[The Cardboard People] Feedback

[Jasper]

Kirk, I like the new rules writeup. I'll comment more later.

So basically what you are driving at is some sort of character progression mechanic? Something that lets the characters grow and gain some focus?

Not necessarily progression per se, or even character change. I guess I just want more of a premise, above and beyond "weird things happen." But your vision may be very different from what I'm looking for, so let me ask you this, even though it can be a dangerous question: what creative agenda do you see Cardboard People facilitating best? And in what way?

Because when you talk abotu the set-up, I say "cool," and want to play it Nar, to address themes of, I don't know, personal power and identity, dislocation, person/society, or even some bigger metaphysical things. But if you're thinking something else entirely, our disconnect is understandable.

If, just as a starting place, you're also thinking Nar, then what kinds of questions do you see the game raising? For instance, Sorcerer asks "What do you want, and what will you do to get it?" Dust Devils says "Shoot or give up the gun." You don't need a pithy one-liner like that, just some statement about what the players will be thinking about/doing.

[Kirk Mitchell]

Therein lies my problem. I designed the game in the car on a particularly long drive in an attempt to entice my brother into playing (and thus leave my younger sister alone). I scrawled the rules on the first thing that was handy when we got home...a piece of cardboard. I never designed it with any inbuilt premise, just the capacity to address Premise. I say Nar, but Nar with Premise left just a little too open. I don't think our problem is that we are thinking different things, its just that I'm not thinking at all.

However, when I do think premise in terms of this game, I think exactly the same as you (society, people's place in it and individual power...with some metaphysical aspects thrown in). I'll add some notes in the rules on the premise in the introduction, but are you looking for a mechanical implementation of the Premise?

I'll think on how we could do that and come back with some ideas later.

Kirk

[Jasper]

Kirk,

I'm glad we're on the same page then. I am looking for some mechanical weight behind the ideas we've mentioned, since I think that will make a much better gaqme. Systems Matters and all that. (And just so we're clear, when I said "premise" back there, I didn't actually mean the capital-P Premise of Forge jargon. Athough I think you knew what I meant anyway.)

[Kirk Mitchell]

I'm thinking a reward mechanic to enforce the premise.

One of the things to address would be what to reward the players with. As a Nar game, rewards are generally in terms of granting more narrative power, but can also be something entirely superficial and relating only to the setting. In The Cardboard People players pretty much have complete narrative control in the first place, so rewarding them with more is a little pointless. Instead, perhaps to explore the concept of an individual's place in relation to society, the players are able to build up a stockpile of..stuff, that allows them to do something about their position in relation to society. Just some thoughts. To tell the truth, I really don't know. I want to try something different from my end-game mechanics in The Order, but my brain is completely frazzled.

Thoughts (because I certainly don't have any)?

Kirk

[Jasper]

I'll repeat Vincent's recent advice to me, and suggest thinking about the specific kinds of play you want to get--in terms of what the players are literally saying--then note anything that seems unlikely/hard, and focus on promoting them with rewards. And don't worry about the type of reward too much until after you know what you're rewarding. Just passing out "cool points" can work. A transcript of imagined, ideal play makes this easy (it works for me).

The kind of thing that I'd like to see is bums who stop being just bums: instead "bum" becomes their Cover, from Sorcerer, and their players begin to make them proactive agents on some kind of search for truth -- maybe personal, metaphysical, or religious -- power, or happiness. And the "weird stuff" that happened to them at the beginning just acts as a kicker to get them started on their path. But eventually they won'y be buffeted about so much: they'll learn to anticipate/avoid/deal with/control the weirdness that seems to follow them.

Does any of that strike a chord with you?

[Kirk Mitchell]

I'll repeat Vincent's recent advice to me, and suggest thinking about the specific kinds of play you want to get--in terms of what the players are literally saying--then note anything that seems unlikely/hard, and focus on promoting them with rewards. And don't worry about the type of reward too much until after you know what you're rewarding. Just passing out "cool points" can work. A transcript of imagined, ideal play makes this easy (it works for me).

Thanks. I'll do that and come back with the results.

The kind of thing that I'd like to see is bums who stop being just bums: instead "bum" becomes their Cover, from Sorcerer, and their players begin to make them proactive agents on some kind of search for truth -- maybe personal, metaphysical, or religious -- power, or happiness. And the "weird stuff" that happened to them at the beginning just acts as a kicker to get them started on their path. But eventually they won'y be buffeted about so much: they'll learn to anticipate/avoid/deal with/control the weirdness that seems to follow them.

Sounds good. The image I had in my head was that they were used to the wierdness, so they could attempt to deal with it as they go about their "everyday" activities. I suppose the fact that they are bums, and that nobody pays any attention to bums, gives them more flexibility. What their "everyday" activities is is a bit ambiguous, so I think a goal for them to reach towards is what we are both sort of stabbing at. The search for truth etc. Something nice and philosophical.

Heh, what about a system that rewards philosophical play. [only partially joking]Perhaps every time they come up with some witty or profound aphorism they get a point[/only partially joking]. I always want to try and tackle the Big Issues in games.

Anyways. Tell me what you think about these throwaway ideas (to discard, or not to discard), and I'll come back sometime sooon with an imagined ideal play.

