Two-Player FATE

[noahtrammell]

  With reading all the discussions on twosies lately, I think the idea for a two-player game kinda slipped into my subconscious.  While reading, I've noticed that most of these games are very rigidly-structured rules-wise.  I don't know if this is exclusive to the genre or just a feature of most GM-less games.  However, I've been thinking that with a system as simple as, say, FATE, it would be fairly easy for two players to have a more free-form experience.
  Here's the idea: the game can be anywhere, though I'm probably thinking swords-and-sorcery since I've been reading Fritz Lieber lately.  Character creation is in the style of the Pool, where one player generates a legend.  However, the other player plays the antagonist.  The hero of the legend gets to spend ten fate points.  Every time he spends a fate point, he automatically succeeds at a task in the legend.  The legend is narrated in a "mythic style."  After writing down everything you spent fate points on, if you had a good, challenging antagonist, you should have a list of what's reasonably important for your character and what he sees himself as good at.
  OK, now for the actual game.  My really rough idea is either random tables (which seems to be the rage in quite a few recent sword-and-sorcery games), or free-association between two players.  They just brainstorm a quick, one-sentence synopsis of the challenge facing their heroes.  Now, both of them pick a Secret.  This Secret is the big reveal that's their job to keep hidden and eventually reveal in a dramatic fashion. 
  Whenever you add anything new to the world, whether it's an item or an area, you take turns with the other player free-associating of that element.  So if one player declares they enter a dungeon and that it's "Dark" then the other player could apply the "Dank" Aspect to it.
  There's more, but that's the general idea.  Basically, each player is able to declare an object that is under his control.  However, say a monster attacks him.  If that's his monster, the other player controls it as long as it's attacking him. 
  All right, for my question.  Do you think this system is too "free-form" for a GM-less game?  It leaves a lot of power and responsibility to the players.  It's up to the two of them to alchemize their Secrets during play to create a compelling story.  I hope the somewhat random nature of the game and the way both players have a Secret will fire up player's imaginations and make them create really weird stories.  Two feverish imaginations are better than one.

[Jason Morningstar]

Is it too freeform to do what you want in play?

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

I like the way you're thinking. The tables sound like fun.

I do want to point out that Sweet Agatha is vastly more free-form (in the sense you're using this difficult term) than anything else I've ever seen that works, and your one-sentence rules idea has a lot in common with S/Lay w/Me, so I suggest reconsidering your observation about rigid rules-sets.

Best, Ron

[Patrice]

That's more or less exactly what I've been describing in the Tales of the Dragon Lords blurb-post, Noah and I'm happy that you did set your mind upon this. What I've come to as I'm into its mechanics details now includes a lot of the aforementioned elements as I did set them in the spotlight then : Fate and fate points, random tables, free-form action flow and Secrets management to handle the GM-less issue.

I'll definitely send you a "test copy" as soon as it will be complete. Now, aside from Secrets, the one and only question with this design is: where are the teeth? What makes the system create the feeling and the convey the meaning you want from it in an active way? I have a few related ideas, as you'll see, upon this, but deep down they come to the same point: you need to set a scope and mechanisms allowing you to narrow and focus it as the "setting" evolves into situations. You actually need two layers of rules: one for handling the players' co-construction and one to resolve their actions within. These rules can be connected, or even merged if you, like I do, are looking for those teeth.

[noahtrammell]

  I guess I'll just answer each question/continue the discussion.
 
  Is it too freeform to do what you want in play?
  Sorry, I think I phrased this badly.  As has already been stated in a Forge thread I can't remember, it seems like a lot of these two-player games have very strictly-defined roles for each player.  S/Lay w/Me, from what I've read, seems to adhere to this concept in that one player is the Hero or Protagonist and the other is the Monster and the Lover.  While Showdown doesn't have two distinct roles for each character, it does have the Flash of Insight and Upper Hand as well as a very strict order of play.  Mars Colony also has very strict rules.
  However, for my idea (which I'm considering calling either In the City of Smog and Shadow or Ace of Blades), there is no strict role for each player and no strict order of play.
  I guess my question is whether or not you think it's so freeform that I give the players too much responsibility to create the story.

