[Haunted] Ronnies feedback
Ron Edwards:
Clarification: my final sentence is talking about a possible revision of the Heat rules, not the way they work now.
Best, Ron
jburneko:
Ron, that all makes total sense to me. My designs usually break down right at the point where I try to wedge in some hideous hybrid of the fan-mail cycle from PtA and the formula's from My Life with Master. I'm either bad at it or grossly misunderstand what makes those things functional.
So, putting Heat aside for a second here are the two unanswered issues that arise without the mechanic at all.
1) What are the murderer/ghost fighting for in police scenes OTHER than "don't get caught."? What's the narrative consequence of Murderer/Ghost success other than block and delay?
2) How do you the various characters refresh their reserves?
These don't need to be tied together. I just did that because, hey, my answer to #1 produced a currency so you might as well use it for #2.
So, those are the two points I'm stuck on. I have ideas but I'm not happy with any of them.
Jesse
Ron Edwards:
Hiya,
For #1, I think that the big variable of interest to me is the murderer's ambition. I'm thinking about how in Doctor Chaos, I finally realized that the lesser villain should be able to rebel against Doctor Chaos no matter what else he or she is doing, with the exception of willingly obeying him. So perhaps the thing to do here is have the murderer always be able to get some traction toward his or her goals, arguing with the ghost or not, arguing with the cops or not, whatever. I'm not sure - this is purely food for thought.
For #2, I have to say, I don't have a really clear idea of how reserves get worn down, and what the consequences of them doing so is. And I'm a little confused about how the plethora of NPCs (for lack of a better word) are involved with the reserves ... it seems to me as if all their reserves are kind of one big reservoir of grief for the murderer, rather than individual scores.
One last thing - that business about one detective or two detectives. Is there merely a sop to genre, referencing the fact that single-detective and detective-duo are both observed in murder fiction?
Best, Ron
jburneko:
Hey Ron,
I was at OrcCon all weekend so haven't had a chance to reply until now. I got a chance to play Doctor Chaos so I'll write about that in the Development Forum later.
The one or two cop thing is partially a genre-nod but more importantly its to make sure that the police are Characters and not simply a Force. You know that scene at the beginning of Marv's story in Sin City where 100 cops come charging up the stairs while Goldie's dead in the bed? I absolutely DO NOT want police scenes to look like that. My games are often about psychological intimacy and this is no exception.
This is maybe an aside but in pondering your question it's what came to mind: For whatever bizarre reason my games/creative drives often have Catholic themes under them. I'm not Catholic, nor was I even raised Catholic and I keep coming back to imagery and themes you find in stories about Catholicism. So here, you have a murderer and you have the ghost which is a manifestation of the self-destructive nature of guilt. That makes the police detective(s) the priest awaiting his confession and offering penitence (i.e. going to prison).
Along these lines I realized two things. The first thing is that if this were a True Jeepform then the whole game would probably be just those three characters. The Murderer, The Ghost and The Cop sitting in an interrogation room somewhere. This not being a True Jeepform I much prefer the notion that we see a lot more of the murderer's personal goals weighed against the Ghost and the Cop.
The second thing is that I'm not sure Heat as I originally formulated supports what I wanted out of the Police Scenes to begin with anyway. The more I thought about it the more I realized that I think I want the Police to be pretty sure from the get go that the murderer is guilty they just can't prove it. Each time he/they come by is another attempt to trip the murderer up enough to justify an arrest. They only go away because they realize they don't have enough leverage... yet.
So, I'm thinking about maybe just dropping Heat all together. That drops the chance of someone being falsely arrested from the endgame but that's okay with me. It was kind of tacked on to begin with. The variables simply are crisis resolved or not, murderer goes to prison or not, ghost is banished or not.
I *think* that the "what's at stake in Police scenes" is handled okay by the fact that I said it was okay for other characters to be there. That sort of relates to your point about the murderer's ambition. If police scenes more or less work like any other scene with the exception that (a) they're on this semi-random timer and (b) if the detective wins then the murderer goes to jail; I think that may cover it.
For #2 I'm thinking of borrowing a page from Dirty Secrets. I may pull out the "Confronting The Ghost Directly" thing into its own type of scene. Or maybe leave it as an embedded action like it is now but that this detail: Win or Lose when the murderer does this EVERYONE refreshes their reserves. This would mean the murderer can't use his Reserves for confronting the Ghost.
Jesse
Ron Edwards:
That all sounds great. Write it up!
Best, Ron
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