Society: The Advising
B4GD:
Quote from: David Berg on September 15, 2010, 08:06:10 PM
I love the concept here. However, I'm fuzzy on what player skills are rewarded, and what role the mechanics play. My first thought is:
a) the better the players are at convincingly presenting their proposals, the better odds of success the group will reward them upon passge (which happens 11 of 12 times, right?). The d100 die roll then randomly resolves those odds into an actuality.
b) the better the players are at simply presenting their proposals, the better odds of success the group will reward them of "being understood by the farmboy". The d20 roll then randomly resolves those odds into an actuality.
If the farmboy does not understand something, then I guess there's a small chance he'll want to use his one veto on it. But if he doesn't veto, then his understanding is irrelevant.
Or is thee some rule for how many points each issue adds to the tenet, deriving from those 1-100 and 1-20 ratings? I didn't find that in the text.
Hi thanks!
I should note that the basis for this game is straight exposition given a subject (Adventures of Baron Munchausen is the most direct influence) I tried to base this game on the structure of an intro to sociology course. Because of that, there are several things I wanted to illustrate.
I had initially started with a d100 roll but felt that it made it too easy for chance to be negated or absorbed. Smaller numbers would allow for modular groups: larger groups to play as 5 cabinets rather than 5 people. If I went with d100 instead of 5d20 averaged, I also felt like I was missing out on a point to make: understanding is based on those around us, not so much 1v1 when there are more than 2 people involved in a conversation. It was a pedagogical choice that guided that shift.
So, I wanted the physical range of statistical probability to be far smaller than normal yet beefy enough to seem believable. I felt that this reflected the shakiness of public favor by combining public reaction, public ideological shifts, and religious fervor in a demonstrative way. I needed something to mirror this in a way that was unpredictable but easily understood for beginners in-game. I also wanted to make sure to somehow make this competitive enough that people will try harder than they would during the normal exposition in a game and to reward points in class.
I need to work tonight on making it more easily understood. I am still throwing ideas down on paper and the language is that of my head, not for folks to easily read!
David Berg:
Quote from: B4GD on September 16, 2010, 09:36:20 AM
the shakiness of public favor by combining public reaction, public ideological shifts, and religious fervor in a demonstrative way. I needed something to mirror this in a way that was unpredictable but easily understood
This sounds like a very cool goal to me.
One idea:
Narrate through the tenets influencing each other as per your table. Don't just say, "Okay, Govt's under 15, Econ and Edu lose 2 points. Next month, next proposal." Instead, one or all players should talk a lot about how the weak government allows a boom of unregulated economic growth followed by a sudden bust as trust systems follow apart and debts/credits/currency are devalued. Then talk about how lack of funding leaves the public schools with such a bad rap that everyone who can afford to sends their kids to private schools, thus creating a downward spiral in the public schools. Or, y'know, whatever interpretation makes sense to the narrators -- perhaps you could have some guidelines for this, laying out some basic historical trends connecting each tenet to each other tenet.
B4GD:
I definitely agree with this. I just hadn't done it yet. My endgoal for this game is 1 page of rules, 3 pages of reference materials on fine points in games and about how things work together. It's so easy to take this overboard and get past incoming freshmen level. I will work on this tonight!
B4GD:
Started throwing it together into a larger document. It can be found:
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0ByPlLBKu6Jp8ZDQ2NWU0MjMtNzQwYi00YmYxLTgzOTAtYTMxNDRmZjE4Nzk4&hl=en
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