[Insurrection] First playtest

[MJGraham]

This is the first playtest of my game and also my first write up of a playtest so I hope I do it right...

The game began with me explaining the basic rules. I decided to not explain any rule which might not be needed during the gaming session (if they were needed during play I would have explained them at the time). My group picked up most of the rules pretty quickly. It took them a while to understand that their virtue modifiers (think attribute modifiers) have no bearing on their chance of success or failure. But once they got the hang of the idea that virtue modifiers modify the amount of sedition points (experience points) a player receives when their character use a particular virtue, they soon understood that they were being encouraged to roleplay their characters in ways that suited their characters' virtues and they were happy with that. I can see that I will need to write intelligibly and use lots of examples when doing the final draft of my game.

Next we brainstormed the setting. I had to get this started because they were reluctant to offer any suggestions. Once I gave a few ideas they soon opened up to the idea that they could shape the setting as they saw fit. They really enjoyed this part of the game. They're veteran roleplayers of the traditional variety where the GM has an almost godlike authority and the players are his/her subordinates. We we're all very pleased with the results of this part of the game so I think I can call it a success.

Creating characters was a lengthy process. But that's because it was new process for the players. Once they got the hang of it, they said they could probably create a character in ten to fifteen minutes and that's what I was hoping to achieve. The most difficult part for them to get to grips with was their characters' attitudes. I gave example and told them that their attitude was what they're virtues were about, e.g. "I am not afraid of being outnumbered in a fight" would be an attitude that says what they character's courage is about. I think they may have been confused with saying something about their virtues and saying what their virtues are about. Another problem that occurred was that they had six attitudes to write up and they found it very difficult to come up with ideas. I decided that it was pointless to make anyone write up six attititudes if they couldn't think of any at the time and told them that they were free to think of their attitudes during play. This is a rule I want to apply to the game.

Traits were easier to explain to the group. I thought that they were going to have a hard time accepting that the trait of strong (to use one example) doesn't give a character an advantage in a fight, it only describes how they might win a fight. But they took to it like a duck to water and I think it was successful.

Fate went down well with the group. At first they were hesitant because fate tells players in advance when their characters will be eliminated from the game (unless the player him or herself decides to eliminate their own character before their fate happens). One player was uncertain of how a game could work when their character was practically invincible. But he soon came around to the idea once I explained that many protagonists in film and literature are almost invincible because we know from the beginning that they will survive no matter what and yet we still watch/read with interest and fascination because we want to see exactlty how they survive.

I took the role of narrator simply because no one else wanted it. I asked why and they said I should do it because I knew the rules better. This seemed fair enough so I agreed to be the narrator. During play I soon found out that the role of narrator was a lot more simple than I imagined. I had written lengthy and complex rules for narration, when in reality all the narrator really needs to do is make sure the content of the games is consistent (story continuity) and veto any suggestions which run contrary to the setting. They players really enjoyed the fact that they could contribute ideas to the game as they were playing. As the narrator it made my life easier because I had other people offering suggestions when I was stuck for ideas or my ideas were not very good.

The game started with the characters witnessing a female refugee being accosted by four city guards. I have to say I was very pleased with the player's reactions. In my experience with roleplaying with them as group they would have probably rushed forward to attack the guards and knowing that their characters could not die, I fully expected for them to do the same. But they chose to talk instead. One of the characters (an ex-guard himself) used his pride to speak to the guards in a way which they would respect and it worked. Unfortunately he made the mistake of giving them his name (a mistake which may cost him dearly in a future session).

Talking to guards involved a challenge which in turn meant the player would have to draw three tokens from a bag. I reminded the others players that they would have a say in what happens because it would be up to them to decide how many red (good) tokens and how many white (bad) tokens would be in the bag when the draw was made. The fact that they had just as much of a say in it as I did was something that pleased them. They also enjoyed being able to say why they thought the draw deserved the red or white tokens they were giving.

The player whose character was talking to the guards drew two red and one white. A result which meant success with negative consequences. Hence why the characters successfully talked them into leaving the woman alone but inadvertantly let slip his own name. At first the player was uncertain about what I meant by the fact that he would say how his character succeeded and what the negative consequence was going to be. This was probably because he was accustomed to being limited to saying "my character succeeds" or "my character fails" but once he figured out that he was going to be the one to narrate his character's successes and failures he did very well. Infact all the players took to this part of the game very well and I think it was another success.

