[Okhrana] Playtest at Spodley Grange

[Malcolm Craig]

A few weeks ago, the Spodley Grange weekend playtesting event saw the first ever playtest of Okhrana, a game I initially wrote for the 24 Hour Espionage RPG competition hosted by the Modus Operandi website. The pre-playtest version of the game text can be found here

[Graham W]

I really liked this game. I was talking to Steve (GBSteve) about it at SteveCon.

On historical setting: I think, in a way, I'd like the game to give me permission to be inaccurate with the setting. Does that make sense? It's such a specific setting that I feel I have to be faithful to it: perhaps a sentence, in the text, along the lines of "make it your own, don't worry about the historical details".

That resolution to the death spiral problem: I don't think it's the only possible one. Another one would be: you can risk a relationship to double the score for the scene: win and you get +2, lose and you get -2 and the relationship character dies. Perhaps not exactly that solution, just making the point there's other possibilities.

Also, changing the endgame conditions might make things less predictable. We played My Life With Master at the weekend. One of the clever things is that, if you've got high Self-Loathing, say, you're still not sure which ending you'll get: perhaps the "No Love" one or the "Minion Self-Destructs one", but you're not totally sure.

So, to avoid the player knowing the endgame early in the game, you could have more complex endgames. Maybe you could do things with Misfortune > Doubt, say, or the number of relationships on the Relationship Map.

Talking of the Relationship Map, it felt a little unfocussed: you'd always add something to it, to get the requisite bonus. How would you feel about, say, restricting people to adding three people to the map over the course of the game? That way, at some point, they'd have to start drawing new relationships between current protagonists. And again, perhaps not exactly that, but some similar solution.

It was great. It didn't strike me as needing an awful lot of work: it's a very solid foundation.

Graham

[Malcolm Craig]

Thanks for your comments and thoughts Graham, much appreciated as always.

The potential of the death spiral taking over the game is one that is providing concern for me. However, you're quite right to say that it is not an insoluble problem. At the moment, the mechanics exist on a very basic level, and are functional. As you say, more could be done with relationships, both as story points and as a means to increase the card hand of a participant (if required).

Endgame is another thing I've been thinking about. I was mulling over an idea I saw in a two page game from a while back, although I cannot remember which one it was. Anyway, the variables a character accumulated wereformed into a shape and the shape that you ended up with determined the basic nature of the endgame for your character. It struck me then as an interesting and quite broad-based way of doing the endgame, one that may fit the needs of Okhrana. But, inessence, you're quite correct to say that the endgame(s) as presented, can lead to the perception (in the minds of particpants) that the end result for their protagonist is fixed from the first few scenes.

Finally, yes, the relationship map needs to be codified and have a more concrete impact on play, rather than simply being a handy aide memoire.

Thanks again.

Cheers
Malcolm

[Graham W]

Now...if I'm thinking a bit more freely...part of me feels you could retool the central mechanic.

The My Life With Master stats (basically Love, Weariness, Self-Loathing) work well because sometimes a stat works for you and sometimes against.

There's lots of things you could do to mix your stats up, make them a little dirtier. You could get rid of Misfortune (it's not a perfect opposite for Guile, anyway) and just have Guile, Fervour and Doubt. In Fervour conflicts, you could have your Guile working against you (because you look too shifty to be believed). Perhaps Doubt could sometimes work positively for you.

You could even add a third kind of conflict: I'm not sure what, but I think My Life With Master works so beautifully because you've got three conflicts, pushing in different directions.

They're just random ideas, but they start to get that My Life With Master sense that everything works two ways. You can increase your Fervour, but then you won't be able to lie as effectively. I like that idea of trading your beliefs against your survival. It seems very in keeping with the game.

Graham

[Jonas Ferry]

Hello Malcolm,

Something I recently learned that's been invaluable for my own design is the benefit of clear design goals. Before you start reworking the central mechanic and the epilogues you should ask yourself what you want the end result to be. Do you want to encourage competition, collaboration, a sense of optimism, a sense of dread or something else? Only when you know what you want can you make the mechanics do what you want.

I like what I've read about the game. I spent New Years in Paris and it's a wonderful city. As you say, you should probably not require players to know any historical details, but use and abuse history as it benefits the stories they are telling. Along with a list of names, perhaps a list of example concepts you can pick and choose from? That would help people see what's possible in the game.

I see a risk with placing people in Paris, when what they fight for is back in Russia. What they oppose isn't close enough for them to attack, but I guess that's how you want it to be?

An option to reduce the static march towards success or defeat would be to introduce a gambling element. You and the antagonist always draw one card each, but the player or each side can gamble points from the attribute scores. If a score reaches 0 your character is lost, he wanders the streets a broken man. If he wins you win the double amount of points. You could probably still reach states where you can't have a happy ending, but it would allow for greater and quicker fluctuations.

In the original game everyone can have happy endings. But what if players benefit somehow from the others losing? You want to increase the danger and tension when someone wins. If winning means putting the others at a disadvantage they'll surely try harder to stop you next time, and the danger is increased.

