Rules as a Three Way Struggle

[Vulpinoid]

Here's the background...

My group of friends have failed miserably at a GM-less game environment on many occasions over the past 15 years.

They can't handle the concept of everyone contributing to the story, and few of them want to GM.

I'm getting sick of GMing all the games so I'm trying to develop a new system that evolves stories through a dynamic tension between three forces.

The game is set on a ship, so let's give these forces appropriate names: the captain, the crew and the wind. Each of these forces play off against one another, and it is through twists in the conflict between them that the story should arise.

The captain is like a pseudo GM, anyone can become the captain through a vote of the senior crew (the PCs), and the regular crew (which is drawn from the deck of cards known as the wind). The advantages to playing the captain are an ability to plot the course of the ship and the right to choose which missions will be undertaken by the crew. The disadvantages of the captain are that he must mediate disputes between the crew, and must be the driving force for plot development and resolution.

The crew are the remainder of the players. The advantages of playing the crew are an increased freedom away from the ship (including the ability to engage on side missions), and the ability to throw curveballs at the Captain's plotline. The disadvantages of the crew are a reduced ability to direct the flow of the main story, and a lower experience gain at the end of each story.

The wind is the deck of cards from which situations are resolved and events are randomly determined.

I'm tryint to keep the game pretty rules light, but with this shared allocation of story responsibility I keep finding the desire to map out in detail the events that can and can't occur through the course of play.

Players can effect the game in this way by spending that resource, the Captain can effect the course of play by spending this much less than a regular member of the crew...etc.

Does anyone think there might be an easier way to resolve this kind of set up?

My aim is to create a game where the players aren't afraid to take on the role of steering the ship, and the Captain actually becomes a prestigious role that is fought over from session to session.

V

[chronoplasm]

What kinds of cards will you be using? Will this be a regular deck of 52 cards or will these be cards you create each with text describing different events that can happen?

[Vulpinoid]

That's one of the dilemmas I'm facing.

The whole game revolves around the draw of cards from a standard 52-card deck.

I've considered the notions of either generating a second deck for randomised events, or generating a table that can be referenced from a card draw.

I've been tending more toward the second option due to it's potential flexibility. This is useful for a game about time travelling swashbucklers, in which almost anything can happen (and inevitably will).

For example: There could be a series of tables for Diamonds that each reflect a different time period: the Age of High Piracy table (Late 1600's to Early 1700's), the Ancient Empires table (Circa 500BC to Circa 500AD), etc.

There could be a series of tables for Clubs that each represent a different part of the world: the South Pacific table, the North Atlantic table, the Mediterranean table, etc.

You'd then mix and match the various suit tables depending on the situation the time-travelling vessel is in, and a range of results suitable to the era will be available. Of course, the player characters aren't the only time travellers and the spacetime continuum would always be in flux, so there'd often be chance of drawing cards from adjacent times, places and realities.

But that's where things are getting complicated, and I'm wondering if this complication is going to prevent people from wanting to be the captain, or if it's going to make the job easier for them because all the potential options are already mapped out in a coherent fashion.

V

[chronoplasm]

It specifically has to be a normal card deck?
Personally, I would use a deck of tarot cards instead. You get three advantages with this:
1) The major arcana (The Magus, The Lovers, Death, etc.) can give more specific effects while the minor arcana (five of swords for example) give more numeric effects like "how much damage do I do?"
2) Cards have different meanings when 'inverted'. When you draw a card upside down, it will have a different effect than it would the other way.
3) The cards already have meanings associated with them. This eliminates a lot of work for you. You can just figure out a way to translate these meanings into game terms and have different tables depending on context.

[chronoplasm]

Actually, I just did a search for threads with the word 'tarot' in them.
Yeah, I suppose it makes sense that the tarot can be very distracting from the regular game what with the whole subculture associated with it. People may geek out to much about the tarot cards and forget about the actual game. Never mind then.

I say definately use the tables though. Thats a good idea.

