More SLA Industries or Jesse Loses a Point of Humanity

[jburneko]

So, most of you know I have this funny ethic about using the system that comes with a given setting come hell or high water.  This stems from a resentment that developed in my early gaming life for people who would play one game using a different system.  That just seemed unethical to me back then and it just stuck with me ever since.  It was recently refueled by all the companies that were RETROACTIVELY converting their games to d20.  I'm all for fresh ground up d20 design such as AEG's Spycraft game but all the retroactive conversions make me sick.

Then two things happened.  First, I read Ron's GNS Theory stuff and realized that System matters even MORE (and in different ways) than I thought it did before.  If I didn't think it mattered then I wouldn't have developed my strange ethic in the first place.  The second things that happend is I bought SLA Industries.  As anyone will tell you, I really dislike detailed settings.  I find wading through them to be extremely boring.  But that wasn't the case with SLA Industries.  SLA Industries REALLY captured my attention and held me all the way through.  I now know why.  It's a Premise-in-the-Setting game.  Everything in that setting is all geared towards addressing issues of gross abuses of Commercialism and Mass Media.  

This is why SLA Industries is a tragedy of game design.  It is so clear from the setting that the designers knew EXACTLY what their game was about but there is absolutely ZERO in the system to back any of it up.  I mean White Wolf's games at least TRY to address what their games are about in the system.  There isn't even a hint of effort here.  Anyway, I've brought this up here on The Forge before and the point of all this is that last night I was looking over SLA Industries and I just couldn't take it any more.  I sold out.  I chucked out a point of Humanity and wandered over to my bookshelf of games, pulled out my copy of Story Engine, sat down and began to work out a conversion.

And, well, that was an overly long introduction to what this thread is really about which is my conversion ideas.  Somewhere around here Gareth (I think) worked out some conversion notes for Sorcerer which I think were really good but Story Engine has more tools for preserving certain Color elements directly in the system.  You'll see what I mean in a moment.  I'm placing this in Actual Play since this is just converting one existing game to another existing game in preperation for play and not designing a whole new game from scratch.

For those of you unfamiliar with SLA Industries think of the films Brazil and Series 7 done with the visual style and tone of Aliens.  Additional references although not as strong would include The Running Man and Requiem For A Dream.

For those of you unfamiliar with Story Engine I suggest checking out the free Story Bones on Hubris Game's website:

http://www.hubrisgames.com

PART I: Preservation of Premise

As I was going through the rules for SLA Industries I was surprised to stumble across one teeny-tiny rule of interest that is burried among all the 'gun bunny' rules.  SLA Industries apparently has a reputation system.  In the actual game it's very loose and you're supposed to keep track of reputation points for a bunch of different organizations and groups of individuals.  I decided to make this a lot more concrete and adapt this idea to Story Engine in a rather interesting way.

In my mind there are really only four reputations that matter in SLA Industires: SLA Industries, Media Viewers, Friends and Family.  The idea of course is to pit these four things against each other but primarily the first two against the latter two.  (Note: This is when I noticed that where the game falls down in its setting is that it lacks any kind of normalicy at ALL.  The world of Brazil is surreal and nightmarish but without showing the impact of all that on something as simple as Sam Lowry trying to get a date it's all very meaningless)  These reputations can be both positive and negative.  At the start of the game players begin with: SLA Industries 0, Media Viewers 0, Friends 1, Family 1.

These values serve three functions.  

First, they can be used like Descriptors and Quirks.  That is you, can burn positive reputation points like a Descriptor for extra dice.  You can also burn negative reputation points like a Quirk for extra dice.  You just have to explain why having that reputation helps in the situation.  Note: These points are burned, not lost.  You do not spend them like Story Points.  I like this mechanic because it helps make these values important.  It also helps patch the 'running out of Descriptors' problem that Ron notes in his review.

Second, you can use them to create NPCs in each category.  Again the mechanic is like Burning Descriptors and Quirks but the result brings an NPC into existence instead of adding extra dice to a roll.  You must define your relationship with this NPC.  If your reputation is positive the relationship can be anything you want it to be.  However, if your reputation is negative, you must describe the conflict that explicitly exists between you and the NPC you've brought into existence.

Thirdly, I want to tie the entire reward mechanic to these values thus cementing the idea that these four values is what the game is all ABOUT in the player's minds.  Story Engine simply suggests awarding story points at the end of each session.  Rather than that, I think a player should get a number of story points equal to the average of his reputation points rounded down and ignoring sign.  Thus unless all four of your scores are over absolute value 1 then you will get zero story points at the end of the session.

Notes:

Reputation in each category is increased and decreased largely through action.  However, my goal is to tie as many of the adapted mechanics as I can to these values.  For example, Drugs play a large part in the setting but rather then just trying to simulate the effects of the Drugs I plan to have a mechanic that allows you avoid the negative consequences of the drug use by lowering a Friend or Family reputation value by one.  Of course you will have to justify this by describing exactly what happened between your friend or family and how it relates to your drug use.

