[Red Rain] Ronnies feedback

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

All right, let's get this out in the open. "Why doesn't Red Rain get a Ronny? Contenders did." Here's the answer: because Contenders as written is a playable boxing RPG with a couple of obviously-fixable tweaks, and Red Rain as written is an exercise in watching points disappear, colored by boxing. I've been through I don't know how many Snyder Design Ordeals Experiences, and they're all the same - resolution system first, short-term reward system second, color to burn, and the overall reward system, actual play procedure, scenes, problems, characters, and general SIS completely absent from the page. They're all in Matt's head, every time, and the rest of us have to beat it out of him in order for it to show up in the text.

Unfortunately, in this case, I have to guess. And there are two incompatible answers I'm arriving at: (1) the competitive game and (2) the dramatic/thematic one. As far as I can tell, the first seems to prevail in the mechanics, so I'll stick with that. However, for all I know the "in the head" game is fully dramatic and thematic instead, so there you go.

Anyway to the game itself. What I'm seeing is a very tight three-person triangle in which each person plays against a given other person for social stuff, and then for the fight. Here, the social scenes fuel the fighting ones. The social/creative format is as strict as any strict card game, and in many ways, Red Rain falls into Cheapass Game category from the first round of Ronnies.

The mechanics made me squint, though. It seems to me that you should always lead with your high card, and that the guy with the overall higher cards in his hand will simply win, each time. The two players might just as well show their whole hands and be done. What am I missing about that? Escalation seems to reinforce my impression, and overall, I'm not seeing any reason ever to escalate. Same chances, worse consequences.

In a social scene, if you lose, you get shitty fighting cards, but you get more Pain, which is essentially more hit points. If you win, you get better fighting cards, but you have less hit points. All right, tactically/strategically, this is at least logical. I guess the point is that you want to maximize your own hand without giving the other guy too much Pain.

However, in RPG terms, I'm not seeing much interest in the resulting SIS. It seems like a one-way shoot from social trauma to ring trauma. You lose everything you care about, then you stand up longer in the ring, and that's it. Or your social situation isn't so bad, in which case you get better cards but can't stand up as long. Win or lose, it's a ride down to hell with no particular reason to care about who wins.

Matt! Let all the other stuff in your head out!

Best,
Ron

P.S. Thanks to Ralph Mazza for looking over the game with me and helping to compare it with Contenders, after the October results were posted.

[Matt Snyder]

Actually, the question I wanted to ask is: Why did this ALMOST get a Ronny? Why wasn't it just a "Cheap Ass game" listing? That's even more unclear to me now.

[Ron Edwards]

Because I have faith in all that stuff in your head. There's a game here, and I'm sure it's potentially "together" (hence not in the category I designated as Not Together). I want to play it, but I'm not seeing it yet.

Although if you do go the tactical/card route, that would be cool too.

Best,
Ron

[Matt Snyder]

Gotcha.

You were right -- there's theme in here, poorly realized. I think you referred to it as the "one story" game. That's was not the goal. Early in the writing, I was mulling over what the premise might be, and came up with something like "Is being a champion worth it?"

But, there's some really fun stuff in those fight mechanics. I don't think the game has to be schizophrenic. I haven't even tried to figure out if that makes it a hybrid game. But, when writing it, I was cognizant that the focus might get blurry because of those. That is, this IS meant to be a narrativist game in the end. So, any comments or suggestions on how to focus the tabletop so that the fight itself doesn't detract from the overall goal? Maybe you don't think it does detract?

Otherwise, a couple immediate fixes for the game would include

1) Um, stealing this idea I heard recently (ahem) about having groups of players take on the roles of one fighter. I originally wanted other players to take on the roles of trainers, girlfriends, mobsters, etc. But, I couldn't make it work like I wanted, and I found their role wholly unappealing (i.e. BORING) during the exciting fight between two players.

2) Figuring out how in the hell to reward the social stuff before the fight, and perhaps rewarding the fight with more explicit stakes. Right now, the game just assumes that in phase 1 you don't want to be an asshole (but probably doesn't reward it properly), and in phase 2 that it's obvious you want to beat the tar out of the other guy (But why? Want to be the champ? Want to prove yourself to the missus? The game assumes you'll just want to win, and doesn't especially reward you one way or the other).

Obviousy, this second issue is a large one, and I think speaks directly to your main concern with the game as presented so far.

3) Adjusting the phase 1 rules so that it's not such a simplistic "Fail and get hit points" routine. I'll have to give that one some consideration, but I view that as a tweak of a workable set of mechanics. Escalation can work with some alteration as well.

4) One of the other things I wanted to do for the fight mechanics were to expand on manuevers, their effects, and fighter specialties. I wanted moves to have different, cool effects on the fight, like more points, maybe alter Pain during the fight, more cards, etc.