[Shadows In The Fog] New Draft

[clehrich]

Here are some thoughts, but you should be warned that at a certain point I am going to go hareing away from the game as it is currently written.   Hopefully my crazy suggestions will be useful rather than distracting.

Hi, Piers.  No, you're just insane.  :-)

What I'd like to see is a way in which the Mask and the Abyss become part of the system.  Here's one suggestion, followed by a much more extreme one....

Well, to me the point is that the Mask and Abyss are really not actually different, it's just that Victorian society assumes that there is no Abyss, and the character would really like to think that somehow the Abyss doesn't show, and so forth.  But the more the Mask gets played to by Abyss cards, and vice-versa, to use your example, the better.

I will say that what you propose starts to drift rather toward Nephilim, doesn't it?  I mean, I like Nephilim, but it's quite a different shtick, all secret history of how things really work and that stuff.

Which leads me to the following radical question:  Why does the game have two separate systems, one for mundane activity, one for magic?

Ah, that I have to give Jere credit for.  I don't know if he realized the weird spin he was putting on my old rules, but by god it works like a charm.  The way magic plays out, you wouldn't want to run an actual regular game that way.  It's oddly distant and intellectual, and very mentally difficult and intense.  But on the other hand it's amazingly good for things like magic.  So the answer is I suppose practical.  At the same time, to my mind it works wonderfully for the concept as well, because the secret play in the shadows is really another kind of playing, though the line is constantly blurred, and it is at that level that all those weird Tarot cards that mean something no matter what start flying like leaves on a windy day.

I know you want to keep the two separate, but even the very pared down skill list you have now seems too weighty for a game with the very free-form magic system.  Fundamentally, I don't see any reason why the trick system shouldn't be used in 'ordinary' scenes.

This one I need to see in action, and I just haven't.  My hunch is that a skill system is valuable for regular play, but it's worth noting that in actual fact Jere's Age of Paranoia game jettisoned this -- although we pretend it's on the books.  At the same time, I note that the big problem thus far with Jere's game has been that people feel the regular play is too unstructured, and I think that this mild skill system would add exactly that structure.  But I need playtests, playtests, playtests.

You wouldn't want to playtest up in your neck of the woods, would you?

That is to say, that if you really want to drive at what I see as the heart of the game, you need to build a tension between the need to maintain one's Mask, and the (potentially) unlimited power available if you open up your Abyss.  There should be danger at both extremes.  That is, the danger that you will either lose your Mask completely (and be swallowed up by the Abyss), or that in suppressing the Abyss, you will become nothing but a Mask.

That's very cool.  I need to think about that one; I'd sort of forgotten about the second worry.  Thanks!

I am really not sure how you would do all this, but even if this is way further than you want to go, hopefully it is provocative.

Me neither, but I'll think about it.

[Piers]

Well, to me the point is that the Mask and Abyss are really not actually different, it's just that Victorian society assumes that there is no Abyss, and the character would really like to think that somehow the Abyss doesn't show, and so forth....  I will say that what you propose starts to drift rather toward Nephilim, doesn't it? I mean, I like Nephilim, but it's quite a different shtick, all secret history of how things really work and that stuff.

Well, yeah, that'd be one way to play it.  On the other hand, what about the extent to which the metaphor and the perceptions of Victorian society act as constraints.  The perceptions of these things in Victorian society enacted a division between the pure and impure, the proper and improper, and moral and immoral, and continually contested where those boundaries were.  Rather than seeing things in a Nephilim-esque way, which emphasizes the phoenix-like act of uncoiling interior power, what about thinking of things in terms of the constraints imposed by mores and etiquette of Victorian society.  It is not that you can't be simultaneously an upright member of society and a powerful magician, but you can't act like a powerful magician and an upright member of society.  Moreover, because magic is to some extent a way of being, if you don't act like a magician, there is a limit to how much of a magician you are.  (You know all that, of course.)

In this context, Mask represents your standing in society—the extent to which you are seen as moral and appropriate—and Abyss, your ability to live and act as a magician.  Your status as a magician will often open doors into particular parts of Victorian society—all those invitations to tea meetings when you are a Spiritualist—but at the same time will be closing doors elsewhere.  Moreover, these things are to some extent reciprocal: the more marginal your place in society, the more time you have to spend on magical pursuits, and thus the more power.  And of course, as you point out, the characters probably spend a good deal of societal and magical resources shoring up their position in the opposite area.

That is to say, that if you really want to drive at what I see as the heart of the game, you need to build a tension between the need to maintain one's Mask, and the (potentially) unlimited power available if you open up your Abyss. There should be danger at both extremes. That is, the danger that you will either lose your Mask completely (and be swallowed up by the Abyss), or that in suppressing the Abyss, you will become nothing but a Mask.

That's very cool. I need to think about that one; I'd sort of forgotten about the second worry. Thanks!

Actually, thinking this over, I realized that these two extremes can actually be read as both win and lose positions:

All Abyss is either Assumption or Driven from Polite Society

All Mask is either Magic Destroyed or Dark Secret Erased and Accepted into a Normal Life (well, until the Sequel at least).