I was thinking about allowing players to trade reputation points around the four categories with of course, narrative justifcation.  For example if they've burned all their SLA Industries reputation points but really want another point they can decrease their Family reputation and add that point to the SLA Industries reputation.  Of course, this requires narrative justification on just what they did to piss off their family that pleased the company.

Part II: Preservation of Color

SLA Industries has a very distinct feel that I want to preserve as much as possible.  I realized that Story Engine gives me a lot of tools to do this without actually detracting from the REAL focus of the game.

Skills to Traits

First of all Story Engine provides a simple Skill system called Trait Affinities.  I was pleased to discover that most of the skills in SLA Industries were about on par with the abstraction level that Story Engine recommends.  In some cases I colapsed skills that I thought were too specific.  For example, Blades One Handed and Blades Two Handed simply becames Blades.  Similarly, Mechanics Industrial and Mechanics Repair became just Mechanics.  In other cases I eliminated skills altogether that I thought were just WAY too broad for Story Engine's Scene Resolution Mechanics.  For Example, Tactics and Evaluate Opponent got removed completely.

It is my opinion that if the players are presented with a concrete list of Trait Affinities (they are of course allowed to make up new ones) it will help present the feel and flavor of the game particularly with more obscure Traits such as Torture on the list.

I want to give weapons and vehicles a similar treatment.  SLA Industries has a lot of standard assortment of rather boring detailed weaponry.  On the other hand there are some really key pieces of equipment that help lend to the futuristic nightmare world of SLA Industries such as the Chainaxe.  The way I'm thinking about solving this problem is using the feature of Story Engine where Items themselves can have Descriptors and Quirks.  All automatic weapons for example might have, "Can lay down cover fire" as a Descriptor where as a hand-to-hand weapon might have, "Virtually useless in a firefight" as a Quirk.  The more interesting and futuristic vehicles in SLA Industries will get a similar treatment.

The overall goal here is to provide incentive to be Colorful in ones description of the potentially many action sequences.  I wanted to preserve the tactical feel (i.e. Color) of the action sequences ala Aliens without producing a tactical GAME that would take away from the story focus of the situation.

And that is my general strategy to the converstion process.  If a converted mechanic doesn't address the Premise or preserve the Color, it will get cut entirely.  What do you guys think?  Does this sound workable?  Do you have any contributing ideas?  I will probably post periodically as I work out more details that I want comment on but I wanted feedback on my initial concepts, particularly the Premise stuff.

Jesse

[Jared A. Sorensen]

I would also include Underground (with SLA Industries) as a game that knew exactly what it was about then totally wimped out and wiped out as far as system was concerned.

[Mytholder]

Any SLA game should probably include something to deal with Security Clearance Level and the Truth...

[erithromycin]

Don't forget the gambling. SLA's all about pushing the limits in search of something bigger and better.

Oh, and don't you dare mess with that setting. I've been to a lot of those places, and know more than a few people who know folks who've become NPCs. [1]

Anyway, keep us posted, please, and don't be leaving rules out until you publish a supplement, hear?

Further to that, what is your feeling about the premise of SLA?

It's a Premise-in-the-Setting game. Everything in that setting is all geared towards addressing issues of gross abuses of Commercialism and Mass Media.

That's the Setting. What's the Premise? How does it address those issues. I've got an answer, I'm just curious as to what your feeling is.


drew

[1] No, really. If you get in touch with Nightfall [it was Nightfall, wasn't it?], ask 'em about the Rat Trap. Ah, the dubious joys of being a glasgoth.

[contracycle]

Yes, I must say that the element of Normalcy in SLA is the masses of unemployed people.  I think of it as a take on the "TV Life" of being unemployed, and I must say, life is imitating art: yesterday I saw my first trailer for The Trench, a reality TV show putting people in a simulated WWI trench.  Marvellous - are they really going to let themk get trench-foot?  Probably not - but given the tendency in "live action" TV and all the cop shows, how far are we from the live disembowling of wanted criminals on pay-per-view?  Bread and circuses.  Anyway, I'm not sure I could formulate a clear premise, but I definately think it is about the media and its role in news creation as much as reportage.  So don't forget the bullet tax.  I also like the story engine idea and the weapons descriptors; I have maelstrom but not the story engine book, does it explore the system in more depth?  Considering using it.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Jesse,

I haven't read SLA Industries, but I'm going to make a recommendation anyway. Take a careful look at the Trait Affinities in the downloadable Sixguns & Whiskey plug-in for Story Engine. They have an entirely different model of granularity than what you see with skills in typical Sim games. On one hand, you've got things like Preaching, which is described as encompassing knowledge of the Bible and public speaking ability, two things which would probably be separate skills in a typical Sim game. And on the other hand you have things like Piano, which would typically be a specialization or sub-category of a talent or performance skill in a Sim game. And beyond even that, you have Trait Affinities like Hard Drinking that would likely be represented in Sim as a constitution roll or something. I think you should probably go through the SLA Industries skill list and mess with the granularity. You want your Trait Affinities to be particles of genre (and I wish I could come up with a better phrase), the way Piano, and Hard Drinking, and such are particles of the western genre. Again, not having read SLA Industries so I'm just speculating, I'd think Trait Affinities like Corporate Salaryman, and Looking Good would be appropriate.

