[3:16] These players are crazy
Marshall Burns:
Oh, hang on, Callan, I didn't mean to imply that the rules don't make you do anything in different ways. They do, in certain, specific areas; just not all areas. In fact, it's only a few areas, but it makes a difference.
I'm gathering that you don't own a copy of 3:16, yes? I'd like to explain what the special thing about it is, what it's own particular brand of monkeywrench is, but it's a bit difficult. The game is far more intricate than it looks at first blush.
The big thing about it, for my money, is the relationship between the damage track, advancement mechanics, Flashbacks, and promotion mechanics. These do all do a dance together that's really really fucking neat, generating increasingly impressive results the longer you go on. They are most definitely a monkeywrench. Just about everything else is kinda squishy, but it all hangs on that synergy between those mechanics. It Will Make Things Happen.
Callan S.:
To me it's a question of what hangs on what. At 800 kills it sounds like it's the other way around and it's actually those mechanics that hang on the synergy of that squishy made up stuff, not the other way around. Which is traditionally lauded as good gaming in most gamer culture as it 'doesn't let mechanics get in the way of the story'/fiction comes first and mechanics come in, if at all, where fiction sees it as suitable to do so. Mechanics hang on squishy stuff, traditionally. Rather than squishy stuff hanging on mechanics (where designers can actually influence squishy stuff with mechanical design)
From what I understand kills are mechanically significant in 3:16? They're not ephemeral, like whether your characters mohawk is green or orange?
Marshall Burns:
Kills have only one mechanical significance: the guy who gets the most automatically "levels up" at the end of the mission. Other than that, kills are just cosmetic.
That makes it sound like kills are a priority, but they're really not. The whole levelling up thing is just fuel into the fire that's created by the level up/promotion/damage track/Flashback thing.
It's hard to explain, but resolution in this game is not important, compared to that other stuff. It's okay for it to be squishy, because it doesn't need to be anything else. (And, for my money, that's a great innovation of 3:16. While all these other indie games are making hawt resolution mechanics to make special things happen, 3:16 has this other thing going on, a thing that's sort of a Situation and Conflict engine, while resolution can be all but handwaved. It's very clever.)
Jaakko Koivula:
Sorry to barge in in the middle, but Im having rather hard time following this discussion in general.
From what I gather, Callan is worried that Marshall has been bending the rules and thus taking the game towards the traditional fiat-driving-GM -direction?
Callan's main argument is, that the squishy story-stuff shouldn't affect the hard mechanics. Because that would be GM using Force that he really shouldn't be using.
Marshall argues that the things that happened in the AP weren't an example of this. Kills outside mission are actually just squishy story-stuff, and some resolution thingies are not important compared to something in 3:16 anyways, or something.
I completely agree on the general idea about not bending rules in these kind of games. It's pretty much an instant way to smuggle back the auteur-GM where he isn't wanted. But Im just having trouble understanding the arguments, as they are so brief. It's an interesting discussion and I have some questions of my own on it, so I'd like to be able to participate better. Maybe more examples would help me?
But one of my own questions is this:
How should GM handle narrating things into 3:16 via fluff? Im suddenly feeling very paranoid about what I could throw at players. Ghost planet with precursor technology caches, for example. Can the GM cook up an ancient martian gun, that does XX kills at far range, even if it's better than the ones in the book and you could use it without being a colonel (for example)?
On one hand, it would sound somehow dubious. If GM gives someone a huge gun and they get 2000 kills a mission and get all the promotions, it would seem arbitrary and maybe de-protagonizing for the other players.
On the other hand, it would seem just blatantly absurd if the GM couldn't do that. No narrating in super-weapons in a space marine -game, because then the players might get to use them, what? And it would be even worse narrating in super-weapons and then having to drive your fiat over everyone repeatedly to get them into hands of the NPCs.
And if anything, 3:16 doesn't seem like a type of game where everything should be fair for the characters. "Did Sgt. Masculin get more kills again than you, Trooper Sniwel? Well BOOHOO, now here's a dress you can wear around the barracks! Don't you come CRYING to me, you sad waste of recycled air! You should have had the balls to test the alien-doohicky yourself if you like super-weapons so much, eh!" etc.
Ok, I've might've answered that question for myself a bit, but what do you think about this? Is this as non-issue as I made it look, or is there something more into it?
Also, did I interpret correctly what was happening here in general?
Marshall Burns:
Rules clarification: having the most kills causes you to level up, not get promoted. Getting promoted requires using a Strength Flashback in the mission, surviving it, and then succeeding an NFA check -- assuming that you don't use that NFA check to requisition gear instead. (Or, you can get field-promoted; if you're a corporal, and the sergeant just beefed it, you're sergeant now.)
Of course, levelling up is necessary for the second and further promotions, because you have to level up to unlock Strengths.
Regarding GM Fiat:
GM Fiat is not automatically evil. It becomes a problem in Narrativist play (which is what 3:16 supports) when it crosses the line into GM Force. Force being taking away the player's ability to make his character's significant decisions. None of any of 3:16's squishiness does that, and it never happened in the game.
Furthermore, the squishiness goes both ways. Once it's established that, f'rinstance, a character has positioned himself on the high ground, his player can quite easily say, "Hey, I've got the high ground here, which ought to be an advantage in this situation," and the GM ought to apply a bonus for that. Sure, he could refuse, but, seriously, it?s common sense, and we?ve established that the guy has the high ground.
That is Positioning exchanged for Effectiveness, via a fiat Technique. Which is okay. It?s the same thing as bonus dice in Sorcerer. And the applications go far beyond ?the high ground? ? Positioning is the character?s relationship to other characters and elements of the Situation, and if it makes sense that an element of Positioning would provide advantage at a given moment, and the rules say to award Effectiveness when that happens (like Sorcerer, or the Rustbelt, or 3:16 do), then do it.
I?m not saying that every game should be played that way. I?m saying that certain games are designed to be played that way and benefit from it.
Quote
How should GM handle narrating things into 3:16 via fluff? Im suddenly feeling very paranoid about what I could throw at players. Ghost planet with precursor technology caches, for example. Can the GM cook up an ancient martian gun, that does XX kills at far range, even if it's better than the ones in the book and you could use it without being a colonel (for example)?
I don?t sweat it, really. But for improvising weapons, I just pick one out of the book and re-skin it. It?s also worth noting that, every time I?ve done this, it?s been a one-time weapon kind of thing. Hell, they even had to roll NFA to sneak that nuke into the barracks.
But, really, fucking with the kill economy doesn?t hurt anything. It doesn?t matter when people level up, get promoted, get demoted, only that it happens. The when and why become fodder for the playgroup, as they turn it into bonafide elements of Situation (and especially Conflict), which they can and will do, all by themselves.
It?s worth noting here that, as PCs get promoted, they receive new standing orders that put them at odds, eventually even diametrically. See, to start out with, you?ve got troopers, a corporal, and a sergeant; their responsibilities are to kill as many aliens as possible (trooper), maximize trooper kill efficiency (corporal), and protect the squad and make sure no aliens survive an encounter (sergeant). But when that sergeant gets promoted to lieutenant, suddenly he?s responsible for enforcing discipline on the lower ranks.
That?s just a small example of the stuff. I don?t want to give it all away, because this is probably the most important thing in the book. You can always buy it. But, my point is, THIS is where the game happens, the way that PCs are promoted, the circumstances of it, how they discharge their duties (or fail to do so), and what impact all of that has on the other characters. It?s really really fucking cool.
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