Color-first Endeavor: back in action!

[Ron Edwards]

Hi! Now we can get going. The most relevant wiki pages are Color, Exploration, Currency, Preparation techniques (still sketchy), and Reward.

Here are our characters!

Chris, a.k.a. The Dollar, in Dawn of a New Tomorrow (playtest), by Davide Losito
Ricardo Azevedo, in Over the Edge, by Markus Montola
John Valentino, a.k.a. Captain Free Market, in My Life with Master (setting hack), by Moreno Roncucci
David "Fletch" Fletcher, in Aberrant, by Nathan Paoletta
Ickarus, in Freemarket, by Hans Chung-Otterson
Milton Roy, a.k.a. The Real Money, in Heroic Do-Gooders & Dastardly Deed-Doers, by me (see last post on first page; more on him soon; I still have to get the sheets into electronic form)

I have three topics to consider, each one to be discussed thoroughly: How Color goes into the system of play, how Color interacts with Reward, and how new Color emerges in the long run. Here's the first.

Topic #1: Dynamic potential, or how Color goes in
So: what would the character do? What might happen to him? At this point, the character is a pure artifact, nothing but a sheet of paper, so I'm talking about pre-play, when you're looking at the sheet -- what hopes and fears go through your mind regarding what play will be like?

I suggest examining three things:

1.   The character's specific fictional backstory. "This is Lord Hyrax's son, who has left his home to destroy the goblins who raided the castle last year."
2.   Any game-mechanics instability, by which I mean prompts for his or her actions or for being targeted by something else. "His saving throws vs. magic are terrible! He's going to be nice to every magic-user for sure." Or, "He has a bitchin' morningstar mace, so I can't wait until he gets to use it."
3.   More general circumstances which apply to all or most characters in play, but which also introduce conflict or a call to action of any kind. "We're all going into the dungeon in the goblin forest."

Consider these hopes and fears in terms of you and the other people playing. Will they get it? Will they care? Are you and this character all alone? What player decisions and what in-game events determine what happens to him? In fact, what is mechanically possible to happen to him? Also, as you see it for this game, who is responsible for bringing these anticipated fun and dangerous situations into play?

I'm talking about expectations, responsibilities, and communication which make play fun. The internet provides us with a useful illustration of the possible problem, in the "What I made / What the DM saw / What I played" device, which sometimes reveals serious communication breakdowns, as well as the related issue of falling back to Hollywood or hobby cliché when play actually starts. Some examples:
This one speaks volumes: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/14769805/images/1304221321191.jpg
Shadowrun indeed: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/14769805/images/1304217004714.jpg
This one is worth considering carefully because it's subtler and yet still illustrates a problem: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/14769805/images/1304218267322.jpg
This one looks like it applies to the whole group: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/14769805/images/1304220322703.png
Here's the site archive with a million of them, but be warned, some of the contributors clearly didn't understand what they were supposed to be communicating.

I want to address anything and everything you might do - or point to on the sheet - which either leads to or staves off these problems. Regarding your character, what would be deal-breaking for you at this point, in your experience of this game?

Please feel free to bring in any details or questions about the Wiki items I linked to, when they're relevant.

Best, Ron

[davide.losito]

So you want us to explain how a function like:

color -> character sheet -> fiction

does really "happens" at the table, with our selected game?

[Ron Edwards]

Yes, but also how it might not happen.

Best, Ron

[davide.losito]

Well, Dawn of New Tomorrow has various ways to let players "pour" color onto the fiction.

Three exactly:
1. the three creation scenes, in which the Event is defined in its origins and players can fix their characters roots. The three scenes have a theme, which differs if you switch to the Vampire version of the game. In Vampire setting, you play your scenes with these themes: death, training for the powers of the blood, first hunt.
These scene, in both version of the game, fixes situations that later in the game are used to frame Struggles Within: special flashback scenes in which the character remembers situations where his two halves struggled and he comes out more mature, and with one of the two half stronger.

