[One Can Have Her] Character Creation and Conflict Resolution

[Jonas Ferry]

I've been working and re-working my September Ronnies game One Can Have Her, trying to get it to do what I want without loosing what's good. This has made my Ronnies submission painfully obsolete.

First of all, if you feel like you want to read up on stuff here's the Ronnies feedback and here's my first thoughts on a revised system, a system I won't develop.

Since my last thread in early October I've playtested the game first with the old mechanic, then with a new Dogs-inspired mechanic with escalation and stuff. Suffice to say that not every game needs an escalation system, especially not if the characters are desperate and ruthless from the start. So what I want is a system that helps people to tell a little noir story about their characters, from the beginning to the end.

Right now I've done something possible stupid. I've looked to film dramaturgy to see if there's some way of helping people create a story by limiting their choices. It's possibly stupid since film and roleplaying are two different things, and there's a great risk of treating the game the same as writing a script, which it's clearly not. I don't want to lose the collaborative aspect of roleplaying, so perhaps you can help me see if this is a risk in my current design.

For the game to work you need two or more PCs, since they need someone to rat on. You rat by sending a note to the GM that says "Rat" or "Don't Rat" before scene 4-7. A change from the old design is that now you roll the die to see if it's the last scene before the scene, so everyone can set up their own end scene accordingly.

Character Creation
Something I really like in Breaking the Ice is character creation by using a mind map, since the participants can suggest stuff for the other characters to each other. I used it in my second playtest, and I think it's here to stay.

I've created an example Character Sheet (pdf) that I've filled in, that you can check while you read my description of character creation and conflict resolution.

Character creation starts by the players choosing a noir archetype, which should be in the form "state of mind" + "occupation". Examples are Nervous Bookmaker, Easily Bribed Boxer or Hardboiled Detective. One player at a time passes a mind map with the noir archetype in the center around the table, and everyone adds stuff they associate with what's already written. From the finished mind map the player chooses three Values and three Aspects. Examples of Values are "Love", "Truth", "Freedom", stuff like that. Aspects are like aspects in FATE or traits in Dogs; skills, attributes, snippets of history, belongings, contacts, and so on.

All characters have three basic Aspects, "Lula" (the femme fatale of the game), their "state of mind" and "occupation". They put these and the three other Aspects under their related Values. In my example, I've chosen:

Noir Archetype: Hardboiled Private Detective
Value1: Love. Aspects: Lula and Demanding Wife
Value2: Health. Aspects: Fist Fighting and Hardboiled
Value3: Truth. Aspects: Private Detective and Detect Lies.

I get to choose the Values starting value, which can be High, Mediocre or Low. If I choose a Low value I get a Karma Point, choosing High costs a Karma Point and Mediocre is free. The players have no starting Karma, so to choose something High they need something Low as well.

I won't go into Drive and Dream Future right now.

Conflict Resolution
So my example character Philip starts with High Love, he has met Lula before the game and is already in love with her, and a Low Truth, he has had a couple of cases where the truth wasn't too important, and currently feels surrounded by lies.

In his first scene, he meets Lula at a night-club. Also there is a fellow from a case he has worked on, who starts a fight. Philip fights back. The other man is played by the GM.

First the player and GM decide what their character's goals are. The GM chooses "The other man wants to beat you up as a revenge for something" and the player chooses "Philip wants to stay alive". Now they, or any other player, can pay Karma Points to activate traits of their own, from the other fellow or from one of the Scene Aspects. I haven't talked about those, but you create them by doing in-character voice-over narration before a scene, which can give you e.g. "Crowded night-club", with a Karma Point attached to it.

Anyway, you pay for all Aspects you activate in your favor and get paid for Aspects activated against you. When both have activated what they want you roll a die and add the spent Karma Points. Highest total wins, that character gets his goal and the person who controls that character gets to change one (or more) of the Values associated with an Aspect that was activated in the conflict. If there's a tie, nothing changes and you have to choose new goals and do a new conflict after the first one.

In my example the player lost, and he or the GM had activated "Lula" and "Fist fighting". The GM chooses to change Love to Low, and explains that Lula is appalled by the fight and doesn't want anything to do with Philip. The GM could change "Health" as well, but chose not to.

