Cults and Gaming -- suggestions?

[clehrich]

You're familiar with De Profundis, right?

Only by name.  Should I be?

[John Kirk]

I'm not sure what you mean by "rank 3." What does this mean?

I was merely stating that the knowledge had a hierarchical ranking scheme and that "rank 3" knowledge would be of the 3rd level.  You know, like rank-1 is lowest, rank-2 would be next lowest, and so on.  The example used the 3rd tier of secret knowledge produced by a particular gaming group, whatever that was.  There would be around a half dozen rankings as specified in the game rules.  That's all.

I was thinking that having various tiers of knowledge would give each group a number of "bargaining chips" of various values to use in negotiating with other groups to obtain their knowledge.  So, you gotta produce some to get some.  It seems to me that if you just set up a discussion board and have everyone post eveything they "know" to it, then you won't build a cultish atmosphere.  You might generate new conspiracy theories, though, if that's all you're after.

I very much don't want to construct a system of certain knowledge that is secret and only available to the cool kids

Oh well, that pretty much makes the secret cult knowledge idea moot then.  I was under the impression that you wanted each group to generate its own knowledge that wasn't known to other groups.

[Mike Holmes]

I'd think the best way to do this would be a special board or forum on the web somewhere for SitF games, where people can share information, play events, etc.  I'm no web guy -- I don't have the remotest idea how to set up a board or whatever -- but I can look into it.

I'm already looking into somthing as well. For the short term before you get this up and running long term.

But it strikes me that Jere already has such a site, no????

I'm not sure how much veto stuff would really be necessary.  The only thing I think would require this is material that is definitely fiction.

Well, yes, this is precisely my point. If, in one game, the queen is dead, having been replaced by a simulacrum undead creature, this just might not jibe with another game in which the queen is a secret occultist herself who's been helping out the PCs. It's precisely this sort of fiction and the acts of fictional characters that are likely to come into conflict.

Anything historical, for which there is some kind of reasonable evidence, is automatically non-veto-able, barring a discussion within the whole group and an overwhelming majority decision to block it.  That, of course, would ipso facto make the use of credible historical evidence more powerful, because it can't be stopped or blocked by fiat.

Yes, of course. But even this is problematic for a game. Let's say we play, and establish that a certain character lives at a certain address, because we think that it's safe to do so - we're not aware of any record of any real person that lived there. But then somebody uncovers a record of who actually lived there at the time. Well, I can't introduce that into the game, can I? It contradicts established fact in the game.

OTOH, I'm thinking that some metaphysical mechanic to reconcile things like this might be interesting...

Anyhow, I sorta see what John's on about (he said affecting a false English mode of speech for no reason he can discern). Basically, if all the information is open to anyone, then you're not really limiting the information in such a way as to make it a valuable commodity. If you don't do that, you don't get the cultish insularity that's broght about by the possession of privileged knowledge. There have to be some rules for trading information. No, not the historical facts, the conspiracy theory parts. If in our game, we've established that Jack the Ripper is actually a manifestation of the will of some undergroung human sacrificing cult, then that's a secret we have, which other's should have to trade to have.

Given that you're trying to set up a functional version of the tunnel-vision concept, why not try to make a functional version of the metaplot idea? That is, the problem with the secret information from White Wolf was that it was released in chunks that the players could not control at all. In this version, the players are creating the metaplot, and so it's up to them to control any pacing of how it comes out. Everyone knows that it's not a marketing issue, and that if they play the metagame, they can trade up for all of the meta-information that might exist. It becomes a game in and of itself, to obtain the information that helps your group play.

And I daresay that there'll be some people who simply "broker" and never actually play. I'd object, except I think this is part of the game overall.

What John is saying is that if you can attach a mechanical value to the information, something that you can use in-game, then the thing traded has some actual mechanical value, weight, in terms of value in trade. This sorta already exists - when something is "marked" it's given a trump value. So, essentially, players can gain more trump marked items from other player's games. Since a player in one game has to give up a trump to mark something, it's an investment by the player. Gaining such things for your game is like having gotten a free trump card.

