RPGing on the Fly

[Mordy]

I'm a long-term lurker (a couple years), but this is my first post. First I want to thank everyone on the forums for turning me onto some remarkable games, and more importantly, onto some remarkable ideas. My interests in RPGs are simultaneously academic (one of the fields I'm interested in), and pragmatic. I love to play them. This post is really for the latter. I've played a number of games looking for something very quick and easy to pick up, and also very versatile in terms of handling genre/narrative/plot/etc. Ideally I want a system that can be used for a pirate adventure one day, a slasher horror the next, and a Mean Girls style high school narrative the following. And I want it to be able to be played with very minimum prep and on the fly. Finally, it needs to have a limited amount of writing (ideally none)*.

I've been borrowing ideas from systems as they appeal to me, and I have a couple of ideas jotted down that I wanted to share and hopefully get some feedback on.

The primary ludic element is a cache of points (that I intend to represent in games as poker chips) that both the GM has and the players have. The GM has a larger number than the players (somewhere around 10 I imagine) and the players would have about 3. Those points are then expended to forward the narrative. I conceptualize the game in terms of scenes, and so spending a point would forward the action to a new scene. The GM might start the game with: "You hear a shriek from your dormitory hallway. In the hallway, your sorority sister Lisa has been gutted like a fish." A player may try to elaborate on the event by spending a point ("I find the killer's weapon lying in a pool of blood in a corner.") or push ahead (or behind, w/r/t to a flash-back) ("We're at the sheriff's office demanding answers.") If the GM likes this play, she can allow it to happen. If she doesn't, she can spend an extra point to cancel it. The cancel though always has to be played in terms of improvisation. So you couldn't simply say, "Oh, that didn't happen." You'd have to say, "You pick it up... but it turns out to be a squirt gun that the frat boys left during a panty raid."

In my mind, a lot of the ludic elements are over control of the narrative. Points are spent to create voice, and take control of the story. Actual in character conflicts are then spun against this particular device. When a conflict arises, the player rolls a D6 and adds her points to the result. The GM (or whoever is rolling against her), does the same. The way I envision this, in the early game the GM will have more control over the story. As the narrative progresses and the GM's cache is depleted, the player's (and subsequently characters) will begin to take over more, having more and more successes. This would, by design, tend to result in successful endings where the characters' agency now dominates the story and they achieve what they want.

My questions are:
1) I want a mechanic by which players can increase their pool. Dead of Night** gave me the idea of letting them perform genre tropes (running away from the serial killer wearing high heels, asking an embarrassing question in sex ed, walking the plank, etc) to add a point to their pool. I'm unsure whether these should only be mechanics that are to the detriment of the character (like the aspects in FATE), or simply tropes, or some predetermined fulfillment of aspect (like Virtue/Vice in WoD). Essentially, I want the characters to gain points by adding to the story, and in some cases, I'd like a well-spent narrative point to be instantly returned. What's the best way to do this, though?

2) How do I determine how many points the GM and players should start with? Unless I include a mechanic for the GM to also increase her stock (which would ruin my idea of letting players become more powerful than the GM as the game progresses), how can you make sure that you have enough points? I have the feeling this is something that will come out more in playtesting, and I'm guessing that there might be a relationship between time played to points given. The less points given, the more inevitable the game will end quicker. If this relationship is true, it might be a nice mechanic if you only have X amount of hours to play. Especially since I envision these games as one-shots.

3) I feel like a win-state for the characters would be worthwhile. I like the motivation/dreams mechanic in Nicotine Girls, and I'd love to adopt something like that. Players would declare (not write down!) their motivations at the beginning of the session. This would give the players a reason to spend their points -- especially if they feel a particular scene wasn't helping them progress. I can see players bidding against one another to change the setting and since I like the idea of a fluid chronological narrative, old scenes could be revisited either to illuminate something that was "missed" the first time around, or to rewrite the scene Rashomon-style. Would this kind of thing work? What should I be looking for here?

