[Last Breath] What's Missing

[talysman]

taking a cue from Ben, I figured I'd start a thread about my own October Ronnies entry, Last Breath. you can find it here.

naturally, there's a lot of play examples and setting description missing. that's normal for 24-hour game submissions. also, as usual, I forgot to insert acknowledgements/inspirations for rpg mechanics. all of that can be added to later versions.

I'm thinking there's also some things I need to fix; I'm not sure Painful Memories will be powerful enough in the game, at least at the start. there may be other broken parts I'm sure people will uncover.

the main things I see as missing are Arguments and Blind Facts.

I think there should be rules for player vs. player conflict, which I call an Argument, because I think of it as mainly arising in the middle of another scene when players disagree on how to use their resources. does this seem necessary to everyone, or is it a distraction?

I think also there needs to be a description on how to introduce Facts "blind", so that the players don't know if "you see something moving in the distance, at the next deserted intersection" means that the GM is going to introduce an NPC (person? dog? rat?) or an Object (newspaper blowing in the wind, which may lead to a Painful Memory.)

play is supposed involve more Survival Scenes than Search/Meaning Scenes, but the Search/Meaning Scenes are more important. do the rules currently focus strongly enough in this way? or do they let the players down and decay into mere resource management?

and is there anything else missing?

[TonyPace]

It's a tricky call, because the mechanics are so dependent on player input that it's hard to tell what might happen without seeing it in play. Offhand though, I think that it doesn't really matter if the games 'dips' into resource management. You do definitely need rules for Argument scenes, they're inevitable - especially if the game turns towards resource management.

I don't really like the rules for Painful Memories at all. It seems to not matter at all what the memories are, they can be introduced more or less by fiat, and the player loses Fight if they win the contest? All feels very clunky - I was much more excited by the resouce management rules, which seem very tight and well focused. If I was getting involved in some tough resource management and that I got dropped on me I might feel rather arbitrarily screwed, as there is no input back from the story to whether you win or lose the contest (aside from # of Attachments). Thus, your positioning and reactions matter not at all!

In short, don't fear the Gamism, embrace it!

[Graham W]

Well, I like the setting a lot. Post-apocalyptic sci-fi is fantastic stuff. It's nice to see Day Of The Triffids listed as an influence.

I'd quite like the game expanded, so that the players agree what it is that's ended the world as they know it. The superplague is cool, but there's so many other options - in 28 Days Later it's the virus, in Day of the Triffids it's a combination of weapons that blind people and huge sentient plants, etc, etc.

I wonder how the balance of power will work? At the start of the game, the GM seems to be overpowered by the players: he only rolls five dice to their five dice each, and from the second scene onwards rolls their pain (1 per player) against them rolling their Fight (5 per player). So, at the start, the GM seems outnumbered.

On a practical note, could GM pennies be a different colour from player pennies, so you don't have to remember who put what penny where?

I'm slightly worried abuot the extra dice that you roll "if you've had training in the action you're going to try", especially in the character creation section it says "Most of the details...will develop during play". Does that mean I can suddenly decide I've had training in the action for extra dice?

I wouldn't mind a bit more guidance about how to end the game. A lot of post-apocalyptic stuff ends on some note of hope.

But, yes, I like it a lot. I like the GM competing against the players, the introducing of index cards for facts, etc, etc. And it's a lovely setting. Well...er...lovely's the wrong word, but you know.

Graham

P.S. On a personal note, I have an acting job at the moment where I sit around for half the day. Just in case you wondered how I had time to read all the Ronnies entries.

[talysman]

I don't really like the rules for Painful Memories at all. It seems to not matter at all what the memories are, they can be introduced more or less by fiat, and the player loses Fight if they win the contest? All feels very clunky - I was much more excited by the resouce management rules, which seem very tight and well focused. If I was getting involved in some tough resource management and that I got dropped on me I might feel rather arbitrarily screwed, as there is no input back from the story to whether you win or lose the contest (aside from # of Attachments). Thus, your positioning and reactions matter not at all!

