[Rustbelt] A maiden in distress - on fire

[Krippler]

Hello there! This is Wilmer writing about my second session with the game The Rustbelt written by Marshall Burns. Last time I had a fast but mediocre start learning and teaching the system and getting to know the player characters. The system is under development so the rules are tweaked a little every time, exciting!

Much time went to waiting for a person who didn't show up till the last scene so we only got 2 hours of game, but those were packed so I am happy anyways.

The characters were the same as last time:

Konrad von Metz
Cynical trucker.

Jane McCard
"the librarian"

Morgan Freeman
Self trusting doctor.

Benisto
Battle scarred preacher.

I had Konrad change his Hunger from "being proven wrong" to "order" since I really couldn't think of a situation where he'd have to choose from not being proven wrong and something bad. We all agreed order really fitted his character, remembering the time before the Rust and being a typical mechanic: everything in the right place in the right time all the time. Works well with the current direction the campaign is heading, most of our 'heroes' teaming up with the pseudo fascist Silver Legion. I had Freeman change his hunger too although he didn't come up with anything and wasn't satisfied with my suggestions so we left it blank. Benisto's Hunger had been "Power, spreading the faith" and I had him shorten it to just "Power" since the last part doens't qualify as a Hunger and power is a nasty enought Hunger as it is. McCards Hunger is still "knowledge" and even if it wasn't involved directly this session it'll fuck her over next time

In this version of Rustbelt weapon damage was buffed and armor worked differently so Benisto got a whole lot more dangerous now that his conquistador era breast plate got actual stats and the shotgun went from "ow shit" to "splorffgh".

My planning consisted of about ten or so NPCs with stats, short descriptions and general personality traits held in my head. I also predrew a really sketchy map of the library I hoped they would visit. We discussed what should have happened since last time and which of them had sided with the Legion. Everyone except the doc had since he values his freedom too much, plus he probably didn't like them arming a hundred people with freshly cut crossbows and swords and sent them marshin towards the next city to "liberate" it. They travelled in Konrads truck and their task was to scout out the city and gather some intelligence on wether they'd have to take it by force or not and then report back. In the beginnning I had an NPC travel with them but he was so boring we decided he'd never existed 5 minutes into play. Three weeks have passed since the forming of the legion and the battle against the elephant.

I set the scene: it's a blizzard, they're driving through the expanse. Ruins of an old city surround them, husks of skyscrapers can be percieved through the snow, bending over, leaning on one another forming arches over what they hope is the highway. A woman appears right in the way and is almost ran over. A faint gunshot is heard. Doc and Benisto rushes out to find her shot and out cold. Benisto spots a small shape on the top of a nearby hill and he starts rushing towards it while doc is giving the woman first aid. The figure escapes. Benisto wants to track it and I present a difficulty (20). He's got 0 Thorough and gets a lousy roll. He chose not to push and head back to the truck. I think this was a mistake on my part, the act of tracking had already been going on for a while when he made the roll and the danger of failing should have been getting lost in the blizzard. Must keep a much stricter task resolution with 1. Goal 2. Task 3. Danger 4. Result ect.

