[Dead Inside] Prelim Playtest #3 (Very Long)

[chadu]

Re: GNSy: I'm not qualified to speak about it (obviously, if I'm misusing the terms like it looks like I am), so I'll shut up on that now.

Anyway, I'm tempted (snip) to consider some of the interactions of the people themselves about play, during play. Chad, did people get into one another's characters as avid audience members? Did they offer suggestions and kibitzes to one another? Did they cheer, or sympathize, or anything similar?

Yes, yes, and hell yes. The rah-rahs from each other really did help feed a high level of performance and focus on the players' part. And this cheerleading was more consistent throughout all types of situations than my other groups (in which cheering was usually limited to combat-type situations).

Hmmm. Interesting thought: in my other gaming groups, a high-level of performance spurred other folks to higher levels of performance directly, and rah-rahs indirectly. However, with this group, it was the other way around -- direct rah-rahs, followed by an indirect amping of performance.

I need to think about this more.

CU

[Mike Holmes]

No, we shouldn't get too GNS-ish, I suppose, just commenting that this already seems to be a coherent form of play (and not too uncommon to boot). But I guess I'm asking Chad where the problem lies if any? Or would he agree that the game does just what he wants it to do?

I think he has a winner here is what I'm getting at, in terms of meeting his design goals.

What do you mean by "indirect" in the last post?

Mike

[Emily Care]

Re: "OODwP" -- I've read it, and I really dig it. It's been a long, long time since, though. Having said that, I'm sure it was an unconscious influence on DI.

:) I'm imagining a dead-insider who's best friends with a puppy killer and they meet over coffee every night and discuss their day.... Though with the Nastygame option you wouldn't need that option. They might even be able to trade, as I think happened in the story.

I'd be curious to hear more about the asking "why" component.  

best,
Em

[chadu]

But I guess I'm asking Chad where the problem lies if any? Or would he agree that the game does just what he wants it to do?

Oh, I see no problem here. DI does exactly what I want it to do.

What I'd like to know is how it does this -- I didn't really intellectualize the process of the game's construction. I went with what felt right, and tweaked in response to discovered flaws during the playtest. Very much a "chisel away the rock to find the horse statue inside" sort of method, rather than a "drawing up blueprints" method.

What do you mean by "indirect" in the last post?

That may have been a bad word selection. In the first case, reaching a higher level of performance generally came first (often kind of becoming a contest between players), with cheering for their peers a secondary function. In the second case, cheering came first, then reaching for a higher level of performance (which didn't have the same competitive edge to it).

CU

[Mike Holmes]

Oh, what supports this sort of play? Well, not having read the game again, but going by Ron's description, its....almost too simple to describe. You've created what I call "focus" (a debatable term). Basically, you have ensured that your mechanics address only those things that the game are about. And this informs the players of what they are to do. The most potent part of your design was in ensuring that there wasn't anything in there to distract players from that sort of play.

Does that make sense? If I wanted a game that was just about Reindeer herding, I'd make the only mechanics about managing a herd of reindeer.

Why this is hard for people to get is beyond me, but most designers will have rules in their reindeer herding games for combat and other extraneous things - just in case a combat erupts. Well, they're asking for combat to erupt. Because what else do you do with combat rules?

Other than that, the soul mechanics say specifically that they have to deal with this phenomenon. I'll bet that you even have a relatively good "negative" position. That is, what happens if the players "ignore" their moral choices. Is that an interesting choice itself from a mechanical POV? This is all good design to enforce play being "about" that which is meant to be emphasized. There are loads of tactics like this, and you probably used some others.

I'm going to have to get a copy before I can comment any more cogently. This has all been part of your well crafted plan to sell loads of copies of the game to Forgies isn't it. ;-)


Every time I think I have a fix on the competition/cooperation thing, I get nothing. That is I understand the phenomenon, but I think we may just be talking about Gamism vs. Narrativism (which we weren't going to talk about).

Mike

[chadu]

Yup -- I either ignored or abstracted to hell everything that wasn't about the soul. The soul itself -- gaining it, losing it, using it -- gets the special mechanics.

I'm going to have to get a copy before I can comment any more cogently. This has all been part of your well crafted plan to sell loads of copies of the game to Forgies isn't it. ;-)

No comment. :)

And hey -- the supplement, Cold, Hard World, has just gone through peer review and I'm about to start the revision.

CU

[chadu]

I'd be curious to hear more about the asking "why" component.  

Ask for and ye shall recieve:

Ask Why
But what about those cases where the reason for taking the action isn't so clear-cut? Or the action itself, while significant, could be interpreted for good or ill? That's when the GM needs to ask the question "Why?"