In short, don't fear the Gamism, embrace it!

oops, that should have been: you lose Fight if you lose the contest, not win. I originally had the player rolling Pain and the GM rolling something else, which is why it read the other way... I decided having the GM play your Pain was more intuitive.

I do have an idea about changing the way scenes are built slightly so that players can bypass an object they thing might cause Painful Memories. getting rid of them isn't an option; it's not a Gamist game at all. I'm not afraid of Gamism (I *am* Iron Chef Gamist, after all...) the whole point of the game is the way the Pain from what you've lost affects what you can do, and the actions you take -- or don't take -- to overcome your Pain. so, if the Painful Memories looks like a problem instead of a thrilling part of the system, I've done something wrong. I'll have to work on that.

thanks, Tony!

I'd quite like the game expanded, so that the players agree what it is that's ended the world as they know it. The superplague is cool, but there's so many other options - in 28 Days Later it's the virus, in Day of the Triffids it's a combination of weapons that blind people and huge sentient plants, etc, etc.

I wonder how the balance of power will work? At the start of the game, the GM seems to be overpowered by the players: he only rolls five dice to their five dice each, and from the second scene onwards rolls their pain (1 per player) against them rolling their Fight (5 per player). So, at the start, the GM seems outnumbered.

On a practical note, could GM pennies be a different colour from player pennies, so you don't have to remember who put what penny where?

I'm slightly worried abuot the extra dice that you roll "if you've had training in the action you're going to try", especially in the character creation section it says "Most of the details...will develop during play". Does that mean I can suddenly decide I've had training in the action for extra dice?

I wouldn't mind a bit more guidance about how to end the game. A lot of post-apocalyptic stuff ends on some note of hope.

But, yes, I like it a lot. I like the GM competing against the players, the introducing of index cards for facts, etc, etc. And it's a lovely setting. Well...er...lovely's the wrong word, but you know.

thanks for the compliments, Graham! you know, it's interesting: I was considering how 28 Days Later was also an influence on the game. not the movie, because I never saw it; the first trailer, which wa a teaser trailer. it didn't show any zombies in it at all; just some quick scenes of moneys and rats, people talking about an outbreak, about using nukes on the city to prevent the spread -- and then this guy waking up in a hospital in an abandoned city, all alone. I thought "damn, that's going to be a great movie". I was very disappointed that it turned out to be a zombie movie instead.

I'm not real sure about alternate explanations for why everyone's dead. I don't want any of the more fantastic explanations to show up. on the other hand, I do want to leave it open during play whether everyone's really dead, or it's just your city. maybe it's just a quarantine; maybe there are others somewhere out there.

the balance of power is something I've been thinking about. for the very first roll, I do want to keep the balance shifted towards the players, so that they can build up their starting resources. if I increase the GM's dice later, however, it's got to be linked to the number of players; otherwise, the GM will cream the players in later scenes. I want a slow buildup of power for the GM.

pennies on cards shouldn't be a problem, but pennies beside cards might be an issue. I'll think about ho to resolve that.

on training: you pick your background at the beginning of the game. just an occupation, really. the comment about the details of who you are as a person developing during play was meant to say that you shouldn't develop a complete character story or fret about which occupation would be the most useful; it's better if you just say "I'm a doctor" or "I'm an ex-marine" or something simple and let it go at that.

in a later version of the game, I'll talk about possible endings in more detail. I think it's hard to set the ending before play, because the players may change their minds depending on how events unfold.

there's a handful of scenes from different films/books that I think of as exemplifying what play would be like. I alluded to a few of them in the brief descriptions, but they will need to be described more fully, probably as play examples in the text. the scenes I'm thinking of are:

• 28 Days Later: when the guy wanders out of the empty hospital and sees the deserted streets (Day One/Prelude.)
• Omega Man: watching the Woodstock film in an abandoned theater (Painful Memory.)
• I Am Legend: when he finds the dog and spends days trying to befriend it (perfect Meaning Scene)
• On The Beach: the person they are talking to via shortwave stops answering, forever (a failed Search Scene.)

I want play that produces those kinds of scenes.

