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Via ***Dave, Unique, Unusual, and invented names of 2007 & 2008 may make you laugh out loud at nine out of every ten (the tenth being semi-reasonable), but if nothing else they give you a pile of NPC names. (Which you still won't remember, AND can't spell!)
This is a SotC rules tweak. I didn't come up with it, though I am tweaking it.
FATE and Spirit of the Century already let you change a character's aspects whenever it's appropriate or interesting or just plain cool to do so. That's well and good. It's a kind of 'staying put' character advancement.
I want to put a spotlight on that, when it happens. Some of the most dramatic moments in stories come when characters experience a radical change of heart. In SotC, the character is exchanging one aspect for another. In the Shadow of Yesterday (which has MANY things in common with FATE and SotC) it would be when you Buy Off a Key, which is a pretty awesome thing in that game.
So combine the two.
No more than once per session (and probably less often than that), a player can make a special declaration when one of his aspects is compelled to STOP the compel.
When a player "burns an aspect", the following things happen:
- Cross the aspect off the character sheet
- If appropriate, immediately add a new aspect -- usually a reversal of the original aspect. Love turns to hate, respect turns to fear, that sort of thing.
- The player can tag the new Aspect once, for free.
- The character in question gets a complete Fate point refresh.
This is a big deal for the character, and he should get the spotlight in this moment. A short monologue is usually appropriate.
Example:
Kent Legend and his fellow adventurers are in a bad way. They've battled their way through hordes of zombie pygmies to reach the VoodooMaster in his jungle lair. They're all running low on Fate points, and most have taken a Consequence or two. As they finally stand before the mighty Voodoo Master himself, their resolve wavers.Example: The GM compels Kent's aspect, "Looking Out For Number One," to encourage him to abandon his so-called friends and make tracks back to the waiting airplane. Kent's only got a couple Fate points left, so he doesn't really want to buy his way out of it, but he doesn't want to run off, either.
His player says, "Kent gazes at the exit of the temple for a long moment... before turning away with steel in his eyes. 'We're all in this together, right? All for one and one for all!'"
He burns "Looking Out For Number One" and replaces it with "All for One and One For All." His Fate pool refreshes completely. He can invoke this tag for free, once, right away. The GM can compel it as well (to encourage Kent to tend to his injured friends rather than chasing after the escaping Voodoo Master, perhaps.)
I like this quite a lot.
Fred Hicks asks:
What do *you* think needs to be in a 15-minute demo of Spirit of the Century?
The best, though not necessarily most useful response:
Small mook group to be scared/confused by the talky types, then mowed down by the brawlers, but not before the BigVillain joins in.On a Zeppelin.
Which is on fire.
Over Manhattan.
With a bunch of cute socialites on board as passengers.
And the Zeppelin is heading straight down for an orphanage.
That you finance with your immense wealth. Someone stop me!
That would be an awesome 15 minute demo.
"Camel Cigarettes and the fresh taste of Colgate's tooth-whitening Paste are proud to present our heroes in... The Moon Bridge of Tir na-Nog'th!"
NPIP Session One -- the Wiki version.
Or, the whole thing is below the cut.
COMMENTS WELCOME.
Two Saturdays past:
Starring:
The way Amber is in this Game
Places
* Tir na Nog'th is not a reflection of Amber -- the two cities look nothing alike, honestly -- it's silly that anyone would ever think that. When the moon is up, you can enter the Tir in Amber and, if you are very lucky in your timing, come out above [Corwin's Paris]. The reverse is also true. Zeppelins move back and forth along this route regularly. The Tir itself is like a vast wondrous ruins you only get a few hours to explore at a time.
* Corwin's Pattern is referred to as Argent.
People
* Benedict spends much of his time in Shadow. His right arm is a clockwork construct.
* Brand and Deirdre fell into the Abyss during the Patternfall war.
* Corwin naturally spends most of his time in Argent. He's royalty in that place; a Prince, with no senior rank extant. Anyone visiting from Amber is likewise afforded a similar-but-lesser kind of respect, as a visiting royal relative of the highest ranking royalty in their realm. Think of him as the British royalty before the Prime Minister got so much power. His responsibility is only for: Wars, Weird things, and Being Social and Charming at Parties. The day-to-day is handled by the Premiere and his people.
o Flora spends a fair amount of time in Argent as well, as she always loved Paris.
o Martin visits Argent often. Good jazz is booming here.
* Eric died during during the Black Road assault on Amber.
* Merlin, Corwin's son, is one of the most committed enemies of both Amber and Argent. Merlin is a master of many disciplines (Mysteries, Science, Art, and more!) and has combined them in dozens of incredible devices, of which perhaps the most profound is the strange clockwork trump-machine he calls "The Ghostwheel."
o Merlin never spoke with Corwin at the end of Patternfall. He somehow survived the Shadowstorm, but it was very hard on him.
* Random, like John Carter, is a man split between two worlds. Wed to the blind seeress Vialle, he has been named the heir to the throne of the undersea realms. There, his royal blood makes him a hero, and he has many times saved the kingdom from destruction thanks to his daring and a number of very interesting inventions. On land, he avoids most of his family, preferring the less-staid cities of Shadow. He was never named the heir by the Unicorn, as the Jewel was never recovered.
o Random, like Martin, visits Argent somewhat more than Amber.