After discussing (my players mix IC and OOC talk freely when discussing, I like this very much and participate at times with tactical advice pointing out obvious things like "if they tried to kill her and saw you save her they're probably gonna come back later" I don't know how bad this is since the player expect me to try railroad by hinting at the "right" decisions) they decided to find a place to park and stop since the sun would be setting and the blizzard didn't look like waning. Konrad pushed a little to find a parking spot save from the worst of the storm. The woman, Rosa Luxemburg, woke up during the drive and was thoroughly interogated. She told them she had been driving by in a motor cycle when her partner got shot in the head by a bunch of children ambushing them. When promted with the qestion what the fuck she was doing in the expanse she hesitated and finally produced a book from under her blouse. It had no title and the cover and back was covered with eyes. The text was Lovecraftian nonsensesymbols. Obviously McCard grabbed it instantly, Rosa seeing the fire in her eyes yelled at her not to read it since it would do horrible things to the reader. McCards player was already like "I AM gonna read it!" and I presented her with a difficulty of 30 and told her the book was gonna try suck her soul out her eyes if she failed a roll versus Uncanny. Noone had the Uncanny stat yet since I had ruled it out as silly. I realised its use and one of the players promted we should add it by rolling a die. The other stats had been "point bought" from request by the players since they wanted it "fair". I liked the irony of the luck stat being determined by a die roll, I think I'll adapt this to all following character generation unless someone has a specific wish. Fittingly McCard and Benisto got high Uncanny (6 and 7) while Konrad and Morgan got low (both 2). Anyway, McCard rolled and got a bad roll despite using her trait "Knows almost everything" and had to push for 20 sweat and 2 tears (really, I think it counts and emotional stress having something you love trying to murder you). I described the letter writhing and twisting and her getting a grand vision and then let her explain what she saw. She described the fall of Rome and the group together stuck small lines into it "barbarians, lots of barbarians swarming" "Rome burning, legionairies getting killed, people screaming with no sound". McCard (and her player) wasn't satisfied and wanted to read more (I described to the others how McCard was mesmerized by the book and out of breath but not letting it go). She rolled again and got a lousy one and had to push for another 20. The player was like "damn, it's too costly" and I was like "we'll, if you don't push the book is gonna eat your soul". I suggested she paid the price in blood or injuries. Benisto's player suggested the book took one of her eyes (I was thrilled at this because this was exactly what I had in mind when I got the idea of the book, miss Luxemburg had "glass eye" noted among her stats and I had planned to introduce it later on when she super failed depth perception but now I had doc notice it instead just as McCards player agreed on the price and the book sucked her eye right out of her socked (and some blood)). The player asked me to describe her vision and I told about Leviathan rising out of the ocean breathing fire upon the Italian peninsula purging it of ruins and barbarians and the laying down to sleep on it, fresh flowers springing forth from the ashes. A new eye emerged on the cover of the book. While Jane had struggled with the book the others had talked with Rosa about it and why she didn't just burn it or leave it in the expanse, she told them that it always came back to her and that he had read it one last time to get the knowledge on how to get rid of it: locking it inside the place it was originally scavanged, a secret room in the library in this ruin. Benisto declared it was a thing of Satan and executed it with his shotgun. He was surprised when I described it getting torn to shredds instantly since he'd expected some "oh no this is plot device - no touchy" stuff like the bullets passing through it. Jane took on a woe (depth 1) labeled "Book incident". I had rather seen her smoke a whole pack to calm down but this is gonna come back to her alot especially if she doesn't manage to get rid of the book.

The next morning she awoke with the book lying on her face. Grizzled check! Benisto took it out back and shot it again. The Blizzard had stopped. Guided by Rosa they drove to the ------- City Library, standing mystically untouched in the center of town. They entered and were greeted by a bunch of desks with broken computer screens. An empty elevator shaft and a stairwell led down. Two stairs arched up from the entrance into the second floor which had collapsed. Two doors led from the lobby into the same room which was covered in a sea of books, papers and tipped over shelves, all mystically dry. Rosa had desribed the place the book was gonna get prisoned as a tiny concrete room with a heavy steel door. The stairs down were boobytrapped, a grenade duct taped to the wall and a fishing line as trigger. Jane started scavanging through the book sea (heaven) and loading books into the truck. She was greeted by the sight of half a dozen children and an adult jogging towards the library, clearly armed to the teeth. She ran inside, automatic fire crackling behind her (pushing to avoid it, no deadlock).

I'll post the rest tomorrow, this stuff took longer than I expected to write.

[Krippler]

[jag]

If i remember correctly, Jane had a limit of "would never hurt a child."  And here she is in a situation where people are shooting children.  How did that play out?  Was there any woe or other conflict about this?

[Marshall Burns]

HOLY. SHIT.