2. looking at the sheet, you see 4 flags above the abilities: in Vampire game they are -> Pursue (the reason you accepted your unlife for), Belong (that social situation in which you feel at home and can control the Beast), Thirst (that type of person that makes you feel hungry, it's the stereotype of your first victim, in your First Hunt scene), Lust (the genre that incites you sexual appetites, it's tied to your maker genre).
In the Super-hero version, these flags are Fights for (reason you accepted your super-naure for), Belonging (the type of person you think you represent as a hero), Sacrifice For (the type of person you instinctively run to save), Enrage With (the situation that drives you mad).
These flags can be used once each per session, and grant different modifications to the conflict (adds dice of different color, or switch a die color; 2 of them can be called by the player, 2 can be called by the adversity)

3. The use of "Controls You" ability, which is mandatory in every conflict, and which is the type of ability you can use for escalating the conflict (you can add a third or a fourth ability to a conflict, only if it is from the "Controls You" column). This is a player choice to represent the fact that conflict is so important to him, he is agreeing to "lose control". The loss of control is represented in the game by having the other players narrate a piece of the conflict resolution, according the number of red dice that go in the conflict.

[Ron Edwards]

Davide, you have not answered my questions. Please answer them as literally and personally as you possibly can.

Also, please disregard the Vampire variant and any other irrelevant aspects of the game. Just answer the questions and apply the aspects of the game which are directly relevant.

Best, Ron

[Moreno R.]

John Valentino, a.k.a. Captain Free Market, in My Life with Master (setting hack), by Moreno Roncucci

[...]

I have three topics to consider, each one to be discussed thoroughly: How Color goes into the system of play, how Color interacts with Reward, and how new Color emerges in the long run. Here's the first.

Topic #1: Dynamic potential, or how Color goes in
So: what would the character do? What might happen to him? At this point, the character is a pure artifact, nothing but a sheet of paper, so I'm talking about pre-play, when you're looking at the sheet -- what hopes and fears go through your mind regarding what play will be like?

I suggest examining three things:

1.   The character's specific fictional backstory. "This is Lord Hyrax's son, who has left his home to destroy the goblins who raided the castle last year."

I think that in My Lie With Master most of the backstory is established before compiling the character sheets: first, there is the group-level Master creation, then you create a character that must "fit" in the setting created, with some motive to be a minion. And I have always seen very simple back-stories for the minion. The usual exception, if present, it's a past history with one of the connection (family ties, for example).

Creating Valentino I did choose to give him connections he meets in his new "life" as a would-be actor, at the set and in a diner, so in practice his past is blank: he is a nobody (in his mind) who went to Hollywood to become somebody, he never talks about his past, it is not really important for me (and for him). There is no "backstory" for him to add at this phase

I consider this sort of "very short backstory" normal in MLWM, or at least is normal in the way I play it. 

2.   Any game-mechanics instability, by which I mean prompts for his or her actions or for being targeted by something else. "His saving throws vs. magic are terrible! He's going to be nice to every magic-user for sure." Or, "He has a bitchin' morningstar mace, so I can't wait until he gets to use it."
3.   More general circumstances which apply to all or most characters in play, but which also introduce conflict or a call to action of any kind. "We're all going into the dungeon in the goblin forest."

Consider these hopes and fears in terms of you and the other people playing. Will they get it? Will they care? Are you and this character all alone? What player decisions and what in-game events determine what happens to him? In fact, what is mechanically possible to happen to him? Also, as you see it for this game, who is responsible for bringing these anticipated fun and dangerous situations into play?

I choose to not separate the answers to these, as I did for the first question, because there is a common reply.

The process of Master creation already show the GM what the players want, in a lot of ways: the game terms ("Beast", "collector"), the number (Fear and reason), and the vivid description of the Master that happen at the table when everybody add ideas, images, concepts

After that, how did I communicate what I wanted in particular for my character?

The first clue are the More than human and less than human.  I decided to give my character a more than human like "He can seduce everybody, man or female, but not when he is really attracted by that person" because I wanted "missions" that would put him in contact with people to manipulate, but at the same time I wanted to draw a precise and clear separation between these de-humanizing relationships and "true" ones. And make any of these a danger for the Master's plan (if Valentino begin to be really attracted by his target, the Master's plan could fail).
Then the "less than human": "he can't refuse the offer of any substance (from his mother's inedible cake to a shot of heroin) apart when he is his own home (I don't see him as an addict, but as someone with very weak force of will that try to please everybody)"

In this way, I have painted a very big target over my character, that show how the GM can easily use these MTH and LTH to bring Valentino in all sort of social situations where things can go wrong.

If we were at the table I probably would have talked about these reason, too, during character creation.

