[Nerdinburgh '08] Spione
Ron Edwards:
I'm so not happy with that post.
Callan, let me re-try it as the game designer participating in the thread, only.
Can you clarify what you'd like to know or want to say about the game (as described here), for me?
Best, Ron
Valamir:
Hey Moreno, I'm not really interested in the precision of my abstract example.
My point was, and remains simply this:
As a player you have absolutely no means to tactically influence how much of an impact you will or won't have during the flashpoint...over whatever issue is involved. You as a player are powerless to affect that. The random draw of cards determines that.
I was then drawing the parallel to how this feeling of powerlessness is exactly parallel to the feeling of powerlessness felt by a principle who's out in the Cold...and saying that's a good thing, and players should embrace that feeling to bring themselves closer to the themes of the game.
That's all.
Moreno R.:
Quote from: Valamir on January 25, 2008, 09:18:34 AM
My point was, and remains simply this:
As a player you have absolutely no means to tactically influence how much of an impact you will or won't have during the flashpoint...over whatever issue is involved. You as a player are powerless to affect that. The random draw of cards determines that.
And I ALMOST agree with you, in the sense that I agree that the random draw of cards determines that you, as a player, are powerless to affect what cards you get at the beginning of the flashpoint. What I wanted to demostrate with my previous posts was that is not the exact same thing as saying that the player is powerless to affect his impact on the flashpoint and the story.
Let's see if I can be more clear this time, without boggling us down in debating examples.
IF the flashpoint were a resolution system, to decide who win in a conflict and how, it would be difficult do disagree with you: the first one that can get two cards together in a column or a joker+card combination can say "I win, you are dead", the only strategy would be to try to get these combination before the opponent, and as soon as the cards are dealt, everybody would see who won.
But the flashpoint is not a resolution system. it is (1) a pacing burst (flashpoint is where THINGS HAPPEN), (2) the place where things get determined, (3) a sort of "story market" where you have to find the support of other to your initial cards, avoiding hindering actions (Manouvers are free, everyone can say what he wants, but Flashpoints are a market: everything cost cards, you never have enough cards alone, you must get other to "invest" into your initial cards with their cards, and you can invest your cards in something others declared, helping them, or hindering)
So, when at the beginning you see the cards you are dealt, you don't see "how the conflict will go", you see the "money" you have to play. Sometimes you will be rich, sometimes you will be poor. Over this, yes, you have no control whatsoever. And in a session with a lot of players, the principal players have usually very little of the "money" on the table.
What can you do then? You can move your "money" from a initial investment in the framing of a scene (a single card) that would be forced in a precise direction (depending if you play a principal or not), freeing it, and putting it over another's investment.
And what you do when you put your "money" in another player's investment? Will you help the investment or you will help it, making it bigger, or fixing it as unbreakable truth?
This is not decided by the cards. You are free to choose. You are no longer assumed to narrate only things beneficial (or detrimental) to a principal. You hear what the other player say, and you can choose: "I like it", or "no, I can't allow this"
Vincent Baker talked about this in an "Anyway" column, much better than I can do now: the way in Spione you start a narration with your first card in the column, and you have to trust that the players with cards above yours will build over it following your vision and not hindering. You have to narrate something that will convince them to "invest money /cards" in your initial investment.
I have seen something almost like this in Dogs in the Vineyard. How can you beat an opponent with bigger dice? You have to make a raise that he can't accept. No matter the dice, no matter the fact that, numerically, adding only the number on the dice, you have no chance. You can still win. With what you tell. The SIS trump the dice, the SIS is stronger, you can't use your bigger dice to win because you can't accept the effect this would have on the SIS.
In Spione, turn that around. Say things that the other people WANT in the SiS. You can still get thing going your way. Even with very few cards. Because there are other people at the table, people rich with cards to play. People free to play them as they want, to help you or hinder you. All you have to do is convince them of the rightness of your vision of how the story should go. Start the column telling something that light their eyes, that excite them, that make them say "right!". And the next player with the card over yours can't do anything other than confirm what you said, fixing it as undeniable truth.
And you can do this even if you have no cards at all! You can simply suggest, or (if you play a principal) act in a certain way, and you WILL have an influence over the story.
You can't be sure to have the "power", in cards, to FORCE something on the SIS. This is true. Ron often talks about the difference between games where your input can't be negated by others (DitV, for example) and games where you can't be sure that your character really will do what you declared (PTA). At first I thought that Spione was in the first group, because I didn't understand how much retconning you can do during a flashpoint, but now I see how it is really firmly in the second group (you can see me realizing this during the discussion of my actual play, in the posts linked above). No matter how many cards you have, the other players can pool their cards together and negate everything you say. If you are really lucky sometimes you will be able to get two of your cards in a column where nobody can put thir cards over yours, and state a single fact, but if the other player combine their efforts and play as a team usually they will be able to stop you of get some cards on the column to hinder you. You have to "buy" the people arond you to your way of seeing with what you say, not with what you draw.
This mean that, if you play a principal in a game with a lot of players, and you are firmly in your principal's camp, trying to get him to get what he wants, while all the others (even the other principal's player) are against you, you WILL be hosed, and you will feel powerless. And yes, I think this is a nice and good way to play: you identify with your principal, with his thoughts and his hopes, you "play him" as he was your character, and you WILL "feel the cold", with the other players at the table mercilessly beating him, playing all the forces that are destroying his life. We could call this "playing Spione immersing in the character" (I am stealing some jeepform terms here, sorry if it's not kosher in big model terms or it isn't clear) and it's a perfectfully "right" way to play it, but what I am saying is that is not the only way to play it. You can play your principal like you would play an NPC. Maybe you identity more with a supporting cast member, and you want better things for that supporting cast member, not for the principal (and to save that cast member you will have to publicy show the secret shame of the principal, disclosing). Maybe you "immerse in the story" (another Jeep term) more than in a single character. You can join the other players in putting your principal deeper and deeper in trouble, in the cold. You, as a player, will be powerless in Spione only if you decide to join your principal in the Cold.
P.S.: I am curious about your experiences in playing Spione, about how many players you had at the table. I think that much of our different experiences derive from playing with a different number of players. I played with three players, so there was only one non-principal player, so 2/3 of the initial cards were beneficial to the principals, and we were almost always playing someone in every scene. How much difference does playing with more players (with more not-principal cards on the table)? Someome who tried both with few players and with a lot of players could describe how the game change?
Reithan:
Where can I find more information on this game? It sounds like a really good source of material, inspiration, or just a good play in general (provided the mentioned problems get resolved...or turn out to not be problems.)
jburneko:
Ralph,
I just wanted to poke my head in here and acknowledge that I see where you're coming from. Yes, I think we're coming at the same thing from two different angles. I'm just very picky about the use of the word "meaningful." Yes, I have no power to control the random draw of cards. I might get four cards, I might get no cards and there's no spend a point to draw another card or anything like that.
But once the cards hit the table, I, as a creative participant in the game have meaningful choices to make. Even if I have no cards the No Shot rules give me a meaningful choice to make.
That said though, yes, I see how the core mechanic puts the player in the same desperate situation as the Principle. This to me is one of the ways the game's Premise is encoded in the mechanics. And again all this is said having only read it. Maybe there's even MORE of sense of desperation and powerlessness when you're actually in that spot than I'm anticipating.
Jesse
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