[The Good Fight] Help...

[BlackSheep]

Hi guys, occasional browser, first-time poster.

For a while now I've had an idea for a supers game.  But I'm having real trouble getting it (or anything else, for that matter) written up, even well enough to run a playtest, so this post is an attempt to get the ideas out there and gather some critiques on the basic concepts.

Okay.  This system is designed to emulate the basic narrative of the supers comic, which (as I see it) is as follows:

The villains have a plan.  The heroes become aware of the plan and try to stop them.  The villains gain the upper hand in the early stages.  The heroes only win at the end, when the plan is almost complete, but they always win.

The GM sketches out the plan before the session.  For example, a plan might be something like:

1. Steal half of an ancient key from a museum
2. Steal the half one from a wealthy collector
3. Use the key to enter the secret chamber of a pyramid
4. Awaken the evil king buried within
5. Steal the power of immortality
6. Rule the world

Now, you prepare the decks.

The hero deck contains the 2, 4, 6 and 8 of each suit.
The villain deck contains the 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 of each suit.
The story deck contains one black card for each step of the plan except the last (so five in this case).

At the beginning of each scene, the GM draws one card from the story deck.

If it's black, the villains will succeed in this scene, moving the plan along one step.  The card is replaced with a diamond.  A black joker is placed into the villain deck.

If it's a diamond, the heroes will score a minor victory in this scene, causing a temporary setback in the plan.  The card is replaced with a heart.  A red joker is placed into the hero deck.

If it's a heart, the heroes will triumph in this scene, putting an end to the plan once and for all.  A red joker is placed into the hero deck.

So a single draw at the beginning of each scene tells everyone how the scene will resolve.  They then play out the actual conflicts to see how it happens, using the hero and villain decks.

Each character will be rated in certain traits, not yet finalised but probably along the lines of Brains, Fighting, Spirit, Brawn, Move.  Powers, skills, advantages, disadvantages, weaknesses, equipment and so on are all subsumed into sub-traits.  So you could, for example, have an average move with a high flight power, or a high spirit with a low willpower.  No randomness or point budget in chargen; you just build the character you want to play.  No XP, either.

PC traits are rated on the 2/4/6/8 scale, where 4 is the maximum for a human.  NPC traits are measured on the 1/3/5/7/9 scale.  This allows NPCs to go below (henchmen) and above (Galactus) the PC range.  More importantly, it means that no conflict is ever tied.

At the beginning of each scene, everyone draws a hand.  The GM always gets five cards.  The players usually get three each.  However, in a scene centred on one hero in particular (for example, because they're fighting a nemesis or rescuing a loved one) they get four and everyone else gets two.

To resolve a conflict, both sides play a card.  You want to play a card equal or under the relevant trait.  If one side does this and the other doesn't, the side that did wins.  If both do or both don't, the high card wins.  The joker beats everything, and ends the scene.

If the winning card is red, the player narrates the outcome; if black, the GM does.

Each time you play a card, you draw one back.  However, in extended contests, you only draw back up if you win.  First person to run out of cards loses the contest.  GMs should set aside a 'hand' for villains when beginning an extended contest, with the size based on the importance of the villain - henchmen get one or two, major villains get three or four.

Okay, I know that's in fragments, but it's about all I have so far.  Comments?

[matthijs]

So a single draw at the beginning of each scene tells everyone how the scene will resolve.  They then play out the actual conflicts to see how it happens, using the hero and villain decks.

This is kind of hard to picture. Could you post an example of how you see a scene being played out?

[Sydney Freedberg]

Yeah -- if whether the heroes foil the Evil Plot is determined before you play out the scene, then "Foil the Evil Plot" can't be what's at stake in the scene. So what is? Maybe "what price will the heroes pay"? Whatever it is, you need a system that supports asking that question.

Marc [edit: sorry, Matt] Miller's With Great Power... is a supers RPG that involves following a pre-determined "story arc"; and Tony Lower-Basch's Capes has a cycle of losing now to win later; both have forums on this site (under "Independent Games").

And check out Lumpley Games, especially the blog discussions, for some great insight into how to think about "what's at stake" in a given scene.

[Mike Holmes]

Good references in general, but that's Mike Miller (Marc is the inventor of Traveller).

Another game to search up here is Panels. Never finished, but had some similar ideas.

Stakes, per se, have obviously been done. You can still go that way, but generally the question is "what do the players do that they enjoy in the game?" If they don't influence the outcome, then what do they influence? They're not there merely to roll dice to a predetermined outcome, are they?

Mike

[BlackSheep]

I guess I'm thinking about it in terms of the Greek chorus.

There are plays that tell us what happens at the end.  There are books that tell us what happens in each chapter.  More conventionally, when we watch a Hollywood film or read a supers comic, we know that the good guys will win and the world will be saved.  We're all going to see Revenge of the Sith even though we know exactly where it's going.

And when we roleplay, it's not uncommon for the GM to have certain events planned out, without much the players can do to stop it.  Whereas you can't railroad in this system because the mechanics do it for you.

