[Pitfighter] SBP: is there anything better to roll for than success?
Jeremy S:
Very interesting conversation. Just registered to join in.
An idea that comes to mind regarding resolution & system structure: take advantage of the Three-Act Structure commonly used in movies, TV, etc.
Prep & Character Creation: the GM (or maybe just the "Writer") drafts out the Story Before. This includes requirements for the cast, major plot points, maybe even a prologue. Say you wanted a game like The Mummy with Brandon Frasier. The "writer" could dictate:
All the flashback stuff about Imohtep, the City of the Dead, the pharaoh and his mistress, the mummy's curseBasic plot points: the PCs will investigate the City of the Dead & awaken Imohtep; Imohtep will regenerate and appear to be unstopable; he'll carry off the female romantic lead; the other PCs will try to rescue her.Character requirements. Among the PCs, there need to be the following (pick and choose; all must be chosen, but a single character could fill more than one of these): a female romantic lead with ties to Ancient Egypt; a strong male romantic lead; someone who's been the City of the Dead; a badass; a scholar of ancient Egypt; someone who knows about Imohtep and the curse.Character options. Ideas for other things that character's could be or have. Someone devoted to protecting the world from Imohtep; another badass; a rogue/rascal; etc.
From there, you have your let folks make characters. Maybe pick some core traits, resources, maybe some keys (ala TSOY or Lady Blackbird). But I think you leave a lot of blank spaces in the characters right now.
In play, adopt a three-act structure.
The first act involves establising the characters. This would be very rules-light, I think. Director (GM in play) presents situation, and players describe how they respond to them. Ask questions like crazy to establish things. "O'Connel, you're a badass and you've been to the City of the Dead. How'd you end up there? Oh, you were in the Foreign Legion? Let's play that out." In the course of play, players say what their character does and how. No rolling, but rather establishing the character's traits. As traits are established on screen, they get written onto the character sheet as effectiveness, resources, and positioning.
The second act involves advancing the plot. The players know there are key plot points to hit, and they get rewarded for hitting them. They also get rewarded for portraying their characters (maybe with a Key system like in TSOY or Lady Blackbird). So the more gleefully they advance the story, the more resources and/or effectiveness they have going in to act 3. Actual resolution rules now come into play, making use of the effectiveness, resources, and positioning established in act 1. There can be costs and setbacks and fallout during this act, but nothing that derails the plot. In the Mummy, this would be the parts where they: get to the City of the Dead; learn about the pharaoh's bodyguards, release Imohtep; encounter Imohtep; run for their lives; learn that he's chosen Evie as his sacrifice; learn how they can stop him; flee from him and his minions; Evie gets captured and wisked away to the City of the Dead for the final ritual.
Act three then becomes an inevitable climax. For this act, the gloves are off. No scripted immunity, no plot points that must be hit. Just a final confrontation in which the PCs use the effectiveness, resources, and positioning they've gained in Acts 1 & 2 to confront the final challenge. The better they did in the initial acts, the better situated they are here. But the PCs might lose. They might win at great cost. It's this act where you learn if you've been playing a comedy, a tradgedy, or some ambiguous art piece.
Anyhow, that's an idea of how you structure things at a high level to make character action and player decisions matter. And there's all sorts of room in the middle for meaningful contribution in the establishing of the characters, how they go about hitting those plot points, how they change over the story, etc.
David Berg:
Hi Jeremy,
I like the vision you're describing. There are various parts of it I'd like to discuss later in other threads, but for now, the one key thing for me is what the resources, effectiveness, and positioning you describe are for. Are you thinking success/failure of attempted actions, or something else? Within the framework you've laid out, I could see it going that way, or not.
Ps,
-David
Jeremy S:
Hi David,
I think it would change act-by-act, and possibly player-to-player.
Say, in act 1 you start with a boatload of currency and no codified success/fail mechanics. Success/failure would be negotiated by the fiction and GM fiat. You spend your currency to get to establish new things about your character, which might result in a success/failure on screen but which is primarily establishing effectiveness & keys for later. Maybe there's rolling involved as you do this, but it wouldn't be success/fail oriented. I think it'd be more about color and control over the effectiveness traits you get to add.
