[GALACTIC] Berlin Playtest 2007

[Georgios Panagiotidis]

Session 1 - Character and setting creation

These are a few of my impressions of our first Galactic session on Monday. All in all it took us a little more than 2,5 hours to finish characters, factions, worlds and one quest (seed?) per Captain. All four of them. 

Preparation was fairly fast and easy. I gave the players a very quick and condensed history of the background first, although I have to admit I'm not much of a fan of either reading a lot of setting information or relaying it to players. Having covered the basics: humans on Caliban, the Scrouge and so on, we tackled Factions first. It seemed the easiest thing to do, as one player was coming in late.

I gave the players a quick rundown of the things they needed to flesh out about each faction and they set down to scribble away furiously. Interestingly enough, there was little to no interaction among the players as they did so. Also I think that it might be nice to have the aspects for Faction or World printed on a ready-made form. I'm not sure if that's because it'd be helpful, or because I've spent so much time among Germans. ;-)

We then moved on to creating Captains in much the same way. We worked our way through each step/aspect of the character, with me just announcing what they have to do next and them writing their ideas down on their notes. The only part that was a bit confusing at first, was the distinction between Concept and Personality. But we basically just threw the two together and carried on.

Next was coming up with different Worlds for the game, which we handled in pretty much the same way. With the occasional bit of interaction among the players to make sure they didn't double up on planet names or planet concepts. Water planets seemed to have been very popular with this group, but then again it was freaking hot that day.

We then came up with crewmembers, which was the first time there was some proper interaction among the players. They described their Captain's personality and the other players tried to come up with crewmembers who could easily provide some conflict for the Captain. Thinking back, I'm a little fuzzy about whether the Crew Agenda in a scene should be about the Captain butting heads with the crew or not.

Another thing I noticed was that the factions we came up with, veered a little into the unusual. We had a religious order (Holy Church of Isabel), a mining company (Universal Mining Garbage & Shiprescuing Corp.), a fast food chain (McDonalds Drive-In Corp., seriously) and "Space Pirates" (Free Traders). The atmosphere was overall closer to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy than to Battlestar Galactica. I'm not sure if you, Matt, have a specific style in mind with the game or if it's supposed to be wide-open. Either way, I expect some slight adjustments to happen during play eventually. Mostly because the players instinctively equated "loss of crewmember" as that crewmember dying and from a first read-through the game seems to nudge the Captain towards having to occasionally sacrifice a crewmember. So the first crewmember biting it might lead to the players re-evaluating their view of the game's atmosphere. But maybe I'm just overestimating the difficulty of it all.

Starting quests were done fairly quickly as well. Although I had to explain "cliffhangers" a little more thoroughly. Mostly because putting them at the start of a story seemed a little unusual. After character creation I went through a sample conflict with the players, so they could get a feel for it and especially recognize the importance of winning the crew agenda. Which reminds me, does the GM start the game with any Hazard at all or does he accumulate it after losing dice in the first conflict? Also, I read in one of the threads that you wanted to make "1 Fortune spent = 1 Hazard for the GM" a rule of the game. Does that still hold? I don't remember reading anything about it in the playtest files. And one last thing, I noticed that a playsheet for the GM might be a good idea as well. Especially when it comes to tracking doubt dice of each crewmember, as well as having the two tables on hand for quick reference.

Overall, the players are cautiously optimistic I think, and not quite sure what to make of the game so far. There will probably be some more solid comments after Monday's session.

One bit that caught me off-guard was how excited I am about the game and taking everything the players came up with and turning it into our game's setting and adventures. That's fairly unusual, as I've never much cared for developing setting as a GM.

[Matt Wilson]

Hey Joh, thanks for the feedback!

So yeah, I guess when I leave stuff out of the playtest doc, I leave out the big stuff. You're right. Every time players spend Fortune, for any reason, the GM gets it as Hazard. And yes, the GM starts with 5 Hazard per captain. That worked great for me with 3 captains. Let me know if 20 feels like too much with 4 captains.

