[Delve] story-gamers in my sandbox

[David Berg]

I've been working on Delve throughout a 14-month, 28-session playtest with some of my best friends.  By now, they all know how to get what they want from Delve, and our sessions consistently rock (as recorded on my blog).

I've run one other Delve playtest, at JiffyCon, for 3 people I didn't know and one person I'd only played very different games with.  That also rocked, though under my rather heavy-handed guidance.

On Tuesday, I decided to run Delve for John and Paul, two guys I've known for a few months and only played hippie story-games with.  They've both played plenty of "old school" games in the past, just not with me, and (I think) not recently.  And maybe not very successfully?  I'll let them chime in to answer that.  Anyway, my point is that this was a new sort of test for Delve.

Since Paul's moving soon, I half pre-made the characters, and summarized a first mission, to get them right into the flow of making "choose a mission" decisions.  I'd done the same thing at JiffyCon; unlike JiffyCon, however, this time I resolved to use the game's intended GM style, which is to let the players dictate the game's pace and direction.  I even slapped the dial down on the table to remind John and Paul of this.

The results were interesting. 

Rather than choosing the mission with the most obvious reward, they chose the one with the most obvious drama, inferring urgency and a potential for greater reward.  This was cool!  When I see different players choose differently, it validates the work I do to give them disparate options.

Once they picked a mission, I did my standard "high-color first scene", describing the village in detail and encouraging them to do the same for their characters.  They both came up with some great, memorable stuff.

So, then I gave them some friendly villagers to give them all the scenario's leads, and sat back to see what they'd do.  The result was very different from my current longtime group, and the con game.  They were very cautious, hesitating to do anything dramatic or poke their noses anywhere controversial.  I gave them a few reminders that "mostly, travelling adventurers who comes to solve a village's supernatural problem are greeted as heroes!" -- I was a little worried that they might be sacrificing fun for strategy.  Nope, they ignored me (which was good, as I did not want them looking to me for "what should we do?") and proceeded to present themselves as bards, trading some tales for lunch, and making cleverly subtle inquiries about the scenario.

At one point during Paul's tale-telling, John started sketching a picture of his character, and I thought, "Fuck, he's bored."  After all, this was the part in the session where my longtime group would probably say, "Alright, let's make some progress on solving this thing!"  And, John and Paul had both indicated a pretty high interest in fights and physical challenges on my pre-game questionnaire (although not as high as in diplomacy).

My unease was further compounded by the fact that we'd just played an absolutely action-packed game of Dogs in the Vineyard 5 days prior.  After a particularly fun session riding one "you can't ignore this! how do you address it?" after another, I felt like maybe John and Paul weren't ready to hop on the "what do you want to address next?" train. 

On the other hand, they did exactly what Delve players are supposed to do, deciding what the story's about and taking it in whole new directions with their decisions.  I mean, I never expected the bard bit.  That remains my favorite part about GMing this game: how the players constantly surprise me.

Basically, everything worked more or less as intended, I just thought the lower-energy vibe might be a letdown.  I'm curious to see what John and Paul have to say.

[jenskot]

I don't have a lot of time to post as I need to prepare to leave for Camp Nerdly but I wanted to pipe in with a few quick preliminary thoughts that I will hopefully expand on next week.

I was pretty engaged the entire time. Drawing my character is a sign of immersion on my part. I think it was clear to Paul and I what to do once we arrived in the town but wanted a change of pace from the standard conflict, conflict, conflict action of many games we've played recently. And Delve presents a good opportunity to do so. I enjoyed getting a sense of the different personalities in the town. And playing bards was a chance for Paul and I to explore our character's relationship as a team.

I really live your pacing dial. I love that I can encourage the GM to speed up or slow down. Although I don't think I need all the options currently available on the dial. And it would be great to have the text printed so it can be read no matter which way it faces.

I liked the character sheets. The "this pleases my character", "this displeases my character" entries. And I enjoyed your introductory scene of having more experienced adventurers guide us on our new roles.

Resolution wise, I don't have much to say as I would like to see more.

I felt Delve gave us room to breathe.

[Paul T]

I enjoyed the pace very much. In a game of this type--"immersive"--I like to take the time to get to know the environment. And by that, I mean both the fictional environment and the real-world, at-the-table environment. So much in play depends on those things that I like to take the time to feel comfortable with both. Like a young creature crawling out into a world of harsh light for the first time.

I also enjoy that pace from a fiction point of view--a sort of "slow build", carefully foreshadowing certain elements... I like to anticipate conflict and action a bit sometimes, rather than just jump into it. It gives it a little more taste.

Looking forward to more Delve! So far, my favourite part was the "pleased/displeased when" bit on the character. A great tool to add depth to a character quickly.


(Hey, is it even meaningful to say "I liked the pace" when you explicitly let us set the pace? Like, duh. In any case, I think John and I were both ready towards the end to jump into some action--and so was the fiction.)