Fun? Lots of fun.
First, I ended up with 5 players, which is more than I wanted to handle, but I expected at least one person to flake. Instead, everyone shows up. Ok. 3 players I've played with before, 2 I haven't. The two I haven't have primarily D&D history. 4 men, 1 woman. Ages early 20's to mid 30's.
Second, no one outside of myself has really done the indie game thing, or much in the ways of player input, player narration & scene framing, etc.
So what happened?
Kit Wickett, procurer of artifacts and antiquities rare and strange, is trying to cut a deal with a vampire gang lord in Salacious Alley. After refusing a bum deal on some ratty Dragonhide in exchange for the magical whip he acquired, he begins his quest to get some good Dragonhide. Taken, the mysterious masked wizard woman, desires the magic whip for study, and agrees to trade him 4 (not 3) yards of dragonhide...
Meanwhile, Cresey Eden, a Stranger who freezes things upon touch, finds her gloves are wearing thin, and all she wants to do is be able to eat a hot meal without freezing it first. She hunts down "Isabella" some crazy spirit who possesses Gypsies to give her some advice. The solution? Dragonhide gloves.
Marcel, the hack writer who glows with magical light, finds his neighbors are not quite as amused at his "sunny" demeanor- some people have got to sleep at night, and his curtainless apartment blasts out enough light to keep many of them up at night. He finangles a deal with Kit to get some magically enhanced curtains... the price? Dragonhide.
Azzizya, a Hellboy/leatherboy metal worker, manages to catch a thief in his shop- Renzo the Gnome, trying to make off with his magical bellows. After apprehending the fellow, he discovers Renzo was trying to take the bellows to begin a new counterfeiting operation with the old coin mint plates he stolen from the Mint (which, by the way, is operated entirely by goblins, because we thought it would be fun).
I wish I could explain all the madness that followed, but... imagine a Guy Ritchie movie that ends with a worker riot between humans & Gypsies, a massive dragon being released into the sky, a terrible fight thereafter, and sorta, mostly happy endings for everyone involved...
Epilogues- Cresey finally gets to eat a hot meal- a frozen tear falls from her eye. Marcel is hailed as a hero for "slaying the dragon", though in fact, he really didn't. Though the party's at his apartment are loud and bright, no one complains. Taken gets the magic whip and wanders off. Azzizya has become a kingpin, leader of a band of goblin, gnome, and leprechaun thieves, a bunch of disgruntled quarry workers, has a monopoly on the tin supplies for the whole City for the foreseeable future, AND opens his own bank (with his face on one side of the coins, no less). And Kit is in Salacious Alley, a lance over his shoulder, trying to cut a deal with a dragon...
Thoughts & Observations
1) Nearly all of my prep got thrown out the window. Granted, yes, I could have framed scenes and shoved in the stuff I had in mind- but it was just too much fun watching what everyone was doing.
2) 2 of the players enjoyed taking the roles of some of the NPCs for other folks' scenes. This worked out exceptionally well, as I don't do such a great job when I'm forced to juggle 12 NPCs or so. I would guide by either throwing out information about the NPCs, or declaring a Conflict in certain areas.
3) Nearly everyone chose extreme numbers. Failure didn't happen very often, as folks tended to stick to their strengths. Also, only one person took 2 injuries, and only 1 other person took 1 at all. I personally needed to step on slamming conflicts against folks which hit on their weak points in order to up the tension.
4) Everyone had fun, and a couple of the players were very interested in running it over the long run.
5) Only one player was extra active about making relationships- though none got used for rerolls.
6) One player wanted the map tiles to be broken up into smaller sections, and to get placed as you play, not before hand.
7) One of the new folks, wanted items to give mechanical differences, as well as have a mechanical chance of character death. I suspect this just wasn't the game for him.
8) I want to color the map-tiles. I think colored buildings would make it easier for me to recognize what's going on and to also draw more attention to them. I think a colored version of the maptiles would work really well. Nothing super detailed, just bright colors to help differentiate the buildings and the areas.
The Nitpick:
- Blood/Flame/Shadow Style is listed as Fighting/Magic/Social style on the chargen list- caused some confusion amongst the players.
The Question:
For the reroll chart, do you have to choose which column or the combo option before play begins, after your first reroll, or after your second reroll? We went with the last option, though only one person made a second reroll...
Chris
Sounds like a wonderful session, Chris. I'm glad you were able to handle 5 players. Yikes!