  While I haven't played Sweet Agatha, from the snippets I've read it seems like the game is still very structured mechanics-wise to guide the players narratively.

  Patrice, I hope you don't think I've been plagarizing all of your ideas.  While thinking about my favorite sword-n-sorcery heroes, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, I realized that in the stories, the drama is created not through the swash-buckling action.  While reading, I never really considered that the duo could be killed in a sword fight or have their life force drained by the sorcerer.  Instead, the drama was created by the question of either HOW they defeat their enemies WHAT their enemies are.  The drama was in the revelation of secrets, the conflicts were merely obstacles to that revelation.

  You're question about the narrative teeth of the story got me to thinking about this.   While their would be temporary drama created in swordfights in the game, the real drama would come when the two players, who are each in control of two very different secrets, each play off the other to create an imaginative tale.  One idea in the free-association generation of items and enemies is that no matter how carefully you've laid out your plans for your secret, the other player can come in and give that magical orb an aspect that you totally didn't expect, and maybe one that is related to his secret.  Now, you have to play off that aspect and create a different, and hopefully better story than you would have on your own.

  Sorry for rambling for so long, but I spent a few hours thinking about this before posting back.  Thanks for the thought-provoking questions, and I would love to get a copy of Tales of the Dragon Lords when it's finished.

[Patrice]

Of course not, Noah, that's also what publicly displayed ideas are for, if it sparks your own, it's plain wonderful. I'm pretty sure the result will be different and compelling enough to show your aim apart. I would be very stupid to be going IP-wise at such a rambling and early stage.

When I read your writing about the story being upon HOW and WHAT they fight, it instantly made me think about Mouse Guard's motto: "it's not what we fight, it's what we fight for". I think you should check this one and the way Luke enabled this "what we fight for" into character building and the resolution system. This has teeth. I bow to the understanding that swashbucking and task resolution won't bring, by itself, any story arc and involvement. Having the Secrets manage the drama-building is great, but still a bit teeth-less. Let me rephrase : what will induce the weaving of a story between the players? What mechanisms reward or enforce it?

What you describe sounds to me as perfect if both players are top-notch and imaginative. What if they're not? This is the main issue I've seen in Mythic too: you've got random tables and a creation system involving some social interaction but deep down, you've got nothing that a couple of imaginative players could not handle by themselves. Deep down, the whole Mythic is rolling a dice to check if the answer if Yes or No plus a few opportunities for twists. This is a great tool if you can make something out of it, but it's clueless if you're not or if say, you need a gentle nudge to get into it.

What strikes me with all this free-form coolness you're describing is that you maybe will get something just you and your brother/friend/whatever could play. If you wish to offer it to others, you need to find ways to engage them.

[noahtrammell]

  This is an issue that will take a lot of thinking.  Based on your suggestion, I looked at some Mouse Guard stuff and the game looks beautiful and awesome.
  I think the main problem here for my game is that I have an idea of what I want to do, but I'm missing the structure to really make the story flow.  I don't want to lose that really free-form aspect (sorry about the FATE pun), but at the same time (like you said), I don't want inexperienced roleplayers floundering.
  One thing I'm considering is trying to create structure by play.  I can maybe play a few games using different ideas.  The challenge will be making a game that mechanically guides the players to create a certain kind of story arc, but that doesn't in any way prevent them from throwing in all the crazy weirdness that makes dark fantasy so great.  I'll keep brainstorming and hoping that something will click in my head.  In the meantime, good luck on your own game.

[noahtrammell]

