A beautiful moment in Rifts Earth

[Neylana]

So, a friend of mine is running a Rifts game, where all the characters are in the military of a non-Coalition State that at the beginning of the game was allied with the Coalition but held a totally different set of laws.

An example of the differences between the Coalition and our kingdom, called Hammers:

The Coalition hate dimensional beings, magic users and anything else that they think of as not purely human. Hammers has branches of their military for the training of magic-users, psis and non-humans as special ops, to better maximize their talents.

This, of course, is a big possibility for future war. But right now, the Coalition doesn't want to risk it because of the size of Hammers. There are other more important (and smaller) fish to fry.

But this last game session, we were on leave after a successful capture of some Coalition troops that illegally crossed the border. We immediately chimed in with all the usual leave activities:

Our Dog-Boy (Dog-Woman?) Corporal Risha wanted to go see her mother, found mom wasn't home, went to the local Dog-Boy bar, The Fire Hydrant, and proceeded to grill the bouncer, Frank, for information concerning an Underground Railroad for the liberation of Coalition Dog-soldiers. Then she went back home and hung out with her own of her many younger siblings, Marisa.

Our politician's-son turned Wilderness Scout, Devin, went home and likewise grilled the Chief of Security and the family's stablehand (ex-Cavalry) on the existence of an Underground Railroad for ANY detractors from the Coalition.

My character, a flirtatious Southern Belle Ley Line Walker named Beth Fishi (generally called Fishy by the rest of the unit) went off to see her wizard buddies (Tibbles, Joey, and Mari) for some drinking and spell-swapping at the local mage nightclub, The Ivory Tower.

In the middle of all this, it hit me.

We were building the setting ourselves, with little input from the GM.

The Fire Hydrant... Frank the bouncer... the Chief of Security... Risha's siblings... Tibbles, Joey, and Mari... The Ivory Tower... all made up by the players on the spot to add detail and personality to the world we play in. The GM just rolled with it, adding these places and people into the game as quickly as we uttered the words.

Me being the only Forgite in the group (though I have spoken of the Forge to them all, and they seemed very interested), I covered my eyes and began shaking my head, telling myself to just shut up. They looked at me curiously. So I explained that from The Forge, I learned to name the concept of 'director-stance' and that that was exactly what everyone was doing and it was so beautiful how it was working.

I didn't even have to explain what director-stance is. They just nodded, smiled, and said "We understand completely. This is so cool."

Then we went back to building our world together.

[Callan S.]

Would you say the system helped you with that, had no effect or hindered you?

[Neylana]

Rifts is one of those systems that has no rules for contacts and allies to restrict you, nor does it have any real incentive to add things to the setting beyond personal gratification. In the entire session, only two rolls were made (both by me), and I didn't even know what I was rolling for (though I think it was probably just something to help the GM determine the probability of a certain thing happening).

So I believe that the system was slightly helpful, just by not being constrictive to our creativity.

[Callan S.]

Hi again, Neylana,

Thanks for the answer. But which systems would you say have constrictions on what you were doing? Also, do you think its possible that a system can constrict choice in such a maner, but provide creative focus rather than a problem?

Thanks,

[Neylana]

I think the answers to those questions are matters of personal opinion. Every person is different and what constricts the creative juices of one could cause another's creativity to bloom.

I know I have often suffered from creative blocks simply because I had too many choices. In gaming, this most often happens to me during character creation, when I'm trying to decide what kind of person I wish to play.

But then, I find things like White Wolf's system of Backgrounds too restrictive of my creativity, as I have to choose at character creation how many friends and associates my character can call on for help and information, and often who those people are. Those are things I prefer to come up with during a game, at a dramatically appropriate moment. I often find myself unable to come up with these details of life at character creation, having not yet "tried on the character's skin," as it were. And, even if I come up with them at character creation, the system restricts me from coming up with more during play, as that would exceed my quotient.

I'm not too sure, as I've only played it twice (and those times were a while ago), but I believe Shadowrun has a similar system that puts a number on how many 'useful' people you know (as if anyone could really say who is or is not useful).

But I do admit the possibility that there are people out there who find this type of Friends rating useful to the creative process.

