[Circle of Hands] When you know your prep is good

[Ron Edwards]

John, I apologize. I was looking forward to replying to the post I've reproduced here, copied from [Circle of Hands 1.1] Rules questions about Amboriyon & Rbaja, and somehow in my head that turned into a belief that I had in fact replied.

You prepare a scenario without any attachment to the qualities of what will happen in game.  I mean, yes we GMs shouldn't have any expectation of what will happen, but you go a step further and don't have any expectation about how much will happen, or how big it will happen.  I know you don't like when I call that a zen approach, but it's really zen.

When I prep a scenario, I don't want to plan what will happen, but I "test" the scenario with "what if a PC does this" or "that" or "the other," I prod the scenario and think about how its parts will react, to make sure that it will deform or slide or push back in interesting ways.  (In a more Sorcerer-like game, this is also how I figure out who and what needs stats, what locations to detail, what items to describe or stat up, etc.)

If you're creating a scenario without thinking at all about how it might respond to the PCs, then how do you know whether you've prepared a good scenario, or how do you know if you're done preparing?  That's what's missing for me.  How do you know?  Instead of thinking about how NPCs might react to the PCs, what should I do to test a drafted scenario? (boldface is mine - RE)

I think I'm not good at thinking off-screen (extemporaneously), and that's why I want to do that before game night.  I need to already have "Toeren might set up an ambush" in my head, or I'm unlikely to think of it in play, even if it emergently becomes perfectly appropriate.

In Sorcerer terms, I want that list of bangs at my elbow, fully understanding that some or many of them won't get used.

I've only played Dogs once and I've never run it.  To my mind, a problem without an obvious solution is a problem with two or more non-evil people who want different things.  So a Circle of Hands scenario must have interpersonal conflict.  Agree/disagree?

I think I fully understand your previous post, it's an excellent explanation of what you want.  I'm just asking for more info about how to do that - or how to know during prep when I'm doing that.

So, the big How. It's based on the point ... which you may hate ... that the very idea of "whether my prep is good" does not apply. I'm saying, quite arrogantly, that the prep tools I'm providing are spot-on perfect for generating exactly what you need for play, and the only thing you need worry about being "good" is play itself, for your part alone.

If you do what I'm saying, then your prep will be "complete," in that it is in fact precisely what you need in order to play well. That isn't grey, it's fixed. The important thing at that point is not to do anything else, at all. Not even as practice. You've written many times, that doing so is mere practice, but I'm suggesting for this game, that you not even do that.

Let's look at each component you've got. The first impulse is to weave them together instantly. Stop and don't do that at all. One by one.

So, simply and quickly, decide what a certain component is. This is from my current game here in Chicago. I rolled hIdden knowledge in Famberge, and that's it. OK! I grab whatever comes first to mind. A compilation of peasant knowledge like herbs and folktales, never before written down by anyone, catalogued in a foreign style which is surprisingly clear and organized. Written in ink on pig scapulae.

Every component requires the same list of things. The one that matters most for the "how" is the problematic NPCs: three for a single component, two each for two components, and one each for three components; more if they seem required or obvious as long as you don't go wild.

What "problematic" means, in this case, is soap opera. It means characters who are already itched out of their comfort zones, in the grip of strong emotions, and full of definite opinions - quite near to the point of acting, or as you might see it, acting out. Whatever has pushed a character to this point has something to do with the component he or she is associated with; if there is more than one character involved, then they may be strongly tied together or strongly opposed.

Everyone will have his or her own drama and squick factors regarding the regions of the Crescent land. For me, Famberge is almost always about really bent-out-of-shape, near-psychotic gentry and their endless feuds and turf wars. Think of Ulster at its worst.

Given this knowledge, the first thing I think of is a cruel gentry guy who's been poisoned by the person who's been amassing all this knowledge. I quickly conceive of a peasant - perhaps the only peasant-scholar in all the Crescent land - who's been studying and writing in secret for decades, maybe whose work is widely known but whose identity is a mystery.

Brainstorming hard now, I think of two semi-deranged brothers, the abused and highly-trained sons of the dead man, now in charge, using their father's demonic helm-mask, not really advertising his death or denying it to the surrounding areas, simultaneously disinclined to be as cruel as their father was, but also ignorant of any other way to handle things. Oh! And each one thinks the other killed the father.