Situation
* Since Oberon fixed the Pattern, there is no longer any Amber-blood prereq on attuning the Pattern -- you just have to be a truly exceptional person. (On the flip side, Amberite Blood doesn't destroy the damned thing, which is why Oberon changed it.)
o The fact that non-Amberites can now attune the Pattern is an incredibly-closely-guarded secret. Not even all the Elders know this, and none of the P Cs. All the P Cs are referred to as nieces or nephews, when appropriate, though specific parentage research isn't encouraged.
o Corwin and Flora DEFINITELY don't know about this 'loophole,' though it's quite likely Argent's Pattern doesn't have the restriction either, since no blood was involved in the creation of that Pattern in the first place.
* The fact that Corwin kept his memories of early 20th century Paris in mind as he created his Pattern has profoundly changed all of Shadow and even the Real World(s). Gone are the days when more advanced technology like engines and firearms don't work in Amber -- this is an era of Sorcery, Weird Science, Engineering Marvels, Optimism, Exploration, and Adventure.
Fiona might never forgive him.
* The Jewel of Judgment fell into the Abyss with Brand and Deirdre, and is utterly lost.
o The Amberites survived the Shadow Storm not with the Jewel, but thanks to Corwin's close attunement to his own Pattern -- when the White Nothing descended, he led the family to the new realm to wait the storm out.
* Gerard continues to rule as Regent. Fiona monitors the Mysteries, Caine commands the fleet, Julian the Rangers, and Bleys the new zeppelin air command.
Okay, that's all the background stuff we nailed down before the game. The players made up younger people who'd gotten involved in Amber-business during the Patternfall war... that was their introduction and trial by fire. Only one of them is an acknowledged Son of Amber. The others are called niece or nephew and no one talks about their parentage at all.
Now then...
We started off the game with "A few hours ago, taking a zeppelin ride over Tir na Nogth from Amber to Argent seemed like a good idea...", though that was more than a bit tongue in cheek.
Backing up a bit, we find out that Corwin has extended an invitation to 'my nieces and nephews' for the next big party in Argent. About a week's time -- more than enough to make preparations. Everyone's interested in this, ICly, and since by far and away the easiest way to get to Argent is via the semi-regular, semi-reliable zeppelin trips over the Tir, they opt to travel that way, since none of them have ever been.
We then cut to the flight itself -- nighttime, over the Tir. I sketch out the blimp on a battlemat (which MIGHT have been a clue if I hadn't told everyone I wanted to work through the combat mechanics) and all the zones. I did a LOT of zones -- twelve or so for the blimp and maybe fifteen for the air around the blimp... the 'around the blimp' ones didn't matter as much.
People talk about where they'd be and what they'd like to be doing. As (effectively) brevet commanders and kinda-royalty, they can pretty much go where they like, so...
* Nicholai is up on the platform above the nose of the zeppelin, on the outside of the balloon. (Having seen a number of zeppelin blueprints, I know there's usually a outer dorsal-spine walkway along the top of the zeppelin's balloon, semi-recessed, and just added fore and aft observation/lookout platforms because that's cool.
* Xia is hanging out on the catwalks inside the balloon, having a drink.
* Miriam and Rose are having a tour of the engine room and all those kinds of things.
* Roxie is making the crew on the bridge nervous.
Conversations proceed where appropriate, and I'm also describing the Tir to Nikolai, who's looking down on it from the prow of the ship.
The camera is on Xia as she lounges on a catwalk when an alarm sounds. Now, this isn't a particularly alarming alarm -- it's more of a 'everyone to battle stations, but keep it orderly' kind of thing. A couple non-combatant crewmen are heading by Xia at about that point, and explains that the lookouts have probably spotted Moonriders -- they have a habit of attacking zeppelin flights, but are usually driven off after a few shots are exchanged on either side between the riders and the zeppelin's escort craft. The 'riders don't attack the zeppelin directly, since their goal seems to be capturing it.
We jump around from character to character, with different NPCs telling everyone essentially the same thing, from their point of view.
The engine crew informs Miriam and Rose that this is business as usual, and if they listen closely, they'll be able to hear the escort planes take off from the hanger (they do), and they climb through several floors of 'engine room' near the tail assembly of the craft to get up to the rear observation deck. Xia is climbing the catwalks to the walkway that runs the length of the zeppelin along the dorsal spine, on the outside (she was torn between that and running for her own scout-ornithopter in the hanger). Rose gets the same spiel from the XO of the craft, who encourages her to vacate the bridge. She ignore that and moves to a better vantage point along the windows. Nikolai is actually standing next to one of the lookouts, who points out a trio of large, tentacle-mouthed manta rays flying ponderously toward from the southeast. Just then, the two amber fliers zoom by, heading out on an intercept.
Everything is very business-as-usual. The people in the passenger cabin actually get up and all move to the windows, as though it's an airshow.
The fliers converge on one another, the moonriders closing quickly -- their slow movements conceal a great deal of speed in the air. Each of the beasts seems to have three passengers -- one steering the creature and two armed with long rifles -- all of them are clothed like a mummy crossed with a Bedouin: head to foot in cloth, in a way not dissimilar to the Tusken raiders in Star Wars.
Shots are exchanged about 300 yards from the zeppelin as the two forces meet and pass each other. The Amber planes begin a turn while the beasts drive straight for the zeppelin, the riflemen continuing to fire on the planes.
Elsewhere, Rose frowns, looking around her for the source of the odd tingling in the back of her head ... the way such things sometimes did. Some kind of magic.
The lookout frowns. "That's odd, they don't usually --"
A bolt of energy lances out of the sky, tearing a flaming chunk out of the wing of one of the Amber planes.
