[Darling Grove] Ronnies feedback

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

John Laviolette's Darling Grove was a very strong candidate, one of the best examples of using the stated key terms. It also offers the only positive version of this girlfriend-stuff among women, among all the entries, yet without wimping out either - it still includes all the potential for vile back-stabbing and hypocritical evil-under-virtue lurking there. But the positive stuff is a reality during play, which I think was one of Want's failings. As I see it, the mechanics and points and tracking all feed into creating an extremely powerful, rather moving SIS. I especially like the communal-tracking sheet.

I was puzzled a bit by this phrase: "for each scene, the GM challenges one personal goal, or two goals if there are two or more players active in the scene" ... How does this work? If the characters all bunch up in a scene, the GM can still only challenge two goals?

Perhaps play is a tad too structured overall, which is a hard variable to pin down. One Can Have Her, for instance, has a lot of overall structure, but it works for that game, I think. Here, I'm not sure the track ought to be quite so authoritative.

I like the potential for interference, which is similar to the mechanic in Space Rat, and the "girlfriend" part is very much like what I wanted for trollbabe-trollbabe relationships.

I am not at all sure how the negative goals work, or goals of NPCs. And then there's the distinction between opposed/unopposed rolls, which didn't make sense to me, and about now in my notes, it's clear that I didn't understand how to play, dammit. Thematially, this was among the strongest games of the entire contest, and the basics are totally eluding me, and if I don't get it, then I can't play it.

I'd like to see it developed!! Another draft run-through, maybe? Strong and specific examples? Sign me up.

Best,
Ron

[talysman]

now that I'm done with our three-day festival, I have some time to catch up on RPGs.

first, Ron, thanks for the commentary. it confirms some things I suspected were wrong with this game and points to some issues I need to clarify or change; there's even one important factor that's completely missing.

one of my major concerns is that I haven't quite found the right way to describe the game rules simply and get play started quickly. this is a big issue for me; I want simple rules with complex, emergent effects. since you'd *like* to play this game, but can't figure out *how*, something's not right. something has to be changed.

examples may be a part of the problem. my first, unfinished attempt at the september Ronnies, Meet the Neighbors, has a problem with missing examples. I only had a few hours left and needed tons of examples before the system was even comprehensible, PLUS I was still missing the last 10-20% of the rules, PLUS the formatting was still messed up. I did put a few examples in Darling Grove, but not enough.

the lack of examples probably caused some of the confusion on tracking:

Perhaps play is a tad too structured overall, which is a hard variable to pin down. One Can Have Her, for instance, has a lot of overall structure, but it works for that game, I think. Here, I'm not sure the track ought to be quite so authoritative.

there may be more structure than is necessary, but I didn't think of the tracking system as being very structured. it's just communal tracking of hit points, really. if the girlfriends of Darling Grove started roaming around the suburbs to kill people and take their stuff, the battles would be a race to see who does five points of damage to the other guy first. I may be misunderstanding this comment, however.

there's a problem with the reward system, however, which you alluded to in a previous post:

However, the main and consistent issue is that the big-picture of the little conflicts was not there enough for the reward systems to work.

I agree with this, and have some ideas of what is wrong, but was looking forward to some more commentary on this, but I think it's just flat out missing. players are supposed to achieve short-term goals which lead to achieving a long-term goal, but there's no description of how one works to achieve the other. what I was thinking was that it would be a ladder of contests: achieve five short-term goals related to your long-term goal and you get to change it from Dream to Stable. however, the rules don't say this, and I think it might actually work better a different way. I'll rewrite this section.

some other responses:

I was puzzled a bit by this phrase: "for each scene, the GM challenges one personal goal, or two goals if there are two or more players active in the scene" ... How does this work? If the characters all bunch up in a scene, the GM can still only challenge two goals?

yes. the GM always challenges at least one goal in a scene. if there are two or more (player) characters in the scene, he challenges a second goal. he does not challenge more than this, because I figured that would be too complicated. so yes, it looks like there's an advantage to bunching up in a scene, and I even had a sentence after that one that mentioned the advantage, but I wasn't sure if it was really *true*, so I deleted it.

of course, since being a Girlfriend of someone in the scene means you get to roll and contribute successes even if you aren't present, there is a greater advantage for girlfriends to split up into separate scenes; they double their effectiveness. I didn't work out all the details on City versus Suburb scenes, but this would be one way to put a player on equal footing with the GM during a City scene.

I like the potential for interference, which is similar to the mechanic in Space Rat, and the "girlfriend" part is very much like what I wanted for trollbabe-trollbabe relationships.

I think it's a good mechanic, although really there's a weakness as far as thematic adherence to the Ronnies rules: there's really no reason why it couldn't be renamed "Best Friend" and the gender restriction lifted. I really don't know what I could do to make the characters seem distinctively female. of course, maybe that's the subtle message of the game; everyone pretends to be a woman, but it turns out "being a woman" just means "being a human being", and maybe the male players have a flash of insight at some point.

