[The Rustbelt] Cruel cargo; also, more GM clumsiness

[Marshall Burns]

So, we playtested The Rustbelt again, and, also again, I hadn't prepared at all.  You'd think last time would learn me, wouldn'tcha?  Nope.  But, still, things came out pretty well in the end, despite a rough patch in the middle where I became really confused about what I should and shouldn't be doing as GM, and I had to call a break and talk it out with the players.  But I'll get to that in a second.

Courtney opted to bring back her character Kitt from the first session, a creepy, antisocial self-stiled doctor with a dartgun for drugged darts and a Hunger for Experience.  Stephen drew up a new one, Brown Jenkins, a horribly scarred veteran mercenary, whose Hunger was Acceptance, and whose Woes dealt with his terrible appearance and his lack of a family.  He also had a Limit about never allowing children to be hurt, and a Vice that he chewed carob nuts incessantly, which stained his teeth brown.

We had a quick brainstorm for a starting situation, and we decided on this:  Brown Jenkins had been hired by Kitt for muscle to replace his previous muscle (presumably Tok from the first session) who had died of influenza, and the two of them were hired onto a caravan taking some cargo to the next County (which is a dangerous prospect, even when you stick to the Highway, as they soon found out).

They were approached in a seedy bar on the rough side of town by a young woman who was clearly out of her element.  She was going by the name of Rosetta S., which was clearly a fake name (we established prior to play that she was the Governor's daughter, going incognito).  Announcing that she was looking for a doctor who went by the name of Kitt, she was approached both by Kitt and by the well-known con-man slash low-rent criminal mastermind Chicago, who claimed to be Kitt.  Brown Jenkins shot him down at once, telling him "Piss off, Chicago."  Jenkins signaled for Kitt to take Rosetta outside before things got rough, which, sure enough, they did as soon as Chicago made a remark about Jenkins' scars, thus pinging his Woe, requiring that Jenkins either take a hit to Tears or have an emotional outburst--and grabbing a barstool and clocking someone over the head with it certainly qualifies as an emotional outburst.  The long and short of it is that Chicago ends up on the ground, bleeding and thoroughly without dignity, swearing at Jenkins and telling him that he won't forget this.  Jenkins had nothing to add but "Piss off, Chicago."

Rosetta had a job for Kitt on a caravan to the next County (we never named which County--and it never mattered); they needed a medic in case anybody got hurt.  Jenkins could come along, but they'd have to share the same cut.  The pay was 1,000 (the currency is called Naughts and there's a story behind why, but I don't think I ever mentioned that; you just say 1,000 and everybody's got the idea anyway); 200 up front and 800 when they got there.  Kitt managed to talk her up to 300 up front, and the lady actually was going to hand them the envelope outside, in broad daylight (playing up the fact that this was not her world).

In the next scene they met the other members of the caravan, which was being handled by a professional convoy company owned by Big Mama Flatts, who talked in a sneering drawl and hocched up something nasty and spit it on the ground every third sentence or so.  The company included a talkative mechanic named "Mule Ear" Joe and of course several faceless extras, plus two hired guns:  a young, red-haired, freckled faced guy named Ron Timer (who seemed out of his element) and the fearsome Syco Ratchet Davies, who, despite his reputation, didn't look so fearsome, but he had that look in his eyes that said, "My parents named me Syco Ratchet Davies and what do you think that did to my head?"
(We had established the names of all the caravan characters prior to play, but not much else except that Ron wasn't much of a gun hand and was actually only on the trip because he and "Rosetta" were secretly lovers)

There was one vehicle in the convoy that Big Mama Flatts told Kitt & Jenkins not to go near:  a big black van, with the windows painted over and a nasty brug* named Box riding shotgun.  Box was in charge of protecting this van, Big Mama said, and he was enough guard for ten men so he didn't need no help.  There wasn't to be any confusion about this once they got on the road:  Stay. Away. From. The. Van.
*Brugs are people who, due to the influence of the Rust, are really, really big (upwards of nine feet as adults, with limbs like tree trunks).  In terms of the mechanics, they're freakishly strong (Tough stat at 10 or even higher). As one of the Odd Peoples, they are shunned (although they've found a niche in the adventurer and mercenary cultures), which suits 'em 'cause they're so solitary anyhow.  They don't accept or offer favors.  And they take terrible offense to the term "brug."

Rosetta also told them, as she told everyone, to keep out of her car.

The drive was uneventful until late night on the first day. They had to stop at night because not all of the trucks' lights worked, and it was too easy to get separated on the dark Highway, which, in the middle of the Expanse is emphatically not a good thing.  It was Ron's and Jenkins' turn on watch, and Kitt was up too (Kitt doesn't sleep much).  "Mule Ear" Joe showed up with some coffee to brew over the campfire, and started talking their ears off. 