[Vulpinoid]

I've got a second game concept devoted to Tarot...it's all about the lost generation of the 1920's and 30's trying to reawaken their mysticism (a bit like Robert L. Ripley and Amelia Earhart meet Indiana Jones and try to uncover the mysteries of the ancient world)...so I was trying to steer clear of them in this one.

I've been tempted a couple of times to combine them into the same system, but they have very different feels and I'm trying to get the mechanics to reflect the underlying themes and vibe of the game.

I had considered associating any psychic powers or voodoo skullduggery with the major arcana, but it was starting to feel like a hodge podge of cobbled-together systems, and that's one of my pet hates in a game.

So for the moment, we've got a Captain who is struggling to maintain order on his ship, while finding jobs to pay the crew, pursuing his own agendas and dealing with the fate that the winds send his way.

We've got a crew who are all scheming to become the captain, while trying to pursue their own agendas and avoiding the worst effects that space-time can throw at them.

...and we have a fickle hand of destiny known simply as the Wind.

A little more about the set-up so far to put it into context...

Since anything can happen and there is the potential for absolute chaos, I've decided that the framework for the game should be very strict. It's all about balancing order and chaos. Even though the characters may be thrown into a maelstrom of quantum uncertainty, I want the players to have a good grasp of what is happening and not to get too lost along the way. Here's some extracts from my working text...

Game Outline
1 – Captain determines the scenario (or general storyline) to be played out.

Five cards are removed from the wind to represent the five acts of the story. If there have been previous sessions, then the Captain may introduce a number of concepts from earlier stories. Up to one concept may be introduced per player.

2 – Senior crew gathers necessary resources and lesser crewmembers for story to commence.

All players are given two random red cards from the wind, two random black cards from the fate deck, a number of pieces of eight equal to twice the total number of players. The captain gets five times the number of pieces of eight (for example. If there are 5 players, each would get 2 red and 2 black cards and 10 pieces of eight, the captain would get 25 pieces of eight.) Each player may choose to add an additional issue from earlier sessions (if there have been any), these issues

3 – Story is played out

Each of the five act cards are revealed in turn. Each player has the chance to participate in a scene during each of the acts, during these scenes a secondary card is played randomly from the fate deck to determine scene complications that must be faced and overcome before the act can be resolved.

4 – Repercussions of story and loose ends of storyline are noted

Any scenes that were not fully resolved have a chance of becoming long-term stories and goals for the players concerned. These unresolved issues are easier to return to the storyline in later sessions.

5 – Experience is awarded and new scores are noted accordingly

Pieces of Eight
Each of the players may affect the storyline by spending their Pieces of Eight or playing their fate cards during another player's scenes.

Pieces of Eight are a finite resource in the game and they are used effectively as a currency to buy control over the storyline. Every time a player spends a Piece of Eight, they may make a specific change to the scene underway. If the active player picks up one this change and effectively integrates the change into their actions, they may claim the piece of eight for themselves, allowing them to make changes to other peoples scenes at later stages in the story. If the active player does not make use of the change, the piece of eight ends up in Davy Jones Locker and may be used by the Captain to keep a single unresolved storyline as a carry-over for later games.

INSERT SOME APPROPRIATE USES FOR PIECES OF EIGHT HERE

Wind Cards
Wind Cards are a replenishing resource. All players always have four wind cards, every time they apply such a card it is immediately replenished randomly from the wind. Note that a used card is replaced randomly and the replacement could be either black or red. During the climax scene, a player finds that they have to face all of the cards in their own hand, so in this way it is in their interest to make things harder for their fellow crew members along the way so that there are better chances of their own final showdown being easier to overcome.

Multiple players may apply wind cards to a scene, applying new effects or accumulating to more influential effects throughout the course of the scene. The maximum number of cards that may be applied by a player during a given scene is equal to the current act number. (eg. A player may play no more than 3 cards during a specific scene in act 3, if one player had reached that limit, it doesn't stop another player from applying three of their own cards on the scene.)

Combo Effects
There are also some powerful effects that can come into effect when a player chooses to apply one or more Pieces of Eight with one or more Wind cards.