Ideally, the game should be one where potentially the players can be seeking either of these goals (Assumption or Acceptance) and threatened by either of these fates (Expulsion or Magic Destroyed)—indeed, where the act of seeking one (eg Assumption) brings up the threat of the other (eg Driven from Society), and that the way in which the boundary condition is achieved determines which one occurs.  Play is all about the tricky task of living in-between.

Setting that aside, though:

Which leads me to the following radical question: Why does the game have two separate systems, one for mundane activity, one for magic?

...The way magic plays out, you wouldn't want to run an actual regular game that way. It's oddly distant and intellectual, and very mentally difficult and intense. But on the other hand it's amazingly good for things like magic.

Absolutely.  So any change needs to maintain an important distinction between Magic and ordinary action, and to provide potentially simpler resolution for ordinary actions.

I know you want to keep the two separate, but even the very pared down skill list you have now seems too weighty for a game with the very free-form magic system. Fundamentally, I don't see any reason why the trick system shouldn't be used in 'ordinary' scenes.

This one I need to see in action, and I just haven't.... My hunch is that a skill system is valuable for regular play, but it's worth noting that in actual fact Jere's Age of Paranoia game jettisoned this -- although we pretend it's on the books. At the same time, I note that the big problem thus far with Jere's game has been that people feel the regular play is too unstructured, and I think that this mild skill system would add exactly that structure.

Well, think about it this way:

What's good about the skill resolution system as it stands is the Concessions mechanism.  This plays very well to the issues of the game: worries about breaking social etiquette and mores, and the player-directed mystery style of play.  The problem is that it is primarily a task-resolution system rather than a conflict-resolution system.  This is something of an exaggeration, but points to the way that in each scene there isn't one focused conflict, but rather a number of ad hoc actions which don't sum up together in any way.  Compare this, for example, with PTA, in which each scene is resolved by a single roll aimed at solving a particular crux in the action.

This is very odd, because, by comparison, the Magic rules are an almost perfect example of PTA style conflict resolution: there is one thing at issue, stated at the beginning of scene; the trick-playing system is aimed directly at resolving that issue, and at the same time elaborating the consequences and complications (essentially generating Concessions).  Note the way in which, while driving at one question, the system takes time to produce the same sort of fodder for subsequent play that the Concessions mechanism does.

In other words, the ordinary resolution and skill system impedes structure rather than creating it.

So, stripping your system right back to the bones of trick play (and setting aside all the mechanisms of card flow), consider this:

Two sorts of scenes: Ordinary, Magical.  Magical scenes activated by playing a trump.

Ordinary Scenes are resolved with (up to) 3 trick play

Magical Scenes are resolved with (up to) 5 trick play   (Moreover, the scope of actions widens considerably.)

The initiator of the scene frames it (with a Trump for magical play); sets up the issue or crux that it addresses; and leads the first card.

Any player may play in, if they don't play a card in a given trick, they may not play cards in subsequent tricks.  (Note that this may mean that a given player wins by default, in which case the other tricks aren't played through, and there is a simple resolution with no Complications.  We want this to be possible because it means that any given resolution can be over very fast if the players are not invested.)

Play follows the basic rules of trick play (ie, like Bridge or Whist), but is less allusive (at least initially) than the current style—the meaning is not completely developed during card play, though those involved should suggest meanings as they play, but rather afterwards.  (Not sure about what trumps do)

At the end, narration:

The player who won the most tricks (or the initiator by default) narrates the scene as a whole (interpreting the tricks he or she has won), but allows the winners of other tricks to narrate Complications to the resolution based upon the tricks they won (ie one per trick).

Success of the central action can only be narrated if players who want the action to succeed hold a majority of tricks.  (ie you don't have to hold them all yourself if someone else wants it to happen as well.)

In each case, interpretation of a given trick must take into account the trumps played into it—if you win a trick containing the Emperor, your complication must significantly involve the current meanings of the card.

In other words: one trick = one thing you want; a majority of tricks gives you control.  (Need to think about order of narration: Complications first and then summing up, or vice-versa.)

You wouldn't want to playtest up in your neck of the woods, would you?

I'm thinking so.

[Mike Holmes]

First, how much independent playtesting have you done with it?...

None whatsoever.  John Kim started to run it, but then a couple players moved away and the thing ended after one quick session.  No one else has ever tried, to the best of my knowledge.  I do think it's possible that this is because there isn't enough guidance from me, but it's a little tricky to provide it without seeing where others have difficulty.  Sorry, just bitching.

I thought you mentioned at least one other play of the game, the one with the Wiki? Jere's game? Or is that for your game, too?

The game has plenty enough vision to be interesting, enticing to play. The ambiance alone is probably tantalizing to folks. So if you're worried about getting playtesters because of this, don't. It's always hard to find playtesters. Have you offered any trades with anyone?

The best stuff to communicate, the stuff that really runs very well, is the stuff that happens once an enormous amount of weirdness is already in place.  And then, in order to write an example, you end up with about five pages of background material that sounds like one of those "What happened last year on Days of Our Lives" blurbs.  Consequently I end up abstracting examples -- and they end up unclear for precisely that reason.

Aha. That's much more clear.

