[a murder of crows] Power 19

[MKAdams]

So for the last month or so I was working on a project tentatively titled "Wonderland," but the more research I did the more I realized that I wasn't going to be able to bring the project to completion in anything resembling the form I had envisioned.  It was going to be a $200k project that wouldn't make any money.  Suck!  While I could do the book itself and market it via the "traditional" indie route, the fact is that the game was not sufficiently unique to make it worthwhile to do it as an indie game.  While I think it's a better game than Zorceror of Zo or Faery's Tale (I am, of course, partial to my own baby, so feel free to discount my opinion), it's not sufficiently different to make it worthwhile to publish.

So, instead I went back to the drawing board and looked through some project ideas I'd jotted down, and settled on two that would work as indie games.  One idea lends itself to very simple art that I can do myself (I'm using manipulated photos), and I can do a 250 print run for less than $2500 and sell them at $20 and make enough money back to publish more if it sells well.

The idea I decided to go with is a murder of crows.  a murder of crows started with an observation I've heard from many gamers: Call of Cthulhu is a great idea, but it sucks how your investigators always go insane and die.  So I wanted a mythos-themed game that maintained a sense of dark, supernatural horror, but was actually survivable.  That's tough.  It's hard to find a balance between the plunging sanity of COC, and hack 'n' slash Cthulhu.

I also wanted to do something based on the TV show Supernatural.  I ran a mini-campaign (using D20 Modern) for two of my friends where they played Sam and Dean, and I came up with some ideas about how to handle investigations that didn't mesh well with D20, but could become their own system.

The final inspiration, the piece that tied it all together, is the cable show Dexter.  I got season one from Christmas, and thought the idea of serial killer as hero was at once one of the most fucked up and hilarious things I'd ever seen.  So I decided that was the key to my game.  It's about outsiders who use the techniques of criminals to fight the supernatural (ala Supernatural), except the supernatural is mythos-themed (Call of Cthulhu), and the outsiders are sociopaths (ala Dexter) so they don't go insane -- they START insane!  Problem solved!

So, now that you know where my game came from inspiration-wise, here's the power 19 for a murder of crows.

1. What is your game about?

a murder of crows is about serial killers who hunt aberrations created as by-products of the unnatural sorcery of witches and warlocks, while struggling to deal with their murderous urges.  They work at the direction of a secret global conspiracy dedicated to stamping out the supernatural, while the police and federal agencies hunt them.  These serial killers are raised in a special camp and given advanced training in, well, being a serial killer.  They are called crows, and they are sent out into the world in small groups ("murders") , hence the title of the game.

a murder of crows is about sitting around a table with a bunch of good friends and doing your best to completely sick them out.  Ultimately the game should stir the same emotions that slasher films stir, where one finds oneself simultaneously appalled by and rooting for the anti-heroic protagonist (heavy emphasis on the anti-!!!).  It's a little bit dark psychological thriller, a little bit crime noir, a little bit Lovecraft, and a whole lot of dark, dark humor.

2. What do the characters do?

Characters are sent to investigate outbreaks of strange phenomenon, called aberrations (monsters) and anomalies (weird events).  At the center of every outbreak is a warlock, a person tapping into the reality-distorting power of the elder spawn.  Aberrations and anomalies are attracted to people with connections (perhaps unknowingly) to the warlock.  The players stick around the area and wait for the bodies to pile up deep enough that they can find the center of the web of connections, and then they kill it.  And sometimes they try to sneak in an extra victim here or there.

3. What do the players (including the GM if there is one) do?

Players provide characterization and roll dice, as well as narrate most of the action of the story.  The gamemaster creates the web of victims as well as the warlock (called the warlock-web), and provides the players with a "dossier" of facts to help get them started.  As the players gather more clues, they construct a story to explain the facts.  The gamemaster also adds complications to their investigation.

4. How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?

The setting is the real world, with some added supernatural/conspiracy elements, both of which work towards creating an atmosphere of disturbing horror, which when done right makes the over-the-top macabre elements hysterically funny.

