[Dark Ages Vampire] Assessing Creative Agenda
Reithan:
Ok, I'd like to step back a bit, and try to get this back on a civil note.
I think, to put it in "Forge Terms" this thread is completely 'incoherent'. :P
I'd like to clarify my intent here, and maybe clarify a few things about the 'where I'm coming from' bits. (stuff about my game)
Ok, first, as Caldis said, the group IS flitting from between 2 CAs. HOWEVER, in every discussion we have about what they want out of the game they all throw straight bullseyes at Nar, so I think that intent IS established - but this is open for discussion.
Maybe reward cycle is the disconnect here, I don't know - I've never been fully brought up to speed on all the intricacies of Reward Cycles, I don't think.
Also, Contracycle did bring up a good point - the game is not totally screwed. It has it's ups and downs - but over the course of a YEAR playing, I think that's fairly normal. Overall we all have a good time and look forward to the games. This is more of a question on "My players want X, I want X - we've discussed it and talked about X...but we KEEP GETTING Y!? WHY??"
One thing I would like to point out, though, Frank, and I'm not trying to poke you and rile you, I'm just trying to get you to further explain yourself, as you said this thread is for explainations, anyway:
You said Gareth (though I don't know who that is, I think Caldis? lol) was wrong that you'd never said that any given technique can be used to support any given agenda. I don't think you've said exactly that, but you have repeatedly stated that techniques do not matter to the CA. Any technique can be used with any CA. This seems like the closest shades of grey imaginable, and I'd like it if you could explain a little further to clarify your intent here, if you don't mind.
So, to clarify, one more time, want I wanted was not "ZOMG! FIX MY BROKEN GAME!" what I wanted was "My group keeps doing X, even though they say they want Y, what can I do?"
The obvious answer is: nothing - if the game works, why screw with it?
My answer, even the GAME works and we have fun - I think if we had the fun everone says they want, we'd have MORE fun. I'm trying to IMPROVE my game here, not FIX it.
Frank Tarcikowski:
Hi Reithan, I have repeatedly said that looking at Techniques doesn't work for identifying CA. That's a huge difference to they don't matter to CA. (Gareth, by the way, is contracycle.)
I am trying desperately to keep two topics apart that do not have anything to do with each other, but it does not seem to work out. One topic is your game and how to improve it. I must admit that I had not imagined it as a "played one year, fun overall" game from your first brief description. My idea was that the other thread was directed at helping you, as you put it, get X instead of Y, and I hope I made some useful suggestions. But then you started talking GNS, and from how you were talking, it appeared to me that you had not fully, y'know, figured it out.
That's why I started this thread, because you asked me to explain. I tried to show you how to go about finding out a group's Creative Agenda, if they play by a shared one. The key is looking at how positive reinforcement of certain things work within the group. The Techniques you were talking about? They may support a certain Creative Agenda, or they may be part of play without particularly supporting the group's Creative Agenda. You'll only ever find out if you look at those reinforcements. Then there are of course also Techniques that openly conflict with a given Creative Agenda, and the best way to identify that is to look at negative reactions by the players towards these things in play. But Creative Agenda is not the way you play. It's the purpose of your play.
So, well, I don't know, I didn't expect this discussion to go south that way. Let's try to get it back on track. I guess talk about your group should best go back to the other thread. I thought that Caldis' idea of doing a "CA analysis" of your group in this thread was pretty good, but it seems it wasn't after all. So, if anybody has any questions about the Vampire game, please feel free to ask. For talk about Reithan's Mage game, I suggest the parent thread is the place to continue. Maybe you should qoute that last post over there, too.
- Frank
Reithan:
Quote from: Frank Tarcikowski on January 26, 2008, 01:13:15 PM
My idea was that the other thread was directed at helping you, as you put it, get X instead of Y, and I hope I made some useful suggestions. But then you started talking GNS, and from how you were talking, it appeared to me that you had not fully, y'know, figured it out.
Yeah, you made some great suggestions, I think. Most of the ones there were at very least pretty good. I've started trying to use a few of them already and they seem to be working out pretty good.
Quote from: Frank Tarcikowski on January 26, 2008, 01:13:15 PM
The key is looking at how positive reinforcement of certain things work within the group.
Ok - that's a good idea. Not sure if you wanna discuss that here, or back in the other thread, though.
