put the whole game on pause until I finish my rewrite and the rest of the guildies decide they're ready to play, I could have this Firefly non-combat pet following me around already.
The flavor text for this pet, "We're still flying…"
May 29, 2007
Random Spirit of the Century quote
Pulp runs on a few simple principles: action, science and optimism.
Of these principles, optimism is the most potent.
May 28, 2007
I have played Spirit of the Century and I am exited.
There are a dozen reasons why, but the bottom line is that I think this is quite possibly *the* game to use for a regularly-scheduled, everyone-makes-up-a-character-and-whoever-shows-up-plays, campaign.
In quick summation:
- The Century Club is the easy background that ties everyone together and explains why [random list of this evening's participants] were called in for [current problem].
- The adventure setups can easily be resolved in one session.
- The characters are very very competent (nigh on Amberite-level), so it's really no problem if only a few people can play that week, or if a bunch can -- the opposition can remain the same.
- Character progression is comparatively slow and applied to everyone (not just the folks who show up a lot), so you don't need to worry about falling behind if you're busy for awhile.
- The episodic nature of the villain-of-the-week, coupled with the fact that half of any GM's prep will be making up a list of PC Aspects to compel in interesting ways, plus that fact that less-played PCs don't fall behind means that (a) Anyone can GM if they want and (b) the various GMs can have their own characters to pull out and play when they're not in the hot seat. It is EASY to switch GMs around in the same setting with minimal fear of stepping on someone else's uber storyline.
Picture everyone with a character. A wiki full of the NPCs we've introduced... a list of all the pulp novels we've "written"... and the sure knowledge that, say, "Saturdays are a Game Day."
I am excited. :)
May 24, 2007
Boiling down Theory
Most of the roleplaying game theory out on the intertubes that originated on the Forge is part of the Big Model. You won't have heard me talk about the Big Model before, because frankly I don't get it -- I talk about small parts of the Big Model, because I feel like (a) I get those, or (b) I possibly CAN get those, if I work at it.
Over at Knife Fight, someone posted a friends summary of the Big Model that pretty much boils it all down into a nice simple glaze I can pour over whatever food I happen to be cooking. It's tasty, it's basic, and it's (in my head) straightforward. I have appended that post, with notes, below the cut, because i would always like to be able to find it.
Via Gaerik, on the "Knife Fight" forums:
The best Big Model Breakdown I've seen to date. This is me saying that it isn't mine. It's Frank Tarcikowski's.
Role-playing is a social activity.Any sensible analysis of role-playing must start with the players as real persons and not with the characters, the setting, or other fictional elements. Why? Because the characters, setting, and whatnot don't actually exist. They're fictional. The players do exist. It is the social interaction between the actual players that forms the context of role-playing. This context is called the Social Contract. If the Social Contract of a role-playing group is screwed up then the foundation of their play is rotten and they are pretty much doomed in terms of having reliable fun. Having reliable fun is a basic definition of functional role-playing.
Role-playing is creating fiction together.
The participants of an RPG are creating imaginary events through play. The pictures in everyone’s head of what happens need to match. If one player is imagining a gritty modern fantasy while the other players are imagining a My Little Ponies adventure, you're going to run into problems. These matching pictures is called the Shared Imagined Space (SIS), or sometimes simply "The Fiction".
The Shared Imagined Space is created through negotiation.
This is key. The SIS isn't created by some sourcebook or anything else. It is created via negotiation between the players. Now the negotiation may just be the players all agreeing to certain source materials to start but the fact remains that it was a negotiated and agreed upon by all the players.
Interaction between players at the gaming table is directed toward including certain situations or events into the SIS. The back and forth dialogue that develops during play, to include making statements of intent, rolling dice, appealing to the authority of the rules, and all the other game discussion that goes on, is the process of negotiation. Only if all players agree, explictly or implicitly, to a new piece of fictional content can play continue on that basis. This process, when described in this way, is sometimes called the "Lumpley Principle".
System does matter.
