[Ingenero] Character creation -- Its hard work.
stefoid:
Here is the canned scenario Black Sun, ready to run.
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https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B5W32IfgIIkrYmJmNjBmNjUtYTE4Ni00YzRkLTllM2MtOTk5ODY0YWE4OTNh&hl=en_US
Ive also added it to the website downloads section (see my sig)
stefoid:
From Cedrics own game thread:
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Ingenero:
I read Ingenero, great piece of work and lots of good ideas in there. Where I shall write my feeling on the proper thread, a few words pertaining to what I'd like to achieve with Föld.
- I love the Body and Soul stats, also because one shall distribute a fixed amount of points between the two.
- The Plays and Signature Plays look really nice, I also liked the idea to attach Plays to McGuffins. There might be some space for reuse and for making shallow characters a bit more special (well not too much :p)
- I don't buy the whole concept of letting the PC making suggestions to the GM (e.g. 'the treasure was a hostage and not gold') namely because non-creative PC will be lost.
- I like the split between Story and Challenge phase, but would do it differently. In my system so far, 'challenge' starts as soon as anyone rolls a die. The guy also gains initiative. Suffice to have the GM playing with a die when the story gets hot for putting the PCs on nerve and maybe trigger a conflict in a preventive way...
What I don't like in Ingenero is that dice are rolled when a Goal is near - and when that's a great mechanism for distributing rewards, it forces the GM to deal with 4 to 6 goals for each PC at any time (that's what I understood, I should read again this part probably)
- The Story Seeds table is a Must Have (too bad I don't understand some of them - "Waiting for the other shoe to drop"? - but that's off-topic)
The easy answer - "waiting for the other shoe to drop" simply means waiting for the second event that usually follows the first, like if the person in the flat above you is loudly removing their shoes - you hear one and you are expecting the other to follow before you can regain peace.
Story and challenge phases. Not suggesting you adopt this, just to explain it. When you say "'challenge' starts as soon as anyone rolls a die", the question is, how do you know when to pick up a die? The structure of Ingenero is designed to answer this question. Its about pacing and focus. Be definition, characters care about their goals. So when they are advancing closely on them, thats when Ingenero switches gears and focuses -- thats when you pick up dice. Between those decisive moments, the focus is on characters decisions and the consequences and complciations that relate to them.
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"it forces the GM to deal with 4 to 6 goals for each PC at any time"
Yes it does and thats by design and a thing I was looking to achieve. I mean, not all the time with 4-6 wildly different goals firing constantly, but its quite reasonable for different characters to have individual goals as well as shared ones, and for those individual goals to be acted on occasionally. A good GM tries to 'share the spotlight' so that no players feel left out or superflouous - tries to make sure the game dwells on what is important to all characters. So again, its about focus. By declaring a goal, a player is waving a red flag at the GM and other players saying "my character cares about this", and when that character advances closely on the goal, everyone knows its time for that character to recieve some dramatic spotlight to see if they can achieve it.
Remember that decalring a goal doesnt do anything by itself. For the spotlight to focus on, a character or characters have to be advancing closely on the goal. Until then, they are in Story phase, which allows the pace to move realtively quickly because conflict resolution rules arent formally invoked.
Cedric:
Hi Stefoid,
First of all: the comments I made were in the context of my game, so when I wrote 'I don't like that' it means that I don't like that for the given context and not as a general statement ;)
Again, Ingenero is really interesting and catched my interest.
So, some questions / remarks as a reply to your last post on this thread:
- I'm bogged by the need for the GM to remember at any point in time 5 goals per player. On average I play with 4 people, that's 20 goals to remember all the time. Since this is a critical step (and a design goal of Ingenero), do you have experience feedback on this point? Was the GM feeling comfortable with all these things to keep in mind all the time? Studies shows that in average a person can remember lists which do not exceed 7 items; myself I have difficulties with lists which go above 5 items. Do you intend to solve that?
Two (possibly complementary) options would be: 1- shift the burden on the player's shoulders: they have to tell when they think they are moving closer to one of their goals. 2- come-up with 'game helpers' (not sure about the exact term - 'aides de jeu' in french - basically things for helping smoothing-up the game) such as categories or one-word summary for the goals, so that the GM can quickly review them without asking the player: 'what were your goals again? Let me check your character sheet...'.
Or having a priority list, such as: shared goals are assessed first, and each player gets at least the spotlight once per session?
