The Rustbelt and a GNS question

[Marshall Burns]

I've been writing this game called The Rustbelt off and on for six years.  It's set in a place called the Rustbelt, in a non-specific part of America, sometime in the not-too-distant future.  It's a lawless, mostly abandoned region that was once a center of industry, manufacture, refining, etc.  When all that was abandoned, the few remaining people clustered together in small pockets of humanity.  Most of the old factories and machines were by necessity abandoned and became rusted (which is where the region got its name).  The Rust came to rule the Rustbelt, and slowly eats at not only the machines and ghost towns, but civilization, sanity, and the fabric of reality.  Life there is nasty, brutish, and short (the inevitability of character death is part of the game; no character ever survived more than three sessions), and the strange influence of the Rust reaches into every nook and cranny.  Where things are the most abandoned, neglected, and forgotten, the Rust has the most power and things are that much more strange.  There's lots of surreal, metaphysical stuff, with reality often altering on-the-fly; the works of Jorge Luis Borges and William S. Burroughs have been an enormous influence, as well as the random world-generation mechanics of roguelike computer games.

Now, the game itself utilizes a complex system to model causality, even the surreal causalities, in a very exact, unforgiving manner that is as true to my vision of the surreal but hardboiled setting as I could make it.  I was subtitling this game "an adventure simulation" years before I had heard of GNS.  Once I had heard of GNS, I thought that this game supported Sim play with its unyielding commitment to accuracy, and I was reasonably sure that the way I had been playing it was Sim (except a few times when it was definitely Gamist, deliberately using the brutal combat and survival mechanics as a source of tactical challenge and nothing else), that the driving force of play was exploring and experiencing the fictional world of the Rustbelt.

I also originally thought that the game was designed to center on Setting, but I've recently realized that it's more about Character and Situation (with Setting & System supporting by making the situation a. possible and b. inevitable, given enough time).  What I mean is that the most interesting moments of play always boiled down to this:  a character inevitably finds himself, due to choices, chance, outside forces, or a combination thereof, in a situation no decent person should have to deal with.  And the question arises, what is he willing to do to deal with it?  The situation's usually life-threatening, so the question was more commonly "what is he willing to do to survive it?"

The survival rates of characters revealed an interesting correlation:  characters who were basically decent human beings died the fastest; characters who were malicious, sadistic, and cruel died soon afterward; and those who were merely amoral and opportunistic (the Ugly to the Good and the Bad) lived the longest--but everyone died in the end.  I considered this a good thing (and still do), because it's true to my vision of the setting. It also occasioned me to realize that it wasn't just "what is he willing to do to survive this?" but "what is he willing to BECOME to survive this?" which made me smile with wicked glee.

Then I had to reflect on the fact that the answers to these questions were entirely in the hands of the players.  I have a very hands-off policy as GM in this game, being mostly just the person who runs the math.  The system includes a mechanic for creating the sort of situations I mentioned, using the level of Rust in a given area and a numerical Danger value that steadily increases over time, and occasional "Reality Checks" to see if something horrible, dangerous, and/or anomalous gets dropped on the characters due to the influence of the Rust, forcing them into a "the-time-for-decision-is-NOW!" kind of situation (would this be a sort of randomly-generated Bang?). 

There's also mechanics for character psychology, mainly how they are affected by disorienting, frightening, disturbing, and horrifying circumstances, but these influenced only the character's performance/effectiveness; decision-making, from the tactical to the social to the moral arenas, rested solely in the hands of the player.  What happened as a result of these decisions was decided by the mechanics (and to a degree by myself, as I tried to most judge how the mechanics should be applied--but when acting as GM, I had no agenda regarding the outcomes of things other than that they were accurate).

Now, there was a frustrating amount of players who weren't really "getting" the way I meant for the game to work, and they typically made decisions that would give their characters the most gain regardless of plausibility as to whether or not the character would actually do that (I let them get away with it, because A. I have that hands-off policy, and B. the mechanics would make them suffer later when the character met its inevitable demise--from which I admittedly derived a bit of sadistic glee--and they would either eventually "get it" or quit playing).  There were a few who bought into the world, and they made decisions based on the character's motivations, knowledge, and predilections, in a manner that resulted in character behavior that was perfectly accurate with regard to the fictional world.  But there was an even smaller number who met the same level of plausibility, and then went beyond the call of duty, as it were.