Heads turn, and we see a glowing, clockwork disc hovering in midair about fifty yards off the starboard side of the zeppelin. A lone figure stands in the center of that disc.
Right. I tell folks that the Aspects on the Scene are "Moonlit Night," and "Windy Updrafts," and that the first tag on either of those Aspects is free, and it's time for initiative.
Here, we opt to actually roll for initiative, so that people can use Aspects if they like. This is also where we start to see a pretty grand disparity between the Haves and Have-nots in terms of Alertness. Throughout the fight, Xia and Nikolai come in pretty far in front of the rest, followed (usually) by the bad guys, then Rose, then Miriam and Roxie in the "negative 1 and negative 2" range.
The first round breaks down basically like this:
- Xia decides to jump to the glowing disc contraption and 'that guy' out there. I work out the zones she wants to travel through (four: two on the zeppelin, and two 'air' zones), and the Borders (two "2" borders to get into each of the 'air' zones, to simulate distance) which means her Athletics check is an 8. A legendary jump. Her Athletics is Great, and she has Mighty Leap (which negates three of the four points worth of Borders), and a pile of appropriate Aspects to help her out. She adds a supplemental action of drawing "Peace and Quiet," her pistols, in mid-leap (I let her draw both as one action since she's got Two-Gun Joe as a stunt). All told, she needs a 6, and gets it with her roll and a free tag on "Windy Updrafts", with 1 to spare for a pretty roll on the landing.
- Nicholai also goes for a mid-air jump, but due to his higher (Superb) athletics and a Moonrider beast that's much closer to the Zeppelin, his jump is quite a bit easier. In fact, he jumps as his supplemental action and shoots one of the Moonriders on the beast he lands on as his primary action (with a penalty).
- Merlin fzwaps one of the Amber planes again, then turns to regard Xia.
- The beast-borne Moonriders focus most of their ire on Nicholai, but don't accomplish much -- I do manage to put a 'not tied down' Aspect on Nicholai. This was also where I noticed I was doing something wacky with the Moonriders:
-- Three moonrider beasts + crew = three minions.
-- Three moonriders on the beast Nicholai specifically lands on = three minions.
Meaning that, as soon as someone got in close to the riders, they 'zoomed in' to be subset of Moonriders that was also a group of three minions. It was a bit wacky, but no one seemed to notice, except me.
- Rose's uses Mysteries and a supplemental move action. She mutters "Merlin? Here?" and wanders one zone up the dorsal spine walkway of the zeppelin. This interests Miriam a lot, since he has an Aspect of "Used to be Merlin's apprentice." Before he can act on it, however:
- Three more Moonriders (piloting ornithopters instead of beasts) zoom in from behind the zeppelin and open fire on the pair on the rear observation deck, meaning Miriam. He dodges around a bit, swearing elegantly, and takes a bit of stress.
- Roxie peers toward the front of the zeppelin, where things are getting complicated, but can't make things out too clearly. She notices the captain has a nice brass spyglass, and 'borrows' it, using that and some Science to make a Declaration (I think) about the beasts.
- Miriam eyes the closing planes from behind and looks around him. He uses a Fate point and Engineering... and Build a Better Mouse Trap... and maybe another Aspect... to declare that back in this area there are highly pressurized tanks of Hydrogen that are used to keep up the pressure in the main zeppelin balloon.
Right. That round took a long bloody time to do, since none of us have really played SotC before, but we got through it, and there was a lot of good stuff going on.
Next Round, which was full of awesome:
Xia wants to point her guns at Merlin and force him to 'not move, or I'll shoot you.' This, like her jump action in the first round, stumps me a little bit. Is this a block? A maneuver to put an Aspect on him? We finally opt for this: it's a held action whereby, as promised, if he acts in some untoward way on his turn, she shoots him as the next action thereafter. Sounds good.
Nicholai stagger-walks around on the moonbeast, and uses a wrestling hold to eliminate one of the riflemen, then grabs a strap to hold on.
Merlin acts in an untoward way. Specifically, he (and Ghostwheel, the disc they're standing on) starts to Trump away.
Xia shoots at him, taking a supplemental action to move one zone over, away from the disc. She has a penalty of -3 on the shot, due to the -1 for a supplemental move action, and a -2 for the slippery surface of Ghostwheel.
Hmm. That sounds a bit dry. Here's how it looked: as Ghostwheel begins to fade out, Xia's eyes take everything in: the long drop to the Tir, the swirling aerial battle close at hand and below her, to the east, and the vanishing platform and target. She take two steps and hurls herself, backwards, in the general direction of the aerial battle and shoots at Merlin with both pistols (who ducks in no small surprise at the speed of her actions -- takes Stress, despite the penalty on her shots). She turns halfway 'round in midair and shouts: "NIKOLAAAAI!"
In short: awesome.
Rose sees this, judges the trajectory, decides she can't do anything about it and moreover "Nikolai will handle it," and turns back to the attackers in the rear.
Miriam wrenches on of the hydrogen tanks free of its clamp, leans it against a railing, lines it up as best as he can, and knocks the valve off it. The tank jets into the air, plowing into the side of a veering moonrider ornithopter, which both explodes and neatly clips another, damaging it.
Rose focuses her will as an Initiate of the Pattern and, despite the (-3) proximity to Amber, uses her will to increase the probability of sympathetic detonations in the destroyed craft, creating a double explosion that rocks both the surviving craft. ((She uses Pattern to Declare a "Shellshocked" Aspect on the moonriders. ALSO awesome.))
