[Ensemble] Playtesting at GenCon: Land of the Lost

[Lxndr]

Okay, so.  Ensemble, a game of improvisational roleplaying, managed to be playtested exactly once at GenCon, late Friday night at the Embassy Suites. It was originally Emily Care Boss, myself, and two people whose names I am totally blanking on right now so, if you were a player, please let your voice be heard!

We started with the basic idea of cave men, but things got sillier right away.  One of our four players chose, as his main protagonist, a Cave Bear.  I decided to play a sleestak (thus starting the descent into Land of the Lost territory), and then we got two humans:  an old weary warrior, and a female shaman (the latter played by Emily).  The themes were as follows:  Territory for the Cave Bear, Resentment for the warrior, Redemption for the sleestak, and Protect the Clan for the shaman.  The overall theme was Survival.

Things got even more fun after that.  I created another sleestak to go after my own (I was a noble exile, he was the barbarian leader of the sleestak horde).  To go with our Cave Bear, emily created a Giant Snake.  The Cave Bear created the Chief of the tribe, and the weary warrior created Yamoof Moof, his former mate who was declated 'not-human' by the tribe after bearing a webbed-fingered-and-toed son, and forced to live in exile.  She has a tentacle - I was extra-amused that her 'not-human' status wasn't because of the tentacle, but because of the son.

Emily had to leave at that point, sadly, leaving us with only one human protagonist.  The supporting characters the three remaining made included: a time traveller and a monkey (for the cave bear), a chief's daughter and a hunter (for the sleestak), and the aforementioned webbed man and another caveman for the weary warrior.

We then managed to do four scenes:

* The story started with the giant snake just going to town on the sleestak and the weary warrior.  Then, the chief went to ask the cave bear what they should do about the snake - the bear said 'why ask me, go ask the snake!' so the chief did and praised the bear his wisdom.

* Later, the weary warrior hung out with the bear, fishing together like old friends, when suddenly a small army of sleestak showed up, led by the usurper - ooooo.  The bear scared them away, but in turn led them to exactly what they were looking for: a cave filled with glowing blue rock.  The monkey was also in this scene, but wound up not acting.

* So, these two sleestak met, since one of them was the usurper of the throne and caused everything to fall to heck, and the other was the rightful ruler of the
throne, who could fix the lost city.  At this point we established that my sleestak sort of had an arboreal home for exiles, and Yamoof Moof and others all lived there.  In the end, for his people, the exiled ruler agreed to help the usurper.  The time traveller was in this scene, but wound up not acting.

* Meanwhile, the world-weary warrior met with Yamoof Moof, about his son (with her) who'd gone missing.  She argued, said she didn't know where he was - the weary warrior gave her some instructions and came back the next day, but she was missing.

At that point, two new people showed up (well, Emily returned, and Ben Lehman).  Ben wanted a Velociraptor knight-errant - in the end, he claimed the Giant Snake as his character and created the velociraptor as just another main character (and a serpent-slayer).  The Giant Snake's supporting characters became a male snake, and a deluded, snake-worshipping priest.  Ooo!  Emily added another velociraptor amongst her supporting characters, along with the time traveller's computer.  Sadly, we never learned exactly why these two were anchored to her shaman girl as, at that point, we were told it was time to close down the area we were playing in, and we noticed the time. Everyone decided to turn into a pumpkin.

It was very enjoyable, the play we got.  Requiring everyone to create four characters just to get started turned out to be as seamless as I thought - and, as expected, at least one person balked as well, until they got into it.  I definitlely learned Ensemble has the potential to generate an enormous amount of index cards!  Just the beginning characters and the trigger tracker turned into something like sixteen cards, and that's only because I decided to put two supporting characters on one card (which seems reasonable). 

The game is mostly proceeding smoothly.  One of the things I noticed was a tendency that I've noticed a lot in some of the games I've played in recently - a tendency to skip past some of the actual role-playing and dive right into noticing what the stakes were, and resolving them.  It might just have been because it was late and we were punchy, and we did do some roleplaying, so I might just be overthinking this.  Again I'm noticing a very strong tendency to use existing characters rather than create new ones, as well as less calling on of Traits than I expected... I wonder if I'm giving out too many beats, or starting people with too many, or both?

On the other hand, I think the block system of Ensemble isn't as chaotic as I'd like it to be.  It's too easy for it to drift towards equilibrium, where everyone has close to the same number of dice.  So I guess in some ways there's too much smoothing, and I need more mechanisms to push things out of balance.

[Nathan P.]

One of the things I noticed was a tendency that I've noticed a lot in some of the games I've played in recently - a tendency to skip past some of the actual role-playing and dive right into noticing what the stakes were, and resolving them.  It might just have been because it was late and we were punchy, and we did do some roleplaying, so I might just be overthinking this.

Hey man. It was good to meet you, though we didn't get to hang out much!

Anyway. I doubt you were overthinking this. How exactely were stakes being set? How much discussion and/or "pre-narration" was happening during stakes setting? How much narration was happening during and after the resolution system? I'm asking mainly because of the "tendency I've noticed in a lot of games recentely" part, and I think that could use some discussion, not cuz I want to rag on your game. I've noticed the same kind of thing as well, and so have others. Were you there for the big talk about stakes on Saturday night?

