[Transhuman Space] First attempts at Sim play.

[Simon Marks]

Hi all

Thanks for the advice. I've another session starting in oooh... 50 minutes?

I'll post a report on how this session went later.

[Simon Marks]

Ok, session two happend on Wensday night.
Firstly I'll go through what happened, and then talk about what I think came out of the situation

When we left our intrepid explorers, they where just coming upto the debris of another ship, which appeared to be on the same tragectory and a similair velocity.

In our 'hard sci-fi' genre this is significantly unusual enough for them to be very nervous.

The use a 'ladar' (laser imaging system, highly accurate upto 2,500 miles) to find out that the ship was once originally a tube ship (like their own), which appears of have slowly ... fallen apart. Many questions where asked as to "why didn't it all fly off in different directions?" They looked closely at the edgest of the 'bits' and decided "Beam weapons" - lasers - "Cut this ship apart"
"Cool, I though, lets go with that"

So, they accelerate and then hold about 1km from the debris of the ship, and take a closer look.
Shyshen (the robot) was sent over to have a closer look. During this time, they discover another rock in a cooling pipe feeding the reactor. This one is also from the Ort Cloud (see the first session), but more importantly - the pipe would have needed to be cut open and re-sealed to get the rock in there...

The first bit of ship they come across is about 40 sq.meters (120 square ft) by about 10 meters deep. More investigation reveals that two sides where neatly cut, but the other two sides where pre-weakend, probably on a molecular level.
They guessed what had happend was the ship was sabotaged, and diced. When the lasers hit, the weakend hull meant that cubes of the ship simple ripped themselves off. Leaving whole sections still sealed.

They use a micro camera to investigate the sealed section that Shyshen was on, and found that this was some sort of function room, with tables, chairs and some sort of cybershell in the corner - rocking backwards and forwards.

They check it out, and find a horribly traumatised AI called Antony (no reason, first name that came to me) trapped in the shell - just enough of the AI was in the Cybershell to make it run, but all the memories etc was kept in the core computer which the cybershell was run from.
Essentially the AI was blind, deaf, amnesiac and without a sense of touch. All it had was it's internal sensors. They discovered the Core Computer (which was part of the central 'spine') which was (obviously) down powered and started to drag it over to the ship along with the cybershell.

Shyshen continues it's investigations, while Tyler and Mr Ocelot continue to try and work out what the hell happend.

Shyshen then finds the bridge, also still sealed, with about a dozen corpses floating about. Shyshen streams the info back, and the others are a little upset. Especially by the corpse exposed to hard vaccum (the players discriptions of what happens to a body in space was icky).
They again broke their way in, turned on the emergency computer on the bridge and check out the bodies.
About this time they had got the Core Computer onto (outside of) the ship, and set about powering it up.

Shyshen made some unpleasent discoveries about the corpses. Something had made round holes in the bodies, about 1/2 an inch round, with an exit wound the same size as the entry wound. "Either a low velocity projectile - which in low G is pointless, or some sort of thrusting weapon" said Shyshen "If I where to kill all the crew here, then they would have injuries similar to this, but more rectangular"
"If I were to...? Who is this?" thinks Mr Ocelot, now more than a little disturbed.

About this time, I thought we would have a little payoff.
Just after they plugged in the Core Computer, Mac (Tylers AI) piped up "Ummm - Tyler? Did you plug in the computer?"
"Yes Mac"
"It's just that according to this, it was Antony (the AI they where rescuing) who killed all the crew..."
"Oh god... Mister, get into a VaccSuit - Shyshen get back here!"

As Shyshen launched itself back to the Ship, it was accosted by a Combat Droid in the shape of a Snake. It's prefered method of Attack? Well, in 0g, it would latch onto it's opponent and thrust it's pointy tail through the victim... just like all those poor people in the bridge.

The fight was short lived, but there was a lot of panic onboard the ship about if the Cybershell on the hull of their ship could break through in time to prevent them unplugging the computer (no, it couldn't).

Shyshen disabled the Combat droid. Mr Ocelot and Tyler unplugged the computer. Everone sat down.

That was more or less the end of the session.

What did I make of it all?

Well, the game was organised the evening it was run, and as it was run from 8pm - 11pm, it was quite tightly packed. We had one brief diversion when Ms T (Shyshen) was called away on the phone - which held things up a bit. However the other two players filled their time by discussin what could have done this. So, no real loss here.

