[Delve] pacing & pressure problems

[David Berg]

This is my Simulationist game formerly known as Lendrhald.  Sort of.  Most of the goals remain, but I've refocused my priorities.

Delve is about exploration and discovery, with investigation being a major activity in play.

Specifically, you discover supernatural secrets of the setting, which is almost entirely non-magical, and where most magic is purely human-averse Evil.  The GM makes up the secrets. 

Delve is a game for players who like to choose their own situations, rather than simply reacting and responding to situations that are forced upon them.  "Which magical secret am I most interested in?" should be the answer to "what do we do next?"

A large part of my work on this game has been "how to GM it" tools.  Charts to fill out, lists to pick from, guidelines, examples, etc.  Currently, I'm searching for a situation creation tool that will produce a higher rate of drama per play time than I achieve right now.

My playtest has been fun, but it's gotten a bit slow at times.  My situations have tended to include freedom of movement, adversaries who can be reasoned with, and puzzles that can be solved at leisure.  A lot of this is my attempt to avoid "boring dungeon-crawl syndrome" of pure reactivity to the one option in front of you; my large-scale "player determinism" mantra has seeped down to a smaller scale where it's perhaps less apt.  I've thrown a slavering monster at my players from time to time, and that gets folks excited well enough, but I'm at a loss for good general principles to guide my prep.

Any suggestions?

Questions en route to potential suggestions also welcome.

Thanks,
-David

P.S. I am constrained by a "no transparent metagame influence on the SIS" priority, which is why I'm searching for GM prep tools rather than mechanics to apply during play.  I'm open to this "prep" happening during play too as long as the players don't see it.

P.P.S. For anyone interested in reading more before responding, see the link in my sig.

[David Berg]

Current scenario prep process, with example:

1) start with the purpose of the scenario's Minor Secret
2) define the specifics of the Minor Secret
3) define the scenario's Problem
4) define a Complicating Interest
5) define 2 solutions
6) define one asset to enable each solution
7) define free info the players get that leads to the assets from step 6
define threats

1) Minor Secret. This would be determined prior to card-drawing, dependent on larger-scale concerns. For this test run, I picked "How to find the magical Gauntlet of the Ancients."

2) So, how do we find the gauntlet? Sometimes I just choose, but this time I picked card 39, and the island grabbed me, so I decided the location of the "how to find gauntlet" should be an island. I picked "an island in Grey Lake" to place it in the world. I then threw out "there's a map on the island that appears on full moons" as the way to find the gauntlet.

3) What's the scenario's Problem, that's going to attract the PCs in the first place? I picked one card for "a situation with potential for trouble" and a second for "the impetus that sparks the situation into problem status".  The first card was the wizard and the second featured spiders, so I decided there's an evil wizard who's been living on the island and is just now sending out monstrous spiders to attack the nearby town.

4) Who's the complicating interest? Card 30 features a poisoner/betrayer. I decided that a former pupil of the wizard now seeking to betray him would be cool. I drew Card 4 for the key to his role and help or hindrance.  Card 4 features a baby, so I decided the wizard's pupil had lost his son, and would help the PCs if they found him.  If not, he'd simply work to steal the wizard's power for himself, without cooperating with the PCs.

5) 2 cards for 2 solutions (besides "get help from the pupil"). Card 15.1 - fire will burn away the spiders. Card 0 - this was tough, as it isn't really clear what the sage is doing. I found it most useful to interpret his "wise handling of energies" as "do a seasonal ritual".

6) 2 cards for 2 assets, each one a key to one solution from step 5. As I came up with each one, I came up with an obstacle to the solution it led to. Card 4 - a vanished guardian can tell you where & what to burn.  Card 1 - a reckless youth with prophetic visions can teach the needed ritual.  In both these cases, the obstacles are missing info.

7) Final level of "free" assets -- stuff the PCs find just by showing up & asking around. I did this part just by reasoning from the situation. The villagers will speak of (a) the departed guardian and (b) his items that could contact him; they'll mention (a) their guarded child prophet and (b) fact that religious seekers are allowed to see him; and they'll mention (a) the banished drunk (who has the pupil's son) and (b) a wine bottle at the scene of the pupil's son's disappearance. I didn't think of it this way at the time, but each "freebie" is basically putting an A&B together.

Each solution also comes with a threat.  At this point, I'm worrying about card overuse -- I only made 13.  Anyway, for now:  The threat for learning fire tips from the guardian is Card 9 -- a local wisewoman thinks you are blasphemers and will demand punishment for disturbing the dead guardian.  The threat for learning rituals from the prophet is Card 15.2 -- deadly worms inhabit the seasonal ritual site and will attack if you try to use it.

[Marshall Burns]

Hi David,

I've got this technique that I cooked up for my game Witch Trails that I think you might be able to use (or take apart and use pieces, whatever).