4) Could this work for any genre? I'd love to be able to literally pick up any kind of narrative and run it through this.

I know this isn't a particular complex system, but that's partially intentional. I want something where the games can be played out very quickly and very spontaneously, and something that is a lot like collaborative storytelling while maintaining some game-like mechanics. I'm interested in hearing any advice, and especially any other games that might already do something like this, or that might have mechanics that are worth looking at. After getting some feedback, I intend to run this through some playtests over the next few weeks.

* The context for all these requirements is that I'm apart of a religious community that does not write or use electricity one day of the week. Unfortunately, that day happens to be the same day we make huge meals and then hang out with each other for hours afterward. So it's a perfect social setting to run a game, but many common RP tropes require things that we can't do.

** I'm not sure how people feel about borrowing mechanics from previously existing/sometimes copywritten systems. I don't mean to step on anyone's toes, invade anyone's works, etc. At the moment, this is entirely in flux and I'm using influences more to propel this system forward than to try and steal anyone's work.

[Luke]

2) The basic mechanic gives the illusion of being solid and functional. In truth, me, Jared, Thor and Dro, the players, will have you, the GM, out of chips in precisely 3.33 passes. We'll then have two chips left to say, "And I win. Twice." If we don't do that, if we "play fair" then we're simply asking the GM for permission to tell a story. I can do that in 99% of roleplaying games. I certainly don't need yours to have another broken, fucked up power dynamic.

[Mordy]

The basic mechanic gives the illusion of being solid and functional. In truth, me, Jared, Thor and Dro, the players, will have you, the GM, out of chips in precisely 3.33 passes.

I've been considering this, and that's why I think there should be consequences (negative, ideally) that earn the chips. In the running away from the serial killer in high heels example, yes, you earn the chip, but it could be at the cost of dying. (You now have one more chip, which might give you a slightly better chance of winning the confrontation, but there's a confrontation that could leave you dead.) I'm not sure how to create consequences without elaborating the system too much, and dead/live seem slightly problematic in different ways. But essentially, yeah, I agree that there needs to be some kind of mitigation to make sure you're not just declaring actions left and right and grabbing chips. I'm not quite sure what that would be, though.

(I just reread your point and realized that you were actually pointing out a different problem. I'm leaving the above paragraph because I think it addresses a problem you didn't note; why can't you just stockpile chips by declaring actions.)

What you're suggesting is that the players would declare crazy actions ("I win the game") and force the GM to spend his cache early. You don't get to keep your chip if you declare an action though, even if the GM overrides it. So in your example, you would succeed in bankrupting the GM after 3.33 passes, but you'd be out of chips as well. (If you started with 3 chips, in 3 passes you'd be at zero.)

[Mordy]

I just understood what you meant. You have 4 players. At 3 chips each you would have 12 as a group. The GM has 10. In 3.3 passes the GM would be at zero and you'd be at two. Sorry for being so dense, I haven't slept yet.

Clearly I need a system that modifies the # of chips based on the players. But on that note; I'm not sure that your example works anyway. Each character will have their own winning condition. Two chips will be enough to give two of you your winning conditions, but two of you will have to pass. How would you get all four players to agree to that?

(Sorry, don't mean to double-post, but I can't find an edit function?)

[brianbloodaxe]

Would it work better if the loser kept all the chips in the pot? This would allow for balance between the winners and losers as the loser ends up with more dice. It would also ensure that the chips would last the session if it goes on longer than planned.

I'm not clear what it is you gain from bidding for the right to do something over conventional role-play where the GM simply chooses who should be active.

I guess that if you balanced you points and mechanics right you could ensure that the players absolutely must work together in order to beat the GM with his larger pool. Since your examples seem to be from slasher type horror films that could work well although I think you would need to make sure that the players have conflicting goals to keep it interesting.

[Luke]

Clearly I need a system that modifies the # of chips based on the players. But on that note; I'm not sure that your example works anyway. Each character will have their own winning condition. Two chips will be enough to give two of you your winning conditions, but two of you will have to pass. How would you get all four players to agree to that?