"System" is the rules by which the negotiation process is organized. These rules may be written or not. Some groups play by a set of rules that differ in significant ways from the actual game text. Therefore, if someone tells you that system doesn’t matter, he is referring to the rules in the game text and he is saying so because his group is not playing by those rules anyway. The actual rules they play by are mainly their own, and those rules, the unwritten ones, do matter. Those actual rules influence two important things:
1. The fictional content shaping the Shared Imagined Space.
2. How players act at the table to create that content.In short, the Lumpley Principle circles around this conversation: "I cast a fireball!" "No you don't." "I - what? I do too!" "Nope." However the players resolve this; however you decide in your game who gets to say what about what, and when, that your game's "system." "System" is usually a mix of established rules (like from a rulebook), principled rules (extrapolated from a rulebook), ad-hoc rules, and winging it, in some proportion or other. System always matters, and always has an impact on the resulting Fiction.
There is role-playing, and then there is role-playing.
The process people use to role-play may vary widely from group to group. That’s because different people have differing priorities -- things that they "want" -- when playing RPGs. A gaming group has the best chance for sustained fun when all the players have the same or similar priorities. The shared group priority is called the group's Creative Agenda.
"Having fun" is not in itself a priority. How the fun is had is the priority. Simply having fun is always a goal, so it is useless as an analytical tool.
Note: Creative Agenda is the full picture! It is not individual moments in play or individual parts of the System. It is only recognized when watching a group play for a longer period of time, with special attention to moments where specific priorities may conflict with each other. Creative Agenda does NOT say that any action by a player at any time during play needs to fit a scheme or something.
The following three general categories of Creative Agenda have been identified in the The Big Model:
1. Gamism: The players accept the challenges of the Shared Imagined Space, taking risks and showing performance as players and reaching or missing a certain goal. Sometimes all players may work together to a goal. Sometimes they may compete. The social reward for Gamism is gained by the player stepping up and meeting challenges.
Note: Gamism is not the same as Powergaming, which is a sub-species of Gamist play and sometimes dysfunctional.
2. Narrativism: The players engage in the moral and human issues of the Shared Imagined Space, taking a position as players and making a statement about their characters, the game world, and/or themselves. The social reward for Narrativism is gained when the player makes and interesting thematic statement through play. (It is worth noting that, if said statement or recurring theme is predetermined before play begins, it's not really Narr play, which depends somewhat on it emerging organically in the middle of play.)
Note: This is not what is commonly called Storytelling or Cinematic play. If functional, both are usually in there somewhere.
3. Simulationism: The players experience the Shared Imagined Space as something worthwhile for its own sake. Something which they do not fully control because it follows its own laws. Experiencing the Shared Imagined Space and contributing to it is part of any role-playing, but in this mode, it is the top priority. The social reward for Simulationist play is generally gained through skillful celebration of the subject matter or source material.
Note: Complex "realistic" rules are only one style of Simulationist role-playing. More frequently you’ll find features like style, atmosphere, acting, or dramaturgy to be more important that complex physics mechanics.
Dunno if any of this will be of much use to anyone but me, but it's here if you want it.
May 22, 2007
Redundant systems for more reliable performance
So there's a guy out in NYC who's running a regular weekly game.
Yes, to me that's notable and enviable enough that I find it worth remarking on. No, it's not what the post is about.
Anyway, what he's doing with this game is:
(a) recruiting from a pool of people far too large to get sitting down all at one table.
(b) setting the weekly hard limit of participants at a first come, first served, six people
(c) setting the whole thing in a static location (one town)
(d) wrapping up loose ends each session well enough that the NPCs of note are 'free' (not in the middle of some other 'thing' and thus unavailable) for the next session's events.
And I think these criteria deliver both a reliable ongoing campaign and a lack of dependency on the variable schedules of people. I like it.
Come right down to it, I feel the need to remove every possible impediment from a game actually happening because right now, between sudden cancellations and people playing twice and then dropping the games permanently, I'm beginning to wonder if the problem is me, that I've utterly forgotten how to run a fun game, and I should just play video games from now on.
So I'm pondering this model for a game. Here's what I see as some potential must-haves:
- A quick and clean character generation/system, so people can come with a concept and be rolling with a playable character in short order.