Here's two events in particular that have stuck in my memory:
1.  A party of characters was in the sub-subbasement of an abandoned high-rise when they were surrounded by hideous, flesh-eating ghouls (produced by a Danger Check).  Two characters survived the initial attack and escaped the ghouls momentarily, but couldn't get out of the building because the ghouls were too numerous.  So they duped the ghouls into thinking that they were ghouls themselves.  They accomplished this by arraying themselves in the viscera of their fallen teammates and eating some of it while ghouls witnessed.  They got out of there alive, but not unspoiled. 

2.  Two characters who were lifelong friends were fleeing on foot from a horrifying, Lovecraft-esque monster (produced by a Danger Check).  These two guys had a rich history just from ingame events, and had saved each other's lives several times at great personal risk.  In this case, though, it was clear that they could neither defeat nor outrun the monster.  So one of the characters drew his gun and shot the other in the leg, causing him to fall to the ground, in an effort to distract the monster.  He got away while his best friend was mutilated and killed.  (Everybody gasped when the player made that call.  It was an incredible moment)

Now, both of those solutions to those problems were plausible in the world, but any number of other choices would have been also.  Certainly nothing said that they had to do that stuff.  Was the behavior acceptable or unacceptable?  Was it worth it?  Evidently the character thought so, at least at the time, but ultimately it was the player who made the choice, and who made us all ask that question to ourselves.  I guess I can't speak for anyone else who played, but I know I was imagining myself, my real self, in those situations hypothetically, and asking myself those questions.

And those players kept up with it, too.  Those experiences had lasting effects on the characters' psyches, impacting later decisions and relationships.  In the first example, one guy later went bugfuck crazy and developed a horrible cannibalism fetish; the other developed a cold, deadpan manner where before he had been exuberant, and once related the event to an NPC in a bar as if it were a joke.  When the NPC didn't laugh, the PC said "I guess you had to be there."  The PC from the other example would sometimes be asked about what happened to old Joe, and he would make up a story.  If pressed on his story, he would become defensive, then enraged, then violent (which is how he ended up dying -- throught cut with a broken bottle in a barfight).

Sometimes there were situations that were inescapably lethal, but the players still made choices that had impact.  Like the final scene of The Wild Bunch. It was like, "Well, we're doomed anyway, so we might as well go out in a manner of our own choosing that expresses our beliefs, ideals, and personal fabric, with Death and the universe as our witnesses."  (I don't know if the players thought of it like that, but I did).

Looking back, in light of all the recent information I've been amassing, I have to ask, "Huh.  Could that have been Narrativist play?"  I thought we were playing Sim, but now I have to wonder if, in times like that, it was really Narrativist all along.  Moments like that were rare, but they were the most engaging and thus became the main focus of play.  I'm still not confident in my grasp of Narrativist play, and I don't like using any terms the wrong way (because it's egg on my face), so I wanted to ask about this. 

I also want to note that I'm certain that the DESIGN of The Rustbelt is not Narrativist.  The way the game is built makes those moments-that-I-think-might-be-Narrativist-play kindof elusive (although inevitable, given enough time); it doesn't prioritize elements that are conducive to such moments happening as the center of play.  Which produces a design problem for me, considering that those few moments were the most engaging; I have to ask myself, "Does this game need to be overhauled?"

So, yeah.  Any thoughts?  Am I completely mistaken?  Partially mistaken?  Correct by some entropic miracle?

Thanks,
-Marshall

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Well, here's a little visual scheme I've been using a lot lately. I'd even thought of using it in the original big GNS essay, but decided against it because diagrams were only causing great grief among the discussions of that time. But now, it works pretty well.

Basically, all role-playing requires a chassis of shared imagined space, or to put it most simply, the people must communicate among one another that they are paying attention to one another as they imagine. Fair?