	Logged

blogging at the Wizard Exploded Cookbook

[Marshall Burns]

Okay, here's some individual thoughts that occur to me:

1.  Morgan's Hunger
The designer in me says:  Left it... blank?  WHAA?? Are you crazy?

...and much other expression of shock and distaste, but that isn't particularly useful

The GM in me, looking at the rules and armed with full knowledge of their intent (which may or may not have carried over to readers from here and there, which is of course one reason the game must be tested), says this:  Okay, so he had a thing listed under Hunger that he liked but which wasn't a valid Hunger.  But it was a goal, a desire, so Hunger's got to be under there somewhere.  The best course of action would seem to be to ask the player, "WHY does Morgan want to get out of the Rustbelt?"  And if that doesn't get to the root of it, ask WHY with regard to his answers; eventually, you'll get to the bottom of it.  I think.

And if he resists writing down whatever's at the bottom of it... Well, here's me being judgmental, but then he's just refusing to accept suggestion or admonishment, which is kinda petty and obstructive.  I can say that because I used to be really bad about that myself (improv broke me of it). Unfortunately, if this is the case then I can't think of anything to do about it other than to hope that he comes around eventually.

The other Hungers sound fine.  And if sacrificing your own eye to read a book is not a direct involvement of a Hunger for Knowledge, then I don't know what is!

2.  Conquistador era breastplate??  Sweet!
Man, I had pictured Benisto dressed like an Episcopalian priest (not because I think he exemplifies the Episcopalian faith in any way; just because I think their traditional vestments look cool).  But, man, that's even cooler.

3.  Prep
That's about the sort of prep I've been doing also, although I try to restrain myself from drawing maps.  (Because I have a tendency to draw detailed tactical maps, and I think that the resolution mechanics are best served by playing distance and space very fast-n-loose, as they become relevant.  It's part of the "Kick Traditional RPG Combat in the Nuts" agenda in the game's design--which I'll come back to in a moment)

4. Table-talk
All the table-talk sounds fine to me.  I figure that at some point it'll sink in that they really do have full control over their characters' decisions, and they'll get over expecting you to "hint" them into the "right" path.

5.  Stats
Point-bought stats?  Forgive me, but I'm cringing.  It's done and there's probably no changing it now, but... Well, if I had players asking for point-buy, this is what I'd tell 'em:

"If I gave you points, you'd all start thinking numbers.  I want you to think CHARACTERS, then DESCRIBE them using appropriate numbers.  Whaddya mean, 'what's to stop someone from putting down all 10s?'  It'd be BORING, that's what.  Why would anyone do that in the first place?" 
It's another one of this game's structural reversals from traditional games:  DEscriptive rather than PREscriptive character model.  Which is to say, the system doesn't tell you what your character is; YOU do, and then you use numbers to communicate that to the system.

And as for "fair," the idea was to be quite deliberately unfair.  Life, especially in the 'Belt, is not fair.

I don't mean this as criticism.  It's just that I think that using a point-buy system threatens to change the game considerably.

6.  Combat
For the most part, I am delighted with the way the combat was handled.  There's a bit that troubles me, though, and that's Konrad "stopping her from shooting by shooting her."  Technically, that's not allowed.  Which would probably have a bunch of people going, "say wha?"  This rule has some 'splaining to do.

It starts with this: There is no Initiative in this game. In any shape, form, or fashion.  One round of actions is resolved simultaneously, and the sequence of actions within that round is completely irrelevant; all that's relevant is who got their goal and who didn't.  I designed it this way as part of my "Kick Traditional RPG Combat in the Nuts" agenda.

Now, how can the sequence of actions be irrelevant?  At first it seems nonsensical, but bear with me.  Let's say that we're in combat.  We're stating intents, and your goal is to shoot me, while my goal is to hit you with a meat-ax.  Now we roll dice.

(A) If I win and you Give, that means that I hit you, and I do not get shot.

(B) If you win and I Give, that means I get shot and you do not get hit.

(C) If someone Pushes (it doesn't matter who), it means that you get hit, and I get shot.