But here is the problem - the system is holding us back a lot. I called for about 3 rolls - the players voluntered for 3 rolls. 4 of the rolls where "Using the sensors".
*sigh*
The problem is that with Gurps, it doesn't allow what I want it to allow - for the players to become involved in the creation of the world.
The system doesn't support my Sim needs because it's me (the ref) who decides what requires a roll and me (the ref) who decides what is "the truth" - but dammit, the session showed me that I don't have a monopoly on the good ideas!

All the players inputed a lot into SIS - a lot. From defining names, Structures and other bit's of colour to simply the best idea of the night (which I shall be using).
The reason all the bits of the ship are heading in the same direction is because it is being dragged along in the wake of something with it's own gravity - thats either a proppelled and large Asteroid, or a spaceship powered by a microsingularity. I mean, thats just fantastic and not what I would have thought of.

What I am saying is I need a system that allows for the players a much greater control over the dream, because they know as well as I do what is being celebrated.
I'm sorta drawn to two systems - a variation of the Pool, or Universalis.
Now, the Pool seems to be extreamly 'no-myth' - which is to say that it doesn't take into account the dream by making things that are 'in-line' with the dream more likely than things that are 'counter to the dream' - Except for the +1-+3 dice from the ref.
So, I was thinking of a version of the Pool where the dream is written, line by line. Sorta world "Character Sheet"
So, if someone (say, me) introduces "Snake Robot combat droid" with "Fights in 0g really well +2".
Then, if you end up in a fight with the Snake Robot in 0g, and you take the +2 dice - what ever happens it fights really well.

But then I think "Isn't this just a bad version of Universalis" and then think "Do I really want to change the system?"

But worst of all I think "GURPS is not supporting my Sim style game - becuase, contrary to popular belief, I'm not finding it Sim supporting but instead illusionist technique supporting.

Ok, generally I think I've got the hang of Sim - but Sim with "bass playing" ref-style and greatly empowered player input? GURPS aint working for me...

[Pôl Jackson]

You might not want to abandon GURPS just yet. I'm guessing that your GURPS gearhead player put a substantial amount of time into character creation. Am I right? He might have a lot invested in that character, through that process.

In our GURPS games, our GM gives out "Plot Points" when a player contributes a cool idea. Plot Points can then be spent by the player, to influence the plot in some way. We also steal an idea from the Buffy RPG: if the GM railroads your character for the purposes of the story (the villian escapes; the bomb goes off; your best friend gets eaten by vampires), then you get a free Plot Point in compensation.

(...And I have just now realized that I have been hordeing these Plot Points for no good reason. If we were playing Gamist, then of course it makes sense to hang on to Plot Points - or Hero Points, or whatever - until the perfect tactical moment. But in a Sim game, I should be using these Plot Points, and using them hard, to drive play towards the things I find the most interesting.)

So, my advice: if you use the Plot Point idea, make sure your players use them. And not just for cheesy gamer stuff, like "I open the lock" or "my aim is true". Make sure that they also use them for cool plot stuff, like "I find out that my mother is an AI Ghost, enslaved by a megacorp."

-Pôl

[Mike Holmes]

The Pool is good in it's own right. Might be good for what ails ya. Better yet might be something less drastic, like FATE. Give lots of FATE points, and they can use them to do worldbuilding stuff.

Here's a thing: with your current play, when the players are coming up with ideas like the gravity well and lasers cutting the ship up, are they aware that you're using their ideas? If they're not, then at best all they get out of finding out that their idea is "right" is a gamism sense of having guessed the nature of the situation. If you tell the player that you're using their idea, however, then they're rewarded by the introduction of the idea into play. Very different thrills here. If you're after simulationism, I'd tell them that you're using their ideas. This then rewards them for coming up with such stuff.

Heck, twist GURPS in a real

Donjon

way, and make it so that any successful roll like a sensors roll allows the player to define the situation. That's a lot like the Pool, and the players get to keep their investment as Pol points out.

Mike

[Simon Marks]

Here's a thing: with your current play, when the players are coming up with ideas like the gravity well and lasers cutting the ship up, are they aware that you're using their ideas? If they're not, then at best all they get out of finding out that their idea is "right" is a gamism sense of having guessed the nature of the situation. If you tell the player that you're using their idea, however, then they're rewarded by the introduction of the idea into play. Very different thrills here. If you're after simulationism, I'd tell them that you're using their ideas. This then rewards them for coming up with such stuff.

I'm not telling them.
This is a mistake, thanks for pointing it out for me.

I think they are aware of it, but honesty (in this case) is the best policy.

I sat down with Ms T last night and had a discussions on "Meaningful decisions" and why mechanics are good.