Here's a thought. Each character has a utopian political vision of how things should be. But they're probably incompatible, right? What if only one of them can succeed in enforcing their political views on society? That would give players a reason to oppose each other through the antagonists, and would make it more dangerous to be on a winning streak early in the game. Maybe the other players can combine their forces to stop you, somehow?

- Jonas

[Malcolm Craig]

Hi Graham,

Thanks for your further comments.

Now...if I'm thinking a bit more freely...part of me feels you could retool the central mechanic.

You could even add a third kind of conflict: I'm not sure what, but I think My Life With Master works so beautifully because you've got three conflicts, pushing in different directions.

They're just random ideas, but they start to get that My Life With Master sense that everything works two ways. You can increase your Fervour, but then you won't be able to lie as effectively. I like that idea of trading your beliefs against your survival. It seems very in keeping with the game.

Graham

The idea of every attribute being a double edged sword is attractive and does fit in well with the core concepts of the game, perhaps more so than the way things work at the moment. I'm loath to head too much in the direction of MLWM, mainly because it does what it does so well! However, I'll need to have a think about these aspects. My initial thoughts were that paired attributes connect well with what the game is about, guile and fervour vs doubt and misfortune, representing those things which would affect the would-be revolutionaries the most. Then again, I'm not toally beholden to the idea of having 4 paired attributes, nothing is set in stone.

Look at a reduction to guile, fervour and doubt, the conflicts would become:

guile vs fervour - where cunning attempts to over-rule enthusiasm
guile vs doubt - where cunning attempts to over-rule uncertainty
fervour vs guile - where enthusiasm attempts to over-rule cunning
fervour vs doubt - where enthiasm attempts to over-rule uncertainty
doubt vs guile - where uncertainty attempts to over-rule cunning
doubt vs fervour - where uncertainty attempts to over-rule enthusiasm

I can see how the first four would be very applicable to the situation, but I'm struggling in my head to work out where doubts could be used in a positive fashion to forward the protagonists goal(s). Perhaps something that I need to contemplate further. It does get me thinking though:

Perhaps fervour can be 'burned' in some way, representing the 'trading of beliefs for survival' as you put it? Perhaps all of the attributes can be increased/decreased in a manner such as this, rather than simply being modified by the result sof conflicts. Hmmmm...


Hi Jonas,

Something I recently learned that's been invaluable for my own design is the benefit of clear design goals. Before you start reworking the central mechanic and the epilogues you should ask yourself what you want the end result to be. Do you want to encourage competition, collaboration, a sense of optimism, a sense of dread or something else? Only when you know what you want can you make the mechanics do what you want.

I absolutely agree and have a strong vision for what I want the game to be. However, I think the mechanical elements of this are, at the moment, quite malleable and there is a lot to be done in order to give an ultimate outcome that I'm totally happy with. Dread (of the Okhrana and their minions), hope in the character goals and uncertainty in the outcomes are all important aspects. At the moment, none of these are fully realised, particularly uncertainty.

I like what I've read about the game. I spent New Years in Paris and it's a wonderful city. As you say, you should probably not require players to know any historical details, but use and abuse history as it benefits the stories they are telling. Along with a list of names, perhaps a list of example concepts you can pick and choose from? That would help people see what's possible in the game.

Yes, indeed. My plan is to extract valid concepts and ideas from playtests as the development of the game progresses and use them within the text to help enable greater understanding of what can be done with the period (and the fact that we don't have to be struggling for total historical accuracy!).

I see a risk with placing people in Paris, when what they fight for is back in Russia. What they oppose isn't close enough for them to attack, but I guess that's how you want it to be?

Yes, it's very much how I see the game. Paris is not only a fascinating physical backdrop, but full of intrigue and political machinations. The fact that the presence of the Czarist secret police in Paris (with the complicity of the government) and their activities working against emigres is a little known fact of history makes me all the more keen to explore it in the game.

An option to reduce the static march towards success or defeat would be to introduce a gambling element. You and the antagonist always draw one card each, but the player or each side can gamble points from the attribute scores. If a score reaches 0 your character is lost, he wanders the streets a broken man. If he wins you win the double amount of points. You could probably still reach states where you can't have a happy ending, but it would allow for greater and quicker fluctuations.

The idea of a gambling element was discarded pretty early on, as the result of a thread that Paul Czege pointed me to discussing the ability to gamble on the outcome of a conflict. It actually cleare dup a lot of things for me and strongly pointed me in the direction of not having the opportunity to gamble upon the outcome of a conflict.

The thread Paul referenced can be found here.

In the original game everyone can have happy endings. But what if players benefit somehow from the others losing? You want to increase the danger and tension when someone wins. If winning means putting the others at a disadvantage they'll surely try harder to stop you next time, and the danger is increased.

Here's a thought. Each character has a utopian political vision of how things should be. But they're probably incompatible, right? What if only one of them can succeed in enforcing their political views on society? That would give players a reason to oppose each other through the antagonists, and would make it more dangerous to be on a winning streak early in the game. Maybe the other players can combine their forces to stop you, somehow?

It's an interesting thought right enough, but I'm not sure how much of a level of player vs player competition I wish to put into the game. Again, this is something I'll need to think carefully on.

Thanks for your thoughts and comments, they really are very helpful and encouraging.

Cheers
Malcolm