With the scene being finished, I explained once again how all the participants rewarded the other participants with sedition points. At first they were reluctant to do it. One said he was uncertain of what kind of things he should be rewarding and another was unhappy with the idea of publically giving points to other participants. I explained to the first player that there were some guidelines to giving points but at the end of the day he should simply reward participants for doing the sort of things he would like to see happen in future sessions. In the end I decided that the second player shouldn't be forced to give reasons (though I do think that he's missing out on a opportunity to shape the game to his own tastes). I've decided that participants can give reasons if they desire, but that the rewarding of points can be anonymous and without explanation if the participant(s) should choose to do it that way.

The player whose character talked to the guards earned himself another two sedition points because of his character's pride being at a +2 and he also raised it from +2 to +3 for successfully using his pride. He asked if his pride modifier would go down if he had failed and I told him that it would. He didn't seem to mind this and neither did any of the other players. Another player wanted to know what would stop him from only using virtues with the best modifiers and I told him that he was supposed to do exactly that because the modifiers represent the characters inclination or propensity towards that particular virtue. I also told them that anytime they use a virtue they risk it being lowered and that other participants will make the draw difficult for them if they should choose to use inappropriate virtues when facing a challenge, e.g if they have an anger +5 and their trying to sweet talk their girlfriend it might not be the best time to use that particular virtue even though it will give them the most sedition points.

In between scenes, I re-explained to the players that they could invest their own sedition points into a character, location, item, or event and that anytime their character interacted with the thing which they had invested they would receive some points in return. I chose to use the woman as an example of how this would work by giving her ten of my own sedition points and saying she was the sister of the the leader of the refugees who were living in an abandoned monastry. They seemed to like the idea that they could say something about her far more than the fact that by spending sedition points now they could earn even more later on anytime their characters interacted with her.

The next scene involved deciding what to do with the refugee. In the end my character (a heretic) one a challenge using his patience and persuaded her that she should come with him to his church. Because the last scene had been dominated by one player's character talking to the guards, I decided that it would be wise for me as the narrator to ask if the other players had any challenges they wished to undertake. Only one player did and he used it to sneak away and talk with some mercenaries about handing over the woman as a hostage to the Duke. The other players dediced that it wasn't the right time for them to take any challenges. I learned from this scene that narrators should ask the players if they have done everything the want to do before skipping ahead to the next scene.

Rewarding sedition points for this scene was more complicated because most of us had invested in the woman. We discussed making it simpler. For some reason I had overcomplicated it and I'm glad the players pointed it out.

We spent the rest of the gaming session without any real hitches and the session ended with everyone eager for the next one. Which pleased me considerably because it shows the game can and does work. One of the players is an illustrator and he enjoyed playing so much he's agreed to illustrate the game's book. We discussed the game a bit and decided to play another session the following week.

All in all I think I've created quite a good game and I'm very pleased.

[Malcolm Craig]

Hi there,

This quote kind of interested me:

The game began with me explaining the basic rules. I decided to not explain any rule which might not be needed during the gaming session (if they were needed during play I would have explained them at the time).

I'm just curious, but why would you have any rules which would not be needed during a gaming session? If a rule is not needed, why is it there? I admit I could be grossly misinterpreting your words here!

Not knowing too much about the game, is it important to have six attitudes that define the character? As you said, players found it difficult to come up with six and were therefore allowed to define them in play (a very good way of doing things), so is six attitude maybe a lot? I'd also love to hear more about the way the game creates setting: you said it was challenging to get the players to start on this, but eventually they got into the swing of things. How did you go about doing this and what in the game helps with this process?

Cheers
Malcolm

[MJGraham]

Hi there,

This quote kind of interested me:

The game began with me explaining the basic rules. I decided to not explain any rule which might not be needed during the gaming session (if they were needed during play I would have explained them at the time).

I'm just curious, but why would you have any rules which would not be needed during a gaming session? If a rule is not needed, why is it there? I admit I could be grossly misinterpreting your words here!

Not knowing too much about the game, is it important to have six attitudes that define the character? As you said, players found it difficult to come up with six and were therefore allowed to define them in play (a very good way of doing things), so is six attitude maybe a lot? I'd also love to hear more about the way the game creates setting: you said it was challenging to get the players to start on this, but eventually they got into the swing of things. How did you go about doing this and what in the game helps with this process?

Cheers
Malcolm

Thanks for the reply, Malcolm.

