[Shab-al-Hiri Roach] Endgame and other issues

[Jason Morningstar]

Hey all,

Three games in two days later, I'm very tired but have a ton of Roach data to assimilate.  Many of the players were enthusiastic Forge geek types who provided immediate feedback on their experience, which helped a lot. I took five pages of notes.  Here are some concepts that came up which I'm thinking over:

1.  People were unsatisfied with the endgame, as am I.  In all three games, the winner was pre-ordained after cards had been drawn in the last event.  I'm all about some determinism, but it just isn't as fun as it could be.  Folks suggested including ways to damage the Reputation of others instead of increasing your own when you win a conflict, which I'm considering.  Another suggestion was to limit the size of a potential wager - players invariably wager a ton of Reputation on a conflict they are reasonably assured of winning, whcih can unbalance the game and lock in a victory early.  It is very "pathetic human cattle mean nothing", which is cool, but it can be a drag in play. 

Another thought was to have a final card drawing after the final event, to maintain some suspense about the outcome. 

Some folks expressed a desire to formalize epilogue narration, and/or to include a Roach "victory condition" to make playing to lose more fun. 

2.  Enthusiams came in for some criticism.  Some are very passive (Research) and some rely on repetitive narration (Gossip).  It was suggested that all Enthusiasms be very active and directly encourage the kind of manic play I want to see.  I need to balance this with their other purpose, which is reinforcing the setting and encouraging scenes that fit thematically.  Someone suggested giving characters three, rather than two, but I don't really like this.  Another idea was to allow a die shift up for actions that reinforce the kind of play I want to see.  Not sure how this would work out mechanically but it could be done.  Most of these comments emerged from the "flat" game Saturday night.

3.  Andy in particular stressed the need for copious examples of play, along with Vincent Baker style hints and tips poking at the underlying principles of play, which I think is an excellent suggestion.  The game is a bit of a departure and I'd like it to be accessible to a wide audience. 

Please weigh in on these ideas, if any of them strike you as particularly good or bad.  I'm just thinking it all over at this point.

Thanks,

--Jason

[Eric Provost]

Flat-game player here.

I whole-heartedly support a cap on the wager one can make in any given scene.  Three seems to sound good to my brain, but some deeper thought might be required.

I've tried to bend my brain around the endgame issue.  I can't seem to see a really good solution, but I think I may have come up with a formula to describe the problem.  Being Roached = Fun.  Being Roached =! Winning.  Therefore trying to win leads you to not-as-fun-as-they-could-be instances of play.  Because trying to win means trying to be un-roached at the end of the game, and attempting to be un-roached at the end of play might mean dropping the roach as early as Event 3 or 4, leaving as much as 2/3rds of the game un-roached.

That may be nothing but a bit of hot air, but that's what occurred to me after Lisa talked about the last session she played with you guys on Sunday afternoon.

I'm returning to my position that there needs to be a different way to free yourself from the roach.  Some voluntary and costly way to not have to depend on the random-draw to save your hide.

-Eric

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I've tried to bend my brain around the endgame issue.  I can't seem to see a really good solution, but I think I may have come up with a formula to describe the problem.  Being Roached = Fun.  Being Roached =! Winning.  Therefore trying to win leads you to not-as-fun-as-they-could-be instances of play.  Because trying to win means trying to be un-roached at the end of the game, and attempting to be un-roached at the end of play might mean dropping the roach as early as Event 3 or 4, leaving as much as 2/3rds of the game un-roached.

No way! Being un-roached is way too much fun. It's playing Call of Cthulhu. When my unroached guy took on Lisa's roached character and won, it was awesome.

I'm returning to my position that there needs to be a different way to free yourself from the roach.  Some voluntary and costly way to not have to depend on the random-draw to save your hide.

Anything less than half your Reputation is much too little. Even that seems too nice.

I think the randomness of the game is its charm, personally.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I will take a minority view on the issue of win/loss. I think that knowing who cannot win, due to being roached, at the beginning of the first round is just fine.