"You boys want some coffee?  Boy do I ever like me some coffee.  Say, Brown Jenkins, how come they call you Brown Jenkins?" [steely glare in response] "Well, Kitt, how come they call you Kitt?"
"Don't remember."
"Is it on account of that kit bag you got there?" 
"No." 
"It's not?  Well, you know why they call me Mule Ear don't ya?"
"No."
"You want me to show ya?" 
"No."
But he was already taking his cap off, revealing freakishly long ears.
"Yep, they call me Mule Ear Joe on account of I got these mule ears!" (I was having a blast playing this character)

Joe and Jenkins had a moment of recognition due to their shared freakishness  (I was shooting to hook Jenkins' Hunger with this one).

Then Jenkins started talking about how weird things got out in the Expanse, even if you stuck to the Highway.  He regaled them with the tale of a child he once saw walk onto the road, and when it turned to look at him, it had no face ("No face!  Can you imagine that?  Little feller had no face.  No face at all").  Then it walked off into the shadows and disappeared.  Yep, things get pretty weird out in the Expanse.  And that's when they heard the wolf howl.

So, I threw a bunch of Aberrant wolves at them, with the plan to (A) showcase Ron's greenness (he failed a Grizzled check and started flipping out, so Kitt sedated him), (B) play up on the bond between Joe and Jenkins (Jenkins actually saved his life twice, but not before Joe lost most of his face), and (C) introduce a child that appeared in the midst of the chaos, surrounded by wolves--such that Jenkins would have to choose between personal safety or saving the kid (triggering his Limit; he saved the kid, but lost some Blood in the process), and also because I had cooked up a plot twist.

Kitt had got on the CB to alert everyone, and finally Big Mama and Syco show up with big guns and help deal with the rest of the wolves.  Once the danger's passed, though, Big Mama has a word or two to say about Jenkins and the kid, demanding to know where the kid came from, and then demanding that Jenkins hand him over.  Jenkins refused (Big Mama: "You just hand that kid over now, y'understand?  He's accounted for." Jenkins: "'Course he is. I just told you that I'm takin' care of 'im"), and it came down to a stare-down, which Jenkins won thanks to his Grizzled score of 10 (I had Big Mama give--not based on whether or not "she would Give," but based on what made the scene more interesting to me).  Then, after Kitt had patched up Joe as best he could, Jenkins took the kid back over to the campfire where they had some coffee.

Syco and Big Mama had a whispered exchange, which prompted Stephen to immediately grab dice to roll Cagey to overhear it.  He overheard:

Syco:  "We got a problem here?"
Big Mama:  "Cool yer jets, Syco, it's just one.  Ain't no one keepin' that close a count anyhow."

Now, I intended this to be a Bang--namely, I intended this exchange to clue everyone into the fact that the secret cargo in the black van was actually a group of children (this had all just occurred to me before I sent the wolves out, and was the main reason I sent the wolves out) to be sold in the next County for some nefarious purpose (never defined; I didn't want to think about it).  But it appeared that Stephen was under the impression that the kid wandered in out of the Expanse--which had me thinking, "where the hell did he get that?" until I remembered Joe's little story about the kid with no face (which I had pulled out of my ass to serve as a creepy mood-setter; oh, the pitfalls of pulling things out of your ass).  So I was thinking, Oh well, I'll just set up a scene for the next day that'll prompt them into discovering what's in the----WHOA!  Whoa!  Suddenly this seemed an awful lot like railroading.

I found myself in a bit of a pickle.  Now, as a participant in the game, I had as much right to push my agenda in the story as anyone else, but of course I had no right to override someone else's right to the same thing.  But there were only a few things going on that I was interested in:  the children in the van; Rosetta and Ron's relationship; whether or not Rosetta was aware of the children in the van.  I had no idea how any of these things would resolve--because said resolution would require Stephen and Courtney's input--but I damn sure wanted to find out.  Other than those things, I had nothing to work with, no ideas.  In a game where the GM frames scenes, what is he to do when the players don't seem to take his offers, and the players don't present alternative offers of their own?

Now, when roleplaying in general, I'm pretty flexible and acquiescent about things that I don't especially care about, but the moment something comes up that I can sink my teeth into I become very proactive and assertive, even pushy at times.  Stephen and Courtney weren't being proactive or assertive, which had me thinking that there wasn't something for them to sink their teeth into (because sometimes I forget that other people aren't me, I guess).  And I realized I had nothing interesting up my sleeve except for the stuff that, it seemed to me, they weren't interested in.      I threw the children in because I took Jenkins' Hunger and Woes to be signs that said "Stephen is interested in a story involving these things" (which is part of what the Psyche components are supposed to do)--that is, I perceived an offer from Stephen, and made an offer back based on that, and it seemed he wasn't interested.  So where does my fair share of agenda-pushing end and railroading start?

(I should note that we were speaking in-character the majority of the time--which wasn't enforced or anything, it just sort of happened--and it sort of precluded table-talk.)