- A game that lends itself to non-contiguous play sessions. (Thus totally ruling out PTA and its screen presence arcs.)
- A little crunch, but no so much that I can't play by the seat of my pants, depending on who's 'in' for that week.
- An easily grasped setting and situation.
Petrana, using Shadow of Yesterday, is potentially that game -- the only problem there being that I took a perfect set up (static setting) and immediately put everyone on the road for a trip. My only excuse there is that that situation was supposed to take one session and has instead gone on for three sessions (and about four months) -- it wouldn't honeslty be that hard to rejigger things to make that setup work for this, though -- just a little exposition and scene framing and we're back in the city. Voila. Don't know if it's the universally 'grasped' setting I was talking about, though.
Other possibilities include:
- using Heroquest in a fairly straightforward fantasy setting.
- using Spirit of the Century in a straight Pulp setting... maybe... okay, that's perhaps a leetle bit harder, but honestly something like the setup for the old Pulp d20 thing I did would work easily enough.
- using Over the Edge/Risus or something else that's been around a good long time with a solid track record of quick playability.
The other major problem I have is that i just done have a particularly big pool of players to pull from at this time. Being ready for anyone to show up doesn't do me much good if the pool of players is the same size as a 'regular' game that never happens because not enough people can make it. Not entirely sure what to do about that.
What I keep coming back around to:
I enjoy games that have more story-focus than DnD... Don't get me wrong: I like tactical games. I really do. I love DnD when that's what i want to do; I wish I was in a regular Savage Worlds game, or something else with miniatures. Seriously. But I want some game going where the system acknowledges "my whole 'thing' is about X" and have the game system actually care about that. Not just the GM or the players, but the system.
PTA is the EXTREME version of that, where you're pretty much all issue. I like PTA, but I feel like I've had... so far... more extended success with games like Heroquest and Sorcerer which are closer to a 'normal' game, but which still allow for those story elements.
I don't know how much that matters, but I'm getting so damned frustrated with games that only make it two sessions and then crash for seven months, assuming they ever come back to life, and I'm trying to find the magic bullet game that (a) gives me what I want and (b) lasts a few sessions, cuz... dammit.
And I don't think it's the systems. I've had good long runs of newer games -- I have to hope it's largely circumstances and not just me fucking forgetting how to run a fun game.
May 17, 2007
Old School Holocaust
The boys of the Durham Three go super-old school with a game of Twilight 2000 and discuss what about the game is definitive old-school and what makes that awesome.
Quote of the podcast: "I just don't have a problem beating up feral children... in a game. You put a feral child in front of me in a game, I'm not going to feel bad about blowing him up with his own grenade."
May 15, 2007
"I'm so making a post from this email."
So Dave is getting ready to run a Primetime Adventures game, and in between bouncing actual Show ideas around, we're talking about PTA's system itself, and getting used to the weird parts. I've been thinking a lot about the stuff he's been thinking about, and I thought the ensuing conversation was valuable, so I'm posting it here, somewhat rearranged from the emails so that it's... umm... readable in this format.
Green is me, blue is Dave.
What can the Producer actually "Do" in Primetime Adventures?
I'm still pondering the questions of responsibility/control that the Producer has toward plot. Aside from:
1. Creating the introductory scene of the show (albeit with consensus).
2. Responding to the ideas bounced off by the stars/actors/players.
That said, I'm still struggling a bit with some of my favorite aspects of RPGs, the Deep Dark Plotting That The Characters Themselves Only Learn About Over Time. It seems to me that, in PTA, there's actually very little of that -- a lot of the action (and even the What's Going On) is driven by the group as a whole.
I'd say it is, perhaps, more accurate to say that a lot of the action with regards to the characters is driven by the group as a whole -- that doesn't necessarily mean that you're not shaping things within the overall plot.
First, I think it's a dial. On one end, you have nearly a free-for-all of ideas where no one really has more input than anyone else (a la Inspectors, though I think PTA does something VERY GOOD in that there's a strong ability within the group to say "No, too silly" or "Hey, dial back on the foreshadowing of my character's issue, please.") all the way up to "I'd like a scene focusing on my Issue, mister GM, Sir, because my screen presence is a 3, but I'm leaving everything else, including the Where, the Who, and the What up to you, mister Producer, Sir, If'n it please you..."
