[Agora] Examing an problematic playtest

[DevP]

Over on SG, Caledonian described an unsuccesful play of Agora, and I thought it would be worth re-examining some of the suggestions in that thread, and offer my thoughts.

* Potential Death Spirals?

One outcome is that a winner from a lucky roll and continue to dominate. Once someone is winning (say, a 3-die challenge against a 1-die stand), then notwithstanding an Epiphany, they are going to win and keep winning. The advantage is two fold: (1) The winner gets to remove some dice from the loser's side, definitely weakening what they can do. (2) The winner keeps all the dice from the winning set (aside from Epiphany effects, if any). Any further moves they do will build on the successes they already have, making it harder for the player (who has already lost some dice) to climb back up.

Josh did suggest that this was by design: a situation that should arise in the game is that you will find yourself in the situation of losing a great deal in the process of fighting for your goals, and will have to make the choice of risking your current Resources/Ideals to achieve them. That's interesting, but I think it's worth considering if the Surrender option is the right counterbalance to the ways the dice system favors winners. Are we sure that this artifact of the dice system is a good thing?

* Fiddly Mechanics?

A question to JBR: how much of your playtesting have you done on the tabletop, and how much has take place on MUSH/IRC? I note that a lot there have been many successful play on IRC, while the aforementioned account was at a table top and dealt with longer handling times. Handling time can be subjective of course (I consider the highly tactile mechanics a plus) but it's worth keeping an eye one.

* Are Mechanics Informing the Fiction?

In the resolution process, there is the (1) counting of your dice to determine your Challenge/Stand, (2) choice of rolling in new resource (and counting those as well), (3) choice of picking some few dice to reroll, doing so, and counting those again, and then (4) injecting some narrative into the fiction, informed by the previous choices. (The text doesn't mention any fiction that comes along with rerolling some dice, but Josh mention that this should be represented by the reshuffling or reallocation your resources.)

If the above steps were in response to someone else's Challenge, that's a large amount of steps that could occur without much happening to the fiction in the process. There is some informing of the fiction - rolling in your "Genetic Lab" dice means the lab will show up in the narration - but there is still some time that elapses between these two points. The mechanics of lost dice - through Epiphany or due to a defeat - currently do not involve any fiction. (It was mentioned that one playtester tried this voluntarily, using an Epiphany to remove a Marines die, since that was what his narration had been targetting.)

In my own experience (from IRC), the rhythm of the game is being presented with the situation, then taking some time to metagame with the various mechanical options, and then finally making a narrated statement based on the promises made in that previous phrase. I could forsee that being a rhythm that works on IRC, but not as well at the table.

Let me know if I can clarify any of these issues.

[Josh Roby]

Hey, Dev!  Here's my thoughts on the questions you raise:

Potential Death Spirals

These do exist, they are there intentionally, and a good portion of the game is looking potential death spirals in the eye and deciding if you want to risk pushing that conflict or not.  So it's more than possible for your opponent to have a three-bloc of dice showing twos and you to have only one or two dice to fit into your own challenge or stand.  Now, this can come about in a couple ways.

The first is a lucky lead-in roll at the top of a conflict.  I roll three twos and you roll a five and some eights.  This scenario is relatively easy to fix, since at the start of the conflict you have lots of untapped dice you can pull in.  Seeing an opening roll like this should tell you that you're in for a pretty significant fight.  You might want to grab that mega-d4 trait that you save up for just such a situation (on my Foundry playtest character, I've got a 4d4 starfighter, for instance), knowing that you'll probably lose a die or two off of it, but presumably that's a risk that you're willing to take to gain the stakes you just put on the table.