So I called for a break.  I laid out all my cards on the table, all the information (including the secret of the van) I had cooked up since the start of the game and admitted that I had nothing left up my sleeve besides railroading them into these things.  It turned out that they were interested in the stuff I was doing (and also with what was in Rosetta's car, which I had forgotten about.  Oops).  Stephen said that while he had been made very interested and suspicious by Syco's and Big Mama's whispers, he didn't think that Jenkins (who was Savvy for 3) was bright enough to connect the dots on that one, and also that Jenkins' and Kitt's motives here were mostly concerned with getting paid.  So I tried to explain that if he was interested, it was okay to control Jenkins based on that interest in addition to or even rather than Jenkins' fictional knowledge and motivations, and that he could even get quite proactive about it and twist bits of the circumstances or even request scenes that dealt with it.

Later on, it occurred to me also that perhaps I was just expecting things to happen too quickly--that it would have been perfectly all right to have some slow-paced, straight-up Exploration scenes.  I guess I didn't because I couldn't tell if the players were having fun or not, which made me paranoid that they weren't having fun (it turned out that they were).

So we sat back down to play.  I framed a lunch-time scene, with the "wagons" circled just off the road and the cook giving out beans and hardtack--and Box the brug cutting in front of Jenkins.  Jenkins was calm about it at first ("I don't mind if you cut in front of me, but you better ask all these people behind me first"), until it became clear that Box had the whole crew in fear of him, which disgusted Jenkins, prompting him to become confrontational.  Box only worsened it when he casually pointed out that he could fit Jenkins' entire head into his bowl (brugs are rumored to be cannibals).  Jenkins called him a brug, and that's when it came to blows, with Box clobbering him with the bowl full of beans and knocking him down (everyone goes down when a brug hits them).  Jenkins got to his feet and started throttling Box, which didn't much phase him.  Big Mama showed up then and intervened, telling them both to knock it off, and also telling Kitt, Jenkins, and the child to get out of line, they'd had enough to eat (of course, they hadn't eaten a thing yet).

This encounter was intended to serve the following purposes (which it did successfully):  intensify the conflict between Big Mama and Jenkins, and illustrate that even Jenkins could probably not beat Box in a fair fight.

What happened next?  Man, they didn't even get me a chance to frame the next scene, they basically did it themselves and, in character, decided that they had had enough of Big Mama; screw the payment, there's clearly something valuable in the van anyway, let's steal it and split.  But how will they deal with Box?  Easy, Kitt cooks up a concoction to take him out (horse tranquilizers spiked with blowfish poison).  They would take the child with them, of course, and they also enlisted Joe.

The caravan was coming through some mountains (Courtney's idea), and an avalanche cuts the road off ahead (also Courtney's idea) and creates chaos.  Kitt and Jenkins, with the kid and Joe in tow, took advantage of this moment to enact their plan.  Kitt's dart sank right into Box's neck and he went down like planned.  The van's driver got out with a gun, but Jenkins cowed him down pretty easily (those scars come with an advantage), taking the gun from him as he shook in fear.  Then they finally discovered what was in the van:  about a dozen children, from the ages of 7 to 9.  Great thing about this was, the players knew and the characters didn't, but the players were interested, so they cooked up a motivation (money and getting away from Big Mama) for the characters to find out about it on their own; the characters were expecting valuables, but it turns out that's something disgusting, and now they have to decide what they care about (of course, they've already screwed themselves on the original payment, but, y'know).

The characters are kicked out of the shock as Big Mama, with her big gun, comes after them.  They get away from her in the van, but Syco pursues on a motorcycle.  Jenkins disables the motorcycle with a good shot, and they drive without pause back to the County, where they take the kids to the Governor and explain what happened (Courtney and Stephen had totally jumped into the driver's seat here, I was just trying to keep up).

So I played the Governor:  "There must be some kind of mistake here.  Miss Flatts is an old friend of mine, and one of the biggest contributors to my campaign."

Gasp!  He was in on it!  Luckily he was unprepared, and the only obstacle to getting out of there was a lone security guard (not the tough type, but the type you find in places where there's not much expectation to have to actually, y'know, guard stuff).

So, where to now?  Stephen suggested going into the next County before Big Mama caught up with them, but realized that they didn't have the money or the provisions to make such a long trip.  Keeping in mind Jenkins' Hunger and Woes, I suggested that they come across an abandoned ranch house outside of town somewhere, and that they could basically live there, and Jenkins (who was determined to protect these kids) could raise the kids as his own--thus satisfying his Hunger (which I decided should call for a rewrite of the character) as well as healing his Woe about not having a family.  Stephen liked this idea.  Joe would come along, and Kitt decided to as well; laying low would be a good idea, and, besides, his Hunger was Experience and he had yet to experience living in a ranch house surrounded by a dozen children.  (We had fun envisioning what Kitt would be like should his Hunger ever be satisfied and he decided to retire; sitting on a porch somewhere, yelling at kids to get off his lawn and shooting them with mild tranquilizers.)

Oh yeah, and the little kid had been mute the whole time because he was traumatized, but he finally spoke to Jenkins:  "Thank you."

