Revolutionaries: setting challenge review

[Rich Stokes]

I was rather hoping someone else would start a thread about this, quite simply because Malcolm started a thread about Umläut and was very complementary about it.  And the problem is, I really like Revolutionaries and didn't want this to look like some kind of mutual appreciation society!  Damn those Brits, sticking together!

So anyway, here we go.

Revolutionaries is a setting for Joe Prince's Contenders.  It casts the players as rabble rousers and political agitators in an oppressive totalitarian society.  Set in the city state of Ghastport, this is an industrial revolution style fantasy setting, with demon powered telephones and wonderful-if-somewhat-impractical wind powered trams.

As a document, it's 26 pages of A4 with no illustrations.  It's cleanly laid out, easy on the eye but has a small handful of typos and spellos.  Another proofread would have easily fixed this (Malcolm, the typos aren't exactly legion, but even a spaz like me noticed!)  This contest (quite rightly IMO) does not judge layout but if it did, Revolutionaries would get a pretty unexciting score for it.

After the cover, table of contents and designer's notes, the actual setting material is presented.  This takes up the majority of the book, 18 out of the remaining 22 pages and is presented in a way which is almost entirely divorced from the game's mechanics.  I say "almost"  because the game's system requires a fair bit of the background to be presented in order to function.  For example, how can you create a political faction for your character to belong to if you don't have at least some examples presented in the setting document?  There here all right.

You get a potted history of Ghastport and an overview of the culture.  Then a list of issues to be debated is presented.  There's then a pretty lengthy description of the cities geography and two pages on the political groups the PCs are likely to encounter.  The last part is sample PCs, four are presented and that's pretty handy.  If you wanted, you could probably just all run with one of those if you were lazy.

One thing to note about Ghastport as a setting is that it's obviously very heavily inspired by China Mieville's New Crobuzon from his Bas Lag novels.  If you like those books (Perdido Street Station in particular) you'll feel right at home here.  Take out the non-humans and you've got the overall feel pretty much right.  Having said that, Ghastport didn't feel like a knockoff, didn't feel like New Crobuzon with the serial numbers filed off.  I think this is due to the fact that the history of Ghastport is a pretty well defined and that (to me at least) gives it a pretty distinct feel of it's own.  Obviously I cannot judge how easily someone who has not read Perdido Street Station would be able to grasp the setting, but there appears to be a very solid overview at the start that makes things pretty clear.

After that, we have the rules section.  There aren't many rule changes and frankly there don't really need to be.  Some attributes are changed.  Connections are split into Personal and Political, which makes sense.  Fights are called either rallies or debates depending on whether you are taking on a crowd and trying to get them fired up or directly trying to make an opponent look like Boris Johnson*.  Mechanically they work the same as fights in the regular game, but there's no mention of KOs.  I assume this means that a character getting KO'd is given the bum's rush and loses the debate.

So overall:
How well is the game system integrated? How well does it seem to fit?

Pretty well.  I can't see any immediate problems and nothing seems particularly "forced".  It would have been nice to have had a bit more in terms of how the rules apply to the setting, especially when to have a Debate and when to have a Rally.

How will the game presumably work in play, especially with regard to how the setting facilitates a certain kind of play?

There's lots of conflict in the setting and it's structured in a way that help players create the shared narrative.  So it looks pretty good.

How complete, accessible and well presented is the material?

This is the weakest point for this setting.

The Good
It's well written, an enjoyable read and has plenty of ideas for conflict which looks easy to drop into actual play.

The Bad:
There's quite a bit of setting for a game that doesn't have a traditional GM.  I've been over this before, but to summarise, I can't help feeling that the background for games like this ought to be short.  With a more traditional GM model, what generally happens is that the GM reads the setting and the players generally either read a short summary of listen while the GM explains the setting to them.  Players then ask question of the GM if there's something they need clarified.  Without the central authority figure of the GM, everyone really needs to understand the setting in full, and thus I feel that the book needs to be read by all the players.  So it needs to be shorter and more precise.  While everything in the setting is interesting, I can't help wondering how many groups are going to actually be willing to all read the setting and whether there will be problems when half of them don't.  For example, I have to wonder if this much on geography is really necessary, given that it's not entirely relevant to actual play of the game.  We get 5 pages of geography, 2½ of political issues and 2 on political groups.  Surely Groups and Issues are more important to actual play than geography?

Only Actual Play and playteset with different groups will answer this, so I can't give a solid answer, but something about the way this is written bothers me.

In short, there isn't anything wrong with the way this setting is presented or written, just that I think most of the players in my group would probably tell me to sod off if I told them to read it before we started the game.

How interesting, original, stylish and "juicy" is the setting?