Another way to do this would be to share what you do for prep. If this, too, is lengthy, then perhaps what you need is to display one whole campaign throughout the book. It may be that it might just take that much effort to get the idea across. In any case, if you break it up, then the parts can be chosen to specifically illuminate the ideas that they're presented in context with, while relying on each other for the neccessary overall context.

Or, just maybe, you're overworking things. Again, the examples that you've given so far seem just fine to me.

Of course, this also means that this is a difficult game to get running, but I can't really speak to that directly because I need to know what it looks like for others to run it, or start running it.  So one of the purposes of posting these rules is to try to encourage someone else to go out and run a few sessions.

Well, actually it doesn't seem really difficult, just like it's missing a couple of critical things. Like the "what do you do?" part. That is, with just a little display of the play vision I think it would be no problem to run.

Again, for me it would be simply how to have the characters come together, and what sort of action happens from there. Again, the CoC model would be an effective, if typical, way to go. In fact, you could present a couple of these sorts of things, if you were afraid of setting play in a bad rut. With more than one, players would be able to extrapolate others, potentially.

I think if you can come up with a good way to give the idea of the Soap Opera method, that it would be both new and pretty cool.

Nothing wrong with the Sorcerer method, however.

But, again, what did you do in your actual play? You had to have done something. If you can show the practical example, then maybe we can determine the principles working behind it. Might be a completely unique method that you've discovered.

But what happens is that the players do have enough narrative control -- almost all of it, really -- that they can decide which stories they really want to finish, or at least give closure to.

Yeah, this is starting to sound typical. That is, I find more and more the loose plot threads are hard to avoid with player power mechanisms. That said, I don't think it's much of a problem for the reason you cite.

As long as they're resolving something. If they do nothing but add more threads, that would be a problem, I'd think.

... and create that kind of weird tunnel-vision that everyone who's ever been in a multi-year campaign (one that went well, I mean) recognizes.

Kinda lost me there. To what do you refer? I've played in lots of successful multi-year campaigns - weird tunnel-vision?

In any case, I get that you want it to be open-ended, and long running. My  only question is whether things ever get resolved in that time. Not everything, or all at once, but just some of them one at a time?

My guess is that there is something new here, but that it's not a game that's going to work for general distribution.  I never intended it to be so, so that's not a problem.

Cool. The only question is whether the "maniacs" will glom onto the game, then.

But I will say that even Jere, who's a careful reader and pretty much into this sort of thing, walked straight into one of the lightly signposted pit-traps within three sessions.  And you know what?  I could feel the flames start to flicker within another session.

I think it's just the same problem. Sans a vision of what might happen in play, people overlay their own assumptions about what the genre must be like. Hmm, no listing for villains - well, it's gaslight era, so it must be Cthonians!

The point is that sans a clear idea of what the game should be like, players wander some from the guidelines that you do have. And then, yeah, it falters, because it's not following a vision of what play should be like.

So, basically, I think that if you solve this problem, then nobody who plays will "go pulp" or any of the other problems. Your vision is being overrun by the very strong genres that we're all familiar with, becuse it's not establishing itself in terms of genre expectations outside of color.

If this works, and in a sense when it does, what happens is that those identities start to blur in a somewhat disconcerting way.  I don't mean you get emotionally involved or something.  I mean that you start looking in the mirror in a somewhat odd way.  I really cannot explain this, but it has happened, and when it does it's unique in my RPG experience.  I'm sure it's not actually unique, but it's one of the shticks of this game to push in that direction.  If you read the Assumption alternate rules, you will see some of the implications of this going too far.

I get what you're saying, but I'm just not sure that it works. In your playtest, did you play the game, or GM? How do you know this effect occurs? And even if it does, will independent readings of the text produce the same result? That is, if it happens to you, that says nothing about the efficacy of the text. I'm having a hard time seeing how mixing referents in the chargen is going to cause this effect to occur down the road in actual play.

Whereas I can see it causing problems in understanding during chargen. But maybe I overstate my case. I dunno.


The whole Mask/Abbyss/Passing clarifiction makes sense. In fact, I could have intuited most of it. The problem is that the sections on this are confusing - the information is all there, but some of the referents make it seem as though you're crossing your terms.

That's what I need to know: what are the hooks by which I will get to work dragging myself into the mud?

We're going in circles here. I agree it's important to indicate what's potentially important to the character. I just think that determining precisely how important can be left to play. WIth the example of wealth, I could say, "Wealth is potentially important" or "Wealth is something that I'd kill for." The former allows wealth to be a draw, but for me to discover just how much in play. The latter fixes that answer. Either way it makes for a fun issue in play - its just more suspenseful if I don't know precisely how far I'd go. In any case who really knows before the moment of truth how far they'll go. If you ask me right now what's important to Mike Holmes, I can list a bunch of stuff. But until you put me in a situation to test that, we really can't know.

You can say that these situations have already happened for the character. But then what's left to discover about the character?

No, the idea is to ask how important X is in order to ask whether it's possible, over time, that X might become something of really large importance, and how and why.  Do you see the distinction?

I see a contradiction. If I know how important something is, then we know how a character will react to it. I mean, what "rating" can a player give other than what he'd exchange for the thing in question?