There was also a grimly humorous line during the drive back to the County, where the children were afraid of Joe because of the damage done to his face.  Joe said, "Whatsa matter, ain't you never seen a man with no face?  I seen a kid with no face once."  Well, I thought it was funny at least, and I thought it heartening that, though he had lost his face, he hadn't lost his sense of humor.

So what happens next?  Will Mama Flatts and the Governor track them down?  Was Rosetta in the know about the cruel cargo?  Will Chicago get his revenge?  And what about Box, who survived the dart but was abandoned? (Because blowfish poison suppresses vital signs and they thought he was dead--thank you, random knowledge database in my brain.) Hell hath no fury like a brug left for dead, so there's a nice, interesting triangle to work with.

I can't wait 'til the next session.  I'm even going to prepare--not just because it'd be advisable, but because I actually want to:  I've got these great characters and brewing situations to work with, and I'm really looking forward to fleshing them out and having something real meaty to offer my players next session.  Everybody's also really liking the Brown Jenkins character, and even Kitt has been growing on us--I mean, yeah, he's creepy, and antisocial, and he has no sense of humor, and he smells bad, and he once killed a man by giving him the wrong antivenin, but, you know what?  He's honest, he looks you in the eye, and he's no hypocrite.  He's basically a grumpy old man, even if he's not old yet, and sort of lovable in the same manner.

Oh yeah, and anybody who's got Narrativist GM advice to throw at me, it'd be appreciated, especially regarding the issue of railroading.

Also, on the subject of the game's design:  Vice has so far been just a matter of color; I'm not sure whether that's a bad thing though.  Woes and Limits seem to be excellent tools for the GM.  And I'm considering having Hungers selected from a set list rather than made up on the fly.  And I think I'm making it a rule about re-writing a character when Hunger is satisfied.  Other than that, there doesn't seem to be anything that needs changing... yet.

-Marshall

[Eero Tuovinen]

As a general technique thing, hone up on your scene framing. There are a variety of ways in which the GM can bring relevant issues to the fore that have nothing to do with railroading. The simplest of these is to simply cut to a situation. My first instinct for the children in the car, for example, would have been to frame to next morning and one of the PCs stumbling upon the secret by accident. It's my job as the GM to introduce the situation in a way that cannot be ignored by the characters - the players shouldn't have to think up justifications for their characters to find things out. It is, of course, quite fun if the player wants to take the initiative, but if he doesn't, that is not a signal to ignore the situation, but to heighten it. So if a player is ignoring a child slavery ring whispered of in the darkness, your next step is to allow him to affirm it by showing him the same thing in daylight - is he really not going to do anything about it?

(Not saying that you didn't handle it well as a group, by the way. Still, the players clearly stepped in to help you in a way that might or might not be central to the way you want to play your game. Some games are absolutely predicated on players cooperating in maneuvering characters into bang situations, while others rely on the GM to provide.)

The scene framing is relevant here both because it allows you to jump directly to the good stuff, and because it allows you to ignore the usual procedural method for getting from point A to point B. You want the characters to find out about something? The story is not in getting there, it only truly begins when you have made your reveal and ask the players to decide what their characters do. That's a huge difference between narrativistic and simulationistic adventure gaming: in a traditional set-up the story is very much about whether the characters find out the secret or not. In a narrativistic game that utilizes scene framing and wants to get quickly to the good stuff is very much not the case - you should just cook up a coincidence that allows the character to get into the situation you want him to be in.

Also, I don't know if this was a problem, but you should feel free to elaborate on information out-of-game if it seems that communication is not happening: if an in-character dialogue between NPCs is intended to reveal something to the players, say, I usually make sure that they get it by appending a clarifying explanation. While the characters still might not get it, it's good that the players are on the same page with my vague hints. Ambivalent information has its places, but you as the GM should know when you want players to know something and when you don't. Use that knowledge and outright tell your players. For example, I might just say that "It's pretty obvious to us, the audience, that they're keeping children in the trunk, right?" or something like that if I thought that letting the players know about it right now is good and proper for the game.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Marshall,

I'm glad you handled the I'm-a Railroading Them flub the way you did. However, since clearly that was the role-playing equivalent of slapping on a pressure patch, I want to talk about how to avoid finding yourself in that position.

You wrote,

Now, I intended this to be a Bang--namely, I intended this exchange to clue everyone into the fact that the secret cargo in the black van was actually a group of children (this had all just occurred to me before I sent the wolves out, and was the main reason I sent the wolves out) to be sold in the next County for some nefarious purpose (never defined; I didn't want to think about it).  But it appeared that Stephen was under the impression that the kid wandered in out of the Expanse--which had me thinking, "where the hell did he get that?" ...

... In a game where the GM frames scenes, what is he to do when the players don't seem to take his offers, and the players don't present alternative offers of their own?

The answer is very simple: offers are in the eye of the beholder. More specifically, years of poor training has led all of us habitual GMs into thinking that we're being obvious and making offers when we're not. This concerns two related issues.

i) Doing anything in response to the alleged offer vs. ignoring it in favor of something that actually does interest them.

ii) Doing a specific thing which is supposed to be necessary for the payoff for the offer (usually finding something out).

