[Judas:the game of betrayal] Initial musings

[Caldis]

I've had this idea for a little while now and am not sure how to proceed so I thought I'd throw it out here and see what comes of it. It's very raw at this point.  I'm presenting it as a game of it's own but the base idea I can see easily used in several games already out there such as universalis or the pool.

This game is to revolve around betrayal, breaking promises, vows, commitments, etc. Judas is a game that tries to create drama by taking two of these commitments and putting them into a situation where they come into conflict forcing the character to betray one of the elements in favor of the other.  The betrayal can be as slight as a little white lie or as grevious as outright murder.

The first step in Judas is to decide upon the setting for the game, and it can be anything.  Western, space opera,  Shakespeare,  contemporary crime drama, fantasy, whatever.  For our example we'll take a medieval setting full of castles, knights, chivalry, kings, and maybe even dragons.

Our next step is to create a character.  Choose something that seems appropriate to the setting, you can add some details to give the character flavor, a name, appearance, some  trademark, if you wish.  The most important thing you have to pick for the character is the two commitments which will come into conflict.  For our example we will choose a knight character and his two commitments will be one of love to his queen and one of loyalty to his king.  We'll call them Lance, Gwen and Art, I trust people can see where I'm going with this.

Play will now proceed with the players taking up the roles of the characters and attempting to create a scene in which the primary character must choose between the two.  All players can make suggestions regarding the situation, setting, atmosphere, and group consensus will determine how events turn out, but three players shall have special roles.  One shall take the role of the primary character and get to make the decision on who to betray in the end.  One player shall act as advocate for each of the commitments. 

Play will continue until the moment of choice is brought about.  Once the primary character has decided that scene will end and play will move to a new scene. By default the new primary character will be the one who was betrayed in the last scene and new commitments will have to be chosen.  They dont have to necessarily be a relationship but they do have to at least implie a burden on the character.

Group consensus will determine the result of most actions within the game as I said with special consideration given to the primary character, even if the group as a whole would like him dead or embarassed the player in control has veto over such actions.




Again as I said pretty raw at this point but I think theres a good solid base of an idea to build a game on.   I'd appreciate any comments and am fully willing to try and clarify anything I may have left cloudy.


   

[Darcy Burgess]

Initial thoughts: cool.  Followed by: aw, no dice?  Shucks.

Both are personal preference points, but mine them FWIW.

Regarding the structure of play -- are you envisioning only three players?  What role will 'excess' players hold?  If 4+ players, please be sure to include a mechanic whereby 'who gets to play the 3 big PCs' shifts.  If not that, make the rest of the players' roles more meaty in some way (they're the jury and they decide the betrayal?)

As it stands right now, I'm worried that it would just suck to be one of the 4+, for two reasons:

• it just doesn't seem as much fun as being one of the 3
• it looks like being in the 4+ group, you're more likely to feel like it's "hands off" time -- can't mess with the 3's scene, which would lead to less collaboration

Great idea though.  I'd love to see where this goes.

[Caldis]

You caught my big concern right away Darcy, what to do with extra players.  At his point I'm hoping that when scenes change the roles will change allowing other players to grab meatier parts.  I'm definitely thinking on ways to reinforce this mechanically.

As to no dice, well I'm not sure there will be no dice at all.  I may include a last resort mechanic to determine narration rights if the group cant come to a consensus but for the most part I want the people at the table working together to determine what happens.  I want the fights for control to be happening between the characters not the players.

[Darcy Burgess]

This just popped into my head -- it's very raw and hasn't seen any polish other than a cursory rub on my pantleg.

3 core players + X jurors.  X is a constant, based on the largest group you're willing to play with.

X = A+B, where A = real players, B = standins, in the form of a fortune mechanic.

That's right.  Real players as dice.

I don't really know what I mean by that, but I think that there's something useful in there, under all of the grotty exterior.  Obviously, the notions of rotating through the group still holds AFAIC, but this will give the extra players an even more important role -- especially if they can call for bribes from the leads.

[joepub]

I'm sort of running with the players as dice here, but altering it a bit:

players as conditional modifiers.


For example (I'm going to write my own example instead of using your lance/arthur):

Jordan (primary) must choose between his debt to the mafia (mafia-related character being secondary) and his support for the law (police officer being secondary).

Jordan is brought into a drug deal. This is the original scene framing.

Now, Jordan is put on watch by the mafia. A police cruiser moves suspiciously through the streets, as if the police suspect something but have no knowledge of what's happening.