Thanks,
Kirk

[Kirk Mitchell]

<Large flashy thingy signifying ideas!>

How about the game being structured around Questions and Answers.

Together as a group you get together and decide on a Question. This could be "What is the meaning of life", or something less ambitious, such as "Can one person make a difference". Then, you use the Question as a guide for your game. You get points (that do something) as you address the Question and try to reach the Answer. When you reach the Answer, then you create a new Question and seek that.

The "something" that the points to: I have a couple of ideas about this. Perhaps points allow you to prolong rolling and thus potentially gain more stakes (or potentially lose a lot more as well). Perhaps Ripples can only be triggered if you spend a point (although I do like the way that the Ripples already define the structure of the game, so I don' think I'll go for this option). Perhaps these points just let you do something freaky-cool that you wouldn't already be able to do. Magic and shit like that.

What say you?

Kirk

[Jasper]

Hm...Is any old Answer to the Question good enough to count? How would you decide when an Answer has really been delivered? Are you envisaging the different players wrestling over the Question in an actual philosophical way -- using the game as a helpful prop -- or are they "arguing" and each trying to make their own Answer come out as the Answer? Both those options seem to take something away from the cardbboard people themselves, as characters. And just speaking personally, I think I would risk "stalling out" pretty frequently as a player if I was hit by such big questions up front, and felt the need to address them in a very purposeful way.

I think you might want to be less direct about it, and instead focus on a couple general "Questions" that play will tend to center around, and maybe have specific rules for to help with that. The bums' own active involvement and desires also seems important to me.

How about this idea of the bums gaining power over the weirdness? Have a mechanic that tracks that somehow. It builds up as a bum encounters strange happenings, survives, and maybe deals with them somehow. Then, he can use that experience to turn the weirdness back, and use it -- or knowledge gained from it -- for whatever purpose he wants. You mentioned "everyday activities," but it seems to me that a bum who's been through a couple of bizarro attacks will want to escape that the first chance he gets -- he won't just sit around waiting for more. So once a player's bum gets up to some level of weirdness control, he really ceases being a bum. Instead he's a crazy, disillusioned, mistreated guy with power and knowledge. And who knows what he's going to do with it. Seek revenge? Make himself a king? Transform the society? Prepare the world for the apocalypse he now knows is coming?

It's the same recipe as Sorcerer, basically. With power and knowledge -- a terrible, unearthly power and knowledge, far beyond that of ordinary people -- what will you do? And as a corollary, how will it you change in the process?

[Graham W]

<Large flashy thingy signifying ideas!>

How about the game being structured around Questions and Answers.

Together as a group you get together and decide on a Question. This could be "What is the meaning of life", or something less ambitious, such as "Can one person make a difference". Then, you use the Question as a guide for your game. You get points (that do something) as you address the Question and try to reach the Answer. When you reach the Answer, then you create a new Question and seek that.

<Large flashy thingy signifying a reply!>

I like the idea of the Question, but I can see problems with it. If the question is "What is the meaning of life?", I'm not sure what I'd narrate. It's such a general idea. On the other hand, with "Can one person make a difference?", it would be quite difficult to narrate anything, given that there's several characters in the game.

On the other hand, I can imagine some questions that would spur me on to narrate a story: "Is money more important than love?" suggests several stories to me instantly; so does "Can wealth ever make a person happy?"; so does "Is death the end?". So I like the general idea of a Question, but I'd like...I don't know...perhaps some constraints on it?

Graham

[Kirk Mitchell]

Ok, I admit I was being a bit flippant in my ideas for Questions, but your concerns are quite valid. I think I'll just move them to the back-burner for the moment and keep the questions as premise for the game to revolve around.

In keeping with the spirit of the game, calling the mechanic the "Wierdness" meter would be quite suitable. Perhaps a dual level game. You successfully deal with the Sighting and have gained power and status through that. Now you are no longer a bum, now you are going to kick some ass. How about we provide the option of either creating a new Sighting or starting at a new level where you are no longer a bum.

Wait, how about every time you successfully deal with a Sighting (by "deal with", I mean remove or complete or whatever, the thing behind the Sighting), you increase your Presence. You get more and more noticable, and you get more and more powerful. How's that? Presence may have to be replaced with a numeric value though...

Kirk

[Jasper]

A Presence increase seems reasonable -- though you might want to allow the ex-bums to remain unnoticable as well, as a remnant of their past lives. But I think you need an additional mechanic to have them gain actual power, for ass-kicking or whatever. One way would be to have a numeric indicator, like "Clarity" or somesuch, but you could alternately have something a little more like the Fallout tables in Dogs: after each Sighting is dealt with, a roll is made and some new ability is gained or other trait altered. This could include increases in Presence, but also cover the more amazing power a bum would need to tame the weirdness.

[Kirk Mitchell]

Hmmm. There are no special abilities at the moment. Nothing that makes a bum individual. Perhaps these special abilities could be gained, as you say, through some sort of "Fallout table" and alter how the bums interact with the world. Some abilities might grant them special powers, some might give the player automatic narrative control over certain situations, etc.

I think it could work.

Kirk

[Kirk Mitchell]

Alright. I'm just adding the Abilities and such. As I do that, I don't think that there's much more we can discuss. The game is now in playtesting phase. Anybody who wants it can have it. PM or e-mail me and let me know.

I can't thank you enough for your help,
Kirk