It's important to distinguish between the two because when they're mixed up, saying "Why won't they do anything about my offer" and "Why won't they do specifically what I want" get mixed up too. I'd like to focus mainly on the first.

Anyway, back to the bad habit, which is, specifically, the desire for insights and connections to be made without any indication of any kind, in-game or not, that they are there to be made. About 20 years ago, we were playing Rolemaster, specifically Spacemaster, with a couple of minor additions to make it very cyberpunky - this was just before the R. Talsorian game came out - and the GM was very "story man" as well as convinced that if only a game was logical and realistic, then finally real stories could be imposed upon and emerge from play. Our characters came upon some sort of mess of personal effects from some character. We poked over it a bit and left.

The GM became agitated. "There's stuff there." I and Sonia, the woman playing the other character, looked at one another. We asked, "Do you want us to investigate it more?" He fidgeted, clearly aware that he knew what he'd do if he was playing a character. We poked over the stuff a whole lot, none of which seemed like anything except pocket trash. We finally convinced him that we were not being deliberately obtuse. "We don't get it," we said.

Out of his comfort zone entirely, the GM insisted that we were not playing "genre." We set our lips in annoyance; the two of us, independently, considered ourselves missionaries for the book Neuromancer, thank you very much, and we felt quite strongly that we were committed to every jot and tittle of genre that we could find or make. (Do you want me to tell you about my character for this game? I can ...) He repeated over and over, "Think like Bladerunner," "remember what happened in Bladerunner," as the only imaginable guidance he could give. We knew the film pretty well. We mentioned about ten scenes in hopes of hitting on the one he wanted.

Finally we insisted that he play our characters doing what "they would do," which was the only solution he was comfortable with (he could not tell us what he wanted directly; he simply could not). He instantly launched into a rapid-fire, excited, and above all lengthy description of how we took some item and subjected it to image-analysis, rotating the image, zooming in on a bit of it, recognizing that some obscure bit of it was important, and arriving at some kind of clue, which as I recall involved some crime-boss or some warehouse we were supposed to go to. "Oh, that scene?" we said. We listened and listened, and when he was done, we went where the clue said to go.

In that example, both (i) and (ii) were present. I'd like to put (ii) aside. How were we supposed to know that that particular bit of trash should be subjected to a particular sort of analysis, and that some aspect of the results which wasn't central to the main bit of the trash would be the important part? Answer: we couldn't be. No amount of genre-faithfulness, no amount of naturalistic description of the trash (especially since the description could not be permitted to "give it away"), and no generalized references to source material could do it. It was impossible.

The reason I harp on my buddy the GM so bad and not feel harsh is this: I was guilty of the same thing hundreds of times, particularly in Champions games. I got pretty good at eliminating (ii) from my expectations, but (i) crept in all the time. I played in another guy's Champions game too at the time (more than one, actually; I was a real whore for this game), and what struck me eventually, meaning six years, was how annoying it was to encounter this stuff as a player, and how automatic and easy it was to play like this as a GM. My experience of it as a GM was that I felt forced to "reach in" and play the characters minds for the players all the damn time. My experience of it as a player, especially one who was quite committed to getting deeply into character and doing very proactive things, was to become certain, over time, that the GM was certifiably crazy.

To this day, when I talk to someone about a game that isn't working for them, and if we're dealing with someone who's been groping his or her way toward Narrativist play, this is one of the key issues. I learned the hard way, over six years after those six years, that for this issue, the players are right and the GM is wrong. Offers have be offers, because it's not logical and obvious from descriptive input that X is uniquely important, ever. And again, this is wholly independent of the issue of whether what the characters do is "right" or leads to them later doing "the next step of the story" in the way the GM wants.

I also want to go over an important bit of Narrativist thinking, which has often been a stumbling block for people who didn't really have much faith that any such thing can work. I'm pretty sure that you aren't in that zone, but I also think it's worth going over the point so you can well and truly kill the problem it represents. It has to do with (ii) after all, which is kind of an extension or troublesome offspring of (i).

One of the bits I snipped from the quote above was:

Now, as a participant in the game, I had as much right to push my agenda in the story as anyone else, but of course I had no right to override someone else's right to the same thing.

The issue there is "push my agenda," which as you use it, refers to what characters, do next, i.e., how they react. It crops up in a lot of dialogues as the idea that, in role-playing Narrativist, the mechanics are there for people to jockey over who gets to "control" the story, or to have "what they want" to happen. I suggest that such notions may have their place, but not in most games, and certainly not as a necessary feature of games which allocate narration. In InSpectres, for instance, in which different people end up creating the back-story and "what we're investigating" as we go along, the results are typically generated through an enjoyable series of producing adversity, rather than seizing control over solutions.

I suggest that for Rustbelt in particular, jettison this idea of "agenda" in every way, not only for you, but for anyone in the game. Control over characters is about what they do, not about how it turns out - there's a system in place to interface with narration, for that purpose, and it's better to let that be handled on its own. All of that is probably merely quibbling over phrasing. However, I think that your example does border on, maybe dips its toe into, attention to how a scene turns out and what characters are supposed to do, which in the case of this game could trip you up as GM.