5. How does the Character Creation of your game reinforce what your game is about?

Character creation is very limited, with every player playing essentially the same character, with slight variations (as in Dogs in the Vineyard).  Character have a preassigned set of attributes and skills to which they can assign different weightings to customize their character within a limited range, and some free traits they can use to make their character unique.

6. What types of behaviors/styles of play does your game reward (and punish if necessary)?

The game rewards being sneaky, underhanded, devious and deviant. 

7. How are behaviors and styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?

The combat system strongly discourages a brute force solution.  Think Friday Night Firefight level of "realism," where you're unlikely to hit anyone you're not standing next to, but if you hit you're likely to kill them.  Healing is also a long, slow and arduous process.  Surviving a serious gun shot wound can mean months of surgery, recuperation, and physical therapy (just like real life!).  There's no gun fu and dodging bullets in this game.

The system always rewards investigation by allowing the players to interpret facts they discover and create their own antagonist, which means that the players never end up chasing after red herrings

8. How are the responsibilities of narration and credibility divided in your game?

Narration duties are handled primarily by the characters, while credibility determination is apportioned to the gamemaster.  Essentially the players narrate their investigation of the warlock-web, and as they describe their actions, the gamemaster has editorial control powers.  The GM  may interject to either request an ability or skill test, the result of which must be respected by the player in their narration.  The gamemaster can also demand that the player "purchase" credibility for their statements by handing over "complications," which are essentially story tokens that allow the GM to interject elements into the game that screw up the player's plans.  The game strips the GM of a lot of traditional GM powers 9which are given to the player), but at the same time encourages the GM to be extremely antagonistic and cruel to the players, using complications to seriously screw them over at the least opportune moments.

9. What does your game do to command the players' attention, engagement, and participation? (i.e. What does the game do to make them care?)

The game hands them control over many elements traditionally left to the gamemaster, including monster selection (working on this).  Players also have strong narrative responsibility.

10. What are the resolution mechanics of your game like?

The game uses a modified version of the FUDGE rules.  Most conflicts are resolved with a single die roll that gives a descriptive success or failure rating, which the player then defines

11. How do the resolution mechanics reinforce what your game is about?

Kind of stumped on answering this question.

12. Do characters in your game advance? If so, how?

Characters skills advance slowly, but there is generally minimal advancement.  The game is more about the story than leveling up.

13. How does the character advancement (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?

The minimal focus of advancement reinforces the idea of a world in a steady but slow state of decay.  Things don't really improve, they just get progressively more complex.  This isn't a gamist game, it's a story game.

14. What sort of product or effect do you want your game to produce in or for the players?

The game should stir the same emotions that slasher films stir, where one finds oneself simultaneously appalled by and rooting for the anti-heroic protagonist. 

15. What areas of your game receive extra attention and color? Why?

The internal mechanisms of the PC killers twisted psyches receive a lot of attention, in part to reinforce the idea that the PCs are Very Bad People, but also to constantly bring the game back to that dark and evil place it's humor comes from.

16. Which part of your game are you most excited about or interested in? Why?

It's a toss up.  On the one hand, I'm very excited about the frustration and rage mechanics, which can cause a character who is having a bad day (failing a lot) to boil over with frustration and explode into rage.  Which can lead to really darkly humorous results, as the players find themselves suddenly having to make a body disappear when they finally lose their patience and strangle a coffee shop employee for scalding their espresso.

17. Where does your game take the players that other games can't, don't, or won't?

The game makes absolutely no attempt to confine the characters to anything resembling a sane moral order.  In fact, it does the exact opposite, pushing them and encouraging them to be as awful and nasty as possible.  In order to keep their character under control, players have to vent their frustration.  The only effective way to do this is to kill people.  But the player can't just kill people willy-nilly.  They have to kill them in accordance with a ritual that they design in the first session, which means they have to kill people on their own schedule, which means setting up a slaughterhouse, kidnapping the victim, and then killing them.   The gamemaster (or the players themselves) create blackly humorous complications -- for example, a player drags a kidnapped victim into a hotel room, only to discover (as she steps out from the bathroom, while he has an armload of unconscious victim) that the maid overlooked the "Do Not Disturb" sign.

Even "Kill Puppies for Satan" doesn't push the envelope like a murder of crows.