Damned interesting, pretty original, very stylish and fairly juicy.  I really enjoyed reading this setting and would recommend it to anyone who likes the idea of a political setting for just about any system.  There are some neat ideas in here that could be mined for other games.

Overall:  Bloody good setting!

* Obnoxious and ineffectual but entertaining British politician/unwitting comedian

[Graham W]

So, Revolutionaries: I love the setting of Ghastport, but I'm not sure about the way it uses the Contenders rules to play revolutionaries.

The setting itself is fantastic and superbly written. It's rare that I enjoy reading 18 pages of text, but this was great. I especially like the details: the Victory, for example, and the description of the Palace of Flowers. I'd love to play in this setting. I could happily play versions of Dungeons and Dragons or My Life With Master in Ghastport. It'd be a perfect setting for Contenders: I can imagine illegal boxing matches in Barney or Roughhouse.

But I'm not sure about the Revolutionaries idea. The Contenders rules don't quite seem to fit. It's fair enough that the centrepieces are Rallies and Debates. But Rallies and Debates seem very different from boxing matches: for a start, they're not one-on-one contests. A rally might involve, for example, the speaker trying to whip up resentment in a crowd; or trying to unite a factionalised crowd around a single idea. By characterising them as one-on-one contests, I feel you lose much of that.

Also, the players don't actually get to make the arguments. It would rather fun if, as a player, I actually had to think up arguments or counter my opponent's points. But it's all done by the cards: I play the card for "Fiery Rhetoric" but I don't actually get to do Fiery Rhetoric.

Thirdly, the political views are only ever debated, not acted upon. It's sad that, however brilliantly I put the case for abolishing slavery, it'll never be abolished in the game. Even if I whip the crowd into a murderous frenzy, I can't get them to storm the Royal Palace and bring down the Republic. That would be a great end to the game, but it's not quite possible (or did I miss something?).

How well is the game system integrated? How well does it seem to fit?

This is the bit I'm not convinced about.

How will the game presumably work in play, especially with regard to how the setting facilitates a certain kind of play?

There's no problem with it working mechanically, but I think the revolutionaries would want to do things which aren't covered by the rules.

How complete, accessible and well presented is the material?

It's excellently presented and well written.

How interesting, original, stylish and "juicy" is the setting?

The city of Ghastport is wonderfully stylish and looks great to play in.

Apologies to be negative, but I hope I've justified it with enough information to be useful.

Graham

[Malcolm Craig]

Now that the dealine for the voting has (effectively) passed, I feel I can now comment on the comments on Revolutionaries.

As a document, it's 26 pages of A4 with no illustrations.  It's cleanly laid out, easy on the eye but has a small handful of typos and spellos.  Another proofread would have easily fixed this (Malcolm, the typos aren't exactly legion, but even a spaz like me noticed!)  This contest (quite rightly IMO) does not judge layout but if it did, Revolutionaries would get a pretty unexciting score for it.

This is one thing I've noticed from the various entries is the range of graphic design, from the visually excellent to the astoundingly plain (which I feel revolutionaries falls in to). If the contest had, even partially, been judged on the graphic design of the entry, I would have been less keen to enter. I'm in no way a graphic designer by any stretchof the imagination, I leave that to more skilled hands than I. For me, it's all about the writing. As for a further prooof: yep, certainly required.

One thing to note about Ghastport as a setting is that it's obviously very heavily inspired by China Mieville's New Crobuzon from his Bas Lag novels.  If you like those books (Perdido Street Station in particular) you'll feel right at home here.

Absolutely. The two biggest influences on the game in fiction terms were the New Crobuzon stories and the work of Mervyn Peake (Ghastport being something of a tip of the hat to Gormenghast). I've recently been re-reading Iron Council, as well as reading Looking For Jake for the first time, to the Mieville influence is right there.

Only Actual Play and playteset with different groups will answer this, so I can't give a solid answer, but something about the way this is written bothers me.

I've just taken the above quote as a pointer to your comments, rather the quoting the full extent of your comments.

On the whole, I do see where you are coming from with reard to the setting. Some of the points strike right home: why is there more geography than politics? However, I'd submit that even the sections on the place itself have, contained within them, things which can serve to inspire actions within the context of the game. For me, above everything else, this challenge was an exercise in creation of place. Once I get going, I tend to plurge the ideas and everything down on the page and pay much more attention to the setting than the mechanics. Given more time, the setting and Contenders elements of the game would probably have been integrated more tightly, incorporating more setting information into the way the mechanics are described, e.g.: during character creation, giving examples of bits of the city the example characters come from, rather than having them as huge chunks of background text. However, this isn't the way the game has been presented at this stage. The main aim was to create the setting and attempt to integrate it with my chosen mechanics. There are definitely alterations that need to be made to the mechanical side of things, even at this stage. More on that to follow.