The connection, people he meet at works and at the diner, add to the "no past relationship" theme.

What will happen if the GM choose to ignore all this, and begin to give my characters orders like "rob that bank" or "bury that corpse where nobody will find him"? Well, if would probably roll my eyes seeing him "missing all the clues" (after I even talked about it at the table) but I don't think that would ruin the game, I still can choose my connections, call connection scenes, and more than that: for a game where you have to "do what the Master say" every time, the amount of character ownership I have in MLWM is enormous (More than in D&D, in fact). The rolls ONLY tell my if I do the violent or villainy I wanted to do, or if I get love, or self-loathing, etc: exactly how I wanted to get that and what happened is my decision.  So if the GM and the other players don't get what I wanted to do with my character, I still have a lot of ways to tell them again and again, or even doing it anyway.

What about my own course of action? From my experience, if you want a minion that will do as few evil deeds as he can, it's better to give him a high weariness score and zero self-loathing (in a recent My Life with Angelica game my character was made like this and he got almost to the endgame doing only damage to things and propriety and not to other people). He often get a good ending too. The cost is that he will fail a lot of times, and he probably will not be the one who will kill the Master.
By the other hand, a big self-loathing score increase your chance to be the one who kill the Master, but almost guarantee a bad ending ("bad" in the sense of death or something bad for the character).
That My Life with Angelica character I cited above was a guy I liked and I was sympathetic with, so I gave him zero self-loathing.  Valentino by the other hand I see as someone who at this point is driven by superficial vanity. I would like to play him more for making him really change, because I really don't like him just now. So I gave him 2 self-loathing, because in a sense, what it will happen to him... he had it coming.
Why not 3 self-loathing and zero weariness? I don't know, it just didn't feel "right" for the character to be so extreme.

This what I thought when I gave him these stats. For the most part is use of system, I don't know how much you see "color" in that, apart from the last bit (that is pure color affecting character: in my imagination he could not have self-loathing 3) )

I want to address anything and everything you might do - or point to on the sheet - which either leads to or staves off these problems. Regarding your character, what would be deal-breaking for you at this point, in your experience of this game?

Well, obviously there a lot of things that would ruin the game for me, at the social level (for example, breaking of boundaries, cheating, or even having at the table a very poor GM with no idea about what is aggressive scene framing, or even scene framing at all), but they obviously are not what you are talking about, so I will not consider them (I wrote this because saying "nothing apart from this or this would ruin my game" without saying this before would seem rather silly)

But even thinking about other ways to break the game...  all I get are violation of the rules (the GM that try to railroad a prefabricated "story" for example) or basic trust and boundaries, or complete misunderstanding of the game (a comedian GM who go for laugh).

All I can think are problems that would ruin EVERY game of MLWM, not tied to this one's color.

About what avoid this on the game sheet, I listed some things above: almost everything on the sheet is a flag, the More-than-human and less-than-human for example, if the GM ignore the flags I can still chose to play the character I want with the connection I want, that act toward these connection the way I want. If the GM is able to play MLWM, even in case he miss all my flags, I will get to the same endgame, the only problem it's that I will not show the MTH and LTH along the way (that means: I will not be able to show these facets of my character at the table).

[Ron Edwards]

Hooray, my character sheet!


(edited to make them smaller)

Here are scans of pages 4-5 and 94-96 from the rulebook, so you can see that the text provides explicit instructions for both players and GMs. Effectively, play is very, very player-proactive, so I can basically just do what I want. I can tell you right now that I'd begin investigating and planning for his next hit, confident that the GM would provide constant and useful information, adverse or otherwise, in response.

Much less clear is how my character is supposed to relate to the other player-characters, which the text never mentions. There is no reference whatsoever to anything resembling a superhero team. Given the pages I've included here, I assume the GM plays Sorcerer style, meaning that the characters are in the same vicinity, and you just cross'em and see what happens.

Here's what I'm most worried about: whether anyone will find Milton sympathetic at the outset. I've made a character who's one shade of moral grey away from a wish-fulfillment for myself. I really don't want the GM to respond with a kneejerk "extremism? How awful," and go into a morality tale where my guy gets the comeuppance the GM thinks he deserves. It's especially important because the GM sets the Luck difficulty levels; unless he enjoys my character being Lucky, that whole side of the build will be subverted and my lucky guy will actually be totally unlucky in practice. And if other players respond the same way, then my character becomes the in-fiction butt monkey and I become the real-life one. 

