The Forge Archives

So i have been thinking a lot about meta level gameplay recently...  I find the things you can do with the system beyond modeling events incredibly compelling.  Anyway, i have also been thinking a lot about folk literature and fables.  Specifically: a recognized story (like Little Red Riding Hood) can easily have 50+ different version, but all version are recognized as Little Red Riding Hood even if they are signifigantly different.

Along those lines i have been considering an RPG with a similar concept.  One that is designed to tell, roughly, the same story each time you play.  The major difference would be focus (does Little Red Riding Hood die, or does the wolf get caught?).  What moral can you adress?  What new takes on the Premise of the game can you come up with while acting inside these limits?

At the moment this is in the very early stages, i know that i would like to:

1. Adress the Premise of Trust and Betrayal
2. Have a set number of characters (all roles must be filled, there is no room for more characters).  Number currently unknown
3. The characters are fixed in role, but not in personality (Character X will be the Betrayer, but why and how are open to interpretation)
4. The game will take 3 sessions +Chargen (which may be its own session or whatever) with each session climaxing and ending at a key point of the story.  One each for Trust, Betrayal, and Aftermath (i hesitate to use the term conclusion because some of the best betrayal stories do not end so much as trail off)

So, i need to determine whether the following are possible:

1. Give the above, can a system be written that essentially forces a basic Plot on players allowing them only a limited amount of determination?
2. Assuming the above is possible, can the focus be so limited as to produce stories that are almost always recognizable as an instance of this game.  (i.e. someone is telling you about the way a game played out and you are able to say: "That was a game of Trust and Betrayal wasn't it" based entirely on a plot summary.)

To some degree i am interested in getting feedback regarding desirability as well.  Would anyone be interested in playing a game that places such extreme limits on the player systemically?

As always, i hope the time you spent reading this was not entirely wasted, and have a nice day.

Thomas

I certainly think that you can pre-script people to their fate... but pre-script what path they take to their fate?  That's a trickier notion.  I'm not sure, in fact, that you intend to do that.  Perhaps you could clarify?

Casting somebody into the role of "Betrayer" would certainly help to get around the Social Contract issues that otherwise entangle a game about betrayal and trust... i.e. betrayal is easily interpreted as players betraying each others trust, rather than characters doing so.

Quote from: TonyLBI certainly think that you can pre-script people to their fate... but pre-script what path they take to their fate?  That's a trickier notion.  I'm not sure, in fact, that you intend to do that.  Perhaps you could clarify?

At the moment i am somewhat torn in regards to this.  For playability this will probably have to be a scripted fate with and unscripted path (the path being what makes play interesting: "how many ways can we tell this story?").  At the same time, without some path limitation i lose the whole idea of having a plot summary tell you what game was played.  Of course if that has to go to make a great game, i suppose i can sacrifice it [/smile].

QuoteCasting somebody into the role of "Betrayer" would certainly help to get around the Social Contract issues that otherwise entangle a game about betrayal and trust... i.e. betrayal is easily interpreted as players betraying each others trust, rather than characters doing so.

This is actually a side-effect that i had not even recognized.  What other problematic social actions are there?  If this, even partially, solves the "problem" of betrayal in games, what other "problems" can be solved in a similar manner.

I am still trying to visualize a "perfect" play session for this game, i think i will have something by the end of the weekend so i will try to post more then.  Basically i am thinking of a game with probably abour 4 players with no GM, since the broad fate of the game is already known...

Thomas

The question may be not so much "What negative interactions do you eliminate by this method?" but "What otherwise unavailable interactions do you allow by this method?"

Particularly, if you're telling the players what they're supposed to do and how they're supposed to do it, then you've just gutted a nice little sacred cow that goes "The players contribute to the game through their choices and the exercise of free will".

I think it's a cow well worth gutting, but you do have to answer the question "If the players contribution is something other than making choices then what is it?"

Good points, both of them.  I am especially interested in generating play that otherwise is impossible/discouraged in most groups.

As for what the players contribute i almost see this as a Challenge.  We know what will happen in a general sense.  That (hopefully) means that the Premise is quite strong and up front.  Betrayal.  It will happen, and it will be happening in the second game session.  What do you contribute then?  A couple of things:

1. What about betrayal?  Is it good (betraying your friend who is planning terrorist acts to the authorities?), bad (adultry?), ambiguous?
2. How exactly will you do this?  You as players are tasked with generating the Situation in which Betrayal occurs.  Why does it happen?  What is its specific nature?  What kind of reactions do we have to it?  What does this do to the characters?  Is the betrayal premeditated?

EDIT: Is this enough input to drive play?  Are these compelling reasons to play in and of themselves?