If you're saying that you want some general realm of importance which is refined through play - maybe I can see that. But the text in question doesn't indicate that. It seems to ask, to me, to decide before we play what the character's behavior will be before it's tested in play.

Yes.  For people who don't want to learn Wiki, what DO you suggest?  That was the question.  Sorry, but you're throwing this question back at me and I still don't have an answer.

Well, what I was implying earlier. A character sheet of some sort for each player, which may end up looking more like a diary or something.

For the GM, notecards. Good old 3x5s, perhaps even tabed. NPC name at the top, and details on the card, grouped by associatons. It's not great, but I've never seen any better idea.

This is what I love about this game: the basic social dynamic of "God, that's cool, I wish I'd thought of that" makes it imperative to be cool, and the way to be cool in this game is to recycle background material, and that generates yet more material to recycle, and all told that makes for VERY powerful spells.  And all of that creates a huge incentive to keep track of everything, as tightly as possible, because that's where skill -- and thus power -- really lies.  Trust me, it's neat.

What if you're a geek like me, and the stuff you make isn't cool to anyone but you? Not a game for me?

And let me tell you, every single player was totally into that and wanted to be a part of it.  That's exactly what drives this game.

I get that reaching back for details is cool. So if you don't have a problem with the record keeping neccessary, then that's great. I was just responding to something you seemed to indicate was a problem.

Mike

[clehrich]

Piers,

I have to think about that.  I did have an idea like that a while back, and I need to think about why I discarded it -- whether it was a good reason or a stupid one, or one that's no longer relevant either way.

----

[On independent playtesting] I thought you mentioned at least one other play of the game, the one with the Wiki? Jere's game? Or is that for your game, too?

Jere's game is very similar, but sharply divergent on a number of points, from mechanics to character design to basic conception.  So while I'm learning a great deal, I don't think I can really count it as an independent playtest.  It'd be sort of be like playing Marvel Superheroes and calling it a playtest of Champions.  Interesting, valuable, but rather different.  It's not actually quite that different, of course, but enough so that I don't think I can count the data directly.

Have you offered any trades with anyone?

Not as yet.  I will as soon as I can actually make such an offer in good faith!

[On elaborate examples] Another way to do this would be to share what you do for prep. If this, too, is lengthy, then perhaps what you need is to display one whole campaign throughout the book. It may be that it might just take that much effort to get the idea across. In any case, if you break it up, then the parts can be chosen to specifically illuminate the ideas that they're presented in context with, while relying on each other for the neccessary overall context.

This is interesting.  Sort of like those running stories in oh so many games these days, but without the cheez-whiz factor, presented straight-up without fluff or spin.  I like it.  Thanks!

[Getting the game running] Well, actually it doesn't seem really difficult, just like it's missing a couple of critical things. ... Again, for me it would be simply how to have the characters come together, and what sort of action happens from there. ... In fact, you could present a couple of these sorts of things, if you were afraid of setting play in a bad rut. With more than one, players would be able to extrapolate others, potentially.

Of course I do describe the whole creation session thing, at a party and so on, but I recognize that this isn't necessarily the "getting it started" adventure hook thing.  Yes -- I do need to think about that a bit, and then maybe a little stuff about "keeping things moving."  Nothing hard or particularly new, but it would give a clearer vision of how Shadows in the Fog actually runs and what it's about.

I think if you can come up with a good way to give the idea of the Soap Opera method, that it would be both new and pretty cool.

This is something I really, really need to see in playtest.  I am 100% convinced that it can and should work, and that it should work especially well for this game, but until I see it in action at least vaguely I can't imagine what it does to the rest of the system.  This is something I'm going to try to get together as a one-shot sometime soon; expect commentary.

But, again, what did you do in your actual play? You had to have done something. If you can show the practical example, then maybe we can determine the principles working behind it. Might be a completely unique method that you've discovered.

Ha.  Mike, there's something you're missing here, which I know is sort of strange on this forum and so you're justified in not getting it.  I have run this game several times.  Each time, I have used radically different rules.  The game as currently written has never been run.  Never.  So, what did I do?  Stuff that I wouldn't do again, or stuff that couldn't happen again, or stuff that could and I would, but which would be sort of hard to re-tool into a radically new set of rules.  I mean, it's been tested in enough ways and by enough indirect means that I know it basically works fine, but I'm starting to reach the point where I just simply have to see what others do with it or I can't continue.  Does that make sense?  You may be thinking, "Chris, you need to run it about 50 zillion times first, then retool," and I think there's justice in this, but I don't think that's absolutely necessary -- nor is it in fact possible at the moment.  So, of course, I make the material freely available and say, "Please, someone, go out and run this sucker and tell me what happens."

... and create that kind of weird tunnel-vision that everyone who's ever been in a multi-year campaign (one that went well, I mean) recognizes.

Kinda lost me there. To what do you refer? I've played in lots of successful multi-year campaigns - weird tunnel-vision?

Oh, didn't you get that thing where everyone in the campaign knows all the same in-jokes and kind of starts to talk their own language?  Sort of what Seinfeld was about?  

My experience is that if you've been in a long-running and intense campaign, with a stable and small play group, you reach a point at which a visitor simply cannot make heads or tails of what everyone's talking about, nor why they're having fun.  And they, in turn, are incapable of explaining it, because every time they try to tell a story they keep pausing and saying, "Well, see, um, because before that, there was this other thing, and...."  