NOW, enter additional characters, as modifiers/elements.

OPTION A: Additional as elements.
The additional players take on the props, environmental elements, and minor/static characters that are involved in this particular scene, but aren't involved in the storyline existing past this scene.

Player 4 takes on Vinny, the mafia man who joins Jordan on his watch. This will put Jordan in a disposition of possibly picking the mafia (for fear of getting ratted out by Vinny otherwise).

Player 5 takes on describing the element of gunshots going off inside the factory. Jordan hates violence, and was promised this would be a clean deal - no dirty tricks. This might put Jordan in the disposition of alerting the police.

Player 6 takes on the back up police car that arrives....

OPTION B: Additionals as modifiers.
In this one, players could become justifications for adding modifiers to a dice roll (obviously, I know you aren't going dice at the moment... this is just a possibility if you do.)

Player 4 becomes: "The mafia will kill you if you even wave down that cop car. Fear of the mafia gives them a +1 lean."

Player 5 becomes: "You have a criminal record, and they have your prints on file. You get caught here, the consequences are huge. Fear of the police gives them a +1 lean."

Player 6 becomes: "You hate Vinny, the boss' rich son who bosses you around. Distate gives the mafia a -1 lean."


add up all the lean modifiers. Then determining outcome could work in one of two ways:
-If you roll to determine succeeding in picking your allegiance... add the modifiers to that roll.

-Otherwise, if there is no such roll... if you attempt to side against the force you lean towards... roll a d4 (or something). If you best the total lean, you can decide freely.

[Caldis]

I'll have to nix the jury or dice rolls determining betrayal, making that decision is purely the realm of the player and certain to be the big payoff of the game IMO.

Joe your option A is right along the lines of my thinking. As are the option B items if you ignore the modifiers  More typical gm-like powers for the additional players.
I liked your example so I hope you dont mind if I extend it to give a better example of what play would be like.


Before play actually starts we set up that Jordan is going to be torn between a debt to the mafia and his support for the law.

I think I'd actually start it a little before the incident in the alley, allow the players to add more of those elements and modifiers you mentioned.  Lets have the law player add a character, Jordans mother who taught him to respect the law.  Maybe have a quick flashback scene to a time when he was growing up.  Next the mafia player adds an element.  His mother faces hardship, debts are piling up banks are unwilling to lend any more money the only one Jordan knows that can get him the kind of money he needs is Vinny the Mafia guy (Jordan taking the money would have to be accepted by the primary player).  Through this all the players, not just the active ones, are free to add suggestions on these events.  So even the inactive players are involved.

Now we get to the scene in the alley.  Jordan is on lookout, the cruiser is prowling around, what does he do?  Either he chooses the mafia and rats out the cops or he goes with the law and doesnt do what they want.  The exact manner of his decison the player will decide.  As soon as he makes his decision we cut to the next scene.

Now a new player will take the role as the primary character, by default this will be the side that he betrayed.  Lets say he ratted on the cops.  The player on the law side now has control of the primary character for this next scene.  The new character can be one introduced in the last scene or it can be an entirely new character.  Lets say it was one of the cops in the alley in the previous scene.  We'll set up his choice between revenge and justice.

Any players who were left out the last time round can now take the secondary positions for revenge and justice moving them closer to the center of the action.

I'd start this scene with a flashback to the end of the last scene, likely in a big gunfight where the new primary was injured or his partner was killed and it starts all over again.

[joepub]

Going with option A for this post...

I think it'd be important that the additional players NOT be on one side or the other...
That way additional players aren't forced to support either the mafia or the law in my example. It gives the additional players (ie. those besides the basic three) even more power than the primary/secondary characters in a way, which makes it equally as alluring.

Hell, some people might even want to STAY additional characters.


Basically, give them what would be called control of a descriptive element. They could choose an NPC (mafia, police, civilian, drug dealer, or even an animal), an environment (weather, time of day, street traffic flow), a sensory element (sounds of gunfire, smell of sulfur, seeing a house fire on hte horizon.).



So if someone chooses weather, they could describe the pouring rain... then switch to a thunderstorm as the deal is going down, then start hailing...
At first, weather has no impact. But Jordan would probably start feeling even shittier about the mafia if he was suffering a hailstorm on their behalf as the police kept an eye on him.