I am not at all sure how the negative goals work, or goals of NPCs. And then there's the distinction between opposed/unopposed rolls, which didn't make sense to me, and about now in my notes, it's clear that I didn't understand how to play, dammit. Thematially, this was among the strongest games of the entire contest, and the basics are totally eluding me, and if I don't get it, then I can't play it.

the conflicts in scenes are just races to reach a goal before the opponent does, as I mentioned earlier in this post. what I will need to do is rewrite the description of scenes to make this clearer. the player picks a goal that will lead one step closer to fulfilling a Dream; the GM picks a goal that threatens another Dream or even a Stable status. you then try to get your five points before the GM does. a big problem with the description is that I talk about minor goals (hat happens in scenes) and the four major goals (Dreams and Stable goals.) this is confusing. I need to have distinctive terms for each.

as for unopposed versus opposed rolls, the difference is between rolling for an advantage that can be used later (unopposed) versus rolling to reach your goal before someone else reaches theirs (opposed.) advantage rolls don't happen in scenes; they sort of happen "offscreen", with the player describing what her character did beforehand to prepare for an upcoming scene. does this make more sense?

I have one question that I didn't see addressed. I wanted to generate more successes and add more detail to scenes, so I had rolls generate successes in two ways, with the number matching system layered on top of the count-the-odd-rolls system. this by itself might not be a problem, but I worked in the time factor, where all the matching 1s happen before the matching 2s and so on. I thought this might give a feeling of more detail, but I realize this might make it more complex. which of these do you think is better?

• keep the system as is;
• keep the number matching, but drop the scene phases (save that for a more combat-oriented RPG);
• drop the number matching entirely, stick to just counting odd numbers, and accept the fact that scenes will require more die rolls to resolve.

thanks again for your comments.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi John,

as for unopposed versus opposed rolls, the difference is between rolling for an advantage that can be used later (unopposed) versus rolling to reach your goal before someone else reaches theirs (opposed.) advantage rolls don't happen in scenes; they sort of happen "offscreen", with the player describing what her character did beforehand to prepare for an upcoming scene. does this make more sense?

Ah. What you're calling "unopposed" isn't unoppposed at all, mechanically. You are talking about augmenting or advantaging rolls. That works fine. Get rid of the confusing terminology, fast.

I have one question that I didn't see addressed. I wanted to generate more successes and add more detail to scenes, so I had rolls generate successes in two ways, with the number matching system layered on top of the count-the-odd-rolls system. this by itself might not be a problem, but I worked in the time factor, where all the matching 1s happen before the matching 2s and so on. I thought this might give a feeling of more detail, but I realize this might make it more complex. which of these do you think is better?

keep the system as is;
keep the number matching, but drop the scene phases (save that for a more combat-oriented RPG);
drop the number matching entirely, stick to just counting odd numbers, and accept the fact that scenes will require more die rolls to resolve.

I'm not sure at all, because bluntly, I'm too confused about how it's supposed to work in terms of pure procedure, let alone purpose. I do think it's too messy as it stands, and that you may be generating too many successes per scene. On the other hand, I kind of like the matching, although not the time-sequence.

[talysman]

as for unopposed versus opposed rolls, the difference is between rolling for an advantage that can be used later (unopposed) versus rolling to reach your goal before someone else reaches theirs (opposed.) advantage rolls don't happen in scenes; they sort of happen "offscreen", with the player describing what her character did beforehand to prepare for an upcoming scene. does this make more sense?

Ah. What you're calling "unopposed" isn't unoppposed at all, mechanically. You are talking about augmenting or advantaging rolls. That works fine. Get rid of the confusing terminology, fast.

ok, now I'm confused. if I roll the dice, and no one else rolls the dice, and they can't alter my roll in any way, isn't that an unopposed roll?

I have one question that I didn't see addressed. I wanted to generate more successes and add more detail to scenes, so I had rolls generate successes in two ways, with the number matching system layered on top of the count-the-odd-rolls system. this by itself might not be a problem, but I worked in the time factor, where all the matching 1s happen before the matching 2s and so on. I thought this might give a feeling of more detail, but I realize this might make it more complex. which of these do you think is better?

keep the system as is;
keep the number matching, but drop the scene phases (save that for a more combat-oriented RPG);
drop the number matching entirely, stick to just counting odd numbers, and accept the fact that scenes will require more die rolls to resolve.

I'm not sure at all, because bluntly, I'm too confused about how it's supposed to work in terms of pure procedure, let alone purpose. I do think it's too messy as it stands, and that you may be generating too many successes per scene. On the other hand, I kind of like the matching, although not the time-sequence.

hmmm. the basic procedure is something like this:

• roll dice and count odd results. describe what those successes do. this all happens simultaneously in Phase 0.
• GM calls for anyone with matching 1s. anyone with matching 1s can describe what these successes do. this happens in Phase 1.
• GM call for anyone with matching 2s (Phase 2.)
• ... and so on, through Phase 9.

the more I think about it, the more the phase thing seems more like something I should use in a more action-oriented game. I have a dungeon crawl and a '50s rocket patrol game waiting in the wings; those would probably be a better match.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi John,

Trust me. The terms opposed/unopposed have a specific and dysfunctional meaning in the gamer-mind. You'll spend your life explaining that's "not what you meant," over and over, if you keep them.

I actually rather like the phase/matching thing. I think the timing of repartee, innuendo, support, and other social/verbal influences is absolutely essential, frankly, more so than in a dust-up fight scene. Now that you've laid out the system a little more clearly for me, I'd like to try it as it stands.

Best,
Ron