What you get out of playing the game is, well, playing the game.  You get to be a superhero.  You get to fight dinosaurs and deflect nuclear missiles and uncover alien conspiracies.  But you don't have to worry about 'winning', and the GM doesn't have to worry about 'balance'.

[Mike Holmes]

We're all going to see Revenge of the Sith even though we know exactly where it's going.

I'm not!

Fuck, what am I saying? Of course I'm going.

And when we roleplay, it's not uncommon for the GM to have certain events planned out, without much the players can do to stop it.  Whereas you can't railroad in this system because the mechanics do it for you.

Well, there are lots of movements to get away from such planning. I personally go on and on about Ron Edwards methods of game prep which plan little to nothing in advance (and yet still produce tons of high quality play).

Your second question is confusing. How is applying mechanics that railroad not railroading?

Actually I sort of agree with the statement. That is, the best definition of railroading is taking away from the player the part of play that he wants to have as his source of participation. So, yeah, if you say ahead of time that winning or losing isn't what the player is about, I'm fine with that. Generally the population here is fine with that.

What you get out of playing the game is, well, playing the game.  You get to be a superhero.  You get to fight dinosaurs and deflect nuclear missiles and uncover alien conspiracies.  But you don't have to worry about 'winning', and the GM doesn't have to worry about 'balance'.

OK, well, at best what you're describing here sounds like what we'd call Participationism. Basically the GM tells a story and the players just "play along." But realize that in this style of play (if it exists, there are some who say it doesn't functionally exist at all), the players don't actually get to "be" a superhero or anything to any reasonable extent. Their decisions do not matter to winning and losing. Their decisions don't matter in terms of making some sort of thematic statement. At best their decisions can be said to be "realistic" or believable or something. But since those decisions are largely informed by the scenario forcing them to end up at their marks at the end of each scene, they don't even really get to do much of that.

To put it another way, the vast majority of players out there, if you ask them, will tell you that they want more of a role than what you're offering. I've yet to find an actual "Participationist" player. Oh, lots of "Participationist" GM's who are forcing their players to endure games which they don't really enjoy, sure. But no players who like this sort of treatment.

Now, many of them will have kneejerk reaction and tell you that they want an effect on winning and losing. Know what? I'm with you on this one. You can take win/lose away from the players just fine. But you do have to replace it with something substantial. More than just "playing the character." For example, if you give them more narration rights, they can actually be part of the storytelling part of the game. If you give them the ability to risk certain stakes it might allow players to make thematic statements in the framework of play.

But, well, as it stands, I think you're making a game that will appeal to few to no players, if you do not come up with some form of real interaction for the players.

Mike

[Sydney Freedberg]

Amen to Mike.

If your players can't change something that matters, why not stay home and read a book? They've already given up having an impact, so they might as well passively enjoy something already put together by professionals.

[Ron Edwards]

Wait wait wait. I'm kind of interested in this, and I totally buy the idea that "how it ends" may not actually be what's most at stake ... or to put it differently, if "how it ends" is known, there something in there that isn't known.

In this case, what would it be?

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

Yeah, I'm actually kind of grooving on the determine the outcome of the scene first and how the changing deck stacks the odds in favor of the villain most likely making significant progress, suffering a set back or two, making more progress and then getting stuffed in the end.  I can't say for sure that that will actually work to produce enjoyable play, but I can say for sure that its definitely worth playtesting.

The only thing that threw me then was this:

Each character will be rated in certain traits, not yet finalised but probably along the lines of Brains, Fighting, Spirit, Brawn, Move. Powers, skills, advantages, disadvantages, weaknesses, equipment and so on are all subsumed into sub-traits. So you could, for example, have an average move with a high flight power, or a high spirit with a low willpower. No randomness or point budget in chargen; you just build the character you want to play. No XP, either.

PC traits are rated on the 2/4/6/8 scale, where 4 is the maximum for a human. NPC traits are measured on the 1/3/5/7/9 scale. This allows NPCs to go below (henchmen) and above (Galactus) the PC range. More importantly, it means that no conflict is ever tied.

Typically you have traits and assign ratings to them in order to use them to determine the outcome of actions.  But with the ultimate outcome of the scene itself already pre determined I'm not sure why you'd need traits with ratings.  You indicate that they are to resolve conflicts...what sort of conflicts and how would those work in conjunction with the predetermined scene ending?

I'm thinking a better secondary system for filling in the events of the scene would be some system that identifies which characters get to have the spotlight for that scene and whether the scene for them is triumph or tragedy (which would be determined completely independently over whether the scene's outcome was favorable or not.

So that the result of the primary system would say "The villain wins and has entered the secret chamber of the pyramid".  The result of the secondary system would then say "The scene features a triumph by Kid Flash".

The rest of the scene would then involve determining (somehow) how to describe the scene so that Kid Flash comes out looking aces even though the villain managed to make it to the pyramid

Identifying Kid Flash and whether his spotlight time is triumphant or tragic would seem to me to be independent of any traditional notions of traits and stats and power levels.