Best,
Ron

[Adam Dray]

Flat game player here, too. I had lots of fun, but Act 6 felt really empty. I felt that no one cared about my 15 Reputation bet or my scene in which my senile but nice old music professor blew up the entire auditorium and everyone in it. I think someone did come in against me, and I won, but 30 chips didn't mean anything either because I was Roached. I didn't really care about that scene either, because I was Roached and couldn't win. It was my suggestion to flip the last cards at the end of the game.

Part of the game seems to be that element of despair and hope. I guess I can see how Act 6 can be a sort of epilogue rather than just another act. In that case, you have 5 acts plus an epilogue, because if you are Roached going into Act 6, there is no hope for you. Maybe just calling it Epilogue would have set my expectations appropriately.

What if you could buy off the Roach for 6 Reputation?

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Flat game player here, too. I had lots of fun, but Act 6 felt really empty. I felt that no one cared about my 15 Reputation bet or my scene in which my senile but nice old music professor blew up the entire auditorium and everyone in it. I think someone did come in against me, and I won, but 30 chips didn't mean anything either because I was Roached. I didn't really care about that scene either, because I was Roached and couldn't win. It was my suggestion to flip the last cards at the end of the game.

This is so interesting, as we had the opposite effect in the later game. My character was roached in the last act, and yet it was one of the most fun acts in the game for me. Being told to bleat in my impotence (or something like that), I managed to break the will of a young football poet by bleating like a satanic goat in his face over and over, as I was driven completely mad by the roach. And later, when another professor tried to destroy me, I showed my true face (literally - he knocked off my nose and saw into my sinus cavity) and defeated him.

Winning? It didn't seem to matter. Or rather, I honestly felt like I won the game, even with the roach and less reputation than the true winner.

What if you could buy off the Roach for 6 Reputation?

Again, this seems way too easy. The whole point of the game is the temptation to take the roach, even though you know it'll damn you. If it doesn't really damn you, the game will just turn into Roach Wars.

[Adam Dray]

Well, when Jason explained the game, he told us in something like these words, "The object of the game is to end with the highest Reputation. Whoever has the highest Reputation wins." So I think I was in full kick-ass-and-take names mode, applying every bit of strategy I could to win.

I'm not normally a Gamist player but I am fairly competitive (in that I really enjoy competing, not that I need to win). So when we got to Act 6 and I knew I'd already lost due to a series of bad draws (Roached in Act 1, no chance to ditch the Roach before the game ended), it felt pretty frustrating. I mean, dude, I had Reputation 30 at the end of the game. (I interpreted it as being the infamously known professor who blew himself and the entire university up.)

I think I had a different CA than the experienced players, who knew it wasn't really about winning. Sadly, I knew (from previous Actual Play reports) that it wasn't about winning but forgot that during play. Classic CA alignment problems.

Regarding Roach buy-offs:

Again, this seems way too easy. The whole point of the game is the temptation to take the roach, even though you know it'll damn you. If it doesn't really damn you, the game will just turn into Roach Wars.

It couldn't be the "whole point" for the game I was in, since three of us started with the Roach and I never got free. There was no temptation for me, no choice. I think a 6-chip buy-off is a pretty significant setback but I'd have to play it some more to see how it played out.

[Jason Morningstar]

The game needs to work just fine when everybody is playing hard to "win", even though that meta-goal is really a polite fiction.  In play it's cool to see how the competition focuses people, though.  You didn't do anything wrong, Adam, and neither did Remi in the third game, where he totally worked it to assemble an unstoppable advantage. 

I think it works fine with a little determinism, but I want to add some reward for a person choosing to play to lose, as well as a little more tension in Event 6, which is really an epilogue most of the time - in two out of three games at MACE, we didn't even bother to frame out very many scenes. 

--Jason

[Eero Tuovinen]

I'll admit at the beginning that my roach-fu is hazy. The game looks really fun, but for some reason I've not yet had time to even read the rules in detail. Still, I might have something to say about the end-game thing, being I'm pretty experienced with boardgames with similar problems.

Roach at the endgame: I don't see a problem with being stuck with it in the last round. That frees you to narrate a roachy last scene for your character, doesn't it, when you know that you can't be saved? It also flies in the face of the boardgame design principle of avoiding king-making situations, which I kinda like.