I think we're all pretty familiar with moments in which it's fucked up briefly, the usual hassle when someone says "I jump on his back!" and someone else says, "Wait, I'm right behind him, remember?", or someone else says, "Wait a minute, that guy was really the golden dragon, what are you doing?", and the first guy says, "No! What? Who?" It's kind of a horrible sensation, and in reflecting about it, the negative vibes of those moments have a lot to do with the fact that someone wasn't paying attention to someone else, or hadn't communicated enough of what he or she was imagining. So that's the SIS: when such hassles don't happen, or happen so briefly that no one feels wrenched or weirded out at the time.

There are the five components, yadda yadda. The whole point is that this SIS thing is like a platform, let's say made of wood, let's say painted green. It has to be there. It can be little or big, it can be low to the ground or way high off the ground, it can be level or or multileveled, whatever.

Creative Agenda is like a structure built on top of it. In real life, it's a social action, an activity moving through time, but in our diagram it's a secondary structure built on the first one. Only one CA can fit! Sometimes no CA at all gets going, and the platform just sits there. Sometimes people try to build different ones at the same time, and either it all crashes over or you end up with several entirely separate platforms, and so on.

What I want to focus on are two points.

1. For many, many role-players, playing many, many games, have tried to get what they want (CA) through making that platform as sturdy as they possibly can. All five components, made as rich and detailed as possible. All possible communication about it during play, usually centralized to the max because that's the most consistently reliable in an uncertain social contract. It's a lost hope, of course. It doesn't account for Social Contract, it's vulnerable to any "tipping point" in the rules (and with either extreme, so-called freeform or uber-detailed and regulated, such tipping points are legion), and the most you'll ever get is just a platform anyway - when it's successful, it's ultimately not very interesting given all the work that went into it.

2. Narrativist and Gamist play are easy to talk about because their structures are not wood and not painted green. They are definitely obvious, garish, and recognizably themselves on that green wooden platform. Simulationist play, on the other hand, is also wood, and also painted green, just like the platform. It's definitely "not like the others" in this regard.

Most RPG discourse is focused on the what, rather than the how, and almost never on the what-for. So when I talk about CA, which is all what-for, it's really hard to pull one's head away from the what, which is where one's attention has been. All that is a fancy way of saying that a lot of people who play Narrativist and/or Gamist tend to think they must be playing Simulationist just because they keep looking at the platform. "Hey, I play my character very deeply and personally! I must be doing Sim!" "Hey, we have a really rich setting with twenty maps we made! We must be playing Sim!" And so on. The answer is always, nope, nope, nope, not necessarily - are you prioritizing the right to dream?

I think you've spent a lot of time on your platform, which is great, and apparently with the clear and laudable awareness that was necessary to leave certain things open and not fixed. I think your post is showing me that you just managed to blink, pull back a bit, and take a look at the structure on the platform for the first time. That's hard ... especially when you were thinking, all the time, of the platform and in terms of what the System, especially, made available for the players during actual play. Now you're looking at what they do with it, which is to say, what-for, and seeing Narrativism, and also knowing that it was what you'd wanted.

At least, that's my funky paraphrase of your post. Does that seem reasonable? Remember, I'm only really guessing based only on what you've written, so I depend on you to set me straight if necessary.

Best, Ron

[Lance D. Allen]

So I'm hardly the expert on GNS. The above poster is that guy.

But one thing that always gets pointed out, even to me who should know better.. Games are not G, N, or S. They can be built to support one Creative Agenda more than another which reflects the designer's Creative Agenda, but the rules cannot force any particular agenda. Agenda is only brought to play by the players, and as such, even D&D can be played Narrativist, and from some of what I've heard, frequently is.

From my reading of your Actual Play, you definitely had some moments where Narrativist play was strongly supported. That may have been a result of the rules, or it may have been a result of your GMing, or it may have been a result of your players' contributions. It does SOUND like your game has some built in Narrativist support, in that it creates situations where the players have to answer those big questions you asked: "what is he willing to do to survive this?" and "what is he willing to BECOME to survive this?"