So there are my three NPCs, and a back-story, all relevant to the hidden knowledge. Perhaps a little more back-story than I usually do, in fact, about the maximum I'd go for in a Circle of Hands adventure prep. But I like it a lot and "feel" an affinity for the characters in my mind - quickly demonstrated by how easily I choose their names and assign their attribute scores - so that's a good sign, and I stick with it instead of dialing it back.

The peasant-scholar: Elke, a very old woman, B 4 Q 2 W 8 C 5
The slightly-older son: Gerulf B 4 Q  W 2 C 5, the more personable brother but more unstable
The slightly-younger son: Gernot, a silent and lethal hair-trigger, sullen and lethargic until he feels someone needs to be beaten and killed - attributes sum to equal the highest-sum player-character
(the father's name was Bjorn, and the emblems and other imagery around the area are quite bear-centric)

Dangerous location? Easy: the thick forest behind the hilltop fortress, which I see as a hill only in 270 degrees, the final fourth being a nigh-impassable complex of cliffs and thickets. Back there, only peasants know the ways, and the wolves are especially bold. The father's grave is there (known to the brothers), and the scholar's hut is there too (not known to hardly anyone).

Tripwire? Also easy: if either brother learns of the herbal compendium, he (or they together) will unleash the full cruelty of their father's ways upon their peasant population, starting with fire and sword for slaughter, and after that, taking their time with whoever's left.

The impetus for the character's venture to this area arises right from my concept for the scholar, that informed people know about this fascinating body of work and sooner or later some knights decide to go and get it, or at least to try to establish more concrete contact with the mysterious source.

The only other prep involves reflecting on the setting details. I get my visuals together, which as you can see is already under way, and I think about the community in general: that the whole area is fundamentally defensible so no wonder the father or anyone in power is a serious local power-player, that the well-used horse-and-cart path up to the fortress still features the X-frames well-known for crucifixion, although they haven't been used lately (i.e. no bodies rotting on them). I also think about how newcomers to Famberge will get a chance to see their first bear during the journey to the adventure's location.

I also consider a primary feature of the setting, which is social rank. Placing a major part of a component in the peasant realm is really interesting, because if there's no peasant player-character, the only way to get access into that world is through ascending a character into named status.

And ... how do I know it's "good" prep? I say, "There is no such thing." The only question is whether I have followed the rules, and whether I feel grounded in the expression of the setting. I have. The rest is up to play, and will rely very heavily on the social ranks of the player-characters, C roll results, and whatever happens.

John, what do you think? And anyone else too.

[Nyhteg]

Hi, Ron

I'm only two scenarios in so far, but this post definitely highlights what I'm seeing in the prep system.

The main thing I'm finding is that I need to do far, far less in terms of 'preparing a scenario' than I might typically expect to. The NPCs matter a lot, in terms of who they are and what they want, but also don't require massive back story or plotting or anything like that.

My first venture had two components, the second had three. A rule of thumb I discovered while prepping the second one was to imagine removing any given component and check to make sure nothing else got pulled out with it. Essentially, if component A goes away, the people in components B and C shouldn't notice any change at all in their own situations.

The impetus for the character's venture to this area...

This is actually the part that I've been finding trickiest so far.
The point at which the players first enter the situation.

Once the venture unfolds a bit, things are fine, but the first half hour or so of play so far has proved slightly leaden and uncertain, with the players having a definite sense of "Um. What are we doing here again..? I guess we'll...ask around and find out what's going on, will we..?" And I tend to sort of push the NPCs at them to keep things moving. I don't know if that's good bad, normal or not.

This is probably partly to do with the players themselves getting to know the way the game functions, partly me still not quite getting how to work the C or W rolls properly, but it could also definitely be about not giving a clear impetus to the venture from the Knights' point of view in my prep (beyond the general "Knights seek to solve obvious problems, look for clear advantage for Rolke..." et cetera).

Giving more attention to that initial impetus might help mitigate the issue and lend a far greater proactivity to their actions. Or not, I don't know. I certainly don't want to start pre-loading any particular outcomes or starting points because that's going against the whole philosophy of the prep system.

How would the opening minutes of a session - those first moments when prep meets play - ideally tend to unfold for you, Ron?