If there are no defined mechanics linking action A to result B, then you the player are only making a meaningful decision if the person who links A -> B allows it to be so.
In a system without mechanics and the Ref=God model, players only make meaningful decisions if the ref allows them.

If on the other hand the mechanics linking A to result B are defined then it is, irrespective of the Ref (or anyone else), a meaningful decision to do A. If the mechanics involve chance, then you are making a decision to take a risk.

I then think back to Tyler's player making all those sensor rolls. It is irrespective of how well he does/doesn't make those rolls - if there is nothing to find he has not made a meaningful decision.
Unless I grant him one.

(He has made a decision which effects the colour of the system - which is obviously important to Sim play - but so is everything else)

Heck, twist GURPS in a real

Donjon

way, and make it so that any successful roll like a sensors roll allows the player to define the situation. That's a lot like the Pool, and the players get to keep their investment as Pol points out.

Mike

And that idea is pure gold. It's GURPS, but with narration rights defined. I'll try it out and see what happens.

I think the guideline will be
"If you make a roll, and succede - you can define the result, otherwise I will"
"If I ask you to make a roll, and you succede then I can define the result, otherwise you will"

Let's see how that works out.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Not to toot my own horn too loudly, but you just might want to check out my in-process game, Shock: Social Science Fiction. Playtest version 0.1.0 has been released, with the full release in March.

It has full support for world-building on the fly, and is about asking the questions that Transhuman Space claims to ask, but with ways to discuss them.

[Mike Holmes]

It's funny, but I was thinking, hmmm, haven't I read of some game design recently where the idea is to promote the whole "What If" nature of sci-fi. Simon, definitely check out Josh's game.

I think they are aware of it, but honesty (in this case) is the best policy.

Well, honesty, sure. But, as you surmise, usually in this case players know what you're up to. So there's this agreement that you don't have to tell them. So it's not precisely dishonest. To me the problem lies in the fact that you lose out on a chance to socially reinforce. That is, when you say, "Cool idea, let's go with that" it's very important. Sure, when a player sees you selecting his idea using the tacit method, he can sorta locally rejoice. But there's always that question, "Hmm, maybe that's what he'd thought of already." Being open about it puts the question out of their mind, tells the player directly that you're glad he came up with the idea, and lets everyone know that the players creativity was unique.

If on the other hand the mechanics linking A to result B are defined then it is, irrespective of the Ref (or anyone else), a meaningful decision to do A. If the mechanics involve chance, then you are making a decision to take a risk.

That's pretty profound. It's the same thing as what I said above, really. The mechanics here are providing proof of an arbitrary space in which these statements are being made. As opposed to one where hidden biases may be affecting things in unknown ways. Cool.

And that idea is pure gold. It's GURPS, but with narration rights defined. I'll try it out and see what happens.

I think the guideline will be
"If you make a roll, and succede - you can define the result, otherwise I will"
"If I ask you to make a roll, and you succede then I can define the result, otherwise you will"

Let's see how that works out.

If you want to make it seem more like a reward, say that they have to make the roll by more than the exact number (or even by two or more if you want), else you always get to narrate it. This makes it seem even more appropriate to have really high ability levels. Finally giving a use to that really high Biology skill level, which then becomes a relatively powerful player tool.

In any case, looking forward to seeing how they take to it.

Mike

[Larry L.]

Yes, GURPS sucks.

I had decided if I were to take a stab at Transhuman Space again, I would use either the HeroQuest system (supports narr with detailed pre-existing setting) or Mike Holmes' Synthesis (similar to HeroQuest, but emphasizing ideological shifts).

But you might be happier exploring the shared-world building avenue. If you and your players have never played Universalis before, it could open your eyes.

[Simon Marks]

Hi all.

Yeah, Josh - Shock looks real good.

I need to get my head around it and see if I can make it work for Gurps - but there is going to be one big ol' problem with shunting over to it. It's GM less. And I'm the GM...

Heh, I'll see if I can convert THS to Shock and see if it works out. Maybe a "Demo Session" would work...

If on the other hand the mechanics linking A to result B are defined then it is, irrespective of the Ref (or anyone else), a meaningful decision to do A. If the mechanics involve chance, then you are making a decision to take a risk.

That's pretty profound. It's the same thing as what I said above, really. The mechanics here are providing proof of an arbitrary space in which these statements are being made. As opposed to one where hidden biases may be affecting things in unknown ways. Cool.

If nothing else has come out of this thread, finding my own voice on "Why mechanics are good and not just a nessecary evil" has been incredibly worthwhile. I've been struggling for some time with the fact that I knew that mechanics can make a game better (and not just in a "preventing arguments" way) - but was unable to express this to any satisfaction.

