[TSoY] Second Attempt

[donbaloo]

Correction...not putting TSoY aside permanently.  Not.  There's still too much to be loved there.

[Christoph Boeckle]

DitV has one of the coolest game text I ever read. Vincent has a way of bringing things to you that is just marvelous and he definitely knows how to talk to the experienced GM who has encountered those habits we've been talking about.

In play, the narration goes back and forth between the players and the GM, so you can try things similar to the one I was suggesting with the Pool.

The players don't need to think up a lot of relationship at the beginning (in fact, it's better if they keep them relatively low). The mechanics then incite them to "relate" to various NPCs found along the way, tying them ever more into the action.

And what's really cool is that the way you build your town pretty wraps up all that we've said in this trait (placing the PCs at the center of the "relationship map" (you can find those in the Sorcerer's Soul and they're good for lots of games) even though it isn't suggested to draw one up, revealing the town actively (this is where you get to throw serious stuff at them rather than staying hands off), ...)


If on top of that they're eager to give it a go, then that's just perfect!


As a final note, I suggest dropping in at Indie netgaming on IRC. If you've got the time, you could for instance join in Mike's Heroquest game (he's always eager to see new players join), which showed me a lot of cool things by example.

[donbaloo]

Thanks for that link Christoph, I might just want to check into that indeed.  Looking forward to reading through Dogs now....

[Callan S.]

Hi Chris,

To get under his skin you probably need to get under your own first. For example, what gets under my skin (and this is just me, find one that really gets under your skin) is if the noble didn't have any cash on him at the moment (bandit are around, you know), so he hands the player a notice to take assets from a local commoner. Yes, take the assets. Will he do it?

The way this works is that even if he takes simply answers it as a 'well, I'm just doing it for tactical reasons' you will be there at the table, going "Whoa!" because his answer will penetrate right through your skin and get to you. You will appreciate it as a narrativist address. Your genuine body language will encourage him to further engage narrativist premise.

Plus, I don't quite know how keys work in TSOY. But in the riddle of steel, your spiritual attributes recharge even if you fail while just damn well trying to live up to them. In this case, even if he doesn't take the gold, I'd recommend giving him the experience for the key he has about collecting gold. It's a reward for him squaring off with the question, rather than how he answers it.

[Frank T]

Hi Chris,

There's some real smart stuff in this thread. Maybe I can add one or two things.

First: I've been there, man. I've seen the empty looks in my players' faces. And I know that this is especially hard when you are still having trouble yourself figuring out how a game works. This is tough, so be easy on yourself. Here's what worked for me: I played the games online in chat games, with people that were as hot to play them as myself. So we could figure out the rules and procedures together, without at the same time trying to sell the game to each other.

Once you have a better grip on the game's rules and procedures, you can introduce it to your players more easily. Also, you can start making smart suggestions to emphasize how the game works. Like: "You know, you could take the Key of the Vow for your vengeance if you like." Or: "Remember, you can buy off your Key and spend the Advances RIGHT NOW if you..." Or you can show them cool tricks by doing it with an NPC, like using one Ability Check to get bonus dice for another.

You said you asked players to narrate scenes. I have read the game text of TSoY several times, and I don't recall reading anything about that. TSoY is quite classic on the divide between player and GM tasks. Player says what he wants to do, you either say okay or ask for a Check. Check succeeds, what the player described happens (maybe you add a detail), and you react to that. Check fails, player can either Bring Down the Pain, or you describe how he fails.

See? Just like D&D. Bringing Down the Pain is a little different because of the intentions, but still, players don't just narrate scenes. Please note that player narration only works with well-defined rules as to what can and cannot be added through the narration. The Stakes in Primetime Adventures, Coins in Universalis or Key Phrases in Polaris are good examples. Without such rules, it's no wonder players feel unsure as to what they should narrate.

Hope this helps.

- Frank

[Thor Olavsrud]

2) We're having trouble determining just how big and overarching a motivation we can be when we set our stakes.  I mean, I could feasibly keep asking "Why" after every response they give me until we get to some really big stake that is beyond the scope of what we were ever driving towards.  Most of this is I'm sure intuitive to folks familiar with these games but since we're finding our feet its too easy for us to overanalyze everything we're doing.

"Why do you want the extra gold?"
"Because my character likes gold."
"Why do you want it from this noble in particular?"
"Because he has it."
"What do you foresee the gold doing for you?"
"I can use it to buy arms for the ratkin in the swamp."
"And what purpose will that serve?"
"They'll be more effective in their attacks on the slavers."
"Why do you want that to happen?"
"I want to see the slavers driven out of the swamp."
"Excellent, so I think that's the stakes then..."

That's a bit dramatized for effect but hopefully it painted the picture.  Sometimes we just don't know where to stop.

Hey Chris,

Your example above is exactly what I was getting at in that discussion we had about scope. As you've noted, you're expanding the conflict out so far that you're resolving whole swathes of story in a single roll. Narrow that scope down and I think you'll all be much happier.

In the example above, my instincts would be to focus in on this particular answer: "I can use it to buy arms for the ratkin in the swamp."

There is a whole session of play in that sentence, if not more. Here's how I would imagine this exchange going.

Player: "I can use it to buy arms for the ratkin in the swamp."

GM: "Ok. In TSoY, weapons don't have to be actual weapons. So how about if you succeed in stealing the money from the noble, it can act as a weapon that provides +2 Harm to your attempts to buy weapons for the Ratkin. Cool?"

Player: "Ok."

