[Covenant] First Name Terms
AJ_Flowers:
Quote from: Simon C on May 07, 2009, 07:37:16 PM
In a physical conflict with Frank (the monster who ran a large part of the cult), I didn't feel very invested in the actual events of the fight, though I was very invested in the actual outcome. I found myself scanning the character sheet for traits I could bring in, and then justifying them after the fact. It began to feel like what was happening in the fight didn't really matter - it was an afterthought.
...
Because you have to bow out if you have no further traits to roll in, you're encouraged to scrape to find any relevant trait you can. Sometimes this led to interesting and powerful new content, but sometimes it just felt like scrambling.
What you're describing is EXACTLY how I felt playing Dogs for the first time, which, puzzled me, because, most people seem to speak the world about Dogs. But to me, it was just an exercise in "bsing" how useful this particular trait might actually be in this particular conflict.
I think in large part this is because, a gunfight was one of the first scenes I was in in Dogs, and maybe this just isn't the best way to intro the game to someone. The scene was full of "um, the bullet hits my Bible, so I'll throw that in!" kind of justification. I walked away thinking, hey, that kind of conflict resolution mechanic is just not right for me as a player, and I'll probably avoid games in that vein from now on. It seems like a lot of games do use this kind of conflict system though, so it must be working really well for some people in the right situations.
Simon C:
I've not played Dogs, so I can't really speak to that game so well, but Vincent actually adresses that issue somewhere in his discussion. He says something about how Dogs is vulnerable to that kind of thing - the "BS" issue, if you will - but that if you follow the game's admonition to "lead with the fiction" that shouldn't be a problem. I don't know how effective that is in Dogs. In Covenant, the limited number of traits, their often vague applicability, and the fact that narrating them in was so central to staying in the conflict made it kind of inevitable that you'd get some bullshitting to draw in traits.
Matt Machell:
Hi Simon,
thanks for playing and special thanks for the writeup. This bit here makes me really happy:
Quote
Covenant was excellent at really drawing out those conflicts - at promoting really harsh calls in conflict. Working traits and consequences into a conflict can be a really powerful engine for discovering new things about characters, and about their relationships. The best conflicts were between characters who cared about each other, and seeing how much they'd hurt the other to get what they wanted.
as it nicely sums up what the game is for. I've said elsewhere that conflicts really work when the people your character is up against really matter to them. So it's heartening that you picked that up. It's pretty much what the cell creation, crucible and scene framing rules are there to set up.
Obviously what's not so heartening is that some things weren't working for you. There's a couple of things I'd like to ask about that.
First off, and this is always my first question on a Covenant AP, is how many characters resolved truisms? For a three session game you should be looking at all the characters having resolved all their issues. There's a tendency (and I think it's due to the way the book is structured, so entirely my fault) for people to focus too much on running conflict after conflict, but not on moments of truth which are what conflicts are there to generate. I'd be interested in your thoughts on that, how much "stop and reflect" were you getting after conflicts?
Second query is on factions not appearing much. How much time at creation did you give to factions, their NPCs and the agendas they have for your characters? Without that third direction of story pressure, some of the relationship and truism stuff won't fire on all cylinders as everything comes down to a two way choice of self vs society. Which is cool, but not the whole enchilada. Did you feel like this was a problem in your game?
On shoehorning of traits, yep, can be an issue. That's a bug or feature depending on your tastes. As you say it can produce powerful and unexpected narrative, but it needs fairly strong group self-policing. There's some notes on the errata about that. If it feels like scrabbling to those not involved, it probably is.
Also it's worth remembering that traits can only be used in the arena you've chosen for the conflict, so you shouldn't be seeing the drift you mentioned away from the arena. I know I'm really bad at enforcing this in play though (and especially when I demo), but it can really lead to a slight shoehorning problem being a whole lot worse as there's no limiting factor other than who the opponent is.
Cheers
-Matt
Simon C:
Hi Matt,
Those are good questions.