Given that you can mark a single thing multiple times, a given bit of info may have a lot of value in terms of the trumps it represents having been spent on it.

This has a problem, however, which is verification. That is, how do I know that the person trading a marked item with a trump value to me for another has actually played the cards in a game, and hasn't just said that they have? Why not just make it up and trade?

Well, first, so what? If people take the time to make something up, and assign a trump value, and post it, then perhaps that's all the real value that one needs. Second, again this is the sort of thing that GMs will want to monitor. Basically, they can be as careful or as crazy as they want with accepting trumps from other games.

What I think will happen is that certain people will become more "in", in that they'll be known by others as being people really involved in play. As such, only information from these people will get accepted by other GMs. What will make somebody trusted probably relates to how well they document their actual play and such. The point being that a game will be as "tight" this way as the GM wants to be stingy with accepting this sort of information into the game.

If somebody can defraud everyone, and create a simulation of play that fools everyone, then I think that they should get to be "in." Because they must be providing as good a quality information as anyone else. In any case, speculation as to who really plays, and who merely posts as though they do merely makes the whole thing more conspiritorial.


Now, you've also put out another way to ensure that only "legitimate" information is made available - by limiting what information is available on the "official" website. This has big advantages in that the information will be given more legitimacy by yourself. There are big downsides, however. First, you really can't do any better at verifying who's actually played than anyone else can (though if someone can think of a verification scheme, say so fast!). Second, there's no more horsetrading here, the only thing that makes anyone's information special is the extent to which you accept it. And this, second, makes you the abosolute center of the cult.

Are you ready for that? Because it could become huge, and quite quickly, too. And for the personal pressure of being a cult leader (with all of the bad politics that implies)?

The other vision of how to do this decentralizes the information - which is also a good thing for the conspiracy theory angle. Each play group becomes a cell. With the centralized version, the "truth" isn't "out there" it's a verifiable thing easily obtained. Just go to the public web page. As opposed to the secret web page that the player put up just for you (which URL you can now secretly pass on to other traders, etc).


I mentioned De Profundis in the thread on the game itself as one way that I might playtest the game. It's the game where all play is correspondance back and forth. And play of it on the internet does tend to become what we're describing here, in the decentralized format. Basically the best writers writings become canon, and people try to get in on it, by sending letters to the characters who are already "in." If the player responds, they're accepting the reality you're adding, and you're now "in."

Mike

[Mark Woodhouse]

De Profundis was what immediately leaped out at me, too. There's another, more centralized, set of precedents as well. West End Games did some aggregation of play reports to influence metaplot development for their TORG  line; RPGA does something similar for their Living X gameworlds. These examples are probably more centralized and the scope of contributions too narrow to generate the effect you're looking for, though.

I wonder if the way to do something like this would be with a "trusted user" blog-like community using something like Scoop. You'd definitely need some way for users to acquire "credibility" and to rate the quality and consistency of each others' contributions.

The internet is changing gaming forever, isn't it?

[Mike Holmes]

Good points, Mark (and welcome to the Forge).

I, myself forgot to mention earlier that I thought that this would have some similarities to the "Living" series of RPGA games. Again, as you point out, Mark, the question is whether or not you want to get more decentralized with it.

The whole Credibility/Rating concept sounds great to me with respect to this. Allow the community as a whole to determine who's ideas count and whose do not. This creates the cult effect sought, I think.

And, well, for me the internet has drastically changed my gaming. So I can only agree. And it's been all good, too, IMO (but, then, I'm a technology freak).

Mike

[M. J. Young]

There is a concern expressed about whether the entire creation will be consistent; I'm not certain it's entirely warranted. Mike's point (if I'm attributing it right) that someone might have lived at an address that was chosen for a fictional person caught me. I'm like, so what? Conspiracy theories almost always fly in the face of a fact here or there, and often contain internal inconsistencies. There are a lot of ways these are handled.

[*]Well, they said that Churchill lived there, but that's what they wanted you to think.[*]But of course, Churchill was Moriarty; he couldn't use his real name to buy property.[*]Yes, of course, Churchill was a simulcrum; but he was also a cultist.[*]Yes, the cultist Churchill was replaced by a simulcrum, but that was later.[*]Well, no, we're not sure whether Churchill was a cultist or a simulcrum, but with the amount of cult interest around that property, he must have been one of those.[/list:u]Remember, if you don't see the conspiracy, you're either duped by it or part of it. Facts are subject to doubt, because someone may have manipulated them.

