[Flawed] Can I write comprehensible rules?
Kashlaor:
Hmm, I'm not sure if the "goal" of the game is particularly clear. As I understand it, it seems to be a sort of collective storytelling competition.
Few other suggestions then, perhaps to take the Red Joker from another player you must tithe them a card from one of your Motivations? This would cut down on the more frivolous changes of narrator.
Agendas seem a bit unfair, this means that whenever I act in accordance with my agenda (which is also my highest Motivation), I have a 1 in 4 chance of adding a +5 and an entire other card?
Josh Porter:
Actually, your Agenda is tied to your lowest Motivation for that exact reason. It is to encourage you to play in a way that will most likely fail, but has a small chance of great success.
Apparently, a lot of my descriptions come off backwards. I should look through my writing a bit more to catch these things.
Kashlaor:
It may be just my reading of it too, can't say I sat down with my favorite beverage and read every word, but I suppose most players might skim as well. I really like the idea though, I might try running a game of it for my group when I get back to college. Any suggestions for what a game should be about? (Could have a chart for that as well)
Another random thought to make the game more grim (grimdark) or tragic. Have another card (apart from the Red Joker, maybe a special Black Joker or somesuch) who is allowed to introduce some sort of tragic twist to the scenario which the narrator has to incorporate. This person then passes the Black Joker to whoever will be receiving the penalty for that encounter (minor, perhaps a -2)
For example say I have the Red Joker, and am playing with a few friends, one of whom has the Black Joker. I begin to narrate the scene
"You make it to the top of the hill on the blazing summer day, exhausted from your long hike to find an ancient log cabin waiting beneath the shade of a massive birch"
At which point the player with the Black Joker buts in "Isn't this the very same cabin where Joseph [pointing at another player] lived when his wife died but never told anyone? That must bring back memories." Joseph receives some sort of penalty for this, but he gets the Black Joker to use next scene (perhaps a -2 to all cards, or maybe a specific suit named by the user of the Black Joker, maybe hearts in this case).
The Red Joker narrator then has to incorporate elements of this into his story, and Joseph would have to roleplay this as well.
Josh Porter:
What I've discovered doing playtesting so far, is that during character creation the about of the game becomes clear. An example, perhaps?
The last playtest, before the most recent rules update, had an instant hook: religious upheaval. I was playing a king, my friend Morgan was the pope of my realm, my friend Will was the secret leader of the religious assassins, and my friend Nik was a druid starting a heretical religion. All of this came from the characters we created. Nik was my friend, and I had and Agenda to never let him down, so the game started with a conflict between the two of us, ending in me going back to Morgan and calling off the persecution of heretics. He in turn tasked Will to kidnap my son and pretended to know nothing about it himself. I tried to undermine the church's authority and got beat to shit by the templars, led by Will. Then Nik staged a religious uprising and used my name to rally the people to rebel against the church.
All of the backstory came from character creation. By creating characters and relationships semi-randomly, there is a lot of world-building that naturally takes place. The whole religion thing came from the idea that Morgan was a religious leader beholden to a curse: he personally carried all the sin of his followers. It turned out that Will was a pious assassin, and he and Morgan shared the same master: their god. Then Nik was beholden to the land itself, and was seeking rebellion. The obvious choice was a religious war with the king caught in the middle. It was pretty awesome until the older, unbalanced system caused the game to go on way too long. (Death was almost impossible with the old rules.)
So I guess my point is: the game tells you what it is going to be about when you build your characters. SInce it's a one-shot, it gives the characters leave to act boldly straight out of the gate. They make big choices and mix it up quickly. Now that the consequence system has been refined, characters have eight conflicts at most before they die. Unless they win off a first-round concession every single time, they always take a consequence. The consequence time clock (hypothetically) pushes the pace and the stakes of the game hard and fast, leading to many a character's downfall. So the characters go for what they want (their Agenda) and that tells the players what the game is about.
As far as the "black joker as a negative modifier" thing goes, I have to say that I've thought about it and decided it doesn't fit. The conflict system isn't about making tasks more difficult. It's about seeing things slip through your grasp even when you succeed. This is a game of tragedy. The biggest influences on it are In a Wicked Age and Fiasco, both of which allow characters to only get weaker and more vulnerable the longer they play. The game itself drives this, even in success, and that, I think, is exactly what I'm looking for. I'm sure I will find more flaws in the system as it gets more playtesting, and I'll try to move those mechanics toward this end as well.
Again, thanks for reading this, dude. I really appreciate your feedback and I'll try to get a revised copy up soon featuring (hopefully) some more clear rules and some strong examples.
Kashlaor:
Where does the 8 conflict limit come from?
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