And here I was able to explain to Ms T (who thinks that mechanics just get in the way mostly) why they are good. "Tyranny of the Structurlessness" has also informed this opinion as has some of the worst abuses of Illusionist Reffing techniques (Especially in LARP).

TTFN

[Mike Holmes]

Well, realize that for Mrs T that, in fact, she may not yet have experienced mechanics that support what she needs herself. She might actually need "freeform mechanics" if you will. For her that might be the best system available. She may intellectually understand your need, but she also may not share it.

OTOH, showing it to her, perhaps she may become interested. Who can say?

Mike

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Yeah, Josh - Shock looks real good.

I need to get my head around it and see if I can make it work for Gurps - but there is going to be one big ol' problem with shunting over to it. It's GM less. And I'm the GM...

None of it will work with GURPS. It assumes that all the players have something worthwhile to say about the world and GURPS explicitly forbids that: "The GM's rule is law."

Let me say this bluntly: I used GURPS for years. I have all the Transhuman Space books but the zombie one and Personnell Files. And what that made me want to do was write a game that would let me tell a story about what Transhuman Space claimed to be, but wasn't actually, about.

Heh, I'll see if I can convert THS to Shock and see if it works out. Maybe a "Demo Session" would work...

That should work just fine. I recommend you use no more than three Shocks, tending on the small side. But the conversion will have to be communal.

There's also a small fallacy here: Shock: isn't really GMless. Your Antagonist Player is your GM during a conflict, and the owners of Shocks are the GMs of those particular items. The responsibilities of a traditional GM are clustered together wherever there's an issue of authority. Shock: just distributes that authority.

If nothing else has come out of this thread, finding my own voice on "Why mechanics are good and not just a nessecary evil" has been incredibly worthwhile. I've been struggling for some time with the fact that I knew that mechanics can make a game better (and not just in a "preventing arguments" way) - but was unable to express this to any satisfaction.

And here I was able to explain to Ms T (who thinks that mechanics just get in the way mostly) why they are good. "Tyranny of the Structurlessness" has also informed this opinion as has some of the worst abuses of Illusionist Reffing techniques (Especially in LARP).

I was, for a long time, of the opinion that mechanics get in the way. It turns out that it's because they do. But that's just because mechanics have been relegated in systems like GURPS to systems that remove your ability to play a protagonist. It turns out they can support what you want, too, though.

This is what I suggest if you want to try Shock: out with this group: don't tell them that you're doing Transhuman Space. Tell them instead that you want to try this system to do the stuff you were doing in Transhuman Space. They don't need to refer to the books on details; they just need to put in the stuff they care about. Everything else will come up in play.

[Supplanter]

Here's a thing: with your current play, when the players are coming up with ideas like the gravity well and lasers cutting the ship up, are they aware that you're using their ideas? If they're not, then at best all they get out of finding out that their idea is "right" is a gamism sense of having guessed the nature of the situation. If you tell the player that you're using their idea, however, then they're rewarded by the introduction of the idea into play. Very different thrills here. If you're after simulationism, I'd tell them that you're using their ideas. This then rewards them for coming up with such stuff.

I'm not telling them.

This is a mistake, thanks for pointing it out for me.

I think they are aware of it, but honesty (in this case) is the best policy.

Hi Simon: Your accounts have been very interesting. I want to suggest that the idea of rewarding players by telling them you are adding their ideas to the SIS may indeed work, but it may not, depending on the kinds of sim priorities your players have. It's got to do with Ron's "constructive denial" idea and the "discovery" model of sim that's been bandied about.

"Discovering" that your idea was "right" is not inevitably a gamist pleasure - it's a sim pleasure too. It's, well, discovery. It's "confirmation of input." The game world works the way I think it works.

As I understand your initial description of campaign aims, you're not playing illusionist "big plot" sim, right? It's "cool toys" sim aka what John Kim has called "virtuality." Maybe call it "virtual nonfiction." The constructive denial is "We're going to play as if the campaign world really exists." The imagined space is a resistant medium. My experience with that kind of play and the people who dig it is that there's a functional reason for the traditional GM-player divide - each participant is looking to experience That Thing Out There. If you're a player, you want to "test" (discover) The World. If you're the GM, you want to discover (test) the player's reactions to it. Actually, the player is "testing" his character against the world too, and the GM is "testing" his world against the players. I'm using "test" here in the same sense in which you'd "test" the edge of a razor or the temper of a sword. You want it to pass. You even expect it too. The pleasure is in that edge or the suppleness of the bending blade.