So I fear that I will make the guy in the picture, but the GM sees a reprehensible knockoff of the Punisher, and what I end up playing is the old Batman TV version of the Riddler. There seems to be no way to counter this in the rules; it's up to me and my pitch to everyone else, and I must get some verbal confirmation and appreciation that lets me know they see what I see.

Best, Ron

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Moreno,

I think you're missing the backstory that is staring at us from your text and which matters most: how John became so dependent upon this Master. The details don't matter, but it is crucial, central, and unmistakable that his backstory includes starring in this Captain Free Market movie and especially the core phrase "He thinks he owes everything to Ed." I'm not asking for any more detail, because that is currently the heart of the character, just as with Lord Hyrax's son, the heart of the character is that goblins raided the castle last year (external, but just as valid for the game in question). I'm not talking about boring trivia like his mother's maiden name. I'm talking about back-story, i.e., it is necessarily relevant. There it is - you have it.

Do you see how that backstory is both inherent in the textual system of the game ("the rules") and also in the Color provided by the picture and as interpreted by you?

But even thinking about other ways to break the game...  all I get are violation of the rules (the GM that try to railroad a prefabricated "story" for example) or basic trust and boundaries, or complete misunderstanding of the game (a comedian GM who go for laugh).

All I can think are problems that would ruin EVERY game of MLWM, not tied to this one's color.

You're absolutely right, but that doesn't mean that the potential problems don't exist. As a secondary point, I also suggest that they aren't limited to the GM. If the others at the table persist in interpreting your character as the comedy component, or if one or more people prioritize winning (i.e. aiming for a given Epilogue throughout play), then the same problems arise.

Now my main answer: I disagree with you that the Color is not the key to the possible problems. I suggest instead that in practice, for you, playing this character, that these problems are in fact tied directly to the character's Color, because there is literally no other topic or way for mutual appreciation, reinforcement, and development of characters to occur as a group activity.

To put it another way, if the other people at the table look at the picture and look at your sheet and listen to your words -- and they still don't appreciate the Color's specific application to the System about to be played, then you can look forward to a terrible experience. I agree that this game is written as well as it can be to counter this possible problem, but people are people, not books, and it can indeed happen.

Best, Ron

[davide.losito]

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough... but I answered the points.
I try to be more clear...

1.   The character's specific fictional backstory. "This is Lord Hyrax's son, who has left his home to destroy the goblins who raided the castle last year."

The character specific backstory is defined and fixed in the three creation scenes.
Chris was married, we know from scene number 2.
His wife thought he had a relation with Pam, and we know he valued Pam's friendship because he risked his life to save her.
We also know he escaped prison after killing a guard and he is now wanted by the NSA.
This phase is used to create the characters backstory.

2.   Any game-mechanics instability, by which I mean prompts for his or her actions or for being targeted by something else. "His saving throws vs. magic are terrible! He's going to be nice to every magic-user for sure." Or, "He has a bitchin' morningstar mace, so I can't wait until he gets to use it."

The four Flags tell what the character is interested into, or victim of.
Chris will sacrifice for young women; this means that it will be easy to put him in danger or in stressed situation, just by putting a young women into a scene in which Chris is present.
That Flag, "Sacrifices for", is called by the adversity and switch a blue die into a red one, after the conflict is rolled, forcing Chris to lose control.
We know he "Rages for" betrayal. Rages for is a Flag the adversity can call (once a session) in any conflict that "Betrayal" is present. This gives Chris one red die more to roll, improving the chances he will lose control.
Belonging is a Flag that the player can call upon, again once per session, in a conflict in which the social context "upper middle-class" is fit. Belonging calms a hero rage, and convert a red die into a blue one.
"Fights for" is another Flag the player can call, it adds 1 blue die, improving the chances Chris will keep control of his action, in a conflict.

These are mechanics thought to bring the color into play and they build expectations in either the player of Chris, the GM and the other players that start to think about what situations can be brought into the fiction so to use those flags.

3.   More general circumstances which apply to all or most characters in play, but which also introduce conflict or a call to action of any kind. "We're all going into the dungeon in the goblin forest."

Ok, this one I didn't answered; sorry.
It is something that comes out after all the creation scenes are played.
Limiting the answer to Chris, he is interested to unmask the conspiracy and free the people from the New Order, so probably he is going to become a "terrorist", fighting again the new system... just like those terrorist that started it all.