To address Ron's "platform with stuff on it" thing above very briefly.. He states that the platform only has room for one CA construction at any one time, and only when people are building the same construction does it work out. I'm down with that. As I understand it, however, is that those constructions can be swapped out at different times, with the same group, even during the same game. Though my understanding of GNS is still a little fuzzy, even after all of these years, my experience with gaming supports that CAs are swappable, and what you're talking about supports my belief that that's true, as well.

Also, this game sounds very cool. Are you planning to publish, or is this just a favored homebrew game and setting?

[Moreno R.]

Hi Marshall

Adding to what Lance said here:

But one thing that always gets pointed out, even to me who should know better.. Games are not G, N, or S. They can be built to support one Creative Agenda more than another which reflects the designer's Creative Agenda, but the rules cannot force any particular agenda. Agenda is only brought to play by the players, and as such, even D&D can be played Narrativist, and from some of what I've heard, frequently is.

A game cannot "force" a specific Creative Agenda, but can facilitate one more than the others. Or, like Vincent Bakes says, can provoke a kind of Creative Agenda from the players. The kind of playing you describe seems, from this distance, narrativist to me, but the question is: the game system provoked this kind of Creative Agenda, or it was your choice, as the GM, to use it in this way? Did you ever played your game with another person on the GM seat?

Apart from Ron's essays, a good article on Narrativism is this one: Creating Theme. did you read it? It talks about the role of the system, too, and could maybe answer your question...

[Marshall Burns]

Ron:
I think your assessment of what I was saying is spot-on.  So, let's say that said assessment was a target, and your illustration was an arrow, you hit a bull's-eye.  The "what-for"; it's not what the system makes available, but what the players DO with it; that's all so bleeding obvious, why didn't I see it years ago?  (Hmm.  You answered that question, too:  I was busy looking at the platform rather than what was being built on top of it and what was being done with said construction).  By George, I think I've got it.

(As a side note, I'm also beginning to understand how that "Beeg Horseshoe Theory" thing with it's Sim-play-is-nonexistent is even plausible.)

The thing about there being room for only one Creative Agenda makes complete sense.  If there's more than one, it's like trying to build something with parts that don't fit together properly.  You have to hold it together with chewing gum and baling wire, and it's still liable to fall over if anyone breathes on it.  And of course it falls on one or more of the players, who get upset about it because it fell on them, and everyone else gets upset too because something they were trying to build just fell over, and now all their effort is wasted.

(another side note: in regards to the PMs I sent you previously, I've realize that the "mythic resonance" of which I spoke can be accomplished in any mode of play.  F'rinstance, this post includes a set of principles, The Way of the Disco Samurai, by which my "mythic resonance" can be accomplished in Gamist play)


Wolfen:
Yeah, I got how a game itself isn't one of the categories, but can *support* it (and should support a specific one for a specific reason).

And I'm always glad to hear that my game sounds cool.  I would like to publish this one eventually, but it still needs a lot of work before it can be played without me running it.


Moreno:
Thanks for pointing me to that essay, it also helps a lot.

but the question is: the game system provoked this kind of Creative Agenda, or it was your choice, as the GM, to use it in this way? Did you ever played your game with another person on the GM seat?

I keep asking myself that first question and I'm not sure how to answer it.  The system is mostly automated; that is, it mandates that rolls be made at specific times (including the "Reality/Danger Checks") based on a variety of factors.  Dungeon layouts (that is, abandoned towns and buildings in the Expanse) were random, the objects inside rooms were random, any monsters (rare) were random (LOTS of charts).  As GM, I just had to keep track of the charts and roll (or tell the players to roll, and against what) whenever the rules said it was necessary, and control NPCs & monsters (whose behaviors were guided by rolls, charts, traits, and dials).  But then, I wrote all the rules myself, so the rules could also be seen as pushing my agenda.

I never did try it with anyone else GMing, because the rules were not in a state suitable for human consumption.  You know those guys with all the papers all over the place on their desks, and people walk by and say, "Damn, man, how do you find anything in that mess?"  and he replies, "I know exactly where everything is," and means it?  That's the way the rules were.  Written down on loose leaf paper or typed up and printed out, stuffed into a binder.  And some of it's still only my head.



