[Supers Chess] story elements in a mechaically focused game
Callan S.:
Well, I'm thinking that the girl should have been made the king, or if that's not possible, that the emotional focus of play had slipped off of whoever was the king? Kind of going counterwise to your own system?
FetusCommander:
I'm not sure i clearly communicated the rules.
The King is always representative of the PC super when its in play. Every player gets a King (it's effective X-way chess, where X is the number of players- in this game, there were 4 kings on the board at once).
I sort of understand what you mean though; in this example, my character's king wasn't really the focus of "what was at stake", as the players weren't targeting it. I never really saw that as a problem though.
What i see as a problem is how disjointed the roleplay feels. Individual board actions are fun, but i'd like to see them tied more into "something bigger"- like some bigger overall goal the characters have, or a bigger storyline narrative that sucks everyone in. Like technically, the conflict with the girl could've spawned an entire sub-narrative by itself, but it didn't because there are no mechanics to focus the narrative that way.
Callan S.:
Quote
I sort of understand what you mean though; in this example, my character's king wasn't really the focus of "what was at stake", as the players weren't targeting it. I never really saw that as a problem though.
What i see as a problem is how disjointed the roleplay feels. Individual board actions are fun, but i'd like to see them tied more into "something bigger"- like some bigger overall goal the characters have, or a bigger storyline narrative that sucks everyone in. Like technically, the conflict with the girl could've spawned an entire sub-narrative by itself, but it didn't because there are no mechanics to focus the narrative that way.
Well, perhaps it isn't a problem that they weren't targeting your characters king. But I really think your feeling how because of that the mechanics were aimed in completely the wrong direction from the direction your play was going?
Would it be possible to change the king to be the girl? OR change the mechanic to a 'to get to her you have to go through me first!' way, so they have to attack your characters king in order to get to the girl? Does taking the king kill the character, or just defeat him and send him sprawling (and thus creating more story elements and keeping him around for further character examination)?
FetusCommander:
Sorry for the delay responding, I was thinking on what you said and pondering some changes to the system.
Checkmating someone more "defeats someone and sends them sprawling." Basically, if you checkmate a King, you can narrate some major change to that character.
But here's something else I was devising to help put in an element of "what do you care about":
Quote
Sacrifice
Whenever your King is put into checkmate, you have a choice. You can escape checkmate if you are willing to sacrifice something you care about to the party putting you in checkmate. Discuss what the sacrifice will be, whether its a compromise in your morals, temporary service to the checkmating party, or watching a loved one get hurt. Discuss how this will be played out, and either end the resolution with your King in tact, OR re-place your King somewhere else on the board and narrate some fluke (related to the sacrifice in some tangential way) that gets you out of immediate danger.
Lets say, for example, that Batman had "The Girl" as one of his things he cares about. His player chooses to sacrifice The Girl to get out of a checkmate so that he can bag the Joker. His player might say: "I narrowly escape the Joker's thugs and duck into the alley, battered and bruised," while at the same time coming to an agreement with the Joker's player that those same thugs Batman just evaded are headed towards Wayne Manor to trash it and harm The Girl.
If you choose not to sacrifice, the checkmating party has full control over what happens to you. They may narrate a permanent change to your character, but they may not involve any of the things you care about in the change; those are protected until you sacrifice them.
I think that might edge people a little more towards targeting Kings as well, since there's some tangible part of their character at stake now. Any thoughts?
FetusCommander:
As per the requirements of this forum, here's a link to the humble Super's Chess Design Document. A significant portion of it (starting with the Sacrifice mechanics and ending with the Examples) is untested in play, but it should give a general idea of rules things I'll mention in this thread.
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