I love seeing how other people imagine the ST setting and the Strangers themselves. It's always different from my own vision, and that's awesome. Like, dragons?! Whoah. Cool. All of the Strangers in your game sound really great.
For the re-roll thing, you decide before your second re-roll. You either use one from the column you've already used (thus committing you to that column) or you use one from another column (thus "closing down" the column of your first re-roll).
About having mechanical differences for items. Wilhelm pointed out that since Stranger's can take relationships with anything, including inanimate objects, you can take a relationship with an item. Which then gives you re-rolls. Which makes it pretty darn special (and prone to destruction). I like this. Also, the guy with a relationship with his pistols? That says something.
I agree about colored map tiles. I may make some available for download in the future. The map sheets in the book will almost certainly be black and white, though. Coloring them yourself could be fun, too.
Thanks so much for playtesting! I really appreciate it.
Chris,
Thanks for posting yet another Stranger Things AP that makes me hunger.
Could you post one or two examples of conflict and how the system handled it?
Hi John,
Oh yeah! I totally forgot about relationships to objects! Good point.
With a little extra thought to it, I realized two of the players really drove the session, as they produced "instant kickers" for their characters while the other three players sort of never developed a real direction or solid conflict. I think I backed down when I should have shanked them with conflict. I really got to learn to take the kid gloves off.
The two players who did push things hard, also were the most interested in seeing what would happen in longer term play, while a couple of the other players remarked that they didn't really feel like much was happening in the way of character development- which I thought was an interesting observation. I think character development would hit much harder if I managed to get people pulling on relationships for rerolls more often.
Either way, way more neat stuff happened in about 3 and a half hours than most people get in several sessions of play.
Chris
Hi Judd,
The Ice Cream Fight-
Poor Cressy decides that she might as well get a bite to eat of something that she can eat without spoiling the temperature- ice cream. (We had decided earlier that ice houses and ice blocks were legit tech for the City, so, you also get ice cream). She's sitting down at a table at a sidewalk cafe, when Renzo the gnome, and his gang is making a run from Kerka the Troll, and the whole group is barrelling through everyone and everything.
Cressy fails the roll to avoid having her sundae knocked all over her (Blood roll, failed), and her player doesn't go for reroll, but instead declares a new conflict- a fight with Kerka. We go for Action by Action, the best of 5 rolls. She succeeds at 1 roll, successfully angering him and getting him to lunge at her. Cressy succeeds at the second roll and headbutts Kerka, knocking him back. Kerka, in a rage, tries to swing at her, and she succeeds a third roll, freezing his arm then shattering it...
Tell me why everyone wants you-
Renzo is making good on his escape, when Kit reaches out from an alley way and snatches him up. "Renzo, why is everyone looking for you? What's this I hear about minting plates?" I call a social conflict, and we do it as a single roll. Kit fails at first, Renzo stumbling and stammering, but Kit makes a reroll on Cruelty (pinching Renzo's ears) and succeeds. Renzo spills the beans about the minting plates and Kit figures out what's going on...
The resolution system works wonderfully, though there were a couple of times I would have done better to get more clarification up front in terms of goals and such. I think it might work best for the GM to take an informal role similar to the the GM in Dogs in the Vineyard- to push for lesser outcomes in order to extend the conflicts in certain situations. For example, the players wanted more of a "fight" to defeat the dragon- I think I was too afraid of negating their input and didn't look to negotiate lesser possible results before throwing dice. I know I caught myself once or twice failing to totally fulfill the goals stated at the beginning of the conflict... ack bad gamer habits.
Chris
Really interesting stuff, Chris.
Thanks.
Chris,
Was Cressy's goal in the first conflict "Don't get covered in ice cream"? Because... that's the cutest conflict goal I've ever heard of. "I am a creature of blood, flame, and shadow! Beware my powers, for my wrath is... LOOK OUT! ICE CREAM!" :-) Man, that's killing me. So. Good.
Hey: I was one of the less outspoken characters: Taken - Actually it was a very good session, and fun! and I think the game succeeds at everything it is attempting to do, I just thought it could be improved with a couple points, or perhaps variant rules, one which has already been answered above in this forum (importance of items).
