[Setting and Emergent Stories] article

[Paul Czege]

Ron,

Just read your "Setting and Emergent Stories" article, linked to me by Justin Smith. (You apparently posted it in October of last year. Well, you know what I was busy with that I missed it.)

If you're planning on a revision, the setting Parameters in Ray Wininger's Underground (1993) are what you're looking for in the section about "mechanics for consequences upon setting".

Paul

[Ron Edwards]

I never did get a copy of that game. Can you describe the mechanics?

Best, Ron

[Paul Czege]

Hey Ron,

Characters earn Reward Points for participating in a story. 2 points for participating. 2 more points if the GM judges that the story objective was met.

Reward Points can be spent for a number of things, including increasing skills, for Karma points, and for increasing the rating of Enhancements. But they can also be spent for attempts to increase setting Parameters.

The Parameters are Wealth, Safety, Government Purity, Quality of Life, Education, Necessities, and Take Home Pay. The GM is instructed to set Parameter values for the society the characters are trying to affect. Los Angeles County is given as an example, with Parameter values of Wealth 8, Safety 5, Government Purity 5, Quality of Life 4, Education 6, Necessities 6, and Take Home Pay 10. The game says you can set Parameters at various levels of society. So you could have Parameters set for California, and for Los Angeles County within it. The number of Reward Points needed to attempt to increase a Parameter is dependent on the size of the society, from Neighborhood to City/County to State to Country. Players choose a Campaign Goal, which is a description of how they want to affect society, and the GM determines what the ultimate Parameter values need to be for that goal to be achieved. "We want to eliminate police corruption in Los Angeles."

An attempt to increase Parameter values is a pitch by the players for something they might do. "How about if we break into the Superbowl transmission and broadcast about AIDS awareness to increase Education?" The GM has to agree that it fits into the campaiign, and has to prep the game for the players to play their attempt. If the players are successful, they get the increase. But there's a catch. There's a matrix that determines how increases in Parameters increase and decrease others. For example, increase Education and you also increase Wealth, but you decrease Take Home Pay. Players can spend five times the required Reward points when making their attempt to not trigger these collateral increases and decreases. So achieving the Campaign Goal is ultimately an incremental effort from smaller efforts.

The GM is instructed to depict changes in society that reflect changes in the Parameters. If Safety goes down, then there should be more thug and gang activity. And the GM can adjust Parameters at will to reflect external societal events, an epidemic for instance.

Paul

[Ron Edwards]

Two weeks before I replied!! I'm sorry about that.

First, thanks for the reference and reminder; I'd known that setting-changing was part of that game in some way, but never did learn the details. It sounds to me like a technique worth developing further. Another dystopic, violent, self-indulgent yet idealistic game for me to play ... damn it, I hate it when game designers know what I like.

Second, I had to put aside the draft for a longer essay about actually using settings, which uses some published material as models for different ways to do it, or different ways to conceive of setting's relationship to situations. It was really absorbing to work on and afforded me an opportunity to beat the term "sandbox" with a spiked chain (while supporting its purported value), but I really have to do the stuff I know I can finish and which is really good in my head, and I hope, on paper too.

So I'm saying that what you're describing definitely goes on my list for inclusion in (amendment to)  the current essay, and will probably afford some material for the next one too.

Best, Ron