It's a complex topic because all role-playing includes narrating outcomes and later decisions and actions, as well as the judgments and subsequent announcement of actions. Some recent games have focused strongly on the former as opposed to the latter. I'm pretty sure based on your posts so far, though, that GMing Rustbelt should focus more on providing massive pressure and opportunity, and opening up to the latter as the reliable motor of play.

Best, Ron

[Marshall Burns]

Eero, Ron,

Wow, okay, this is good stuff.  Thanks a million.

I'll probably cook up a more cogent response at some point, but for now I want to mention something that I've been having problems with regarding Narrativist concepts, and that is that, for a while, I was confounding heavy pressure with Force (this is one of the things that confused me upon reading Sorcerer).  I gradually came to grips with the idea that they are two different things.  But, still, I found myself slipping back and wondering if there's a place where pressure becomes Force, or at least starts to look like it from a player's point of view.  I find myself imagining a player who, his character suddenly finding himself in the midst of a gunfight, says, "But, I didn't want to be in a gunfight!  You railroading bastard!"  (Of course, this is just an imagined player, in an imagined session, and it's pretty obvious how un-useful that kind of speculation is)

Then, having read Ron's response, I looked back over the glossary, and realized that Force is control over someone else's character's decisions, not over what happens to them, not at all.

[Eero Tuovinen]

My brother has a bit of the same problem, mostly because the great majority of his narrativistic experiences have been with games without a strong GM role. Now he's running Burning Wheel, and constantly worrying about whether everybody will like his decisions - his basic instinct is to leave everything up to group consensus. "Is it OK with you if the bandits attack now? Would you be interested in a scene like that?" and so on. Pretty amusing, actually.

When it comes to scene framing, the line between railroading and just using punchy scene framing is pretty simple: if the scene you frame is something where the PC wouldn't have gone just like that, then it's railroading. Luckily, it's very easy to take back - if the player says that he wanted to do something else first, or he wanted to do something completely different, then you just throw that scene away and frame something else. Usually it doesn't come to this, though, because the GM makes pretty obvious jumps: if the character's daily routine has him visit a coffee-shop, then a frame starting with "the next day, in the coffee shop..." is far from unreasonable. You don't need to ask a player whether his character is going to go to the coffee shop, again. And the most important thing is, you don't even need to ask that when there's going to be a firefight in the coffee shop.

[Knarfy]

This is really good stuff so far, but I feel that I may perhaps have something to add.

The issue here seems to be that you wanted your players to check out the van, but they didnt seem to be that interested in doing so. Railroading them into checking the van is bad, and waiting for them to pick up on obscure hints is also bad.

However, Letting them walk right by the 'adventure' isnt really all that great either. There is alot to be said for player choice, but often, if the players dont pick up on the plot you have in mind, alot of nothing interesting happens.

I have found that a little knowledge of your players (and their characters) combined with a bit of scene framing and description can go a long way.

For example: I ran a one shot using d20 modern that was a crazy action movie boom-fest. The characters were pursuing commie-nazi-ninja-aliens into area 51 to get a thingy. One of the scenes was a fight on the set where they filmed the moon landing. (oh yea, it was THAT dumb >

In framing the scene, I drew specific attention to the lunar lander suspended over the moonscape by a crane. When the alien dudes attacked, there were some in the lunar lander.

I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that by the end of the fight, that lunar lander would be crashed on the ground.

And lo and behold, it was.


Possible ways to push your characters into making the connection with the kids in the van:

When Big Mama wants Jenkins to hand over the kid, have the kid react with terror. (Spawning the idea that the kid knows her somehow)
Allow the characters to notice food being brought to the van. (Implying that it holds live cargo)
You could also make it obvious that whatever is in the van is being held there by how the food is put in, possibly have one of the children try to jump out, or even just whimper. (whimpers are great, because it pretty much says without a doubt that whatever is in there is helpless, and unhappy)

Anyway, sounds like things went well, Ima have to see If I can put that playtest document to use sometime soon

[Marshall Burns]

Okay, based on the whole Push/Price/Psyche mechanics and their interplays, and the fact that they're intended to produce the sort of play that was most captivating in older versions of the game, and the fact that having them work would require a GM with lotsa power, and the great responses you guys have given me, I'm thinking that this is a picture of how the game must be operated to be reliably exciting: 
So, you've got the players.  In front of them, you have a carrot.  Let's say this carrot represents "the player's character does something that interests us, developing him/her as a protagonist and furthering the story" -- not any specific thing (like "find the clues" or "destroy the big bad"); what I'm looking for here is a type of thing, and it requires the player's decisions, so it's not railroading.  Now, due to the general aesthetic of the Rustbelt, "doing something that interests us" will almost always entail the character being hurt in some way.  In the older games, and in the stories I've written about the Rustbelt, characters haven't been worth squat as protagonists until they've been HURT (physically, mentally, emotionally, it's all the same).  Underneath the players, we have a fire.  Let's say this fire represents pressure and adversity.

