[Mars 2100] Character generation session
btrc:
My normal playtest group in Blacksburg is mostly board game players, but I got eight of them to indulge me on 1/22 in doing self-assessments to see how well the system created plausible characters. In this case, plausible would be a self-assessment that generated a character that everyone agreed was similar to the person doing it. To add a little suspense I had the players do the ten questions in the rules for themselves to generate Aspects, and then everyone passed characters to the left and that person figured out the Traits and Beliefs.
The most accurate characters were ones with strong, tiered Aspects, like a 4, 3 and 2. These generated Traits and Beliefs that were generally agreed by the player to be representative. Only a few were dead on, but a number of them were still on target. The strict Roman Catholic player did not have a high "religious" score, but they did end up as "militant" and “traditionalist”. The self-described Libertarian did not have a high "libertarian” score, but did turn out as a "center-right capitalist”. So, I was pretty happy with that.
On the other hand, we had some characters who had a number of similar Aspects, including someone who had four Aspects at +1 and one at +2. Since the player choose the order of ties when doing Traits, and Beliefs are based on the number of check marks from Aspects, the results were all over the place, with only a random correspondence to the actual personality and belief of the player.
On the whole, I'd say it was a success, but I need to adjust the character generation in two ways: First, set it up so that the highest three Aspect ratings are unique, like a 4,3,2. This will require some tweaks to the basic and advanced generation rules. Second, as part of this, I need to add a "how important is this to you?" qualifier on the advanced questions. Some people said that some questions they had strong opinions on, but that they did not feel the subject of the question itself made much difference in how they thought and acted. That is, it was in the "I believe in X, but it wouldn't change the candidate I voted for" sort of importance.
So, adding an “importance" factor should help differentiate the personality results.
After the character generation, I went into the concept of the game and while we did not run a crisis, I presented one and we had a bull session on it, which involved the personalities of the players. Seeing the players go back and forth and adding in secondary complications based on their conversations was interesting, and it almost went into the negotiation-based mid-game for crisis resolution.
There were also a few mechanical issues about clarity on the character sheet and table layouts not being as clear as they could be, but those are minor issues. Making sure that characters have a few uniquely strong Aspects is going to generate some new quirks in the rules, I think, but I also think it is necessary to make sure that characters are believable. So, back to editing and I'll do a followup here once I have a revised set of rules.
Greg
AK_Aramis:
Just sharing some feedback (which I've already substantially emailed to Greg) in a rephrase.
Tried it as a "Before the regular game game".
The current advanced aspect generation questionnaire gave us good, but not congruent with self-description, ratings; ratings which we all felt were only slightly surprising, and far more extreme than our expectation (Risk 4 for me? Wow... I figured risk 1, maybe 2!)
The checks/belief system is effective, but cumbersome. Automating it really helps; without automation, it's too slow for use, and needs dedicated CG worksheets.
The basics of the task system work well for group tasks. No one was upset about it.
The traits table works well if one gets the lookups in the right order. My wife, we didn't first try, and it resulted in very wrong traits; swapping the equally numerically rated 1st and 2nd traits, and it hit dead on. Similar for me.
Of the listed beliefs, when I ran the checks system, one's I'd accept were the 3rd and 4th highest, rather than the two highest, but I might be a statistical anomaly.
Love the concept and the setting, the execution is (by what I've come to expect of Greg's initial playtest releases) a bit on the rough side.
Character sheet is gorgeous, but worthless off a B&W printer.
Looking forward to next draft.
Ron Edwards:
Hi Greg,
I think you're running into a few conceptual limitations.
1. I don't know why any attention is going toward the notion that a person will come full circle through this analysis and see his own preferred label looking at him. If that were the case, it'd be a useless exercise.
2. Regarding the game, and building the fictional organizations, I think that it's inaccurate to think that one's chosen group to work with is a mirror of one's most heartfelt convictions, or else one is a hypocrite.
Now, that's not a criticism of using the personality devices to make up fictional groups; that's wholesale fun. My concern is that there's some language in the rules about hypocrisy which, as I see it, doesn't need to be there.