I think i am considering 4 player characters: 1 who trusts, 1 who betrays, and 1 support chacter for each side.  Support characters can be confidantes, confederates, co-conspirators, or whatever else seems appropriate.  I am thinking that requiring a seperate player for each, but disallowing any extra characters could become very interesting (four players, and four players only).

Thomas

You HAVE to check out my game The Mountain Witch! There are alot of similiarities between what you're trying to do and what I did.

To begin with, the Premise is all about Trust and Fate. The game revolves a single situation: You play ronin samurai in mythical Japan hired to assault a supernatural badguy... You guessed it! Yama-Ubu the Mountain Witch! The game always starts with the characters standing on the mountain, ready to assault the Witch's fortress.

The game is design to run for 4-6 'scenes'. That means the game will last anywhere from a single session to maybe 3 or 4, depends on how the group plays.

The main feature of the system is a Trust mechanic, which basically works with players awarding each other points that can be spent to both aid AND betray one another.

Also, each character is assigned a dark Fate, such as "Your worst Fear will come to life" or "Your true Motives will come to Light." But players are allowed to define exactly what their individual Fate means. This is probably similiar to your "scripted Fate, unscripted Path" idea.

I hadn't thought about it, but I guess my game gets around the 'betraying' issue by forcing ALL the characters to be involved in something 'bad' (ie, none of the Fates are 'good').

You also should check out some of the recent Iron Game Chef (IGC) games. There were quite a few games that severely limited player choice. Mike H. (who judged the contest) dubbed them 'finite rpgs,' because they didn't allow the 'infinite' choice a tradtitional rpg allows. I know one game "Frigid Bitch" by Alexander Cherry got some playtesting. You could ask him how much success he had with 'finite' design

(I'm sure there were other 'finite' games that got playtested, but I just don't know of them off-hand.)

This may come off as sounding a bit obtuse, so I apologize in advance for that.

The first thing I thought when I read your initial idea was "wow. This sounds kind of like How to Host a Murder Mystery on a much bigger level!". I think it sounds like a really cool idea, but I do think there may be a few snagging points in there. The main one is that you want to enforce two major elements, plot and character, leaving very little to the actual players. Not to say that they have nothing to do and that it couldn't be entertaining, but it seems a little boxed. From your original concept it sounds like the predetermined plot would be the more important of the two, so I might suggest leaving the roles of the characters up to the players themselves, in some regards. Maybe have that set list of roles they need to fill, but not have in completely in black and white. Maybe in one scene one player feels that their character fits very well into the Trusting Archetype, but maybe as the game progresses he feels he would fit better as the Betrayer. Maybe that draws too heavily on the Murder Mystery idea, but I think it could be interesting. Also, if all the players know upfront that there is going to be a betrayal, half the fun could be figuring out who's going to do it? Just a thought

On a side note, I'm a big fan of fairy tales and, while that may not have been your initial intention with this specific game, I think it's an avenue definitely worth exploring. It sounds like this game so far is based off of one specific formula, and while fairy tales have a variety of formulae, they all have a few things in common. Maybe another option to explore would be to have hard scripted character roles, like you initially suggested, but have the plot be a little more open ended. Not in that it won't follow a plot, but more like a tree diagram. At any given point they could take one of the side branches which would make it a slightly different, though closely related tale.

Quote from: Vaettyr[snip...]From your original concept it sounds like the predetermined plot would be the more important of the two, so I might suggest leaving the roles of the characters up to the players themselves, in some regards. Maybe have that set list of roles they need to fill, but not have in completely in black and white. Maybe in one scene one player feels that their character fits very well into the Trusting Archetype, but maybe as the game progresses he feels he would fit better as the Betrayer.[...snip]

While i think that this is a very interesting idea it is totally not what i am thinking about at the moment.  What i am considering here is a game in which you know, from the outset, what your role in the story is.  You know what it is you are supposed to do (in broad terms) and the task is to get in there and do it.  In addition by having fixed roles you can set up the whole story to hinge on a single act of betrayal which (i feel) makes that act much more poignant.

I have spent some time thinking about the concept over the last couple of days and am leaning more and more towards designing this game specifically for one-shot play.  That is that in a single 3-5 hour session you can generate characters, play the Trust lead-up, play the Betrayal lead-up, and then manage some sort of narrative conclusion.  So on that note can anyone think of any games that are specifically designed for one session play?  Also, does it seem that one-session play would make this game better or would the small amount of time allotted to play weaken the story telling?

Thomas

Great Ork Gods by Jack Aidley is designed to be played in a single session.  It is set up as a light-hearted romp of mayhem and destruction.  You might want to check it out to give you some ideas on how to create a quick "one shot" type game.  One key point is that characters are worked up in less than 10 minutes.  Anyone taking longer is penalized.  If you keep your character generation very simple, it can work without impacting the play time much.