G

[Ron Edwards]

I think I might answer that best by jumping ahead a little and staying focused on the GM's actions, to points when "What do I do" might arise.

The answer to that is Crosses. I described Crosses, along with Bobs and Weaves, in Sex & Sorcery, as a set of GM actions to go with Bangs. I'm realizing that Circle of Hands, unlike Sorcerer, is not a Bang-y game. It's a Cross-y one, and that should be the primary ammo for the bandolier, as it were. This point applies to Trollbabe as well (Rafu is totally right to identify a Trollbabe family, which includes Dogs in the Vineyard), but even more so.

A Cross happens when the descriptions in play reference other events besides those going on right in the characters' faces. It can be something that just happened, which is a good way to get in the habit, or something that's happening simultaneously.

That's the only skill one needs to bring to GMing Circle of Hands, aside from the basics of playing NPCs as if they were characters and not corridors to set-pieces. This is a violent society - people seize upon solutions and react to perceived threats with a great deal of force, social and physical. Crosses put all sorts of opportunities for this into play.

Now I'll shift the topic over the players' actions. This is the harder topic, but I think what you're describing, Gethyn, is common enough that I do need to write something about it. Unfortunately, such text is probably 99% wasted in terms of directly impacting players. So I have to rely on hoping that the person who does read the text, who is typically going to GM the game, is not merely skimming the text to shoehorn this particular how-to-hit into Call of Cthulhu play or whatever, and will read some text about what to say to the players.

I'm still mulling over what that text will be. The "who am I" vs. "what do I do" seems to be a process I should acknowledge, rather than insist on one being the right thing from the start.

[Nyhteg]

OK, that's pretty interesting about the Crosses...
I dug out my copy of S&S to remind myself what your description and advice was.

The idea is, what, to make sure no PC's activity occurs entirely in isolation? To offer plenty of things to engage with and react to?
So if Albrecht talks to a peasant someplace in the village, then when attention shifts to Bjorn somewhere else he might see a consequence of Albrecht's conversation spilling into or past his scene? I'm feeling like I might need a concrete example or two to really get this, to be honest.

G

[Ron Edwards]

Crosses generate the following two effects.

1. The shared understanding of fiction at the table is better reinforced, especially in the crucial gap between players whose characters may not have been involved equally in all the activities to date.

2. Opportunities are presented for players to be proactive, "My guy goes and ..." This occurs with or without character-knowledge, meaning that a player can inject constructive coincidence into play just as easily as acting upon his or her character spotting something known to be important.

They're superior to Bangs in a game like Circle of Hands, because the characters are typically out of their element. In that situation, Bangs are too easily interpreted as cues for specific actions and set-pieces, and players merely wait for them to come along. Whereas Crosses simply open windows onto everything that's going on.

The biggest difference is that Crosses do not demand action and do not have unavoidable effects. Most Crosses provide Color into play, basically a more vivid experience, through #1 above, and that in itself is a good thing, but it doesn't "do" much necessarily, at least not in the moment. Only some, perhaps even a few get acted upon, i.e., spark entirely player-generated action or even operate as mini-Bangs, and which ones is entirely up to the player of the moment.

Now, Bangs do emerge in Circle of Hands play, but they are better treated as entirely emergent, rising from the results of C vs. 12 rolls and the specific actions and dialogues before and after those rolls. The key there is to play NPCs as extremely responsive, extremely ready to act upon what they perceive as new knowledge and new relationships (positive or negative). Preparing them is counter-productive, with the crucial exception of the tripwire(s).

It so happens that the session we played, or partly played last night was set in Spurr, specifically the city of that name - the single largest population concentration in the Crescent land. I found it more difficult to generate Crosses there in comparison to the much smaller village-centered or fortress-centered play in nearly any other location in the setting. Therefore I found myself playing the relevant NPCs rather more forcefully than seemed reasonable in the moment, even to the point of neurosis. Although as it happened, the slight back-story I'd prepped turned out to be strong enough to support the forceful reactions, I did find myself wondering why I was playing them this way, and realized it was because the dense city-location didn't lend itself to Crosses that wouldn't look like absurdly large bread-crumbs.