1. Element of Danger: I never felt like there was any danger involved with any action I took. Wander in and talk with a den of vampires? No problem. Jump a 150 foot dragon and pound it into submission? No problem. This is a problem for the game (for me) because the thrill, or quickening of the intensity of a situation looses some of its edge. Even in a Guy Ritchie movie you expect some of the people to end up bloody and broken - riddled with holes. and the characters in teh movies rarely wnat to end up ridled with holes!!! I want an element of fate, and more danger from NPCs. the answer to this might just be Strangers vS Stranger fights. I was quickly bored with conflicts with NPCs who basically could not counter-conflict - and was thinking of attacking a fellow player just to make the danger level rise.
2. Items - what use are they? But above you noted the relationship with items, something we had forgotten!!! so thats cool
3. relative power limits - players or the GM have to be careful with what the character can realistically accomplish as a goal. Some genereal guidlines noted in the player creaton section might help. There is a danger of escalation - My ancient mage (a 2!) was bursting with demonic power after sucking hundreds of souls and being buried for the last 600 years.
but if I went up to a NPC dragon and hit it with my fist, I have a 10 percent chance of defeating it. (maybe more than one roll conflict, but I have rerolls on my side.. ). I don't believe my 2 should ever kill a dragon with my fist - not even a 1 percent chance. not even in the realm of possibility!! So I play it that way.
But another player may not think the same way that I do(also a 2), and actually goes and kill a dragon with her fist - this blows my characters constructed reality - and makes it less fun for me :)
This didn't happen in our game, it was a 8 that punched a dragon, so that fit in with my characters version of reality - but the possibility was there for the guy pummeling the dragon tohave been a 2 or 3.
it would be cool if the Blood/Flame/Shadow chance level was reflected in scale of influence in those realms.
my 2cents.
Hi John,
I believe her actual goal was "have a quiet meal" which, was rather fun a conflict to screw over.
Chris
Quote from: jetboy on August 14, 2005, 10:28:31 AM
1. Element of Danger: I never felt like there was any danger involved with any action I took. Wander in and talk with a den of vampires? No problem. Jump a 150 foot dragon and pound it into submission? No problem. This is a problem for the game (for me) because the thrill, or quickening of the intensity of a situation looses some of its edge. Even in a Guy Ritchie movie you expect some of the people to end up bloody and broken - riddled with holes. and the characters in teh movies rarely wnat to end up ridled with holes!!! I want an element of fate, and more danger from NPCs.
You want danger? You want broken bones? Put yourself in positions where they are plausible, declare conflicts, take a long pace, and keep pushing for rerolls. You'll hit incapacitated before you know it.
You have to do it to
your character though. It's a deliberate feature of this style of play and these rules that the character cannot become hurt or killed except with the consent of the player. Obviously, this isn't a style that suits everybody.
Quote from: rafial on August 14, 2005, 01:08:04 PM
Quote from: jetboy on August 14, 2005, 10:28:31 AM
1. Element of Danger:
... declare conflicts, take a long pace, and keep pushing for rerolls. You'll hit incapacitated before you know it. ...
Another technique is to declare conflict in the area your character is poor in. You'll have trouble and you'll get to do a lot of narrating.
Some general questions:
1. Say my character, Taken the Mage (2) hires a NPC ("Master Shadow"), forming a relationship, and that NPCs task is to go steal a Frumbalizer from Jargo the Red. (when I say hire, I mean I dominate their mind and make them do my will - a (Demon) Magic conflict to make them follow my orders)
Do I roll my shadow to see if he can steal the item? Or does the GM (with player input) simply decide without rolling to see if the NPC succeeds. Is this complicated if Jargo is another Stranger(character)?
2. If the game is really all about the story telling, why have a number at all? Why not just have the 3 - Blood, Fire, Shadow, and have the players decide generally how good they are at each, with the understanding that no one can have it all. decribe it on a scale from : "Clueless" to "The MAN!" or however else you want to describe your own proficiency. Then just decide if you fail or succeed depending upon how difficult the goal is. Only if you can't decide for some reason, if you are just stuck, then flip a coin or something, call it a Fate roll
Having the number just confuses my simple mind, because its adding a seemingly arbitrary structure to a non-structured story driven game. I end up wanting More numbers, or None at all!!!
