The Uchtman Factor: An Overview

[Thunder_God]

Do you try to escape, do you escape and fail.

How being On the Run and Captured work? I figured Captured is how you begin and On the Run your goal, but it seems like it'd keep going while On the Run, and give you more options and opportunities to insert Fact Cards, suddenly there are way more settings and NPCs being encountered.

I think someone still needs to introduce opposition/NPCs as you go, your fellow inmates, the jailors after you escape, etc.

[Peter Nordstrand]

Hi everybody,

This is my last post in this thread. I'll be writing a first draft of the game over the next week or so; hopefully that will answer most questions. Thank you for your patience. I'll PM you all when it is done, and those who are interested will get to check it out.

David, thank you for the tip. I'll check out Guy's game.

A final note on situations. The game is centered around certain pre-defined (but rather broad) situations. Explaining how this is supposed to work takes as much time as writing the first draft, so it'll have to wait. I'm not sure if a single unexplained example will help, but I'll give you one anyway. On the Run situations work something like this:

On the Run

Purpose: Give active players an opportunity to increase their dice pool.

1. The active player describes an situation where Uchtman tries to escape.

2. The opposing player introduces one or more established characters that try to stop Uchtman. He describes what they do to keep him from escaping.

3. The active player picks a method to deal with the escape (the four available methods are Kill, Destroy, Conflict Management, and Flee).

4. The player rolls a number of dice as determined by method used versus the obstacle pool. If the opposing player wins, he becomes the active player. If the active player wins, immediately transfer 2 dice from the obstacle pool to the active player.

A player may elect to surrender without conflict, in which case he loses 1 die from his dice pool. The non-acting player with the smallest dice pool becomes acting player instead, adds 1 die to his dice pool, and automatically begins the next situation Captured.

Next Situation: At the end of the situation, the active player gets to decide if Uchtman is Captured or still On the Run.

Opposing Player: The non-active player with the least number of dice in his dice pool.

Obstacle Pool: A communal pool used in conflicts betwen the active player and non-player opposition. The size of the obstacle pool decreases throughout the game as more and more dice are transferred to the players.

Finally,

I think someone still needs to introduce opposition/NPCs as you go, your fellow inmates, the jailors after you escape, etc.

Yes, your fellow players will do this, usually the "opposing player".


All the best,

/Peter

[Thunder_God]

Though you said it's the last post you'll currently be making here, I still want to raise two issues for you to consider.

1) "Doesn't resist capture" leading to Escape? That sounds all sorts of wrong, thematically. Also, you can't have one arrow leading to more than one result in an Algorithm, you have to differentiate them somehow.

2) Put some thought into the reverse "Death Spiral", the Active player who succeeds is more likely to stay the Active player, both his dice pool increases AND the obstacle pool decreases. Give it some thought. Or make sure the non-active players' parts are big enough that they will be willing to stay dormant. If that is the case, make sure the middle-personna still gets to do something, because currently the active player stays biggest and the opposing player stays smallest. The middle player does nothing at all.

Cheers and good luck.

[Peter Nordstrand]

Hi,

Thank you for commenting. It is appreciated.

The image I linked to is a sketch, not a rule. The "doesn't resist capture" note on the arrow leading to "Escape?" is a typo.

Thank you for pointing out the "reverse death spiral". I'll certainly think about its effects.

All the best,

/Peter