Whether as out of character table talk or through the lips of an NPC, "Why did you do that?" can often illuminate ambiguous actions. For example, say an NPC beggar asks a PC for some spare change for food. The PC refuses, and runs off down the street, looking for a restaurant. What does the GM do? He should ask "Why?" Take a look at some PC responses, and the varied results:
* "I never give money to panhandlers." - Decay Tick
* "I haven't eaten in days myself." - Decay Tick
* "Lazy people make me angry; they should get a job." - Decay Tick
* "I can't be bothered." - Decay Tick
* "I'm calling the cops to arrest that bum for vagrancy." - Decay Tick
* "I'm going to buy him a sandwich instead of giving him a buck." - Cultivation Tick
* "I'm going to call a buddy I have in Social Services." - Cultivation Tick

For more on where, when, and how to place Ticks, see below, Cultivation Ticks and Decay Ticks.

CU

[Mike Holmes]

Yup -- I either ignored or abstracted to hell everything that wasn't about the soul. The soul itself -- gaining it, losing it, using it -- gets the special mechanics.

Well, then do you see why your other players play is really the odd case? I mean, if they're competing, what in the game is telling them to do so? Nothin from what I can see, so it has to be that it's a hold over from how other systems have told them that they have to play. They're still playing D&D or something, just transfering their expectations to your game (did they also end up killing folks and taking their stuff - just kidding - sorta)?

Again, I'm not sure that I've seen a solution to that problem in a design, other than some really radical stuff that makes traditional play absolutely impossible.

Have you seen The Pool (should be a link in resources)?

Mike

[neelk]

It doesn't seem abashed to me at all - especially since characters might, in play, decide not to "help people and give them stuff" (the hard but virtuous way to regain Soul) but rather to slurp and steal it, becoming soul-vampire bastards. So the choice is really there.

Ah, yes: "the Nastygame."

I reviewed that textbox a bit in the writing of Cold, Hard World (in process!), and am even more firmly convinced that one can run a DI Nastygame, but that the characters for such will be disturbingly evil masters of the cost-benefit analysis.

True, but they will be so damn cool. I would really like to run an "evil" DI game, because the mechanics push really hard towards being stylish bad guys, rather than gumby bad guys. I think that villainous characters are most compelling when they are sympathetic, and someone who is charming and honest even when they're tying their victims to the altar is way more compelling than a chronically short-sighted sociopathic gunbunny. Since even bad guys need to conserve their Soul, DI ensures that evil protagonists will still be largely sympathetic.

For example, here's a campaign idea: Meeting the Buddha on the Road.

The player characters are ronin, the former samurai retainers of a lord who was, several years ago, treacherously slain by the agents of a rival daimyo. However, said daimyo has since repented of his evil ways, and has renounced his position and station to meditate, and has progressed far along the path to enlightenment. Very far: he has become an immortal boddhisatva (using the Full-Time Imago option)  who has remained on Earth to help others on the path to enlightenment.

But he still killed the PCs' master. And blood calls for blood.

[Emily Care]

I'll bet that you even have a relatively good "negative" position. That is, what happens if the players "ignore" their moral choices.

And then,

Whether as out of character table talk or through the lips of an NPC, "Why did you do that?" can often illuminate ambiguous actions. For example, say an NPC beggar asks a PC for some spare change for food. The PC refuses, and runs off down the street, looking for a restaurant. What does the GM do? He should ask "Why?" Take a look at some PC responses, and the varied results:
* "I never give money to panhandlers." - Decay Tick etc
(snip)

I'd say that is a very good negative position indeed.  They can't ignore it. Everything they do has a consequence on their soul. Keen.

re coop/comp: you talk about spotlight time. Is that part of the mechanics or just how you talk about it in your write up? Were they competing for some "official" (ie determined by mechanics) position of lead, or was it an informal "we're dealing with this character now" kind of thing? The example of one person talking over another made it sound like the latter.  Which makes it sound like an issue of ettiquette rather than mechanics.

yrs,
Em

[DannyK]

For example, here's a campaign idea: Meeting the Buddha on the Road.

The player characters are ronin, the former samurai retainers of a lord who was, several years ago, treacherously slain by the agents of a rival daimyo. However, said daimyo has since repented of his evil ways, and has renounced his position and station to meditate, and has progressed far along the path to enlightenment. Very far: he has become an immortal boddhisatva (using the Full-Time Imago option)  who has remained on Earth to help others on the path to enlightenment.

But he still killed the PCs' master. And blood calls for blood.