3. My next point is a little tricky and subject to a lot of debate. In the real world (geez, only here would we have to specify that), I think our political discourse runs into speedbumps concerning "freedom/rights" as a rhetorical tool. It's especially hard in discussions among somewhat-radical right libertarians and somewhat-radical leftist reformers. Both are, effectively, civil liberties advocates who tend to agree on many details, and yet each side will clutch its favorite source text (Atlas Shrugged and The Monkey Wrench Gang, respectively) as the sine qua non of the respective position, perceiving the others are obviously deluded, if not outright monsters.
I'm seeing those speedbumps in your methodology. At the moment, it seems as though scoring high on certain radical-liberties metrics moves one toward the libertarian labels, whereas one is moved toward the socialist and evironmentalist labels mainly via group-oriented, help-others-oriented metrics.
I'm going out on a limb and providing the full breakdown of doing all this for (on?) myself.
Aspects: Solo +2, Intellectual + 4, Chaos +1, Empathy + 4, Risk +2 (incidentally, I didn't realize what a pain in the ass I'd be making for myself with all the ties, but at least it shows I wasn't peeking ahead at the system when I chose the values)
Intellectual & Risk: inventive; then Risk & Chaos: informal
Fear: betrayal
Motivation: justice
Beliefs: Family, Beliefs, Self, Friends, Humanity, Nation, Race
Cultist 0
Religious 4
Spiritual 4 + 1 = 5
Agnostic 3 + 4 = 7
Atheist 3 + 2 + 3 = 8
Reactionary 0
Conservative 1
Center-Right 1
Libertarian 5 + 2 + 3 = 10
Centrist 3 + 4 + 3 = 10
Center-Left 4 + 1 = 5
Progressive 1
Liberal 4 + 1 = 5
Socialist 5 + 1 = 6
Communist 0
Anarchist 2 + 1 = 3
Green 5 + 4 + 1 = 10
Rational 5 + 2 = 7
Cynical 2 + 3 = 5
Capitalist 2 + 3 = 5
Reformist 5 + 4 + 1 = 10
Traditionalist 1
Conformist 5
Evangelical 1
Insular 5
Militant 2 + 1 = 3
Pacifist 5
(Note: I seem to have garnered rather higher values than others are reporting. I'm doing this right, right?)
OK, all this turns out to be consistent with no less than FIVE pairs: Libertarian Green, Libertarian Reformist, Centrist Green, Centrist Reformist, Green Reformist.
Now, when I did this, I was thinking of a fictional character, so I chose Green Reformist due to the "inventive and informal" tag for what seemed to me to be the most fun to play.
But let's look at it in the way I was suggesting we not do and see whether it "circled back" on me and my preferred personal labeling, which sadly, is not especially intense. I see the "reformist" tag - I'm a pretty intense activist on a few fronts - but that's about it in terms of simple labels. I can see a couple of things that seem like they might fit, such as the fact that I have some righty-friends that I respect more than some of the people involved in causes I support.
It makes a lot more sense when I draw the distinction group vs. person, and find that I think these exact things are in disjunct between group ideal vs. genuine activity. Hence I don't participate in libertarian politics because I think the groups involved, and all but a few individuals, are bigoted closet-conservatives; and I don't participate in much green activism because I think most groups involved, and all but a few individuals, are empty-headed science-phobes; and I don't participate in socialist activism (at least not the chapter-and-verse form) because with very few exceptions the groups involved, and all but a few individuals, are self-centered, bourgeois fuckazoids.
And on a related note that I forgot to mention, I don't think any of that makes me a centrist. I hate centrism like poison but I've been bumped there in this analysis via the methodology.
OK, going on with the process. Group size = -4, about 6%. University professor 2, Fighting 1, Game design 1.