[Lxndr]

Nathan,

I was definitely there for the big talk about stakes on Saturday night, and whatever it is I noticed, I don't think it's the pre-narration issue Ron was discussing (and I did think about it during the talk, even).  We didn't nail things down before the dice hit the table, or ask for counter-stakes or anything like that.  It was a different part of Ron's diagram, which I wish now I could look at for reference so that people who weren't there could go 'oh, okay!'.  Basically, though, it wasn't that we pulled some of the stuff that should be sitting during/after the resolution earlier, but rather we (maybe) skipped some of the stuff that might have informed resolution, maybe.

It was during that talk, howver, that Clinton (I think) made a comment whose essence stuck with me - about playing (or hearing of playing, maybe) through an entire game of, say, PTA doing nothing more than framing the scene, setting the stakes, rolling, resolving, and then moving on to the next scene.  It's that phenomenon I'm thinking about here.

[Jake Richmond]

I played the old Warrior. my friend Phil played the Bear.

We had a lot of fun. i think yopu are right, we did do a lot of skipping to resolving the stakes. i think this was at least in part because we knew we were pressed for time. I also think if Phil and I were more familiar with the game we would have been able to do more with it.


lots of fun though. Thanks for introducing it to us.


Jake

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Hi Alexander,

I think what you are talking about was tagged with the term Vampire Hunting. As in the player (or GM) is focused on staking everything around them and does not do any roleplaying. It would go just like you seem to be saying and seems to be legal by the way games are written. It would happen basically like you describe, the scene would be framed, stakes would be set, the system would be used to resolve the outcome, followed by a 3rd person narration and then the process would be repeated.

Is it Vampire Hunting you want to discuss? I don't want to derail your thread.

[Lxndr]

Jake, thanks for posting and revealing yourselves, and I'm sorry I didn't keep your names in my mind.  GenCon is always like a flood of faces and names, both ones I've met before and new ones, and I always walk away feeling drowned and waterlogged.  I'm glad you guys had fun - so did I, and the experience was a learning one too, everything a playtest should be.    And now I realize I never stopped by Key20 to get Panty Explosion, like I was planning to all weekend.  I keep forgetting that the Forge Booth isn't the only place for indie products.

Clyde, Vampire Hunting is what I'm thinking of, I believe, yes; I remember that label now,  It's something I've been worried about recently - and I've been thinking about trying to find mechanical ways to discourage it (or more properly, encourage behaviour that would cut down on the Vampire Hunting), especially in Ensemble.  Fan Mail seems to be one possible encourager - although people could certainly hand out fanmail for interesting and fun 3rd person narration just as much as they could "roleplaying" in the traditional sense.  I wonder - is Vampire Hunting even necessarily a "problem"?  If that's what people enjoy, more power to them? 

I'm good with talking about it in this thread - after all, it does seem to be my biggest point of concern with Ensemble right now (other than, perhaps, people creating new characters less than I'd like, but that could just simply be the result of most playtests only going a session or two).

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Awesome, I'd like to get the idea of Vampire Hunting, what it is, and whether it's a problem ironed out.

So like you, I have to wonder how much of a problem it is. If the people who are playing the game enjoy it this way then it's not a problem. I think the likelyhood of having a whole group of Vampire Hunters is unlikely. My experience with this phenomenon has been it has been very mechanical feeling-- lifeless play. Totally not enjoyable for me. Let me go into that a bit.

My main experience of this has been in Dogs. Not because I believe there's anything about the game that specifically leads to it, but it's one of the most popular Indy games. It happened when I ran the game for some friends that I was having some difficulty with in our relationships. We had become distant for reasons I don't understand. At the time, I thought Vampire Hunting was Indy gaming and was going to give up on the whole thing. This style of play seemed natural for them. I decided to give one more try and went to Forgecon Midwest, and played some kickass games. Now I'll freely admit that I may have been part of the problem, and it seems that there was some cultural learning needed for me to 'get' it.

The main difference I experienced is that at Forgecon Midwest we roleplayed up to the conflict, and narration was mainly delivered in a stance (actor/author/director), and not simply stated as so this happens. My experience with Vampire Hunting is that actor, and author stance were hardly ever touched, with director stance being used for the small snippets of roleplaying.

Now I'll move onto my theory. I believe that Vampire Hunting is engaged in by some players with high Gamist agendas. I think they groove on a system that has good tactical / strategy choices, and allows for ability to screw with each other by setting up things the others don't want to accept. I believe that they get the most enjoyment from these things, so those are the only things they do and it seems technically legal by our game designs.

Is this similar to what you experienced?

[Lxndr]

That's a more extreme version of what we did - there was definitely some Actor/Author stance going on, but it was more sporadic (playing out snippets of conversation, rather than the whole thing), and a lot of the time we were in Director stance.