This goes on until you reach the last scene. The point of the changing Values is that story is made up of turning points, and at each turning point some value should change.

Epilogues
This takes us to the last scene, that's determined by a die roll before the scene. If no one has ratted no character can have a Value higher than Mediocre. You have to set up the last scene so that Values at High goes down, while Lows can stay there or increase to Mediocre. For Philip and Love, this could mean either that he leaves his demanding wife and loses Lula, which is Mediocre, or that he stays with his demanding wife, which is Low. Or the other way around, depending on the player's view of things.

If one person rats he gets to set his Values anyway he likes, and can increase all of them to High if he wants. If you're ratted on, all Values go to Low instead and you're either killed or put in prison for life.

Thoughts
My first question is if you see anything good or bad with this that I haven't. I'm not totally sure who should change the Values after each conflict, if it's the winner or if it's the player. Another question is what should happen if no one activates any Aspects. My current thinking is that no Value should change as nothing has really happened, but I don't know. Perhaps you always get the chance to change Values, even if no Aspects were activated. But it feels strange to change Love from High to Low if you have a scene where it's not relevant at all.

I want people to change the Values as an outcome of the conflicts, not before the conflicts and then act out the change.

Another thing I haven't added yet is some kind of damage. But perhaps it's damaging enough to have the other person change your Values and describe what happens to you? Another thought is to have a blank line under each Value where you can add "fallout aspects", to borrow something from DitV, from the conflicts. Then you could add "Broken ribs" under Health, and change the Value from High to Low, even if no Aspect from Health was activated.

This is all new and not playtested at all, just so you know.

What do you think? Comments or questions?

[Josh Roby]

I don't think you need "damage."  I think the changing of your values very capably does something far more engaging.

I think any conflict worth worrying about involves an Aspect, and should risk that Aspect -- perhaps you can't open a conflict without declaring an opening Aspect?

I don't understand the requirements for the Epilogue, however; can you explain the requirements again, and tell us why they are as they are?

[Jonas Ferry]

Hello Joshua,

Yes, requiring an "opening Aspect" is one way to go. I agree that you should always be able to find some Aspect that does what you want, especially the really broad ones like your occupation (for lack of a better term). I like it.

The requirements for the epilogues are from the prisoner's dilemma. If you rat and no one else does you hit the jackpot while they get nothing or worse. If two people rat everyone's screwed. If no one rats they all get a small reward, in this case everything turning mediocre.

That was the same in the old version, but it wasn't as visual as this is. It's also something that is relevant for the noir genre. You have the femme fatale that's the only way of getting everything you dream of, but at the same time she's dangerous. All characters are part of what I call the Underworld, which is a place for people who have sidestepped the normal and boring society. Main characters in films noir usually have some boring girl that they can get if they want to, for example Out of the Past (1947), but they're drawn to the femme fatale because she's so more interesting. They usually have some kind of boring job waiting for them, like working in a post office in Sunset Boulevard (1950), unless they get this thing right. The "thing" should be something criminal and dangerous that the femme fatale can somehow help them with.

Did that answer your questions?

[Josh Roby]

Not quite.  What I'm confused about is what triggers a final scene or epilogue?  Are there requirements that everyone's Values must all be Mediocre or worse, or does the Epilogue make this happen?

This is the part that I don't understand:

Epilogues
This takes us to the last scene, that's determined by a die roll before the scene. If no one has ratted no character can have a Value higher than Mediocre. You have to set up the last scene so that Values at High goes down, while Lows can stay there or increase to Mediocre. For Philip and Love, this could mean either that he leaves his demanding wife and loses Lula, which is Mediocre, or that he stays with his demanding wife, which is Low. Or the other way around, depending on the player's view of things.

[Jonas Ferry]

Ah, ok. It's triggered by a die roll before the scene, but after people have sent a note to the GM whether they rat or not. You roll 1D6 from scene 4 and onwards, and if it's lower than the scene number the next scene will be the last. That way it's 50% chance of the 4th scene being the last and you'll never have more than 7 scenes.

The reason for having it randomized is to stop people from knowing for sure when the last scene is going to be. If you know the next scene is the last there's no reason for you not to rat. If you rat, at best you'll win everything and at worst you lose together with the rest of the people. If you don't rat, at best you get the mediocre result and at worst you lose terribly.