Also, as a criminal justice major, I bring a depth of knowledge about crime and police operations to the field that few designers can match, and consequently the game will not only teach the GM a lot about how the criminal justice system works, but how to effectively and realistic run the police as recurring antagonist.

18. What are your publishing goals for your game?

To produce a batch of 250 copies and sell them all within a year.

19. Who is your target audience?

Story gamers with a very dark sense of humor.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

So, instead I went back to the drawing board and looked through some project ideas I'd jotted down, and settled on two that would work as indie games.  One idea lends itself to very simple art that I can do myself (I'm using manipulated photos), and I can do a 250 print run for less than $2500 and sell them at $20 and make enough money back to publish more if it sells well.

You're putting the cart way before the horse, here.  I'd hold off on thinking about numbers and money just yet.

I also wanted to do something based on the TV show Supernatural.  I ran a mini-campaign (using D20 Modern) for two of my friends where they played Sam and Dean, and I came up with some ideas about how to handle investigations that didn't mesh well with D20, but could become their own system.

I know I'm not addressing your Power 19, and we'll see if we can get to that, but I want to ask why your ideas didn't mesh with with D20 Modern?  What about your play experience showed you that D20 couldn't handle what you wanted to do?

Peace,

-Troy

[MKAdams]

You're putting the cart way before the horse, here.  I'd hold off on thinking about numbers and money just yet.

Not thinking about the numbers first lead me to waste a month and a half working on a game I can't afford to produce.  You have to start thinking about the money right off the bat, or you're just wasting your time.   I mean, unless you've got so much money that you can afford to just lose it.

I know I'm not addressing your Power 19, and we'll see if we can get to that, but I want to ask why your ideas didn't mesh with with D20 Modern?  What about your play experience showed you that D20 couldn't handle what you wanted to do?

The D20 system puts all of the power and credibility into the hands of the GM, and really doesn't handle the whole concept of an investigation very well.  In fact, it has absolutely no rules for handling investigations at all, and little in the way of investigatory tools (the Search skill being about all there is).  Which means right out of the gate, you're already having to hack your own rules to make the idea work.   Which is interesting, since the D20 settings frequently presume that the players will be investigators of some sort.

So the desired play is something like this:  Players go from crime scene to crime scene gathering evidence.  Eventually they gather enough evidence to form a theory as to what is happening.  They then act on that theory, and it leads them to the bad guy and the resolution of the investigation.

The real play in D20 tends towards being like this:  GM selects a monster, decides how it kills, creates crime scenes and clues to its existence.  Players go from crime scene to crime scene making Search checks.  These Search checks are essentially meaningless as the Players can't fail them or they miss vital clues and the adventure gets derailed.  Eventually they gather enough evidence to form a theory as to what is happening.  The theory is wrong because they give the wrong weight to certain pieces of evidence.  Eventually the players are frustrated and bored, feeling like they can't figure out what monster the GM picked.  The GM calls for a Knowledge check, and then simply tells the players what the resolution of the mystery is.  Players go and kill the bad guy.

Ultimately, it's very unsatisfying, because the players (rightly) feel they aren't driving the investigation, but rather that they are being railroaded by it.

So what I wanted to do was create a system where the GM doesn't select a monster at all.  There are no monsters to select!  Instead, the GM selects "facts" -- clues left behind at various "crime" scenes.  Facts can be all sorts of crazy things.  Here are some examples of "facts:"
1. "This victim's head was sliced clean off with a rough, jagged blade."
2. "The victim recently spent some time in Africa."
3. "The victim's body was found in a field, dropped from a great height."
4. "The victim had large claw marks on his shoulders, as if made by a bird."
5. "The victim was last seen entering a bathroom on the 15th floor of the MacMurray building."

The GM gives the players these facts -- or they create them by making skill checks at appropriate moments -- and the players then explain what they mean.  They create a story that explains all the facts.  Then they need some means of granting credibility the story they've created.  Some sort of skill check, with a bonus based on the number of facts they've accumulated.