But I'm not sure about the Revolutionaries idea. The Contenders rules don't quite seem to fit. It's fair enough that the centrepieces are Rallies and Debates. But Rallies and Debates seem very different from boxing matches: for a start, they're not one-on-one contests. A rally might involve, for example, the speaker trying to whip up resentment in a crowd; or trying to unite a factionalised crowd around a single idea. By characterising them as one-on-one contests, I feel you lose much of that.

This segues nicely from the comments made by Rich. Indeed, the mechics do require further work if they are to be fully adapted to the game. There is much that is missing from the rules adjustments presented in the PDF. One of my majro concerns was not to, in essence, give the full text of Contenders away within the PDF. Perhaps I erred too much on the side of caution here and omitted certain important elements that would ahve made the text as presented much better. 202/20 hindsight and all that!

I've not found any of the comments made negative in the slightest. To me it all comes across as valid, constructive criticism which has actually inspired me to take this further. Contenders provides a good, basic building block for such as game, because it provides an excellent set of mechanics for doing certain things. However, I think that Revolutionaries require to take that basic building block and take it further in other directions in order to provide a truly workable and satisfying game.

So, the outcome of this is that I'm toying with the idea of proceeding with Revolutionaries as a full, stand alone game in its own right. Obviously, the game will always take Contenders as an inspiration, but I feel that there are certain things that could be done to provide a set of mechanics that diverge from the original and really promote what the game is all about.

What needs to be done:

The game is all about politics and the lives of those trying to engender change. So the characters should be very heavily focussed on this.

The rallies and debates need to be seperated out and have their own effects. Thereshould also be outcomes to these scenes: What does the character want to achieve in a debate or rally?

So, these are a couple of initial things that I'm considering.

At the moment, characters look like this:

Hope
Pain
Money
Eminence

Authority
Verbosity
Dissembly
Tenacity

At the moment I'm trying to analyse the game and see which of these are truly necessary and which are simply add-ons that don't serve any real purpose. Now, one thing I'm considering doing to to remove hope and give a series of other stats that reflect the different strands in the life of a revolutionary. To me, these are:

Personal will to succeed
Standing within a political organisation
The outward standing of that political organisation

The last two of these have some overlap with Eminence, which represents the standing of the revolutionary within the political turmoil of Ghastport.

Additionally, the political group that the revolutionary belongs to deserves to be given greater detail and importance.

Well, these are a few random, initial thoughts on how I'm planning on taking Revolutionaries forward. I'd be interested to gain feedback on the importance of various character stats and how people would see these interacting with the game world as a whole.

Finally, thanks for all the commentary on the setting, it really has been very helpful and inspiring. And many thanks to Frank for organising the entire thing.

Cheers
Malcolm

[Mikael]

Hey Rich, I recommend swiping some these guys' comments for your back-cover blurb. I was not immediately exited about the setting when I saw it on the submission thread, but now I am stoked! Downloading...

[Malcolm Craig]

Hey Rich, I recommend swiping some these guys' comments for your back-cover blurb. I was not immediately exited about the setting when I saw it on the submission thread, but now I am stoked! Downloading...

Hey Mikael,

Not sure if your reply was meant for me or for Rich! I'm kind of thinking it it might be for me, but I'm slightly unclear on that. Hey though, regardless, please do let me know what you think of Revolutionaries!

Cheers
Malcolm

[Ben Lehman]

How well is the game system integrated?  How well does it seem to fit?

I feel that revolutionaries fails the most in this category.  I find the setting and the premise pretty interesting, but I'm just not sure that Contenders is the best choice for it.  Particularly the mapping of rallies / debates to fights.  Quite simply, the story of a boxing movie is one of personal triumph over hard times, whereas the story of the revolution is about leading a great social change.  Since there's little room in the game for the revolution to actually happen, I feel that the Contenders system will end up frustrating play rather than facilitating it.

This is the weakest category.  I'm going to rate it a 4.

How will the game presumably work in play, especially with regard to how the setting facilitates a certain kind of play?

Well, the mechanical problems were discussed above, so I don't want to double-penalize the game, because the actual setting itself seems pretty fantastic with respect to actually playing.  The setting just drips opportunities for revolutionary idealism, rabble-rousing, coffee-house negotiations, underground newspapers, and all sorts of other great 18th century revolutionary trappings.

The one downside I see is that I really feel that the demons and robots and other fantastical elements are going to detract from the revolutionary spirit rather than add to it.  The temptation to start such silliness as, I dunno, the free demons league or something looks a little strong, and I think it will deflate play rather than add to it.