With regard to my own question of "does the game need an overhaul?" I've decided the answer is an emphatic yes.  It needs to be taken apart, unnecessary pieces removed, crucial but neglected pieces added, and reassembled in a concise, cohesive manner.  When I get around to it.
-Marshall

[Marshall Burns]

I cannot emphasize how helpful this thread has been.  I realized that I had been designing The Rustbelt, from the very beginning, with no clear direction.  Plus, I've realized what direction I want to take it in.

So, I'm redesigning the character model.  Formerly it was mostly stuff about effectiveness, and some layered effectiveness-improvement stuff.  I'm taking out the effectiveness-improvement and stripping down the other stuff to bare essentials.  And I'm expanding on the character psychology section, which is now the most important part, because I've realized that's what I want gameplay to explore the most.  I think I'm going to split it up into 5 categories:  Hunger, Vice, Faith, Woe, and Limits.

Hunger
This is a basic, fundamental need that drives and motivates the character.  This is the shining goal they quest for.  It is a hole in their personal fabric that yearns to be filled.  Freedom, true love, power, truth, honor, acceptance, salvation; these are Hungers. 
The Hunger need not be conscious.
The desire to live is implied and does not qualify as a hunger.

Vice
Vices can be viewed as smaller, more specific Hungers that definitely can be satisfied, but only for a limited time.  Indulgences, addictions, things that are not necessary for everyone but have become necessary, or at least highly desirable, to the character.

"Vice" is kind of a loaded word, so it needs a definition for the purpose of this game.  Any pleasurable activity is a Vice if it starts to influence the character's choices.  Habitual smoking is a Vice, and so is being "in the right" all the time.  Basically, if they would feel put-out when they don't have it or can't get it, that's a Vice.

Faith
This includes beliefs, hopes, and any concepts that the character gives credence.  Religion, the power of love, the bonds of friendship, human decency, the validity of science; these are examples of things people might have Faith in.
But Faith isn't necessarily positive; being in denial is a kind of Faith, and so is racial prejudice.  Every concept the character puts stock in, every axiom that guides their worldview, and every rationale they use to justify your actions is Faith.

Woe
This is grief, sorrow, guilt, regret, or remorse.  The death of a loved one, the loss of a friend, failing in the eyes of a parent or mentor, an act of cowardice, a crime, a sin; these are the sort of thing that produces Woe.  Anything that the character beats himself/herself up over inside, that is Woe.

Limits
Limits are the lines the character is unwilling to cross, the prices they are unwilling to pay, the chances they are unwilling to take, and the sacrifices they are unwilling to make in order to attain their goals.

Each of these categories is linked to some "Tough Questions."  The aim of play is to answer these questions, in any manner of the player's choosing, through the character's actions and choices.

The Tough Questions
Is it better to pay any price to satisfy Hunger, or to yearn throughout life and die unfulfilled rather than hurt others?  Is there a middle path?  Can Hunger ever be truly satisfied?
Is Vice necessarily a bad thing?  Can it ever be truly conquered?
Is all Faith mere delusion?  Does it matter?
Is Woe the punishment for weakness?  Is it just more meaningless suffering in a meaningless world?  Or is it the gateway to true strength?
Is there any Limit that will not yield in the face of death or total need?  Are Limits what separate Man from the animals?  Or are they merely the mark of the weak-willed?

I also came up with some neat "Character Dynamics" rules to govern how the psychological traits influence each other and influence the character's actions.  They don't take away choices from the player, but impose consequences for those choices, thus making the choices a meaningful language with which to answer the Tough Questions.

hunger.
Hunger is central to the character's psychology; everything stems from Hunger.  You have the choice of whether or not your character pursues satisfaction for Hunger (and you can change your mind at any time about this).  If he/she does, then Hunger can Motivate (allowing re-rolling of dice in Resolution).  If Hunger is ignored or denied, then Hunger becomes Frustrated.