Shadows in the Fog is about that weirdness, about generating that kind of behavior and thinking very rapidly.  That same behavior and thinking, if you think about it, is the same thing that makes a lot of conspiracy theory work.  Remember the guy in "Slackers" who does the Kennedy assassination?  Like that guy.  Shadows in the Fog is about trying to produce a whole group of people like that guy who get into these horribly weird rants that are a bizarre combination of stuff they make up on the fly, stuff they made up in the past, references to history and geography, and an attempt to "trump" the whole scenario by doing this better.  Does that start to make sense?

C'mon, I know about half of the Forge crew know what I'm talking about, even if they're too chicken to admit it.  :>

The point is that sans a clear idea of what the game should be like, players wander some from the guidelines that you do have. And then, yeah, it falters, because it's not following a vision of what play should be like.

Yeah, I do think I'm starting to get what you're talking about here.  I'll work on it.  Finally, I do see....

We're going in circles here. I agree it's important to indicate what's potentially important to the character. I just think that determining precisely how important can be left to play. WIth the example of wealth, I could say, "Wealth is potentially important" or "Wealth is something that I'd kill for." The former allows wealth to be a draw, but for me to discover just how much in play. The latter fixes that answer.

I don't agree with you, because I think it's one thing for me to say, "I'd kill for X," and quite another thing to find myself in a position where I actually have to make that choice.  On the other hand, I take your point; it does seem possible that for some readers, this would limit the character in a way that they would not actually limit themselves; that is, if the player says "My character would kill for X," he may actually assume that if put in that position, he is expected to kill for X or have a damn good excuse.

Both make sense to me.  Anyone else out there have a sense of which reading you took away?  That is, did you (like me) assume it was a statement of intent, or (like Mike) a more RPG-traditional contract or mechanic?

Well, what I was implying earlier. A character sheet of some sort for each player, which may end up looking more like a diary or something.  For the GM, notecards.

Agreed about the notecards.  How do others feel about diaries?  I've seen them in Castle Falkenstein, for example, but CF is a double-barreled version of what I mean by fluff Victoriana.  I like it, I enjoy the game, but I don't want to be saying "You should compose a diary because it will help you get in character, especially if you write with an old-fashioned dip pen!  Gosh!  Why not construct a sepia photograph of your character wearing a uniform or a puffy hoop skirt?  Gee!"  Basically what I liked about CF was that Ken Hite ran it and it got weird and violent.  The background was okay.  The style and the shtick made me want to vomit, and are precisely the reverse of what I have in mind for Shadows in the Fog.  All of which is to say, I'm a little leery of diaries because of the schlock Victoriana factor.  

But what do other folks think?

What if you're a geek like me, and the stuff you make isn't cool to anyone but you? Not a game for me?

Mike, you'd love this.  I didn't know you were one of those people.  See, the trick is that the longer you play, the more it is simply impossible not to find each others' play cool.  The reason being that everyone gets on the same wavelength as characters, and this puts them strategically on the same wavelength as players.  I know this is ass-backwards, but that's the whole point.  If you get this puppy seriously rolling, what you get is a snowball effect of conspiracy-theory maniacs run amok.

Which takes me around in a circle to the playtest issue.  What I have been doing with this game for, oh, let's see, getting on for 10 years now, is trying to figure out how to get the snowball to start building early.  And every progressive refinement of the rules does seem to be producing that effect.  I think I am at last closing in on a rules-set that will start the psychotic death-spiral of occult conspiracy insanity right from the get-go, and an awful lot of what's left is presentation (yes, I do know that's not really separable from rules) and mechanics polish (including things like precise balancing of card rewards and the like).

Mike, I can't thank you enough.  Any further comments much appreciated as well!

[Jere]

Jere's game is very similar, but sharply divergent on a number of points, from mechanics to character design to basic conception.  So while I'm learning a great deal, I don't think I can really count it as an independent playtest.  It'd be sort of be like playing Marvel Superheroes and calling it a playtest of Champions.  Interesting, valuable, but rather different.  It's not actually quite that different, of course, but enough so that I don't think I can count the data directly.

Yeah, and I didn't go into this with the idea of playtesting Chris's rules. If I had I would have done things rather differently. We've certainly emphasized and de-emphasized, twisted and turned things to meet our needs and my style as a gm right now, which is rather laissez-faire.

Jere

[Mike Holmes]

Hmmm. Well, now I have a really strong urge to playtest the game. Actually I think this is somewhat problematic, as I'm probably too close to the game right now for an impartial playtest (my bias will probably show on the outcome), but I think it really does need a playtest. I'm also starting to get an idea from all of the examples of what play might look like (still fuzzy, but better than before). So that's part of why I want to try it out.

And the game just deserves a playtest.

Not sure when we can fit it in, but I'll see if I can generate some interest. Another problem with it is that, if I understand it correctly, we'd have to give it a rather lengthy test of at least several sessions for it to work out. So I can't promise anything. But it can't hurt to ask.

Josh? Are you interested at all? Josh is a very literary guy, so this might be right up his alley. That said, he does gravitate towards pulp.