So, in WT, the PCs are special agents sent to root out and neutralize supernatural threats in the Old West.  They encounter signs of supernatural activity, and investigate it, trying to identify what it is and how they get rid of it.  While they're doing this, the supernatural entity (spirit, devil, sorcerer, etc.) is doing stuff.  It's up to something.

So, this thing I came up with is a timeline for the threat.  Like, "On day 2,  the sorcerer will poison the Caldwell family's well," "On day 3, the revenant corpse of Jeremiah Caldwell will be sent to murder the sheriff" and so on.  Basically, I make a bulleted list of the threat's agenda, and set dates for it relative to the start of the investigation.  If the players don't figure stuff out fast enough, then bad stuff happens.  Conversely, there's a potential for each point on the agenda to be foiled.  Add onto this that the passage of time is crucial to the regeneration of the PCs' resources to be used in conflicts, and to the preparation (and sometimes performance) of magic.

It seems to work nicely, although it requires some re-planning, sometimes on the spot, on the GM's part when specific plans are foiled but the threat is still in action.  Of course, in multi-session scenarios, that's not as much as an issue, since the GM gets to figure stuff out in the downtime.

Hope it gives you some ideas, at least!
-Marshall

[David Berg]

Marshall,

Yeah, tons of ideas, thanks! 

Scripted Events

I had previously made a note to myself to think about "trigger events" that alter situations (enemies become friends, new threats arrive, etc.), but I've found that easy to forget.  Perhaps it's too broad a class and I can narrow things a bit...

"Threats have multi-step agendas" might be a decent place to start, I dunno... it's not filling me with inspiration.  Do you have any rules of thumb or mental requirements that you refer to when concocting these?

If I had a good multi-step opposition, then yeah, spacing those out over time would help the flow.  I might assign them days, or I might just use them based on the vibe at the table ("Energy is waning; time to provide new stimulus!").  Is there a reason you chose the former over the latter?  Does it fall out logically from the threats you tend to create, or is there a specific pacing choice there?

"If the PCs do nothing, what will happen?"

My co-designer Al always plots this out for each adventure he runs.  I think the process of trying to answer this in an interesting fashion helps him ensure his scenarios are dynamic.  But he spends way more time on prep than any sane GM would want.

Clues

A book I'm reading (Made to Stick) compared movie scripts (especially mysteries, which Delve is good buddies with) to treasure maps.  Maps have the big red X and some landmarks, and though you can get a rough idea of what's ahead of you, you don't know many specifics until you actually get to the first landmark.

I was thinking of trying to apply a similar approach to acquiring information: you complete a task, you learn something, that something points you toward the next task.

Mysteries are big on multiple theories -- "is it X or is it Y?" is often more fun than simply "is it X?" (one theory) or "what is it?" (no theories).  So I'm thinking one of the task sequences I set up should culminate with a "No!  It isn't Y!  Must be X!"

So, here's the pacing idea:
Players start a scenario with one X clue and one Y clue.  Each clue leads to 3 scenes of "complete a task, learn next clue".  So the minimum number of scenes to get to the solution is 3 (X1, X2, X3), and the max is 6 (Y1, Y2, Y3, X1, X2, X3 or X1, Y1, Y2, X2, Y3, X3 etc.).

The GM has a list of 6 steps of the scenario getting worse.  Each successive step plays out for each task the PCs undertake.  So, the longer it takes you to get to the solution (provided by X3), the more damage has been caused, and (maybe) the harder your final confrontation with the problem's source.

Of course, I'd need to figure out a reliable way of presenting theories (or clues that add up to theories?), creating X1->X2->X3 info chains, and slapping fun adventuring tasks (fight, negotiate, solve puzzle) onto each node...



If all this spurs anyone else's ideas, please fling 'em at me!

Thanks,
-David

[Marshall Burns]

Hi David,

"Threats have multi-step agendas" might be a decent place to start, I dunno... it's not filling me with inspiration.  Do you have any rules of thumb or mental requirements that you refer to when concocting these?

I dunno.  First I think of what their big goal is, and then I just assume that they don't have all the resources they need for that right away, and must build them up first.  I make sure that every thing they do has a bit of weird, unexplainable phenomenon to it -- not enough to make the general populace suspicious, but enough to attract the attention of the PCs.  I have a huge mental catalogue of folk tales, occult stuff, and World Weekly News articles that I draw from heavily.  Of course, I draw from other things too.  The "Strange Fruit" scenario took inspiration from the song "Strange Fruit," the book "Pale Horse Coming" by Stephen Hunter, and some episode of Inuyasha that I saw for a few minutes in which an ogre was feeding people to a tree and eating the fruit therefrom.