Frustrating Hunger has one of the following consequences (the player chooses):
1.  The character takes on Woe representing regret over the decision to ignore Hunger or the failure to satisfy it, whichever is applicable.
2.  The character channels the Frustration into an emotional outburst, anywhere from violent rages to dramatic crying jags (player's call).  Such emotional outbursts may get the character into trouble or alter people's opinion of him/her.
3.  The character suppresses the Frustration.  Put a mark by the Hunger on the character sheet to indicate suppressed Frustration.  The next time Hunger is Frustrated, however, the intensity of its effects should be ramped up; the depression or emotional outburst should be doubly intense—or it can be suppressed yet again, meaning that next time it will have triple intensity (then quadruple the next time, and so on).
4.  The character takes on Faith that the Hunger is wrong.

Suppressed Frustration has no immediate effect, but it nags at the character constantly.  It can be alleviated by emotional outbursts much like option #2, in which case one Frustration mark can be erased from the sheet.  However, the more marks for suppressed Frustration the character has, the more intense the outburst must be.

Hunger and Frustration can be numbed by indulging in Vice.

vice.
You also have the choice as to whether or not your character indulges Vice.  Every time a Vice is tempted, you must make a choice:
1.  The character indulges, which increases the Grip the Vice has on the character (make a mark next to the Vice on the character sheet to indicate its level of Grip).
2.  The character resists.  In this case, the character can either take on Woe (regret over not indulging, specifically), or take on Faith that the Vice is wrong. For certain Vices, withdrawal is experienced.  The nature of the withdrawal depends on the Vice, and its intensity depends on the level of Grip.

Vice can Motivate in certain situations, provided the character intends to indulge.

The Grip of a Vice can be reduced by taking on Faith that the Vice should be eliminated.  Once this condition is met, every time the Vice is resisted, the Grip is reduced by 1.  In this case, Woe is not taken on for resisting, but withdrawal still occurs.

Indulging in Vice can be used to numb Hunger, Woe, and Lost Faith.  It will also remove withdrawal for the Vice in question and any Woe representing regret over not indulging the Vice in question.

faith.
If a character experiences or witnesses events that run counter to a Faith, a choice must be made:
1.  The Faith becomes Lost (draw a line through it on the character sheet).
2.  The character takes on additional Faith to "explain away" the experience.
3.  The character explains it away as punishment for failing his/her Faith and takes on Woe.

At the player's discretion, characters can "re-think" their Faith and thus modify or disavow it.

If a character's actions run counter to a Faith, a choice must be made:
1.  The Faith becomes Lost.  If applicable, the character may (at player discretion) also take on Vice related to the action.
2.  The character takes on additional Faith or modifies Faith to justify the actions.
3.  The character takes on Woe as guilt over breaking the Faith.

Lost Faith also impacts the character.  Whenever an event or experience Triggers (reminds the character of) Lost Faith, the character experiences an emotional reaction, usually bitter in nature.  Similar to Frustrated Hunger, this reaction must be either released in some manner of emotional outburst or suppressed.  Suppressed emotions regarding Lost Faith work in the same manner as suppressed Frustration.

Faith facilitates subduing Vice and enables (by player choice) taking on or rebuilding related Limits.

Faith can Motivate in situations where it applies.  However, if the result is failure, this counts as experience running counter to the Faith.

woe.
When Woe is Triggered (an event or experience causes the character to recall the Woe), the character has an emotional reaction, and a choice must be made.
1.  The character has an emotional outburst.  The intensity of this outburst should vary with the intensity of the Woe.
2.  The character suppresses the emotional reaction.  Indicate this pent-up emotion by making a hashmark next to the Woe on the character sheet.  This pent-up emotion operates like suppressed Frustration.
3.  The character takes on Faith that the source of the Woe is not worth suffering over.  This suppresses future reactions when the Woe is Triggered, but emotion suppressed in this way need not come into play until the Faith is Lost or the player decides for it to do so.

Woe can Motivate in certain situations.  However, if the result is failure, the Woe becomes Deepened (indicate with a + sign next to the Woe on the character sheet), and later Triggers have double intensity (then triple, and quadruple, and so on, each time).

Woe can be Healed by absolution, redemption, or forgiveness (whichever is applicable to the Woe in question).  Indicate this by drawing a line through the Woe on the character sheet (unless the Woe has been Deepened; then erase a + sign).