Roxie uses engineering to wire the nice brass spyglass to her sidearm as a makeshift scope. ((Using Engineering to put a "Makeshift scope" fragile aspect on her pistol.))
Finally, there's Nicholai. Xia is not going to make it to the beast -- not even close -- the beast has to come to her. Nicholai leaps into the air and drops, slamming his elbow deep into the flesh of the beast where he thinks there should be a near cluster. The top of the beast is like soft asphalt, but the blow penetrates. The create groans in pain and veers, despite the cries of it's master, right into the path of the falling Xia. ((This was a Survival check -- which made the player wince to realize that that was what "riding beasts" was built on -- augmented with a couple Aspects, the most significant of which was "There when you need him," a fairly RARE aspect amongst Amberites. Xia lands on the critter, rolls a bit, and manages to catch a strap before going over.
I apologize at this point for the fight going so long. Xia's player, who is really NOT a dicey, tactical, DnD-loving player says "Yeah, it's taking a long time, but this round was WAY faster than the last one, and in either case, I'm having FUN."
Yay. Next round.
Xia clears 'their' moonbeast of foes and takes the reins, I think.
Nicholai fires a shot at one of the other moonbeasts.
Rose glances back at the forward fight, sees that all is well, and turns back, drawing her (large) pistol as she turns, and (completely calm) blows very important holes in both the surviving Ornithopters (tagging Shell-shocked and rolling very very well. This was very cool.)
Miriam compliments Rose on her fine marksmanship, sees that Merlin has vanished, and makes an Empathy roll (boosted with the aforementioned Merlin-aspect) to guess where he went... because he's SURE he didn't just LEAVE. He makes a guess of either Engine Room or Bridge, and heads to the latter by way of the former, with haste.
Roxie fails to feel the trump-shimmer behind her on the bridge as she lines up a shot (Humorous bit -- in order to get the 'scope' to fit, she noticed a brass plate on the side of the spyglass that read "To Captain Hiram, with Much Affection, Lady Flora" and pops that off with a tool, since it was "in the way.") and takes out the final moonbeast "pilot", who tumbles off the front of the creature while still tied to it, "steering" it descend rapidly into the night sky below.
She turns and sees Merlin, sans Ghostwheel.
"Nice shot, cousin," he comments.
Right
Last round, which pretty much everyone but Miriam, Merlin, and Roxy are out of. Some amusing wordplay with Roxy and Merlin ensues. The bit I remember:
Merlin: "So you lot are off to visit my Father at one of his ridiculous parties in Argent?"
Roxy deadpans, "Oh... you weren't invited?"
Merlin is not amused. He is wearing a weird kind of clockwork exoskeleton over his right arm, all the way up to his shoulder, and seems to be sort of typing with those fingers in mid-air while he talks with Roxy. Roxy does an apposed Engineering test, augmented with Science, to determine that this contraption is some kind of remote control device for Ghostwheel, which must be off 'doing something.'
Merlin glances to the stairs leading up into the zeppelin balloon, smirks, and walks up to Roxy, saying "Tell Miriam he's late again..." Then he somehow trumps away, thanks to a series of complex movements with the exoskeleton-controls.
Miriam runs in, breathing hard and not at his best, a few moments later.
Wrap up:
Rose was following Miriam in his run, but stopped in the engine room, frowing (made a Mysteries sixth sense check around the mechno-magical thing).
Her, to engineer: "It is supposed to be running that fast?"
He frowns, sees what she's saying, but can't figure out what's going on. After some digging, she's able to determine that, somewhere in the engineworks, something is leaving a very distinct, very traceable, magical trail behind the zeppelin... and that it wasn't do that before the fight.
Damage? Sabotage? WE JUST. DON'T. KNOW.
Tune in next time to find out!
So one of the players coming by on Friday to make up a character for our spirit of the century game "The Century Club Presents..." writes:
"What year do we start in? I need to know if soap operas exist yet."
I'm finally done with all the stuff that's been keeping me from playing any WoW or CoH -- I've been offline so long (coming up on 5 or 6 weeks?) I'm not sure I remember how to log in.
I think, assuming that Birdwell Island is a Chancel (which is clearly is, otherwise all the mortals would have gone insane by now), Emily Elizabeth must be the Imperator.
I've tried to work it with her as a Noble and Clifford as her anchor, but it just doesn't work, since he's got like... three anchors himself.
So she's the Imperator. Obviously aligned with the Light -- no one else could be that positive.
As I already mentioned, we played some Primetime Adventures this weekend -- this was the first episode after the series premiere of our "Weird War Two" show -- and ***Dave has once again done fantastic work in putting together a great game log of Strange Allies, Episode 1, "Djinn".
This was a revelatory session for me as a PTA producer -- somewhere in there, I went from "okay, I think we're at a conflict" to realizing "Oh, THIS is how you play Bangs in this game. WOW!"
Great stuff.
My only coulda-shoulda for the session is that I should have suggested that the climatic scene conflicts for Margie and Randy should have been more about their characters' issues, but that's a relatively minor thing.
So I've run two sessions of PTA now (the Pilot and now Episode One of "Strange Allies": fighting the arcane plots of the Reich in WW2), and played in one.
Really, REALLY feel like we're getting the hang of this system.
- Don't say "okay, I think this is a conflict, the NPC wants this, you want that." Think to yourself, 'the NPC wants this' and then have them DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, right in the character's face, and say "Okay, given that situation, what do you want, player?" In other words, SHOW, don't TELL. Awesome.