[Ron Edwards]

Markus, Nathan, and Hans, what are your thoughts regarding the topic #1 questions?

I'm really trying to get at the role of Color in pre-play expectations and communication, and whether these are or are not system-based in a given game, and in what ways.

Best, Ron

[Moreno R.]

I think you're missing the backstory that is staring at us from your text and which matters most: how John became so dependent upon this Master. The details don't matter, but it is crucial, central, and unmistakable that his backstory includes starring in this Captain Free Market movie and especially the core phrase "He thinks he owes everything to Ed." I'm not asking for any more detail, because that is currently the heart of the character, just as with Lord Hyrax's son, the heart of the character is that goblins raided the castle last year (external, but just as valid for the game in question). I'm not talking about boring trivia like his mother's maiden name. I'm talking about back-story, i.e., it is necessarily relevant. There it is - you have it.

Oh, yes. I was thinking about MORE backstory to add after writing the character sheets. I didn't count that part because I had already written it in the previous post.

In this case, the necessary backstory is the answer to two questions, the first one is common to every MLWM game, "why this minion is serving that cruel Master?", the second one is instead peculiar to this endeavor: "What the hell he is doing with a dollar sign in his underwear?" and would not be present in a normal MLWM, but both have to be clear and present (not only to myself, but to every other player too) at the start of this game

Do you see how that backstory is both inherent in the textual system of the game ("the rules") and also in the Color provided by the picture and as interpreted by you?

Yes.

Now my main answer: I disagree with you that the Color is not the key to the possible problems. I suggest instead that in practice, for you, playing this character, that these problems are in fact tied directly to the character's Color, because there is literally no other topic or way for mutual appreciation, reinforcement, and development of characters to occur as a group activity.

To put it another way, if the other people at the table look at the picture and look at your sheet and listen to your words -- and they still don't appreciate the Color's specific application to the System about to be played, then you can look forward to a terrible experience. I agree that this game is written as well as it can be to counter this possible problem, but people are people, not books, and it can indeed happen.

Yes. I didn't thought that far.  I was thinking about how other people's misunderstandings about what I was getting at with my character could do to block me to get what I wanted in the fiction (answer: very little), and I stopped at that, without thinking about the reasons why I wanted to play that character in that way and with these results. Without having the other players understand and appreciate that, it would be pointless (no reward and frustration on top)

And it's not like that never happened to me (both as the frustrated player and as the one who doesn't understand why the player is playing like that and has to ask him about it afterward).

The lessons I learned from these bad experiences did show up in a sense, even if I didn't recognize it at first: the "Waiter at the diner" connection. Thinking about it, when a game give me the authority to create or co-create some relationship or connection for my characters, I often create characters that I could use for emotional recaps of past action or other "confessions".  Any connection scene with that NPC could have my character drunk or desperate saying why he did that or said that in the previous scene, to better explain my PC to the other players.

To sum it up: the game gives me a lot of opportunities and ways to explain and show my characters to the other players. (I should add the sincerity / desperation / intimacy dice to these way: not only they give me more opportunities to act, but they have two other effects: the GM has to listen to me to be able to assign them, and I get feedback about what he is "hearing" from my character from the dice I get, or don't get), and I used them as much as I could: I think that if I am not playing with someone really blind and deaf, they will understand what I (and my character) am doing. The real question (and real risk) is about appreciation: what will be their reaction? Will my creative contributions be appreciated and encouraged, or not?

[Markus]

Markus, Nathan, and Hans, what are your thoughts regarding the topic #1 questions?

I started to re-read selected parts of the OTE manual to address the topic as objectively as possible. But almost immediately I stumbled on a problem: I realized I could answer the questions in two extremely different ways, i.e. starting from two different mindsets.

The point is, for the answers to be more relevant to the OTE book as written, I'd have to answer as the 15-years younger myself who read it first. The 2012 me however has a completely different set of expectations, and different ways to distribute those expectations among the group.

To put it differently: after almost 10 years of lurking/delurking at the forge and dozens of functional games read and/or played, I'm quite confident I *might* make OTE work with the right group of people. But I'm afraid the book and the system wouldn't be of much help to the younger me eager to play in 1997.