[TonyPace]

I totally get what you're saying about the example scenes in your mind. I had the same thing going when I was writing Monotheism, except that most of my scenes were from various religious texts (God creates Adam and Eve, Allah offers to destroys Mecca, St. Augustine says 'Please God, save me from my life of sin ... but not yet.') But of course I just didn't have the time to track down all the souces and still finish the game. And to be honest, I was worried about describing the key events of various religions as part of a game.

You can easily solve the GM pennies thing by just having them be a different color. And I agree with Graham that the number of points the GM has should escalate according to the number of players.

I still feel the highly targeted nature of Painful Memories seems like a problem. There should be something more than GM fiat deciding who gets them.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Official Ronnies feedback!

From my notes: zombie movie without zombies! It reminded me of the movies Testament and The Quiet Earth, as well as the "ties" concept Jesse proposed for his zombie-game, and especially Clinton's City of Brass.

However, in this case, I'm not certain where the fun comes from - building something to last? Human drama? Savage indictment of current policy? All of those show up to one degree or another in the source material, but they seem pretty much absent from play, at least as written. At the moment all I can see is depression.

I kind of want to cross this one's mechanics with the setting and Hate mechanics of Attack of the Giant Rats.

Also, here, "fight" seems merely to be perseverance, not a strong match.

Best,
Ron

[talysman]

thanks for the feedback, Ron.

I was certainly worried, rereading what I wrote after I got some sleep, that it wasn't explicit what the player should be doing other than surviving. there's a brief comment about creating a small self-sustaining community as a possible goal, but it's not really developed. I think what I want is both human drama and building something to last. I want the drama to arise as a result of conflict between the enormity of the situation and the will to survive, which is sort of what I was getting at with the two stats of Fight and Pain.

I also think that it's a good idea to leave the question open about how total the devastation really is. I think it would work better as a game if the characters hear the reports of the rapid destruction, then the plague strikes home and cuts off outside communication. the characters are left not knowing if there's anyone else out there, and that leaves more room for hope. the GM could then set a couple dials: how far do the PCs have to travel to escape the area of devastation? if the devastation isn't total, what is the reaction of those outside the plague area to plague survivors?

I'm not sure how you're seeing the Hate rules from Attack of the Giant Rats in combination with Last Breath's rules. it seems to be basically just "add Hate to your dice pool if you are attacking, add Hate to GM's dice pool if you aren't." I'm not sure what the characters are supposed to be hating... unless you mean use that mechanic with Pain, which might work; set a fixed base number for the GM's dice pool and add Pain to whichever side, based on what the player wants the character to do. it's a possibility...

[talysman]

OK, here are some more thoughts on fixing the system.

first, I sketched out the generalized dice-roll procedure for both player and GM, using the design patterns symbols, to make sure I was clear on their similarities. (not that it's important, but you can see it here.) in some scenes, the dice are counted up and then rolled, then pennies are spent or applied; in others, dice are counted up and split into groups of challenge dice, which are "wagered" against each index card in the conflict, then rolled later when all wagering is done.

problems with this system: some people have indicated that whose pennies are whose would be confusing and suggested using a different color token for the GM. this kind of goes against my gut feeling that, once a penny is placed on an index card, it becomes anonymous, the property of whoever currently controls the card. however, I can see where there might be some confusion when signifying a GM crisis or player attack, since the pennies aren't placed on a card, but next to it.

another problem: the cards can represent obstacles or options in the scene, but because rolls are spent directly on pennies which are spent in turn on cards, the play turns very mechanical at some point. I don't see a strong possibility of mystery and uncertainty as the PCs try to discover how total the devastation is, but this is the kind of play I want.

also: the types of scenes appear a bit too rigid. I'd like it to be more fluid.

the mechanics of the three scenes that appeal most to me are the ones I wrote for the Search scenes, because of the dice wagering that precedes the dice rolling. things like "radio interference" and "dim light" are introduced as potentials rather than solid facts, and neither side knows whether the light is too dim to spot movement in the darkened streets, or the radio interference is too strong to make out any words, until the dice are actually rolled. these mechanics introduce the mystery and uncertainty I'm looking for, so the obvious answer would be to generalize this procedure. this solves the first two problems: we can tell which wagered dice are which either by color or by which side of the table they are closer to, so pennies can remain all the same color and thus anonymous; we can also reintroduce mystery this way.