As for the others: There's two schools of thought here, as far as board games are concerned: the first option is to keep the victory points hidden during the game and count on the players not tracking them, even if they're deterministic. This works fine in games like Tigris&Euphrates, where you could in theory calculate the scores of everybody all the time but don't, because it's against the spirit of the game. So in practice you aren't sure about your standing and will fight to the end.

The other option is to have genuinely secret victory points that can sway the game at the end. This is very common, and works nicely. For example, many games have "goal cards" you get at the start or even during the game (see Ticket to Ride), and if you fulfill the conditions, you get the points. Such cards can be even a part of the basic deck, if you don't feel like having another set of cards just for that purpose. Put in a dozen "goals" (SIS things, I'd imagine, instead of mechanical things) which score points at the end of the game, and have some mechanics that make it possible to either hoard a goal or play it on the table for anybody to compete over. (You could even have a goal relating to the roach-status if you like: if you have a suitable goal card, you won't lose because of the roach.)

Another method of not making the winner so clear before the end is of course to allow for some drastic last minute action that sways the game (Republic of Rome is a good example). I don't think this works very well when it's used, because you basicly have two options: either the player who planned well and prepared good wins, which means the drastic action failed, or the drastic action carries through, in which case the strategizing player loses. Neither are very meaningful cases, so this kind of mechanics are kinda loss-loss as far as game design is concerned. Better to have the game be deterministic at that point, but the players in the dark about who is going to win.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Jason, it might be a fine thing to write explicitly (and to say, prior to play) that "winning" is very definitely framed by quotes. Otherwise you may set people up for a Gamist CA, which, as we all agree, is not supported by the current rules and shouldn't be.

You may say, "oh, it works fine when people all play to win," but that's manifestly incorrect. If people really think they're Playing To Win (stepping on up), then they are going to hit disappointing rules and situations.

I very strongly suggest NOT altering the game in order to try to satisfy Step On Up and Story Now simultaneously or in tandem. It won't work; you'll screw your game right up the ass. Instead, merely be clear and up-front about the CA you're supporting, and keep the "win" in quotes.

Best,
Ron

[Jason Morningstar]

Thanks for the suggestions, Eero!

Roach at the endgame: I don't see a problem with being stuck with it in the last round. That frees you to narrate a roachy last scene for your character, doesn't it, when you know that you can't be saved?

This is really what I'm talking about - I want to clarify a satisfying "you are a loser, but it is still awesome" endgame.  I think this will be something that does not effect game play at all, but gives the best Roach some nugget of joy, like narrating the epilogue. 

As for the others: There's two schools of thought here, as far as board games are concerned: the first option is to keep the victory points hidden during the game and count on the players not tracking them, even if they're deterministic.

Really great idea but since the currency in play is reputation, it seems thematically imappropriate.  I've seen it work in El Grande, though, so I know where you are coming from. 

The other option is to have genuinely secret victory points that can sway the game at the end.

This is a wonderful idea and might be a great expansion down the road!  Sadly the giant wheel is rolling, and I don't want to develop and implement this for the initial release.  I obviously need to play more board games. 

Thanks,

Jason

[Jason Morningstar]

you'll screw your game right up the ass.

I see your point.  My fear was saying "winning is just a polite fiction; the real fun is reveling in the fact that you are completely doomed" would either confuse people or de-incentivize play. But it really is the truth, so being clear will at least avoid frustration from people misinterpreting what they are playing for.  Actually, this might ease the endgame dissatisfaction a little, too.

--Jason

[Adam Dray]

I'm with Ron on this. I don't need the game to be Gamist. I just needed to know that we weren't all playing Gamist. A lot of the table talk especially from you, Jason, made me think you were playing cutthroat Gamism. All the trash talk about us being wusses for not betting against someone really made me feel like we were supposed to be trying to win via Reputation chips. But the game isn't about that so who cares if people gain Reputation or not? Presumably, "my guy" cares but there's this Roach thing taking over people's minds and Reputation is all moot anyway. ;)

Two things that I think are broken:

If Reputation isn't really a measure of victory and it's more a thematic thing, I'd like it to have more thematic "bite." What does it mean to have more Reputation than anyone else? Can I, via game mechanics (even loose guidelines), use that? Maybe it's just a matter of preference of who frames a scene first.