--M. J. Young

[Mike Holmes]

I agree, MJ, that this is a fine way to get the info into your game. There are probably other angles as well. All I'm saying is that it needs either GM monitoring, or a mechanic to ensure that it's all handled somehow. The game's magic system and feel are, yes, all conducive to this.

Or you can just play Dada SitF, and have contradictions just be a normal part of play. :-)

My point is not that contradictions are something that needs to be eliminated from the meme pool, just that there has to be a process for dealing with them when they occur. Hence I think the decenralized version can work and work fine.

Mike

[clehrich]

Mike, I think you're sort of missing MJ's point, which to my mind is on the money.

Okay, so you decided that, what the hell, David Rhys Jones lives at 421 Kensington, WC.

Now somebody suddenly announces that there actually was a David Rhys Jones, and he lived on Queensway.  Or that there is no 421 Kensington because the numbers only go up to 200.

The correct answer is not, "Okay, this is now the official answer."  That's disinformation.  You can't trust the Man, you know.

The correct answer from the Man (as it were) is, "Aha.  Noticed that, did you?  Fine, but do you know what it means?"  The correct answer by a player is, "Aha!  It's all so clear to me now!"

Contradictions are where you start.  They're how you know there's something wrong, that there's a crack in the surface, something They haven't been able to cover up.  They have made a mistake, and you are the only one to notice it.  That's a Clue (or clew, if you like) to The Big Thing.  This is a serious methodological principle for these folks -- and for Robert Darnton, a serious historian as well, but he'd have a fit (of laughter or anger I don't know) if he knew I was claiming this connection.

You people really need to read some maniac conspiracy theory.  Slow, man, very slow.  Haven't you all read a lot of Ken Hite?  We used to do this of an evening, you know.  At one point he had this vast file called "The Secret History of the World and Places Therein," which began with the Fall of Atlantis and continued on, a couple thousand years later, with the Creation of the World.  It was all downhill from there.

You gotta read stuff like this if you're going to do this seriously with a wiki and everything, or the serious nut-jobs are gonna laugh you out of town.  Forget X-Files, man.  You know my problem with X-Files?  Too damn obvious.  All those plots and aliens and stuff?  Kiddie games.  You know my problem with Foucault's Pendulum?  Too many historical errors.  You know what?  I'm not alone.  Not even close.

Jeez oh man.  A few little petty contradictions like house numbers?  Look.  If the guy lived at 421 but there is no 421, because the numbers go only to 200, you first need to know the question.

- Did he just say 421 in order to drop some kind of hint?  Is the number a code?
- Did he actually live in the area, but 421 is a kind of hint of where he really lived?

So now I need to know whether it matters that half of 4 is 2 and half of 2 is one, so I have 4 + 4/2 + (4/2)/2.  Which incidentally is 7, if you're counting serially, and do you know how many planets there are in the real system of the planets, as used by the great magicians?  Do you know how many colors there are?  Right... 7.  Coincidence?

Probably, because that was much too easy.  See, it could actually be 42, because you figure you can always add 1 for the Unity, right?

I've really got to write a running log of how this stuff works....

[Mike Holmes]

No, I do get it.

Mike

[Callan S.]

Mike was in part suggesting system support I think. What comes to my mind is some sort of 'no contradictions, only more conspiracy!' rule. Some actual in game reward is given for translation contradictions into further conspiracy.

It would be interesting when those translations cause contradiction between groups, which creates further translations which cause futher contradictions and so on and so forth. It really becomes a nasty cycle and something I'd hate to suggest if it didn't seem to fit the design goal.

Anyway, I think you need to give a reward...to push that rock over the edge and start the avalanche. No reward and it may stifle the process with people just looking at contradictions and thinking 'that isn't fun!'

[wkoepf]

Hi!

I'm wondering if the "Baronien-Spiel" (barony Play) of FanPro's DSA (The Dark Eye) would qualify for this.