Matt? How about you?


I want to say something about the "tunnel-vision" effect. I wasn't going to say anything at first, but...I don't think this is something to shoot for. Possibly. That is, there might be functional and dysfunctional versions of this, but the only versions that I've seen of it are dysfunctional. In the experiences I had where this happened, the reminisinces were overblown accounts of events that were really rather blah when they occured originally. That is, this was nostalgia generated as a response to the fact that people weren't really having a good time playing. Instead they'd remember some play as though it had been really great as a way of justifying their current participation. Like, "Gee, remember when Ragnar cut that guy's head off? Wasn't that cool? Man, I love playing this game." Instead of having been really interested when it happened, or being generally interested in the game, or, most importantly, being engaged in the current action of the game.

Now, like I've said, this is all based on my having never experienced the phenomenon in a positive fashion. And also on the fact that I detest (no, detest isn't strong enough, hate) nostalgia. I want what I'm doing right this moment to be what's engaging, not wan reminiscences of something that I did previously that I'm looking at with rose colored glasses to feel good about it.

Now, supposing there are players that are not like me, and who really like this stuff, and that the action in question is really actually interesting when it happens, and that the "conspiracy theory" effect is just a vibrant reinforcement of the current situation...then I think you have something there. This all could just be my own misapprehension.

BTW, the games I played in had tons of this effect, before I hit the Forge. Here I realized that one could really have the sort of fun that one wanted at the moment of play, and it didn't require romanticizing past play to exlain why the current play existed. That's right, I was playing solely under the notion that "someday" the right sort of play would happen if I just played long enough. About 25 years of play I wasted this way.

In the "big five" social threads, or something like them, Ron identified this phenomenon ("backloading story?"), and I've been extremely wary of it since. As soon as players start reminiscing in play, it's a sign to me that what's happening now isn't currently engaging enough. So you'll have to understand if I'm a little wary of the idea.

Mike

[clehrich]

Mike,

Boy do I hope you'll playtest.  Who cares about impartial?

As to tunnel-vision:

Believe me, I'm as jittery about the "backloading story" thing as you are.  But I have seen this as a functional thing.  What you have is immense background story, a whole bunch of connections and details that seem amazingly important right at the time... but which are very hard to explain to someone outside the circle.

The thing is, in a lot of ways it doesn't post facto look a lot like story, and when you try to relate what happened you try to turn it into a story, and there's a mismatch.  I'm extremely focused on this "post facto" issue myself, both theoretically and practically, and the effect I'm trying to produce ain't that one -- I hate that.  Sort of like ouija board play in the memory, you know?

Anyway, I look forward to whatever happens.

[Mike Holmes]

Yeah, I get what you're saying. And I hope it works out right. Sounds good in electrons at least... :-)

If I can't get a FTF game going, would a PBEM game be a reasonable substitute (wincing)? I think that there would be problems in counting on the outcome, but it might be informative to some extent. And for some reason I see this being particularly good for the PBEM format.

That said, perhaps I'm "pulpizing" here, as I'm already envisioning someting like De Profundis, where the interaction is nothing but physically separated characters confering by post. Hmmm.

Mike

[clehrich]

If I can't get a FTF game going, would a PBEM game be a reasonable substitute (wincing)? I think that there would be problems in counting on the outcome, but it might be informative to some extent. And for some reason I see this being particularly good for the PBEM format.

Listen, it's all good, Mike.  And it actually looks like a couple groups out there, including my own at last, are going to take this puppy out for a drive, so every version of a playtest is spectacular.

That said, perhaps I'm "pulpizing" here, as I'm already envisioning someting like De Profundis, where the interaction is nothing but physically separated characters confering by post. Hmmm.

You mean, it all happens in letters written among characters?  That's fine with me.  The only objection I could imagine is if everyone tries to write in this hyper-flowery pseudo-Victorian voice.  "At that moment, the gentleman betook himself...."  That crap.  Write straight.  About the only real difference in prose style that's likely to matter is that Victorian educated people had much better command of the language than most modern Americans, so they tended to use larger vocabularies and more complex sentences, and they rarely made serious grammatical errors.  Apart from that, this sounds dandy.  Just don't be thinking puffy sleeves, if you know what I mean.  See, the thing is that it doesn't matter in SitF whether the PCs actually speak much in person.  Sort of like MLwM a lot of the time.  This is where the soap opera structure would come in, if I can ever get that clear in my head (and on paper).

In the "big five" social threads, or something like them, Ron identified this phenomenon ("backloading story?"), and I've been extremely wary of it since. As soon as players start reminiscing in play, it's a sign to me that what's happening now isn't currently engaging enough. So you'll have to understand if I'm a little wary of the idea.

I can't find this.  I tried a search, but it didn't help.  Can anyone point me to the thread?

[Mike Holmes]

And it actually looks like a couple groups out there, including my own at last, are going to take this puppy out for a drive, so every version of a playtest is spectacular.

Cool. Hope we did some good here in getting people interested. :-)

The only objection I could imagine is if everyone tries to write in this hyper-flowery pseudo-Victorian voice.  "At that moment, the gentleman betook himself...."  That crap.  Write straight.

Heh, gotcha.