Either maintain the tension through Act 6 with a final card draw at the end, or rename Act 6, "Epilogue," and don't bother with meaningless Reputation bets.

[Andy Kitkowski]

Hey all, I was in the awesome last game at MACE on Sunday (With Clinton, Lisa, Remy and Jason), and my experience was very similar to Adam's: That is, I planned on various strategies before Act One to get through the game ("Hmmm. maybe I'll take the roach in Act 4. Or maybe I'll wait and see. Or maybe I'll try to get by without it and set up others so they want to take the roach"), and also built my character with the goal in mind to be the maddened scientist who is investigating/fighting the Roach Menace.

The thing is, I got the Roach in the first draw, and was stuck with him through the rest of the game (no other roach cards).  Again, I had a lot of fun and all, and there was that tension when I turned over the cards, but in the end it was a bit of a letdown: Determinism is a cool and solid theme of the game, but I felt a little screwed that I didn't choose the Roach, and yet was stuck with him through the entirety of the game anyway. There weren't any rewards for decidedly not taking the roach during the game (or trying to shake him off), and in the end it's kind of like the situation where you hand out bonus XP for rolling criticals in D&D (it wasn't the player, it was just the dice). Overall, not a big problem because I had a lot of fun.  But with the "Winning Goal" in mind, I should have just dumped that goal, gone balls-out, and just hope for a Roach card by the end of the game.

If that's a valid play style, though, then it really needs to be stated somewhere up front in the book ("BTW, you might get the roach up front without wanting it, and maybe you won't be able to shake it: Keep that in mind when you play; Live it up a little!").

One thing I thought of was this: If, during the game, you did not willingly take on the Roach, that maybe in that "Epilogue Card Draw" (suggested above, which I like BTW) that you get to draw two cards for the chance of Unroaching yourself.  Thoughts?

In the end, Jason's got it tough: His game is a roleplaying game with boardgame/parlor game elements.  So not only does the RPG parts have to be in line and matter, but the boardgame parts have to be in line as well, or the game doesn't work well. It's gonna be judged by two standards, not just one, so he's going to have to work doubly hard on aligning the rules of the game.  Good luck, man!

-Andy

[Jon Hastings]

Jason,

I'm basically repeating myself, but I don't think the Roach needs much in the way of rules changes.

I like the endgame conditions as they are: they have an arbitrary "Fuck you, Charlie"-quality that feeds into the game's dark, Lovecraftian absurdity.  If you are Roach-Bound the entire game, and never get a chance to rid yourself of the Roach, well, sure, you can't win, but, chances are, you engaged in plenty of nastiness that should more than make up for losing.  Generally, the sixth event has been an opportunity for the Roach-Bound characters to go out with a bang.

I thought about proposing a kind of alternate victory track, so that, for example, the Roach-Bound character with the highest reputation would be crowned King Roach, or something, but, honestly, I think that would just muddy things up.

I'm agnostic about tweaking the Enthusiasms.  My main beef with them is that the guys I play with always choose sociability and they try to weasel it into every single conflict.  I guess I'd prefer leaving Enthusiasms up to a random draw, rather than player choice.

Play examples would definitely make the game text stronger.  As I've mentioned before, we really figured out how to make the Roach rock by reading Primetime Adventures (revised edition).

I have three suggestions along these lines:

1. When players are doing the who-hates-who/who-likes-who stuff, they should come up with some specific reasons.  This creates some backstory, which, in my experience, makes it almost impossible not to have lots of role-playing and juicy conflicts during the first event.

2. Make sure that players know they should play NPCs to the hilt and that NPCs are always up-for-grabs before someone brings them into a conflict.

3. As a play aid: some kind of master sheet to keep track of NPCs might be really helpful for beginning players.  (Ideally, I want use a big dry-erase marker board for keeping track of NPCs, but that is not really a practical suggestion).

Cheers,
Jon