To give one example of some rule which I didn't explain at the beginning is the rules of invoking a blessing. I chose not to explain it at that time because there was a strong possibility that there would be no invocations for the entire session and indeed there wasn't. I told the participants enough to let them be know who could invoke a blessing and under what conditions, but I thought it would be best to go into detail when an invocation occurred in actual play.

Although we never used the rules for invoking a blessing, it would be incorrect to say that they are not needed. There are circumstances in the game where invoking blessings is absolutely vital, e.g. when trying to banish an ahriman (angelic beings in the game which are focused soley upon cold-hearted justice and merciless wroth).

I do think six attitudes is probably a lot. I was basing the number on three for the virtue with the highest propensity, two for the virtue with the second highest propensity, and one for the virtue with... you've guessed it... the third highest propensity. 

Creating the setting was a challenge because the group is more accustomed to it being the GM's responsibility. The way we went about creating the setting was by me first explaining that there are certain staples of the setting which cannot be altered, e.g. it must take place in a city that resembles a pre-enlightenment European city on the verge of revolution. There must be oppression and tyranny. It must be a fantasy setting. After that I made the suggestion that blessings (magic) works in the same way as you'd get in D&D but there's no fancy pyrotechnics or flashy lights. Then one of the participants chipped in and said that most people believe in these blessings. Another suggested the city be ruled by a duke who is amassing a group of mercenaries to act as guards within the city. After which I suggested that he's paying for them with loans from the three richest banking families, when it comes time to pay back those loan he may raise taxes above what the populace can afford. And so on until we were all happy with the setting we had established.

Perhaps the only thing that helped in the process of establishing the setting was knowing the parameters. The rules state once the setting has been established that the participants can keep using it for as long as they please. They can even create another setting and return to the first one at a later date.

[MJGraham]

Rather than create another thread for the second session, I thought it would be best to continue here...

The second session began swiftly. The other players had picked up the game very quickly and I didn't have to go over any of the rules. In fact it was almost like they had been playing it for years.

There were some major snags...

The first was that the entire session involved only one scene, which in itself wouldn't have been a problem if it weren't for the fact that players are rewarded at the end of each scene and the game requires that some tragedy or disaster befall the characters at around two-thirds the way into the game. With the characters stuck in one scene this became almost impossible to achieve. I blame myself for not moving things along. For allowing characters to face challenges which did not progress the story. For not having the antagonist push them hard enough. It was a fun scene to roleplay. A lot happened in it. There's no doubt about that. But there wasn't much that happened in terms of moving the story along and making the players feel like their characters are protagonists.

Another was that some of the participants who had really been excited about their involvement with the setting had started to mistake the setting for the plot. To give one example, one particularly keep participant started coming up with ideas about how the duke has captured the leader of a band of refugees and that one of the refugees was going to try and break into the ducal palace and rescue him. The problem wasn't the suggestion, but the fact that the players became more interested in what this refugee was going to do than what their own characters. Again I blame myself. I should have told them that the plot only emerges after the characters have acted. It is not something which should ever be predicted and I should have made sure the character were more involved rather than expecting the players to get them involved.

The third problem was that I had originally envisioned the game having a set length of time. In our particular game it was supposed to be three sessions. But this one went so badly I'm thinking that maybe it should be four. But if I do that then why bother with the set length of time. I chose the set length of time because I believed it would encourage players to keep their characters constantly moving forward and I wanted to have certain things happening at specific times, e.g the tragedy/disaster I mentioned above.

[Malcolm Craig]

Creating the setting was a challenge because the group is more accustomed to it being the GM's responsibility. The way we went about creating the setting was by me first explaining that there are certain staples of the setting which cannot be altered, e.g. it must take place in a city that resembles a pre-enlightenment European city on the verge of revolution. There must be oppression and tyranny. It must be a fantasy setting.

How did you find your players coped with the concept of 'pre-enlightenment'? Did the term have any immediate resonance for them? I know that if someone said to me "Create a Renaissance city" I'd have a reasonable idea of where to go, but with 'pre-enlightenment', that's a bit more challenging. Is there something in the text of the game that gives further guidance as to what the definitive characteristics of such a city are? I'd suggest that maybe being a little more open and saying "A fantasy city on the edge of revolution". That means people could be really free with their ideas, ranging from Romanesque to pseudo-Victorian. However, if your vision is set on the pre-enlightenment era, then please do feel free to ignore me!