It makes me laugh, shamefully, that I left both those things out. Sorry.

As far as creating factions and then captains, I prefer it that you create the captains you want, then come up with factions and worlds that suit them. I'd say the McDonald's thing is a little less edgy than I intend the setting to be. Your guesses about crew sacrifice are in line with what I'm imagining (it's also sad to think that if civilization rebooted on a distant world, we'd invent fast food again).

One bit that caught me off-guard was how excited I am about the game and taking everything the players came up with and turning it into our game's setting and adventures.

Excellent. I've always been a kind of writer's block GM, so I wanted the players to provide a near sensory overload of ideas. I'm glad that's working.

Thanks again for posting. I'm really looking forward to seeing how play goes. Also, I wonder what else is missing from the text.

[Georgios Panagiotidis]

As far as creating factions and then captains, I prefer it that you create the captains you want, then come up with factions and worlds that suit them.

I can see how creating captains first and factions and worlds second could work really well. But with my group and in fact with many gamers I know, this is very unusual and can cause problems. I've met a lot of players who want or need a setting to work with, when coming up with a character. It has to do with buying into the setting, I think, which is harder when it is explicitly designed for the characters.

[Emily Care]

Mostly because the players instinctively equated "loss of crewmember" as that crewmember dying and from a first read-through the game seems to nudge the Captain towards having to occasionally sacrifice a crewmember. So the first crewmember biting it might lead to the players re-evaluating their view of the game's atmosphere. But maybe I'm just overestimating the difficulty of it all.

There's a lot of life lost in Hitchhiker's as I recall--though mostly not the main named characters. Did this aspect get your players to engage by raising the stakes? It's very genre to my mind, very old trek and more currently a la BSG.

Nice write up by the way. What were some of the adventures the crew went through?

best,
Emily

[Georgios Panagiotidis]

Sadly, two players had to cancel at the last minute so Galactic has been postponed to next Monday. But I've a couple of questions instead.

Am I reading this right, that losing a quest means that many people suffer or die, but that the objective is reached eventually?

What happens to Trust/Doubt dice when a crewmember is removed or to Hazard when a Captain is switched? I'm thinking they'd be reset to zero, is that right?

Emily, so far we've only finished character creation. We won't start any actual adventuring until next week. But I'll keep an eye on how the players deal with stakes when they look at crewmembers dieing instead of merely being removed from the story.

[Matt Wilson]

Am I reading this right, that losing a quest means that many people suffer or die, but that the objective is reached eventually?

Technically there's no way to lose a quest. There's ways for the captain to die, and a point where the consequences may seem too great for the player. But game mechanics only ensure that a quest is completed: win three conflicts.

What happens to Trust/Doubt dice when a crewmember is removed or to Hazard when a Captain is switched? I'm thinking they'd be reset to zero, is that right?

Trust and doubt stick with their respective crewmembers. If you have two Doubt with Zelda, then those are for when Zelda is in the scene. Hazard is constant. If you finish a scene with Modo and you're up to 10 Hazard, and now it's Mette's turn, then you have 10 Hazard available for Mette's conflict. Based on the game's economy, you have to think about how you want to spend your Hazard each time. It rises and falls much more fluidly than Budget in Primetime Adventures. If you dump Hazard on Mette and have none left for Klaus, then Klaus gets an easier conflict.

There's more freedom in Galactic for the GM to really give the characters grief. You can push them to see what they're willing to do, but it involves just a bit of care that you don't spend all your Hazard only to lose it when the player concedes.

[Georgios Panagiotidis]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I've phrased my question badly though, I was interested in what happens to the Hazard and Doubt/Trust score, when characters die / are removed from the quest. That is, when a crewmember ends up with 5 or more Trauma or when 2 archetypes are reduced to zero.