This is ALL the output that the mechanics give you; you can interpret it however you want.  (A) and (B) are pretty narrow in their range for interpretation; (A) looks like I hit you before you could get a shot off, and (B) looks like you shot me before I could hit you.  (This is the only way in which you can prevent someone from doing something and deal damage at the same time).  But when you get to (C), things are a bit more open.  It could be that you shot me, but I ignored the bullet and hit you anyway.  It could be that I hit you, and then you shot me immediately afterwards.  It could be that both happened at exactly the same time.  Ultimately, it doesn't matter which, because the fact that I hit you has no mechanical impact whatsoever on your ability to shoot me, or vice-versa; the effects of resolution are not applied until after that.  How do you decide which way it happened?  It doesn't matter; just go with what sounds coolest.  As long as it takes into account who got their goal and who didn't, then it's a valid description.

Now, Konrad could have prevented her from shooting by shooting the gun out of her hand.  This would be a  proper case of mutually-exclusive goals, but he would not be able to inflict any mechanical damage.

I'm thinking about stealing the "perpendicular" and "parallel" terms from The Shadow of Yesterday.  Speaking of which, here's an interesting thing:  in TSOY, two people attacking eachother is a perpendicular set of actions, but in the Rustbelt it's parallel.  But I think that's pretty easy to explain.  TSOY is fantasy, and the characters are pretty much heroic, so they fight in skillful, impressive, and cinematic ways.  The Rustbelt isn't fantasy (if I was pressed, I'd have to call it "speculative fiction"), and the characters are pretty much just folks, so they fight in brutal, desperate, and ugly ways.  To put it another way, this game would not work like this if it was about super-heroes or something.

(Now I have to figure out how to get all of this into the rules...)

Given all of this, the way that you handled the deadlock with Benisto is just fine.

As for setting difficulties on the "prevention" actions, I don't know what I think.  I'm not sure if it really changes anything or not.

7.  A Trick
You wondered if Benisto should take on some Woe over all this; well, I've figured out a neat trick for that:  Ask the player how their character feels about what just happened.  If they feel bad about it, then some Woe is in order.  If they justify it somehow, then some Faith is in order.  If they actually enjoyed it, then some Vice is in order.

8.  The Detail of the Account
Hell, I kinda like reading about all the stuff that happened; I mean, this game is intended to produce a certain type of fiction, and I'm finding it hella rewarding to see it actually doing just that.  You can go and include all the detail you want

And, a question
What remarks have the players made regarding the game and its design?  Or have they been silent on the subject?  They're showing up for a third session, plus a guy, so that sounds like a good sign, right?

Thanks again for playing and taking the time to write up the account; it is WAY cool to read about people playing a game that I wrote
-Marshall

[Krippler]

If i remember correctly, Jane had a limit of "would never hurt a child."  And here she is in a situation where people are shooting children.  How did that play out?  Was there any woe or other conflict about this?
Quote from: Marshall Burns on April 29, 2008, 11:40:27 AM

The designer in me says:  Left it... blank?  WHAA?? Are you crazy?

...and much other expression of shock and distaste, but that isn't particularly useful
Quote from: Marshall Burns on April 29, 2008, 11:40:27 AM

Now, Konrad could have prevented her from shooting by shooting the gun out of her hand.  This would be a  proper case of mutually-exclusive goals, but he would not be able to inflict any mechanical damage.
Quote from: Marshall Burns on April 29, 2008, 11:40:27 AM

What remarks have the players made regarding the game and its design?  Or have they been silent on the subject?  They're showing up for a third session, plus a guy, so that sounds like a good sign, right?
last push. How often do you have your NPCs do that? When it's plausible or dramatic?

[Marshall Burns]

(I need to write up a better one though).  The thing was, the guy's hand got broken because he Pushed, not because the other guy hit.  Which is to say that the effects of a Push merely need to make sense with what's going on, but they aren't necessarily the direct consequence of extra effort on the part of the character.  (It's very meta-gamey, yeah, but I think that all gaming is meta-gaming.)

Man, I am so glad that they like the combat, 'cause when I cooked it up I went, "oh, man, this is awesome!"  Hehe.  I don't remember if I've already mentioned this somewhere, but a central idea with the combat was to skip straight to the nasty, gritty effects of complex Sim-style combat, without the countless rolls and charts inbetween.

