[Sanctum: The Fallout/Ends and Means] The Beta-Testing Begins!

[IndigoDreamer]

Adam's Excerpt

Regarding narrator dependence on Supporting Cast:
I agree that it's something I'll keep an eye on as well. I don't want the game to coast to a stop if you and I step out of our supporting roles for a couple of hours.

On the other hand, there's a good reason our Supporting Cast is compelling: we're energizing. As the narrators learn the game and the setting, they're playing it safe and cautious. Their protagonists aren't taking big risks yet; they're still getting our bearings. The protagonists like a pool table on an ocean liner, drifting serenely around the table, occasionally clacking lightly against one another.

Compare that to Vesper! Practically the first thing she says is, "This city's mine, and you have to play by my rules." That's like firing a cue ball at high velocity into the midst of it. CRACK! Balls zigzagging everywhere!


I'm playing it a little closer to the vest with Sergei, but that's only because nobody's defied him yet. When they do (and I'll give them reason)... CRACK!

Ideally, I hope that our narrators realize that their Protagonists can be those cue balls. They can create that CRACK! They can try outrageous high-energy schemes, secure that when the furor dies, no matter what, their protagonists will still be in the story if that's what their narrator wants.

But every so often, when the balls start drifting to a halt, we will always be needed to mix it up. That'll always a very important part of the job.

On the Opposition Brief:

Yes, Sara, you used the brief correctly: It is for any time that a Stagehand needs to provide opposition when they don't have a specific Supporting Cast Character to do so. (In fact, I could have used the Opposition Brief instead of Vesper's card, that time Aleira was seducing Vespa's thug Jaleel.)

Also, I think your reason for opposing the narrators -- instead of just letting them have what they want -- is actually pretty sound. Narrators *do* like to face challenge and opposition! It creates moments of doubt and suspense, and that's really important. So kudos to you for noticing that!

Where I think you can do better is in defining your stake. Always make failure interesting. Failure and success are *both* means for moving the story to a new place. If you can just sum up failure with "no, you fail," and nothing is really different, then the story has gone nowhere.

"We try to see to the edge of the city."
(You use the Opposition Brief and win the conflict)

"No, you fail."
"Um... okay... guess we have to wait until the weather clears..."

Boring!
You told me that if they failed to see the city's edge from the clock tower, they'd have to find some other way, and *that* could be interesting. And you know, you could have been right! That might have led to interesting stuff. So it's not like you did anything horribly wrong.

But what if you defined a stake so that instead of failure *maybe* being interesting *if* they did this other thing next, you made sure failure *will* be interesting because it changes the situation?

"If you win, you see to the edge of the city. If you fail, not only do you fail to see, but the strong winds put someone in peril of falling to their doom!"

...That's kind of awkward, but that leads into another point: it's difficult to make a failure to get important information interesting. Stories need important information if they are to move forward.

Lastly, on extortion:
At the moment I'm thinking: this technique is unlikely to cause major problems. The narrators have plenty of power to get their way, and plenty of options. So go on and keep using it when you think the moment is fitting. We'll see how narrators handle it!

[IndigoDreamer]

Act I Observations -By Adam Cerling-

Ends and Means in the setting of Sanctum got off to a dynamite start. There were so many fun moments that I almost don't trust it! Surely E.A.M and Sanctum have more problems than came to light in the four hours of fun we experienced.

Here are those few moments that stand out to me in retrospect as details to watch:


1) Sara and I have very different styles of Stagehanding.

I like to resolve conflicts through the use of Ends and Means: one person gets what they want, and one doesn't. I go about it gently, making sure everyone's stake is clear, following the procedure carefully.

Sara, on the other hand, prefers to Bribe players into Compromise. She's downright aggressive, in fact, always going for the hard sell. "Make this bargian! C'mon! It'll be cool, c'mon!!!"

It makes for a crazy dichotomy. Sara uses a hard sell to reach a compromise, making everyone happy. I use a soft sell to see conflict through to its bitter end, winner and loser. And both styles are by-the-book.

QUESTION TO SARA: Sara, is this because you're more comfortable with Bribes and Compromise than with the rest of the system? Do you intentionally try to avoid the rest of it?


2) The first big conflict. Setting good stakes.

Early in the game there was a big Mexican Standoff scene: my 1931 Soviet captain holding a gun to Sara's 2007 Mafiosa, her thugs holding guns to me, the 1917 American infantryman holding a rifle on them, non-combatants in the line of fire: good stuff.

We've got some learning curve yet as far as good stakes-setting goes. The first time around, I was hearing stakes like "I scare the thugs into backing off," and "I seduce this thug away from you." In one-on-one conflict, that sort of thing can work (prosaically), but in this case I told everyone to stop and ask themselves WHY they were taking these specific actions. This resulted in much better Stakes, like "We get the information," and "I protect the captain."

Tonya also commented that it was confusing to Direct that many stakes. I think I need to communicate a clearer procedure for this -- not a rigid structure, but a guide to help when it gets complicated.