A solution could be to answer as I would honestly use the game today, but checking at each step whether the system is or isn't helping me in any way.

Uh, by the way - I'm not Markus Montola... although I'd like to be an academic specializing in game research lie him. As you can evince from the email in my profile, my real name is Marco. However, for no particular reason, since the dawn of net-time my internet alter-ego is "Markus". That's what I used at the forge, too.

[Ron Edwards]

That's funny. I know exactly who you are and who Markus Montola is; I have no idea why I typed that.

Thanks for the answers, everyone! Especially Davide; I know I am being pushy.

But Markus, please feel free to continue with your reflections, speaking from your perspective right now, today. After all, "I" (in your head) am the GM for your Over the Edge game, right? And we would be playing this right now, so let's do it from that perspective. What are your thoughts on fears and hopes for the character, and what the sheet/system can provide?

Best, Ron

[ndpaoletta]

OK!

So: what would the character do? What might happen to him? At this point, the character is a pure artifact, nothing but a sheet of paper, so I'm talking about pre-play, when you're looking at the sheet -- what hopes and fears go through your mind regarding what play will be like?

In this case, I was operating without really thinking about other PCs in this game. Aberrant has a specific callout for making a "team" of characters, but in my experience it's totally possible and acceptable to roll with a more Sorcerer-y approach to individual characters in their individual contexts. With Fletch, I've given him a backstory that could plausibly lead to him being interesting to, or interested in, any of the in-game factions (there's 3 or 4 main ones, plus anything the GM might come up with that they're into). So, if I showed up to a game with Fletch and the GM said that it was going to be mostly about the Teragen faction, for example, I would be open to either playing through that process, or talking out how Fletch got into contact, whatevers more appropriate.

Also, I positioned him in such a way that he could potentially have a lot of enemies, but few friends. This is why his Dominate power is so important - he needs some teeth to be able to be successful in such an environment.

As I mentioned in my post, his power set puts him at the top of the ladder when dealing with Baseline (non-powered) humans, but at the low rung when dealing with other Novas, even other starting-character-level ones. For example, he didn't really buy up any of his stats with Nova points, which is generally pretty de rigour for this game. I see him relying on his Mega-Stats and his one power for almost ANY volatile situation, which means he certainly needs to get into some kind of situation where he has more action-y friends to keep him from bodily harm. I think he'll be angling to generally interact with Baselines over Novas, perhaps to the extant of trying to keep his Nova nature secret (which is a mechanical goal, he could spend Experience points to buy the "Dormancy" background over time).

This character is a schemer, a backroom dealer and a selfish accumulator of wealth and status. I don't think I would have fun in a game that was focused on Nova-vs-Nova action. I would hope the game would be more about the relationship of Baselines and Novas, and the shifting lines of power that change that relationship. This character would thrive in a conspiracy-focused game, with lots of schemes-within-schemes and very loosely delineated areas of control (which is where I think Aberrant is most fun, it may shock you to learn).

So, the fit of the character into the kind of game the GM has planned (not necessarily "scenario", more just theme and approach) is pretty dependent on me communicating with the GM, and secondarily with the other players. I think I'm telegraphing the kind of stuff I want to see surrounding this character pretty strongly, through my selection of Quantum Powers and Backgrounds, but I don't think I would show up to a brand-new game blindly having built this particular character.

I think for dealbreaking, the only thing right off the bat that would make me go "man, fuck this game"* is if the GM introduced an NPC character that was mine, but better (higher Dominate, better Mega-Attributes, etc). Another player character with the same power set could make things kind of meh, depending on the details, but having my "thing" be taken over by an NPC would piss me off - and, is relatively easy to do in Aberrant, as starting characters are wicked low-powered compared to most of the scenario- and canon-created ones. Second on the list would be an NPC antagonist specifically designed to beat my character, though that can be ok if it's treated as an ongoing relationship and not a "ha, you thought you were so cool" from the GM.

*outside of social contract breakdown, of course

So, them's my thoughts!

[Hans Chung-Otterson]

Hi, I haven't read people's replies to Topic #1 yet, as I wanted to give it fresh eyes. Please correct me if I'm misinterpreting the exercise; I had to read over it a few times to feel like I understood it.

Topic #1: Dynamic potential, or how Color goes in
So: what would the character do? What might happen to him? At this point, the character is a pure artifact, nothing but a sheet of paper, so I'm talking about pre-play, when you're looking at the sheet -- what hopes and fears go through your mind regarding what play will be like?