Here's the way I handle group combat (even though I've only got 2 players, they have a way of getting into large battles):  I wait for a player to sieze the moment and say something, and then I describe his opposition, then I ask the other players what their characters are doing at this particular time; if they're not doing anything, then okay.  And anybody can change their mind until the dice hit the table, of course (I stole that from Ron; it's his "Free & Clear" thing).  And if no player siezes the moment, I do it myself and have an NPC do something, then I ask how they react to it.  This lets you play the time fast 'n loose, which I find very exhilarating and liberating after having "Rounds" broken down into 10 "Steps" each, and a crazy initiative system to determine who can do stuff during this Step and blah blah blah.

As for the Last Push, I actually haven't used it yet.  But I wouldn't do it unless the NPC had some major relationship to one of the PCs in some way or it was otherwise thematically interesting.  In fact, I don't even Push with NPCs unless they have names (i.e., my thugs and mooks don't Push).

Oh, and I've got another question for ya:  as a GM, what does this game do for you that others don't (aside from the combat thing)?  Is there anything that you feel it enables or encourages you to do that you wouldn't feel comfortable doing in other games?  Is there anything that it prevents you from doing that you miss?

[Krippler]

I had all my NPCs push this combat (but they were all named and had personalities and shit just that they got shot before any of that showed, the only name the players heard was "Bits" when the molotov kid yelled at him for help). Copy on the example thing, that meta-gaming was easily extracted from the rules since my very first test battle had the guy with the chainsaw push in blood to dodge a rifle shot. I took it as he'd been hit but exactly 10. Of course, in that version guns were so weak that the actual shot probably would have hurt him less

What I really like about this game is it allows me to throw all kind of nasty shit and the players without feeling like it's my fault if they get killed. And that goes for "must succeed to win" rolls. In games past I always wanted but never did throw in stuff like "roll vs dexterity or fall to your death" because a random character death like that was so damaging to the game. If there's anything I can't do in Rustbelt it's play God with the PCs resources. Saying something like "oops you just got pickpocketed of all your money" just wouldn't be fair here even if it could lead to a good adventure. I think this favour roleplay as in letting the characters have their own air or flavor (not so much personality) because in Rustbelt that scene would look like "roll Cagey vs. 15 not to get pickpocketed in the crowd" and then they'd have to choose sweat vs. money. Some characters just doesn't get pickpocketed, that is their flavor.

Something that's missing from both my sessions are the psyche mechanics. Sure there's been woe added and limits poked at and Benisto has chewed his tobacco but they've never really put the characters in any trouble or change. That'll be the theme of next yarn. Something that's missing are cool Faiths. Morgan has got the only one I really like, Faith in his own skill, now with the zeal deal and a possible siege of a city there'll be plenty of room for dramatic scenes were he's trying to start someones heart screaming "You can make it!" but thinking "I can do it!" and then get more and more confident till he finally fails and breaks down (or gets addicted to failure, masochism?).

[Marshall Burns]

Copy on the example thing, that meta-gaming was easily extracted from the rules since my very first test battle had the guy with the chainsaw push in blood to dodge a rifle shot. I took it as he'd been hit but exactly 10.

Nice!  I was hoping that, between stuff like that, and attackers taking damage reduction as a Price, it actually *is* possible to just graze someone, even though the damage is heavy and mostly non-random.  It seems to work, which makes me happy.

What I really like about this game is it allows me to throw all kind of nasty shit and the players without feeling like it's my fault if they get killed.

That is absolutely excellent, because that's what the game's all about; I never said it outright in the rules, just kinda skirted around it, but the game is about what people do in response to situations that no one deserves to be in.  I tried to support it with the setting (just living in the Rustbelt is a situation that no one deserves to be in), then I tried to come up with mechanics that actually make it possible to respond to the situations, no matter how bad they are, in decisive, meaningful ways.  Does it work?  I think does, or, rather, it will, once I get the kinks (like Deadlock) worked out.

(I also plan to make the premise more immediate and real by illustrating the rules entirely with photographs.  I am surrounded in real life by stuff that looks like it came out of the Rustbelt.)

