Soap: an extensive rewrite - help needed

[Ferry Bazelmans]

Note: I wasn't sure wether or not this post would now fall under the connection forum. If it needs to be moved, it needs to be moved...

Soap has been out there for more than two years now. It has grown/mutated/evolved into (I think) a fun game, but I have recently (about a half an hour ago) rewritten the rules to be more streamlined and to address some comments and questions from you fine Forge-ites. :)

I have the new rules available in plain PDF format, but I am not going to post the rewrite in its entirety here, mostly because I want to be able to market it on RPGnow.com and mall.rpg.net without people being able to find it for free on this board. The game that is on my website will remain up (and free) for those who have no need for the rewrite, art or a charactersheet.

I can tell you that the game has been simplified (the rigid scene and sentence structure has been brought down to what it needs to be - quick and chaotic fun), sets have been introduced and relationships have been expanded.

I really need input on the changes from you good people. If you leave me a Private Message on the Forge or mail me, I will send you the PDF asap.

Hope to hear from you,

Fer

[Ferry Bazelmans]

For the people who requested the PDF:

I have already made one additional revision. I thought sets and sentences were too weakly linked, so I added the following:

A set gets mentioned at the beginning of a sentence, to visualize the scene for the players. It also includes a timeframe. So, if I were playing Michael, I could take my turn and say:

"Michael's office - day. Michael is talking on the phone. "Yes yes, I know it is dangerous. I'm not a fool you know."

This way, sets become an integral part of the sentence and it keeps that soap opera/scripted for television feeling I am going for.

What are your thoughts?

Fer

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Fer,

I think that's a really important concept. Multiple sessions of Soap have shown me that many role-players are unable to "get to the point" when they have narrative control. They might say, "I drive to the party," as opposed to saying, "At the party, I punch Bruno in the face." When I mention this issue after the game, they amend their next play to announcements like, "I arrive at the party," thinking that's what I must have meant.

However, once people get it, then they go like gangbusters, and the impact on their play of other games is undeniable.

Best,
Ron

[chaosvoyager]

Hmm..

(*looks at it from the left, then the right*)

OK, good changes. I hope my suggestions are appropriate here, as I think they will be helpful to other designers. There seems to be a new generation of games that are based on a kind of 'fact dueling' mechanics. My own games enter this territory, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who encounters similar problems and solutions.

The two most important things in SOAP are DIALOG and SECRETS.





DIALOG: Arguably, this is the MOST important thing in a soap opera, but your game currently has only a single sentence refering to it, and half that sentence says it's allowable to DESCRIBE the dialog. Yikes! It's hard enough to get many of my players to use dialog in games, even moreso when the game system provides an outlet where describing actions or results exists as an alternative.

I like the [WHERE, WHEN, WHAT]: DIALOG example you provided here. The 'WHERE' describes the set, the 'WHEN' the time of day, and the 'WHAT' the action/intent. You only need the first two when you are entering or changing a set/scene. It's the dialog part that's the most important here though. In fact, I almost feel that dialog should accompany EVERY ACTION!

Using Ron's example this would generate something like:

[Night, The Party at Ron's, Tom walks in and punches Larry]: "You can go ahead with your blackmail sceme, I'm no longer playing your game."

Two words: Theatre Sports. Sometimes this is also known as Improv, but I consider TS to be more structured. I consider a good book on this to at least be looked at by my players. Looking at how you set up SOAP in the first place, I suspect you have already read something on the matter.





SECRETS: Yes, they're right, this IS the key to your game, but the outcome is booooring :). A very clever person once said that "Death is fleeting, only trauma and humiliation endure". Too true.

So my first suggestion is that if someone guesses a secret correctly, they get some kind of extra narrative power in the game. Some examples would be:

[*]Getting carte blanche (complete descriptive power?) in what happens in a scene where they guess someone's (anyone's) secret correctly.

[*]Any plot tokens spent in a scene are given to the one who reveals the secret.