Let's say the players explain the facts by inventing a terrible bird, the Dybuk, that haunts Africa.  African folklore says that the Dybuk is huge, with a wingspan of hundreds of feet, but can snatch a man out of his hut without so much as rustling the thatch.  It has phasing powers of some sort that allow it to grab people from inside buildings.  Also, once it finds a target, it will follow him (invisibly, miles in the air) for weeks or even months before it strikes.  The victim clearly went to Africa, was targeted by the Dybuk, and it followed him back to America, and then snatched him out of the 15th floor of the building, bit his head off (it eats thoughts), and then dropped his body, whoich is how it ended up ina  field outside the city!   All facts accounted for!

Suddenly the GM has his monster.  See how that works?  Now clearly, the GM wants to be able to add some input to this process.  So he might accept the player explanation with a "Yes, and..." or a "Yes, but..." and add a "complication" -- such as: the Dybuk can only be slain with a warrior's spear that has tasted the blood of a lion.  But the important thing here is that the GM has his monster, and that the player's investigation lead them to it, and they feel like they accomplished something.  Their creativity is rewarded, and they aren't just passively receiving the explanation from the GM.

And here's the second place D20 completely breaks down for doing this kind of play.  Say you've been playing for four hours, and everybody wants to go home in another two.  They've "discovered" the Dybuk, and now they want to go kill it.  They know where it will be nesting (because they just make it up on the spot), they know how to kill it (once they find such a spear), and they're ready to go.  All the GM has to do is quickly and efficiently create an entirely new monster from scratch that is balanced against the party's capabilities.

In D20!  I'll just assume that most people reading this don't need me to explain that creating a balanced, playable monster on the fly in the D20 system is, at best, a difficult task.  It's stressful and more likely than not, it won't work out.

So basically that's the problem with using D20.  It has absolutely no support for the type of game I want to run, and doesn't lend itself to that sort of game at all.

[J. Scott Timmerman]

Hola, MKAdams.

I haven't seen any of your influences, but I'm really digging this game idea.  Your Wonderland game seemed like a good idea too.  I can understand your fears of spending a lot of money on high-end quality and deep market penetration into a largely untested demographic.

The whole serial murderers thing is great.  Are you going to take it in the direction of sociopaths that do a good job hiding their depravity under cover as fine, upstanding individuals?  If not, I would much enjoy at least the option to do so. 

Your idea to go with a unified organization rather than interested individuals may provide more direction and cut through a lot of the hesitation prevalent in CoC.  I find that in games where the group is an arm of an organization, it can be easier to keep the players on task; especially players who are used to having a lot of strong GM-input (sometimes sadly necessary) to inform their decisions.

In my current game project, I'm trying something like your reverse-causal relationship between evidence found by the PCs and actual situation in my game, with more of the intent for social intrigue than for psychological horror.  Mechanics like the one you've mentioned may really aid in plot-development over plot-railroading. 

A couple points on this idea (and I know I'm getting away from specific questions about the Power 19 as well) but would the players themselves be able to introduce facts other than a conclusion about the terror?  Meaning, could they roll a high Knowledge check (a la Spirit of the Century) to declare a fact about the game world?  You do mention that they have the ability to interpret evidence, but I'm wondering if they have the ability to introduce evidence in the first place.

Also have you considered, in the case that the PCs do very poorly, the possibility that the monster is nothing like what they've guessed, but still is consistent with the evidence they've collected?  I.E., the GM should try deliberately not to use their idea of the monster if the characters make a poor roll or otherwise fail mechanically in some way?  Or perhaps this option isn't well-suited to a collaborative game that encourages a type of Narrativism where the players' input is supposed to matter as much as the GMs?

To tie all this in with the Power 19 - you mentioned you were stumped on the issue of resolution mechanics.  If you cut right down to it, perhaps you can consider your PC-driven plot development mechanic the central mechanic.  I.E., the mechanics that arbitrate who decide what facts enter the SIS matter more than Conflict or Task Resolution.  Or resolution could even be directly subservient to narration rights.  Just a thought.

-JT

[Mike Sugarbaker]

You're putting the cart way before the horse, here.  I'd hold off on thinking about numbers and money just yet.

Not thinking about the numbers first lead me to waste a month and a half working on a game I can't afford to produce.  You have to start thinking about the money right off the bat, or you're just wasting your time.   I mean, unless you've got so much money that you can afford to just lose it.