- Cut to the next cool thing, drop the scenes that you wouldn't show in a TV show. This might be the best 'rule of thumb' to apply to really help you cut to the important stuff in a game.
- You can always squeeze the scenes harder. :)
-------
Great parallels between Randy and Margie's character's storylines: rejected loves, dangerous beasts within, facing off against things that each represented the worst of what they might become...
... and poor Dave, the one human anchor point in this mad little storm.
I prepped three lines of text before the game, and we made a TV episode out of it, with demonic djinn and fascist Italian sorcerers and "I love yous" and marriage proposals in Paris and...
*sigh*
I'm very very pleased with how we're figuring this game out. It's like all the tough choices of Sorcerer, but playing characters you actually like. :)
Story Games for Everybody - I'm not enjoying running Primetime Adventures.
I've run PtA a couple of times and played it a couple of times. Whenever I've played it, I've had a ball. Whenever I've run it, I've had very mixed results, but I've never actually enjoyed it.
Great thread of advice for a long-time traditional-RPG GM who wants to love running PTA as much as he enjoys playing it.
RPG Motivational Posters: all 400 of them.
It's a Spirit of the Century-palooza. First, we had a character generation shindig down at Lee and De's for Nine Princes in Pulp (Amber, with a thick layer of pulpy goodness), and now...
"The Century Club Presents..." is (a) a fictional pulp periodical that tells the heroic tales of the Century Club and (b) a pulp pick-up game using the Spirit of the Century system. That means a game influenced by the pulps -- serial adventures of the early Twentieth Century starring iconic characters like Doc Savage and The Shadow and echoed today in movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Rocketeer.
We're aiming for each session to be relatively self-contained, so that the players participating each session can change with no real problems. The characters are all affiliated with the Century Club, and this loose structure provides continuity, while allowing the freedom to create nearly any sort of adventure and include whomever shows up that week to play.
The idea here is to get a regularly scheduled game going for which the specific day of the weekend, the locale, the participants, and even the GM change as we go, depending on who can make it that week.
As of Sunday, we've got seven characters mostly made up, but WE NEED. MORE. POWER.
I'll be sending out another message today, organizing a "There's still time to SAVE THE WORLD!" get together for this weekend. The more players we have, the better the chance that there's always enough people to play. :)
I've talked (a lot) in the past about running games that are essentially built on nothing but Bangs (or as SotC would have it, decision points). In (very) brief, this is a mode of GMing in which (most commonly) you come up with dilemmas that the character has to deal with, somehow. That's actually simplifying it: Bangs are about creating a situation in which the reaction says something interesting about the character.The elements of this situation (and this is important) have no 'right' choice in mind.
In game, play progresses up to this situation, then the situation is presented, then the player(s) look at their options (probably inventing new options as well), and make a decision. We all (even the player) learn a little something new about that character in a backhand way, and play continues in the direction their choice and actions dictate. *
I haven't always explained the technique very well, despite using it pretty much exclusively for a number of years. Thankfully, someone else stepped in to talk about it.
Mike Holmes is one of the best GMs I've had the pleasure of playing it, and he is something of an expert in this style of play. During a recent discussion of 'what a Bang is,' someone asked Mike to start up a new thread in which he breaks down all the different kinds of Bangs you can bring into your game.
He took up the gauntlet here: Story Games for Everybody - Bang Types. Good stuff, presenting even more variations on the theme that I plan to shamelessly rip off, because there's a BUNCH I hadn't really considered.
* - This can be kind of seat-of-the pants GMing, since the character's decisions can move play into in situations you did no prep for ("But I didn't stat out Don Malone and his goons!"). That sense that the group is 'going off the map' can make the game-runner (G.R.?) a little panicky and instinctively resistant when things get funky.
I counteract this emotional reaction by not prepping anything but the Bangs themselves, so no choices make me feel like that more than any other. :)
((I joke, but only a little. :) ))
So I went down to Lee and De's yesterday and, with Randy, Meera, and Kingsley, made up characters for a run of Spirit of the Century, in an Amber-that-never-quite-was.
Yeah. Amber.
An Amber with ray guns, planes that flap their own wings, clockwork-driven trump machines, a steam-driven monstrosity called Morgenstern, and growing fleets of zeppelins with Unicorn and Silver Rose emblems on the side.
The Great War is over, and things have changed.
So there's a conversation on Story Games about "Conflict Resolution" systems and "Task Resolution" systems, and asking which one people like better.
I liked the conversation. I'm going to distill my thoughts here.
The whoza-what-now? (where I explain what I'm talking about)
See, there are two main kinds of resolution mechanics talked about, because there are two main kinds identified in extant RPG systems, today.
Conflict Resolution: these kinds of systems are "Specified Intent" systems. That means, when the GM asks what you want to do, you say "I want to find the important papers." or "I want to find out who knows the Emperor." or whatever. You specifically state what you want, and the rolls that follow determine if you get it.
Task Resolution: these kinds of systems are "Unspecified Intent" systems. That means, when the GM asks what you want to do in those same two situations, you say "I want to open the lock on the safe." or "I want to use my Charm skill on the princess." or whatever. You specifically state what you are doing, and the rolls that follow determine if you successfully do that specific thing. Whether you get what you really wanted is not considered.
Got that? Hope so. I'm moving to the last bit.
What's my point?
Well, I have a pretty strong preference for conflict resolution.
Why is that?
Here's my thought: Everything interesting in RPGs is about resolving a conflict. Everything. Do I get that thing? Do I get away? Do I find my dad? Whatever.
