[Silent] Introductory Feedback Requested

[Daniel Davis]

Personal and Project Background
After months of lurking, only occasionally burrowing out to shoot off a comment or two, I'm glad to have some ideas to present for critique.

I've had a fiction project for a few years now, and I'm now in the process of shopping a manuscript around. Then I stumble upon the Forge, read around for a bit, and reach enlightenment. Enthroned on my lotus, I said "Might as well give it a shot myself. I've got a ready-made setting; why not make a game for it?"

The result-in-progress is Silent. I've been hammering out the game design issues for a few months now, had a fairly complete build, and then scrapped it altogether after a playtest. Only later did I realize that the rules were oWoD made more complicated. Fail.

The new build I'm pretty sure is solid for my purposes. As opposed to the former construction, I feel that this developing rules set is full of win and awesome. But, of course, playtesting could ruin my fondest hopes and dreams and hobbies, just as it's done before. But, as the good book says, "like a dog to its vomit."

About the Game
I've posted the Introduction to the playtest manual over at my website. Some snippets from it to grab your interest:

Premise
Silent is about trying to remain faithful to your mission to guard and strengthen the Communities of the worshipers of your god by eliminating demonic influences. Your primary opponents are the cults of foreign gods and the physical manifestations of those gods. But not all of your opposition will have an exterior source: your goals, beliefs, and emotions - and even your community and comrades - will always harbor potential conflicts.

Setting
Silent is meant to be played in Ael, an alternate universe with an ancient Near Eastern flavor. Although all parallels between our world and that of Ael don't hold, it's a good approximation to place the technology level in the early Iron Age.

Most people live in totalitarian city-states and their dependent villages. These cities are ruled by a monarch who typically assumes a priestly role in the city cult, claiming to be the son of the city's god. War - and especially holy war - is almost constant. Slavery is everywhere. State intervention strangles economic growth. For most people, life is short and severe.

What's worse, the king of the local city-state may not be exaggerating when he claims divine sonship. If the city over which he rules is an important one, he may very well be the avatar of his god.

Your character is a member of an organization called the Nailav, the "silent ones."

The mission of the Nailav is to eliminate, insofar as they are able, the influences of these gods. The Nailav as such seek to accomplish this goal by assassinating the human avatars of the gods, by destroying their behemoths - manifestations of the gods in the form of monstrous creatures - and by protecting the Communities of people who worship your god.

The Goal of Play
The goal of playing Silent—the victory condition—is to have the Size Attribute of a local Community greater than the Oppression Attribute of the city in which that Community is located. Of course, you want the city's Oppression score as low as possible and the Size score of the Community as high as possible.

The actions of the players can directly affect either Attribute: protecting and positively influencing the Community tends to increase the Community's Size score; assassinating the avatars of the gods and destroying their behemoths tends to reduce the city's Oppression score.

Once the Size score of a Community is greater than the Oppression score of their city, that city is considered to have been "won." The players may choose to stay in the city to tie up loose ends and to further strengthen the Community; but, eventually, their mission will call them to a different city.

I think that sums it up nicely. There's more information in the Introduction - for instance, an explanation of the resolution mechanic that I've dubbed Devious Dice, which is perhaps too cute a name. (It's devious because d% rolls are mapped onto scores corresponding to standard deviations across a normal distribution.)

Here's a final snippet, although this one isn't found in the file to which I've linked; this one comes from a later chapter:

Creative Agenda
Silent isn't about collectively telling a story or addressing an issue; it's not about exploring the details or another world or investigating the minds of a group of fictional characters; and it's not about kicking down the door, slaying the monster, and nabbing the loot. Although those styles of play can be a lot of fun, Silent isn't engineered to do them.

However, of the three examples given above, Silent is most like the last: it's a game and a "gamey" one at that. The players generate characters that they think will best be able to overcome the challenges presented to them by the GM; they know in advance what kind of challenges they will be facing, and most of the fun comes in overcoming or being overcome (at least for a while) by those challenges.

But the rules don't reward running into a room full of generic bad guys and starting a melee. Bar fights and treasure hordes violate the aesthetic or color of Silent; and hence the rules are designed to facilitate a different kind of gameplay.

The rules encourage tactical combat, physical and scholarly reconnaissance of locations and opponents, significant involvement with Community NPCs (through private law enforcement, charity, and protection from violence), and the making of high-stakes moral choices (assassinate the god-king now and risk the mob's violent reprisal on the Community?).

The rules discourage resource management (e.g., keeping up with encumbrance, paying for items by the copper piece) and violence that isn't allowed by the moral code of the Nailav and that isn't directed toward the goals of player and game.

If your players don't care for this sort of gameplay, you should try out another game, one that is tailored to the preferences of your group. As long as the players understand what kind of gameplay Silent facilitates and are on board with it, everyone should have a good time.

Pretty obviously Gamist with mild Sim thrown in, I think.

What I Want from You
I'll be thrilled if you read the Introduction and give me feedback on the following questions:
 
1 After reading the document, do you, considering yourself as a prospective player, feel like you know what you're in for? Also, do you think you'd have as good a grasp of the game's concept if you weren't a Forgite?

2 Does this seem even remotely fun to you? I mean, if it doesn't, that's something I need to know.

3 Do you find the premise and/or setting, considering the provided information as written, compelling, boring, trite, or some unholy adjectival amalgamation?

4 Do the parts of the document make sense as the components of an introductory chapter? At the end of the document, you'll find a prospectus for the later chapters. What parts of the introduction as written do you think need to be moved, eliminated, and so on?

Well, that's all I can think of right now. I apologize for the prodigious length of this post, seeing as it is an introduction to a game no one's ever heard about from a designer no one's ever heard of. Feel free to address other questions to me as well. And, if anyone's interested in playtesting, I'm all ears.

[northerain]

I'll comment on you questions a bit later, but for now, I have to ask, can I see the system you made? I'm working on a similar(oWOD) system and maybe we could cooperate or something.

[Christoph Boeckle]

Hello an welcome to the Forge!

Judging by your presentation, this seems "remotely" fun to me, so I'll answer your questions!

1) Yeah, I can make myself a good picture of what the game content and the point of play is!
2) Well yes.
3) Sounds pretty interesting to me and makes the missions sound crunchy.
4) I'd say it describes an interesting game, but I'd have to read the whole game, play it a bit and then come back to see if it's presenting the same game. Honestly, I don't have time for that, but I'm willing to help you start off on the first few steps anyway.

From what I gathered in the first chapter on your website, what you wrote here is pretty spot on. The jargon you use is well explained, but you ought to know that it might garner you some critique from a number of people on the web and hardly any compliments.

I encourage you to quickly go to the next steps, that is playtest document drafts and playtests. Post about them in the Playtesting section of the Forge and then discuss. Rinse, repeat.

Godspeed!

[Daniel Davis]

Maybe I should clarify: the old version of the system that I've given up was similar but inferior to oWoD in its dice mechanic. This project is not really that similar at all.

But, yes, I'll be posting more of it (hopefully) tonight.