[Circle of Hands}Playtest: Althea

[Ron Edwards]

The impetus and intro are just right.

The villagers paragraph is just right with the exception of "the whole thing is shameful" phrase, which doesn't make sense. That sentence could start with "Nobody" and make a lot more sense given that most people don't know that spider-hags are involved.

Background and description of Eindhoven are excellent, and the "what anyone could tell you" is too. The What Has Gone Before is great.

There are two bits which tripwire me a little, in the sections I just listed. Small but real. Both concern confrontation and dialogue between Ansgar and Horst, the second in some detail. I think it's "writing" again. I suggest instead to think of the characters being at the edge of having this conversation. Maybe they'll have it during play. Or maybe they'll have it but not with each other, meaning, with an inquisitive player-character instead, if the C vs. 12 rolls led to that kind of relationship. (Related point: just as missing a C vs. 12 roll makes the character very upset and pissed at you, making that roll means they like and trust you more than the people they know.) Or maybe, and crucially, things that happen will change one or the other character's mind, a critical concept which I think is under-served in your presentation. That shows up again in your otherwise-awesome summary of Horst, the part about "would never."

As a side note, and something else I should add in the text, there's nothing about sex with spider-hags that induces obsession to any extent beyond simply the fact that the sex is great. That doesn't mean much here, as there's nothing wrong with an individual becoming so obsessed (I mean, great sex, right?), but just in case anyone was getting the wrong idea.

As far as the content of the plot-prep goes, I like every one of the details, except for the Rolke panther which wouldn't be found in Famberge. But all the rest is perfectly good content.

My concern ... no, my outright red flag, is the flow-chart logic implied by your presentation, beginning with the C vs. 12 roll and continuing to the end. It's a huge flow-chart worthy of a CRPG. What this has to do with your actual play-experience and decisions, I can't say, so I am definitely not criticizing those. In fact, since the events in your game bypassed the tripwire by a mile, that's my welcome indicator that you do not force your players into this-and-then-that play. So that's not my issue.

My issue is the model that your write-up provides for others. Let's see ... OK, what if one of the player-characters makes a C vs. 12 roll with Horst and it turns out, for whatever reason, that the player initiates a sexual relationship with that character? And that Horst comes clean about his little difficulty? Or what if a player-character decides that spider-hags are A-OK and tries for an amicable solution of some kind? In a flow-chart model, these are curveballs, and the "good GM" is supposed to deal with them as edge cases or perhaps as prompts to come up with yet more arrows and boxes.

I'm suggesting a different model entirely, as indicated by all my picky suggestions above. So, no if-then. Instead, every NPC is wide-open to interactions, who knows how and who knows by whom. Maybe the whole story stays inside the village in a showdown centered on Horst and Ansgar. Maybe the whole thing goes to the spider-hags like it did in your game, pretty much bypassing Ansgar. Maybe Horst and a player-character mutually piss one another off so bad that they fight at their very first meeting, and one or both is killed. Again, I'm not talking about "being prepared" in the sense of directly anticipating any such things! I'm talking about getting rid of that entire model of preparation – instead, embracing the openness and letting exactly what is said and done, exactly what is rolled, and exactly how resolutions turn out be the only drivers of the emergent plot.

John, let me know what you think. Again, I'm not talking about your precise mode of play; whether this point of mine is relevant to you at all, is your own call. I'm talking about the way you've written it out, which is relevant to me because I'm working on the corresponding text for the book right now. I'm trying to express why, when I write it out, I won't be using the same implied model.

[John W]

About my "the whole thing is shameful" line, you're right, that didn't fit; it was leftover from an earlier draft of the adventure in which everyone in town knew that a spider-hag was picking off men in the village who had strayed.