[pete_darby]

Just to chip in with the blindingly obvious: some systems don't require "define at the outset", but still have systems for quantifying & defining this kind of thing in play: TRoS SA's can be used like this, and HeroQuest has a whole "create in play" character creation method.

BTW, I can't recall: does the ST system demand you define the contacts at the outset, or can you just say "one major contact" and leave it at that?

Just to declare an interest: I'm definitely on the side of quantifiable benefit for this stuff to encourage uptake. That being said, I'm also very generous handing out suff that deepens the world or provides story opportunities for little to no cost compared to "by the book" definitions.

But yeah, in a game system that "charges" for social connections, they can get ignored if the game as played doesn't allow them to be used, and the player that payed for them can (probably rightly) feel put out for having paid for them.

[Callan S.]

I guess I'm probing at something here.

We'll take the example of story teller. You can have X amount of contacts and then that's it by the system.

The Rifts system provides no contact system.

Now, isn't rifts like story teller after you've made up all your contacts? I mean, by the ST system after you've made them all up there are no more.

In the rifts system its the same effect, after you've made up all the contacts the system grants (in this case its zero amount), there are no more.

What you've done you could do in ST or those others...suggest a contact and the GM nods it through.

The only pressure I can see for him not to do that is that players may have spent character gen points on contacts, but if he hands them out for free it somehow cheats those players.

Disclaimer: I REALLY don't want to stomp on your fun here. It's just that I have a bias about rifts and what it can do, which you don't (I think). So I'm kind of keen to get information from your unbiased viewport and may be a little direct about it. Sorry! :(

[tigermuppetcut]

Unfortunately in a typical Rifts design-mess-moment there are rules for contacts provided for a few specific O.C.C's (character classes) I think gambler is one - in Rifts 'New West'.

Since it is a special feature of these classes it would follow that other character classes shouldn't be granted them... going by the 'rules' (as and where you can patch them together from Palladiums scattered mess).

BTW I love Rifts, the setting, the imagination behind it, the possibilities etc. It just has the worst, most out of date, house-of-cards-esque system out there at the moment IMO and it also has a million and one holes in the internal logic of the setting. :(

[Mike Holmes]

Basically, Callan, what she's saying is that since the system doesn't seem to prohibit creating contacts (tigeruppetcut's example aside), that one can easily drift the game to the assumption that players can do this to their heart's content. In a system like ST, you only get X, and no more, so you're explicitly prohibited, and changing that is a more outre drift from the normal rules.

Neylana, what Callan is saying, however, is that there are systems that support the sort of creation that you're talking about by limiting it in ways that I think that you'd find promote creativity, as opposed to stifling it. This way you have a framwork propelling this without any drift from the rules.

Maybe more telling, the Palladium system does explicitly tell you a lot of stuff about what the players should be doing, given it's system. If the players seem better off doing things other than that, then maybe it's time to use a system that promotes the style of play that you're group is already drifting towards.

OTOH, maybe everyone likes the Palladium system and what it promotes, and just likes this little change that you've provided. In which case, you're precisely where you need to be.

Mike

[Neylana]

Mike's right on my thinking here. There is no system (that we've encountered) in Rifts that says we can only have a certain amount of contacts, so we go on a freeform basis. Whatever fits the character is allowed. Characters did not live in a void before the game started, so they know people.

And I know there are probably systems out there that actually promote this type of thing. We're just not familiar with them, and none of us have the money to go out and buy stuff to try, so we gotta use what we have. And we're not really trying to promote any one style of play.

In fact, we have a wonderful dynamic wherein pretty much anything we play together is fun, regardless of theme, setting, story feeding, system or GNS setup. Sure, there are arguments now and then. But our goal is to be together and have fun, and that is accomplished. The start of this thread was just a bit of extra fun that I thought was neat and wanted to share as an example of the nifty things that can happen when a group of players unwittingly stumbles upon director-stance. I found it an interesting experience, and I wanted to take it apart to see what made it tick. You all are very helpful for doing that. :)

[Callan S.]

I hope I don't take it apart too much with my questions...I'm just damn curious! :)

Now, I'm not familiar with ST, but what exactly does it say? Where does the perception come from that if it has rules for contacts then it is also saying that's all you can have. You can try and make more, but the NPC will look at you and say 'you haven't got enough dots' and walk away?