3) Sara's gaffe with the penthouse raid.

At one point, Sara's supporting cast character (Vespa, the Mafiosa) was in conversation with a protagonist (Darius, the 2007 film-maker, played by Klaus). Tonya and Sarah B. came up to inform Sara that their protagonists were going to search Vespa's penthouse.

Sara made a gaffe at this point, in my opinion. She abandoned Klaus mid-conversation to go run a side-scene for Tonya and Sarah B. I don't think that's appropriate Stagehand etiquette. Here are the possible alternatives:

a) Sara sees no immediate conflict. "Go ahead," she says. "Don't do anything remarkable. I'll check in with you when I'm done."
b) Sara sees potential for a minor conflict. "You'll have to wait until I'm done with this scene." The situation at hand with Klaus gets first priority.
c) Sara thinks that this situation could have a major impact: it will require a good deal of her devoted attention. "That's a Scenario," she says. If Tonya and Sarah B. can purchase her time with 10 Potential, she'll make a graceful exit from the scene with Klaus and go to give them a Scenario.
In general, I think a Stagehand should avoid getting deeply involved in any situation: we should always be able to extricate ourselves with a minimum of effort. The situation at hand, however, always takes precedence over thenext one in the queue. The only exception is Scenarios, where Narrators pay their hard-earned Potential for our time.


4) "Extortion."

Sara came up with a Stagehanding strategy I had not foreseen. Some players would approach her to inform her of some action they were taking. She'd tell them, "Ah, but on the way, you get attacked by thugs! Unless you pay me two Plot Points!"

I'm not sure how I feel like that. It seems a lot like an abuse of power. But is it? All the players have to do is say, forget it; then get into a conflict with her thugs, choosing high Ends and Means; and now all of a sudden, Sara has to pay all *them* Plot Points if she wants to be obstructive. I guess maybe the thing I don't like is that the players may not realize how much power they really have in this situation. Sara's demeanor as an extortionist echoes certain abusive-GM archetypes I've encountered, when really the system prevents her from having too much of a bite.


5) Conflict can happen with a protagonist who isn't fictionally present.

This came up three times:
Once, when Aleira (Kat's medieval harem girl) wanted to disarm a thug via her feminine wiles, it was a conflict with Vespa (Sara's supporting character) -- who was across the room.

Again, when Moira and Joy (Tonya and Sarah B.'s protagonists) wanted to raid Vespa's penthouse, it could have been a conflict with Vespa, who would have been elsewhere in the city.

Later, Moira (Tonya's medieval baker) was trying to seduce Cpt. Petrokov (my 1931 Soviet policeman supporting character). But Aliera had already been attempting the same earlier that evening. I suggested a conflict between Moira and Aliera (who was elsewhere at the time) to determine Petrokov's affections.

I think this is worth mentioning in the book -- it's a useful technique. But I'll need to urge players to take care not to interrupt others' scenes to make it happen.


6) Investing in your own failure.
Note to players: when you lose a conflict, embrace it! Fail like you mean it! You have control enough to make it dramatically appropriate: don't throw away that chance.
At one point, I defeated Father Alphonso (Lawrence's conquistador priest) in his attempt to kindle faith in Petrokov. When we began to act out the result, I needed him to give me an opening to distrust him. He didn't realize that I needed that, not until I prompted him.

Hopefully I'll have more chances to fail in front of players, showing them how to really ham up their own defeats. I did it once, portraying a minor thug seduced by Aleira. She wanted him to give up his gun -- and it was a fun moment, playing out how he gave her the weapon so she'd be able to protect herself!


7) Establishing hand signals.

I can think of two hand signals we need, to cut down on intrusive patter:
a) a "Where are you?" signal, to ask whether a group of players have established themselves in some other fictional location than is obvious;
b) a "See me when you're done" signal, to get the attention of someone in a scene without interrupting.

Downtime activities.

I can't dodge this bullet forever.
I don't want to do extra paperwork between games. But in a LARP, where significant time can pass between Acts, players instinctively look for a way to communicate what their protagonists do during that interim time.
Maybe the key is to see that downtimes only need to be communicated, not approved by a Stagehand. It's just an extension of the player's usual narrative powers.
This means that during downtimes, of course, nobody can initiate or resolve a meaningful conflict -- but that's what actual play is for anyway, isn't it?


The link between Weight and Effectiveness.

The decisions you make at the beginning of the game, assigning Weights to your Ends and Means, have a decisive effect for the rest of the game. But is that effect graspable? Does anyone "get" it? I'll have to check later, once a few more games are under our belts; but I have a fear that it's just not intuitive enough, that it feels too disconnected and random.

[IndigoDreamer]

- 1) QUESTION TO SARA: Sara, is this because you're more comfortable with Bribes and Compromise than with the rest of the system? Do you intentionally try to avoid the rest of it?