Quote from: Frank Tarcikowski on January 26, 2008, 01:13:15 PM
The Techniques you were talking about? They may support a certain Creative Agenda, or they may be part of play without particularly supporting the group's Creative Agenda. You'll only ever find out if you look at those reinforcements. Then there are of course also Techniques that openly conflict with a given Creative Agenda, and the best way to identify that is to look at negative reactions by the players towards these things in play. But Creative Agenda is not the way you play. It's the purpose of your play.
Ok - cool, this is probably the best explaination of what I was trying to get you to explain so far, lol.
I think what the confusion here comes down to is my poor understanding of the 'reward cycle'. Would that be on-topic for this thread? Talking about reward cycles and how they help to "Asses Creative Agenda"? (it IS the thread title. :P)
Quote from: Frank Tarcikowski on January 26, 2008, 01:13:15 PM
I thought that Caldis' idea of doing a "CA analysis" of your group in this thread was pretty good, but it seems it wasn't after all.
I just probably did it wrong. It still seems like a good idea to have more than one example in this thread. Maybe you can guide me back on-topic?
Caldis:
Ok it looks like we've made it to a good spot to start the discussion of CA and it's relevance. The initial talk was based on community and getting players invested in that community, but that can mean different things depending on several factors including CA. For instance a gamist could become invested in a community for the resources it provides or he can see it as win condition to protect the community. A simulationist could see it as structures to test his dream against,how do mages deal with mundane political forces? A narratavist can see it as a perfect tool to question premise, check out any of the Dogs in the Vineyard towns if you need examples.
Another way to say this would be that the term "invest" can mean different things to different people. Depending on why you want the players to invest in the town and the CA you are aiming for you will have to take a different approach to creating the community and getting the players into it. Some of the advice you received was great and can even work in a general 'building the setting' basis for all exploration but some is more tied to certain CA's. Paul's advice about changing the way you think of GMing is definitely aiming you towards narrativism, which you said you wanted but I'm not sure based on some other things you said about the game and while it's good advice Mage isnt seen as generally supportive of Narrativist play so you may be working against the grain.
Let's look at that summary of your game I asked you for.
Quote from: Reithan on January 24, 2008, 07:08:09 PM
Social Contract: We're a group of players that met over an online MMO and after our guild in that game broke up after a few months we decided we had a friendship worth keeping around and looked into other things to do together. As such, we now play other online games together, as well as 2 RPGs that we play using a combination of MSN Messenger and Ventrillo voice chat. We're all adults (18+).
So you play via internet chat and you've never met each other face to face right? That's not a problem but it is a different social makeup than most groups I've been in. I've never played a game with everyone on chat, had one person on a chat program while the rest of us were around face to face but not for long enough to get a feel for how it would work long term.
More relevant to CA however I'd ask what MMO (or MMO's) you were involved in and what aspect of the game you really enjoyed. Was it grouped combat, doing quests, dungeons, did you speak in character at all, role play, crafting, making money, were you usually teamed up or was their a significant amount of soloing time?
One other general question, how long are your game sessions?
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Exploration: The characters came into the game as newly indoctrinated into their respective orders and given a 'gift' of an area for their cabal to call its own. This is Monterey, CA. They, so far have met with several supernatural treats in their area, attempted politics with a few different groups and had both alliances and enemies made. (more the latter than the former). They engaged in some intra-party conflict and exploration of adult themes for a while. They tried investigating some local mysteries but gave up on that quickly. They've had their share of loss and gain (still, more the former than the latter).
I've never played Mage and am not very familiar with WOD so I'll definitely miss out on the intricacies of the setting but I think I know enough to make some comments.
It's modern day, there's a lot of political intrigue going on. I know in Vampire there is the Masquerade to keep themselves hidden from normals, I suspect this is true of Mages as well. First question then, which community is it you want the players to invest in? Is it a normal human community or is it the greater secret societies community?
How do these supernatural threats appear and what exactly are they threatening? For that matter who are the characters and how do they relate to each other? Do they have different sects or are they all united?
From the sound of things they are in a pretty dark situation; more enemies than allies, more loss than gain. Is that a situation you've worked to bring about or is it something they've created by their actions?