The second is a series of lucky rolls on your part in the middle to end of a conflict. If you've managed to build a three-bloc and then hit two epiphanies in a row (on two successive challenges, or a challenge and a stand), you can pretty handily decimate my dice, even if I've got a three-bloc of my own.  Epiphanies are powerful stuff, and should be narrated as such -- their 'target' is not necessarily part of the narration, but the flash-and-bang certainly should be.  I can see where your confusion comes from on that account, Dev.  The text is as follows:

[Epiphanies] represent a sudden surge, breakthrough, or insight that gives you a decided immediate advantage. However, Epiphanies are also taxing, and once its force is spent, the die is removed from your character sheet and cannot be used for the rest of the scene.

Your opponent handing you your ass after playing well isn't a problem, to my eye (god, I sound like Tony).  If this happens relatively early in a conflict, you might still want to pull out the stops and try to turn things around, but it's pretty tough to beat a three-bloc when you've currently got nothing.  This is when you pull in those mega-d4 traits, it's when you assign d10s to new lieutenants, it's when you use epiphanies you've earned from surrendering in prior conflicts, it's when you roll in all four ideals (and reward your opponent even more).  But I should underscore -- this is hard, and it requires scoring epiphanies, which means permanently losing resource dice or taking fallout to your ideals.  Surrendering and taking a nice non-ablative ideals die and perhaps an epiphany may be the better option.

The last way that this can happen is at the end of the scene, either at the end of a series of lucky rolls or at the end of some clever play by your opponent.  You don't have many untapped dice left.  Except in very rare circumstances, at this point you should surrender, maybe try to hold out until it's your challenge so you can try for an epiphany.  To sound like Tony again, you've been beat, and you should recognize that fact and reward your opponent appropriately.

(More after the departmental meeting)

[Josh Roby]

Dice and Narration

I've played Agora on tabletop three times.  I actually find the fiddliness easier in tabletop with the dice in front of you (and on the character sheet) instead of looking through lists of dice on a screen.

There is an initial hump to get over in relating the fiddly dice with the fiction, but it's been my experience that players get over that hump in their Descent scene (it's in fact one of the reasons the Descent scene is there).  I find this very similar to Dogs and Accomplishments (mostly because this part of the game was ripped bleeding from the Dogs rules).

The rhythm you cite is pretty similar to my experiences, although for me at least the 'metagame' of choosing what dice to roll or reroll has some pretty potent in-game and in-character considerations attached.  Every time you roll a die, you are risking that die.  That die is attached to one of your followers or one of your closely-held beliefs, and so risking that follower or belief is weighted with significance for me.  Now, this transference very clearly did not happen in Caledonian's playtest, so I will need to punch up the rules descriptions in places, add some content to highlight the significance of rolling dice, and amend a few rules (like stakes setting) to heighten that element of the experience.  Every die roll should be about values and ideals, and if it's not, something's wrong.

I don't necessarily want to be the final word on the questions you present, Dev.  I'd love to hear your thoughts and any one of the many folks who are participating in Thomas' online 'chaotic play' playtests!

[DevP]

This is when you pull in those mega-d4 traits, it's when you assign d10s to new lieutenants, it's when you use epiphanies you've earned from surrendering in prior conflicts, it's when you roll in all four ideals (and reward your opponent even more).

A question: in playtest, have you seen players successfully bring all of these things to bear? And (while a win isn't guaranteed) how often have you seen someone pull out a victory through these methods? A question to me is, are there enough ways to escalate (for yourself) when you're in the hole?

This brings me to one idea I had. What if you allow multiple rerolls for any given resource (so on your turn, you can reroll some of your 3d6 "Soldier" dice multiple times) but on each reroll, the number that triggers an Epiphany goes up by one. So the first reroll, 1's are Epiphanies, then on another reroll 2's are epiphanies, and so on. On one hand, this adds a little bit of complexity; but then again, I like that it gives me more options in order to beat down an opposing force, and more importantly, it gives me a chance to make some truly bad choices in play. Thus, I can become the fanatical general who fantatically throws his infantry over and over again into the enemy flank, desperate to break through, and realize after the battle that his offensive capability has not just been weaked, but truly shattered. There are some balance issues (for example, the Standing player has the chance to inflict an excessive level of harm), but what do you think of this idea?