About the only real difference in prose style that's likely to matter is that Victorian educated people had much better command of the language than most modern Americans, so they tended to use larger vocabularies and more complex sentences, and they rarely made serious grammatical errors.

I thought that this was a myth. That, generally literacy has remained about the same over time. That is, there was then in England, and is now in both America and England, about the same range of illiteracy to people able to write well, in about the same proportions. (Whereas the American's of the Victorian age were actually more illiterate, depending on how you count). In any case, we're talking about the middle class, so I'm sure they're generally literate. Hmm.

Just don't be thinking puffy sleeves, if you know what I mean.

I think so. :-)

See, the thing is that it doesn't matter in SitF whether the PCs actually speak much in person.  Sort of like MLwM a lot of the time.  This is where the soap opera structure would come in, if I can ever get that clear in my head (and on paper).

Cool. Might not do to have the letter-writing structure, then - and now that I think of it, I see what you're saying - there would have to be an "OOC" venue, simply to discuss all the card play and whatnot.

Hmmm. Are there any "tarot servers" out there? I may have to push for FTF... :-)

In the "big five" social threads, or something like them, Ron identified this phenomenon ("backloading story?"), and I've been extremely wary of it since. As soon as players start reminiscing in play, it's a sign to me that what's happening now isn't currently engaging enough. So you'll have to understand if I'm a little wary of the idea.

I can't find this.  I tried a search, but it didn't help.  Can anyone point me to the thread?

I always mess up the title. It's the Infamous five - http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9782

Don't ask me where this is in there, however (acutally a huge series of threads). In fact, I may be misremebering that it's in there. Might be somewhere else entirely - one of the essays? Might be in defining "story" or something. Can somebody help? Again, we're trying to locate Ron's comments on the subject of reminiscing about previous play, and how it can be used by some groups to justify play itself.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

I mentioned this topic most recently in the Ouija Boarding section in the Narrativism essay. If I can find some earlier references (because I'm pretty sure I mentioned the behavior more generally a long time ago), I'll let you know.

Best,
Ron

[clehrich]

And it actually looks like a couple groups out there, including my own at last, are going to take this puppy out for a drive, so every version of a playtest is spectacular.

Cool. Hope we did some good here in getting people interested. :-)

Yes, indeed!

About the only real difference in prose style that's likely to matter is that Victorian educated people had much better command of the language than most modern Americans, so they tended to use larger vocabularies and more complex sentences, and they rarely made serious grammatical errors.

I thought that this was a myth. That, generally literacy has remained about the same over time. That is, there was then in England, and is now in both America and England, about the same range of illiteracy to people able to write well, in about the same proportions. (Whereas the American's of the Victorian age were actually more illiterate, depending on how you count). In any case, we're talking about the middle class, so I'm sure they're generally literate. Hmm.

Well, it's a question of averages.  With the upper middle class, they're way more educated and more literate than the average American.  But the average Briton would have been less literate, or about the same, because so many people were completely illiterate, signing their names with an X and so on.  I'd say that the scale has just flattened out, in a sense.  The PCs in Shadows in the Fog are overall very well read and have read a lot, even of junk, and they write letters all the time.  So they're much more practiced at literacy than people who live by their cell phones and "c u l8r" stuff.

[Piers]

On the topic of letters, have any of you read Steven Brust and Emma Bull's _Freedom and Necessity_?  It's a two-hander epistolary novel--one of the those that was essentially constructed by the authors writing in-character letters to each other, sort of making it up as the go along.  As a result, it is slightly of uneven--the characters written by Steven Brust are very good indeed and those by Emma Bull, merely okay to good.  The difficulties with this actually show up in terms of plot--you can sort of see them drifting apart, veering towards pulp, and then pulling themselves back-together.  It's reminiscent of a role-playing campaign.  

In any case, the story revolves simultaneously around the Chartists and an occult conspiracy, and actually fits well with Shadows.  At its best it has the pull of Dumas in _Count of Monte Cristo_, and it does provide a reasonable template for an epistolary campaign--slightly puffy-sleved at times, but all in all, well worth looking at.

[Mike Holmes]

I nominate "Puffy-sleeved" to go into the lexicon immediately.

LOL

Ever see the movie "From the Hip"? Judd Nelson argues before the court for the admitting of the word "Asshole" into the record on the argument that no other word has the same connotation.

Same thing with "Puffy-sleeved." No other term is going to capture the meaning of "Overblown victoriana, specifically that which tends to be too flowery, filled with purple prose, and too emulative of the pulp genre."

:-)

But we're getting off topic now. Perhaps a new thread (with links to the ones on De Profundis) if people want to discuss this method of play.


Back to the subject of the thread - can anyone verify or provide a differing account of the reading of the text being problematic in terms of play vision? Or any other comments about the game itself?

Mike

[clehrich]

Here's an example of the sort of thing I'm thinking about as a kind of running account.

WARNING: If you are planning to play in this game with me early early next year, DO NOT read this!









Please!






So I've decided to get cracking and finally run a new Shadows in the Fog campaign.  The first thing to do, is to provide some sort of setup that will suck the characters into the Ripper murders but will give them occult hooks to play with.  I don't want much to be predetermined; if I do that, they'll try to follow my lead and figure out "my plot," instead of inventing the madness themselves.  The hope is to trick them into doing all the work and getting deeply involved in what they're inventing.