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Techniques and Ephemera: The players and GM collaborated on the setting, the 'goals' for play and the parameters for what was acceptable in characters and their behavior. One of the initally created characters was secretly (only that player and the GM knew) a hostile NPC spy. Dice rolls, due to restrictions from internet play are handled soley by the GM, and some of the players don't understand the system used very well. Rules apply MAINLY as written, with the exception of a few minor house rules to allow interesting character concepts and to eliminate some rules loopholes and confusions. Combat is actually fairly rare (maybe 1 out of 5 sessions) but battled intensely and in-detail when it happens. Willpower is spent often, as is mana. Most spells cast are improvised, though some characters are learning the importance of rotes in relation to character effectiveness.
Social roles are only called for in key situations or situations where one or the other party is directly opposed to the other (anything else is just sort of moot anyway). Scene framing is handled mainly by common suggestion and is open to all participants, though any element that's in-question usually comes down to a die-roll on a relevant attribute (Say, Intelligence+Streetwise to find an underground rave downtown). NPCs are authored mainly by the GM, as a default, though players may contribute as well.
Could you clarify in what ways you collaborated on the setting and especially on what you settled on for acceptable characters and behaviour? The spy character as a secret, how was that handled when it was revealed? Was there any grumbling or hard feelings or did the players move on?
Another thing you mentioned in the other thread was deaths in this game. Several seemed to be brought on by player dissatisfaction with the characters so they killed off the character to make way for a new one. Can you say why they were unsatisfied with the characters? How did the new characters differ from the old? Was there a big change of focus and have the new characters been more satifactory?
Lots of things to mull over there so far so I'll stop for now. If you think of any more information you want to impart that will give a clearer picture of your game and how the players are involved with it please do, especially anything the helps with the idea of community investment. Do you remember any incidents in game where they were directly involved with the community? What worked, what didnt?
Reithan:
Sadly, I still haven't really gotten a chance to check out DitV. I've been looking into picking up a few more RPG books recently, both for insight on things to pull into my game I'm running, and for more ideas on how games systems can be set up for the one I'm making. So - is there somewhere I can see these DitV towns? Or do I need to get the book?
I would agree about Mage not being supportive of Nar play...if we were talking about Mage: the Ascension. That was 'old' World of Darkness. A while back (not sure on the actuall date) White-Wolf pulled the old World of Darkness play setting to a close as it'd drifted rather far from their vision of it, and also because any good story needs an end and they'd been foreshadowing one for a long time. They then came back with a 'new' World of Darkness. All the books and rules completelt re-imagined and rebuilt. There are some familiar faces and some of the system mechanics are similar, but it is a completely new animal.
That being said, the new World of Darkness book do provide a lot of good material for a group that wants to persue a Nar agenda. They include: Virtue/Vice system, Concept, Theme and Mood.
Each WOD book now include a section on the "Theme" and "Mood" the developers had in mind when they crafted it, as well as how they envisioned those being explored by the players and what they may mean. For example, the Theme of Mage is: "Power Corrupts" and the Mood is "Ancient Mystery"
Concept for each character is determined at creation and is basically a small one-phrase blurb about "who your character is". In terms of their personality, skills & generall meaning, to you. Like, to pull examples from my group, "Well-mannered Mechanic", "Passionate Occultist" or "Morbid Assassin." Concept is something that old WOD had - but it was a tool in a vacuum. It didn't tie into anything and most players simply ignored it. It's, honestly not much better now, but it does feed into a new System element: Virtue/Vice.
Virtue/Vice is also chosen at character creation and it's basically what your character's good and bad natures are. The Virtues are the 7 heavenly Virtues, while the Vices are the 7 deadly sins. So if you'd like to play your character as someone with an indomitable spirit of Hope, someone who almost always can see the possible glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, though he doesn't always have the strength to reach for it...That could be Hope/Sloth. Anyway, it gives you a very clear and usable way to establish what Themes you'd like to explore with your character.
Ok, moving along, don't want to spend all day on that...Yes and no to your next point. We do play online, but some of us have met face to face. 2 players are bf/gf and I've met one of the other players.