The problem with task resolution (specifically, conflicts where 'what you really want' isn't specifically ... considered) is that the mechanics don't resolve that conflict for you -- they just tell you if you performed an action successfully.
The two have nothing to do with each other.
You can roll for all the successful tasks you want, but ultimately, succeed or fail, whether you actually achieve your goal is left to -- well, 99% of the time, it's up to the GM. Maaaybe opening the safe was what you needed to do to find the papers, maaaaybe the princess is the person you need to give info from. But maybe not, and if not, you just keep rolling meaningless rolls that waste time and do nothing, until you finally "click the right pixel" -- something that has nothing to do with all the rolling you've been doing in first place.
In short, the task resolution whole system is there to keep you busy until the GM's ready to let you have what you want. Or not.
That's pretty shaky game design right there.
Foot notes:
((1)) "My GM wouldn't do that," is not a relevant argument. A good GM can counteract a bad design. The bad design, however, still exists.
((2)) Why yes, this does go back and touch on both "I want to play with all the rules" and "What do I need a GM for anyway?" (The answer, of course, is "for the FUN stuff.")
((3))This isn't about 'story games' versus 'trad rpgs' or anything like that -- it's about cutting right to the honest heart of the conflict and doing something with the system that RESOLVES it. Roll one die (like Trollbabe). Roll fifty (DitV). I don't care; just so long as what we're doing is honestly determining "do I get what I wanted or not?"
Until we figure out what we're going to call this floating pick-up pulp game, I'm not going to make a page for it on the wiki, and since Randy wanted me to write up the half-game we played last week, that means I'm doing it here. This is the 'back cover blurb' version...
THE APE SOLDIERS OF TEYUWASU
(Starring D.L. Curtis, the two-fisted pilot; "Winnie" the spirit-channeling psychic; and Jane, the no-apologies soldier-girl!)
When we last left our hero, the trio had flown deep into the South American jungles, into a land of LOST WONDERS of the Cretaceous Age. There, they encountered FLYING BOATS piloted by the BRUTISH MINIONS of GORILLA KHAN. After a tough aerial gun battle, they discovered more of the hirsute henchmen working at some nefarious scheme involving a GLOWING PORTAL in the center of the LOST PLATEAU OF TEYUWASU.
Overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of fierce flying soldiers swarming in the skies over the portal the trio retreated, landing their plane along the shadowy waterways of the primal jungle to formulate a plan...
((There was other stuff leading up to this involving some Russians and interference from from British military officers, but again, this is the back cover blurb, and flying gorillas are cooler.))
So, I was at the Forge forum, and reading down the forum thread: [Forge Midwest]Interview with Ron Edwards, and promised myself to listen to it, cuz I met both the participants for the first time at the con, and that was really cool, and apparently the interview is good also.
Then, down toward the end, there's this:
We all wonder, ‘why are you [story-game proponents] so pissed at systems like White Wolf? They inspire rich story in their setting and flavor text, and the rules are simple enough to get out of our way and let us tell our story.” And it becomes a badge of honor to say, “there are lots of times we don’t even ever roll dice, all night long!”Hey, I’ve been that guy and part of me still is. But the thing is, what I think The Forge and Ron and so many others who’ve been growing the story games movement over the past seven years, what they’re saying is, “If you have to get your system out of the way in order to go into story mode, then you need a new system that actually can be used IN story mode.”
And I look at the last couple posts I've made and yeah... that's at least part of what I'm saying.
Over on this post: I want to play with all the rules, Meera asked some fantastic questions. These questions were too good to leave in the comments section, so here they are.
Does it change if, in one of those, say, laissez-faire systems, the GM makes an effort to explain their interpretations ahead of time? (I've tried to push that effort with ADRPG, for example - I make clear what my suppositions will be ahead of the game, including how I run attributes, etc.)
First off, I really like "laissez-faire" as a phrase for that kind of play: "Hands off our roleplay, mechanical system!" That's good.
To your question, does it help if you clearly explain how you're coming to your conclusions? Yes, absolutely, for that game, by which I mean "for your game."
If you look at all the Amber stuff we wrote up for Things in Heaven and Earth back in the day, you'll see a pretty heavily defined system for conflict resolution -- we took those four basic stats of Psyche, Strength, Endurance, and Warfare and came up with umpteen derived values from them. Further, there were ways to get those numbers to 'act' higher than they actually were, depending on what you were doing in a conflict -- going all-out, playing defensive, whatever.
And I think I was clear about how that worked, and how I read it, and the fact that Ranks didn't matter that much to me, but the actual point scores did. Randy's run a lot more Amber than me, and he's gone even further with developing these system plugins.
Did that help keep everyone on the same page, with regards to understanding their chances in specific conflicts, sure. Yes, absolutely. I'd hazard a guess and say the game was fun for everyone most of the time, and that any frustrations that arose came from other areas, not from a misunderstanding about how the rules would work in my game. The same would be true, I am sure, in yours.
My point is this: all of that work in my game wouldn't have helped the player one tiny little bit the next time they played in YOUR game, or if they went to ACNW and played in a game Epoch was running. I may have documented "my system" to the point where it was essentially a concrete, written down set of rules (which I probably did because that's what I as a player want), but it's still essentially written down documentation on how *I* will interpret things.
Such a game's system is still, put another way, entirely Subjective. The subjectivity is just really really well documented. :) Subjective things like that are always going to shift with a new GM in the chair.