Truisms: My character resolved two of three truisms, Steve's character resolved one truism, and Emma's character didn't resolve any (although her most powerful scene came at the end of the game, where resolving the truism wasn't mechanically important, and Emma was also the least familiar with the rules, meaning she probably wasn't looking for the opportunity as much). Part of the issue with truisms was that what we initially thought the game would be about (the ends justifying the means, doing horrible things for a cause you believed in) was not what the game ended up being about (emotional honesty versus long-buried secrets - like all good New Zealand film). That meant that the scenes that really had a lot of emotional punch didn't always relate to a particular truism. We had a number of scenes end without conflict, and a lot of discussion about the emotional state of the characters, where they were headed, and what their issues were. The game definitely didn't feel like "conflict after conflict", and where there were conflicts, they had a lot of impact, most of the time.
The cell creation thing was crippled at the start by a player dropping out after game creation (which we spent a session on), making a lot of the networks we'd established suddenly not make sense. We had a "splinter cell" of rogue conspiracy-members who we were ostensibly hunting down. We had a few scenes regarding this, but they really didn't feel very directed to us - they weren't relevant to the characters' issues. Malcolm did a good job weaving those elements back into relevance during the game, but it felt like a lot of work for little payoff. Part of that might have been the "kitchen sink drama" aspect of our game. It was much more focused on domestic issues - relationships, marriages, the lies we tell people, than on international conspiracy or action. That made factions and cells much less important to the fiction, I think.
I'm not sure I grasp what you mean about traits only being usable in the arena we chose. It's possible there's a rule I'm missing there. The main problem for me was that the number of relevant traits was far more important that your results on the dice - this made shoehorning in traits almost essential.
Thanks for your reply. I'm glad you found parts of the AP heartening. It was definitely a good experience overall, and the parts that worked well for me really worked very well. I also suspect that another group would find the conflict mechanics unproblematic. I'd be very interested in hearing about some of your inpirations for the game, Matt. It felt to me like a good mix of Sorcerer and Dogs. Is that accurate?
Cheers,
Simon
JoyWriter:
My first thought was that if there is an over-incentive to use traits that overwhelmed the fictional integrity, then perhaps a dis-incentive should be added to resolve that, such as the risk of damaging a trait when applying it. But I don't like that specific form, as it might well be too high level, the opposite of what you want.
Instead, how about attacking the fight-length problem directly: if conflicts ended sooner, presumably you would never get to the dubious justifications. In that sense what is presumably needed is some kind of "knock out blow" system, to add to the aggregate system that currently exists. I'm not sure exactly what would constitute a knock out though, perhaps something relating to the core themes. My idea is that instead of being able to just wipe out an opponents traits by piling on more of your own, isn't there a way to insure that there are permanent effects from single dice, either as an unlikely "critical hit" mechanic or as a side effect of the form of action used, regardless of if you win.
Basically at the moment, the game doesn't recognise low blows or very appropriate blows, at last as far as I can see, so the blunderbuss of dice is in action. It's good that players wince when their characters are that rutheless, but I'd love to see that players skirt around an issue, in case they strengthen it, or create more repercussions that they then need to deal with. Now players can totally work this out on their own and I suppose that is part of what the game requires of them, but I'd love to see players drop out because they don't like the way something is going, or because they've boxed themselves into a corner and there are only dubious tactics left. I get the impression that particularly is what is intended, so perhaps the solution is just more ruthless veto-ing of inappropriate trait use.
Alternatively, is there a way to bring the faction into the resolution system? A whole different form of escalation can be found in bringing in other people into a conflict. Threatening to reveal people or otherwise "tell'in on you!" is a whole other edge to a conflict, and I'm not sure if it's currently represented.
Another entirely different way to solve this may be an in-built time limit; the requirement to cover things up quickly should be a pretty frequent motivation if you are part of a conspiracy. I wonder if scenes could be built with a time window before you have to conceal events. Would this stop conflict going on too long? Probably. Would it also lead to less "talking things through"? I suspect so. Such a pressure would have to be restricted, as these are supposed to be members of a very good conspiracy!
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