When I was 10 years old, before my brother allowed us to play D&D with him, my friends and I played basically this exact game - we just sat around making up stories about our imagined characters and making any determinations needed by various on hand random generators - throw a pencil up and see where it points, flip a leaf, watch which way the beetle crawls.(we had no dice) I like adding a little element of Fate/Chance into any story line - but dont see the need for the number, or really any dice at all. (OR I want lots of dice and rules because that can be fun for different reasons)
-j
Quote from: jetboy on August 14, 2005, 05:28:31 PM
Say my character, Taken the Mage (2) hires a NPC ("Master Shadow"), forming a relationship, and that NPCs task is to go steal a Frumbalizer from Jargo the Red. (when I say hire, I mean I dominate their mind and make them do my will - a (Demon) Magic conflict to make them follow my orders)
Well, once you have a relationship with an NPC, you can simply tell the GM what they do, no roll necessary. To get that relationship you need to have been in a conflict which involved that NPC. Your proposed Flame conflict to mentally enslave someone might qualify, but such means aren't always necessary. If you came into conflict with Master Shadow in a social setting, or a duel, and took him/her as a relationship, you could later decide that he goes to steal the item your behalf. The GM gets to say why he does it, and and how he feels about it.
Quote
Do I roll my shadow to see if he can steal the item? Or does the GM (with player input) simply decide without rolling to see if the NPC succeeds. Is this complicated if Jargo is another Stranger(character)?
It basically boils down to if you or the GM wants to make a conflict of it. If you say "Master Shadow goes to steal the Frumbalizer" and the GM responds "you hear later that he was caught and hurled into a dungeon" you could respond "No way! Conflict". In this case you'd use the "Relationship goes first" clause from the conflict rules, and yes, it'd probably be Shadow. If you blew the roll, and didn't want to accept the failure, then you could have your PC enter the scene directly in some fashion to continue the conflict (you might have your Mage show up to rescue you hapless minion, or you might say that Jargo the Red has tracked Master Shadow and the Frumbalizer back to you and is now confronting you directly).
Quote
If the game is really all about the story telling, why have a number at all? Why not just have the 3 - Blood, Fire, Shadow, and have the players decide generally how good they are at each, with the understanding that no one can have it all.
I must admit that I find the single number thing to be a bit of a gimmick. I've often though you could just say "distribute 13 points across your three attributes" or something like that.
Quote
Having the number just confuses my simple mind, because its adding a seemingly arbitrary structure to a non-structured story driven game. I end up wanting More numbers, or None at all!!!
Ah, but TB/ST is a
very structured game. It's just that the structure is more about apportioning credibility to say "what happens next" among the
players and not about deciding if "can my PC pick this lock".
QuoteI like adding a little element of Fate/Chance into any story line - but dont see the need for the number, or really any dice at all. (OR I want lots of dice and rules because that can be fun for different reasons)
Well, free form play in which the players bounce ideas off each other and then agree on stuff is definitely enjoyed by some. But that's not what TB/ST is. It encourages everybody to put their ideas in the pot, and then has a very structured, fortune based mechanism for determining who has the final say about what happens next. Some like it, some don't but do not mistake it for something it is not (a "free-form" "storytelling" game).
I've always thought that fortune in conflict resolution served two important purposes:
1) The possiblity of not getting what you want pumps excitement.
2) How far a player (not a character) is willing to go to alleviate random setbacks forces the player to clarify what they care about in the game.
3) Random setbacks or unexpected results in general actually demand creativity from the players, raising their performance to a higher level than if they were just sitting around making consensus decisions.
Yes, fortune-based and freeform games are different. I don't think we need to discuss their relative merits here.
Suffice it to say, Wil is right. ST is not a "freeform storytelling" game, and its mechanics are not designed for that kind of play.
Quote from: jetboy on August 14, 2005, 05:28:31 PM
Some general questions:
1. Say my character, Taken the Mage (2) hires a NPC ("Master Shadow"), forming a relationship, and that NPCs task is to go steal a Frumbalizer from Jargo the Red. (when I say hire, I mean I dominate their mind and make them do my will - a (Demon) Magic conflict to make them follow my orders)
Do I roll my shadow to see if he can steal the item? Or does the GM (with player input) simply decide without rolling to see if the NPC succeeds. Is this complicated if Jargo is another Stranger(character)?
This topic was discussed recently, here:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=16155.0
In short, if you want an NPC you have a relationship to do something, you can say he does it. If the GM thinks this requires a conflict, you'll resolve it using your Stranger's scores.
Regarding the freeform idea: ST and trollbabe do have a strong storytelling element, but the dice rolls and numbers are there for a reason. The way narration is distributed between GM and player (success and failure) is I think very interesting.