  I've been gone for the last week, but before I left I decided to look up a bit of history of sword and sorcery.  Nothing really stuck except a brief mention that the genre was influenced by the Arabian Nights.  This got me thinking about storytellers, and also about story-creating mechanics for the game.
  The idea I came up with is this: the players are storytellers in the court of a king.  One is the Bard, who loves to sing of feats of arms and dastardly villains.  The other is the Jester, who loves to tell tales of midnight enchantments, mysterious puzzles, and dark labyrinths.  Each player is in charge of governing a certain part of the story.  Basically, there's a large pool of Fate Points.  Each player gets a certain amount at different points in time, maybe every turn, maybe every two turns.  Fate Points can be spent to bring a new Aspect into the story.  So the Bard could spend 2 FP to bring in two warriors with the Aspects "Ancestral Slaves" and four Skill ranks in Blades. 
  The Bard gets Fate Points much more often and in greater quantity than the Jester, allowing him to throw tons of fighting into the tale.  The Jester, however, gets fewer and more far-between Fate Points, meaning he can either throw lesser magic into the tale frequently (as in Lieber's The Snow Women), or have a massive show of magic at the end.
  Fate Points can still be used to invoke Aspects or Compel other characters.  In addition, whenever an enemy attacks a PC whose player is controlling it, control of the enemy switches over to the other player, ensuring the Jester won't be left out of combat.
  I'm thinking of the game now as one of "competitive cooperation," where players are using compels and invokes to try and gain control different degrees of control over the story, while still working together as PC's to overcome challenges.
  The finished product will have different Fate Point budget packages to create different kinds of stories, whether you want a Really Short Story or a Saga.  I'm now focusing on emulating the tales of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, since they're the ones I know best.

  OK, so my question is this.  Do you think control of characters switches too often?  I'm hoping it will force players to get creative with their stories since they have to constantly contend with the other player throwing wrenches into their storylines.  I hope it doesn't make players stop caring about the things they bring into their stories.  Another concern is that the Bard will be able to muscle his way into story control of the Jester.  Maybe some kind of veto ability could take care of that problem.

[Patrice]

What do they play?

(I can't really answer before you told me the answer to this question, that's why. My short question doesn't mean it's not an interesting twist. Quite the contrary, I'm passionate about this competitive/collaborative storybuilding system idea).

[noahtrammell]

  Do you mean the PC's?  Each player controls one of a pair of legendary heroes, like Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.  Otherwise, I completely misunderstood your question!

[noahtrammell]

  Also, something that I totally forgot in my first post.  The Jester controls all female characters.  In most sword and sorcery I've read, in fact in all sword and sorcery I've read, there are no women warriors.  They can, however, be sorceresses, which puts them firmly under the Jester's control.

[Patrice]

OK so they play characters, and collaborate to the story construction through Bard and Jester stances. The main thing is in the way you deal with the Czege principle here:

Being both the antagonist and the protagonist of a RPG isn't fun

So the issue here lays about the system mechanics you'll use to avoid this. You seem to aim at player's storybuilding competition in order to provide enough fun in the course of play, which leaves the actual fact of playing characters less glamourous. If the players weren't to play any characters, the game would revolve about story design, but if you get characters in at the same time, you have to find a way to ensure that either:

1. The players aren't involved in the story bits they designed themselves, maybe shifting sides. In that case, you have a two-layered system and maybe will have to find a way to build the resolution currency in order to ensure that antagonism and protagonism are kept separate.

Or

2. The story building part is competitive enough to actually replacethe resolution. In that case, there is no resolution system as such, since it's embedded in the competitive story design. The story would then encompass the narration of the character's actions and their outcomes.

What strikes me in the system bit you've explained is that it doesn't cover anything at character level, hence my question, while being aimed at story-building resolutionif I may say so.

[noahtrammell]

  I've been considering this question for most of the day.  I'm envisioning a game where the players create an area together, then slash their way through it.  I totally agree on your observation that players shouldn't be involved in the story bits they designed themselves.  This is already built in during combat as I've observed.
  Now, this would be easy if there were more than two players since one player's character could be "absent" somehow.  However, in a game where there's only two players, there isn't a lot of room to spread the story bits around among the players.  I think I'm heading most toward the two-layer system.  Your comment made me question whether the idea of a GM currency was actually necessary.  Couldn't players just take turns introducing Aspects into the story on a 1:1 ratio?     
  Once both players have passed their turn, play switches over to the character level.

  I don't think I want a story-building part that replaces the resolution system, just because I don't think that's the spirit I'm trying to capture.  The problem is that this still kind of puts the ball back into the players' court in terms of roleplaying and  creativity.  I should probably playtest this some time.  I already have the rough idea, and the FATE system is already written.  In the meantime, keep discussing and I'll keep looking for the game's teeth.