GM: "And if I win, the Ammenite noble decides that you and Mel's character have been conspiring with the ratkin to fleece him. He'll have you thrown out of the house and set some people to tail you."

Player: "Ok."

From here the game can lead into a conflict to buy weapons for the ratkin, and all sorts of complications that come from that.

[rafial]

TSoY is quite classic on the divide between player and GM tasks. Player says what he wants to do, you either say okay or ask for a Check. Check succeeds, what the player described happens (maybe you add a detail), and you react to that. Check fails, player can either Bring Down the Pain, or you describe how he fails.

I'd like to point out, since Don is definitely in the market for techniques, that "who is talking" is totally distinct from "who holds the stamp of final approval".  In the latter case (approval) TSOY is quite traditional, as Frank points out.  But that's not to say that players can't (or shouldn't be encouraged to) describe their characters success and failures.  And the GM can sign off on it and say "yes, that's exactly how it happened" or "no, actually..." or (even better) "yes, but..."  In our play it's quite common for players to start describing a scene, or the GM to ask "tell me how you failed".  This in no way overrides the GM's ultimate signing authority.

This is obvious to many reading this, but I belabor the point to make sure Don is not led to think that "players do not have formal narration authority assigned by the rules" means "players must shut up now".  Also, this technique is by no means peculiar to TSOY, any RPG with a traditional distribution of authority can make use of it, Burning Wheel, D&D, Rolemaster, whatever.

[donbaloo]

Hello all, thanks for the extra input.

Callan- Premise is something that I'm just now beginning to fully grasp after a second look at Ron's essay on Narrativism.  At this point all I can say is that yes I would like to eventually get to the point where we are facing conflicts with levels of significance that qualify them as Premise.  I realize though that so far that's not something we've be even aiming at exactly.  So we're even further from Narrativism that I feared.  I'm hoping we can get the hang of simple conflict resolution, and stakes setting, first so that it can become a tool for exactly the sort of thing your talking about.  With all the learning we're going through right now its proving to be very difficult to come up with Theme building conflicts through improv.  But that's all my fault really.  I realize now that these games need to be approached with significantly more preparation than I first assumed, and that explains why I've had trouble answering questions like "What is your goal for that scene Story Teller?".  With more NPC prep and consideration towards my players' characters I think we'll find ourselves in scenes where Premise addressing conflicts will become more obvious and not so much "let's try to figure out something really cool to make happen here" followed by 10 minutes of discussion on what that cool something could possibly be.  We will get there.  And then we'll be able to fairly discuss whether we like the style of play or not.

Frank- It makes me smile when someone jumps in and says that they've totally been in my shoes back when they were learning all of this.  Gives me hope.  You're suggestion is fantastic and I've just begun looking into getting into a chat game for the very reasons you mentioned.  I really do need to see other folks playing these games, how they flow, what exactly is going on metagame-wise, and not have to worry about selling the game at the same time.  You nailed that one.  Its killing me having to stumble through these games without a clear vision of how they should work and trying to convince my players that they "could be cool once we get the hang of them".  And you're also right that these games are perhaps closer to what I'm accustomed to than what I've led myself to believe.  I've just assumed that they've got to be radically different than anything we've ever done before.  Its been difficult trying to completely overhaul every aspect of what we're accustomed to when we sit down at the table. 

Thor- Yeah, and our discussion helped clear a lot of that up for me.  What you said was good I feel confident that its just a matter of us coming to grips with conflict resolution in general and then finding our comfort zone in relation to scope.  Before our discussion I was confused as to which of the example lines in my post here would have been the correct answer for the stake.  Now I realize that any of them could be the correct answer, depending on what we like as a group.  I already know that we're gonna like things pretty small scale, somewhere right around the scope of your example.  We wouldn't be comfortable with "success=the money has been used to supply the ratkin tribe with weapons".  But your example suits our style.  Problem is, we probably wouldn't have come up with that right at the table on the fly.  Don't know why its so sticky for us right now but I'm gonna chalk it up to just needing more familarity with conflict resolution.  Hopefully stuff like that will become as second nature as coming up with Difficulty Checks in D&D on the fly.

Rafial-  Good point.  Yeah, nobody should assume that I know anything about narration authority when it comes to these games.  I sort of went into TSoY thinking that when a player wins a conflict that they just take over the scene for a while and the rest are along for the ride.  I now realize that it can certainly go that way but the GM has the right to modify the narration a little if need be.  And for that matter, the players don't even have to narrate anything.  I wasn't crystal clear on the fact that there was even a final authority in the game either.  That should help.

Again, thanks all for contributing.  These posts really are helping burn away some of the fog for me and I look forward to the day that I get to post a "Hey, we finally did it..." post.

Take care
Chris

[pedyo]

May I just interrupt for a second and say that I think I understand exactly what you mean by not totally understanding the moment-to-moment play of these "new style" games. Cracking that code is all-important to understanding the games. It was very helpful for me to listen to this, an audio recording of a DitV-game: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=18474.0

Best
Peter

[donbaloo]

Hey, thanks Peter.  Thats exactly the sort of thing I'd like to hear.  I'm gonna start downloading those files right away.  Thanks for jumping in here.

[epweissengruber]

I have been experimenting with a specialized relationship map for my coming Heroquest sessions.

http://files.meetup.com/180731/dykene_relationships.JPG

I looked at the stated goals that each character put on their character sheets.  Then I laid out the major NPCs and thought of what they wanted to accomplish.  Then, I linked the two sets.  This gives me a forest of options to choose from and suggest avenues of action for the PCs.

Explicit relationship mapping helped.