Fault Tolerant Scenario Design

[Marco]

Hi,

We have two new articles up on the JAGS Site http://jagsgame.dyndns.org concerning scenario design. They're not written by me.

They are related and concern how to construct what are (in my words, not the author's) simulationist "story-oriented" (for lack of a better term) scenarios.  He discusses his philosophy and, in the second article, gives some examples of it from games he has run.

There is (to my knowledge--I read them once) no Forge terms at use but some stuff you'll find familiar. He discusses suspension of disbelief, game themes, and notes on railroading (and what The Forge terms illusionism ... which he doesn't care much for and discusses ways to eliminate or greatly reduce the need for it).

If anyone's interested, check it out.

-Marco
Edited to add: this is of interest to the discussion on Participationism and stuff like like that. Someone had suggested that the designers of JAGS wanted the game to be played in a rail-roady fashion--while this doesn't directly address how JAGS (or anything else) is *intended* to be played, it comes very close to what I'd suggest I like in a game philosophically.

[GB Steve]

By Fault Tolerant, do you mean easy to fix if the characters don't follow the plot?

Cheers,
GB Steve

[Valamir]

I'll try to read them in more depth again later.  From my initial read I grasped his intent, but couldn't really see where his suggestions went much farther than taking a somewhat more open ended approach to the typical Branching Scenario structure.  His sample scenario seemed very much like a Branching Design (If Players do A than goto C), just one where the As and Cs were kept a little bit on the fuzzy side.

Additionally, while the articles referred several times to techniques, I didn't immediately see anything that I could pick up and start using (which is what I'd consider a "technique" to be).  I read alot of "why this is a good thing" but not as much on "this is how you do it successfully" as I would have liked.

But again, that was just on a first read through.  Hopefully I'll have a chance to dig into it a little deeper soon.

[Marco]

By Fault Tolerant, do you mean easy to fix if the characters don't follow the plot?

Cheers,
GB Steve

I think that's close--except that I doubt he'd say "fix."  I think it's more like: "How to make a scenario that's still satisfying if the characters get lucky in the first scene and kill vader."

And plot is sort of "expected order of unfolding of scenes from the starting conditions combined with probable resolution of likely conflicts."

I think a better descripton would be "how to build a scenario that will play out as a cool story that you don't need to 'fix' if the characters behave in unexpected ways."
-Marco

[Marco]

I'll try to read them in more depth again later.  From my initial read I grasped his intent, but couldn't really see where his suggestions went much farther than taking a somewhat more open ended approach to the typical Branching Scenario structure.

I think the techniques he's refering to (but I'm not sure myself) are the bold face headings at the bottom of the first essay:

The suggestions are back-up antagonists, situations that are likely act on the PC's (i.e. are not static), and have multiple places to engage them in what the GM thinks will be a satisfying manner are techniques.

Or, put another way: don't hing the situation on a bad-guy escaping in the first scene, have stuff going on that will be relevant to the PC's and interesting to the players that will continue to happen once gaming starts, and make sure that the situation doesn't "pass the characters by" or is designed so there's only one likely outcome that will be satisfying (i.e. the GM shouldn't be fixated on a single outcome).

-Marco

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I think these are going to be real go-to essays for discussions here on the Forge about planning, prep, story creation, and ways to cope successfully with the Impossible Thing. I also think that the concept of degrees of Illusion and Participation (rather than is or is-not) for those discussions, with the essay material providing some good context.

But that's just at first glance. It's a busy day, so I'll have more comments on the essays later this week.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

Yeah, that "Fuzzy Branching" technique is called the "nugget" format in Traveller materials. An excellent design method in general terms, IMO. The rest of the NPC notes amount to something similar to a relationship map technique. The "Backup" badguys is good if not overused.

When it comes down to it, though, what I'd call all this is just good Illusionism. The GM is trying to direct from the scenario design where the characters will go and what they will do. By incorporating these things in the design, he just makes it less likely that these things will be noticeable.

If a player chooses to go a rout that is pre-planned by the GM and feels that it was his choice that brought him there...that's exaclty how I define Illusionism. And we like it for the same reasons, apparently.

I may be the person that Marco is referring to who he thinks said that, "Jags designers felt..." line. First let me say that the use or "railroady" is unmerited. I never once used his term, and he is attributing what I said as being railroady. I was refering to Participationism, and we've tried to distinguish that from the negatively connotated play that is indicated by railroading. Not once did I ever say that I thought that their style of play was dysfunctional, indeed, I was trying to point out how it was a mode that was used by most players at times, and was apparently functional.

Turns out that I was wrong, however. Marco has clarified what it is that they truely feel in a concise fashion by referencing this article. Good job.

In my defense, I must say that nothing that I've seen produced from the JAGS writers is presented in the format that they suggest, OTOH. This was the source of my confusion apparently. All the scenarios that I have read, and all the play reports that I have read, read more like Participationism (than the apparent Illusionism which they actually espouse). This was my misinterperetation, especially of the session writeups.

But I contend that it would be hard from what was presented for anyone to have thought otherwise. None of the JAGS adventures that I've read (and I thnk I've read most of them) are written in anything resembling this style. I suggest strongly that the JAGS writers read some of the materials produced specifically for MegaTraveller (which was the edition that used the nugget format). Or just follow E's example, as the sample adventure was a good representation of the style.

Mike