Agreed. And I'd rather neither course be the one we usually take. :-)
Second. The Producer narrates the start of every scene. That matters. I believe it's on page 26: the player who's turn it is (and note that it doesn't have to go around the table in order, but moves from one person to the next in a logical order, once everyone's gotten at least a turn) gives the Focus, the Agenda, and the Location for the scene. The producer than (a) narrates what's going on there, adding stuff as deemed necessary, and then (b) PLAYS ALL THE NPCs.
This must not be overlooked: Yes, narration of "what happens as a result of a Conflict" moves around between people, and that's all very well and good, but the PRODUCER is playing the NPCs because they belong to him/her, the producer gets to say what they're doing, and has them act in accordance with those desires. That right there, nine times out of ten, is "plot."
It's one of the (many) things you can steal from Dogs in the Vineyard in that way... you set up the town, then play the hell out of the NPCs and let the chips fall where they may. As far as THAT goes, PTA gives you even more control than that, simply because you can actually say "this guy right here is a bad person," instead of letting the Dogs pick out who they think that is.
Which makes sense, since it's television and we can do things like that. Also, playing all the NPCs is a huge thing. The Producer narrating the beginning of the scene -- hmmmm. Yeah. I don't recall us doing that in the game we played, but, then, our actual in-chair time with this has been limited.
We weren't doing that all the time, you're right. I think we were erring a bit toward the InSpectres side of things, but I was doing that a bit intentionally since I was winging it more than is even usual for ME. :)
I'd intended to sort of go back and emphasize/demonstrate that role for the Producer last weekend -- that the game really isn't as 'out there' as it seems at first blush, and that we're really making it more-narrative-plot-influence-than-normal because shared narration is one of the 'different' parts, but PTA can (and should) often play like a typical RPG.
For obvious reasons, I wasn't able to do that. ((For that, I entirely blame you, as you got Margie sick. :) ))
Players are only picking the starting three elements for their scene and getting rights to narrate what happens after the cards have already given us the generall outcome of a conflict -- who got what they wanted, and who didn't -- don't inflate that ability to the point where players are assumed to have the right to say "Well, I want a scene where the AGENDA is 'We find out that this is all an evil scheme to turn the Belgians into Cybermen!'" Players don't get to do that (YMMV). Players get to say "The agenda is 'We find out what the big scheme-of-the-week is.'" It's still 50% to 90% up to the Producer (depending on how each group plays) to say what that thing is.
Okay, now I'm starting to get intimidated. :-)
And it's not like the Producer can't kick in stuff to be included in someone else's narrative. Just as the narrator should respect some addition a player is bringing to a scene for their character ("my guy is wearing grey flannel pajamas in this scene"), the narrator should respect an addition the producer is bringing to a scene for the plot.
Dave: "I'm going to narrate my guy having a vision of the place we actually need to go for the McGuffin-of-the-week."
Producer: "Cool. Put a church in there somewhere. I'm going to need a church."
Dave: "Okay. I'm also going to have it be exactly the opposite direction from where we're going."
Producer: "Awesome."
The Producer narrates the opening scene of the show, in which something is revealed to be going on, PLUS they have all the NPCs acting on that thing. Now, I as a player might be focusing all my scenes on my dirty, forbidden obsession with my half-sister, but the bad guys are all trying to get the World Ending MacGuffimicon, and that does move things a certain way that cannot be ignored.
It is, put another way, not as incredibly non-normal as it looks -- it's just that, with the game working the way it works, and Player Issues being a Big Big part of each episode, you don't have to come up with:
1. stats for bad guys
Always welcome.
2. at least half of the storyline for each episode. At least. Usually less. :)
Look at the example on p. 26 (I think) from the fake Bridgewater show, where they're setting up a scene. It is not THAT different from a 'traditional' RPG's GM saying "Okay, what's your guy doing right now?" It's just more explicit in who gets to say what, and when.
So ... let me conceptualize this a scosh.