First will be the Group Creation session, in terms of actual play, but I need to lay a little groundwork.  I'd like at least one person in the group to have a formal connection of some kind with Scotland Yard.  He'll be the official liaison, through whom they can get access to police reports.  But these investigations are going to be secret, kind of like "X-Files," so I can't make this completely above-board.

Character notions are streaming in.  One player has responded to the Scotland Yard invitation by producing a somewhat maverick CID (Criminal Investigation Department) Inspector.  Cool.  He's maverick apparently because he's kind of a brutal thug, which sounds fine.

Okay, so this tells me where I'm going to start things off.  Basically the Group Creation thing should probably be a party, as usual, so we can get to know each other.  We need a situation in which they can all meet and maybe start to get the sense of how they are in a way intertwined.  I'll set that around March, 1888.  Then, about six months later, Inspector Grimmond will hit them up to help him on these secret investigations.  We can do that at the tail-end of the group session, if that one player is feeling up to it (memo: must warn him about this so he's thinking), or by email, or at the start of the next session.  I'd like to avoid that last, because it'll waste time getting started.

So the first non-creation session will happen in a special meeting room at the Diogenes Club.  Mycroft Holmes meets them and sends them up, but doesn't go himself.  (Why not?  Who is he?  What's the Diogenes Club?)  Grimmond will have warned them of the club rules—no talking except in the Strangers' Room—and if someone jibes we can have a little punishment or something.  But let's hope not!

Anyway, upstairs they meet James Munro, former head of CID, ex-commissioner of police in India, one of the guys who put down the Thugs, and so on.  He's going to get chosen to head Scotland Yard one of these days, when Warren is forced out, but I'm not going to mention that unless someone happens to know it.

(Memo: Munro can't be trumped away from me this time out.  If someone tries, trump back.  But someone else can run the scene if he wants to.)

So basically Munro's thing is he wants the group to work together to deal with some oddities of the Whitechapel Murders (at this point, nobody's calling them the Ripper murders).  I guess this is just before the Double Event; that'll give a little excitement when it happens and boost the brutality level.  Mmm, tasty ears.

Now I'm going to need some basic hooks for them to run with, but I can't have a whole lot of detail.  Let's see, what've we got?  It's got to be (1) strongly connected to the Whitechapel murders, (2) involving potential big baddies, (3) hinting at but not obviously occult, and (4) playing off some character hooks and the like, as in it's possible someone in the group knows people involved or something.

For the moment, I think I'm going to go with the Milverton idea I have.  Charles Augustus Milverton, the society blackmailer who lives at Appledore Towers, Hampstead, along the Heath, is at this point going strong.  He is also, oddly enough, a philanthropist, and has given generously to train mentally-retarded (memo: what did they call this then, "imbecile"?  "mentally unfit"?) paupers as servants, and then to have them placed in good homes to work as menials.  There isn't any question that these people are genuinely happier, getting some social contact outside of East End horror and doing meaningful work.  But the trick is that Milverton uses magic to "ride" their minds, borrowing their eyes and ears to listen in on what happens in these houses.  Since these servants are menials and retarded, they are sort of beneath the radar; people will talk and do things in front of them because they know there's no possible harm in it.  And this is part of where Milverton gets his information.  He also gets to see people hiding letters in secret drawers and stuff, because nobody really notices the retarded "boots" picking up the shoes, and if they do they'll quickly hide their letters – but that can be seen.  And as soon as people notice that the servant doesn't even seem to register what's happening, they will get complacent.  Then Milverton can hire cracksmen to steal what he needs.

Which creates a whole bunch of NPCs, of course.  Or rather, it makes the players invent them, on the fly.  Oh–and it gets us some nice society folks to talk to about all these retarded servants.  Perfect!

The hook would be something about the workhouse where these people are being recruited from, probably around St. George's-In-The-East, an easy walk from Dorset St. and Flower & Dean (where the Ripper attacks have happened, roughly, and where the victims' doss-houses were), along the Ratcliffe Highway, and bringing in a nice Hawksmoor church.  I could also put it in the shadow of Christchurch Spitalfields (another Hawksmoor creation), depending on how things go, but I think a little breadth is probably in order.  Now I just need to connect the workhouse with the Ripper, and explain why Munro is suspicious, and I'm ready to roll.  Once that's going, it's all gravy.

If this flies, there's a nice tragic twist to it all.  The thing is that what Milverton is doing is certainly as vile as it gets, but it's actually a good thing for those servants.  And if Milverton weren't riding their minds, it'd be wonderful all around, positively saintly!  But if the PCs put a stop to it, what's going to happen to all those retarded paupers?  A little blackmail may be a horrible thing, but isn't it pretty horrible to put mentally retarded folks into destitution just because a few fancy people are inconvenienced monetarily?

I've also hooked in the Ripper and Nicholas Hawksmoor, which is nice because it allows me to steal from Ian Sinclair's Lud Heat and Peter Ackroyd's Hawksmoor.  Ah, Sinclair's Eye of Horus theory of the Ripper murders....