This isn't The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast, I should note. The Impossible Thing is, "GM controls the STORY, player controls the HERO." That is indeed, impossible. This is, "GM controls the WORLD EXCEPT FOR this handful of people; player controls THIS PERSON." It's matching up what we might call a Virtual Historian (Geographer/Sociologist/Cosmologist) with Virtual Biographers. The union of that set, when functional, is a kind of Life and Times.

Give certain sim players world-building tools, particularly in-session, and it falls apart for them. Constructive denial disappears. What is being denied? There's no longer a blade to bend.

Maybe your players aren't like this and they'll take to the opportunities for overt director stance you want to give them. Maybe it will be what they never knew they wanted. In principle, there's no reason why Virtuality has to be strongly polarized in terms of setting generation. If we all want "Exploration Squared," if we all prize in-game causality and are all committed to celebrating the integrity of the fictional world, why can't we ALL contribute to all elements of its integrity - character, setting, color and situation too? No reason, really. It SHOULD be possible. But I think constructive denial means there are a lot of virtual biographers out there who don't want to do virtual history.

Best,


Jim

[Mike Holmes]

Jim (by the way, welcome back man),

I agree with you generally here, that there are multiple forms of sim that are possible to pursue here. But I think that Simon has been pretty clear about which sort he wants to try to promote. If he'd said that he wanted to do "Open Sim" then I'd have tried to give him adivce on that. But he seems to be more into the idea of co-opting everyone into the whole worldbilding exercise.

Or you might be saying that the players might be looking for participationism, too. But both participationism and open sim are pretty darn hard to make entertaining. For the former you really need to do a huge amount of prep and make play a great song and dance show. For the latter, you have to do a lot of prep in terms of making sure that the world is densely populated with interesting things to bump into (and the general problem that 99.9% of everything you prep will be missed). This is why illusionism is usually the next step from this sort of play - it allows the GM to ensure that his prep doesn't go to waste.

So, on top of Simon saying this is what he wants, I think he's made the choice of the easiest version to play. For whatever that's worth.

Mike

[Supplanter]

Thanks, Mike!

I completely take your point. If Simon's goal is to lead his players in a more participatory direction he's getting good advice. I just wanted to throw a couple of flags up there explaining why it might turn out that they don't want to go. I got the impression from the quoted message that Simon feared he was doing his players a disservice by not giving them credit for the contributions he took up and by not giving them a formal role in the worldbuilding and he might not have been.

If I got to replace "the Right to Dream" with a catchphrase of my own it would be "Yes, Myth!" Because I think the key to sim is a rejection of the "No Myth" method - it says either "You're wrong!" or "So what?" to that. As far as many kinds of sim is concerned, there ARE facts about the game world that exist only in the GM's head or only in the setting book or the random table even if they haven't been encountered in play, and there ARE facts about the PCs that exist only in the players' heads even if they haven't been encountered in play. You can say "That's not literally true" all day and all night, but (many flavors of) sim is sim because it acts as if it were true. I want to keep this tied to as tied to Simon's campaign as possible so I don't threadjack. My belief is that "No Myth" sim is possible in principle, but I think it's a rare "skewer," and the reasons for that may crop up in Simon's efforts to transform his game. That said, he's of course not required to keep running a kind of game he'd rather not run.

Best,


Jim

[Simon Marks]

Hi all.

Well, realize that for Mrs T that, in fact, she may not yet have experienced mechanics that support what she needs herself. She might actually need "freeform mechanics" if you will. For her that might be the best system available. She may intellectually understand your need, but she also may not share it.

OTOH, showing it to her, perhaps she may become interested. Who can say?

I find it hard to define the line between "Illusionism" (where the players have no meaningful choices to make) and "Mechanic-free" systems where the Ref decides which choices the players make are meaningful.
On the one hand, it may be a "Hills and Valley" situation. (You know you are on the top of a hill, you know when you are at the bottom of a valley, but halfway down it is difficult to describe it as one or the other) - or for that matter I may misunderstand what you mean by "Freeform Mechanics".


To Jim and Mike in general.
Yeah, I'm very interested in the "world building" idea behind sim because... well... it's what makes me fired up.

For me, with sim, it is the act of creation that fascinates me somewhat more than the result or the experiancing of the creation.

I think it comes to meaningful choices again.
Choices about what happens in the world with a fairly full hand. We may not be on the top of the hill with full creation rights equally divided up amongst the participants (Universalis would be that), but certainly near enough the top to be definetly called "Hill" territory.

Still, I think I have meandered on long enough. I'll post back here after the next session.

TTFN