I'm afraid I've got to run, so I don't have time to address your other questions right now.  My apologies.

Good luck with your game!

Quote from: John Kirk[snip...] One key point is that characters are worked up in less than 10 minutes.  Anyone taking longer is penalized.  If you keep your character generation very simple, it can work without impacting the play time much. [...snip]

Thanks for the link.  The character generation thing has actually been something that i have been thinking about on and off all afternoon.  In addition i would like to have something with simple rules as well.  If you can sit down with some friends who have never played before and get a game up and running in 15 minutes that would make me happy.  One of the ideas i had was doing something similar to Universalis, all players start with X number of "coins" to do stuff with.  Since this is specifically a one-shot coins would never refresh.  What this would do is shift focus directly into the narrative realm.  The characters do not have stats, there are no numbers, there is simply how important this is to the player.  At the same time i would really like to keep things focused at a one player to one character setup.  From what i hear about Prime Time Adventure there is some pretty cool stuff in there about dice usage in scenes you do not participate in...

Thomas

Hello,

Thomas, I hope you follow up on Tim's invitation to check out The Mountain Witch. As I see it, he has already nailed your design specs to a T.

Best,
Ron

So i finally sat down and read through Tim's game: The Mountain Witch.  I thought it was great!  I really liked the way the mechanics worked (notably Trust and Abilities), though i think i would have changed the way Trust worked in terms of allocation...

However, while i really liked this, it is not at all like what i am trying to do here.  After some more thought i am considering a pure Karma resolution system based on a meta-game resource.  My current thoughts are that all players start the game with an equal number of coins.  For any conflict things are handled in a "fortune" in the middle way.  All sides declare general intent, then everyone can toss coins to whatever side they want.  Whoeven has the most coins in the end wins.  Narration is left to the players of the characters involved.

In addition, while i really like Tim's Trust mechanic i am really not all that interested in a mechanical encouragement to use it [edited for clarity: "it" meaning a Trust and Betrayal theme].  I believe that what i really want is just some text that says: "This is the way the game goes. Trust, Betrayal.  If you do not do it this way you are breaking the rules."  This seems significantly more restrictive than anything i have encountered to date and i am beginning to wonder if it would really be all that compelling to play...  The concept still intrigues me however, so i believe i will forge onward.  Next up: reading through Jack's Great Ork Gods for some ideas about chargen.  I need to figure out what will go on a character sheet since effectiveness is not tied to character at all.

Thomas

Quote from: LordSmerfHowever, while i really liked this, it is not at all like what i am trying to do here.  

Yeah, I wasn't trying to discourage you from doing your own thing, I just wanted to point out the similiarities between your ideas and my own.

I'm curious about your ideas of scripting story. What ideas do you have on how it will work? I'm curious about the degree to which you will script things.

For example you could say...

[*]Act 1:
Player A gets into trouble.
Player B comes to player A's rescue.
[*]Act 2:
Player A tells player B a secret.
Player B uses the secret to betray player A.[/list:u]
Or you could say...

[*]Act 1:
Player A is on a journey. On his way home he is jumped by bandits.
Player B comes to his rescue and fends off the bandits. He then joins player A on his journey home.
[*]Act 2:
Player A tells player B that he is carrying some jewels that he will use to pay for his upcoming wedding.
The Bandits reappear. Player B tells player A that he will protect the jewels, but after they are given to him he runs.[/list:u]

Hello,

A couple other things to check out include games that fully articulate "character issues" per character, or per group. The ones I've seen lately include Fastlane and Nine Worlds, in which the issues are concrete elements of play (e.g. "my wife"), and Primetime Adventures and With Great Power, in which they are abstractions which are expected to inform proposed conflicts. In the latter case, if one were to specify trust as a key issue, then it would operate in play as you're describing, I think.

Also, in my view, The Mountain Witch offers full scope for player-characters ultimately to betray one another, as well as to work together, and anything in between.

Best,
Ron

Something much closer to the first example you cite than the second.  In fact i am not sure exactly how specific i want to get yet.  I know for sure that i want the following:

-The first third or so of the game is focused on showing a relationship of Trust being built between character A and character B, this culminates in some scene that fades out with a clear picture of their Trust.
-The second third or so of the game is focused on building the seeds of Betrayal.  Reasons to betray, oppurtunities, etc.  This section culminates in the scene in which the character A realizes that character B has betrayed them.  It would be encouraged to fade out on the shocked/horrified expression on character A's face.
-The final third or so of the game is focused on the consequences.  Is there forgiveness?  Remorse?  Bitter hatred?  What happens as a result of this horrible Betrayal?

That is an extremely rough outline, but i am not sure how much more specific i feel safe getting with this.

Thomas