Faster, Better, Cheaper playtest

[Mike Holmes]

As part of the playtest swap program I organized a session using Kirt Dankmyer's Faster, Better, Cheaper system last night, 6/15/02. I assembled three players. Brad, who is amongst all my regular players probably the one who most prefers Gamism. Trevor, who prefers Simulationism, usually character exploration. And Josh Neff, who we all know is fond of Narrativism to say the least.

I assembled a scenario that was a straightforward one-shot mission. It was set in the Traveller universe, but on a world isolated from the Imperium for a good while due to political problems on the world. I wanted to do something a bit spooky (not sure why) so it was set underwater on a deep sea mining platform/cargo mover vessel that had stopped reporting (stealing from films like the Abyss, Leviathan, etc). The characters were all part of a team sent down to discover what the problem was. I chose the mission format because it works well for one-shots, and would allow the players a fair latitude in play styles if they liked so we could see what the system promoted.

Anyhow, I had some reservations about the system to start. There are no guidelines on how many dice to give players to start the game, just a suggestion to try different amounts to see what works. Kirt, do some testing yourself, and at least make some suggestions. As it happened, I misread the section, and ended up giving my players both six and ten sided dice, seven of the six siders, and four ten siders, IIRC. We more or less just divided up the amount of those I had on hand and Josh brought. A note, though it should be obvious if you think about it, the game requires a lot of dice on hand to play.

Otherwise, chargen was simple and quick, and the players took fairly broad traits at my suggestion. For example, Brad had Killing - Faster, Cheaper representing his Space Marine attitude, and Trevor's engineer had Fixing Things - Cheaper, Better.  Josh made his character before the others arrived, and was the only one to take any style adjectives for his traits. After we discussed that there was no effect to these, we promptly forgot about them, and didn't tell the other players. I think that the style thing has potential, and could be incorporated using role-playing bonuses or some such. As it is, the player can just embellish on the nature of such traits, and define them during play by how they attempt to use them. So, as they stand, they seem pretty superfluous.  

Anyhow, the game ran for three hours after CharGen terminating because Trev had to leave. To synopsize the events of the game, the characters snuck up on the platform, assuming (as had been suggested in the briefing) that the platform may have been taken over by a rival corporation. Once inside the partially flooded platform, they were assaulted first by crazed crewmembers, and then later by something in the water. They determined that the last events in the ship's log were that the crew had taken on an ancient submarine, and were investigating.  It was determined that someone was messing heavily with the platforms computer and other systems, reprogramming the thoroughly. In the end they discovered aquatic alien lifeforms on the bridge.

It turns out that these highly intelligent creatures had salvaged an ages old sub and were out trying to contact humans. Unfortunately when their sub was opened the by the platform crew, a large and dangerous biologic that the aliens kept as a pet was let loose on the ship. The aliens in their desperation to set things aright had forced their way onboard, and had been altering the platform's environment so that hey could move about. However the change in atmosphere had caused the crew to go mad (too much nitrogen). The whole mission was complicated by the fact that the science officer was an agent out to sabotage the mission for political reasons.

Anyhow, everyone commented afterwards that the system had held up pretty well. Several times players commented that the ten siders were sorta useless. What I think they meant is that better does very little on a ten sider, and the chance of replacement (rolling a ten) is small. So they were essentially held in reserve until they were needed in a crisis. Everyone also agreed that cheaper was by far the most powerful of he three. I think that this would have been the assessment even if we had used four siders. As it was using six siders, you could roll two dice with cheaper fairly safely, as the one expected failure was erased. This left you with an expected value of one success to narrate. Using Better , even on a four sider results in far more losses, which is what keeps players rolling less dice, which in turn makes them less effective. On six siders, it's not even a question (forget about ten siders).

The fact that faster is not incorporated in a rules fashion makes it seem less valuable as well. Trevor at one point used one of several successes to say that he had accomplished a task quickly. Thus simulating faster, anyhow. In other words the other options will allow you more flexibility and still get the same result as often as you like. After all if you don't get any successes, then it's not too important how fast you failed. A simple rule saying that you can't create such a fact from a success would help, but as it's a player rolls only game, it still seems like color. Players would roll successes, on things simultaneously, and the best I could do is point out how quickly they were done. Didn't stop the fact that they were both still successes. Anyhow, I think that faster needs to be incorporated mechanically to make it a viable option.

Another problem was that players occasionally had a surplus of success. At one point Trevor rolled six dice and they all came up successes (odds 1:64). He had a very difficult time trying to determine what to spend them all on. This happened a lot. Given that two dice gives you an expected success of some sort, any more are usually added for security. Which then produces more successes than you can use by accident.

Another problem that I saw was that a player could easily run out of dice (didn't happen, but the players rolled well, and all had cheapers), especially if he didn't take any cheapers. With a cheaper, you can roll one die again and again until it comes up max to get another die, if you don't mind failing at whatever you're doing half the time. Or you can roll two dice, succeed most often, rarely lose a die, and more often gain one. But without a cheaper a player's dice will slowly diminish over time. Even with a four sider, you lose a die twice as often as you gain one. Any higher die and you lose dice even more quickly (hence the problem the players had actually using their ten siders except in emergencies). In any case it's possible that a character might run out of dice. If he does, what then?

I was thinking that you could have a refresh rate or something and make faster refer to the rate. Or something of that nature. Just an idea.

Anyhow, as the system was simple it stayed out of the way and allowed the players to all play their style. Given that it was a mission style, Brad's Gamism was satisfied by that, though otherwise it would have potentially been a problem. Playing more or less Simulationist as I was, there were moments where problems came up. Like one player wanted to get an NPC to attempt something, but wasn't sure how to accomplish that. He wanted me to roll for the NPC. I am assuming from the text however that such is not how the game operates, however, and I just used drama to decide on a result. In the case of player vs. player I would have just used simultaneous resolution, but that leaves the question of, given a situation with no fasters, who narrates first?

Anyhow, there seems to be the core of a solid system there, but it needs a bit of tweaking yet, IMO.

Mike

[joshua neff]

I agree with everything Mike said, which makes this post pretty superfluous. Just wanted to back him up.

[xiombarg]

Wow, thanks guys! Excellent report. This is definately going to affect the design of the game. I might just specify the use of six-siders (or even four-siders) and leave it at that.

Now when Mike finally sends me Universalis I can complete my half of the bargain. (Hint, hint.)