Or unless you publish in such a way that literally no money up front is required, but that's not the point. The point is, you didn't waste a month and a half working on a game you can't afford to produce; you wasted a month and a half working on a product you can't afford to produce. It may be that the game, the designed play, inside that product could be produced much more affordably. It may also be that cutting its production values would make it less viable as a product; I think where the other posters in this thread are coming from is that the two concerns are in many ways separate.

Now, if your game design goals include having a viable product, that's fine. It's as good a source of creative constraint as any. But I'd argue that even setting a $2500 budget is putting the cart before the horse. (It's definitely more than you need to spend to move 250 copies to "story gamers.") Do you know that your game - that is your rules - are even going to require artwork in order to deliver the experience to the players at the table? If your answer is "yes," then that brings with it a certain set of assumptions - and that's fine too. (It's just that at the Forge we have a tendency to be hard chargers about these sorts of assumptions. It's a bad habit, sorry :-)

Enough of me being anal, back to the game. (But I'd be super curious to hear about this other product.)

[MKAdams]

The whole serial murderers thing is great.  Are you going to take it in the direction of sociopaths that do a good job hiding their depravity under cover as fine, upstanding individuals?  If not, I would much enjoy at least the option to do so. 

The art lends itself towards viewing the Crows as dirty, dangerous looking dudes.  Lots of heavy military surplus jackets and ski-masks, and guys with scraggly beards wearing hoodies and looking like they woke up on the mean side of the bed this morning. But the rules as written will totally allow for and support the idea of the psycho-poser, who seems liek a charming, normal guy, even a guy you'd want to be friends with.  That's the sort of sociopath that Dexter, on the show Dexter, is.  Very charming, affable guy.  Lucky we get to hear his thoughts and recognize how completely fake he is.

Your idea to go with a unified organization rather than interested individuals may provide more direction and cut through a lot of the hesitation prevalent in CoC.  I find that in games where the group is an arm of an organization, it can be easier to keep the players on task; especially players who are used to having a lot of strong GM-input (sometimes sadly necessary) to inform their decisions.

That was part of the decision.  I also wanted to solve the whole "money and gear" problem.  If the players need money or gear, they can just request it from the handlers.  There's even a trait, called Utility, that measure how vital to the organization your character is.  If you get arrested and have a really high Utility, a high-priced lawyer has you sprung by morning.  If you get arrested and have a really low Utility, someone drops off a dossier with evidence of all the crimes the police don't know about yet.  At the police station.  Because you've been disavowed, and left to hang.

A couple points on this idea (and I know I'm getting away from specific questions about the Power 19 as well) but would the players themselves be able to introduce facts other than a conclusion about the terror?  Meaning, could they roll a high Knowledge check (a la Spirit of the Century) to declare a fact about the game world?  You do mention that they have the ability to interpret evidence, but I'm wondering if they have the ability to introduce evidence in the first place.

Players will be able to introduce evidence and facts about the world whenever they want, but the GM always has the right to demand "complications" from them.  Which means that if a player decides he wants X to be a fact about the world, and the GM feels that allowing X to be a fact would lead to less dramatic play, he can say something like "Okay, but it'll cost you three complications."  The player then decides how important that fact really is to them and the story they want to tell.  If it's worth it to them, they'll pay the price gladly.

Also have you considered, in the case that the PCs do very poorly, the possibility that the monster is nothing like what they've guessed, but still is consistent with the evidence they've collected?  I.E., the GM should try deliberately not to use their idea of the monster if the characters make a poor roll or otherwise fail mechanically in some way?  Or perhaps this option isn't well-suited to a collaborative game that encourages a type of Narrativism where the players' input is supposed to matter as much as the GMs?

I'm not 100% sure I'm understanding this, but the idea is that the GM doesn't have any preconceived notion of what the monster is.  I'm even thinking of including huge table of "random facts" that are used for "monster generation."  It's entirely up to the players to explain what kind of monster or anomaly could account for.  The GM section will hammer this point home over and over.  As a GM, I find that I get the most enjoyment when I let my players tell me a story, and there's a lot of fun to be had as a GM in coming up with a list of utterly crazy facts and then demanding a group of your friends come up with an explanation for all of them. 