Paul

[jburneko]

Mythholder,

I always saw the Security Clearance stuff in SLA as a clever way to embed character levels directly into the setting and as such I kind of see the 'issues' of security clerance wrapped up in the SLA Industries reputation score.  If they want access to something that's really secure they can either create an NPC who is higher up in status or they can maybe do some kind of roll.  I haven't worked out the details but those are the lines I'm thinking along.

Similarly, I see The Truth more as a McGuffin than something the game is actually ABOUT.  So, there was SLA Industries first great ploy in which they became the sole arms provideder to the universe but what nobody knew was that SLA has built in backdoor overrides and thus was able to 'aquire' a substancial portion of the universe in the most 'hostile' take over ever performed.  That incident is meant to get you thinking about what SLA's MASTER (i.e. The Truth) might be.  The Truth is an element that addresses the corporate paranoia issue.  How do we know Coke isn't spiking its drinks with nanites that are connecting to our brains so that we can be satelite controlled?

Drew,

I was using Premise in the narrow Narrative sense which would be some kind of central moral or ethical question.  I haven't yet been able to formulate the Premise AS an actual question just as issues expressed in it which is an examination of Coporate Mass Media and in some sense issues of Loyalty and Fame.

I think you were either asking me what Situation am I thinking of using to explore this or perhaps what Setting elements do I think address the Premise.

It's too early to answer the former since I haven't yet developed a coherent scenario, however I believe it will probably use 'Article 8' or whatever it's called as the central McGuffin.  As for the later question well I'd have to go over the setting again in more detail but the central component is the triangle set up between SLA Operatives, SLA Industires, and Mass Media Viewers.  Fame is addicting.  Television is addicting.   SLA Industries has taken those two facts and masterminded an ingenious way for it to basically be able to air its dirty laundry in public and in doing so increase the company's image, tighten the loyalties of its opperatives, and kept the masses content.

Gareth,

As far as I understand it the Story Engine Revised Edition is just that.  It's an update to the system and is a little cleaner and more flexible than the version presented in the Maelstrom book.  It also might include more examples and in that sense be more detailed.  I haven't seen the version presented in the Maelstrom book so I can't be more specific.

Paul,

I was thinking about the granularity of the Trait Affinities which is why I've been trying to collapse as many of them as possible.  But you've actually given me an idea.  SLA Industries has a cleverly disguised Race and Class system that I wanted to preserve as part of the Color stuff.  The Race is mostly just that but the Class is a starting Training Package.  One such package is not far off from your suggestion of Corporate Salary Man.  Perhaps rather than doing a strait conversion in which picking a package would give you a few Trait Affinities, I'll just turn the packages THEMSELVES into Trait Affinities.

Jesse

[Tim C Koppang]

I can't believe I didn't see this thread earlier.  Story Engine is only like one of my all time favorite commercially avalible systems.  Back in the day, I spent a whole bunch of time converting Fading Suns into SE.  But I digress...

As Paul stated in his post, the Story Engine assumes a varied amount of granularity so that the most important elements of your story receive the most attention.  Color, as you put it Jesse, is the area in which Story Engine has the most potentional.  Providing a concrete list of Trait Affins, aptly named, gives the players a sense of the fictional world while they create their characters.  So, you can have a set of characteristics that are detailed in one aspect, but general in another.  Like the the preacher/hard drinking example: the level of detail for each is a good depiction of what's important in most traditional western settings.  Any preacher in a given cowboy flick can both speak well and quote passages from the Bible - they can have a very general skill.  On the other hand, the same movie will place an equal amount of concentration on a saloon scene - showing all the desperados sitting around pounding back shots of whiskey.  The level of detail for the drinking skill and the preaching skill is anything but consistant, but they are both appropriate for the genre.

At the same time, I'd say that Gift Affins are one of the most overlooked abilities in SE.  I'd say that most Gift Affins & Prime Affins serve the purpose of Advantages in other systems, but the guidelines are very loose.  So, like Trait Affins, the amount of extra abilities you gain from either a Prime or Gift Affin can vary greatly.  In a space game, a Gift Affin may only grant you one psionic power, but another may allow you to communicate with an entire alien race.  Obviously the power level of each is unequal, but the levels represent the rarity of a psi, and the relative unimportance of knowing alien languages in a game about high adventure.

So what does this all mean in relationship to SLA Inc. you ask?  Well, I'd say you don't have to worry about performing a straight conversion from one skill list to the next.  Instead, when you collapse or expand certain skills weight their granularity in accordance to their importance to the premise of SLA Inc.  I think you nailed it when you suggested making the different classes Prime Affins instead of Trait packages.  It summarized everything about a certain class in one little stat.

Side Note: I love giving descriptors to items.  Talk about adding color to a game - it's great.

You may also want to keep in mind that descriptors can be used for locations too.  I'm not familiar with the world of SLA, but I'm sure that there are places of note that would gain flavor from descriptors.