1. How likely is your character to start a conversation with someone outside your immediate circle?
very likely: -2
2. How likely is your character to make sure others are comfortable and happy?
somewhere in between: +0
3. How likely is your character to use specialized jargon or esoteric words in conversation?
very likely: -2
4. How likely is your character to prepare things in advance?
somewhere in between: +0
5. How likely is your character to feel blue or depressed?
somewhat unlikely: +1
6. How likely is your character to plan social or other events?
somewhere in between: +0
7. How likely is your character to say things about people that they would consider insults?
somewhat likely: +1
8. How likely is your character to think about philosophical questions or social issues?
very likely: -2
9. How likely is your character to let things get into a mess or disorderly state?
somewhat likely: +1
10. How likely is your character to feel stressed or worried?
somewhere in between: +0
Solo 2, Intellectual 1, Apathy 1, Risk 4
Traits: Unexcitable, Unemotional, or Versatile for #1; Seclusive, Sedate, or Independent for #2
Again, if we're talking merely about making up a character, then any of the three for #1 and any of the three for #2 - probably not Unemotional and Sedate together because that's kind of a boring character, but otherwise, any combination would probably be fun.
But in terms of personal profiling, I don't know if this batch of three-and-three is particularly strong. If the idea is that one term out of the three (each) is all that matters, then versatile and independent might do. I'm a bit more sedate than I used to be, sure. Otherwise, the traits are pretty far off. Again, though, since the purpose here is to make a character and not to see yourself, or even worse, your self-image looking back at you, I'm not criticizing this as game design.
I am, however, suggesting that the whole "and does it look like me" at the end, which is understandly irresistible, doesn't have to be a design consideration.
Best, Ron
AK_Aramis:
I think the issue is one of the data collection method being flawed
People are, generally, lousy self evaluators.
Greg's data collection (referenced in Crowdsourced RPG research) relied upon people simply asserting which elements were strongest associated with the labels, in an ordered list.
In looking at the result, I think it would be more accurate to have people take the inventory (possibly using a poll on a website), and correlate those various labels to how they rated from the tool, rather than by self evaluated.
My players decided not to play themselves, tho. And it's just fine in that mode. (aside from desperately needing automation of the checks system.
btrc:
The point of the self-evaluation sessions was not to generate people playing themselves, but to see if the generation process could or would generate PC's that felt "real" in terms of the personality and beliefs and motivations. Getting a group to self-generate gave me a good sample for both whether the PC represented the character from the player's point of view, and also from the external point of view of the other players. It also gave me a bunch of new data points to add to my table for seeing what Aspects correlate best with what beliefs.
From a mechanical standpoint it was good testing of how the mechanical aspects of character generation worked. That brought up things like the muddy character sheet background, confusing tables, etc., but also the very excellent point on the questionnaire that it is not just about how you answer the question, it is also how important that question is to you. We had a number of people whose Traits were off when using the 1 and 2, then 2 and 3 Aspects, but which were dead on with say 1 and 3, then 3 and 2. Assigning priorities to the question responses and making sure that is done in a way with no ties to muddy the issue should improve the versimilitude and the speed of making a character.
By the time I get the next iteration done, it should all be automated. Get the Aspects or answer the questions and the rest can get calculated in an eyeblink, letting you get straight into the game.
There's always going to be error, I have to accept that. The real-world correlations are merely statistically significant rather than reliable predictors. That something this coarse works at all I consider to be a minor miracle. I suspect that getting it close about half the time is as much as I will ever be able to hope for. But as long as it makes believable characters who are interesting to play, interact and deal with the foibles of, then it is all good.
Ron, as far as your comments on the Beliefs, I see where you're coming from, but I'm trying to make the Beliefs a core of who and what your character is, to the extent of where that Belief fits into your Loyalties. If your Belief is X, but you have four other Loyalties that would take precedence when push comes to shove, then you're not going to be as much of a "true believer" as someone who has Belief as their #1 loyalty. It's the different between someone who buys "green" paper towels and someone who chains themselves to a bulldozer at a logging camp.
Do you think I should push the Loyalties more in terms of how and what motivates you to do something?
As an aside, how badly off was your self analysis on terms of friendly and unfriendly beliefs? You already said you don't like centrists, but your check marks generally show:
Friendly (two of which are probably you):
Libertarian
Centrist
Atheist
Green
Reformist
Unfriendly:
Cultist
Reactionary
Communist
Out of those eight, how many hits do we have? Again, this is a good part of the design process. Having a system that gives plausible results for who you dislike is as important as figuring our who you do like.
And for self-confessions, I came out as an unambiguous Atheist Anarchist with libertarian and rational sympathies. Go figure.
Greg
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