- About your question on 'when do you know when to pick up a die?': just to clarify, here I am not talking about a challenge phase linked to character goals, just about a mechanism for balancing story and action. Warning, this is heavily biased. As a GM, I tend to favour story over action (e.g. dice rolling). Yet I know that the players like to use their skills once in a while. Also, please note that Föld (my game) is really dangerous and that lots of things can easily backfire - another big difference with Ingenero, which is oriented as a system for action movies where the main characters are the heroes. In Föld the player characters are nobodies and will likely be killed for becoming too dangerous. So, my view is to play everything in Story mode. Until a player rolls a die, that is. They can do it anytime they want to do it, but they will pay the consequences. As a rule of thumb, when some action happens, if no die is rolled, then the GM does go on and decides on the outcome. When a die is rolled, the player who rolled it can either use the roll result for countering what the GM just said, or for taking initiative in a starting conflict. Second case, a conflict is about to start, there is tension in the air. Then, the GM picks-up a die but does not necessarily roll it. If the player roll before the GM does, they get initiative - but might have acted too soon...
Two examples:
1- a character is being chased by gangers. He reaches a dead-end where crates are stored. The player decides to climb the crates. The GM tells that he climbs but that the gangers are catching-up. The player rolls a die: he forces the outcome of the climbing action. Either he succeeds the roll, then the climbing does easier and the gangers do not catch-up, or he fails, being now at the mercy of the bad guys...
2- the characters are in a wood, where they hear noises. They suddenly realize that a wolf is in the vicinity. The GM grabs a die. Three possible outcomes:
- one player rolls a die, starting a fight. His character gets initiative against the wolf.
- the GM rolls the die first: the PC were too slow, the wolf noticed them and attacks
- noone throw a die. The wolf fails to notice the PC and slowly goes away
My idea is to keep, as the GM, each outcome as random as possible, in order to fuel the players with paranoia. 'Shall we roll the die? If we don't, maybe the danger will quietly go away, but maybe also they will get the initiative?' or 'the GM rates my characters' success as medium. Shall I force a re-roll? Maybe I'm better off not, but I'm not sure this will end well...'
That's what I wanted to clarify. Again, I don't dismiss the Challenge phase to be triggered by Goals - that's a pretty cool thing - but I'm afraid this gets complex for the GM (who might forget about a player). As for my die rolling mechanism, I won't claim it's working - this is an idea-in-progress which deserves testing. Still I understand that this is a different approach than the one Ingenero is going after.
My two cents,
Cédric
stefoid:
Hi!
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I'm bogged by the need for the GM to remember at any point in time 5 goals per player. On average I play with 4 people, that's 20 goals to remember all the time
Oh I see what you mean...5 goals per player. I thought you meant 1 goal each from 5 players. Well, its true that there is a limit of 4 active goals per player, made up of whatever split they would like between long term and short term goals. In practice, characters might have one or two short term goals active at any given time, and might be close to advancing on one of them, so it doesnt work out that the GM is juggling 20 things in his head. More like one short term goal from each player, of which there is usually a lot of overlap, with most parties of characters cooperating on some level or another, and thus sharing some goals.
Short answer is I havent found it to be a problem, and nothing that a piece of paper and a pencil in front of the GM couldnt fix.
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- About your question on 'when do you know when to pick up a die?': just to clarify, here I am not talking about a challenge phase linked to character goals, just about a mechanism for balancing story and action. Warning, this is heavily biased. As a GM, I tend to favour story over action (e.g. dice rolling). Yet I know that the players like to use their skills once in a while. Also, please note that Föld (my game) is really dangerous and that lots of things can easily backfire - another big difference with Ingenero, which is oriented as a system for action movies where the main characters are the heroes. In Föld the player characters are nobodies and will likely be killed for becoming too dangerous. So, my view is to play everything in Story mode. Until a player rolls a die, that is. They can do it anytime they want to do it, but they will pay the consequences. As a rule of thumb, when some action happens, if no die is rolled, then the GM does go on and decides on the outcome. When a die is rolled, the player who rolled it can either use the roll result for countering what the GM just said, or for taking initiative in a starting conflict. Second case, a conflict is about to start, there is tension in the air. Then, the GM picks-up a die but does not necessarily roll it. If the player roll before the GM does, they get initiative - but might have acted too soon...
That certainly sounds like an interseting way to do things. A lot rides on the GM decision of what is going to happen. How does he decide?
Thriff:
Hey Stefoid,
I agree that session design should focus on NPCs over settings/environments.
I like the style of "node-base design" as advocated here: http://thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/node-design/node-design.html.
Perhaps that link might help alleviate the "barrier of entry" by providing an easier way to promote session design.
hope this helps,
T
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