Right. But if the chips are a known quantity, and the players as a group are always one chip from beating the GM, there's little reason to engage the system. In fact, the incentive is to go outside the system and try to weasel a victory or, at worst, half-heartedly (or even blithely) toss chips in.

Each player has his own win condition? Great, but such conditions PALE in comparison with the desire to beat the GM. We'd have consensus after the first pass. We'd run the GM out and then fight it out amongst ourselves. At least YOU lost.

I've played this exact system before. Either the players turn into assholes gaming the system, or it's story time and there's no need for the system because the system doesn't actually support anything or produce interesting or unintended results.

-L

[brianbloodaxe]

So Mordy what was it that you hoped this mechanic would accomplish? As far as I can tell from your first post you want a system which will encourage the players to participate in the narration of their game. If so I guess you want a mechanic which rewards the players for making a valid contribution, but then the things that the players choose to narrate are likely to benefit their characters anyway so a reward would be redundant wouldn't it?

[Mordy]

So Mordy what was it that you hoped this mechanic would accomplish?

It's more that I'm concerned that if I don't have a chip reward mechanism the players will either quickly run out of chips, or be too hesitant to spend them to forward the plot. If I don't require them to spend a chip to forward the plot, then there becomes no tension over the narrative and players have no ability to help their character's causes. I need a way for them to feel like they're spending something to move their character along, but that it isn't too much of a hit that they don't want to do it / do it and now have no pool. I thought a good way of letting them build up points is by contributing in some way to the group. In my mind it goes: If you act altruistically here, you'll get to act selfishly there.

[Simon C]

Aside from the chip-economy issues that Luke's mentioned, the other problem is that you don't define what players need to spend a chip on, and what they don't.  What counts as "forwarding the plot"?

My character goes to the bathroom (I'm guessing no)
My character finds an important clue (by your example, yes)
My character punches the guy and knocks him out (maybe yes?)
My character punches the guy and annoys him (maybe no?)
Your character goes to the bathroom (yes? can you do this at all? can the GM?)
My character punches your character and knocks her out (I have no idea)

[Mordy]

My character goes to the bathroom (I'm guessing no)

Value neutral moment. But if the player wants to push the scene setting into the bathroom, then yes.

My character finds an important clue (by your example, yes)

Yes. But what's important here is more that the player is inventing the clue and then finding it. The point is spent because of the player's role in telling the story, not because the character found it.

My character punches the guy and knocks him out (maybe yes?)
My character punches the guy and annoys him (maybe no?)

Both resolved by the conflict system. Both parties roll a D6 and add their current pool to the total. If you win the roll, you can call the result (knock him out, annoy him, etc).

Your character goes to the bathroom (yes? can you do this at all? can the GM?)

This just sounds like power-posing/force to me. So no, on account of taste. But presumably the rules would be able to handle it if people wanted it.

My character punches your character and knocks her out (I have no idea)

Yeah, that would work.

I think the major issue is more like: What kinds of scenes require a point spent, what kind of new things introduced. The real issue is the space between "My character goes to the bathroom" and "My character finds an important clue / The scene is moved to a local club." How do you evaluate what requires a chip expenditure? Does the GM make a judgement call (which sounds iffy since I'm setting up a conflict as one between the players and GM -- so it'd be in her interest to force the player to spend points for anything)? Is there a vote?

[Luke]

Mordy, I think you know this, but you need to introduce another currency into the system. If you just have a spend-chip-earn-chip currency, there's no need to have chips. They're a functionally neutral element. But if you set up another criteria, you spend to do one thing, and you earn them by doing or accessing something completely different, then you'll have more of a credible game on your hands.

[Vulpinoid]

Mordy,

You need to generate patterns that cover a range of chip expenditure/gain scenarios, rather than addressing specific event instances.

Luke's notion of dual interacting currencies might allow a better coverage of situations and a more tactical premise that allows different types of scenes to be addressed in different ways.

Just some ideas...

V