I don't think of C vs.12 rolls as being capable of changing NPCs minds or outlooks on things besides the PCs themselves.  So, for example, with a successful Charm roll, Horst would trust them with his dirty secret and could ask them for help; but the PCs couldn't change his mind about killing Althea.  Do you see Charm rolls as being capable of that kind of influence over characters?  I think I recall reading that a Charm roll is not like a magical "charm" effect.  Maybe multiple successful Charm rolls could be more effective?  Or maybe the PCs could use Charm rolls to (separately) win the trust of Horst and a few other NPCs (his wife, Ansgar, etc), and then get the others to convince Horst of something that the PCs alone via C vs.12 rolls could not.

About the flowchart logic: You're right.  I knew this was more scripted than a Circle of Hands adventure is supposed to be.  Which is why I put a warning at the top of the post.  The following may sound defensive, but please don't read it that way.  I'll explain my thinking, so you can be sure that the text addresses gamers like me.

First, I'll say that my approach when I GMed this scenario was not as rigid as the write-up would make it seem.  I was ready and willing to let the story go where the players took it.  But I admit that the write-up alone seems quite restrictive.

I understand the concept of and reasoning behind not planning the events of the game ahead of time.  Story-now.  Play to find out what happens.  Sorcerer was the game that dragged me from dungeon-crawling to playing with kickers and bangs and R-maps and most of all not planning what will happen.  I understand the method and I agree that it's the ideal to strive for.  It IS the ideal that I strive for.  It's how my regular group plays. 

But as a GM it still scares me.  I doubt that I'll always be able to think up something cool in the moment.  So I spend a lot of time playing what-if with myself before a game.  I usually limit myself to preparing NPCs, relationships, locations, factions, monsters, items, etc., but not scenes or any logical progression.  But sometimes I like my what-ifs so much that i write out my answers.  In play, I consciously avoid steering the game towards my contingency plans, but they're there if things go that way.

I'm not promoting or defending doing so, I'm just explaining why.

I honestly didn't think of some of the other possible PC actions and outcomes that you posited.  I would have let the players drive the story and run with whatever their characters did and the rolls dictated.

Anyway, with respect to how you've expressed the method of GMing that you're promoting with this game, yes it's clear.  I knew I was transgressing when I wrote this scenario this way. 

I wish I knew some best practices for reacting to player inputs and supporting emergent play.  Like "when you're stuck, do this."  "When a player says something like 'this,' run with it."  "When a character does this, do that with it."  I know you can't put the whole method down in simple steps like that, but just some tools that the GM can fall back on if he draws a blank during play.

Thanks for deep-diving on this.  It's helping me too.

I have 1 week til our 3rd playtest session, and I want to try a direct messy confrontation between the knights and a big manifestation of Rjaba or Amboriyon.  I'll challenge myself to preparing only only only the initial conditions.

Cheers,
-John

[Ron Edwards]

I trust you, John! I included some qualifying phrases to try to focus on the more general question of "how to instruct about prep," for purposes of thinking about my manuscript, than on a critique of your game.

Do you see Charm rolls as being capable of that kind of influence over characters?  I think I recall reading that a Charm roll is not like a magical "charm" effect.  Maybe multiple successful Charm rolls could be more effective?  Or maybe the PCs could use Charm rolls to (separately) win the trust of Horst and a few other NPCs (his wife, Ansgar, etc), and then get the others to convince Horst of something that the PCs alone via C vs.12 rolls could not.

The Charm roll alone couldn't do it. You're right, it's not a Care Bear Stare. But once such a roll is made, then Horst is certainly more open to dialogue and suggestions - including ones he hadn't considered - from that character, than from any other character. If other events seemed to resolve problems or at least offer opportunities that weren't there before, then his choices would be up to you as his player. The extent of those other events could be remarkably broad, and the more they opened the walls of his personal box, the more likely he'd be open to novel ideas.

Although the successful Charm roll isn't sufficient toward such ends, it is definitely necessary. A failed roll would make a pretty implacable enemy out of a character currently under such psychological and social pressure, and in this game, there isn't any "neutral" when it comes to the named characters.