In act 2, you've got some effectiveness traits established that *do* play into success/failure, but also narrative control. I think that'd be important to hit the plot points and character keys that generate more currency and effecitiveness for the climax in act 3.
In act 3, yeah, I think it's mostly about success/failure. Though players with more "supporting cast" characters (ones not directly involved in the climactic struggle) might spend their currency to add more color, twists, etc.
That's all just spitballing. My main point is that you could vary the system (including the outcomes of the resolution mechanics) based on the current act, in a way that makes player contribution meaningful yet still results in the story following the established plot.
Does that answer your question?
-Jeremy
David Berg:
"Buy character traits during play rather than before play" first struck me as kind of a separate issue... but your idea about combining that with a roll for color/control is really interesting!
So here's one thing Act 1 resolution could determine: how much of whose vision gets applied to which character. Maybe no one has "their" character* at the beginning of Act 1, and who controls who is only determined at act's end.
This is actually kind of similar to something I've done before play. It could be a fun thing to do while the fiction's rolling, but I worry that a bunch of as yet undefined characters would produce crappy fiction. For it to work, I think there might need to be some chain of fictional situation -> resolve stuff about character(s) -> new fictional situation.
Hmm. Maybe when you win authorship over a character, you resolve not only "what we learn about them now" but also "in what circumstances we'll see them next"? If the GM pre-authors these "next up" aspects, that could be kept compatible with the Story Before. As the players discover what the roles in the story will be, the GM discovers which characters will be filling those roles, and everyone discovers which of the story's issues intersect in each character.
This sounds pretty sweet if everyone present already has some sort of vision for the fiction through which to appreciate the evolving specificity. Lacking that, it might not be very punchy, satisfying curiosity and nothing more.
This kind of play reminds me strongly of the "establishing" phase of a good, long, slow burn movie. "Who's that guy? What's his role in this movie going to be?" At the same time as we're establishing characters, we're also establishing time and place and tone and proto-themes. Which the GM can probably just do, but maybe it'd be fun to throw a system wrinkle in there too.
Lemme see if I can add this to the list:
6. Resolving relationships between participants and fictional elements. Who controls which character, etc. (Heck, this could even include the recruiting of a 2nd GM, or a conspirator who knows a certain portion of the Story Before! Or a player getting to introduce a subplot! Or the GM upgrading NPCs to player-character status in the eyes of the mechanics!)
I think the rest of what this method provides is covered by the other 5 points...
Cool stuff, Jeremy! If you're seeing potentials here that I've missed, feel free to bring 'em up. Pardon my skipping the 3-act structure for now. I hope to get to issues that aren't directly about resolution in a bit.
*Or characters, plural. My high school Pitfighter game actually included 2 per player.
David Berg:
I have a thought about resolving the fiction's space of possibility.
All roleplaying inherently does this -- every time narration moves the fiction forward, some possibilities are closed and others open. However, not all roleplaying puts big possibility shifts explicitly on the table, to be anticipated, worked toward, or dreaded (in a fun way). Not all roleplaying uses these big shifts to alternate between different goals for different phases of play.
Swords Without Master, Danger Zone, and Jeremy's idea above all say, "At certain times, we want X range of fictional outcomes (etc.) on the table; at other times, we want Y range of fictional outcomes on the table." So X and Y use different rules, not just about what a roll can produce, but about who rolls, and what for (that's what the "etc." above meant).
I know that in Swords Without Master, the shift is a big deal when it happens! I anticipate the coming of a Struggle Scene, so I try to get as much out of my Questing Scene as I can while there's still time!
Within the context of SBP, where we're not playing to produce the story's destination but rather its shape and details, it strikes me that this sort of thing -- altering the fiction's space of possibility* in a way that is strongly felt going forward in play -- is particularly meaningful.
That could be a fun thing to work toward, or avoid, and to roll for!
7. Refining the possibility space for "what could happen" going forward, potentially including changes to the system for producing "what does happen". This could create new modes of play, or simply alternate between pre-designed ones.
* within the constraints of the given destination
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page