1. What's the show about. - ALL
2. Overarching JMS-style plot - PRODUCER
3. Character arcs - PLAYER-OF-CHARACTER
4. Episode setup - PRODUCER
5. Scene metadata - PLAYER-OF-SCENE
6. Scene setup - PRODUCER
7. What's at Stake - ALL
8. Conflict resolution/scene pay-off - HIGH CARD DRAWER
Yeah, I guess there's enough in there (!!!) for the Producer to do.
Accepting feedback from everyone: what you should 'declare' and what you shouldn't
And I'd simply note that any of those things is, in practice, probably 80% the baliwick of whomever you noted, with the other 20% coming from officially-recognized input and generally "Hey, how about this idea" kibbitzing." But you already know that.
With pretty much all of it open to veto of varying degrees.
I would say "with all of it open to additional input of varying degrees," but otherwise, yes. I think 'veto' is a momentum killer, though it CAN be valuable when used sparingly. It's more challenging, but potentially more rewarding to at least try to say "Okay... that's weird, but... I can work with that... let me focus about what I LIKE about that idea and ask that we steer things that way."
Pretty much the only absolute veto I'd give would be to someone who strongly disagrees with what their character ends up doing in a scene -- with due respect going in all directions.
Of course, if I introduce something that people think is spiffy, they may decide to go along with it (and adopt it as their own) up front
"... and when the glamour drops, Fred realizes it's ... his sister."
"Sister?" "I didn't know you had a sister, player of Fred."
"I, ah, thought I was an only child, too."
"But we like it. Let's see what happens next."
How that works for everyone at the table is going to be different from group to group also. In a game like PTA, I'd really lean heavily on the Improv rule of respecting everyone's input and not saying no to the Elephant that someone introduces... provide we all have careful respect of the integrity of someone else's character.
In the example above... if I were narrating, I'd be more likely to say...
Me: When the glamour drops, the woman revealed looks at Fred and says, "Hello, little brother."
Player: Fred blinks and... says... "Whosa what now?" Eloquently.
Me: Perfect. Commercial break.
Player: Also: I have a sister?!?
Me: Well, I dunno: does she know something you don't, is she bonkers, or is she lying?
All: Ooooh.
Oooooh ...
The primary difference in those two scenes is in Version One, we're telling Fred what he realizes and forcing him to accept that internal thing. In Version Two, we saying What Happens Externally, and leaving the "fallout" for play and the kind of discussion that doesn't make the scene grind to a halt right there.
Yes. Dagnabbit. You are quite correct. Narrating how someone's character thinks/feels (subjectively) is a no-no (making suggestions, maybe). Providing the objective appearances and letting the character reveal it (show, don't say) is the right way to go. It's not as though we can put subtitles at the bottom of the screen of the 'television' and say 'Fred feels surprise here.'
Another thing to possibly steal from Dogs
Another potentially useful thing to port from Dogs in the Vineyard (something I'd meant to propose this weekend) is the way that (in Dogs) you include Traits into the RP/narration first, then you get use them (roll them). In the last PTA session, I think we weren't actually rping our characters much, for a couple different reasons, and I think that if we simply use that guideline ("You should try to work an Edge/Connection into the scene in order to get Cards for it when the Conflict hits the fan(mail)."), we'll get a situation that specifically calls out for some 'normal' RP.
I'm not saying that you narrate the fight before we do conflict resolution, just so you can use "Army Veteran" as an Edge, but you can clearly show that your guy is going to be using that background in this scene. Also, we really have to remember that, once the cards are flipped, there's roleplaying to do... it isn't just the narrator who takes over there. It can be: doesn't have to be.
Theory, Hardcore
I was going to do two posts this morning; one about this, and one about someone using Spirit of the Century to run a Classic Traveler game, which is cool.
However, this is an important link, and I don't want to distract from it.
Vincent's Roleplaying Theory, Hardcore
This single page of posts, written by that Dogs in the Vineyard guy over the course of months, comprises the most lucid, easy to read, approachable discussion of 'indie' rpg theory you'll ever find, period. Everyone who's ever even kind of sorta looked sideways at all those Forge neologisms or dealt with one of those hippie games I play should read it. Everyone should read it.
