[The Committee for the Exploration of Mysteries] First Playtest

[Eric J. Boyd]

So Alexander Cherry and I took my revised 2006 Game Chef entry of pulp exploration storytelling (see link below) for a spin. Now the game really needs at least three players, but at least I'm getting to see if the mechanics can survive a shakedown cruise and get some great input from an experienced designer.

Character Creation

We began with character creation, which seemed to flow pretty smoothly. Alex decided to try to break the system by allocating his 12d6 in attribute dice Daring 2- Genius 1- Instinct 1- Charisma 8. Alex created Ava Turkington, the wayward daughter of the missing-in-action Committee luminary Butch Turkington. Butch had a reputation for having crackpot ideas, and Ava's desire is to redeem her father's reputation and find out what happened to him. He went with descriptors highlighting Ava's time cast adrift in the world, taking up with a circus and traveling while still preserving her innocent charm. The biggest departure from standard descriptors was her Gear descriptor - Breasts. A bit outside the box, but I think it captures the tension of the character between current innocence and budding femme fatale status nicely.

I decided to create Butch's former kid sidekick, the now middle-aged Rex Worthy. I went with a more standard dice spread of 5-2-3-2 and used descriptors highlighting the fighting and investigative skills that Butch taught Rex while showing that Rex hasn't grown up properly – still carousing and pining for his university days. Rex's desire is to make peace with his past and gather the acclaim necessary to settle down into a restful maturity.

Setting Creation

With our characters made, we moved onto creating the expedition site and the route to get there. This open brainstorming worked out well, though I might need to include more guidance in the game for less experienced players on what questions to ask and when to stop playing before you play and get on with the game.

We decided that Butch had a theory about ancient civilization on Mars and getting there through gates hidden on Earth. So Mars is the expedition site. The secret it holds is Martian civilization. The issue the expedition site presents is: Are we ready for what's out there? The stops on our route to get there are London (we decided the Committee is based there), Sail around the southern part of Africa, Calcutta, Ruins in India, Ruins at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, and the Moon. Unlike the Game Chef entry, the game now can be a variable number of sessions – one for the expedition site and one for each stop or two along the route.

Next was hazard creation. The rules currently have a brainstorming session followed by each player coming up with two lists – one of hazards they want their character to face and one of hazards they want to inflict on other characters. Maybe we were lazy, but we only ended up doing one list of hazards that contained ideas that we both wanted to see used in play. My initial thought was that the multiple lists for everyone would help ensure no one choked up and couldn't think of a scene during play, but it may be too clunky. The single list of brainstormed hazards combined with the expedition log (a new addition) seems to be better. Some of the cooler hazards we came up with: competing Committee members devoted to rocketry, Martians hidden among us, and unwelcome groupies (to bother poor Rex).

Play

We finally got to put all this prep into action, playing out several scenes. The good: the three-minute timing of hazard resolution seems to work well, generating tension in a scene without making it impossible to finish most of the time. The back-and forth rhythm of the storytelling seems to create a nice feel to scenes. The dice mechanics mostly seem to work like I thought they would – not too fiddly to do under time constraints and simple but strategic.

The bad: Alex's character showed that it isn't fun to have a character attack all hazards with the same high attribute. I had hoped that players would naturally use different attributes and unknown hazards that could be inflicted upon any character randomly would shake things up. Not enough, so there's a new rule requiring that you cannot use the same attribute again before you've used each of the others once unless you're willing to spend one Acclaim to do so. We'll try using this rule next time and see if it works as well as I think it will. Other bad: The omission of a workaround in case the Opposition player narrating complications freezes up jumped out and was remedied.

Narrating everything in the past tense takes some getting used to. While you're still playing a role, it's definitely not like most RPGs that play out chronologically in the SIS. I've also got to think a little more about how to handle scenes where the Opposition throws a curve ball at the player. I did this to Alex, turning a search through someone's apartment into a booby trap that required escaping from a burning building. But because I did it later in the scene, the narration didn't embrace the tension of the switch up, instead handwaving it away and resolving the hazard without dwelling on the flames much at all.

Watching the Acclaim economy in action was fascinating. The expedition log allows players to invest Acclaim in story elements that they narrate and want to see get used again. Even a few scenes generates a very large number of story elements. So the reinvestment of Acclaim option I was fiddling with here probably needs to be restrained severely or done away with and replaced with a simple, non-multiplying reward for reusing story elements in future scenes. I'm also thinking about limiting the kind of reuses that get rewarded, maybe only those that connect (or sever a connection of) the story element to others, or somehow show us something new or meaningful. Not just having something show up again fulfilling the same role it alwasys has. I'd appreciate any thoughts others have on how to handle this issue in particular.

That said, I like what the story elements and expedition are bringing to game play – a cohesive setting and story being developed on the fly as players riff off of each other. Exactly what the game was missing before. Alex is pushing for allowing multiple players to invest in the same story element to show how much everyone likes something so they all use it even more. I'm still contemplating it and want to play more under the current rules to see what individual ownership of story elements ends up doing later in the game.

I'm about ready to turn the game loose for playtesting by others, so if you're interested in a copy please drop me a line via email or PM. I'll also be at Gen Con next week looking to play everyone else's awesome games, but if some people are interested in spending some time seeing how my game works in play I'd be delighted to show it off.

[Ron Edwards]

Geez. I'm not sure what to say, Eric. Your work and posting on this looks great.

So this is one of those rare, but permissible Forge posts which just says, "go you!", and I'll look forward to seeing the game.

Best, Ron

[Josh Roby]

I'm also thinking about limiting the kind of reuses that get rewarded, maybe only those that connect (or sever a connection of) the story element to others, or somehow show us something new or meaningful. Not just having something show up again fulfilling the same role it alwasys has. I'd appreciate any thoughts others have on how to handle this issue in particular.

I think either option is good, but they will lead the game in different directions.  If you have to introduce new characteristics of the story elements each time, you will develop lots of disparate things -- remarkable items and characters and places and whatnot.  If you have to introduce new relationships between the story elements and other things (perhaps other story elements) you will get a deepening network of interconnected significance -- you'll "discover" that the Martians had infiltrated the indian brahman class and built the city that was destroyed by the rival faction of martians and blah de blah blah.

Now, from my understanding of the game, I think the first option -- new characteristics, new information -- is probably the better fit.  The second option, to my mind, will start twisting the game into a conspiracy/secret history sort of game since new connections will continually be being revealed.  And, of course, you can always just do both -- you must introduce new characteristics and information or a new relationship.

[Eric J. Boyd]

Joshua,

Thanks for the comments. You're absolutely right about the different effects that each apporach would have. After musing on it for awhile, I've defined a meaningful reuse eligible for Acclaim loosely, including both options just as you suggest.

While I didn't get to do a playtest at Gen Con, I was able to discuss the game with several folks, including a couple of my original Game Chef reviewers. As a result of those discussions, two major changes were made to the current draft: (1) Individual hazard lists have been entirely removed, leaving only one master list of hazards to inspire everyone at the table; and (2) I've completely discarded the time and session requirements of Game Chef, allowing the game to be played in a single longer session (3-5 hours) or over several sessions.

Basically, the number of sessions necessary depends on the number of locations along the expedition route that the group chooses to use, and the number of scenes they want to see at each stop. Limiting the route to 3 or 4 locations and 1 or 2 scenes per character per location (depending on the number of players) should allow the game to be played in one evening from start to finish. I'm planning on doing a complete one shot playtest next week to see how it works out.