[My Secret Waitress] Initial Thread

[Bryan Hansel]

Hi,

This is my first post to the Forge (what a resource!!!), and the reason I'm posting is that I have a game to the point where it is presentable.  I think that it has potential to be a fun game that explores the interaction between a sense of duty to expose corruption before being overcome by the corruption.
I have set up a temporary web page for the game, but it will be moving shortly to a new domain as soon as my provider finishes setting up for it.  The current location is: http://www.bryanhansel.com/waitress/  A pdf is available there and I will post a direct link as soon as my new domain is ready.  I will update the link after the new domain is ready.  My intention with this game is to fix it up, get it working as a fun playable game and then if it merits some type of print run, and/or online as a pdf for free.

Premise:
Players explore a sense of duty to expose corruption before being overcome by the corruption.

Setting:
In the game, the player's characters are waitresses working at the supper club for all the members of Congress, who are all corrupt.  A secret agent has recruited the waitresses because of their motivation to expose the corruption.

Character Creation:
Characters are created from a back-story that the player designs and which a character's Motivation is pulled.  The game uses 5 Stats:  Charm, Duty, Tips, Favors, and Guilt

Charm and Duty are used for action resolution.  Charm is a catch all.  Duty is only used if a player can justify its use based on Motivations.  These Stats are modified by skills, called Adornments and Motivations, respectively.  Charm can be reduced during play to the eventual death (burn out) of a character, and Duty stays the same.

Tips are earned anytime a waitress works in the supper club, all play sessions start at work, but with earning Tips, Favors are granted on a 1:1 ratio.  Tips are a currency used to help Action Resolution, buy new skills, and buy stuff out of a waitress's salary range.

Favors either reduce rolls in Action Resolution or are activities that MUST be carried out by the character.  The GM comes up with favors, and they should be morally questionable.  Favors cause Guilt

Guilt reduces Charm.

In addition, each waitress has a number of Vacation Days that can be used like Tips.

Action Resolution:
Each of the Stats is represented by the number of dice used in action resolution.  An action succeeds if a) a one is rolled, or b) in a vs. situation more ones are rolled.

Rewards:
The main reward is that after a congressman is exposed the character losses Guilt and gains back the Charm lost.  On an Action Resolution level, players narrate success.  As vacation days are used and more congressmen exposed, the waitress can move on to more powerful congressmen (not yet complete in the current text).  In addition, the player gets to narrate the taking-down of a congressman (i.e. exact revenge for all the morally repugnant things their characters had to do.)

I'm not sure exactly what questions to ask, as this is my first post, but these questions come to mind:  Am I accomplishing what I intended to do in the premise?  If not, how could I improve on the game or where are the faults or what is wrong with the game or suggestions on what is needed?  And, of course, it would be nice to know if it sounds like it would be fun to play.  I'm sure there are 100s more questions to ask, but I was hoping to get some feedback at this point, before I put more work into the game, so I can concentrate on fixing the broken parts.

I look forward to reading any feedback, comments, remarks that you could give.

Thank you,
Bryan

[Jason Morningstar]

Hey, welcome to the Forge!

OK, I looked over your manuscript.  First of all, you totally need to playtest!  A lot of the numeric relationships will iron themselves out when you play your game.  A couple of questions about My Secret Waitress:

One I always ask - why is there a GM?

How long do you envision the game taking in real time to play out?  Related to that, this premise seems tailor made for an explicit endgame condition.  Just a thought.

Tips and Favors are opposed, right?  And given out equally?  The fact that the mechanical effects of Favors are fuzzy could be a weakness in your currency system.  There seems to be a hard-wired relationship for everything else.

Who decides when a character can use Charm?

Duty never changes?  It is a constant?  Is that right?  My gut feeling is that Duty is as malleable as anything else. 

Thanks for posting this and I hope we can generate some useful discussion for you. 

--Jason

[Bryan Hansel]

Hi Jason,

Thank you for the welcome and looking over the manuscript.  I agree I need to playtest.  I thought about what you've written and you've made some great points.  You're right that the Favor system is fuzzy and needs to be fixed.  This is what I came up with:

New Favor System: At the end of her shift, the player rolls for Favor points as normal, and Favor points are gained as normal, but the waitress also gains a Favor that has to be carried out in the next scene.  When she does the favor, she rolls the Favor dice pool vs. Duty and if it fails, then she gains a point of Guilt.

About Duty: Because the waitress continues to gain Favors if the player wants more Tips, then the effectiveness of Duty is reduced in keeping the waitress from burning out.  So although a sense of Duty (the points) never changes, Duty becomes over come by the need for more Tips.  Am I thinking right on this and does that answer your questions?

I agree that this premise seems tailor made for an explicit endgame, i.e. you win if you expose the corruption and you lose if you don't.  I hoped to address that with a waitress burning out, i.e. failing.  And I see play lasting from two to three hours a session with a waitress lasting for around 3 to 4 sessions before being overcome by favors from her three congressmen. 

But, related to this and your question "Why is there a GM?"  I guess that there doesn't have to be one.  But I'm not sure how to do that.  I've thought a little about it and don't know if this is the way the game will go, but I like the idea of a GMless/ one shot two to three hour long game.  So, maybe something like this:

Number of players: 3
Player's Roles/To win.
Waitress = Exposes Senator for the corrupt dog he is.
Secret Agent = Changes the Senator's vote with blackmail. (and burns the waitress out?)
Senator = Keeps his secret.

Evidence Pool = Not sure of the exact mechanics at end game, but the waitress adds to the evidence.  The Senator subtracts from the evidence.  If waitress burns out, then end game.

Turn Looks like This:
1. One player controls narration.
2. States what is at stake for the turn.  Number of Evidence points.
3. Picks a scene from a list.  A total of 10 scenes get played plus the final scene.
4. In the scene:  Player = Brings in
waitress = senator
senator = agent
agent = waitress
If player isn't in the scene they run the NPCs.
5. Scene ends with a conflict resolution.  Winner adds or subtracts from the evidence pool.

Stats
Waitress = Charm, Favors, Tips
Senator = Favors, Influence, Donations
Agent = Influence, Charm, Power

But I guess I'm not sure how to play a rpg without a GM.

Thank you for your comments (They helped!) and I appreciate any comments from anyone,

Bryan

[Jason Morningstar]

Hey Bryan, in addition to sitting down to kick your game around with friends, definitely play other similar games as hard as you can.  If you want to learn about GM-less play, the go-to game in my opinion is Polaris, by Ben Lehman.  It's 100% nothing like what you are working on here, but it works perfectly with four players, period, and does a lot of other things elegantly and well.

--Jason. 

[Bryan Hansel]

Jason, thank you for the suggestion.  I'm going to pick it up and check it out.  The artwork looks fantastic.  I live in a pretty small town (just 1,500), and about two hours away from any major city, so next time I'm down in Duluth, I'm going to check around and see if I can find a copy, otherwise I'll have to pick it up on the net.  Thanks for helping out a newbie to the Forge.

Thanks,
Bryan