Let me offer a variation on your theory that might be closer to the mark.  In short, I'm disagreeing that Vampire Hunting is a purview of the Gamist agenda - I think that's the wrong part of the field to be looking.  I don't feel that I was playing Ensemble at the convention with any sort of Gamist outlook, nor did I get the impression that Jake or Phil were either.  Instead, maybe Vampire Hunting is an outgrowth of a focus on Exploration of System (as opposed to Color, Character, Situation or Setting) rather than Gamism.

Consider that the actual play that started this thread is a playtest, so on some level we were all looking to explore the System of Ensemble.  Your comment about the need for some learning to 'get it' also seems on the mark here:  at the start of a game you've never played before, there's always more Exploration of System because you're still somewhat grokking the rules, groping a bit in the dark.  Some people might enjoy Vampire Hunting, but it might also be simply a symptom of inexperience - one which can easily become the only experience.

Considering this, perhaps one of the ways to fight this in the game text is examples of play?  Examples that do more than just touch on the rules, but also on how the rest of play should look like...

[Jon Hastings]

Consider that the actual play that started this thread is a playtest, so on some level we were all looking to explore the System of Ensemble.  Your comment about the need for some learning to 'get it' also seems on the mark here:  at the start of a game you've never played before, there's always more Exploration of System because you're still somewhat grokking the rules, groping a bit in the dark.  Some people might enjoy Vampire Hunting, but it might also be simply a symptom of inexperience - one which can easily become the only experience.

Alexander,

This explanation resonates with my own experience running The Shab-al-Hiri Roach for a group of (primarily) d20-players at a convention.  We went from scene framing, to stakes setting, to resoultion, without very much role-playing in between.  While the game ended up feeling a little disjointed to me, the d20-players seemed to be having such fun trying out the system and seeing what it could do (and what they could "get away with") that they really didn't seem to care about (or even notice) the lack of role-playing.

-Jon

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Alexander,

Thanks for the opportunity to hack at this. Your explanation is not what I was expecting and because my thoughts and or experience seems so far from what you are talking about... I'd like to dig there. I'm wondering if we are talking about the same thing. It sounds to me like you are talking about not roleplaying so much because someone doesn't have a handle on the system. What I'm talking about is a playstyle by people who have a very capable grasp on the system. Could you talk more about what you believe the style of play was exploring?

Also, I think you are onto a good idea about combating the problem. I would suggest that specifically those examples of play should address when in the IIEE the system is contacted, and when it isn't needed.

A good non-technical explanation of IIEE

In the game I was previously designing I think I was addressing some of this problem by what I called ownership. Ownership was a concept to make explicit who had narration rights over what in a non-challenge state, and when to move to a conflict. simply that point was reached when you wanted to do something with the owner didn't want you to do. So players owned their characters and items on their sheet, and the gamemaster owned the NPC's and setting and NPC's backstory. If I were still using the idea of ownership, I would make backstory untouchable by players.

More can be found about that idea here, but since it's old it doesn't totally work like I just stated. It occurs to me that a split may be in order. I'll leave that up to you or the guys with the control.

[Lxndr]

Clyde, I'm not saying a lack of handle on System is the only way to lead there - rather, that a focus on the Exploration of System, regardless of the reason, can become exaggerated to that point.  And there are quite a few reasons for a focus on System - including the enjoyment and desire of the strategic/tactical elements of that System (as you described earlier), the learning of a new system and/or trying to break it (as in both new players and playtesting), perhaps in some arenas of social discomfiture (where one might retreat into System - your comments about your Dogs game sounds like this could be described that way, and this might possibly relate to certain types of new players). 

This then leads into another observation:  Some people engage in Vampire Hunting because it's what they prefer, and others might have a myriad of other reasons for doing it: learning a system, playtesting (or otherwise stressing/pushing a system), following the crowd (or maybe a literal "not knowing any other way"), using it for tactical/strategic elements in a possibly Gamist sense,  falling back on System because they're feeling uncomfortable at the social level, etc.  All in all, it appears to be an exaggerated exploration of System that can be arrived at in a myriad of ways.

In other words - I'm thinking we are talking about the same phenomenon overall, but our experiences came from different motivations behind the phenomenon.

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Alexander,

I agree. We do seem to be talking about the same thing. So is it a problem or an observation? I think it might be able to be both.

[Lxndr]

It is a problem for those who want, or are expecting, more.  In other words, for all those who aren't engaging in it because it's what they prefer. Like you and your friends, who may have wound up Vampire Hunting because of an uneasiness in your social situation, when what you wanted the sort of play you found at Forgecon Midwest.  Or like me noticing after the Ensemble playtest that hey, there was less RP than I was hoping (a milder case of Vampire Hunting).  Like anyone who picks up a new weirdo hippie Forge game for the first time and leans hard on the mechanics because they're not sure what else to do.

And I think at least some of these problems can be fixed with, for instance, more expanded examples of play, rather than just restricting examples of play to the use of the system.  PTA and Fastlane (not to toot my own horn or anything, but they did evolve independently) both have nice examples not just of approaching the conflicts, but everything around it - game/show creation, character development, etc.  The examples in both games are examples of the talk around the table.

The downside to this is that the example-of-play text isn't often enough referred during play to help with this.  I wonder if there are mechanical ways to slow down the stakes rush.