It was mentioned up in the first post that there weren't too many reroll uses - so either the players in this game were failing and happy to accept those failures, or succeeding on first roll. Both of those elements might easily contribute to the image you have of the game - but the tension can really ramp up when players get drawn into conflicts that they
really want to win, and are either unlucky or their number is low. That can produce the battered and bloody heroes you spoke of above.
I guess i have played only totally out there, or completely rule based, so this game - which is very much in the middle confuses my limited scope. it comes down to the fact that I have never played troll-blade, so i dont have the basic concept. i want to say first off that all of my compaints are not actually compaints- Our session was actually amazingly well formulated and everyone had a grea time (incuding me!). if it wasn't a play test I wouldn't say a thing. its really just because i want to make trouble and try to define and expand the game that i bother posting.
I thank you for the link explaining and discussing more in dept the NPC relationship issue - of course we only had a one-off, so were not able to explore the relationships to any depth - which I have come to realize are a key element to the game. I am sorry that I did not read more carefully previously posted material before posting my own questions.
I now understand better:
1. relationships with items
2. relationships with NPCs
I am still not satisfied with realative power levels, which no one has commented on from my initial post. you are saying its perfectly fine for my emaciated mage to punch a dragon in the nose, and if I roll a 1, knock it out???
Quote from: jetboy on August 15, 2005, 03:05:12 AM
I am still not satisfied with realative power levels, which no one has commented on from my initial post. you are saying its perfectly fine for my emaciated mage to punch a dragon in the nose, and if I roll a 1, knock it out???
Who is to say the mage threw a punch? The way the system works, you work backwards from success or failed intent to the events that actually brought it about. "I punch the dragon in the nose, knocking him out" is typically not a very good intent. Better might be "I prevent the dragon from eating the helpless villagers". If you roll a 1, then the GM is going to describe how that intent is fulfilled. Perhaps in trying to gobble up your mage, who is desperately trying to get out of the way, the dragon knocks itself silly on some obstacle. Perhaps your mage simply stands his ground, and the dragon is so impressed with his bravery in the face of certain doom, that he backs off. Perhaps you mage actually notices a missing scale on the dragons neck and drives his dagger home. The GM will pick some alternative that both satisifies what the dice say about intention achieved or not achieved, and also preserves the idea and image that you and other people at the table have concerning your character. And you (or anybody else) are free to chime in with suggestions about what you think might have happened. The rules just give the GM "final approval" over a success narration, they don't mean that everybody else at the table has to shut up.
So if the GM starts to say "The scrawny mage picks up the 150' dragon by the tail and starts to whirl him around..." and that totally offends your sense of the world that you and your fellow players have been building up, speak up. Say "I don't like that, and here's why". If another player starts to narrate something in one of their failure narrations that you think totally goes against the vibe of the imagined world, say so. If you are playing with people who are there to participate in the experience, you and your fellow players will quickly work out what should and should not be happening with your characters and in your world. If you are playing with jerks, they'll ruin the mood no matter what system you use.
On the other hand, maybe there is some other group out there that
likes little mages suddenly freaking out and felling dragons with one blow of their scrawny fist in a big wuxia wire fight. Trollbabe and Stranger Things has no comment on the rightness or wrongness of that. Every playgroup must police the vibe of the setting for themselves.
Thanks for responding, Jetboy. I appreciate all feedback about the game. Hope you don't feel like we're ganging up on you.
About "power levels." No, it is certainly NOT alright for your emaciated mage to punch a dragon in the nose and knock it out. I would never allow that in a ST game of mine. Here's the secret: the GM has final say about what gets narrated after a successful roll. I don't think any GM would dare to narrate that the scrawny little mage punches the dragon once, and it falls over dead. Everyone would think that was stupid. Also, during free-and-clear, when the set-up for the roll is negotiated, I don't think you, as a player would say "I'm punching it in the nose with my scrawny arm!"
Silly outcomes only make their way into the game if everyone playing allows them to. If a set-up during free and clear sounds silly to you, say so! If an element of narration by the GM sounds impossible, say something.
Finally, yes you most certainly can call for a conflict of Blood against the dragon, roll a 1 and succeed at your goal. However, goals and narration possibilities are negotiated during free and clear. As GM, I would never agree to the goal of "defeat the dragon" with a single blow from a scrawny mage. How about, "distract the dragon so I can lead it out of the neighborhood." Fine. Or, "piss the dragon off so it starts wrecking everything in sight." Perfect. Since the GM narrates successes, he is fully within his rights in the game to say "I won't narrate that" when it comes to a goal that seems impossible.
