[eXpendables] Ronnies Entry Examination

[greyorm]

I've been looking over my submission and am having some second thoughts about a number of system features, plus finding all sorts of misteaakes. The most glaring one to me is the "1 in 10 do not survive their time"...oops, reverse that, "1 in 10 survive their time".

This is mainly a stream-of-consciousness post, with a bit of editing afterthought, so forgive its jagged, leaping-about-from-idea-to-idea nature.

Obviously, I didn't have any time to playtest it, so I have some worries about the damage system, and a couple bits of it look broken. My main worry is character survivability...I know, odd given that the name of the game is, well, being expendable. I do want a high character turn-over rate. On the other hand, I don't want it to be TOO high.

Things I need to add: notes on taking injuries to Stats, and what it means to be injured. I'm conflicted between using Stats to measure injuries, and having some kind of Wound & Injury system tied to Stamina.

Also, Increasing the Stakes...and Injuries...what happens to Injuries? Only the final Injuries count? What about Guilt already providing this? Need a new benefit for Guilt?

Since I have this, should I remove the bit about Skills soaking injuries? Or, hrm, perhaps limiting Increasing the Stakes to the number of dice of the skill in question...

Equipment soaking damage, too...I keep thinking "I should take that right out" especially given the other soaks available. But then I think, "No, it's great! It's in keeping with the find & discard weapons, and 'down to brass tacks against the bad guys' staples of the genre!" and that I can much more easily ditch one of the other soaks.

I also obviously need to increase the equipment list and get some good descriptions of high-tech marine gear in there. Anyone have good suggestions of games that have such items I could review and incorporate (because, frankly, I know squat about military hardware)?

I'm also thinking of possibly having a Tech Limit (or something) per character, that defines how much equipment they start with/can pull out of their ass. I'll have to think more on how I would implement this idea, however. Hrm...what if I made the Tech Limit equal to one of the character's scores? You roll it to get new equipment and such, it takes damage when you fail, etc.

I really need to solidify the Guilt/Innocence/Repentant mechanics and interactions, benefits and problems.

Also, I forgot to include one important rule: the rule of non-action. If someone isn't going to get hurt or nothing is going to explode, then no rolls are made. Just compare the character's scores against a target number. If it's higher, the individual can do it and play moves on in that direction. If not, they can't, and they have to find a different direction. (This is for things like "We're on the planet, everything's quiet. The electronic door into the compound is locked...can Vax open it with his Tech skill?")

I'm wavering on its inclusion, however. It seems to take away from the main rule of the game: when things happen, the reason to play things out, is because bad stuff is happening and someone (or something) is going to get hurt. On the other hand, I can see situations arising that include non-bad stuff happening and needing to know if it is possible or not, and having a rule to determine that for purposes of game direction.

Fallout is good. I'm thinking, however, that Fallout should be able to be mitigated by the person it (ahem) falls upon. A roll to reduce the damage, or even nullify it? (Though I'm more leery of that than reduction.)

I need to introduce some rules regarding how being Guilty puts you at the head of the group for violent conflicts. That is, being Guilty has some great benefits in regards to rolling dice, taking damage, etc. but the trade-off is supposed to be that you're the conflict magnet. When shit happens, it happens to you.

Given that: do I need to find something for players taken out of the game to do? What could they do? I have some nascent ideas concerning that, but nothing concrete enough to talk about yet.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

This one almost got a low Ronny!! And this is now the official feedback thread. No, I'm not waiting for people to post before I jump in, but real life is seriously hampering my ability to get my Ronnies notes on-line. So if you start a thread about a Ronnies game, it helps me too.

So, eXpendables. My notes say, this is really interesting, great thematic stuff, well-articulated and integrated into the system, which you should know by now is my stilted way of saying "Wooot!"

Raven, is there really the announcement/consequences/judgment feedback that I think is there? If so, excellent.

Announcement - damn, man, that's cold

Action - who gets reamed? The guy who said he'd do the cold-ass thing, or the guy he targeted, or the poor bastards nearby?

Judgment - consequences later in play

Why d12s? It minimizes ties, is the only thing I can think of.

I don't really like the attribute/skill construction. I think you'd be better off with a list of Pool or Zero or Heroquest-like abilities on your sheet - if one or more happens to look like "an attribute" in the RPG sense, and one or more happens to look like "a skill," then so what, no big deal.

When you say "Guilt can used to make Fallout happen," what does that mean? Do you spend (decrease) Guilt? Which makes sense as a resource, but not as an SIS element. How do you get Repentance? When I realized I couldn't answer these questions, I realized I couldn't play the game, and said "Damn."

As I'm sure you know, it severely needs more on actual play-prep, scene-making, everyone's role in contributing to "what's happening," and similar. This is not scenario prep, which I think is easy and intuitive, but play-prep. But hey, it provides just as much as the early version of The Pool, with near-equivalent payback/potential, which is saying something. Inspectres meets Sorcerer meets The Pool, in fact.

Best,
Ron

[greyorm]

Raven, is there really the announcement/consequences/judgment feedback that I think is there? If so, excellent.

Yep, you got it. Should be exactly like that, but I admit this is probably the weakest part of the game (mechanically) right now. I want to ramp up this aspect of play to 10 -- particularly Announcement and Judgement, because I think Action is pretty solid right now.

Fallout is a good example of Action at work. Fallout asks the question: ok, who suffers or dies so you survive? It isn't (necessarily) the character making this choice, the player makes that choice. Fallout is "I don't want to take the damage. He/they take it instead."

