We know the ends. What about the means? (Kyu-Sei-Sha)

[Jeph]

Some of you may know about Andy Kitowski's Kyu-Sei-Sha, a narrativist facilitating post apocalyptic game of kung fu and psychic powers. I've been thinking about it a bit recently, even going so far as to write my own take on the theme using similar ideas and mechanics. But I've been thinking about one aspect of it above all others: characters all have a Destiny, which is something that will happen concerning the character. The question is when.

KYUSEISHA: Gunning for system feedback
Kyuseisha: Su-pa- Shin-Pureitesuto!
my little kyu-sei-sha-ish thingummy

This, I think, is an incredibly cool focussing device. I mean, you know what will eventually happen to the characters: it's their Destiny. I don't know if Andy's done any additional playtesting of this (I think he's in Japan at the moment), but I'd really like to know how having a set ending effects play. Personally I'd bet it would really throw Story Now onto the center of the table, but what do I know?

So, how do others think that a set ending would effect play?

[anonymouse]

I think it'd play out like a lot of video and computer adventure/roleplaying games.

Consider the following, which you can pick up from reading the back of the game box and skimming the manual:

* You know there's a definite end sometime in 20-40 hours, depending on the game.
* You know that it will involve your character being the hero, usually the central figure.
* You know you are meant to finish the game and get to that Destiny.

The programmers have limited space and time (both programming-time and time they can expect someone to play through the whole game) to work with, so if they know what they're doing, they'll keep the focus constantly on that Destiny. It becomes the absolute focus of the game; it has to, or it just sort of meanders away and ends unsatisfyingly. Or is billed as a "non-linear game where you can do anything you want!" *steam*rant*seethe*

I'm ]this[ close to finishing my video game adventure-roleplaying game (that's an unwieldy number of "game"s), which takes all of this into account, so I can raise a hand and say I agree that this is a very exciting idea. The players decide on their Destiny after a couple of sessions, but they have a Drive for the first few before that as a kind of mini-Destiny.

Can't tell you how it'd play out in tabletop gaming, though. Not yet. Hopefully soon. =)

Sooo.. yeah. I think you'd wind up with a definite video game feel, if you've had any background in that at all.

[hanschristianandersen]

I've been in quite a few games in which player-invented destinies are known in advance.  Though the systems we were using didn't mandate that the destiny would happen, the social contract stepped in.  Everyone involved decided that these destinies were sufficiently "cool", and the GM promised that he would make them happen in some form or another.  In a sense, the GM enthusiastically allowed the players to do the railroading.

When a character's destiny hit, the event was tremendously satisfying for the player who wrote/played it, and also for the GM who authored up a build-up to get the character (and the world) to that point.

It's also worth noting that there are many opportunities for satisfying narrative payoffs long before the destiny actually hits in full force.  In a word: FORESHADOWING.  Once the destiny has been established, the GM needs merely create a situation which has some of the surface trappings involved in the destiny, and the player instantly gets excited - is this it?  Is this the time that the destiny is fulfilled?

Alternatively, the GM can take a seemingly unrelated scene, and work an element of a destiny into the scene in a way that the player never expected.  As soon as the player realizes what's going on, the player's level of emotional investment in the scene suddenly spikes.

And whenever the GM figures out how to tie two player-authored destinies together in ways that the players themselves hadn't thought of, and without compromising either scene, and have them arrive near-simultaneously... the result is a double-barreled narrativist shotgun blast that leaves players grinning for months afterwards.

Finally, I'll add that if the player-characters themselves "know in-character" what the destiny is, it adds another wrinkle onto the proceedings - I've seen players grit their teeth and choose to have their characters stand fast against heroic odds, because the character knows "it's not my time to die".  I've only seen this attempted in groups that are willing to "make it work"; I'd imagine that scenes like that could expose GNS priority faultlines really quick - narr player plus unstoppable future destiny plus sim gm plus unstoppable foes might equal dead character, thwarted destiny, and general dissatisfaction with the results.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Both The Riddle of Steel and the Sorcerer supplement Sorcerer & Sword include Destiny mechanics of one sort or another. You can find a lot of confusion and a lot of good explanations through a search on the TROS forum.

Best,
Ron

[Jeph]

Hi Hans,

Great post. It makes me want to try out Destinies ASAP. :^)

A few Qs: It seems that you've really had some great fun with Destiny in a system that, if I have this right, didn't work in that aspect. Instead, the group/GM decided to add it in for some extra umph, and it worked wonderfully. What system were you using? Were there any added rules or meta-rules you tacked on to make the system Drift in the direction you wanted it to?

Hello,

Both The Riddle of Steel and the Sorcerer supplement Sorcerer & Sword include Destiny mechanics of one sort or another. You can find a lot of confusion and a lot of good explanations through a search on the TROS forum.

Best,
Ron

Thanks for the reference; I'll check it out.

Thanks,
--Jeff

[hanschristianandersen]

The campaign in which my character knew her destiny (To be killed by a man with falcon-wings) was run using GURPS.  Based on my destiny, I gave myself an excuse to load up on points-heavy personality disads like Paranoid and Haunted By Visions Of Own Death.  Still, the destiny and the rules didn't intersect at all - my character could have been paranoid and delusional without the destiny.  The word "Destiny" didn't even appear on the character sheet.

Mechanics-wise, I suppose you could say we added the following meta-rule: When the destiny hits, *ignore* the rules as-written and drop back to pure drama.

In practice, we didn't think about it in those terms.  Instead, it operated at the unspoken social contract level.  I had the GM's spoken assurances that the situation would indeed come up, and we all simply "understood" that I'd play along when the time came.  

When the event arrived, it was at a big moment emotionally/narratively on par with "Luke, *I* Am Your Father".  The penultimate scene had involved a fencing duel using the GURPS combat mechanics.  But in the final scene, the GM just declared "And he turns and stabs you.  You are mortally wounded", and I said "I fall to the ground and die."   The actual prose was more colorful than that, but you get the idea.  

More recently, I ran a Riddle of Steel game in which several characters had destinies - including "To Fall In Love With My Father's Murderer", and "To Die By The Sword."  Riddle's take on destinies is different than the one that we used for the GURPS game - here, a Destiny is not absolute.  We adjusted our play style accordingly.  Riddle's mechanics don't mandate that destinies will ever come into play, they just give big fat dice-pool bonuses when they do.  Thematically, the rulebook text says that you really *ought* to make them come in to play.  Accordingly, I told the players I would make sure that these situations happened, not because the rules say to, but because it's what we all wanted to have happen anyway.