The first was that the entire session involved only one scene, which in itself wouldn't have been a problem if it weren't for the fact that players are rewarded at the end of each scene and the game requires that some tragedy or disaster befall the characters at around two-thirds the way into the game. With the characters stuck in one scene this became almost impossible to achieve. I blame myself for not moving things along. For allowing characters to face challenges which did not progress the story. For not having the antagonist push them hard enough. It was a fun scene to roleplay. A lot happened in it. There's no doubt about that. But there wasn't much that happened in terms of moving the story along and making the players feel like their characters are protagonists.

Can I ask who set the scene and the conflict contained within it and how long the scene actually took to play out? If it took the entire session, that seems (from reading your post) to be somewhat unfocussed and vague. If you wnat scenes to be punchy and sharp, there should be a central conflict that smacks the characters in the face, get's dealt with, then you can cut the scene and move on to the next. Did you find you (or any one else round the table) had issues with cutting the scene or getting things framed properly and moving along?

Cheers
Malcolm

[MJGraham]

Creating the setting was a challenge because the group is more accustomed to it being the GM's responsibility. The way we went about creating the setting was by me first explaining that there are certain staples of the setting which cannot be altered, e.g. it must take place in a city that resembles a pre-enlightenment European city on the verge of revolution. There must be oppression and tyranny. It must be a fantasy setting.

How did you find your players coped with the concept of 'pre-enlightenment'? Did the term have any immediate resonance for them? I know that if someone said to me "Create a Renaissance city" I'd have a reasonable idea of where to go, but with 'pre-enlightenment', that's a bit more challenging. Is there something in the text of the game that gives further guidance as to what the definitive characteristics of such a city are? I'd suggest that maybe being a little more open and saying "A fantasy city on the edge of revolution". That means people could be really free with their ideas, ranging from Romanesque to pseudo-Victorian. However, if your vision is set on the pre-enlightenment era, then please do feel free to ignore me!

Well they are well aware of historical events like the American and French Revolutions so it wasn't a difficult concept to grasp once I told them it was city in the transition from leaving the Renaissance and entering into the Enlightenment (the transition from feudalism and aristocratic rule to liberty and democracy).

I chose the particular time in history because its a period when people could still believe in miracles while at the same time holding to the belief that scientific discoveries were revealing truth about the universe (again there is that transition but this time from the religious to the secular). I also want the players characters (the insurrectionists) to represent the last heroes of a dying age. As such they are very much part of the same world as the tyrants which they oppose. The revolution is for a later generation to bring about (one that believes in rules and principles rather than virtues (again transition shows up)). The insurrectionists are only there to make sure it can happen.

I couldn't do anything later because the insurrectionists virtues would be anachronistic (in fact most virtues would be anachronisms). Much earlier and it would be about replacing bad tyrants with good tyrants and there's enough games out there that can do that.

The first was that the entire session involved only one scene, which in itself wouldn't have been a problem if it weren't for the fact that players are rewarded at the end of each scene and the game requires that some tragedy or disaster befall the characters at around two-thirds the way into the game. With the characters stuck in one scene this became almost impossible to achieve. I blame myself for not moving things along. For allowing characters to face challenges which did not progress the story. For not having the antagonist push them hard enough. It was a fun scene to roleplay. A lot happened in it. There's no doubt about that. But there wasn't much that happened in terms of moving the story along and making the players feel like their characters are protagonists.

Can I ask who set the scene and the conflict contained within it and how long the scene actually took to play out? If it took the entire session, that seems (from reading your post) to be somewhat unfocussed and vague. If you wnat scenes to be punchy and sharp, there should be a central conflict that smacks the characters in the face, get's dealt with, then you can cut the scene and move on to the next. Did you find you (or any one else round the table) had issues with cutting the scene or getting things framed properly and moving along?

Cheers
Malcolm

Originally it wasn't going to be a scene. It wasn't until one of the players decided that his character wasn't going to sleep but was instead going to kidnap the refugee which my character was supposed to be protecting that the scene came about. So I suppose you could say the player set the scene when he made the decision for his character.

We had issues cutting the scene. For some reason we all wanted to be involved in what was going on. The insurrectionist attemting the kidnapping accidently raised an alarm and we decided that it would mean the other insurrectionists getting involved. In hindsight, I would have cut the scene at the alarm being raised, the kidnapper in hiding or fleeing, and the other insurrectionists wondering what had happened to the refugee and their fellow insurrectionists. Instead I let it turn into a farce. There were insurrectionists involved in it with nothing to do because I felt compelled to get them involved.