BTW, something not in the current document: no dropping Fallout on the opponent you are rolling against. It just doesn't work that way. Fallout is also a one-time thing per conflict (not per roll). It's like a bonus Increasing the Stakes attempt, without the die-penalty of the ItS.

And if you can't use Fallout -- if you're Innocent or Repentent -- the typical resolution flow determines where damage falls: which is you or the other guy. Also, GM nasties don't get Fallout, it's solely a player thing.

Hrm...or maybe I could combine the idea of Increasing the Stakes and Fallout. That is, when you Increase the Stakes and "dodge the bullet" the damage has to go somewhere: your buddies, bystanders, your equipment, the environment (which would result in more conflicts: for example, a fight in an airlock with environment Fallout would result in damage to the airlock, depressurization and that nasty sort of thing). That would actually solve a lot of problems with the idea of equipment (etc.) taking damage.

Of course, the Guilty have to have a bonus that helps them survive, so I would still allow the one freebie Fallout per conflict, or something similar to that. Hrm.

I'm also thinking of adding the following: the ability to combine dice pools between characters to meet threats and then divying up the damage equally between participants (or according to some method). A Guilty character in that situation can call for Fallout and say "Screw it, I'm not taking my share. YOU take it instead (in addtion to your own)."

Why d12s? It minimizes ties, is the only thing I can think of.

Yes, that (mainly). I considered for a while exactly how many ties and successes I would want in play, and having once played Sorcerer with d6's and having found that ties were common and the number of successes was always very low even with large piles of dice, I knew I wanted to avoid the same situation so I needed to use larger-sided dice.

Plus I was being all cute: Cosmos: zodiac: 12. I'm just so clever.

Honestly, you could play it with any die size, really, though the choice of die is going to seriously affect survivability, typical amounts of injury (both taken and given), etc.

I don't really like the attribute/skill construction. I think you'd be better off with a list of Pool or Zero or Heroquest-like abilities on your sheet - if one or more happens to look like "an attribute" in the RPG sense, and one or more happens to look like "a skill," then so what, no big deal.

Hrm. Yeah, I've been going back and forth on that.

I really want the Skills. I want them to be more than what they are right now, though. More like markers for the story: roles, if you will. So, certain tasks in the scenario might require someone with a certain skill in order to succeed. If that guy is dead, you are quite probably in big trouble. A "Charlie is the only one who can reprogram the remote pickup computer and get us the hell out of here!" sort of thing.

When you say "Guilt can used to make Fallout happen," what does that mean? Do you spend (decrease) Guilt? Which makes sense as a resource, but not as an SIS element. How do you get Repentance? When I realized I couldn't answer these questions, I realized I couldn't play the game, and said "Damn."

And that's right where "Oh, it's so obvious I don't need to say it" turns around and bites me in the ass. When I wrote about those subjects I wondered whether I would need to clarify those things more explicitly.

While I was writing the game originally, I considered having a numbered Guilt score, and that shows up in the text. However, I later changed my mind and decided that Guilt should be a binary trait: either on or off (which I do mention when I say "You don't earn points of Guilt"). Repentance, however, is supposed to be numbered because it is supposed to do something {mumble}...

What I'm looking at is that the GM picks the Guilty character as the focus of the next conflict: that is, when shit is flying in an area, it is flying around him. If there is no Guilty character, the character with the lowest Repentence score is the main focus.

The things -- the triggers -- that earn you Repentance or reset you to one of the Guilty are decided before play by consensus of the group. That is, everyone gets together and says, "This is something horrible, and this is something nice. Doing this means you need to see a priest, but doing this means you are basically a decent human being."

As for how you earn Repentance: that is in the text, though it may be too obscure. The text states that performing an act of Innocence earns you a point of Repentance, right after the list of sample/standard acts of Guilt and Innocence.

I also want to make the point that "Innocent" does not mean "Self-sacrificing" or "Good". It just means you haven't done anything particularly horrible or immoral (yet), but it doesn't mean you ARE moral or self-sacrificing. So you have bad guys, and not-bad people who are not necessarily GOOD guys. It is completely possible to be Innocent and not Good. The turning point there is when you make a decision with consequences to others. Of course, not taking a stance can quickly become taking a stance by not acting and thus becoming one of the Guilty.

As I'm sure you know, it severely needs more on actual play-prep, scene-making, everyone's role in contributing to "what's happening," and similar. This is not scenario prep, which I think is easy and intuitive, but play-prep.

Yep. I think what I need to do next is sit down and write out a session of how I envision actual play going, likely without mechanical references, or nothing more than --people roll dice here-- notations to help solidify everything else.

So, eXpendables. My notes say, this is really interesting, great thematic stuff, well-articulated and integrated into the system, which you should know by now is my stilted way of saying "Wooot!"

But hey, it provides just as much as the early version of The Pool, with near-equivalent payback/potential, which is saying something. Inspectres meets Sorcerer meets The Pool, in fact.

Man, that is some damn high praise there, my head is spinning.

[greyorm]

is there really the announcement/consequences/judgment feedback that I think is there? If so, excellent.

BTW, Ron, I want to know what you see in your head, too, and if (after my brief explanation above) it matches with what I've posted, where it differs, etc. Basically, I want to know how YOU think it works and how I've implied that method in the text. I'm trying to get an angle on what people are really seeing when they are reading the text so I know where to go and what I really need to work on {1}.

Also, anyone else who wants to jump in and say, "When I read eXpendables, here's how I thought things would work..." that would be tres cool as well.

{1} As opposed to working on a bunch of things that don't need fiddlin' with and won't overall help the game or play of it.