More importantly, everyone SHOULD read it. Read, especially, "A Small Thing About Suspense" and "A Small Thing About Death" (I'm looking at you, Tombstone RPG!)
But read it all. It's all good.
May 12, 2007
"First we show the fish FIRE, so that it will know FEAR..."
"... then we eat it!"
An artifact of the Florida trip. :)
May 11, 2007
I hate that idea umm... Here's what I like about that idea...
Remi, from the Durham Three podcast, posts some actual-play on Primetime Adventures, played at Camp Nerdly (which ran the same weekend I was all warm and sunny in Florida, so I don't really feel bad for missing it.) [Camp Nerdly - PTA] Sexitricity.
Why am I linking it? Because in one part of the thread, Remi breaks down how he handles the Session Pitch -- he said earlier that he disallows any negative input at that point in the game, and someone asks for more info, and he brings it:
First I ask everyone for something that's gotten them jazzed in the last week or two. An idea, a TV show, a piece of music, whatever. I make it clear that the show is going to be a synthesis of what everyone's excited about, and that I'll be the one doing most of the formal synthesizing. I go around the table in whatever order people want to go. For this session Duty, The Bene Gesserritt, Babarella, and the Preacher comic book series were all mentioned.Joshua mentioned the Bene Gesserritt and someone immediately picked up and said "Oh! We could be, like, the companions in Firefly!" and someone else said, "The companions were kind of cool, but the lame thing about them was . . ." and I stopped it cold, insisting the person only talk about what they liked about the companions, not disliked. The pitch session could have degenerated right there into people sniping one another's ideas, which when you're gathering material is death. The player immediately turned around and said what he'd like to see out of a companion-style idea, and we built from there.
This is something I wish I'd read before the "Tarot Game" Mortal Coil session. As that did not happen, I'll have to settle for enforcing that guideline unswervingly in future play, in any game, even in-game (especially with strong narrative-switching like PTA) -- a kind of "never say no to the scene" improve acting rule/technique.
May 2, 2007
The "we just had a joke" timer.
GameCraft :: View topic - The Disruption Hourglass of Death (table rule, any game system)
Anyway, I do love our style of roleplaying, and it's just a big habit of mine to, even in the middle of a serious moment, to break it up with a bad pun, or a joke, or a double-entendre or something. Rick has recently been doing the same thing, and even more so. This hasn't disrupted things to the point of, "Shut up, you dick, you're breaking my concentration!" or anything like that. But we all agree, even the comment-giver, that:* Levity is AWESOME, and welcome in certain amounts.
* However, busting caps right in the middle of a dramatic moment with a pun can really take the spotlight from them.
* And more often than not, since the mood has a 'crack' in it, it's very easy to follow it up with more jokes (Rick says something funny, Quintin follows up on it, I get in, and 5 minutes later we're like, "OK, what were we doing again?")
* Which leads to derailing the drama.One crack every 5-10 minutes or so? Harmless.
However, we know ourselves better, and know that that first crack usually starts a chain reaction which derails the discsussion or roleplaying moment.
I'll simply point out that the group Andy describes in the post sounds a LOT like the local Denver group, where one joke inevitably leads to another; or where one quote from a movie inevitably leads to another quote (or, more inexplicable, the SAME one, repeated, as though to confirm we heard).
Elemental
I dreamt a game mechanic last night, based on the five Chinese elements and Rock-Paper-Scissors, as in "Fire scours Earth. Earth blocks Water. Metal slices Air. Like that.
Except I think almost everything beat Air and Metal, the way I dreamed it.
So anyway, the character sheet has a kind of pentagram on it, where the five points were the elements and the lines between them were arrows that pointed toward which elements they beat, creating a big star... and each point was a circle you could put chips in to show how strong you were in that element... though I don't really know what being strong in that element would do for you -- maybe let you win in a conflict you'd normal lose (like Earth turning around and beating Fire, or something) or the number of times you could "play" that element in a conflict, per session, or something.
I don't know what the bloody point was, but it looked cool in my dream-head, and I don't have time to think about it right now, or do anything about it, so I'm putting it here.
Click to embiggen.