once the procedure has been generalized, there's not much reason to keep distinct types of scenes; instead, we have broad categories of actions in scenes (Survival, Search, Meaning, plus the missing Argument.) any action can occur in any scene; in fact, everything is either Search or Meaning until actual resources are uncovered in the scene.  to complete this generalization, I should probably adopt the approach I suggested in the previous post, suggested by Ron: have the GM roll 5 dice plus any spent resources, add Pain dice to either the player or the GM's pool based on the type of action.

I need to work on this a bit more, but it's looking better.

[hix]

Hi John, I wanted to share some general impressions type feedback with you:.

The whole post-plague world setting is one of my favourites. Last Breath felt like a raw, very realistic take on it. With no 'adversary' – no Rage infected victims, no Randall Flagg to defeat – it felt very pure and non-plotty (or non-soap-operay, if you prefer). However, those adversaries are in these stories for a reason – they give the characters something extra to do. I guess it's like laser-sharking.

Staying within your low-key approach, I would have expected to see a little bit more about the wider social conflicts - between groups of survivors, for instance.

To me it feels like stories that start with such a massive upsetting of the status quo usually *need* to finish with a new status quo. Even before reading this thread, I supported having 'desired endings' that are generated in-play as each character develops. These endings are the new status-quos each character is looking for. Maybe they could be generated in some variation of a Meaning scene? Maybe they can only be changed at some cost to the character?

Player vs. Player conflict becomes pretty important under that sort of set-up. For instance, 2 characters have wildly different desired endings. They've accumulated a lot of resources and other survivors. Finally their different desires reach breaking point and they have a massive conflict where the support of other NPCs and resources are at stake. What happens after that, I'm not sure. Either the group splinters or one PC capitulates to the other?

I like the set-up phase – quick, engaging. The world ends. You have to deal with it & in the process meet your fellow players. Plus the dice mechanic seemed simple to grok.

It took me a few moments to grasp the across-the-page formatting. Maybe if you had a horizontal line from the heading across to the other side of the page, that'd separate out the sections more clearly.

In terms of setup & scope, I guess I half agree with you. I felt that saying (in the Intro) a plague definitely caused it was a mistake & I'd prefer to leave it ambiguous, to be generated through play. However, leaving it as it removes the temptation to laser-shark the setting. I also thought it'd be a good idea to leave the scope of its devastation undefined.

[talysman]

thanks for the feedback, Steve. that looks like another vote for "building something to last". I certainly meant for possible conflicts with other survivors (that's why GMs can introduce hostile NPCs,) but that needs to be made more explicit and there needs to be clearer directions on how the game unfolds.

I'm thinking what I may need to solve this is PC goals during character creation. however, these wouldn't be personal goals, like they would be in Darling Grove, but societal ones. the best way to go about this might be to have players ask themselves "what three things did you most like (most miss) about life before the plague?" and "what one thing did you most dislike?" this could be used as a basis for Painful Memories, to make them seem less arbitrary, and can be used by the GM to frame scenes; every scene is an opportunity to move one step closer to rebuilding something that was lost, but could risk reintroducing something that was disliked. when a goal is reached, any PCs with that goal gain a point of Fight or maybe lose one point of Pain; they alsso have the opportunity to replace it with a new goal, as they develop more specific ideas about what they want to rebuild. player vs. player is going to arise when one character's goal happens to be the same as one characters dislike.

as for multiple possibly reasons for the devastation: I definitely wanted it to feel more realistic or at least not laser-sharked, but I wanted something sudden, linked to human actions, but more of an accidental event rather than a direct hostile action; plus, it has to be potentially global in effect and also potentially ongoing (that's the point of the Clean resource; the death could continue.) thus, I ruled out completely things like climate change and nuclear, but perhaps I will loosen it up enough for some kind of toxic or radioactive accident or comet impact to allow a few other possibilities.

I need to start thinking of a better name.