Basically the "Redax" (from "Redaktion", i.e. the editorial staff responsible for the game and its continuity) is delegating the administration of a geographical area (usually one barony, hence the name) of the fictional game world Aventurien to selected people or groups of people who are more or less free to do their own thing with "their" barony as long as this doesn't interfere with the world at large and the plans of the Redax for the overall meta-plot (the whole thing isn't one-directional, however, als described below).

Those "Baronie-Spieler" (barony players) are interconnected with one another so that they can coordinate their efforts to create plots that affect more than one barony and get more bargaining power when trying to get the Redax to go a paricular route.

A good example of this happening was a cooperation of the Thorwaler-faction (basically Vikings lite; avowed enemies of slavery with a combination of "might makes right" and a basic democratic government structure and coincidentally the only faction on the continent where men and women are 100% equal) with the Horasreich-faction (the technologically most advanced faction of the continent with a Musketeer feel and a lot of courtly intrigues that nomially rendered them ineffective at projecting their power (which often was ignored by both the players and the Redax when it didn't mesh with their plans for the meta-plot) that only recently seceded from the Middle Kingdom, the other Big Player[tm]).

The Thorwaler-faction wanted their Thorwalers to become more like the Vikings in real live: introducing a more gritty feeling, a few slavers here and there, and a more centralized power structure for the up to that point "almost childlike in their innocence, yet brutal, barbarians". And the conflict should introduce a few technological advancements to level the playing field for the future.
The Horasreich-Faction wanted to show off the superior military might of their Kingdom, needed a reason to not invade the Middle Kingdom (which was severly weakended after the return of an evil wizard king that left the Horasreich basically unscratched while fucking with everyone else to the point of almost taking over the continent) and the right to ask for favours in the future :-)

So the following plot plays out:

A Thorwaler captain and his crew make a looting expedition up the main river of the Horasreich, loot (and level) a few surprised hamlets and take a rather important religious figure prisoner (to show off among their peers and for the ransom).

The Horasreich launches a totally overkill punitive expedition against the whole Thorwaler-"Kingdom" (whose "King" can't return the priestess, as demanded in the Horasreich ultimatum, because the has no direct controll over the captain), level the capital to the ground with heavy artillery, sink every ship in the general vicinity that doesn't sail unter the Horas flag, level a few hamlets on some sparsely populated islands and claim those as new territory of the Horasreich and act altogether like the pissed off, power-drunken bastards they are :-)

The Thorwalers get their act (politically) together to avenge these shameful events, but just aren't up to snuff against the high-tech army of the Horasreich. Nevetheless, after a while the whole thing becomes a low-level conflict followed by a tedious armistice when the Horasreich realises that they can't project their power that far away (or at least lack the political will to do so) while the Thorwalers realize they won't raze the capital of the Horasreich anytime soon. Basically the Thorwalers lost but the Horasreich only leaves a token presence to make a point unwilling to face the costs of a all-out war.

Now, the Redax had their say with these events. As had regular players who were consulted at Conventios by both Redax members and barony players about their feelings and opinions regarding the ongoing developments. But the main force was the combined might of the barony players.

Originally all that was organized by writing letters to the Redax and among the barony players. In theory those communications should be in-character to "simulate the political going-ons among the barons" but out-of-character plannings of events (like the avove) happen, too.

Some barony players also published fanzines to communicate the developments to Joe Player (insofar as they weren't covered in the house-magazine of FanPro) and get a more immediate feedback than the Redax "in their ivory tower" could ever hope for. With the Internet the whole process sped up, of course :-)

There is also a big LARP in regular intervalls thats only open to barony players and the Redax (and hand-picked invited guests, one would guess) where the meetings of the "barons" are played out in-character. Part of the events are scripted, other not but all (most?) outcomes of these LARPs are binding for the official meta-plot.

Now, the barony players are only "first among equals" in the player community. They are the first to be attacked if their plans don't play well with the other players and they act as middle-(wo)men when dealing with the Redax if they get the feeling that the players overall want this and that. In a way they are unpayed "middle management" :-)

So, would this business model qualify?

