[Ganakagok] The ending of a civilization

[Travis Farber]

This past Wednesday we did a run through on a game of Ganakagok.  I wanted to roughly get 4 hours of play out of it so we planned for a game of 60 stars(using the formula in the book).  We are playing the game with 4 people(1 GM and 3 players) and I am the only person that has read the book.  Adam has an older version, but had not read through the newest, and I don't think he played the previous one. 

For preparation I scanned through the book one time, read through it twice, and then gave it a final scan the night before the game doing sample card readings to start to get a feel for how it would go.  After the first scan I thought that it would take me two to three reads to get a firm grasp of the rules.  By the time I finished the second time I felt pretty confident and then after the final scan I thought I was ready to run the game.  In the first evening my goal was to take care of character creation and then do one round for each player.  Due to some rules questions we only got through two of the three players. 

I think the setting creation went really well.  Most of this group had previous experience with In a Wicked Age so the reading the cards and having them gel into a cohesive idea worked pretty well.  The only other slight problem we had was I got the two sheets mixed up(nitu and ganakagok map).  Not that it really caused a problem but I did mix them up.  The players really liked the use of the relationship map and it was very useful once we started play. 

The first complaint came up during the Invocation.  I can't remember who said it in the group but essentially the thought was that if you didn't have an advanced dictionary a person could very easily get lost in some of the words used, it should be rewritten with a broader audience in mind.   

When it came down to game play the first player scene was the reason we weren't able to make it through a single round for each player.  While I thought I had a firm understanding of the rules when it came down to using those rules it took a lot of me looking things up in the book.  I think having a quick reference on the character sheets of the steps in a round would be a good addition.  Also, including a chart for the square root scale would be nice as well.  During play I forgot if I was supposed to round up or down so I chose one way and planned to look it up later.  I think I would just leave the square root stuff out of the game all together and just exchange it with a chart that does the exact same thing.  After the game one of the players had the note √wtf?. 

As it is right now, I think the game will be a very good fun game.  I think it will take us one more round of play with each player before we'll really be able to start utilizing and understanding the system. 

My plan is to get an actual play written up as well.  I certainly enjoyed reading the book and am excited to get to the next session(two weeks, hopefully). 

Bill, did you have any specific questions or concerns?  Anything that I can more thoroughly go over?  Thanks for the opportunity to help out with this.

[Travis Farber]

We started of setting creation by drawing Ata(14) and Anokon Kibaka(4).  We interpreted Ata as an outside race with guns that uses religion as their method of expansion.  They are referred to as the tall ones.  In our past these people were able to save our people from starvation by bringing us food, which is there we brought in Anokon Kibaka.  For the situation of the village we drew Ganake Onarta(7).  Unfortunately, I forgot to write done the good card, but it was value (6).  We determined that the chieftain's daughter had a vision that would lead us to an island with bountiful food, but it would mean leaving our home to do it.

The first character is played by Marc.  Her name is Nanaku- The Haunted Child.  She is the Chieftains daughter from the village situation.  Her truth-vision is that she had a vision about the starvation and the tall ones, she thinks she brought those things about.  Her Change-Hope is (10) I hope to be punished for what I've done and her Change-Fear(12) is I fear the power to call truth from vision.
Body-1 Face-2 Mind-3 Soul-4
Ancestors-4 Forgotten Ones-2 The Sun-2 The Stars-2
Goods and Burdens
Wolf Bodyguard-1 Spirit Vision-1 Birdsong-1 Sin Mothers death-2 Fear(claustrophobia)-1
The second character is played by Rob.  His name is Tillik – The Devout Shaman
His three cards were Adlartuk(5) Viqublorat(14) Aokuiq(14)
His Truth-Vision is only through working together can we move forward and save our people.  Change-Hope is to unify the people of the village as a whole, and the Change-Fear is An oath with the tall ones may fail us.
Body-3 Face-2 Mind-3 Soul-2
Ancestors-3 FO-3 Sun-1 Stars-3
G&B
Secrets of the Wild Ones-1 Find my way by the stars-1 and Shaman totem stick-1
Loss of Shaman power-1 overconfidence in abilities-2
The third character is played by Adam.  His name is Makut – The wise leader and his three cards were the 5 of tears the 14 of stars and the 3 stars.  His truth vision is I have failed my people. We were on the brink of starvation when the tall people came.  I am dying of a wasting sickness.  His Change-Hope is I hope I can learn from the tall ones, so that I can teach my children to lead our people to be self sufficient before I die.  Change-Fear is I fear that the Tall Ones will steal leadership from my family who have ruled for a thousand years.
B-1 F-4 M-3 S-2
A-3 FO-1 Sun-2 Stars-4
Secrets of the Ancestors-2 Grandest Ice hut-1 Perfect hearing-1
Pines for his late wife-2 Starting to lose his memory-1

