[Anathema] Blood on our hands
Devon Oratz:
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For instance, would you take some prep time as GM to make a time-line, location-map, and possibly more back-story about the characters' lives? And again, how would you handle the "what do you do" statements and necessary scene-framing?
First question: This is all probably stuff that I would handle as ad-lib as much as was possible. I'm not saying that's the "only" or the "right" way to do it, however.
Second question: I don't...hmm. I don't have a formula or advice for this. This kind of structural...moving the plot forward stuff...is something I just do instinctively with my own GMing. For me it's pure instinct, I've never thought about it as a formula or even as best practices. For that matter, I've always thought about it as something that was more a function of a GM than a game, if that makes sense.
Devon Oratz:
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Having this game as my first Indie RPG night at the Dojo spoiled me a bit. If there's a chance of further playtesting I would be very much interested.
Me too! I'm glad you enjoyed the game. : )
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What if characters had either a per-encounter or a per-day limit of how much Anathema they could gain? This might give the GM a natural way to "close" an encounter, and lead PCs into an investigation-based phase of the game once they were full up on Anathema points. Play would then develop a rhythm of "kill some people, go investigate stuff." In addition, it would force players to be a little bit more selective about whom and how they killed. Every round of play, we started going for maximum body count as soon as we realized that while Vindication is nice, the amount of power to be gained by racking up huge death tolls made it seem silly to focus on accomplishing a single death with style.
Basically, in the rules as written right now, it tells the GM to eyeball this and set limits as to when the players are cut off. The reason that hard guidelines aren't in-built to the rules themselves is so the GM can move the sliders to keep the action dramatically appropriate. (Remember for that the kindly, wracking up huge death tolls or allowing that to happen may result in Will loss, and eventually Will death.)
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In discussion after play I know we mentioned the balance of the powers--some almost too good, some a little weak. It's an easy fix for the designer but I wanted to bring it up here at the outset. James used Misfortune to excellent effect; my memory is fuzzy but I believe he caused an accident to happen to a soldier sitting in the turret of a tank, or holding an RPG launcher, which resulted in many subsidiary deaths. On the flip side, none of us used Atrophy at all. The infliction of instant death was very easy, so it seemed a waste of time and points to cause unnaturrally fast aging. Nor did anyone use Pestilence, for a similar reason. Though I liked the way Ron handled the use of Famine. Near the end of the session I had my character obliterate all visible food and water in the refugee camp; he ruled that "over the course of the next few weeks" a certain amount of people would perish as a result, and rolled a pool of dice to determine the exact number. This method would work well for the Pestilence power as well, I think.
I don't disagree that you have a point about Atrophy. However, Pestilence and Famine are supposed to kill alot of people over time, and in that way are (I think) pretty balanced. IIRC, there are rules in the game for Pestilence spreading as well.
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However, it was pretty easy, even in the "let's kill everyone" part of the game, for the PCs to avoid each other almost completely. Thus if there's not some sort of bond between them there's basically no reason for them to interact at all while they are investigating. The only options I can think of from a design standpoint are either a) there is some pre-existing relationship between the PCs from their lives as humans, or b) the Balance imposes a relationship on the Shrouds when they are resurrected.
Personally, I prefer B. If A is true, then it should be something the PCs discover through prolonged investigation.
@PhilK:
Honestly, the quick fix I'm considering right now is to make it so that "zero memories" is simply not possible. That seems like the most effective away to address the issue.
David Berg:
Devon, I really dig this game concept. Once I had a better idea and more support for "how to GM it", I'd be down to give it a shot.
Ron Edwards:
Hi Devon,
My apologies for the late reply.
Your comments about letting go your designs and seeing what they do in others' hands looks to me like a great topic for Paul's Ronnies participants, I'm curious thread.
That said, however, I want to stress that you don't have to let go too much! The game is in a very early state of development, and one thing I've learned from all these years of playtesting and publishing is that the author should be quite judgmental concerning which playtester comments matter and which do not. There's no reason to let the actual design of the game proceed out there among the playtesters, not in any authoritative sense.
Something else I've learned about writing RPGs is that the one thing the author is best at, in play, is the last thing he or she explains, with "last" meaning "not at all." Looking at your second post, above, what I think I'm seeing is that you do in fact have a set of best GM practices in your personal toolkit which you'd bring to bear upon playing Anathema. I suggest that it might be worth writing them out in the form of instructions. This is hard - a bit like explaining how to make a PBJ when it seems to you like any idiot knows how to do it, or should, or that anyone "good" already knows, but then consider that people who have never made their own sandwich, of any kind, may be reading and following your text. And they may want to play your game but simply not know how to do that particular set of techniques in that way.
I think this point particularly applies to Anathema because it so honestly and intensely captures the spooky, Goth, outlaw vibe which is promised but not especially well delivered by Vampire and other games. Imagine someone who is genuinely impressed by these features of Anathema ... but whose training as a player and a GM are solidly grounded in the recommended, and I go so far as to say indoctrinated practices of the White Wolf games. They need that text, explaining your best practices.
And let's say for sake of argument that I, personally, could successfully bring any number of practices from my own toolkit to bear on playing Anathema, and in that sense, may not need such instructions. That still doesn't mean I wouldn't benefit from seeing them laid out formally. I suggest that it might help me enjoy the game more than I might if I relied more on habit and practices familiar to me.
Best, Ron
P.S. Right - Anathema is a score value, the characters are Shrouds. My fingers and brain were mixed up for a moment.
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