I would say that clearly communicating in that way would definitely help a player jump from one game to another person's game with the minimum amount of fuss and confusion, but at the same time, I'll assert that Game One and Game Two are, at the heart of it, actually different game systems, because the system's game engines (the GM) are fundamentally different.
A person can say "I love playing Amber" and go play with a new group of people who are, objectively, great players, and hate it. Afterwards, they might say "I just didn't like how they did things." What I think they're saying is "They were not playing the same game as I do -- the one I said I love."
I want to be able to say "I like playing Game X." And have someone else say "I like playing Game X also!" and have us actually be talking about the same system. That's what I mean when I say "I want to play with all the rules."
Now, is one GM, even playing with all the rules, going to present a different game than another GM? Certainly! That's great!
Which brings me to the next question...
My other question is, do you prefer a GM not being necessary then?
Prefer it? No, that's not what I'm aiming at at all.
I've played in a few GMless or near --
Hmm. Let me back up.
In general, a game needs focus. Direction. A strong sense of theme that helps everyone get on the same page. One way or the other, that goal needs to be achieved when you sit down at the table with the other players.
There are several ways to do that.
1. The EASIEST and FAIRLY EFFECTIVE way to do this is with a GM.
What does that look like? They can tell a player "no, a samurai isn't going to fit in this game at all -- we're playing in Musketeer France -- try again." They can tell people where things are going to be set, what's going to be happening in the background, and maybe even dial it down really tight and say "You all have some kind of strong relationship, good or bad, with three people from this list of NPCs." or "You're all marines in the same unit." Or whatever.
Easiest: One mouthpiece, making decrees, clearly. (Note: it's most easy for everyone BUT the GM, for whom it is often fucking HARD WORK. This can get easier when the game you're running has a very clear theme built into the game, like The Mountain Witch or My Life with Master.)
Fairly Effective: No one else needs to 'know' or 'decide' anything -- they can just listen to the GM and act accordingly. (Again, easy for everyone but the GM.) The downside is, only one person has the 'vision', and everyone else has to try to understand it.
2. A VERY EFFECTIVE, but HARDER (for everyone but the GM) way is to have a GM, but let the theme and sense of purpose to the game come out of clear and sometimes structured discussion before the game starts, so that when folks contribute to the fiction of the game during play, they contribute things that FIT. It often still falls to the GM to enforce the group-determined "feel" of the game.
Primetime Adventures and Mortal Coil do that very explicitly. They both have GMs. The Pool and Universalis and Breaking the Ice do this as well, but with either no GM, or a GM-role that switches around. There are other games that do that as well. Games like Donjon, which has a LOT of player-authorship but very little (read: no) discussion in the rules of how to agree on a theme in the group tends toward pretty silly play, unless the players back up and say "okay, we're all going to agree to do THIS kind of game, okay? Anyone who adds stupid shit gets kicked in the nuts." or something.
(Inspectres often gets silly as well, but it's SUPPOSED to, so that's okay.)
3. An Effective, but MUCH HARDER (much more effort from everyone) way to do it is with a game that strongly dictates a theme for the game, but leaves no one in the GM role to enforce it. That means that it falls to everyone to hold to the standard set by the game and not fuck around. It also means that everyone has to put a lot of personal, GM-level effort into understanding what that setting is... either that, or you need a sort of psuedo-gm to help people understand it.
The Shab al-Hiri Roach does this. Polaris does this. There are others. These can be super-awesome games, but while they're a lot easier on the person who usually GMs (and they get to play! Yay!), it's more work for everyone else.
So, in summation, I think even without being that laissez faire system adjudication, a GM can serve very well for reinforcing the integrity of the game world. That's the FIRST thing.
What else do they do? Or, to go back to Meera:
What is the role of the GM in that case? (I don't mind - I think I agree more and more each second that I consider what you say, but I'm curious. I have always argued that if a computer can do that interpreting, I might as well be playing a computer game.)
I actually said this in the original post, but I'm going to make it very explicit here.
When you are playing a game in which a mechanical, objective system is being used to determine the results of all conflicts, this is what the GM does, to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the system, presented in reverse order of importance:
1. Enforce the setting (as mentioned above).
2. Interpret system results (which is a very different thing from *determining* results). "You beat him by a ton... yeah, he totally gives in." This ties into...
3. Playing the NPCs truly, according to their motivations and what they want.
4. Developing, presenting and pushing conflict-laden Decision Points at the players. ("Do you go after the bad guys who stole your temple's holy relics, or the other group who have your little sister and are heading for the slave markets of The Black City of Ys?")
3. and 4. are huge. Setting that stuff up is 99% of all the prep I do for games.
More importantly, they are two things that a computer just can't do. :)
I've had a chance to play in a couple games outside my normal list in the last couple weeks, and they reminded me of some things I really prefer in my gaming.
One of them was very much a classic homebrew basement game -- lots of combat system, and all the roleplay success hinging on the interpretation of the GM. The other was something that was sort of a mix of that with the more current hippie games, but still with a strong leaning toward "GM Fiat" as the means of determining difficulty levels and like.
Did I enjoy them? Yes. Excellent GMs made the experience enjoyable. Did I care for the games in the LARGER scheme of things? No, I didn't. Largely because of the way the games depending on the GM's personal take on whatever was going on to determine success. It meant that, if I played the same game with another GM, not only would the play be different (obviously), the acutual GAME SYSTEM would be different. I would not, in short, be playing the same game.