Let's say, though, that your mage has a dragon-slaying knife. Maybe he got it in an earlier scene. Or you just made it up now... whatever. Things are different. Now, you want to take your 1 in 10 shot at "defeat the dragon" with a miraculous stab at just the right moment as the creature's massive jaws snap just inches from your face? Hell yeah. Go for it.
Does that answer your question?
(edit: cross-posted with Rafial -- behold the eerie similarities!)
yes, in fact you do answer my question! actually you answer 2 questions.
1st question is the power the GM has over the game play in determining realistic goals for the character- something i think should be more explicitly described in the playbook.
the 2nd question stems from a problem I had in that my character had obtained by the end, a alchemical whip specifically designed to kill vampires - and the comment was made, that with my blood score(1 for those late to the thread), that the whip was basically useless to me! I thought that no matter how sucky I was, the whip should give me an advantage in fighting vampires.. and I did not see where the game mechanics allowed for this. (not we had forgotten item relationships ) but I see where, while normally I might be not be able to destroy a vampire at all, the whip would allow me have the chance to do so.
again, an example like this in the playbook would help people with feeble brains such as myself! *grin*
There's two things about power levels that haven't been discussed yet:
To add to John and Rafial's points: when you do a conflict, there's a particular procedure to follow. Before you roll any dice there's something called the Fair and Clear stage - this is where the GM and player declare their actions, and the GM reveals any information the player needs to know if he narrates. It's at this stage that any unkillability of creatures should be revealed.
The player would say, "I'm going to punch out the dragon."
GM: "Um, no. The dragon is pretty tough, you'll need to come up with some more compelling narration than that to deal with it."
or GM: "As it happens, this dragon is beyond your skills to defeat. So your goal should be something like 'rescue the damsel', or 'keep it busy while its prey escapes,' or 'during your fight, get it to smash open the Unbreakable Vault,' or whatever."
In Trollbabe (and I expect the final printing of ST to follow suit), it is also possible - under certain circumstances - to suffer penalties (never more than -2) to your rolls. So that Blood score of 1-8 becomes 1-6. Things can get pretty tricky then!
Finally, whether a Stranger can hurt/kill a foe doesn't have to be entirely GM fiat. Trollbabe and Stranger Things have something called Scale. This is the scope of power a Stranger's powers have. At the start of a campaign, Scale is "Single Person". By the end of a campaign, it can be "Entire City" (which in ST is the same as "entire world".
I'm not sure this next paragraph is entirely legit, but I like it. :)
A GM could easily say that a Dragon is at the scale of "District", which could have the effect that a Stranger can not directly defeat it until the campaign has reached District-level scale. Conflicts involving the dragon would then be limited to things like, "save the damsel from the dragon," with everyone knowing at the outset that the dragon will not be seriously hurt by the conflict. But once the campaign is at District-level, then defeating that dragon becomes possible during a simple conflict.
Hi,
The most important thing that lies at the center of this discussion is that the resolution mechanics for ST do not emulate or dictate any sort of "physics", all that lies in the hands of the group. The dice help dictate which way the "tables turn" in a cinematic sense- the group then justifies how that is plausible.
For instance, if our friend Azzizya, the meaty number 8 Hellboy type, fails at a Blood roll in a fight, does that mean he throws a wussy punch? No! Plausibly, maybe he's fighting a fast guy who ducks while he knocks a hole in the wall, maybe he's fighting a wizard who throws up an illusion or a magical forcefield, or maybe he's fighting a dragon or something tough enough to take the punchs and laugh at him.
Thing is- when you fail, you narrate how that happens in a way that is plausible to you, and the group says, "Yeah! Cool!" or "Dude! We're playing this game, not Rifts!" or whatever works. On the flip side, when you succeed, obviously as a GM, I've got to plausibly narrate the goal and the action you've been aiming at. So, in the end, the dice say whether you made it or not, but not how it exactly goes down.
In the case of our playtest, I let the dragon go down because it made for an easy and clean wrap up to a one-shot. I don't know if any of you guys will get the time to get together again and make another run at it, so I figured, "Why not? Cool stuff should happen now!". =)
Chris
Hey John,
In Trollbabe, the rules specifical state that PCs are considered hyper-competent in fighting, magic, and social skills. When no conflict is declared, the PC succeeds with style.