Some characters just doesn't get pickpocketed, that is their flavor.

Here's a question:  did the players find it "weird" to use Author and Director Stances?  I deliberately designed the mechanics to encourage them, Author especially, while discouraging Actor Stance (I don't mind it here-and-there, but people who stay in Actor Stance all the time scare me); from what I can gather from your accounts, it works.  Are they comfortable with it?

Something that's missing from both my sessions are the psyche mechanics. Sure there's been woe added and limits poked at and Benisto has chewed his tobacco but they've never really put the characters in any trouble or change.

This is a bit of a snag I've run into as well; my players made very adventurer-type characters, who are wicked cool, but harder to reach with the human issues.  "People in situations no one deserves to be in" becomes exponentially more powerful as the People become more human and more vulnerable (more like us, the players)--but it also becomes more personal as it starts cutting closer to the bone.  I don't think my players want to go as far with it as I do (I'm very, very interested in stretching my comfort zone and going as far with it as I can, because "people in situations no one deserves to be in" has special significance to me due to some personal experiences), which is why we haven't played it more than twice since my last thread about it.

[jag]

Something that's missing from both my sessions are the psyche mechanics. Sure there's been woe added and limits poked at and Benisto has chewed his tobacco but they've never really put the characters in any trouble or change.

This is a bit of a snag I've run into as well; my players made very adventurer-type characters, who are wicked cool, but harder to reach with the human issues.  "People in situations no one deserves to be in" becomes exponentially more powerful as the People become more human and more vulnerable (more like us, the players)--but it also becomes more personal as it starts cutting closer to the bone.  I don't think my players want to go as far with it as I do (I'm very, very interested in stretching my comfort zone and going as far with it as I can, because "people in situations no one deserves to be in" has special significance to me due to some personal experiences), which is why we haven't played it more than twice since my last thread about it.

Hm.  I have to admit, reading through the rules, the psyche part didn't grab me as much as the push/blood/sweat/tears stuff did.  Originally I'd assumed this was because the push mechanics were talked about more, but perhaps it's because the psyche mechanic is more in need of tuning?

The question I'd ask Marshall is the standard forge question:  How does the Psyche stuff tie in to the purpose of the game?  How do the specific mechanics support that?  In particular, they don't seem to be as tightly tied into the "core mechanic" (which i define to be the ability check w/ push) as would be nice, and it seems that this might cause them to get overlooked in the rest of the chaos.

More specifically, why did you divide the psyche as you did?  What play-effects are you hoping result from it?  When you've playtested it, have there been times when you really liked the way it worked?  Or times when you felt it should have come into play but it didn't?

It seems like so many of the mechanics involved with the psyche dynamics (ie, breaking a limit, bruising faith, conflict with woe) are repeated -- most of the three-point lists are similar:

1. Take on Vice and/or lose faith.
2. Take on more Woe.
3. Take on more Faith.

I have a gut feeling that you're duplicating structures with the same purpose, and they could be combined or generalized in some way.  This would make it easier to tightly bind them to the rest of your mechanics.  It'd be interesting to hear your goals with psyche, and see if there's some improvement possible.

james

[Marshall Burns]

James,

I'll start with some snippets from a post about an earlier version of the game (full thread here)

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

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

Then I had to reflect on the fact that the answers to these questions were entirely in the hands of the players.

*SNIP*

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

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

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

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

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

THAT'S what this game is supposed to be about.  It's all about the Tough Questions and how you answer them through your character's actions.  I cooked up the Psyche to categorize and focus those questions.  I cooked up the Push/Give to allow the players to answer them however they wanted, whenever they wanted; I cooked up the Price to make people think about it before they chose, hoping that while they were considering resources, they would also consider that maybe it would be thematically appropriate (or "cool") to fail or succeed this time--not despite the consequences, but because of the consequences.  Author Stance!  It is the only reason the Push/Give option is there.

And you can probably see how the Character Dynamics systems are inspired by the choices the players made in the examples above; I made it a system to make it more tangible, easier to work with.  Also notice that Psyche is the first thing I mention in the character model.