Equally, when a system doesn't have rules for contacts, why doesn't this same perception carry over to it? In fact, why does the reverse perception occur?

I'm interested in the design element of this. If I were designing a game, I would think adding contact rules is a plus. But with this perception, it tells me I'd actually be reducing the games potential, it's better to have nothing at all.

I want to know more about this in an equal amount to how much it clashes with my game design knowledge. Which is a lot! :)

Is 'driftable' a better design goal? Try to make system matter less? But wouldn't that mean the game would be more about what the group makes it, than what they payed $XX dollars for? Taking drift to an extreme example here: What do they need the book for, if the majority of the game played is the groups creation with almost zero influence from the book. Would it be a type of dutch courage?

Edit: I bet this is too far and I've killed the thread.

[Neylana]

Now, I'm not familiar with ST, but what exactly does it say? Where does the perception come from that if it has rules for contacts then it is also saying that's all you can have. You can try and make more, but the NPC will look at you and say 'you haven't got enough dots' and walk away?

Basically, in the Storyteller system, you have a certain number of Background points to spend at character creation on things like resources, allies, contacts, how famous you are, what your standing is your society and any number of other things.

For Allies, your rating specifies the number of allies and the level of their influence and power (once again with the hassle of trying to determine what is truly useful and what isn't). This is a rating of one to five, with five being five allies, one of whom is extremely influential. If you put no points in Allies, you have no friends or family who will support or aid you whatsoever.

Contacts, in my opinion, is set up better. No Contacts equals no information network. One through five = one to five major contacts. And it says that, as long as you have any points in Contacts, you also have a network of minor contacts that you don't need to detail anything about. It's just a roll to see how many people you can reach to attempt to get information from.

The fact that it points out in Contacts that there are ones you don't have to specify tells me that all the others, you should. Nothing wrong with that, but in most Storyteller games I've played, there's been an insistance that the specification happen before the character is approved, when I have yet to immerse myself in the character and the world, and don't have a complete understanding of who my character is and who she might know.

It also states that Backgrounds should be rationalized at character creation. Why does your character possess these things? How did she come by them? Again, perfectly valid questions that I believe place a certain balance on what your character starts out with. It might not make sense for a street bum to possess an Influence of 5, but some shady sorts might try to get away with it, and this tries to keep that from happening. But I also think that's an extreme example.

Here you have at least 5 points to spend in at least 10 different Backgrounds, and in my experience, you are expected to come up with the details right then and there, which can be very difficult to do and in my opinion limits creativity because it rushes the process and doesn't give you a chance to try things out first. I think it also limits the GM a bit, as there's less wiggle-room for the GM to pull friends out of the woodwork and use them to drive storylines and cause reactions. None of that is necessarily bad... just not my bag.

On the subject of gaining contacts and allies during the game, that is certainly possible, even if it exceeds your rating. In some ST games, the GM just raises your rating to reflect the new friend you met. In others, you have to spend experience to show the time and effort spent gaining that friend. But that's not the same as what we were doing in the Rifts game. There, we were fleshing out the pieces of setting that we may have interacted with in the past, since we were in a place our characters grew up that we hadn't put any thought into previously.

Equally, when a system doesn't have rules for contacts, why doesn't this same perception carry over to it? In fact, why does the reverse perception occur?

Once again, can't speak for anyone else here. But this ties in with the previous answer. I don't particularly enjoy the pressure involved in specifying the details right away, but I recognize that characters don't live in a vacuum. Thus, it really wouldn't make sense to say that you cannot start with any contacts at all, unless you are starting in a brand new place and don't know anyone there... I'm big on things making sense.