To tie all this in with the Power 19 - you mentioned you were stumped on the issue of resolution mechanics.  If you cut right down to it, perhaps you can consider your PC-driven plot development mechanic the central mechanic.  I.E., the mechanics that arbitrate who decide what facts enter the SIS matter more than Conflict or Task Resolution.  Or resolution could even be directly subservient to narration rights.  Just a thought.

It's more than I just don't understand the question!

[J. Scott Timmerman]

(...)
the idea is that the GM doesn't have any preconceived notion of what the monster is.
(...)
It's entirely up to the players to explain what kind of monster or anomaly could account for.

Ok.  My point was just to add an extra dimension here, where GM still doesn't pre-plan, but players may not necessarily have that level of control for granted - I.E., it's possible for them to be wrong and not know it.

Going back to the Power 19 issue...

11. How do the resolution mechanics reinforce what your game is about?

Kind of stumped on answering this question.

I think the point of this question is to stress the point that resolution mechanics have a dramatic effect on the feel of your game, and that that feel should tie in with what your game is about. 

Probably the important aspect of the resolution mechanic is deciding what issues are important enough to need resolution in your game, and what level of break down is required for different types of questions asked of the mechanics.  This could be done, for instance, by choosing a skill list tailored to types of actions the characters could take.  Do you separate out Hide from Move Silently, or are they both subsumed into Stealth - or even into something more general than that, like Agility or an occupation representing several skills? 

Another issue is the rate of success/failure.  You say you're using Fudge for the resolution mechanic.  There are different manifestations of Fudge, but the basic idea is a bell curve centered on the character's stat.  This makes arbitrating rate of success/failure quite easy.  You want just over 50%?  Try to rig the target numbers to equal the stats.  Just under 50%? Rig them to be stat+1.  Seems simple enough.  On top of the basic Fudge framework, though, you can add a lot of tricks players and the GM could use to push the roll one way or another.  This is a good way to encourage invoking game theme, much like is done in Spirit of the Century or The Shadow of Yesterday.

The key word there is encourage.  The mechanics themselves have an effect on how players interface with the game.  With a fortune mechanic like Fudge, it affects how they feel about their chances, how they deal with risks, and what they do in order to increase their chances. 

Does that help?

-JT

[MKAdams]

Ok.  My point was just to add an extra dimension here, where GM still doesn't pre-plan, but players may not necessarily have that level of control for granted - I.E., it's possible for them to be wrong and not know it.

Oh, yes.  There is a system by which the players can give their theories credibility.

It works like this:
1) At the beginning a new hunt, the aberration or anomaly has a Mystery of 11.  Every time the players gain a new fact, the aberration/anomaly's Mystery is reduced by 1.
2) The players may name and define the monster at anytime.  To do this successfully, they must make a Supernatural Knowledge Skill check against a difficulty equal to the monster's Mystery.  The highest skill possible is amazing (6), and the highest possible roll is +4, which means that it is impossible to identify a monster without any facts about it (since the highest roll possible is 10).
3) Once the players state a theory and roll dice, that theory is spent.  If the roll fails, they must come up with a new theory.

So once obviously players want to wait till they've gathered a few facts before they make the roll, but at the same time, the more facts they collect, the more elaborate the creature must necessarily be, and thus the more likely it is to be really frikkin dangerous!

I think the point of this question is to stress the point that resolution mechanics have a dramatic effect on the feel of your game, and that that feel should tie in with what your game is about. 
Does that help?

Yeah, but part of me feels like the answer is found in the answers to other questions.  Seems a bit repetitive to me.

Oh well, I want to talk about my game, not about the necessity of any particular question in the Power 19.   I'll leave that to the hardcore theory guys.  I'm only really interested in design, not theory.

[J. Scott Timmerman]

So once obviously players want to wait till they've gathered a few facts before they make the roll, but at the same time, the more facts they collect, the more elaborate the creature must necessarily be, and thus the more likely it is to be really frikkin dangerous!

I like it.  More comments on this later.

I'm only really interested in design, not theory.

Okay, I won't push it any further.

-JT