This is where things start getting tricky because I'd like to see a nice list of actions that explains how players can interact with the storyline as communal GMs, by spending their resources to affect the game in different ways.

I guess that's where the current dilemma lies.

V

[Vulpinoid]

Oops..it seems I edited out the general notion in the game that Red wind cards tend to be good, making things easier for the characters copncerned, while black cards then to be bad and make things harder.

[chronoplasm]

Ah. I see.
What if players can 'buy land'? That is, the player spends pieces of eight to spot land in the distance and then they get to add some sort of resource to the land (food, buried treasure, pretty girls, nice places to rest). Everybody can chip in coins to add something, but fate cards are drawn to determine the risk. There could very well be pirates or cannibals or dangerous animals on the island.
Furthermore, maybe players can spend pieces of eight to fish? Maybe if enough coins are spent they can get something really cool, like a mermaid or something. However, there is always the risk of catching some kind of sea monster.
Perhaps coins can be spent to give an advantage in battle? (Aim, faster reloading, swordmanship, etc.)
Perhaps coins can be spent to get rid of a disadvantage? Heavy rain can soak gun powder preventing guns from firing. Maybe if enough coins are spent players can cause the rain to stop?

I wonder, maybe this might be more the Captain's job, if coins could be spent to manipulate the decks? Perhaps players could pay to remove a certain card from the deck, shuffle the deck, or rearrange the top three cards.

[Vulpinoid]

Some of those ideas could work...

At the moment, I'm looking at the following idea. The captain lays the groundwork for the tale being told during the session. This roughly equivalent to possessing a map of a certain part of the world at a certain time. The crew pilots the ship to that temporal location, imagine Captain Jack Sparrow with a compass that not only points to his heart's desire, but it also directs him to the point in time when it is easiest to obtain...

The five Wind cards that represent the five acts each have a symbolic representation of the issues to be overcome at that point of the story...Act 1 [Set Up] - we have to get to atlantis before the destruction hits...Act 2 [Mission Begins] - we have to find the temple where the artifact is located...Act 3 [Complications] we have to negotiate our way past the guards...Act 4 [Climax] - we have to face the minotaur who protects the inner sanctum...Act 5 [Resolution] - we have to get home with the artifact intact.

In theory the story seems pretty straight forward, that what the captain has been told. He knows that there will be complications along the way otherwise his client would have gotten the artifact for himself and the bounty wouldn't be so high.

Let's focus on Act 2 for a moment...there are four players [Tom, Matt, Bill and Sue], one of whom is the captain [Tom]. The players know that the act has four scenes, one for each player. They decide to split into two groups, one player goes with the captain to locate the temple [Tom and Matt], the other two stay on board the ship in case something goes wrong there [Bill and Sue], each group has half a dozen regular crew members with them (Effectively cannon fodder). At the start of Act 1/Scene 1, the players draw cards to see who will be the focus of this particular scene. The order for the focal scenes in this act will be Matt, Sue, Bill and Tom. They take turns in this order until the goal of the Act is reached (ie. locating the temple).

In the first scene of the Act, Matt takes centre stage and since this is his focal scene, he cannot play wind cards or pieces of eight. The Captain [Tom] describes the basic scene, and now Sue and Bill can add in a couple of descriptive sentences to reveal things that the captain may not have been aware of...Sue says that there is a festival underway, while Bill says that there are far more ships docked here, and far more out-of-towners than the captain would have expected. Every scene has tension in it, and a random card is drawn to determine Matt's secondary goal for the scene, he'll need to overcome this before they can make any headway on the main mission. It's a six of clubs, there is a tavern brawl. Matt's character isn't much of a fighter and tries to avoid it using stealth, Sue spends a black wind card to say that the brawl fills the whole street that they need to walk down and Matt's character simply can't get around it using stealth. Matt has to resort to using his athletic ability to run through it, hoping he doesn't get stopped along the way. The captain on the other hand is a seasoned veteran of cutlass fighting, so he wouldn't mind a bit of a scrap. The captain knows that time is of the essence though, and follows the lead of Matt's character. Success in the task, so the scene is resolved.