The rhythm you cite is pretty similar to my experiences, although for me at least the 'metagame' of choosing what dice to roll or reroll has some pretty potent in-game and in-character considerations attached.  Every time you roll a die, you are risking that die.

I think you might well be playing with something I'm going to suggest here. So this game has a lot in common with Dogs, right? It seems that the analog of the Raise/See is the Challenge/Stand, and a difference is that there is, nonetheless, a lot more things to do in Agora on the way to making your narration. However, maybe the analogue to the Raise is actually every time you roll in a new trait or reroll your dice. So: (ignore the mixup of resource/ideal dice for the sake of the example)

STAKES: Do we establish a mining operation on Agora?
(After having been given the Challenge: The mine is collapsing in on the miners!)
Rolling in [liutenant] General Fury: "I call in my good friend the general to deploy his most trusted men to rescue those miners."
Rolling in Uprising Ideal: "I make a calm declaration on the intercom: The miners are the very humble base of our society, and though they are low in stature, our state will protect them most of all."
Rolling in First Responders resource: "Without thinking, loyal medtechs put on their blue jackets and speed to the scene selflessly."
There is an Epiphany on my First Responders dice: "Their zeal catches some of them off guard, and several are killed by falling debris; but they keep moving on, undeterred."
Rerolling some dice from General Fury: "I let him know, in no uncertain terms, that his men need to come back up with survivors, or not come back it all..."
(And finally, having done enough actions.)
Stand: We save the miners and our equipment.

So, do you see how perhaps, you have stakes, Challenges/Stands can be like substakes, and the actions of rolling in new dice / rerolling old ones are Raise/Sees where you are immediately putting something into the ficiton? Is this part of, as you say, making each roll of a dice have some important fictional meaning about what resources you're putting at risk?

...

Finally, an aesthetic suggestion, not really mechanically related. In the final version of the tabletop game, what if there are cards you can make - about the size of property cards in Monopoly - that describe the resource in question, and that you place your dice upon when the resource is in play, perhaps with different parts of the card marking epiphanies / fallout. To my mind, that makes for a pleasantly "tactile" game board.

[Josh Roby]

A question: in playtest, have you seen players successfully bring all of these things to bear? And (while a win isn't guaranteed) how often have you seen someone pull out a victory through these methods? A question to me is, are there enough ways to escalate (for yourself) when you're in the hole?

I haven't seen them all come to bear at once, but I have seen the all brought to bear once or twice before.  I have seen turnarounds, too.  And I've also seen some scenes where the Obstacle is just too damn beefy to beat down on your own, and the prudent option is to surrender and return to fight another day (perhaps with another PC ally -- which is why players jump in after the Obstacle is selected).  So from my angle, for my preferences on the win-loss ratio, there's enough escalation options for me.  What about you, Dev?

What if you allow multiple rerolls for any given resource (so on your turn, you can reroll some of your 3d6 "Soldier" dice multiple times) but on each reroll, the number that triggers an Epiphany goes up by one. ... what do you think of this idea?

I think that that "willfull commander" possibility is already present in the game, just over the course of a number of exchanges.  It's perfectly possible to make the really bad decision to stay in a conflict too long, to keep rerolling your dice until they all bleed away to epiphanies, and even if you win the conflict, to seriously weaken yourself in the long term -- and what's more I think that that's a situation that might arise naturally and be a 'good' sort of burnout.  How cool is it to be able to play a guy who's so intent on his ideals that he'll burn his entire world down around his ears to forward those ideals?

So, do you see how perhaps, you have stakes, Challenges/Stands can be like substakes, and the actions of rolling in new dice / rerolling old ones are Raise/Sees where you are immediately putting something into the ficiton? Is this part of, as you say, making each roll of a dice have some important fictional meaning about what resources you're putting at risk?