Now, if you're the only one ratting in scene 4, but the die rolled after you've all decided if you want to rat says it's not the last scene, people will probably retaliate in scene 5. That's not good for anyone. The best thing is ratting at the right moment when no one else is, perhaps by tricking them into thinking you won't rat.

[Jonas Ferry]

And I probably should add this, as well. How the Values are before the last scene doesn't matter, but whether people rat or not will decide what they are after the last scene. You have to set up a last scene where you can have a conflict that includes the Values you want to change, but the player has the power to choose what to change them to. If your Love is High, you have to set up a scene where you can activate a Love Aspect and lower it to Mediocre or Low.

I don't know if the player will always have this power, or if it's the winner of the conflict. Leaving it to the player gives them more control, which is a good thing.

[Jonas Ferry]

In my first post in this thread I said that the winner of a conflict gets to change the Values of the loser, but then I changed my mind. The whole point of having these Values and alternating them between High and Low is to ensure that the conflicts are meaningful. The person who changes the Values confirms meaning, by saying how the character's story is affected by the outcome of the conflict. This should definitely be the player whose character's affected.

So basically the resolution system tells you which Values are affected by the conflict, but the player decides which one to change to where. At least one has to change, but you can change more if you like. The outcome of the conflict, whether the character reaches his goal or not, would also color the changes in Values.

I see scenes going like this:

1. The GM and player take turns requesting scenes.
2. The player uses voice-over narration to suggest Scene Aspects, if he likes. The Scene Aspects are created by the GM based on the narration.
3. One or more PCs run around and do stuff, with the players and GM driving things towards a conflict.
4a. When in a conflict, you first set the goals of each participant.
4b. After that you activate Aspects in a positive or negative fashion. This should be roleplayed, so that each activation is actually presented in the shared fiction.
4c. After Aspect activation you roll dice, add activated Aspects and compare. Highest total reaches his goal.
5. You act out the outcome of the conflict, with the GM having final narration rights and the players acting like their characters.
6. After the scene the player adjusts at least one Value, or possibly more if they were activated.

This means that the GM can tell you what happens, but the player still says what it means. If I tell you that your character is beaten up in front of the femme fatale, you can either switch Love from Low to High ("She pities me and wants to help me"), from High to Low ("She thinks I'm a useless weakling" or "I hate her because she didn't help me") or leave it High or Low ("This doesn't change how she feels for me").

I want to treat all Values the same, but there's still a difference in meaning between High Love and High Desperation. If you win a conflict and changes Love from High to Low, that probably means you sacrificed something to win. If you change Desperation from High to Low that means that winning the conflict released some of the tension and you're not currently as desperate as before.

But I don't want to differentiate between "positive" Values or "negative" Values, I think I can treat them both the same and leave it up to the players to figure out the meaning of the Values.

The more allowing I am when it comes to what Values you can have and what Aspects relate to them the better. You don't have to have the Values Love to Lula, you can easily have Fear or Hate. Using Hate would be like Humphrey Bogart's character in Dead Reckoning (1947) ("You know, the trouble with women is they ask too many questions. They should spend all their time just being beautiful."). When the femme fatale seduces the character the player can either put Hate High, meaning that his character is overcome by hate because he feels weak, or he can put it at Low, meaning that he hates the woman less now. That would be cool. Another cool thing would be for a boxer to have Love, with the Aspect "boxing". I would be interested in that character's view on life, and how the player thinks his character fights for love.

[Emily Care]

I second the "nay" for damage.  The high/mediocre/low Values system you got is much better & more interesting than any kind of typical damage could get you. This way if health is an value (are the values standard or different & different aspects chosen each time?) it's loss plays out in a way that matters for the character & the story. I can't help but think of The Glass Key where Alan Ladd is a mug's punching bag through out the film, but what he's doing by it is showing his loyalty to his boss.  Low health but high Love.  Or something. 

Have you tried out the values yet in play? They look like they'd give you a real punch, but I can't tell if how it would actually work out. 

I am also envious because I just had an idea for a film noir game the other night, but your mechanics sounds better to me. : )

best,
Emily