Blood/Sweat/Tears and Push/Give is cool, but it doesn't mean anything if you're not answering a Tough Question when you do it.  Without the Tough Question, all you're doing is managing resources and making cost/benefit analyses.  Which is fun, sure, but there's no bite.  I want this game to be about the bite.

-Marshall

[jag]

Ah, yes, i remember that thread.  This was before you did the great Narr-focused retooling of the rustbelt, right?  When you were just realizing that despite your Sim-focused mechanics, serious thematic questions emerged?  So, to press you on the technical bits:

1. Was there a version of Psyche in the system in those examples?  If so, how did it (if at all) facilitate those responses to the awful situations?

2. In making the (presumably new and different) version of Psyche, how did you envision the new rules facilitating those responses to the awful situations?

To the extent possible, i'm looking for a crunchy answer (eg, by having the Faith/Woe currency, i hoped to have players choose...)  I'm asking these because it seems while the Psyche mechanics are meant to provoke those questions, in the playtesting accounts it seems like they are providing gentle meta-game guidance (Oh, my character likes books so this is a hard decision for me) more than they are providing hard system choices (Jesus. Do i lose an eye or take 7 more woe?  I like my eye, but I remember what happened the last time i took woe...)  Of course, i might totally be missing important parts, but i definitely see a lot of action and success for the push mechanics, and it'd be great to see the same focus on the psyche mechanics.

james

[jag]

I just realized a more specific way to ask the question.  When i was trying to get you to ditch the 20-point buffer in Blood, Sweat, and Tears, you responded:

Now, I have a bunch of red, white, and blue poker chips that I bought for my game Witch Trails but have since found a way to use in nearly every game.  In The Rustbelt, I give the players stacks of 20:  red for Blood, white for Sweat, and blue for Tears.  Where's the drama when those start running low?  In-game, in the fiction, there is none.  But when the player fails a roll and I ask "Do you Push or do you Give?" and he reaches instinctively for his chips but realizes, SEES, that there's only five left, that hand falters, and he gets nervous, and he starts asking what Injuries or whatever he can take instead.  It's not there in-game, but it's there at the table, and, well, I don't think it ever will be in the game if it's not at the table first.

My questions above might be better phrased as, "Do you have any analogous examples in Psyche of that?"

james

[Marshall Burns]

Ah, yes, i remember that thread.  This was before you did the great Narr-focused retooling of the rustbelt, right?  When you were just realizing that despite your Sim-focused mechanics, serious thematic questions emerged?

Yep, that's correct.

1. Was there a version of Psyche in the system in those examples?

Not really... There was a set of "Condition" stats, two of which were psychological:  Nerve (indicating how much horror and other mental trauma you could handle before it started penalizing your rolls) and Awareness (indicating how much distraction you could handle before it started penalizing your rolls).  Nerve could be bolstered by the use of alcohol or tobacco (although the former put a hit on Awareness, and the latter put at hit on Endurance, one of the other Condition stats), which is where using Vice to steady your nerve comes from.

And, that's it.  All the stuff that the players in those examples did psychology-wise was entirely meta-game and not facilitated or supported by the rules in any way.

2. In making the (presumably new and different) version of Psyche, how did you envision the new rules facilitating those responses to the awful situations?

The idea was to help people who weren't used to thinking about their character's tenets this way (just the fact that it's dynamic is pretty darn different if you're used to Alignment or something) get into the groove, as well as to support and springboard people who already thought this way.  My expectation was that, if the players cared about their character's Psyche, and the GM threw a situation at them that really hammered it, that the moment would be pretty intense and that the player's decision would be thematically interesting.  In other words, if the player wanted his character's Psyche to turn out a certain way and the GM made that a hard thing to do, then we see how much the guy's willing to pay for it, and, BAM, there's a relevant judgment and thematic statement.  That's the theory, anyway.