First off, the dice system is totally ripped off of Dogs and then inverted, so I don't think seeing each Challenge/Stand as an exchange of task resolution is a bad idea.  In fact most of what you describe is how I envision the game playing out in general.  Do you think that that is not plain enough and I should make it more apparent that each roll of the dice is or should be reflected in an element of the fiction?

Finally, an aesthetic suggestion, not really mechanically related. In the final version of the tabletop game, what if there are cards you can make - about the size of property cards in Monopoly - that describe the resource in question, and that you place your dice upon when the resource is in play, perhaps with different parts of the card marking epiphanies / fallout. To my mind, that makes for a pleasantly "tactile" game board.

I think that would get really awkward in longer games.  After a half-dozen scenes or more, your PC will start to seriously accrue dice and resources.  You'd have a flotilla of cards in front of you, and they can't stack up like Monopoly property cards if they have to have dice on top of them.  Have you played with the character sheet, Dev?  I believe that it's got that tactile feel that you're describing, just without a separate card for each resource.

Thanks for all this feedback and discussion, by the way.  It's very helpful to get additional perspectives on the game!

[DevP]

In fact most of what you describe is how I envision the game playing out in general.  Do you think that that is not plain enough and I should make it more apparent that each roll of the dice is or should be reflected in an element of the fiction?

Most players probably understand that if you bring in trait dice they ought to be reflected in your narration. But do you understand what I mean, though, that each use of the dice could mean then and there you're adding stuff to the fiction? In my experience with Dogs, when you roll in new dice from traits, you're not always saying what you're doing with that resource then and there (though there may be a quick justification given to the group). Rather, when you bring those traits in, it's a promise to integrate that into your actual narration, during the Raise, and the narration doesn't necessarily happen before this point.

It seems like the rolling in traits / rereolling in Agora is like that, where you're just promising to put certain content into your final narration. I'm suggesting it might be better to make each of those actions actually have Narration alongside it, building up to the final outcome for this round.

[Josh Roby]

It's an interesting proposition.  I'll have to try it in playtest to see how it would work.  I worry that that would be a lot of one guy talking at a time, building up to something that fell on its face.  Me, I like to roll dice and then interpret the results via narration.  Narrating as you roll seems like it would lead to situation where you're all "And then I do this and this and wachow this!!! and... I still only have a two-die stand.  I lose a die."  I'm all for pulling out the stops and still failing, but I want to be able to portray the stop-pulling as hopeless and desperate actions, not heroic, if they're not actually going to work, you know?

[DevP]

Another quick example: I remember in my Descent conflict, I rolled my Engineering Syndicate dice and got like a 7,7,8, making the pity comment like "bah, lazy engineers". In retrospect, that could have been an actual part of the narrative: I called on this resource, but my people were jsut not getting their asses into gear.

You have a good point at overmuch building up to a let-down, and playtest will bear that out more than anything. I think mitigating this will the the fact that, as you're rolling in your dice, you'll see how well you're doing, how close you are to getting a better Challenge, etc. Also, there's always framing your Narration as an initiation of the attempt, rather than describing the execution or effect. (So I should be narrating that my medics are deployed and rushing to the scene, not that they are patching up miners or that the miners are being evacuated, because until I make a Stand I don't know if that's true.)

Anyway: to be playtested.

[Josh Roby]

Dev, to my eye, that was part of the narrative.  Imagine, if you will, a similar roll happening in a later scene.  Wouldn't your engineers quickly acquire an in-game reputation as 'lazy'?  Whether or not it's part of your soliloquoy when you stand up and say what's happening as part of your "turn," that stuff is in the fiction.  Not everything has to be said, and not everything has to be said in the block of time staked out as "your go."  Get what I mean?

[DevP]

I do understand. You don't necessarily want to place every single statement within the scope of the rules, since there should always be room for plain ol' kibbitzing.