There isn't any guarantee against dedicated "bread-crumb" play, unfortunately. Some players will treat any statement by the GM as a hidden directive, either to go somewhere or to do something. I don't have much advice to forestall this behavior; it seems reflexive and impenetrable either at the table or during prep/presentation of the game. (It's especially obvious when the character is played to be lurking about for no reason, so that you say, "A girl walks down the street," and the character goes into a weird cartoony follow-that-girl sequence, hiding behind barrels and darting across intersections into doorways, and similar.)

Anyway, let me know if any of that makes sense. I also think this post plays well into my Big How topic for this thread in general, so anyone else, please join in.

[Nyhteg]

This is another of those great, incredibly useful posts, revealing a bunch of obvious-stuff-which-isn't.

It's becoming clear to me from recent posts that there is a lot of your process, particularly in the prep process, which is not captured explicitly in the draft rules. For example "Local Tensions = Class Tensions"; the various qualities which make NPCs 'problematic' in a given component; what a component actually includes and doesn't include.

Please understand that I'm not accusing you of anything here, or 'beating you with the text' or anything of the sort - I wanted to say I'm simply enjoying having you bring these more or less non-obvious aspects into the light for us as feedback comes in and the discussions progress. I'm finding it a cool process.

G

[Ron Edwards]

Some more thoughts on preparation, prompted by recent play.

1. Sometimes the various details don't come easily. The key is always, always to go to the exact identity of the component itself. If it's a monster, which monster - and what that means or could mean to people it's in contact with. Moreno's use of the ghouls is perfect, for instance: what if someone survived a traumatic cannibalism event and some of the others involved are now ghouls. I am going back through all the creatures to make sure such content is there; there are only a couple which are iffy.

Or if it's hidden knowledge, what is it exactly ... and the same with any of them. Then think of the precise location, get an idea of the kind of area you'd like to see an adventure in for that region. Only then do the NPCs start to "appear," and they do so quickly.

2. There's a subtle rule in play as well: that only the first (numerically lowest) component is known to the characters. That means that (e.g.) Rbaja interference as the numerically lowest component is a very different thing from Rbaja interference as the second or third component.

It so happens that in my last two sessions, only one component was rolled. In the case of the one with the monster, well, they simply knew it was there and had a personal contact or two to alert them to it. Pretty simple. Whereas if, for instance, one of the lower numbers had been involved as well, then the monster would not have been known to them, which allows me, as GM, to consider the following:

- Perhaps it's not very active due to a human relationship, such as being under the control of someone who keeps it quiet some of the time, or allied with a person like some of the beasts can do, and similar.
- Perhaps it's well-known to the locals but not to outsiders, due to any number of things like regional isolation or some kind of conspiracy (not very likely in this culture, but possible).
- Perhaps it's mysterious to the locals so far, perhaps because it's acting stealthily or has just arrived or anything of that sort.

[Ron Edwards]

Thinking about it even more ... Gethyn, you wrote,

... but the first half hour or so of play so far has proved slightly leaden and uncertain, with the players having a definite sense of "Um. What are we doing here again..? I guess we'll...ask around and find out what's going on, will we..?"

Here's my vision of what you do when you show up somewhere.

Remember, there isn't any money - you don't pay for stuff like lodging or food, it comes with social activity and acceptance. Quite bluntly, the failure to provide that social activity is the mark of a psychopath, as far as everyone in this society is concerned. So it's axiomatic, unspoken, as present as the air you breathe, that when you arrive somewhere, you do what you socially know how to do: profession and social rank, as it applies to the immediate and normal situation.

If you don't do that, you don't get anywhere to sleep or eat, you don't get clean water, you don't get talked to, and if you're vulnerable, you can get killed - and everyone is vulnerable sooner or later.

If you do that, but fail at C rolls, then you will be tolerated there but carefully watched, and hanky-panky type behavior may incur severe group-action consequences. (A failed C roll to one of the named NPCs has more negative, personal, and possibly immediate consequences.) Conversely, if you do that and also succeed at C rolls, then you are welcomed and trusted as if you were a favored cousin. This is a deeply trust-based culture, so even violent or otherwise questionable behaviors can be accepted once you achieve this status.

As John wrote about in another thread, playing the opening of an adventure in this way tends to generate a sense of your character being a person in a community, not a character in an "adventure scenario," and I recommend this approach wholeheartedly.