Overall I'm going to rate this category a 7.

How complete, accessible and well presented is the material?

The setting is admirably complete, giving places, people, things, groups, ideas, conflicts, and tone to the gills without once doing anything to restrict play, rather than inspire it.  If anything, the material is a touch overwhelming.

I'm going to rate this a 9.  Fantastic.

How interesting, original, stylish and "juicy" is the setting?

The setting is in that sort of "steampunk" fantasy thing, which in my own personal life is kinda played out, but that's not fault of Malcolm's.  In terms of tone and style, I could personally do without it, but in terms of juiciness, the setting just drips conflict and I can't wait to bite into it.

I'm going to rate an 8, here.  Juiciness is the most important for actual play.

[Mikael]

Sorry, Malcolm. You foreigners all look the same to me.

Yes, the setting itself did not disappoint.

The constant clacking of the walk-ways, demon telephones and so on are all terribly inventive and start me thinking that I would like to play this setting, looking at different aspects of ordinary, modern life and thinking of ways "demon power" could be used for simple day-to-day things.

Of course, such an exploration needs things that drive the characters, and here I might personally go with more traditional, outsiders-discover-the-dark-and-dangerous-city type of deal.

Despite the fact that I am not completely convinced that I would want to play a revolutionary, the section on political issues was entertaining and gave me more understanding of the setting. Contrasted to that, the list of city districts just had my eyes glazing over, as it is the kind of thing I have never enjoyed in any city setting, not even in Over the Edge.

I really cannot comment on the integration with the Contenders rules because I do not know them.

[Malcolm Craig]

How well is the game system integrated?  How well does it seem to fit?

I feel that revolutionaries fails the most in this category.  I find the setting and the premise pretty interesting, but I'm just not sure that Contenders is the best choice for it.  Particularly the mapping of rallies / debates to fights.  Quite simply, the story of a boxing movie is one of personal triumph over hard times, whereas the story of the revolution is about leading a great social change.  Since there's little room in the game for the revolution to actually happen, I feel that the Contenders system will end up frustrating play rather than facilitating it.

This is the weakest category.  I'm going to rate it a 4.

Hi Ben, thanks for pitching in with your thoughts on Revolutionaries.

Having taken on board your comments and the comments of everyone else in regard to the fit of Contenders to the setting, as well as taking time away from the setting and having another look at it with fresh eyes, I'm pretty much in agreement with everybody that the fit isn't as good as it could be. That being said, I think that Contenders could make and excellent , politically focussed game. However, this would require a bit more work that I put in to Revolutionaries. This is what leads me to think that creating a distinct system to support the setting, as opposed to a wholesale Contenders shoehorning, might be the way to go. More about that below.

How will the game presumably work in play, especially with regard to how the setting facilitates a certain kind of play?

The one downside I see is that I really feel that the demons and robots and other fantastical elements are going to detract from the revolutionary spirit rather than add to it.  The temptation to start such silliness as, I dunno, the free demons league or something looks a little strong, and I think it will deflate play rather than add to it.

Heh, imagination overload there, I think. To be honest, I can see what you're driving at in terms of derailing the experience of play with a certain element of silliness. Then again, as part of the setting, I do like the chained demons being used as a source of power and clunky factories turning out wooden automata to serve the masses. In retrospect, the effects of these things and the direction in which they could be taken within the context of the game would need to be looked at in a more thoughtful way.

Sorry, Malcolm. You foreigners all look the same to me.

It's our sneaky little eyes and underhand way what do it! Thanks for coming in with your further comments on the setting.

Despite the fact that I am not completely convinced that I would want to play a revolutionary, the section on political issues was entertaining and gave me more understanding of the setting. Contrasted to that, the list of city districts just had my eyes glazing over, as it is the kind of thing I have never enjoyed in any city setting, not even in Over the Edge.

I really cannot comment on the integration with the Contenders rules because I do not know them.

The city districts were, in retrospect, a bit of a bridge too far. As I said above, I'd like to talk more about turning revolutionaries into a fully fledged game. Part of this would not be preenting huge chunks of setting detail for people to read through. Instead, I visual making the game workable if you want to play revolutionaries in any context, but give Ghastport as an example throughout the text. So, it would begin with creating the place where the game will take place, bringing in bits of the info on Ghastport as example of what can be created. Political issues and so forth would be handled in the same way, as would the example characters and so on. More colour would be added by exampling throughout the explanation of the mechanics, always focussing on Ghastport as a created place.

Anyway, these are early thoughts, but I certainly feel inspired to take this further.

Thanks for all your comments and feedback.

Cheers
Malcolm