...as a suggestion...

[Christopher Kubasik]

This is interesting...

Off the top of my head (and, I mean, it just came to me, so I'm not saying it's brilliant), what isn't known is...

What is this going to cost the PC?

If, during play, while trying to build to the appropriate, known climax for the scene, the Player must jigger some sort of loss (of loved one, of a habit, of a moral conviction... I have no idea....), then you've got an unknown to be discovered.  

And then I thought, keep that idea and add the idea the PC could gain something -- a loved one, a habit, a moral conviction... I have no idea!

This is the Story Now guy coming out of me in full spades, so I don't know if its appropriate. And I have no idea how to implement it.  (I could see this working in full Gamist mode, however, if there are different costs and benefits to shucking some things, and paying a price to gain others.)

I've never posted on Game Design before. As Jesse would say, "I hope that helps."

Christopher

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

Wait wait wait. I'm kind of interested in this, and I totally buy the idea that "how it ends" may not actually be what's most at stake ... or to put it differently, if "how it ends" is known, there something in there that isn't known.

In this case, what would it be?

Best,
Ron

-The Price.

-What price must the heroes pay to defeat the villains.  I suggest taking this game down a darker route where PC and/or Ally NPC death is frequent.  Or even better, where maiming and permanent sapping of super powers is common.  The players are forced to make a choice: Who will sacrifice themselves for the Greater Good.  They have to do it- the Good Guys Always Win- (note, that must be a mechanic in the game not just an off handed comment).  So, the thing that is stake is how bad will the cost be to take out the bad guys?  How much will it hurt?  How many innocents will be sacrificed?

Peace,

-Troy

[Sydney Freedberg]

Well, BlackSheep (and by the way, what's your real name? I'm named Sydney, but I'm a guy), you've got a lot of people saying "hey, this could be cool!" and three of us (me, Kubasik, Costick) all jumping up and down saying "it's all about the price you pay to win!"

But that may totally, utterly be not what you had in mind. And, y'know, your game. So, would love you to hear your thoughts.

[Mike Holmes]

What Ralph said. I'm seeing the pyramid scene, and the players burn resources, use ingenuity, generally play the situation as well as possible, and then get lucky, too. Heck, just to make the point, the GM has also misjudged the PC power, and has put in foes that are too weak (happens all the time by accident). The task resolution system is telling us that the heroes have won handily, wiping the floor with the opponents.

"Kid Flash stands on top of Alabama Smith, the Evil Archeologist, his minions defeated. Then, suddenly, Smith laughs, hits a button on a remote control, and all of the heroes fall over holding their ears due to the terrible sonic assault. Smith stands over the fallen Kid Flash, gloating as he points to special earplugs that the others had not noticed before. He then takes the key and opens the door."

I mean, why not simply narrate all of this, instead of doing the resolution to see if Kid Flash does stomp the bad guy before the dramatic reversal? What's accomplished by all the die rolling?


Chris, I agree with you that "stakes" are the obvious choice. But that's what all the cool kids are already doing with their designs today. I'm suggesting that it might be interesting to look at it from another angle. That said, it's hard, looked at from the perspective of the three basic agendas. I mean, we have no Gamism for sure (unless the player can take some joy in winning only to then have the game take the result away from him). We have no narrativism without stakes - or is there some other way to get narrativism? And without the ability to control where the character goes and what happens, there's really no open sim where the player can just explore to their heart's content. That leaves us back with participationism.

So you may be right, Chris, that this is all that's left.

OTOH...how about a design really directed to make participationism fun? Like, I dunno, rewards to the players for acting out their characters roles well? Makes it more like simply improvising a script for a sketched out movie or something, but that might be interesting. Especially if you can come up with something interesting for the rewards to be spent on...Can't tjhink of anything. But I'm just wondering if a game that was really "out" about it's participationism goal couldn't be fun?

Mike

[Mikael]

I think I can see one more option.

Forget stake, forget superheroes as real people with huge issues. Emphasize flash and fun for all. If the ending of the scene is known, make it a challenge for the players to reach that ending, with the given conflict resolution. To push the players, put in an artificial real-life time limit for the whole scene.

To make this work without a GM-deus-ex-machina at the end of each scene, the GM would need to be constrained by some sort of resource points per scene (mainly for the creation of new villains and superweapons). GM would then be a kind of a player as well. Part of GM play could be the distribution of a fixed amount of total resources between the scenes.

Perhaps a minimum resource expenditure (cards, whatever) should be required from the players? To prevent players from simply giving up in scenes where they are asked to fail.

Would love to playtest this. The hard spots - where the desired ending seems out of reach and the players need to get inventive - might generate some interesting story.

Just a thought, here to help.
Mikael

(My first post. Would like to take this opportunity to say "Thank you, Forge!")

[Mike Holmes]

Hey Mikael, welcome aboard. Our Finnish membership continues to be tremendous. :-)

Neat idea. Not sure how it would play, but it would be interesting to see. What reward would the players get for meeting their restrictions? Or what penalty for missing them?

Mike