[Poison'd] Burning down Cartegena
lumpley:
This is about a problem with Poison'd that Ralph raised, here. I have zero interest in talking right now about how well the text communicates. I'm going to go back over it and make sure it says everything I want it to say, and for now please let's leave it at that. No, this is a design thing, not a text thing.
The design thing is: the game gives you absolutely no guidance when it comes to deciding whether Cartegena burns, on purpose. The game doesn't care whether it does, so doesn't participate in your decision making about it. I think this is a pretty important rpg-theoretical point.
In Poison'd, if you fail a success roll, the rules say that your character's action fails, or else succeeds but to no advantage. the game doesn't tell you which, it doesn't give you any way to decide which. Again, that's on purpose, and it's because the game doesn't care which. Neither do I! It might matter enormously to the game's fiction which happens - or whether Cartegena burns - but it doesn't make any difference to the workings of the game's mechanics at all.
So how do you decide? Is it my responsibility as the designer to provide a mechanism? What if it's not? Poison'd's design says "hell, you're the ones with the functioning social contract and creative agenda, you decide." (Again, whether the text communicates that, I don't want to discuss. This is a design thing.) I could say "flip a coin." In the case of success rolls, I could build some sort of secondary reading into the dice - something like, "if the GM rolls more 6s than you, you fail, but otherwise you succeed to no advantage." But, every possible way seems just as good to me - and just as irrelevant to the goals of the design - as any other.
Is there any reason to decide whether Cartegena burns in any other way than case by case, at the whim of the group and according to its (presumably) functional creative dynamic?
-Vincent
Valamir:
Quote
Is there any reason to decide whether Cartegena burns in any other way than case by case, at the whim of the group and according to its (presumably) functional creative dynamic?
Let's say the answer is no, there isn't.
Can't you make the same arguement about "is there any reason to decide whether Dirty Pete gets an advantage other than case by case, at the whim of the group"?
Can't you make the same arguement about "is there any reason to decide whether Dirty Pete suffers a serious wound other than case by case, at the whim of the group"?
Can't you make the same arguement about "is there any reason to decide whether a ship engaged in a broadside battle suffers Wear other than case by case, at the whim of the group"?
Can't you make the same arguement about "is there any reason to decide whether a hated NPC gets ganked in a combat other than case by case, at the whim of the group"?
Those are not BS questions. That's where the rubber hits the road for me. I see no functional difference between "I use the game mechanics to tell me whether my ship suffers damage", "I use the the game mechanics to tell me whether I suffer a fatal wound", "I use the game mechanics to tell me whether Joe the Cook dies", vs. "I use the game mechanics to tell me whether Cartegena burns down."
Because ultimately, there ARE reasons other than "whim of the group" for all of those things. If there weren't we'd all be playing free form and damn the rules. That's a given. I'm interested in knowing what's different to you that makes you want to write rules and mechanics that cover all four of the other items I list...but be adamantly opposed to having mechanics that cover burning Cartegena. There must be some key differentiation you're making, yes?
lumpley:
Exactly, some key differentiation.
Now that differentiation is extremely local to Poison'd. I'd expect any game, every game, to differentiate on different keys, if that makes sense. In Poison'd, there are no rules for failing vs succeeding to no advantage, or for burning Cartegena; in Dogs in the Vineyard, there are no rules for travel between towns or for the emotional tenor of relationships.
-Vincent
Darren Hill:
Snother way to put "at the whim of the group":
Is it possible in a group with a socially functionaly dynamic to still have earnest disagreements about the direction taken in the fiction? I think it is.
Dogs had the "Say Yes or Roll The Dice" rule to fall back on. If the group actually did have creative differences over how they travelled between towns, or how a relationship was going, they could always use the dice, even if that wasn't what the dice was meant to be used for.
Poison'd doesn't seem to have such an option.
I think groups do look to the rules to find out where the authority lies (whether that ultimately goes to dice, GM, group vote, etc.) in situations of creative differences, and I think the rules should have an answer for them.
lumpley:
Ooh, more. This isn't an answer to you, Darren, it's just me following my own thoughts.
Okay, so in Dogs in the Vineyard the stuff that the rules don't care to answer is compartmentalized from the stuff of the game. Travel between towns is the perfect example, but the emotional tenor of your Dog's relationships too - you can see how the rules for relationship dice work to make the emotional content of your Dog's relationships safe. "Safe" in game terms, like in hide and go seek, the antithesis of "out of bounds."
In Poison'd, the stuff that the rules don't care to answer is sometimes stuff that the pirates care about a lot, and tightly interwoven with stuff that the rules DO care about. It's not safe, it's in bounds.
I like that about the design, I'm proud of it. I think it's pretty bold, actually.
-Vincent
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