[Caterpillar] A Space Game of Space Pirates in Space
Kyle Van Pelt:
Good stuff! I'll check out the play recording soon.
I'm setting up a playtest soon for this game. Are there any insights you've gained from the playtests you've run that would help?
This looks to be a fun game, and I'm excited to try it.
Josh Porter:
Awesome! Thanks for being a playtester!
My best piece of advice for running the game is this: make the pirates' die rolls consequential. If they succeed, their success becomes an important part of the fiction. If they fail, their accident becomes an important part of the fiction, and usually creates a new wrinkle. The players are assigning stakes to things by deciding to roll. Without a roll there is never anything at stake. If you make all rolls consequential, it drives play to really fun places.
Oh, and here are the slightly revised versions of the rules and character sheets, and the skull box sheet for good measure.
Thanks, Kyle! I am super excited for you to test this.
Josh Porter:
This is a different question than the one in the opening post, but this is the concept that I have been obsessing over for the last few days: consequence. I feel that every time dice are rolled, the resultant action should have consequence, be it positive or negative. I know this is not a new concept by any means, but it has been popping out at me in other games that don't specifically employ it.
For instance, I am currently in a DFRPG (Dresden Files) game, and one of the players decided to roll resources to fill up his truck with gas. This seems like an obvious "Say yes or roll the dice" scenario, but it got me thinking. While I love DFRPG and FATE in general, you can roll the dice and have it mean virtually nothing. Yes, your truck is full of gas. And yes, you can pay for it. But that does nothing to drive the fiction forward. (It might in a zombie survival game, I guess.)
Or, take this example: my character, a sasquatch, decides to punch a ghost in the face, and I roll terribly. All that happens is that I don't punch a ghost in the face. My roll has the same effect as if I had stood still doing nothing. Upon failure, my roll had no consequence.
All of this led me to write the following little chunk for the RA (GM, if you prefer) section of Caterpillar. It's not yet in the linked version.
Quote
Die Rolls and Consequence
Players roll dice not only to bring a random element to the game, but also to show what is important. If a player says, “My guy goes and eats some fish and chips,” he probably doesn't roll any dice. Why would he? He's just having his lunch. But what if the pirate's player says, “I'm going to roll Eatery to eat some fish and chips”? Do you say no? Of course not.
You see, the pirate's player has just communicated to you that eating fish and chips is somehow important. He is spending a resource to accomplish a goal, even if it seems like a silly one. If he rolls too high and has an accident, eating fish and chips will have made life harder for him. If it is unimportant, how could it have any negative effect on him whatsoever? The pirate has made his fish-eating consequential. By rolling dice to do it, he has decided that whether he succeeds or fails, there will be consequences.
So what if he succeeds? We know he'll have an accident if he fails, but how can fish and chips matter in the slightest? It is up to you, the RA, to make it important. This is your greatest responsibility: making the pirates' action consequential. Maybe, by eating exceptionally well, the pirate impresses a new NPC, who (while offering congratulations) lets slip news of a fabulous space treasure. It's your call. But always make die rolls matter. When a die is rolled, the player is giving his action consequence, and if he succeeds it is your job to make that a reality.
So here's my question: what are some other games that take a similar approach to die rolls and consequence, both on positive and negative outcomes? I would love to look at some other material and get an idea of how to tighten this idea up and pass it along as clearly as possible. It's a philosophy I had in mind during the entire writing process of the game, and I want it to be specifically mentioned, as it drives the game's fiction. Anyone have any helpful advice?
Ron Edwards:
Hi Josh,
I think I can help with that question. In the final analysis, "consequence" is a humanocentric issue, I mean, as long as we're talking about stories. Something is consequential if it matters, changes things, for someone. (OK, it could be an alien, an animal, a cartoon anthropomorph; I'm using "human" here in terms of audience identification).
Even if the immediate visual concern is, "Oh no, does the mainmast snap!" (or mizzen or whatever it's called), the genuine concern is what that means to the character's safety and ability to proceed toward some end. It's not about the mainmast.
Therefore, let's focus on what is happening prior to the roll, not merely its consequences. This is what I'm always blathering about concerning conflict of interest. What is happening as established so far, often inadvertently or unexpectedly, which puts one or more character's existing interests in jeopardy?
For example, the rule in Sorcerer (a bit tacit, but there) is, when there's such a conflict, always roll. When there's not, never roll. The difficulty, or capability, or any other aspect of the immediate situation is absolutely irrelevant. If a character decides to bake a cake or build a fence in the middle of play, and no imaginable conflict of interest is involved, then go by the character's descriptors and say "Yes" or "No" to establish whether it happens. But if there's a conflict of interest involved, then the dice must come out.
(Sorcerer is quite harsh and straightforward in this regard, whereas all of Vincent's game designs fiddle with this idea, teasing out new ways to establish such things, providing subroutines for instantly losing once in one, and other nuances.)
You were actually right onto this when you felt a little twinge, while typing, and clarified that filling one's tank with gas is a conflict if this is about getting away from zombies, but not if ... well, if not. That's exactly correct. The in-fiction fact that the physical actions are identical in each case is a distraction, and it must be abandoned. If possible, taken out back and shot.
I do not claim to be a good advisor for Poison'd, as I have not yet played it successfully, but my current thinking is that it would be a very flaccid way to play by saying, out of the blue, "Conflict! Roll! Yeah! I got it! Uhhh ... what does that mean, again?" And then to hunt around for consequences in order to make it important.
Let me know if this makes any sense to you.
Best, Ron
Josh Porter:
Thanks, Ron. After two read-throughs I think I see your point(s). Let me see if I understand what you're saying.
In order for a character's action to have consequence, the action must have some bearing on the character's interests in some way. That may be safety, life goals, or what have you. So if, perhaps, in the quoted text, the pirate eating fish and chips has an allergy to seafood and wants to prove something, that action should be consequential. If his player is merely looking for an excuse to roll dice (to try for a promotion via one more accident, or to get the dice back for the other players, maybe) then his action would not be consequential, and therefore not be deserving of a die roll. Is that pretty close?
If so, let me follow up with another question. Would this be an idea likely clarified with a task v. intent clarification in the rules? In the same example, the pirate wants to roll to eat his fish and chips, and the RA asks the player to clarify what his intent is. This would inherently answer the question of consequence, wouldn't it? If the player really wants to roll, he'll need to make eating more than just a task.
I ask because I'm looking for a happy medium through which the players get to assign consequence to their actions simply by picking up the dice. When they go to the dice, they know that this roll will matter. It's a piece of authority that is often left up to the GM (who often lets it go by unnoticed, as his plate is pretty full already), and I'd like to mechanically allow the players choose what is consequential. Is there another game out there that does this (maybe even one I've played, but missed this aspect)?
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