Lots of players will tell you "I don't like having a set system around the roleplaying scenes. Yes, maybe a big character or a notorious character should have an effect on the NPC's reaction to me as I roleplay but I trust the GM to judge that fairly and take it into account; I don't want a system to do that. "
First, to those players: you DO have a set system around your roleplaying scenes. A "system" is "the thing that we use to give one or more of us the authority to say 'this is what happens'." In the example above, the "system" is "the GM decides what happens."
That IS a system. If you don't think so, I direct you to the Amber DRPG -- that's the only system the game uses.
And I don't mean to make a whipping boy out of ADRPG -- LOTS of home campaigns replace the WRITTEN rules from published systems for at least a portion of the rules -- whatever they don't like -- with that "the GM decides" system; they either do it consensually as a group, explicitly within the rules, or the GM is doing it behind the scenes and not telling anyone. Or the system does it explicitly. It happens all the time. Either way, the group probably trusts the GM to take on that job.
I don't.
Now, don't get me wrong I may trust, say, Dave or Randy or whoever to wing something like this, but the don't trust "the GM" as a generic person to do so. There are a couple reasons.
1. I play with lots of GMs. This kind of 'system' basically boils down to me trying to convince/charm/cajole the GM into giving me what I want. I don't want to fucking argue (in the legalese sense) for something -- I want to declare an action, engage with a mechanical system, and roleplay the result. If I wanted the quality of my arguing/roleplaying to be the thing on which my success hung, I would have become a lawyer.
2. Consistency. I want a mechanical, written down system that we use for every situation. The problem with this "GM decides" system is that it only works the way you expect if you're playing with *your* GM. What happens if your *other* friend is GMing? You have to adjust. Do you still trust him? Sure, but it's going to be different. How about if *I'm* GMing? Or you? Or that other guy? Every one of those changes means that any encounters (social, usually) that use "the GM decides" System are going change, sometimes dramatically, and "what will get me success" is also going to change, dramatically.
I mean, you wouldn't want that to happen in combat, right? "Oh, Bob's GMing, so I have to remember that the 5 of every suit is wild, and anything above 7's are an automatic hit if I'm using a shotgun..." because that's the kind of thing we're talking about.
I want a system in place when I'm striving for a goal.
A written-down system.
A consistently 100%-used system, so that if one week I'm playing with one GM and the next week I'm using the same rules with another GM (or if I am GMing) the game is essentially the same, apart from how the GM plays the NPCs and what sorts of conflict-laden Decision Points they hit the players with.
This point is particularly important to me right now, as I ponder a new Spirit of the Century game in which several people, perhaps many, will sit in the GM seat. If one week we have to think "oh, we're playing X's version of the rules" and the next week we have to think "oh, we're playing Y's version of the rules... they won't use this and this and this rule, but they will use this..."
Well, I won't play very fucking long.
Use all the rules. In these games we're talking about, you can.
People look at games like Dogs in the Vineyard or Dead of Night or Heroquest and see very lean rules. They look at D20 and see really thick books, because d20 has more rules. D20 has lots more rules.
In practice, however, I think the NUMBER of rules actually being used by a d20 group and a DitV group is about the same.
Percentage-wise, a lot less of the d20 rules set is actually being used; it's been replaced; this isn't really anyone's fault -- I don't think a normal human person CAN run that game with all the rules -- there are too many, even in just the core 3 books, to remember, and some are just too much of a pain. Anyone use encumbrance? How about the NPC-reaction tables?
Dogs (compared to D20, for the sake of common familiarity) is small and lean because 100% of the rules are meant to be used, all the time. * Nothing in the game is optional. Period.
((At least with the homebrew game I was in this weekend, the rules aren't ignored -- whatever is there, IS used -- there just aren't rules written down for a big chunk of what people typically do in an RPG: an alien coming to earth and reading the rules wouldn't know there was any part of play that involved portraying your character; it's not mentioned, you just have to know that part. :) ))
And I've played in good systems that effectively and enjoyably build a real system around even roleplaying scenes -- a system that makes those scenes as interesting and involved as combat. It does happen. It's not even that unusual anymore. Some of them aren't even "Story Games." Heroquest and Spirit of the Century are very very traditional games, yet they do this.
The equally good part? These games function exactly the same, regardless of who's running the game, if the person in question USES ALL THE RULES.
There is an almost automatic, trained instinct in GMs who've run a lot of traditional games to pick up ANY game and look for "the thing that can be ignored in this system."
These 'little' games just don't have that part.
(Note to self: Assimilate the "Afraid" horror rules for use with Dogs and run that for people instead, so they can experience the rules system without me having to deal with the religion-hang-ups that so many people seem to run into with vanilla dogs.)
Spirit of the Century reference sheets. Most excellent.
John Harper (author of Agon) is playing in a Spirit of the Century game and hacking in some things that I really find useful and interesting. over at The Mighty Atom: SotC Hack is a post about tweaking the Stress/Consequences bars to make Consequences happen more and generally speed up combats a bit. It's a direct yoink from the upcoming Dresden Files rules.
Actually, he's got quite a few insightful SotC tweaks discussed over there (and Fred Hicks is conferring with him in the comments), so it's worth checking the whole thing out: The Mighty Atom.
Television Without Pity (not really) presents a recap of the first half of the two hour series premiere of Ill Met by Gaslight.
Nineteen bloody pages. I'm knackered.
Spirit of the Century is a great game for high-adventure pulp hero gaming. It's not so appropriate for Chandleresque pulp-noir games. Fly From Evil, however, is going to be six kinds of awesome for that kind of game, and I intend to own it, oh yes.
Just as soon as it's out.