1.   The character's specific fictional backstory. "This is Lord Hyrax's son, who has left his home to destroy the goblins who raided the castle last year."

Looking at the sheet, I see that my Memories and Clade are the main things tied directly to backstory. So I know he's a "Street Theater Performer", and has Memories about performing as someone named Dollar Bill, has a broken relationship with a woman, likes to sew costumes, and participates in other art scenes, being inspired by musicians to take a crack at their art, too.

What I'm thinking: Will my concept be supported by the group of players (specifically not the GM)? Or will they expect me to go along with them and help out "for the good of the group"? Will other players help me in accomplishing my goals? (to be clear, these sorts of questions are kind of the heart of Freemarket's premise, so they are the first things I'd think about when making a FM character).

I hope I'll get to interact with 6.3 Jen (that broken relationship). Will I win her back? Will she become an enemy?

I want to do some cool performances. Do I know other folks like me? Is this just an entertainment thing or do I have a message? Who will the "Dollar Bill" alter ego become?

So my guy wants to go build a guitar. He's not a musician; am I changing my concept from the get-go? Or undermining it? If I go in that direction, will I still be useful to the group?

I was born, meaning other people probably have my same Geneline. How will that show up? How does my family manifest the "Reeve" Geneline?

2.  Any game-mechanics instability, by which I mean prompts for his or her actions or for being targeted by something else. "His saving throws vs. magic are terrible! He's going to be nice to every magic-user for sure." Or, "He has a bitchin' morningstar mace, so I can't wait until he gets to use it."

Hmm, Ickarus has a lot of Experiences, but is relatively low on Tech. That will make me want to find someone in play who can help me out with that. Or I can use my Recycling Experience to do some of that myself.

I don't have the Wetwork or Flood/Bleeding Experience, which means my Memories are pretty vulnerable: Not having those Experiences means I'm not good at fighting back against Wetwork (which takes short-term Memories) or Flood/Bleeding (which takes long-term Memories).

3.   More general circumstances which apply to all or most characters in play, but which also introduce conflict or a call to action of any kind. "We're all going into the dungeon in the goblin forest."

Will I have enough Flow to accomplish my goals? If not, will I be able to get it? Being an Ephemerist is not the easiest way to gain Flow. If I can't get enough Flow to do what I want, will the game still be fun to play? How will my decisions change as my Flow does?

Will my MRCZ-mates want to grow our group bigger than I want it, or keep it smaller than I want it? Will I, or anyone, leave the MRCZ to form a new one? What kind of rivalries will we have? Will we become famous, or be happy to be nobodies, doing our life's work? Or something else?

Consider these hopes and fears in terms of you and the other people playing. Will they get it? Will they care? Are you and this character all alone? What player decisions and what in-game events determine what happens to him? In fact, what is mechanically possible to happen to him? Also, as you see it for this game, who is responsible for bringing these anticipated fun and dangerous situations into play?

Things I'm thinking about with regard to what will happen to my character and who will bring it in: How will the Superuser (GM) decide to bring my Memories into the game? That will definitely determine what happens to me. Will 6.3 Jen come back as a memory in someone else's head, or as a rival MRCZ leader, or what?

As far as mechanically possible things go, I have these questions: Will I lose Memories? Will I have to Burn (reducing the effectiveness of Tech/Interface/Experiences/Geneline in the long term for a boost in the short-term) a lot in Challenges to succeed? How will I grow in my Experiences?

Who is responsible for bringing the fun situations into play? Well, the Superuser is responsible for making life problematic, interesting, and unanticipated in response to my proaction. Everything on my sheet tells me the kind of stuff I want to be doing in the game, and that I have the means to go try to do it. The Superuser takes what I'm going for and how and twists the situation so that unexpected trouble, twists, and interesting situations come into play. The seed content for this in the first session is the first few Memories I've written down.

Regarding your character, what would be deal-breaking for you at this point, in your experience of this game?

The only thing that would be deal-breaking would be no support from the other players (Superuser included, but if only the SU supported my concept in play and no one else did, that wouldn't be enough) in pursuing the concept I have for my character. If there were no interest or excitement from them around Ickarus and what I want to do with him, that would break my deal.

Have I answered the questions properly? I'll go back and read everyone else's responses, now.