[Keen Edge of History] First Time Play
Cliff H:
Quote from: Troy_Costisick on January 05, 2011, 07:20:48 AM
I'm not sure I would be too quick to change this feature of your game. It seems to be reinforcing the very kinds of storytelling techniques the players initially wanted to employ. And sometimes, that's what a system does- it helps to consistenly enforce the vision of play even when the players find the system inconvenient or simply forget that it was there.
Interesting way of looking at it. I've been hit with "the system should never get in the way" so much that I never gave any thought to the possibility that enforcing existing tone, character, etc., isn't getting in the way at all. At the very least, the feature could use more testing before it gets hacked at all.
In reflection though, one thing I am pretty decided on changing is the way editorial control is awarded to players. Instead of a single roll resulting in a hierarchy down which the pen passes in order, I think rolling at the beginning of each arc would work better, with a cumulative penalty applied to each player who has already won control of an arc, probably -2 per arc won.
The goal is to increase the competitive feel of this aspect of the game, and to increase the stakes of saga declaration. If there are only x number of arcs you can assign to sagas and there will always be more players than available saga arcs, there's incentive to declare for yourself. But if you do, you're going to have a harder time winning control at the same time. Rolling multiple times serves to bring that tension back at the head of each arc, instead experiencing it once and riding the same results for the rest of the game. That's the theory anyway.
Cliff H:
Ron, thank you very much for the analysis of my work. As requested, I'm responding to issues you bring up that are related to the playtest in some way in this thread. As you surmised, much of what you noted was in fact an issue in our trial run.
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What I’m saying is that since text does state that the whole range is available, the game process desperately needs a “talk it over” step and maybe even a procedure which gets everyone into the same zone. And again, it’s not just about the swords but about the whole culture in question, unless you want a crazy mash-up of whatever ethnic groups, sword designs, technologies, and magical whatnots.
I'm sure it's not going to blow your mind to hear that in decades of gaming, the only time I've ever had a group with a solid creative agenda was when we wound up agreeing to the same one independently. It's simply not something that ever occurred to me to specifically delineate, ergo the absence of anything like that here. Seems like a small bit of text would be all that's needed to put that right though.
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If you want this game to be only about the legends of swords accumulating due to their Awsumm Powerz, then I think you’re losing a lot of potential for a way to play the game which could be attractive, and which could easily be achieved simply by highlighting a step during preparation. “This was the age when the Welsh resistance flared up most, before it was overwhelmed.”
And on a less important point but relevant for present purposes, this element must be at least available for the use of the term “old” to be meaningful, which is a Ronnies criterion.
When I first started jotting down ideas for this game, all swords were dynastic, and much of the advancement was through shaping the family to which you were attached. I had ideas of all sorts of bells and whistles eventually available that would represent cultural details that you as the sword caused to happen through your influence on the line down through the ages. Then I realized that I only had 24 hours to get this done, and that there were strong legendary references to swords not tied to specific family lines that someone would want to use as inspiration eventually. Which is where you get the Method of Passing instead. The attributes associated with them are an attempt to show the blades have some impact on the world, but I'll admit, it's a tenuous link at best.
Sagas and the fact that hands change every quest were attempts to get that age and passage of time idea across. Playtesting showed that this isn't particularly compelling your first time out, but it did suggest (only suggest) that it might demonstrate that span of time once you engage in multiple sessions. Only further, repeated play with the same characters as well as players will tell for sure.
But to the idea you express above, are you saying that establishing an overarching theme of the age in which the current quest takes place would be an effective method of establishing this cultural influence, perhaps modified at the beginning of each new quest? Or am I totally misunderstanding that?
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All of the above also ties into my confusion about the role of multiple player-characters in this game. I see a big distinction between (i) adding to and elaborating upon a single sword’s history and (ii)documenting clashes and/or alliances between two or more super-swords.
The idea was very much the latter, with a heavy emphasis on alliances, though not entirely easy ones. The thought I had in mind was something akin to an all star team, or maybe even a group of guys who are all lead singers in their own band that come together. There's a pressing external need that must be addressed (the ultimate goal of the quest), but there's also the grab for the glory and historical record that cannot be shared. So they work together to do what must be done, but still compete among each other (through the use of the Bard score) to ensure theirs is the name written next to that event.
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The text’s examples show both. In one, two swords are pitted against one another concerning the crown, and in the other, the same two swords act as allies in destroying the necromancers.
I apologize. I swear I used different names in those two examples. The crown competition was to be between Above and Hunger, while the necromantic example should have included Above and Soulsear. And really, I always envisioned Hunger as something of an NPC blade, though that's never stated, which of course contributes to the conclusion.
The point is that the game is supposed to have an element of competition to it, but only in the details. In the big picture, these swords routinely come together for a common goal.