The idea is that the specific situations are horrible because of the character's Psyche--I mean, yeah, just LIVING in the Rustbelt is horrible, but that's not very personal.  Because the guy's personal fabric looks like X, situation Y would be horrible for him.  So now the GM knows to throw situation Y at him.  Now he's in a horrible situation; does he lay down and die?  Does he fight it head-on?  Does he subvert it somehow?  What is he willing to sacrifice?  What is he willing to BECOME?

It's supposed to be guidance, but Hard guidance.  "Hard" in that it presents concrete consequences that can be understood and predicted.  And all of the Psyche components deliberately have positive and negative aspects to them; all of them can Motivate for 5 dice.  And it's deliberate that all roads lead to Vice, Faith, or Woe; the way I see it, when the horrible closes its doors all around you, there's five responses you can make:  numb the pain, convince yourself that it's okay, beat yourself up over it, break down a fucking door, or become part of the horror--become corrupted, just like the Rust wants you to.  That's where Vice, Faith, Woe, and the whole willpower issue came from, respectively; the fifth response can come in the form of a hideous opportunity ("You don't have to outrun the monster, y'know; you just have to outrun your buddy over there").  And sometimes those can be combined.  Sometimes you have to make another decision just like that in response to the decision you just made.

To use the old examples:
The guys who tricked the ghouls dealt with their situation by yielding to corruption.  They then dealt with that each in their own way; one of them convinced himself it was okay (retelling it as a joke) but also beat himself up over it (causing the change to his personality).  The other remained corrupted, and became even moreso; that cannibalism sounds like a Vice, also.

The guy who shot his friend dealt with his situation by yielding to corruption.  And he beat himself up over that, bigtime, and it eventually caused his own death in a piece-of-shit dive in the middle of fucking nowhere.  A random and meaningless death, until you consider its ultimate cause, and then suddenly it means something.

What I'm trying to do with the Psyche is get players to do what the players in those examples did, by building the game around getting them in such a situation, then giving them the choices.  And I don't think the horrible situation has to be life-threatening, or even violent at all; the players just have to buy into the horror of it, whatever it is.

To explain what I mean by "horror" for a moment:  the most horrifying book I've book I ever read was 1984, but my favorite horror book is Heart of Darkness (my favorite quote:  "Breathe dead hippo, and be not corrupted"), and my favorite horror movie is Tideland.  For me, horror's not about fear, or even revulsion.  Horror is whenever something WRONG happens.  (Which will probably trigger fear and/or revulsion, but they aren't the horror itself)

I think that what's missing in my game is investment.  If the player's investment in his character's Psyche is not very deep, then the thematic statements made by that character are not going to be very compelling.  There's been a few times when my players decided for their characters to do something, and I pointed out what repercussions that had on their Psyche, and they were like, "Oh, okay, yeah, I do it anyway."  Oh, and at first I had to help them over the "This is not D&D Alignment" hurdle (which was odd in Courtney's case, as her first RPG was Super Action Now!).

I don't think the Psyche system has even been properly tested yet.  Until that investment is there, I won't know whether it works or not.  But it's gotta get kinda personal for that investment to be there; I'm game for it, but I don't think my players are.  (Courtney already remarked that The Rustbelt is "a lot more personal" than the other games she's played so far, after the second session).  Narrativist play has happened, thematic statements have been made, but it hasn't been even close to the level of intensity that I want.  Can the mechanics themselves produce that intensity if the players aren't prepared to "go there"?

[Lance D. Allen]

Can the mechanics themselves produce that intensity if the players aren't prepared to "go there"?

Short answer: No. Mechanics cannot make up for investment.

The only thing you can really do to help with investment is make it clear in your text that to acchieve the goals you have as a designer, investment is vital, or at least important, and how it is important. You may also want to make some reference to a lines and veils discussion, as well as the "I will not abandon you" style of play.

Even then, investment is not going to happen all the time. There will be days that the players will come to the table and invest heavily. They're going to want to squirm over those decisions. Other days, they're going to want something a bit lighter, some Mad-Max gritty ass-kicking. From what I've seen, your game has the potential to deliver both. It then becomes a GM skill to determine when it's a soul-sucking day or an ass-kicking day, and react appropriately.