I'm interested in the design element of this. If I were designing a game, I would think adding contact rules is a plus. But with this perception, it tells me I'd actually be reducing the games potential, it's better to have nothing at all.
I want to know more about this in an equal amount to how much it clashes with my game design knowledge. Which is a lot! :)

I don't know much about designing games really. I've tried it a few times. Didn't get very far. I'm really just one gamer who knows what works and what doesn't for me. Frankly, I don't think I'd base whether something is reducing a game's potential on my opinions and insights alone. For all I know, I could be an abberation in the collective thought process. *chuckle*

Is 'driftable' a better design goal? Try to make system matter less? But wouldn't that mean the game would be more about what the group makes it, than what they payed $XX dollars for? Taking drift to an extreme example here: What do they need the book for, if the majority of the game played is the groups creation with almost zero influence from the book. Would it be a type of dutch courage?

Driftable being a better design goal... I don't really know if that's the case. My gut tells me that if players and storytellers want to drift, they will drift, regardless of how driftable that system aimed to be. They will find a way. And its not that we do this with no influence from the book. The book is very important for the grand scope of the setting and for system for dealing with in-character conflicts and challenges. But the book can't tell us where our characters went with friends to drink in college, or who our best friends grew up to be. We have to decide that ourselves. And as long as we're not choosing those things based on what we need to know right now in the story (as opposed to what makes sense for who our characters are), I think we should be free to make up past acquaintences as we go.

That's not to say that I wouldn't play in a game that I'm not free to do that, and must make them up at character creation... I'll just take forever to make a character, and will doubtless be unhappy with the choices I end up making. I have, as a matter of fact, mentally twisted the Storyteller system slightly in my head so that not all friends and family count as Allies and Contacts under the rules... Only the ones who can be of more aid than a stranger are tallied by your points. So I drifted that too. I do that a lot.

Edit: I bet this is too far and I've killed the thread.

Not at all. You're curious. I'll try to answer questions as long as I can. Sometimes I may not know why I like one thing over another, but this questioning serves to make me think about it more, so if the answer ends up as "I don't know," at least it's an honest not-knowing, instead of just having never thought about it before. ;)

This is insanely long. Shutting up for now.

[Callan S.]

Great answers, thanks for going into depth with them! :)

I'll just ask one more: Would I be drifting the ST system if I treat a score in contacts as solid and dependable contacts, while any others gained in play are flakey despite how much help they can give. For example, say I've defined all the contacts I've bought with points, but the GM then goes on to give me another contact who will risk his life for my PC to get info or whatever. That's a pretty important thing. The thing is, the GM differentiates NPC's who have been bought and those who haven't. Those who have been bought with points aren't so much under GM whim...they don't leave town at the wrong time, they don't refuse help without reason and they certainly don't end up dead without a very good reason, etc etc. But any other contacts, regardless of how much help they can give, are way more under the influence of the GMs control. So you could have a contact like this that'll risk his life for you and whisper in the presidents ear...indeed, you could make them as you did in play. But without securing them with points, they are more the GM's pets than they are yours.

That's how I would read the ST contact rules. But I realise perhaps I am drifting it myself.

[Neylana]

Yeah, I would call that a drift from the rules. In ST, all contacts (and allies... and influence... and resources) are pretty much in the hands of the GM. Bad stuff happens. People lose their jobs. Their husbands run off to the Bahamas with their secretary. Friends are corrupted by bad things.

I think most storytellers won't mess with your backgrounds much without story reason. If a vampire is trying to ruin your life, he's likely to manipulate things so that your boss fires you, your friends have to move away, etc. This lowers your background ratings. But there's story reason for it. Otherwise, they can lower by simple attrition. If you don't put any effort into being someone's friend, they won't either, and suddenly you've lost a friend. So you gotta do upkeep.

But the laws of attrition are also in the GM's hands. If the GM decides that that friend will stay with you, no matter how badly you treat him, it's entirely within his power to do so.

[Callan S.]

But certainly just as much as the GM can make a NPC friend stick with a PC even if treated badly, this demonstrates just how above the rules the GM is. It's really up to him if you were to invent contacts director stance in ST, as to whether he stops it or not. He's above the rules, as demonstrated by the rules. He could allow it just like he did in Rifts.

I think what does stop him is influence. It is the suggestion that the rules give (that he's interpreted), that he then conveys, which cuts off casual contact making in ST. In a way, rules are like setting. Certainly vampire doesn't promote happy go lucky vampires in its setting, and if you consider rules and their interpretation as setting as well, then the setting also doesn't promote casual contact creation.

Sound close? Far off?