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I wouldn’t necessarily be too concerned about this issue except that it ties directly into the bigger question of what the GM actually does. As written, that role is mentioned only in terms of setting Threat ratings, i.e., already buried deep in the middle of the action.
This was something that I discovered in the playtest. With player-generated storylines and the dice giving out authorial authority, there really doesn't seem to be much for the GM to do. However, it doesn't run well without a GM figure at the helm. It's theoretically possible to run with everyone in the role of player if everyone's also willing to take some share of the GM duty too, but that's a big stretch.
What the playtest established in terms of the GM's duty is this: provide all the details that the players do not have the narration points to dictate. Thus the GM has unlimited numbers of narration points (except in opposed rolls, in which case the dice tell you how many details you can specify), and fills in whatever information is necessary to facilitate continued gameplay. This also necessitated tightening and clarifying the rules as to what narration points can do, which you also pointed out was lacking.
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But I am really hitting a wall in understanding what narration points can do, in terms of Color vs. Consequence. Going by the examples, a lot of the points are used for minor ongoing details like “But he’s knocked down,” “But I get up,” and yet they also get used for conflict-resolving clinchers like “I grab the crown.”
Perhaps I can illustrate what I mean by saying that, as I understand the rules, if you narrate that I’m knocked down, then I can counter-narrate that I get back up, but if you narrate that you grab the crown, I cannot narrate that I grab it back. How do we know which is which? How much messing with you grabbing the crown am I allowed to do?
Where I was when writing this and where I was at the end of the first playtest changed. There was a lot of confusion as to how much a narration point could do in the players' hands, and for obvious reasons we needed to work that out fast. What we ultimately settled on, and what seemed to work well, was that a narration point could describe one action and one detail. More specifically, that narration point could describe one detail that was a consequence of your own action.
People were fine declaring actions with their narration points. That part's just like making a declaration in most RPGs. "I attack him." Roll dice to see if you hit. What we wound up doing was saying a narration point was good for describing your action ("I attack him") and a resulting reaction to that ("He takes the blade through the heart and dies").
In fact one of the players latched onto this early and made great use of it. He had infiltrated a guard house and got attacked. He used a defensive narration point to dodge the blow, and then since it was his turn, used an attack narration point to declare the thrust instead took out a guard standing behind him.
In your example, "I grab the crown" would be the action. If you don't feel like attributing some kind of consequence to it, you don't have to. We found that sometimes the players were fine just accomplishing their one action, no flare needed. I didn't make the extra mandatory, but it was available if people wanted it. The next person could say they take it from you, if they're in a position to do so, i.e. you're within reach. If you're across the room, they'd need to spend a narration point describing how they close the distance, or bring you to them, or something similar. And yes, the text was woefully unclear about that. This was something only playtesting revealed. I'm sure it could use further revision, but getting the rules clear to that point at least allowed us to play the game without having to make a judgement call outside of the rules for every single declaration.
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For a mild example, let’s say the conflict is about who gets the crown, and you narrate that you grab it, but I narrate that that isn’t the real crown but a clever fake. Was that the kind of narration you want to see in play?
This was mostly resolved when we decided that your narration point only bought you rights to author consequences of actions you took. Now, there were a few times when my players added details to a scene that I didn't put there, but we've always played that way for no other reason than we prefer it. So they did do this, but it wasn't implicit in the rules so much as the tenor of every game we play. In general, that kind of power isn't what I intended to give away with this mechanic.
I hope this didn't come off sounding like I already had an answer to all your criticisms, as that was certainly not the intent. It does seem you and I both noticed many of the same deficiencies of design, and I happened to luck into an opportunity to give the game a dry run recently that accentuated those problems, and forced at least a jury-rig solution to many of them, ergo the number of my answers. I am, however, most interested in hearing your thoughts further, and I thank you again for taking the time to share them. What you've already shared has been tremendously valuable.
Cliff H:
I've been giving the idea that the blades need to be culturally significant in order for the game to be something more than an accumulation of powers, no matter how dressed up that concept may be, and what I keep leaning toward is a way to spend rewards on shaping the next era. Right now, players compete to grab pieces of the emerging stories to claim as part of their own growing sagas, and it is through their sagas that their power increases. The alternative I'm considering is putting those advances toward altering the game setting, with the state of the setting somehow converging with the swords' abilities. Thus sword A gets a bonus if the setting is in X shape.
It's all very nebulous, and I'm not sure if this is something that would be in addition to building your sword's saga, or a complete replacement of those rules. It does make the actions of the swords more important to the world beyond their scabbards, though it seems a detail that could be easily ignored by groups (perhaps that modularity is a good thing though).
This is nothing more than an idea right now. Does anyone out there know of games that do something similar, i.e. give the players direct mechanical tools that give them editorial authority over the setting? I'm curious to see some of the different ways this has been addressed.