Will this concept be ported to ST?
Anyway, my take is that the Number just reflects where the player would like to see adversity. It has no relation to the Stranger's "in-game" competence. A Stranger with Blood roll of 1-8, with a Blood descriptor of Lucky Bumbler will have a whole different presentation from a Stranger with the same number but a descriptor of Whirling Blade Master.
Alan,
Yes, that's addressed in the rules. There's a section in there now that talks about how your character's abilities are not determined by your scores or conflict rolls.
Here's a bit of text talking about narration of failures:
Quote from: Stranger ThingsWhen a conflict arises, we cast a die to determine the fate of the Stranger, using the method outlined above. It is important to remember that the casting of the die (and its result) does not represent the capabilities or actions of the Stranger. The die roll merely tells us whether or not the Stranger manages to achieve his goal or not. It is the narration surrounding the die roll (both before and after) that establishes the details of what happened—why the Stranger succeeded or failed. The player of the Stranger will shape the nature of these narrations, so that she can present the character in any light she likes—a skilled and resolute hero, an uncertain and fumbling novice, or anything in-between.
For example, Vozhu Lor's number is 5. His player, Tony, imagines Vozhu Lor as a master duelist and pistolier. He enters into a conflict of Blood, with the goal of "Make my way into the inner sanctum of the Red Wizard." Tony rolls a die and gets a 7—a failure. Fate has not smiled on him tonight. This failure, however, can be described in any number of ways. All we know for sure is that Vozu Lor has not made his way into the inner sanctum.
Tony chooses to describe his defeat as a series of moments from the pitched battle between Vozhu Lor and the black-clad swordsmen guarding the Wizard's keep. Vozhu cuts, parries, leaps, flips, and shoots, laying a score of enemy out in a bloody trail behind him. But the further he goes, the more frenzied grow the defenders, as do their number. They finally overwhelm Vozhu Lor in a sea of blades and burning eyes, leaving him no choice but to leap from the wall of the keep into the rushing waters of a canal below.
As you can see, even if Fate does not look kindly upon your Stranger, they may still act the part of the hero. A failed roll does not necessarily mean a failure of talent in your character. Likewise, a successful roll can represent a stroke of luck or coincedence rather than heroic ability, if you like.
There's also a sidebar on that same page (p. 25 in the playtest PDF) titled "Can I Do That?" that directly addresses the power-level issues Jetboy is talking about.
As long as comparing Stranger Things to Trollbabe is on topic: How does the change in the nature of the protagonists make the two different? I recall that Ron Edwards has emphasized that the core of the original game is "wandering woman of power," with the "between two peoples" aspect being secondary, whereas Stranger Things emphasizes in-between-ness. Also, it seems that Trollbabe strongly specifies the type of character to play but leaves the setting pretty wide open, whereas Stranger Things has a more specified setting and less specified characters.
You're right on target, Sydney. Stranger Things deals mainly with the themes of bigotry and ignorance, with the Strangers caught between two cultures that mistrust and fear each other because of their differences. The City setting is a big component of the game, since it acts as the pressure-cooker for the demons and humans. They are all packed into the City and can't simply leave each other alone. They are forced to face their ignorance and hatred, and either give in to it or rise above. The Strangers are a powerful force that can tip the balance.
Like Trollbabe, there are other stories to tell, too. Human vs human conflict, demon vs demon, weird monsters threatening the City, Stranger/human or Stranger/demon love stories, etc.
Now, the question that may be hard to answer at this early stage: Given these differences in how character, situation, and setting are set up, are you or your playtesters seeing any emergent effects -- systematic differences in Actual Play, especially ones that surprise you? I wouldn't have expected Trollbabe to produce a story with Guy Ritchie vibe, for example.
It really is too early to tell. I can say that I intend for ST play to be different from TB play, and so far it has been. One thing I've noticed in the playtests (and this might be a coincidence) is that players are embedding their Strangers more deeply into the setting than I thought they would. Instead of the rootless wanderers I have been imagining, they're making Strangers that are tied to the community. Wilhelm made a character that was a hugely popular socialite, for example. I'm not sure why this is, or whether it's something I want to address in the text. I think Strangers should definitely not have "jobs" per se, but other than that, players can do what they want.
Maybe something about the dense urban setting (as opposed to the wide, windswept Trollbabe world) makes players think of more intimate communities and connections. Or not. With only four playtests, it's probably too early to tell.