From what you said, I'd assume that Hazard remains the same, but Doubt/Trust is set to zero, when the new crewmember enters the game at the next quest. Actually now that I think about it... is it at all possible to have a "traumatised" crewmember return somehow? Or are they gone for good once they've hit their trauma limit?

[Matt Wilson]

Guten Tag, Joe, or Guten Abend, whichever it is:

Traumatized characters are gone for good when they max out their trauma, and their attached scores go with them.

Hazard stays the same because it's the GM's resource and has nothing to do with individual captains.

[Georgios Panagiotidis]

We had our first proper Galactic session on Monday. Overall it was a lot of fun, despite us still trying to get settled with the game and figuring out how we want to play it.

Our group features four captains, with a fifth one possibly joining us next week. Here's a quick rundown of them and their crew.

Tim Hammit (Jannis) is the Captain of the Flying Dutchman. He's basically Sean Connery from Hunt for Red October. Capt. Hammit is on the run from the Caliban government for deserting his post. During what he deemed a suicide mission, he disobeyed orders and brought his crew to safety instead. His crew consists of Gasparo, a chronicler, who idolises him; Zoltan, his ambitious security officer, and John Porter, his XO with a knack for scrounging. In his first quest Capt. Hammit would have to rescue his daughter Dalia from the hands of Caliban's Internal Security.

Gerechter Michel (Niklas) - which roughly translates to Michel, the Just - is a politically motivated idealist and pirate, who's committed his life to fighting slave labour. He commands the Bonzenschreck (very loosely translated as Filthy Rich Guys' Bane) and also Jean-Pierre, the original politically correct advisor and idealogue; Esso his personal bodyguard bound to Michel by oath and skilled in espionage and finally Barton, the chief engineer. His first quest deals with trying to buy back a slave ship and crew from a merchant when he discovers that they are in fact completely broke.

Connor O'Hara (Simon<Erik

[Georgios Panagiotidis]

[Erik_P]

As one of Georgios' players I'd like to add a few points.

My (Rene Romo) first scene started in a labyrinth. We enabled a secret mechanism that caused the entrance to close. Not until the end of our session I realized that it wasn't Joe's write up inspired by Hyperion but that it was me who framed the cliffhanger two weeks ago. Thus Joe took me a little bit by surprise when he expected me to act based upon my writings.

When trapped in the cave I decided to send out Moonshine to find a way out and asked Vonk to take care of Cameron Carter. I hoped that Joe would provide me with some information to work with and to get rid of my rival. Well, as Joe said he isn't the greatest fan of colorful descriptions. So we players enjoyed ourselves with some aimless in-character chatting until we found old Danadorian inscriptions. Joe pressed forward to frame the conflicts as described above.

First scene: I lost all my dice at the first role. I lost two points of my explorer edge(?). IIRC two of my crew were harmed. One red shirt dead. I gained one doubt.
Second scene: I lost all my dice at the first role. I lost two points of my explorer edge(?). IIRC one crew member was harmed.

Overall I liked playing the game. Most of the time all players were actively participating in every scene. Nevertheless conflict framing posed some problems. In my eyes our/the play before the first dice role needs improvement. For me the pacing felt not right. We were either to slow or to fast. How much time do you guys invest to frame a scene? How much role-playing is involved? I think for us the fun started with re-rolling the dices. The situation offers more tactical opportunities, inaccessible in the first round because now the number of dices is reduced significantly, and more space for in-character play (old habits die hard). Unfortunately I never reached this stadium.

So that's for now.

Erik

[Matt Wilson]

Hey Joe:

I'm just about to get in a truck and drive 700 km. Tonight when I have my feet up and a beer in my hand I'll make sure to respond. Thanks for posting again.

[Matt Wilson]

Okay, I've successfully moved halfway across the country, at least to a temporary stop. Let me try and tackle a few of these questions...

Re-reading the text, it seems to me that the crew agenda is about what a crewmember wants from the Captain or possibly about putting the relationship between Captain and crewmember at risk. That the crew agenda isn't derived from the situation at hand (that would be the plot agenda) but is essentially a relationship conflict. Is that right?