Move to Act 2, when Sue is the focus.

The crew who've stayed behind at the ship decide to ask the dock workers about the temple that is going to be raided. The theory here is that if they are successful, they'll get a bonus in the final climax scenes. Sue asks around, but has to overcome her own challenge before information could be made available. With a three of diamonds, she hears a rumour that will make things tricky for her. Tom spends a piece of eight to lay claim to the rumour, but Matt is feeling a bit petty after the last scene. He spends two pieces of eight to outbid the Captain. He decides that the dock workers are suspicious folk and don't like women on ships, Sue will have to find away around this. She uses her disguise abilities to pretend to be a man when she is asking around. Bill decides that this is a good idea and helps the story, and even though he is with her, this is not his focal scene so he can play cards on her. Bill applies a red wind card and her disguise attempt is a bit easier...she succeeds.

etc.

Each player has to overcome a specific issue before they can push the story along and attain the final objective. Each player has to sacrifice the negative wind cards in their hands in an effort to ensure their hands are filled with positive wind cards when the final challenge is met. Players play off against one another, and if there is any required interpretation of the rules, or breaking of deadlocks between plyers, this is left in the hands of the Captain.


So it's now all a matter of working out what degree the storyline can be manipulated by the players and captain.

The cards specifically apply positive or negative effects, the pieces of eight manipulate the scene in some way. Playing both cards and pieces of eight gives far more powerful control over the story.

The idea of buying an island is equally valid if the captain hasn't decided what sort of mysterious island their adventure takes them to. Players could use their coins to describe the terrain of the island (eg. forested, desert, iceberg, etc.), while they use their cards to describe the level of threat the island might pose. That's a good idea and something I can probably run wth.

V

[chronoplasm]

I see... so if players end up in a city they can use the gold to determine what kind of stuff is there, but the cards determine the quality of that stuff. You buy supplies, but cards determine cost and quality.
Perhaps players can buy NPCs too then? The player describes the kind of NPC they want (wise old man with information, easy woman, etc.), draws cards to determine risk (old man gives bad information, woman robs you), and chooses somebody to play the role of that character. Perhaps players can buy a rumor or legend? Pay a coin and come up with your own local lore. The captain may or may not use this lore in the story, but then again they might.

[danielsan]

Reading the subject line made me think you were trying to come up with something different-- That there was a third party against the captain and the crew, competing directly. In other words, I imagined the captain offering an idea (set sail to Treasure Island) and playing a card. The players then try to modify or block that offering (but the weather's turning bad! but we've spotted an English warship!) with a card(s) of their own. Finally, the Wind card is turned over, and determines whose idea is actually taken.

Come to think of it, you could take that idea and make a lite version of Texas Hold 'Em. Maybe the captain lays down a couple of cards from his hand, trying to beat a couple dealt arbitrarily from the Wind's hand (or placed as a difficulty number or NPC?). The the crew can add to the wind's or to the captain's hand, either helping or hurting the Captain either way. the Captain can force the players to add to his hand, but risks the mutiny later, of course. ... needs work, and it's not what you were going for, but it's what crossed my mind.

But I really like it (it mirrors some ideas that I had thought about for my trump spy-game). I had also thought of using cards and a table to determine plot elements, but I'm really hesitant to go for it. Personally, I think it might be restrictive and would rather see the plot setups/complications/twists come organically from the storyline. If there was a more obvious way for the captain and crew to try to second guess each other, such as building a mechanic or reward system for the behavior, I would think that such stuff will happen naturally. For example, a crew member has claustrophobia as a weakness, so the captain purposefully narrates that the treasure is in a cave to benefit from the crew member's actions. that guy later adds the fact that the tide's rushing out too early and must return to the ship, so that his absence hurts the captain's chances of success... etc.

 

[Vulpinoid]

Exactly...sort of...but you've definitely got the idea.