Wolfgang.

[clehrich]

Wolfgang,

Welcome to the Forge!

It's an interesting model. I'm not sure I want to use it, but I will read over your post slowly and carefully and think about it.

Thanks!

[Mike Holmes]

Actually, Callan, I think that the reward is already there, really. What I was getting at is that the group merely needs some process for "inprocessing" data arriving such that the mechanical rewards that exist can be applied. This would include any interpretation on arrival.

So, for instance, if the group is using a great big notebook to record trumps played and the like, when a bit of information came in from another game, it would get discussed by the group, or handled by the GM, or whatever, and then entered into the record for official use in the game.

This could happen, say, at the beginning of each session of play, or players could have some time between scenes to do this, or they might be able to officially enter something at any time into the game.

The only question is when the information starts having game mechanical effects, and what the agreed to information is. Might simply be that the player who discovered the fact gets to enter it any way they like whenever. But I'd suggest against that for several reasons.

What's acceptable or how to deal with information in terms of things like contradictions, or poorly thought up information, or just stuff presented without evidence of it having come from an official source of some sort, would have to be local, or have some guidelines presented.

Mike

[wkoepf]

Welcome to the Forge!

Thank you. I'm lurking for quite a while now, but usually have nothing to add that wasn't already written by someone else and put into words more eloquently than I could ever manage :-)

It's an interesting model. I'm not sure I want to use it, but I will read over your post slowly and carefully and think about it.

It's probably hard to pull off for a small (or even middle-sized) company. FanPro's DSA is more or less the D&D of the German-speaking area and has a huge fan-base it can utilize. The barony play wasn't planned from the beginning to work this way, too: in the beginning it was rather intended as "only" a play-by-letter RPG for the hardcore players to give them something to strife for :-) It later developed a dynamic of its own which may have contributed to the perceived legitimacy of the wholte thing.

It might also play a role that the German (and Austrian and Swiss) market is more prone to accept "official" source material as "holy canon" while (as far as I can tell) an (for example) American audiance would probably resent such heavy-handed meta-gaming (even with player participation) being more rooted in the individualist can-do-alone spirit.

So if, for example, White Wolf would find players who "officially" played the Princes of the mayor cities with the intent to generate a more dynamic background I guess it could just as well lead to players jumping ship en mass because of a feeling of unfair favorism displayed by the company and whatnot rather than to more participation of the players in general to influence the (already much-dreaded) meta-plot.

Germany (even when adding Austria and parts of Switzerland) is also a lot smaller than Canda or the USA which helps a lot to keep everything closely-knit -- but the Internet could probably alleviate this problem.

One think I forgot to add is that the positon of barony player is not totally static but that players who drop out (loss of interest, real life limitations, etc.) are replaced and barony players themselfes can appoint successors (with approval of the Redax) and/or work together with other players bringing them into the team without dropping out first. Barony players who just can't manage would probably also be replaced (although I can't remember such a case ever happening).
So the barony players are not 100% top-down appointed for life and unaccountable to the player community, but have to balance the demands of the Redax and the players when planning ahead.

Nevertheless its a daunting task to organize something like this and there were some crises when player expectations and barony player actions clashed or when the barony players found themselfes between a hard place (the Redax demands) and a rock (pissed of regular players) when trying to mediate between the two factions (which sometimes weren't even their fault or even favoured by them). They sure learned someting for life from these experiences :-)

Wolfgang.[/i]

[clehrich]

Wolfgang,

What you describe sounds not unlike the "Living Greyhawk" thing that some D&D people do.  Is that accurate?  If so, you're right: you have to have a huge established fan-base and name recognition in place, and large-scale organization.  But it's an interesting point, even for something obviously very much on the opposite end (such as Shadows in the Fog), since it seems to spread and maintain itself almost entirely through word-of-mouth connections and such, which is not dissimilar.  Interesting....

I'm not at all convinced that Americans don't take to such things; "Living Greyhawk" is an obvious example, but there are others.  We just make noises about how individualistic we are -- and then sign up for anything that will make us just like our neighbors in the same suburb.

(sorry, just a little cranky since the election...)