Yes, that's a good way to think about it. I imagine it as a part of the overall conflict that addresses the quality of the relationship between captain and a crewmember. You may not need to know what the conflict is about going into it, just that their relationship isn't perfect to begin with and the high stakes of a galaxy-spanning quest will crank up tension between them.

If you could provide some captain and crew information, I can suggest how the crew agendas might manifest during a conflict.

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One thing I wasn't sure about was whether I could spend Hazard in-between rolls, much like players can spend Fortune. It's not stated anywhere explicitly but I assumed it was possible, although it did make every conflict very difficult for the Captains. One player went so far as to say that even winning a conflict felt more like bleeding to victory. Additionally, does it ever make sense for the GM to concede a conflict? Even removed doubt dice can potentially inflict harm on crewmembers. Or is the GM supposed to concede conflicts for pacing reasons?

You can spend Hazard between rolls, either to keep from losing dice or to add more dice. I must have forgotten to put that table in. Oops. The cost is 1 point more than it would to buy that die at the beginning of the conflict. If the GM spends too much on a conflict, the player has the option to just concede right away, and the GM loses all the hazard spent. The GM shouldn't have quite enough Hazard available to make every conflict near impossible.

I had a big long talk with the players at Forge Midwest about conceding vs. losing outright, and I came up with some incentives and clarifications for both player and GM. Except now I can't remember what they are. I'm still a little verucht from all the packing and driving. I'll try to find my notes when I unpack the truck today. The short version is yes, it can be good to concede.

Surprisingly enough the switch from quest to quest was far less distracting than I feared, although it does take some book-keeping to stay on top of it all. At least more than I usually do. I'm also not quite sure how long a scene should last, or rather if attempting to finish 4 quests in a three-hour game is a reasonable goal. We wrapped up the game with only one successful quest and three Captains about half-way through their quest.

It's going to be slower when you're learning the rules from a playtest doc with minimal formatting. One hour per captain per quest would be a nice goal for the finished game.

As far as what to say, how to get scenes rolling, the rules about authority explain who has final say, not who gets to say anything at all. Let the players shout out some ideas, then choose the bits you want and put it all together.

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Funnily enough, I think Hammit's quest probably was closest to how Galactic is supposed to work in regards to the crew/plot agenda distinction. Looking back I think we often simply tried to double up the plot agendas in each conflict, as opposed to looking at what the crewmembers want. I expect next week to run much smoother. I haven't decided yet, whether I will start the second quest with Capt. Hammit already or wrap up the other quests first and start the second quest for each Captain the following week.

The quests all sound pretty cool, at least from the brief summaries. Next time you play, I'd really appreciate a closer look at one of the conflicts, where you started, who decided what, how each dice roll went, what the agendas were, etc.

For examples of crew agenda and plot agenda, maybe when I have a moment, I'll post some more examples from a playtest I did earlier.

Vielen Dank!

[Georgios Panagiotidis]

quote author=Matt Wilson link=topic=23963.msg235591#msg235591 date=1181564350]
If you could provide some captain and crew information, I can suggest how the crew agendas might manifest during a conflict.

[Matt Wilson]

Thanks again Georgios (do you go by Joe? or is that just a LJ fluke?). Don't worry about taking long. I'm actually in between homes right now. 90 percent of everything I own is in boxes, so I'm up to my neck in stress and chaos.

Your interpretations are giving me some good ideas for how to present certain parts of the text. I think your realization of "we cannot play Galactic this way" is fairly accurate. Depending on future playtest reports, I'll consider addressing that topic loud and clear.

It's always a challenge figuring out what the audience does or does not already know or assume. Even with a target audience I'm going to run into some bumps. Thanks for continuing to plow through it.

Regarding crew and agendas, did you apply any of the sample relationships listed on p. 32?