[DFRPG] Occult Toronto
Erik Weissengruber:
Quote from: jburneko on January 27, 2011, 12:13:55 PM
My problem is that despite all the advice I find Aspects to be anemic in terms of scenario prep ...
The one Aspect in Dresden that you'd think would be the "meatiest" is the Trouble aspect. The problem with the Trouble Aspect (in addition to the general lack of concretes mentioned above) is that it isn't intended to be a right here, right now crisis point for the character. In other words, Trouble is NOT intended to be the thing "at stake" at the heart of any given scenario such that the player would basically have to re-write his Trouble from scenario-to-scenario as each one fully and completely resolve the Trouble one way or another. ...
If you're listening to AP, AP regularly this is the primary reason we play other things between Dresden scenarios. It takes me the better part of a month to let a really good scenario "brew" in my brain until I can fine tune it.
Concerning Aspects:
Aspects as such may be a little aenemic. Perhaps it is only their repeated appearance over a series of sessions which integrates them into the fiction and really ties character to world and and story? But the game does seem to depend on the quality of a setting's constituent aspects.
Concerning Trouble:
That is "good" to know. It means that I shouldn't press on Trouble as hard as I thought I could. It's bad in that if I can't press on it hard, that is a strong driver that I thought could provide immediate drama put out of commission.
Concerning AP, AP's Use of the Game:
Month between sessions? I have been thinking of how to run games where the world and the unfolding story are consistent but where the playgroup meets only intermittently. I have my open Freemarket running as a series of 1-shots, a Sorcerer One-Sheet that I HOPE to bring back to the folks who generated it, and this Dresden created for a very particular playgroup. Maybe DFRPG is the "pick-up" game I hoped to get from SoTC.
And, perhaps the Actual Play postings in this Forum could start to take into account the dynamics of different cycles of play, relative frequency and spacing between sessions of play, and other long-term dynamics of RPG games.
Ron Edwards:
Trouble appears to be synonymous with the Melodramatic Hook from Feng Shui, practically verbatim - itself a formalized version of how some groups applied Dependent Non-Player Character or other situational disadvantages in Champions.
Best, Ron
jburneko:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on January 27, 2011, 12:45:08 PM
Trouble appears to be synonymous with the Melodramatic Hook from Feng Shui, practically verbatim - itself a formalized version of how some groups applied Dependent Non-Player Character or other situational disadvantages in Champions.
Maybe. Keeping in mind that the game is rooted in episodic semi-serialized fiction I would suggest that at best Trouble is supposed to work like I imagine Issues in PtA working if you were NOT playing in an HBO or FX mode. Assuming a highly episodic, threat-of-the-week structure an Issue could be viewed as something to be positioned relative to that threat. It develops, it waxes and wanes, it experiences micro-resolutions relative to the current threat but it never, you know, RESOLVES except perhaps after many, many, many seasons. Maybe not even until the whole show's finale.
Jesse
Erik Weissengruber:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on January 27, 2011, 12:45:08 PM
Trouble appears to be synonymous with the Melodramatic Hook from Feng Shui, practically verbatim - itself a formalized version of how some groups applied Dependent Non-Player Character or other situational disadvantages in Champions.
That sound like the DNA for Trouble. The DNPCs or (I think?) Enemies appeared with different frequencies according to how big a contribution they made to the point value of the character (I had 1st ed. boxed set Champions). So there was probability X that such an such an enemy would show up at bring its point-determined powers to bear against you.
Feng Shui stripped out that statistical/strategical aspect and made that trouble/distraction a part of the fiction, in a formal way but tied to GM choice and not dice outcomes.
I was pressing on Trouble to give me drama. That just does not work. I can't do story now with compels. My players are acting out different sides of their aspects, or the contradictions between their aspects to see what happens. Characters grab guns or pilfer maps not so much to create drama but as avenues to explore. I offer them Fate Points to direct them down a decision path that will bring them complications in addition to current problems. I am getting FP buy-offs only about 15% of the time. These decisions to compel, to accept the compel, to deny the compel, all seem to revolve around the who wants to explore what when.
Erik Weissengruber:
Quote from: jburneko on January 27, 2011, 02:28:08 PM
... the game is rooted in episodic semi-serialized fiction ... at best Trouble is supposed to work like I imagine Issues in PtA working if you were NOT playing in an HBO or FX mode. Assuming a highly episodic, threat-of-the-week structure, an Issue could be viewed as something to be positioned relative to that threat. .
One of the appeals of the City Creation process is that it gives me a finite set of elements to pull from to make an episodic threat-of-the week structure but keep a sense of coherence to the fiction. My improvisations and scenario creation are constrained by the range of possible agents. It also gives me a sense of direction lacking in the exploration games I have been in, and the complete lack of which makes sandbox games unendurable for me.
When most of the threats have made an appearance, we might well be done. More of the threats will be revealed but I won't pull any jerky wild cards out. (No "The guy you thought was a White Court Vampire ---- was just pretending!" crap).
The nature of the threats will be explored.
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