-Sara Says...-It isn't so much that I am avoidant as much as I am not always trying to win something. Ends and Means is set up perfectly for bargaining and it's one of the things that set the system apart from most of the other ones; it's one of the things I love about it.

The question for me isn't really if someone is going to win or lose, but rather about broadening the picture. Sure, Player one could just rob the bank and win...leaving player two to get caught and it could end there. Instead of waiting to get to that point where person B could just steal the scene and get things his way, I love seeing the barter that can occur.

There are so many crazy possibilities that come up and I think it can be a reminder to think outside of the lines.
Perhaps for now it is an infatuation with seeing just how much a player wants what they are going for, or if they can be bribed into another course of action.

I'll start checking myself however, to make sure I'm not just lingering on when the conflict should be finished.
--------------------------------

3) I absolutely did make a major gaffe; one I'm sure not to repeat. Transgressing back to old-school habits, I put my current scene on hold and ran a scene Sarah's and Tonya's character.

The terms I was told that factored into this decision was that my understanding was they wished to break into Vesper's Penthouse and Steal back what cleared out from the store. Because "Contraband" was a Means on Vesper's Character Sheet, this was a major stake...which I felt deserved a conflict.

The mistake I made, was not telling them to wait for it...because they weren't paying me to run that scene and I should have finished the one I was in. It's an old school Larping habit that was done impulsively; one that should hopefully been murdered by this error.

Tonya was confused about why she should have to wait at first, so Adam gave an explanation about buying time and stakes that may require conflict, and afterwards, we both understood it a bit better.

4) "Extortion."
"Sara came up with a Stagehanding strategy I had not foreseen. Some players would approach her to inform her of some action they were taking. She'd tell them, "Ah, but on the way, you get attacked by thugs! Unless you pay
me two Plot Points!"

---This statement is only half-correct, so I'll explain it so that it might provide some insight on why I think it is a good thing, and how it can benifit the story---I'll give two examples, because I think it's relevent.

Including how I stumbled onto the idea.

There was one small group that had intentions to get some supplies. Seeing a way to fit one of the supporting cast members into the scene, I did. I couldn't help thinking that this particular conflict didn't have to be drawn out, and so I told the players upright that one of my thugs was going to interfere. They all started placing stakes almost immediately and so I offered an alternative. If the entire group of 5 could turn over 2 plot points total, the thugs would back off, and not want to start any trouble.
They thought about it and then just gave the points over.

They chose to take the extortion instead of bringing it conflict. They could have drawn it out but weren't overly concerned with doing so and as a result.

They lost two plot points, but in doing so, automatically won a stake of having the thugs back off before it ever went to conflict.

In another situation that could have ended in extortion...

There was a small group of protagonists who decided they needed some supplies and so they found a Home Depot. I hadn't intended to do anything first, but remembering that Hey...one of the supporting casts was sending her thugs all about and trying to corner the market, I decided to step in as one of Vesper's Thugs.

The thug stopped them when they entered and when they questioned him on who he was, he just shrugged, and said he owned the place.

The players had started to mull, deciding how to deal with this new obstacle when Ricky, Chris's protagonist cries out "Heyyyy! I work for your boss!" The thug looks at him and checks him out before asking "And who are you?" He answers in a drunk, cheerful manner, "I'm Ricky...Ricky Fortunado! I'm a PIMP!"

The thug just stares at him and then just gives a grin, looking at the others in the group. He then tells them that "Because Ricky's a good guy and makes his boss happy", that he's gonna let them in. They can help themselves to whatever they want, cause it's on the house.

This could have been a conflict, it could have been extortion...but it was just a really neat scene that didn't cost anyone anything.

Again, tools are tools, and almost any tool can be abused; it's just a matter of intention. For Sanctum, I think that it's 'extortion' that are going to fill in those voids we had during the first hour, where things were feeling a bit clunky and stitched together.



[adam says]
I guess maybe the thing I don't like is that the players may not realize how much power they really have in this situation. Sara's demeanor as an extortionist echoes certain abusive-GM archetypes I've encountered, when really the system prevents her from having too much of a bite.

Sara answers: Part of players realizing how much power they have is by demonstrating all of the different things that can be done in the first place. What limits the power of extortion is the fact that all it really exists as is a 'stake for sale'. It's offering an automatic win on something that could end differently if it isn't accepted. (not badly, just differently!) It's much like pre-emptive bribing, and in some chances, gives the protagonists a chance to look good, achieve something and have something for them to use for other agenda.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

5) Conflict can happen with a protagonist who isn't fictionally present.

-Sara answers with-And don't forget that conflict can happen against the actual world itself!

[IndigoDreamer]

A question!

Is anyone actually following this thread?  Should I continue to update with the playtest as it goes, or should I just let it die off?   I'm not exactly a pro on this forum so am wondering if there is actually any interest here for the thread.

Sara.

[IndigoDreamer]

It doesn't look like this post is needed, so will cease to update it here.

Sara

Updates will still be available at www.theplaytest.blog.com