Healed Woe no longer impacts the character when Triggered, but the wound can be re-opened, as it were, by taking on the same Woe again or taking on a closely related Woe.  In this case, the Woe starts out Deepened by 1.

Woe can be taken on freely at any time the player decides the character rues something he/she did or failed to do, or even feels guilt over something that is not actually his/her fault.

Woe enables taking on related Faith (at player discretion).

limits.
If a character breaks a Limit, a choice must be made.
1.  The character feels bad about it and takes on Woe.
2.  The character takes on Faith justifying the action and the Limit is modified.
3.  The character feels good about it and takes on Vice.

Limits can be taken on or regained through Faith.

Limits can Motivate in some situations.

ethically questionable actions.
If the character commits an ethically questionable action (any action not justified by the character's Faith), a choice must be made.
1.  The character feels bad about it and takes on Woe.
2.  The character takes on Faith justifying the action.
3.  The character feels good about it and takes on Vice.


And I had a really cool idea for Resolution:  a failed roll doesn't mean that the character fails; you have the option of having the character push the rest of the way through sheer willpower, at a cost.  So, if the character was kicking down a door but the roll wasn't enough to beat the door's durability, the character could summon the willpower necessary to kick it down anyway, but also hurt his leg.  I think this is really cool because it means that success isn't just a matter of skill and fortune, but also what price you're willing to pay (which I want to be the running theme for the whole game).

Sorry if all that's too long.  I'm tremendously excited about this, which might be affecting my judgment.  And I don't have a drafted text to link to yet, just some notes scribbled all over loose-leaf paper and napkins.  Seriously, I got inspired at the convenience store while getting coffee and had nothing to write on but napkins.

In fact, if you even read this far, thanks immensely.
-Marshall

[Lance D. Allen]

One thing off the top of my head: Don't slim down purely for the sake of slimming down. Look at the rules you're considering cutting or reducing, and ask yourself if they accomplish something you want to the game to accomplish, or they help make the game fun. If the answer is no, then get rid of it. If the answer is yes, then keep it.

I'm not necessarily saying this is what you're doing, but it sounds like it might be. I came to the Forge with a game much less thorough than yours, and was overwhelmed by the amount of cool stuff. I wanted to bolt it all on my game, and wanted to scrap things about my game that I thought were cool just because they weren't the cool new ideas I was seeing here. That way leads to incoherence and frustration.

Your psychology mechanics seem very interesting, and look like they may indeed highlight the type of play you're looking for. I'll look at them some more, and if any specific questions come to mind, I'll post again.

[Marshall Burns]

Oh, don't worry, I'm not slimming down just to slim down.  I'm taking out the things that send mixed signals regarding what the game is *about*.  Like, the old effectiveness-improvement mechanic; just by being there it sends a signal that makes players say, "oh, I can improve my skills so they're better than everyone else and have an edge."  But in terms of the actual game, there's no point in giving your character an edge because he's going to die anyway.

I also shrank the whole Effectiveness section of the character model to avoid sending the message that "This is the most important part of the character," because it frankly isn't.  I think the Tough Questions can be answered just as well, if not better (i.e., with more impact), through failure as through success.
Specifically, I took out the Skill List and made the skills free-form.  I also decreased their range from 10-100 to 0-5.  They no longer add to your rolls, but enable you to roll extra dice and pick the best one.
I took the Attributes--Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Agility, Intellect, Cleverness, Perception, Charisma, Willpower, Mana (whew that's a moutful)--and re-structured them so that there was no overlap (allowing a roll-against-a-single-stat mechanic to simplify resolution).  The actual "strength of will, focus, and resolve" aspect of Willpower was removed from the character; it is supplied by the player now.  Also, inspired by how the stats in kill puppies for satan add to the color of the game, I decided give the stats names that were words people in the Rustbelt would actually use when describing someone's ability.
So the stats now are Brawny, Savvy, Grizzled, Personable, Deft, Cagey, Thorough, and Uncanny.  I like to think that their functions are straightforward, but also allow a certain degree of interpretation and creative thought.

-Marshall