GM:  So, you can get burned or you can go for that carrot.
Player:  But, that carrot's rigged to explode!
GM:  We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  Burn or carrot?
Player:  But it's gonna explode!
GM:  What's that?  You want me to crank up the flame?  Well, okay, if you say so...

The thing here is, since protagonism in this setting tends to imply that the character gets HURT, it's important that the players are willing to let their characters get HURT.  So, what I need to do is make this clear with the players, then take the kid gloves off, and HAMMER them to make them know that I'm not kidding, the fire is for real.

Does this sound viable or have I crossed over somewhere into the realm of the psychotic?

-Marshall

[Ron Edwards]

Works for me. I'm almost tempted to have the question "How have you just been hurt?" begin every session.

Best, Ron

[Marshall Burns]

Ah, excellent.  Tonight's the next session, so we'll see what happens.

There's something else that I was just thinking about; Ron, you wrote this in that post up there:

(he could not tell us what he wanted directly; he simply could not).

Now, when I called that break in the last session, I skirted around actually telling them about the kids for quite some time before I laid it out.  It was actually difficult to flat-out tell them.  It felt weird to do so.  Now what the hell is that?  Why on earth was that difficult and uncomfortable to do?  This isn't Call of Cthulhu, and I never wanted it to be, so why was it so hard to avoid the "guess my secret" GM behavior?

Roleplayers are weird.

Hopefully, now that I recognize the complete irrationality of what I was doing, it will be easy to avoid doing it again.  Hopefully.

-Marshall

[Lance D. Allen]

I'm on the fence about this. On the one hand, I'd never do it as you did, and just lay it down out-of-character. But you definitely don't want to keep tossing them bones trying to get them to figure out the secret. Toss 'em one or two, see if they rise to the bait. Some players live for that sort of thing, ferretting out the secret, and you would have crushed their fun if you'd done it the way you did. But if they don't seem to be wanting to take that lead, then you've every right to lay it down for them explicitly, but IN-CHARACTER.

This goes back to Dogs in the Vineyard's advice on running a town.. Your job as GM is to aggressively play the agendas of all people in the town, and to reveal everything to the Dogs in-play so they are forced to pass judgement on it all, without any way to wiggle out of judging something because they didn't catch some hint or other.

...maybe I'm not so on the fence at all.

Also this?

Does this sound viable or have I crossed over somewhere into the realm of the psychotic?

Both sounds about right. Why can't it be both?

[Marshall Burns]

Some players live for that sort of thing, ferretting out the secret, and you would have crushed their fun if you'd done it the way you did. But if they don't seem to be wanting to take that lead, then you've every right to lay it down for them explicitly, but IN-CHARACTER.

That just doesn't do anything for me.  If I'm reading a novel that involves some kind of secret, the author can drop hints about it and lead up to the big reveal, or he can just talk about it explicitly, in third-person omniscient, from the get-go (William S. Burroughs, my favorite author, did this most of the time).  In terms of actual STORY, neither method makes a difference.  In terms of audience enjoyment, I actually prefer the latter; let's get this plot crap out of the way so we can get to the story (which is to say, what happens to the characters?  How do they respond to it?  Why?  What happens because of that response?).  I know some people get a kick out of meticulous plots, but I don't; I like narrative efficiency.  And as for IC vs. OOC, it doesn't make no nevermind to me; I really don't care at all.  I use whichever seems to be more efficient and effective at the moment.

So, basically, maybe some players live for ferretting out the secret, but I don't, so I don't care.  So I guess we're on opposite sides of the fence on that one.

Now, I have had fun playing with a secret involved, but only when it was a secret that neither I nor the players knew the truth about, and it gradually came to light from improvisations, both mine (as GM) and the players'.  Witness the anecdote about the Boiler in the "The Rust" chapter of the playtest document.  In this case, the fun wasn't in ferretting out the secret, but in the kind of back-and-forth, improvisational creative process.

Also this?

Does this sound viable or have I crossed over somewhere into the realm of the psychotic?

Both sounds about right. Why can't it be both?

I like that


The session (which I will probably post about in more detail later) last night went well, but not as well as I would have liked.  I mean, it was fun, but it wasn't as compelling and emotionally charged as I would have liked it to be.  See, I hammered those characters, and they definitely got hurt (Jenkins nearly died), but, the thing is, they have to be hurt in a meaningful way.  The only meaningful way to hurt Kitt, who cared ultimately only about himself, was to go at him directly--but he always had Jenkins around, and I never got the opportunity to separate them.  The only meaningful way to hurt Jenkins was through the kids, and, to be honest, I didn't have the nerve to put them in for-real danger.