I think it says something very sad that Neel's post just sold the game to me.  :)

[chadu]

I mean, if they're competing, what in the game is telling them to do so? Nothin from what I can see, so it has to be that it's a hold over from how other systems have told them that they have to play. They're still playing D&D or something, just transfering their expectations to your game (did they also end up killing folks and taking their stuff - just kidding - sorta)?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's a purely play-style effect with little system basis for it. . .  But no, they didn't play it like D&D. It was just simple onesupsmanship in terms of their performance.

I'm not sure it's a problem, per se, in the design. . . it's just different.

Have you seen The Pool (should be a link in resources)?

Just looked at it now. . . and it made my head hurt. Maybe I'm trying to read it too fast, or something. (looks again) Oh, okay. That makes more sense -- I was thinking the die type was a d10 rather than a d6.

(looks some more)

Okay. Intriguing. I like some of what I see here. However, I know many players that would hate the MOV concept. (Personally, I think it's pretty cool.) I don't get it, but that kind of free-wheeling invention seems to turn some gamers off. While they may have been "trained" that way by less cooperative and more adversarial play, I've also seen some folks come in that way. These would be the sort of people who would turn down an offer to play old Hogshead's Baron Munchausen; those who wish only to dictate their actions and not worry about having to describe scenery and NPCs and plot and such.

Anywho -- why did you bring it up?

CU

[Mike Holmes]

I don't get it, but that kind of free-wheeling invention seems to turn some gamers off. While they may have been "trained" that way by less cooperative and more adversarial play, I've also seen some folks come in that way. These would be the sort of people who would turn down an offer to play old Hogshead's Baron Munchausen; those who wish only to dictate their actions and not worry about having to describe scenery and NPCs and plot and such.

Anywho -- why did you bring it up?

Would "some gamers," those who'd be turned off by The Pool, happen to be the same players who were in your first game (or at least some of them)? How about the girl game? Do you think they'd be tured off by it?

Again, it's just a case of preconcieved notions. You've got an open enough mind, have seen enough systems, to understand how something like The Pool would work in play. And so do the newbies. They haven't yet formed as much of an opinion about what RPGs must be like. It's only the entrenched gamer who has formed habits of play that will reject a game like the pool. Or who will play your game in a way other than the girls did (in gross terms).

I agree that the guys in game one weren't problematic, given your one-upsmanship description, actually. What this means is that, even with preconceptions, the game still provides more or less the play that you want to see. So, I think you have the optimal design type (I can't speak to the details yet), for what you're doing.

Going back to the gender thread, again, I think this is all the "newbie" issue. System-wise, I can't see changing a thing. In terms of social contract level, I think that one thing to do is to play with newbies like you did - all newbies at once. So that they can form their own opinions as much as possible. Playing with entrenched players is likely to rub off on them. If you do have to play with a mix, then I'd try to co-opt the experienced players into letting the new players form their own methods of play (as informed by the system). Might even learn the entrenched player some new tricks.

Mike

[chadu]

Would "some gamers," those who'd be turned off by The Pool, happen to be the same players who were in your first game (or at least some of them)? How about the girl game? Do you think they'd be tured off by it?

Maybe about half of both groups would be up for the Pool or a New Style game, in my opinion.

Going back to the gender thread, again, I think this is all the "newbie" issue. (snip) In terms of social contract level, I think that one thing to do is to play with newbies like you did - all newbies at once. So that they can form their own opinions as much as possible. Playing with entrenched players is likely to rub off on them. If you do have to play with a mix, then I'd try to co-opt the experienced players into letting the new players form their own methods of play (as informed by the system). Might even learn the entrenched player some new tricks.

I'm not sure how much of this sort of thing is applicable to the existing gamer fanbase -- I mean, there's no way to force (or even encourage, really) the purchaser of a game to seek out players new to the hobby. Except, of course, by providing a very cool concept/premise, and that's always iffy.

If nothing else, then, I think I'd recommend to other game designers to always have a mostly-newbie (or long-lapsed gamer) playtest group, in addition to more "typical" playtest groups. Working through ideas raised that haven't been channelized by previous game experiences is eminently valuable -- at least it was to me.

CU

[Mike Holmes]

Yeah, my suggestion has nothing to do with design (I'm of the belief that there's little you can do on the Social Contract level there anyhow), but rather just a suggestion for anyone here reading.

But, yeah, always throw your game before newbs if you have the opportunity. :-)

Oh, and part of the whole point here is that what you have maybe is more suitable for newbs than "gamers." So sell it to the newbs, instead. Or both.

Mike