[Chris Goodwin]

Why not have multiple characters with multiple (three or more) commitments?  I'm not certain each commitment needs a player to advocate for it; presumably the player feels equally about them (that is, wants to see the fallout of breaking any of them equally).  It seems to me that if that's not the case, the player has chosen the wrong commitments. I'm totally seeing multiple avenues for betrayal, with heartbreak, blood, death, and plenty of other carnage, but that might not be the game you're looking at creating. 

[Darcy Burgess]

Caldis --

My 'people as dice' idea wasn't intended to replace player choice, but to inspire and motivate it.  I think it would be worth harnessing some sort of mechanic (fortune, karma, drama) to assist play.  As it stands, you have no mechanics -- characters are a collection of colour and a choice.  As it stands (to my eye), you have the first signs of a neat dramatic structure, but I don't see a game in there.

Regardless, I'd also like to point out that as far as I can see, you actually have 1 lead player and "2 or more" supporting players.  It's just that two of the supporting cast have predetermined roles.  However,  those roles aren't any more important than "the guy who plays the garbage can" -- since Judas is all about the main character's choice.

From my viewpoint, if you can tackle those two issues to your satisfaction, you'll have an excellent foundation for a game that I'd like to play -- and I'm putting my name up right now for playtesting.

[joepub]

My 'people as dice' idea wasn't intended to replace player choice, but to inspire and motivate it.

Where I was going with my idea of 'people as elements' is that characters don't replace player choice...

They add more information to the conflict. They present to him a wider horizon, so that his choice is more informed.


Jordan, pick between supporting the mafia and aiding the police.
And that annoying prick from the mafia is personally watching you.
And it's raining hard, but the mafia require you to wait outside.
And you hear gunshots going off.
And a second police cruiser arrives.

Additional players expand the universe, and add to the player choice.
The player's INFORMED choice.

[joepub]

And sign me up for playtest too!

I love games involving moral dillemma.


It's actually one of the main mechanics of the game I'm working on too! (link in signature)

[Caldis]

Thanks for the responses everyone, they're definitely giving me things to think about. 


Now let me try and clarify the reasoning behind some of the design choices.   

Chris you suggested multiple characters with multiple commitments and that's something that will develop over time in this game as we move on to new scenes and new characters.  However the reason for focusing on one character and two commitments is that it focuses everyone at the tables attention on what is going on right now.  We know what this scene is supposed to be about and what action is going to resolve it.

I agree with you that the advocates are likely unnecessary, everyone should know whats at stake and the primary player will be able to make the choice without anyway trying to influence their decision.  The advocate positions are really more like being on deck in baseball since whichever way the player chooses leads to that advocate being the next primary.

Your game description is pretty bang on what I'm going for, I think those multiple avenues for betrayal will naturally arise as more scenes are added to the game.


Darcy  I dont know if you've ever played in such a fashion but the best games I've been involved in have been freeform games where the dice were used for very little.  In those games creating the story elements was the game, the players interacting to determine what happened to these characters was the meat of it.  I guess my mechanic of choice is drama and the only place where I really see dice coming into it is as a tool to help resolve disagreements between players. I could be off base but I do feel that complex mechanical systems can be a turn off to some and a distraction to others, I want the drama to be front and center.

Joe, I'm still pondering your suggestions.  Having the extra players add elements to inform the decision, to colour the situation, even to help define the consequences of the choice is definitely the way I'm leaning.  I'm just not sure how to implement it or maybe even just how best to describe i.

Thanks for the offers for playtesters.  I'm going to ponders this a bit more before I proceed but when I'm ready to go I'll definitely let you know.

[joepub]

Joe, I'm still pondering your suggestions.  Having the extra players add elements to inform the decision, to colour the situation, even to help define the consequences of the choice is definitely the way I'm leaning.  I'm just not sure how to implement it or maybe even just how best to describe i.

How I'd propose it might be implemented:

Each player on the bench gets a small set of coins.
Maybe for each scene they don't play, they get 1. This gives some equity of playtime to those benched...
Maybe every time a player narrates something "cool", they get a coin. However it works out...

Every time they want to control an element of play, they ask the GM to play out:

-Describing a setting element
-An NPC not tied to either side
-An NPC tied to a side, but who cannot intervene on Primary Player's decisions

Any benched player can interrupt GM narration with a request to narrate.
They might say:
"Permission to narrate setting element?"
or they might say:
"Can I describe the weather throughout the scene?"

The GM then okays or declines the request, depending on whether the element was going to be crucial to the way he told the story or not. Most narrations would require 1 coin, however, some might require more (like controlling an NPC tied to a side) and some might be free (controlling a member of a crowd, controlling the scent in an area, etc.)