[*]The one who reveals the secret is allowed to add another descriptor to the character who's secret was revealed.
[/list:u]
Either way, it means that players will choose where and when the secret is revealed, and to a tactical and dramatic advantage. Some of these even encourage the revelation to happen during scenes where a lot of characters are present. Group hug everyone.

Once the secret is out, the character in question needs a NEW secret. Well, here's where it get's fun (as if it hasn't been already :P). They get this new secret from one of the other players! Everyone writes a secret or two that ALSO INVOLVES THEIR CHARACTERS, and hands it to the secretless player. The secretless player then picks one, and tells the player who suggested it. This secret is a SHARED SECRET, and can take both characters down.





Well, hopefully these suggestions prove useful. I would also suggest adding a sample 'cast' to the game if you are going the PDF route, just to get people started. I know, characters are SO damn simple to make in this game, but you'd be suprised at how helpful a little literary kindling can be.

[Ferry Bazelmans]

I like the [WHERE, WHEN, WHAT]: DIALOG example you provided here. The 'WHERE' describes the set, the 'WHEN' the time of day, and the 'WHAT' the action/intent. You only need the first two when you are entering or changing a set/scene. It's the dialog part that's the most important here though. In fact, I almost feel that dialog should accompany EVERY ACTION!

Hmmm...you've definitely got a point there. I suppose it's a bit silly to state where and when, but roll what in with dialog. I'll think about it, but I have the feeling you just touched upon something that's been bugging me for a long time. :)

Two words: Theatre Sports. Sometimes this is also known as Improv, but I consider TS to be more structured. I consider a good book on this to at least be looked at by my players. Looking at how you set up SOAP in the first place, I suspect you have already read something on the matter.

Never read up on it. The term is in fact only passingly familiar to me. Sounds fun though. :)

So my first suggestion is that if someone guesses a secret correctly, they get some kind of extra narrative power in the game.

I like your suggestion about the carte blanche and I will be writing that into the rules, but to a very specific intent. I think giving the person who guessed your secret the complete freedom to orchestrate your character's removal from the series is a very interesting idea. It would indeed require people to save their guesses for when they need them, to rid themselves of a competitor etc.

Thanks for the comments, keep 'em coming. :)

Fer

[chaosvoyager]

Hmmm...you've definitely got a point there. I suppose it's a bit silly to state where and when, but roll what in with dialog. I'll think about it, but I have the feeling you just touched upon something that's been bugging me for a long time. :)

Not just you (and now I have an excuse to share) :).

Creating and maintaining dialog in an RPG is the single biggest problem I have encountered. For too many players, dialog is what happens when the game isn't. I can't completely blame them, because too many game systems treat dialog as something that 'adds nothing to the current situation'.

This is bad.

One experiment I have goes under the project title 'Adventures in Dialog!'. Basically, every single event in the play/game is done through dialog. You don't state that a "plane heads for a landing at the runway", you say "You hear that? Already my reinforcements are arriving by plane. You have lost this round, herr Floyd".

Now 'AID!' is fairly standard Theatre Sports IMHO, so I mix it up with que cards. Each card lists a simple thematic element from the play (attempted murder, family tragedy, understanding your enemy, comic misunderstanding, rumors of my death, etc). If you flash a card, the players involved in the scene MUST use that element in their next statements. Each card also has a list of conditions/rules that both the user and players must follow. After a card is used, it is passed to one of the other players of the user's choosing.

The reason I thought you read something on Theatre Sports is that you have an explicit rule that avoids 'blocking' in SOAP. Blocking is where one player initiates a statement ("hmm, I guess it's Nazi season"), and another completely denies or contradicts the statement ("No it's not, you idiot"). Blocking is no fun, and is the first behavior that is modified out of a good improv performer. In SOAP, you can NEVER contradict a statement, only ammend it, right?

Good grief, I thought people would be all over this thread 0_o. Don't they know that every RPG at its core IS A SOAP OPERA?!?!

...

...well, that, or a sitcom.