Major NPC's
John Stevens(leader of the Tall Ones)
Fenris(Celestial being) who is angry
Young Bear(villager who is opposed to Tillik)
Fousha(the jealous spirit in love with Tillik)
Makut hates Tillik and is in love with Nanuka
Tillik loves his daughter Nanuka
Nanuka loves John Stevens

In the first scene we drew the card that we used to represent the tall ones in the world creation.  Because of this we started the scene with Nanuka and John Stevens.  John Stevens, knowing Nanuka is infatuated with him, convinces her to do whatever it takes to get her father to come with the Tall Ones when they leave this island.  We could not reach a conflict in this scene so we jumped to Nanuka speaking with her father Tillik.  Nanuka attempted to lie to her father about having a vision in order to convince him to leave with them.  After the dice were rolled Nanuka was unable to convince her father and he saw through her lies.  He sends her off to the Crystal Maze as punishment for her lies.  This does however increase her love with John Stevens just to spite her father.

The second scene involves the council of elders of the village arguing about what should done with the Tall Ones planning to leave.  Young Bear tries to convince the people that they should leave with them because they have been good to the people.  Makut argues that the spirits have told him that the people will need to leave but they should leave on their own not with the outsiders.  Young Bear accuses him of lying about what the spirits say, and which point Makut calls Fousha into the middle of the room and has her speak to everyone.  After the dice are thrown the people have not been split but Young Bear's hatred at the leadership has grown.

This is where we ended the first session.  There are still 47 stars in the sky, Nitu is 7 GM and 7 BM while Ganokagok is 12 BM and 6 GM.

[Bill_White]

Travis --

This is good stuff! Some good recommendations. A quick-reference sheet for play is high on my list. A few questions for when you get back:

-- You said you had to spend a lot of time looking things up. Was there any specific info that you couldn't find easily, or wasn't where you expected it to be, or that was unclear? What specifically did you have to look up?
-- Did you feel that you had enough resources as GM to provide adversity to the players once the dice hit the table? That is, between the situation card, the characters' Burdens, and the invocable elements on the Ganakagok and Nitu maps, did you have enough stuff to react with?
-- Did the reaction phases "drag out"; that is, did it seem like players were prolonging the reaction phase beyond what was narratively interesting?
-- Did players use their Medicine cards at all? If so, in what way?
-- Do you feel like the expenditure of Stars matches the narrative progress of the game? That is, are you going to run out of story before you run out of Stars, or vice versa? At the rate you're going, it'll take another 8 or so turns to get to the end: enough or too many?

I'm looking forward to the end of the game!

[Travis Farber]

-- You said you had to spend a lot of time looking things up. Was there any specific info that you couldn't find easily, or wasn't where you expected it to be, or that was unclear? What specifically did you have to look up?

One thing was the square root chart, and actually it was whether or not to round up or round down.  When I reread the book this week I found it no problem.  The other times it looks like I was trying to look things up that didn't exist.  The primary one was how to work with two PC's in a single scene for the purposes of the dice mechanics.

-- Did you feel that you had enough resources as GM to provide adversity to the players once the dice hit the table? That is, between the situation card, the characters' Burdens, and the invocable elements on the Ganakagok and Nitu maps, did you have enough stuff to react with?

Having only played two scenes I would say my gut instinct is no.  That being said, the scene in which Adam and Marc were pitted against one another and the only thing they were trying to work together on was remove bad medicine made a huge difference. 

-- Did the reaction phases "drag out"; that is, did it seem like players were prolonging the reaction phase beyond what was narratively interesting?

Again, having not played enough scenes I can't answer definitively but it seems that it is too hard to end the reaction phase.

-- Did players use their Medicine cards at all? If so, in what way?

No. 