But, on the other hand, all of that was a good thing, because it pointed out a hole in the design:  the character creation system.  What I need is a character creation system that makes you create characters who are easier to hurt in meaningful ways.  I think the Psyche goes a long way toward that, but the nature of the Psyche depends on the nature of the man.  When the man is a hard-bitten adventurer/mercenary, like Kitt and Jenkins, he's pretty far removed from ordinary human concerns -- they're still there, and they were in a BIG way with Jenkins, but they require such extremities that--well, they're hard to stomach (like the kids), and then you either have to chicken out and not do it, or you have to go there, which seems to me to carry the danger of, for the rest of the game's play, devaluing anything that's less extreme than that.

The chargen system, as it stands, is pretty much do-as-thou-wilt.  I'd appreciate advice on it if anyone's got some; I know how to write a chargen system that's good for Sim, but I don't know how to write one that's good for Narrativism.

Next time we play, I want to try it with common people as PCs.  I anticipate that it will work better that way.

-Marshall

[Marshall Burns]

I wanted to add something regarding the ferretting out of secrets:

Consider the film Citizen Kane.  How important was the secret of "Rosebud" really?  Not much.  Orson Welles himself said it was a gimmick.  In a film class I took once, when they showed us that movie, the professor told us all up front that Rosebud was a frickin' sled, because she didn't want us to be distracted by it; she wanted us to focus on the film, on the story, and for us not to be busy wondering, "Well, what the heck is this darn Rosebud anyway?"  I already knew about it, but I can only applaud her decision.  For my money, she was dead right.  Spoilers schmoilers.  If you ask me, a narrative that can be spoiled by revealing some plot detail ain't much of a narrative.

[Knarfy]

In response to the character generation thing:

Perhaps your focusing too much on characters being hurt.

You seem to be having a problem with Kitt, since he is a heartless bastard and you cant think of a decent way to hurt him. And your having trouble making interesting stories around him because you cant hurt him.

But why is Kitt such a heartless bastard? People dont start out that way. Your having trouble finding a way to hurt him cause something in his past wounded him so severely that he is already dead.

You dont need to find a way to hurt him. Hes already hurt. All you need to do is find a way to make him remember just how hurt he is.

And if there is no deep wound in his past? If he IS really just a jerk?

Kill him.

Hes a boring unrealistic character.

Or you can force him to grow a 3rd dimension, cause that works too.

Sometimes you need to have the characters heal, even if its only so they can survive future hurts. And sometimes all you need is the threat of hurt. You dont have to KILL (or maim) the kids to give jenkins interesting stories. You just have to threaten them. See how hard he will push to keep them safe.

[Marshall Burns]

You dont have to KILL (or maim) the kids to give jenkins interesting stories. You just have to threaten them. See how hard he will push to keep them safe.

Well, see, that's the thing; the threat has to be REAL.  Otherwise, why would he push? And if the threat is REAL, and he doesn't push, then it has to happen, or else it wasn't real to begin with (I had an obsessive hitman with a deathwish threaten to start randomly shooting the kids with a .44 magnum, but I don't think I really meant it.  He didn't get a chance because Jenkins killed him with a machete, but what if Jenkins hadn't?).  It's never a given that "of course" a character would or wouldn't push in X situation; that's the premise of the game:  doing the math, the cold equations, the Algebra of Need.  When is it worth it, when is it not worth it; when, if ever, is it better to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune?  When is it okay, if ever, to sacrifice others for your own survival?  The characters in this game are empowered, through the willpower/Push mechanics, to do just about anything; the question is, SHOULD they?

The players have two doors to choose from:  Push or Give.  In order for the play to be satisfying and exciting, the GM has to respond fully to the door they choose, and he can't expect them to choose any particular one -- the buck stops with the player on this one.

Now, all that being said, let me back up a minute and point out that the last session was indeed fun; we had a great time.  It's just that I won't be satisfied with this game until it positively CRACKLES.

[Knarfy]

The players have two doors to choose from:  Push or Give.  In order for the play to be satisfying and exciting, the GM has to respond fully to the door they choose, and he can't expect them to choose any particular one -- the buck stops with the player on this one.

Of course you dont make fake threats. If the Hitman says, "Im gonna kill these kids." And the player doesnt stop him, of course he kills them. Thats just how that goes. However, I honestly think its easier to do stuff like that in rustbelt because the players have the ability to do almost anything. In most games, you can throw the gauntlet down, and present the character with a situation in which they have to succeed or something horrible happens. The difficutly is that even if the character tries, the ultimate result may hinge on a random die roll. That means that even if the player makes the choice to sacrifice, they may fail anyway, and you still have to play out the horrible scene, and its totally your fault.

But in the rustbelt, the horrible thing happens because the player chose to let it, not because you created the situation. If you threaten the kids, and jenkins decides to give, then thats on his head, and his hands. His character (and to a lesser extent, player) has to live with that decision, knowing that those kids would still be alive if he had just tried harder.

Now that being said, from what I know of Brown Jenkins, I think you could be pretty confident that he would push to save the kids. Kitt, however, probly wounldnt have. (Or would he surprise you? maby grow a soul?

Really, the idea that what you can do is dependant on how hard your willing to try is the main thing I really like about this system. Amusingly enough, a trait it shares with most of our exalted games XD