Ron Edwards:
Hi Cliff,
You wrote,
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The thought I had in mind was something akin to an all star team, or maybe even a group of guys who are all lead singers in their own band that come together. There's a pressing external need that must be addressed (the ultimate goal of the quest), but there's also the grab for the glory and historical record that cannot be shared. So they work together to do what must be done, but still compete among each other (through the use of the Bard score) to ensure theirs is the name written next to that event.
That is a valuable, clarifying comment - raw CA! - and should be one of the first things in your game text when you get to the point of writing it as instructions and inspiration.
Given that statement, from a design perspective, I think your next thing to consider is difficulty. For what you describe to be fun, the chance of failure, perhaps up to and including the destruction of a sword, should be real. I'm saying that the need to struggle vs. the common adversity should be a powerful feature, enough to put some edge into the competition. Sort of the same as some pro basketball, where player-vs.-player competition for most points per player (on the same team for purposes of my point) is sometimes at odds with defeating the other team.
I don't want to distract your own process and priorities with my gabble about history and changing the setting, or establishing a setting that's changing. Those comments were made before your clarifying statement I quoted above. In that context, I suggest that this issue is minor - a fun option, rather than a crucial framework.
The game to check out regarding changing the setting through heroic, even mythic action, is HeroQuest. It's pretty heavy mystical stuff, though. As a less intense or central issue, I suggest that in your game, perhaps narration points might be spent at a high exchange rate to bring about setting-level changes. Maybe like 5 narration points to destroy the circle of necromancers for good, over and above simply killing the current members; or to explode the Ebon Citadel; or to establish a new religion or dynasty, whatever, that sort of thing. I don't know if it makes sense to be able to do that stuff right out of the blue, or whether normal narration points have to be spent "in that direction" first; also perhaps this is something you can do toward the end of a scenario but not right from the beginning.
Best, Ron
Cliff H:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on January 17, 2011, 06:58:38 PM
Given that statement, from a design perspective, I think your next thing to consider is difficulty. For what you describe to be fun, the chance of failure, perhaps up to and including the destruction of a sword, should be real. I'm saying that the need to struggle vs. the common adversity should be a powerful feature, enough to put some edge into the competition. Sort of the same as some pro basketball, where player-vs.-player competition for most points per player (on the same team for purposes of my point) is sometimes at odds with defeating the other team.
I don't want to distract your own process and priorities with my gabble about history and changing the setting, or establishing a setting that's changing. Those comments were made before your clarifying statement I quoted above. In that context, I suggest that this issue is minor - a fun option, rather than a crucial framework.
Actually, what I've been working on addresses both. It's still very rough and not at all playable, but I'm hoping to hammer it into shape soon. I added some text about establishing setting and boundaries so that people all make thematically appropriate characters, but wound up making that into a mechanical exercise as well. Once you work out the necessary details free form, you assign metics to the world in a fashion vaguely similar to what Mayfair's Underground did. Except in this case the players themselves create the category of metric based on the world they created. So, for example, if they created a religion as a cultural force in the world, they'd also assign it a rating to establish the bredth of its influence. The same goes for kingdoms and cultures.
Where this intersects with the swords is that as part of character creation, you define the cultural conditions under which the sword thrives, assigning it some categories and ratings. These ratings do not have to match the campaign's, and probably shouldn't. Nor do you need to account for all the atings of the campaign. Your sword, for example, may not have any concern about which religion dominates the world as long as a paricular nation is dominant.
These ratings can be high or low, defining what the sword's both for and against. So a sword that ranks a particular religion at 0 is dedicated to the eradication of that faith, for example.
For every campaign rating that matches a sword's personal rating, increase the score of each of the sword's powers by 1. However, the sum differnce between the sword's cultural ratings and the campain's ratings becomes the sword's Obscurity score. If that score climbs too high (I'm thinking above 10 right now, but I need to firm everything up before knowing what a workable number range is), the sword falls from the annals of history and is forgotten, effectively dyng.
Swords can expend their sagas, which is their pimary source of personal power, in order to influence the campaign's scores, but the blade that completes the ultimate goal of a generational quest gets 1 point with which it can change the campaign settings without any personal cost. It's something of a narration point usable only in the postlude. This is to create that struggle between players to be the one who gets the final action/blow/whatever in and create that sense of unhealthy competition at the end. I only put it in at the end, as opposed to each quest arc, so that the entire game isn't dominated by scheming and fighting (I had a few too many ugly Vampire games in college that went that way).
I'll create a living document and post a link to it soon, but I want to buff up the new content so that it's more than just a word sketch before doing so. Still, I mention it here now because it sounds like amethod of dealing with both the issues you raised and thus relefvent to the discussion.
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The game to check out regarding changing the setting through heroic, even mythic action, is HeroQuest. It's pretty heavy mystical stuff, though.
Thanks for the recommendation. It does sound a little higher-end than what I've currently got in mind, but interesting nonethelss. Certainly worth a read at some point.
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