[InSpectres] Pacing and Stress
Ron Edwards:
Hi,
I don't like Weird Agents much either, for exactly the same reason as you, and having played one and finding that the weird took over everything. My suggestion was based merely on the player getting to play someone who can have a big wild impact. It seems like a poor fit for him and everyone, though.
I love your account of play. That's exactly how I like running and playing in InSpectres. Best Stress roll ever.
So how to preserve that fun without having at least one player find the Stress/failure rules aggravating? It's a matter of making sure that their contributions to the failures on 3's and 2's count just as much, and as significantly, as your contributions to their successes on 4's and 5's. (I hope I'm remembering the numbers right; if not, adjust as needed - when they fail but still get to narrate stuff). If you could turn an "erase the pentagram" into "... and your shirt catches on fire," then they can certainly turn "you miss the demon" into "but I spray Mr. McGillicuddy with the anti-demon foam instead, immunizing him," or whatever they want.
Regarding the janitor having his say, I refer only to beginning a scene in which the characters get a chance to talk to one another. If you have any NPCs about, perhaps one of them could say "Hell, that wasn't so bad," and clearly expect agreement from the janitor. Or be up-front and say, "Hey everyone, let's do a scene where we debrief about the last mission."
If I were a little bit frustrated with how things had gone for my character, I'd be happy to role-play the character telling the others what he thinks about the experience. It might well be sufficient for me to get rid of the frustration because it'd be fun to go off on them (I find myself imagining a ranting John Cleese monologue ...). If this doesn't apply to this player, then the suggestion won't be useful.
Best, Ron
Noclue:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on June 19, 2009, 12:47:42 AM
Hi James,
You have a point there, stated a little unsympathetically.
Sorry for that. I wasn't going for unsympathetic. I was shooting for glib, maybe a touch bemused.
My question at the end was serious though. In the games we've played, failure was wholeheartedly embraced and stressing out was just part of the fun. But from the OP it sounds like the player feels deprotagonized by the stress dice, which shouldn't be happening. So, I am actually having a little bit of cognitive dissonance.
One little thing I see in the response, I think the player should be free to color their character how they see fit regardless of cool dice. If he wants to play the unphaseable office drone, that should color his narrative when he reacts to failure and when he freaks out. Maxwell Smart comes to mind as an example (TV show, not the film). He's funny because he's constantly failing, rarely in control of anything, and constantly maintains his unflappable superspy facade. I might have read too much into the statement about needing cool dice to complete his character concept. But clearly, if his character concept does not work in times of stress, it's a bit out of sync with what the game delivers.
Elkin:
We had another session of InSpectres, in which we received a new player, and had a short but sweet 10-dice mission, which involved pink, furry and robotic weather-altering critters wrecking havoc inside air conditioning systems. I relayed to the players most of the insight I learned from this thread, to what I think were pretty good results.
Regarding the two problems I had: I found myself with fewer opportunities to call for stress rolls. I did, however, manage to reduce the CEO to zero skill dice, and his player still felt empowered enough to keep on charging at the Pink Menace with nothing but his talent to provide him with a die. The confessional problem also seemed to subside: people gave out some downright nasty, clever and hilarious confessionals.
The one complaint I did receive was about pacing. This mission and the previous 6-dice mission took us the same time to complete (a little over an hour). We had another hour left, but didn't know if we could finish another mission within that time limit, and the prospect of "failing" a mission just because one of us had to catch the bus seemed unappealing. It would be helpful if we could have a rough estimate of the relation between number of mission dice to actual play length.
Ron Edwards:
Hello,
Cool! It seems to me that the group is simply absorbing and utilizing InSpectres stuff at its own pace, which is understandable. I'm glad that the thread seemed to help too.
Regarding pacing, it may be that it's more of the same: next time it won't be an issue. It's possible, now that you all know the game works and can be relied upon to facilitate fun stories, that everyone can ease up and enjoy more Color during and in between events of play.
Best, Ron
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