-- Do you feel like the expenditure of Stars matches the narrative progress of the game? That is, are you going to run out of story before you run out of Stars, or vice versa? At the rate you're going, it'll take another 8 or so turns to get to the end: enough or too many?

I think the stars will work fine.  I think the story will be formed from where the stars are much more than the story being negatively impacted by the stars. 

Hope this helps!

[Bill_White]

Hey Travis! Welcome back!

I have a comment: It's important to remember that the character whose turn it is is the focus of the turn, so even if another character is more "active" in the strictest sense (e.g., leading the people to safety, getting all up in the focal character's parka, etc.), it is the decisions and actions of the focal character that are "consequential." So when you said, "we couldn't find a conflict" and moved the action forward to the girl disagreeing with her dad, you did it exactly right--it's not about finding the conflict, it's about identifying the crucial, consequential decision the character makes that is the climax of his or her turn. But don't be looking for a conflict--be looking for the decision-point from which spills out consequences.

You seem to have discovered that even when characters are in conflict, contention, or disagreement, there's still a powerful incentive for them to collude to avoid generating Bad Medicine. You can alter their calculations a little by designating the non-focal player as the "adversary" and let them narrate if the GM wins narration; a player who thinks you won't screw them over hard if you win may not be too sure about a contending player who's got something personal at stake. Also, remember that you can draw from their individual Bad Medicine pools during the turn to put dice on the table set at 6, meaning that you have the power to "redistribute" Bad Medicine or transform Bad Medicine into Burdens. Use this power to hammer them; I try to say in the rules that you have fight hard as the GM.

I'm considering limiting the reaction round in some way; perhaps only go around the table once, or up to three times. Otherwise, it's sometimes necessary to do some at-the-table metagaming as the GM, reassuring players without a dog in the fight that's it okay to pass and so forth in order to get to the end. See which way you prefer the next time you play.

Better in terms of adversity is when you've got a player on your side--who thinks the Nitu need to be punished, or that Ganakagok must be destroyed. You can push this in terms of your situation framing. You've got something nifty with the Makut's desire to learn from the Tall Ones and Tillik's desire to unite the people; you can push the situation so that their is rancor among the people over accepting the Tall One's teachings. You've already seen the conflict over Nanaku's love for the Tall One, and her self-destructive impulse (her desire to be punished) needs to be tapped somehow. She should be a Bad Medicine magnet.

Thanks for your feedback; it's really helpful for me in shoring up the rules write-up.

[Travis Farber]

After many weeks of bad scheduling amongst the group we were finally able to wrap up our game of Ganakagok.

-- Did you feel that you had enough resources as GM to provide adversity to the players once the dice hit the table? That is, between the situation card, the characters' Burdens, and the invocable elements on the Ganakagok and Nitu maps, did you have enough stuff to react with?

No.  As the GM I felt that the players were going to "win" most conflicts.  We had one conflict in particular that should have been in my favor mechanically.  Many dice were on the table and the trait was a 2.  One of the players was on my side of this conflict as well.  The scene ended with More good medicine than bad and more gift than burden dice.  Not only that the conflict took forever to resolve really taking away from the flow of the story.

-- Did the reaction phases "drag out"; that is, did it seem like players were prolonging the reaction phase beyond what was narratively interesting?

-- Did players use their Medicine cards at all? If so, in what way?

Yes.  The medicine cards were mainly used for interpretive purposes.  The most impactful one was one that could have meant contentness which changed to one meaning unity.


-- Do you feel like the expenditure of Stars matches the narrative progress of the game? That is, are you going to run out of story before you run out of Stars, or vice versa? At the rate you're going, it'll take another 8 or so turns to get to the end: enough or too many?

I dropped about 10 stars from the sky because the story was starting to end.  I think that ended up letting our story end with the right amount of punch.  If we had gone the extra ten stars the story would have stagnated a bit. 

I did the drop from 20 stars down to 10.  The scene after spent 5, and the next scene was a very intense scene.  Rob and Adam were really fighting for dominance of the village.  Rob was trying to get all 5 spent on his scene to prevent Adam from getting the last scene and Adam was doing his best to get one last scene.  There ended up being one star left in the sky after the scene.

The one issue that we did have was mechanically things not changing for the big moments in the night sky.  When moving to twilight and dawn the mechanics didn't add to what narratively should be big things happening. 