Between the consensus of the players, the world is developed. And due to this being a time-travelling game, there are occasional times when the ripples of quantum paradox sweep across the world. Consider Marty McFly in "Back to the Future", when the timeline starts to get altered there are points where he simply fades out of existence, points where he has to avoid previous incarnations of himself and points where the world he knows has changed completely.

This means that every time a setting is visited, it can be re-described in a new manner. It will cost less for players to describe the location in the same way that it appeared before, but there is nothing stopping a player from altering the details. It only starts to cost points if there are major differences. For example, the Twin Towers still stand in New York because the captains mission has taken them to a version of the timeline where the terrorists were thwarted.

Unless someone spends a piece of eight to specifically note a change to this reality, then the captain's description of the world is in effect. This may or may not be in line with the players understanding of reality.

I'm trying to keep the actual mechanics of gameplay fairly simple because there is enough to cope with in a continually fluctuating setting like this. Yet the whole card concept is also integrated into the lesser ranking members of the crew.

There are four attributes in the game, corresponding to the four suits. If a player is heading out to recruit new members for the crew, they may choose from a number of cards equal to the number of successes they get in their hunt. The face value of the card basically says how much temporal integrity the potential crew member has (roughly their level of experience), while the suit determines which is their strongest attribute.

If a player character should die during the course of the game, they can alway promote one of the lesser crew members, they just need to make sure that the character they create based on this promoted crew member keeps the same basic set of skills, and the same highest attribute.

If looking for specific people who aren't going to be potential crew members then the same kind of thing can apply. The card suit determines the high attribute and the type of information that can be drawn from this NPC, the face value of the card determines the quality of that information. Before the card is revealed, a player could spend a red wind card to draw a second card and then choose the better of the two results for the NPC; or they could spend a black card and choose the worse result. Any player can then spend a piece of eight to take control of that NPC for the purposes of playing out the scene; naturally, since the Captain starts withj more pieces of eight, he can then trump the other players if he wants this NPC to impart specific game related details that will help the plot he has in mind.

The whole system is pretty impromptu and based on the interaction between the players to evolve and grow the narrative.

It still needs work and hence my need to voice a bit of discussion about the ideas.

V

[Vulpinoid]

Danielsan...yeah, that's kind of the idea I've been aiming toward.

With the combined actions and motives of the crew on one side, the actions and motive of the captain on a second side, and the wind cards tipping the favour either way or introducing elements that neither side had considered.

All of the characters will definitely be meaty enough with merits and flaws that can be exploited by one another to keep thje game interesting and keep those players motivated who aren't the primary focal points for the current scene.

As for the Texas Hold 'Em angle...that has come up as a possibility, but I'm trying to avoid a wild west connotation to the game. If I were going to use a mechanic for an existing card game I'd use something that was played by sailors as they travelled around the world. Maybe Chinese 21 (which is very similar to regular 21, but with some interesting variations), I've actually used Chinese 21 as a character development tool in previous games.

[Mike Sugarbaker]

This sounds pretty promising, V, but I hope you're thinking about the facts that 1) players who "don't want to GM" often put up a fight when asked to contribute to story at all, and 2) if your friends like the game you're all playing, but you don't, then your changing the system on them might not go over all that well.

I also hope that you manage to playtest some of this with people who actually enjoy creating content.

[apeiron]

Me like!

OK.  Four suits: People, Places, Objects, Events.  Even numbers are good things, odd numbers are bad/obsticals.  Each player draws one of each for their hand.  The captain draws four and places them face up.

People: Undead Monkey (bad)
Place: The Brig (bad) (i'm in the brig, or maybe a friend is)
Object: Shiny Bauble (useful for bribes, or maybe it is the goal)
Event: Marriage of Governor's Daughter (security is high, or maybe i'm getting married to her)

i hold
People: Marine (could be an old buddy of mine, or maybe i'm a marine)
Place: Swamp Hideout
Object: Cutlass (ow! pointy!)
Event: Full Moon (bad)

i have more to say on this but have to go home.  i'll check back.