We've actually all played a lot of MMOs together, the one we all started on and met each other in, though, was "Lineage 2." It's a 'Korean Grinder' if you know the lingo (we didn't at the time, lol) and focuses on in-game politics between player factions. Players form "clans" which can battle to take control of castles & towns, though due to the game mechanics it's fairly improbably for this to be possible with only one clan. Players can also form "alliances" of clans to help. Then, the world is also pvp-enabled (though any pvp outside of seiges levies penalties on the participants). So basically, the game is set up such that players, to participate fully in the game, must form clans. Clans must form alliances, and even then, alliances are constantly vying against each other for power and wealth, so very intricate and impression social and political arrangements form in game. It's really very fascinating, IMHO.
Our game sessions usually last from 8pm CST till about 1-3am CST. So, 5-7 hours. This usually includes at least 1 hour of 'goofing off' at the beginning, where nothing game-related has happened yet, just conversation, so it's more like 4-6 hours.
Yes, in Mage, the players must keep themselves out of the view of mortals, for roughly 3 reasons.
1. Normal people, by their scrutiny, make magic screw up. So mortals around makes magic very dangerous to mages.
2. At least 1 Mage faction's creedo says that mortals should not learn of magic - so going against that earns their ire very quickly.
3. Mages try to hide their "true names" (birth name), because names have power, and mortals tend to ask for such name, or even already know them. (i.e: someone you went to HS with).
Our main goal, I suppose would be interacting with the Mage community, though interacting with the mortal community is fine, as well, and I think at least player's started moving in this direction since the first thread was started (thanks for the tips!).
The threats used so far have been, by-and-large threats to the community as a whole, or threats at least, to their area. There's been one or two threats that were directed entirely at the player group, but this has been the exception, rather than the rule.
The characters are related by situation, allegiance and proximity, mainly. They're usually under a common threat or situation, which has usually been what's been used to draw in new characters to the player group. They are now bound by allegiance as they're all sworn in to a cabal. They are also related by proximity, too, as they're also all staying in the same building at the moment.
They are also incidentally related in one other way: Vice. 3/4 (5th player's still remaking his new character) all share the same Vice.
The dark situation they're in is almost exactly as you described. More enemies than allies and more threats than gains. The answer to why? Both. It is the "World of Darkness" so, both I and the players, have introduced enemies and threats at every turn, though arguably any of these could have been turned to their advantage or at very least defeated or diffused. So far though, they seem like their default answer is just to fight their way out of most situations, seemingly more out of player habit than anything, and that's been turning out fairly bad for them, so things have gotten pretty grim.
How we collaborated on the game: I came up with a few different locations I was comfortable running the game setting in and we all dicusses and picked one, then we discussed what we wanted the focus of the game to be: mystery, horror, political intrigue. We also agreed that we'd like to focus on elements of plot and drama and whatnot, rather than just playing "kill the monster and take his stuff". We talked about "Why are the characters here?" and came up with the "land grant" sort of scenario. Finally we also discussed what exact sorts of characters would be acceptable, and that was pretty much left open to anything.
The spy character was suggested to me by a couple players and I basically flipped a coin to see who'd get it, as I figured if it fell in line with the group's planned goals for the game, but discussing it with the group would let the cat out of the bag, so to speak. So I told one player "maybe later" and the other "Yes". I gave the spy player some guidlines for how I wanted the character built, in terms of what organization was spying on them, and during the game I'd give him hints and directives from that organization on how to acheive his goals as a spy. When he was finally exposed and the players killed him, they seemed to think that it was a farily awesome little plot-bit and the player who was playing the spy was a little disappointed that he didn't get to take his plot a bit further, but overall he realized the players would have to figure him out eventually, so he was ok with it.
As to player-killed characters for new ones, the first one was a character the player created that he made, through application of Flaws and Derangements entirely paranoid. Like, certifiable. He eventually just got tired of dealing with the character's psychoses and wanted to make a new one. The second one had created a character that was fairly religious and ended up putting himself in a very uncomfortable position for his character and the character basically started becoming depressed and whatnot, and the player decided he wasn't having fun playing a character than was only 2-shades away from suicide.
So far, most of the times the players have been involved with the community it's been in terms of them running in and going "OMG! We did this things and made this thing like 100x worse, you have to come help us!" or it's been with the community going "There's some stuff going down on your territory and it's spilling out into ours, kindly fix it before we beat you about the head and neck." So far it's not really been working, as the players, again, seemingly by habit, keep just treating the community like a tool, a means to an end, rather than just something to interact with and use as a part of their setting and experience.
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