We came up with a few recommendations though.  The first was that the player(or GM) that spent the dice move it over the steps could lock Good Medicine or Bad Medicine of either Nitu or Ganakagok.  Not letting you change it. 

The other thought we had was limiting the number of passes on the conflict resolution.  This would force players and the GM to bring in their most important traits to have impact on the scenes.  This would also speed up the narrative too.

Thanks again for giving us the opportunity to play.  It was a lot of fun.  Let me know if you want more explanation on the above topics. 

[Bill_White]

Travis --

Thanks a lot for this AP. I agree that there should be more game-mechanical oomph to stage change; as it stands, it's merely a bit of color. A couple of questions:

(1) If you would, react to these options for ending the reaction round. Which ones do you think are workable?

(a) There is only one round; everyone gets one chance to react.

(b) There can be as many as three rounds, but it can end sooner if everyone passes.

(c) After the first round, if you want to react, you have to roll a die; if you roll below the round number (e.g., 2 on the second round) you have to pass.

(d) When the GM reacts, he or she can "call it" and end the reaction round.

(2) Did you use the rule that allowed you to "pull" Bad Medicine from the players or the Nitu and Ganakagok pools and add dice set at '6' to the active player's roll?

[Travis Farber]

(a) There is only one round; everyone gets one chance to react.

I think it would work, but may place too much emphasis on having a single big gift/burden/relationship

(b) There can be as many as three rounds, but it can end sooner if everyone passes.

I think this is my favorite of the suggestions.  Enough to make it interesting but curbs from it dragging.

(c) After the first round, if you want to react, you have to roll a die; if you roll below the round number (e.g., 2 on the second round) you have to pass.

This seems like unnecessary dice roles.  It brings in a little bit of randomness, but I don't know if it adds to the fun.

(d) When the GM reacts, he or she can "call it" and end the reaction round.

Too much power in the GM's hands.  I think most conflicts would end after the first round.

(2) Did you use the rule that allowed you to "pull" Bad Medicine from the players or the Nitu and Ganakagok pools and add dice set at '6' to the active player's roll?

Yes I did.  I probably could have used it more effectively, but the few times I did it made little difference.  Looking back on it, there was a large difference between good and bad medicine for Ganokagok.  I really should have been stealing more medicine from that than I did.

[Bill_White]

Thanks, Travis. A few more questions, and feel free to be blunt: Did the story resolve satisfyingly? Do you think the players were satisfied with the fate of their individual characters? How did you feel about running the game?

[Travis Farber]

The story itself ended a bit weak.  There weren't many unexpected turns.  I would say that 2 of the three players had satisfying ends to their characters.  I think these two players had a pretty good idea to where they wanted to go from the start, whereas the third player was a little more up in the air.  I think the most satisfied player was the one who ended with more bad medicine than good.

I really liked running the game.  There were some frustrating moments though.  The most frustrating being when one of the players was on my side of the conflict.  The other two players were on the other.  Even with the support of one other player I was unable make the dice exciting.  The other two players completely steamrolled us.  I don't mind losing the conflict, but there wasn't even any tension. 

Looking back on it, I will be using Burden dice and Bad medicine much more effectively the next time I run it.  I think that once I learn that aspect of the mechanics better I will be able to direct a more rewarding story for everyone.

[Bill_White]

Thanks, Travis. There's a big challenge in running Ganakagok -- one I find compelling, to be sure, but a challenge nonetheless. It's GM-ing without a net, and so the more the players are pushing their characters to do something, the better the game tends to be. The flip side of that, of course, is that some players can run roughshod over others, pushing things into an un-fun direction.

Oh! One other question occurs to me: I know at least one Ganakagok GM who outright forbids such "anachronistic" intrusions into the fiction as wooden ships and colonists and so forth because it detracts from the mythical character of the story. Do you think that having some of the characters in the game be essentially European explorers was overall a plus or minus to the story? To the game? Or did it not matter?

[Travis Farber]

I don't think it mattered.  Instead of using Cannibal Ghouls we used the Europeans as our outsider "alien" influence.  The next time I run I will try to run it without and I'll see if I get any different results. 

In this story the entire European community was led into caves of the Forgotten Ones by Nanaku.  She then locked them inside the cave to make sure they could not hurt her community.  The fact that they were outsiders, but still people, made it a very twisted and moving scene(especially since she was in love with their leader).