[Nyhteg]

Thanks for these posts, Ron. There's so much in here it's taken me a while to start processing it all.
The first question that bubbles up is to do with the NPCs; probably not least because I'm staring at a blank page for a single component scenario requiring three of them and not getting anything yet... :)

So back up the thread where you're talking about your Hidden Knowledge prep with the peasant scholar and the two brothers, you're pointing out how the 'problematic NPCs' aspect of prep is really important:

What "problematic" means, in this case, is soap opera.

I can't tell if you had a heuristic - "Hmmm...hidden knowledge...soap opera is good for that" -  or if you came up with the three NPCs and, simply in describing the prep process decided that was a good label for the situation.
Do different types of component demand or inspire different types of NPC for you?

What's your process for coming up with really good NPCs?

G

[Ron Edwards]

I see the problem. OK, in the current draft, the concept of "soap opera" is intrinsic to the NPC(s) for each component. Period. Never don't have soap opera. It's always there; it's what the NPCs are for.

Therefore in this case, I did not decide upon soap opera, I began the whole process of making NPCs with it in place by definition.

Do different types of component demand or inspire different types of NPC for you?

j

Not categorically. However, once you are already thinking about the location, and then specify the component, then the relevant NPCs should spring to mind.

In this case, I already knew we'd be in some awful cruel corner of Famberge, and that the hidden knowledge was a bunch of peasant lore, including lots of herbal stuff. So that led me to think of a cruel Famberge local ruler who'd been poisoned.

From there the NPCs are a matter of personal interest and creativity. I suggest that you expunge all thoughts of whether they are "right" or "will work" or "character flags" or anything like that. For instance ...

What's your process for coming up with really good NPCs?

You start by getting rid of the "really good" qualifier. Any NPCs which strike you as caught up with that specified component, with any degree of soap opera, will do. Once that conceptual framework is satisfied, there's no such thing as better/best.

In this case, given a poisoning, we need a poisoner, and that makes the scholar spring to my mind without any trouble: old, full of cold hate, and determined that her work live on. And it struck me that the psychologically scarred children of the poisoned man would be a fine showcase of a dimly possible better future + the somewhat more possible disastrous present.

Do it like that. First, the location - think about it, what "gets" you about it. Second, specify the component, so it's not "hidden knowledge" any more but "the peasant lore on the pig bones." Third, come up with individuals who exemplify these things, and put them into cross-purposes or difficult circumstances concerning what they want.

P.S. John emailed to say that he wasn't able to reply so far but would be chiming in before long.

[Nyhteg]

More helpful clarifications, Ron, thank you.
I'm glad John's going to chime in, I feel like I've totally hijacked his thread at the moment.

I'll try to post my prep for the next venture in a new thread soon, so there'll be some specifics to talk about.

G

[John W]

Hi Ron,

a belated thanks for addressing this question of mine in great detail.  And Gethyn, thanks for keeping this thread going in my absence!  My last 7 days were very full of things that weren't free time.  But enough about real life...

Regarding prep, I think I finally see where my disconnect was.  All this time, I have been thinking this way: "I hope I have enough prepared to make this game awesome."  Despite all my talk about playing to find out what happens, I was still taking on all the responsibility for how well the game would go.

Instead, I need to think this way: "The players and I have equal responsibility to bring the awesome.  The players' prep is character creation, that's all.  My prep is the scenario preparation mechanics, that's all.  Once we sit down at the table, we're all improvising, we're all doing our best to bring the fiction to life and to tell a good story.  My players know that I'll be riffing off the prep and off them, they don't expect anything to be perfectly polished."

I'm sure you've been saying this all along, but I didn't get it until now. 

I was preparing as much as possible without actually planning what would happen.  And I succeeded at that, but all that prep was limiting my ability to extemporize.  Your point is that, the less I prepare, the better I can respond in the moment.  And anyway, playing to find out what happens includes playing to find out what I will do!

RE: Crosses vs. Bangs: I need to read Sex & Sorcery again.  Note to self.

And I'm going to be reviewing this thread again before the next time I prepare to run Circle.

Thanks guys, no  further questions at this time.  I second Gethyn's pronouncement that this has been a really valuable discussion.

Cheers,
-J