That scenario was the one that gave me the idea for this technique, because I had done it without realizing it.  Gill Cutter, who ends up a sorcerer (although a naive one), wants to get his revenge on the town for the loss of his papa's land (it was foreclosed on, and sold to some people who put up orchards there, and now that it's harvest time there's gonna be a festival celebrating the orchards).  First he's got to make the deal with spirits to grow him a demon tree, then he has to water it with blood (which he gets from workers at the orchards), then he has to test out the fruit (which he does on a girl from town, who goes crazy and eats her fiance -- a success), then he has to prepare pie for the pie contest in the upcoming festival, then he has to get people to eat it, and then there will be plenty of folks eating each other.  The players stopped him just before anyone ate the pie (the reverend almost did).

[David Berg]

a bit of weird, unexplainable phenomenon to it -- not enough to make the general populace suspicious, but enough to attract the attention of the PCs

Would you mind throwing out a few examples?  I've had difficulty finding the line between "players assume I'm just being colorful in my descriptions and don't take specific interest" and "the tonwsfolk would have to be morons not to notice something's wrong".

Gill Cutter, who ends up a sorcerer (although a naive one), wants to get his revenge on the town for the loss of his papa's land (it was foreclosed on, and sold to some people who put up orchards there, and now that it's harvest time there's gonna be a festival celebrating the orchards).  First he's got to make the deal with spirits to grow him a demon tree, then he has to water it with blood (which he gets from workers at the orchards), then he has to test out the fruit (which he does on a girl from town, who goes crazy and eats her fiance -- a success), then he has to prepare pie for the pie contest in the upcoming festival, then he has to get people to eat it, and then there will be plenty of folks eating each other.

That sounds like a fantastic scenario. 

Maybe a quality "threat's goal" was the key?

Let's see... if I start with "feed people destructive magic food", then I get:
1) "In what way is it destructive?"  Easy enough to come up with some gruesome effect like cannibalism
2) "How does he get them to eat it?"  Easy enough to come up with something the town does where a bunch of folks eat each other's food.
3) "How does he make it?"  Well, normal folks can't do magic, so he'd need supernatural assistance.
4) "Who helped?"  Supernatural badguy = demon.
5) "With a demon's help, how does he make it?"  Easy enough to say they just do some ritual over a pumpkin or something.  But what you did is way better. 

So I guess "quality threat's goal" in only part of the equation.  Beyond that, I also want to help GMs come up with things like "grow demon tree, water it with blood, test fruit", which leave clues for the PCs that something is amiss.  I'll ponder a way to facilitate that... and quality threat goals... suggestions welcome on both fronts...

[Marshall Burns]

I'll have to get back to you on the question of omens & auspices; I'm pressed for time at the moment.

In the "Strange Fruit" scenario, I actually started with a guy growing a demon tree and watering it with blood.  From there, I asked myself, "Why is he doing this?  And what is the tree for?"  And everything else sort of fell into place.

I forgot to answer this question too:

If I had a good multi-step opposition, then yeah, spacing those out over time would help the flow.  I might assign them days, or I might just use them based on the vibe at the table ("Energy is waning; time to provide new stimulus!").  Is there a reason you chose the former over the latter?  Does it fall out logically from the threats you tend to create, or is there a specific pacing choice there?

I chose to do it in days for mechanical pacing reasons:  the easiest way for the players to recoup resources is to do "leisure scenes," which indicate the end of the day's work:  get a hot bath and a good night's sleep at a hotel, or to have chili or something at a campfire while one of them tells stories or plays harmonica or something.

[Marshall Burns]

Hi David,

Ok, to get back to the issue of omens, signs, auspices, and whatnot.  There's a couple features of WT that are important to take into consideration here: 1) there are no perception checks of any kind, and 2) magic is very low-key (mundane, even) in appearance, even if its effect is devastating.

So, the omens created by the presence of spirits, sorcerers, devils, abominations, and/or fearsome critters are always things that could be explained by normal means -- an overabundance or lack of fish in a particular stream, the way the wind blows some leaves in a tiny whirlwind, the shape a tree has grown into.  Since there are no perception checks, the PCs always see these omens, but I leave it up to the players to catch on.  Now, the signs of supernatural activity are still explainable by normal means, but the players are given to understand that they need to investigate such things:  someone goes missing; someone is murdered under mysterious circumstances; the worst drought/heatwave/rainstorm in living memory; a crazy person ranting about something they saw in the woods.  Maybe it's not always a lead on supernatural activity, but the possibility is great enough that investigation is called for.

Lemme give you examples from the "Strange Fruit" scenario.  Now, I need to note that if I were to run this scenario again, or publish it, I'd do one thing differently:  instead of the PCs arriving soon after the girl goes crazy (which is how I ran it), the PCs would arrive just after a few workers from the orchards had gone missing.  So, let's go down the line of the supernatural activity:

1.  The presence of the Bloodfruit Tree - this actually had no omens at a distance, because once you got close enough to see it at all, it was pretty unequivocal.
2.  Feeding the tree - some workers went missing from the orchards.  This scenario being set in Reconstruction-era Mississippi, and the workers being black sharecroppers, their disappearance did not particularly arouse suspicions or outrage.
3.  Testing the fruit - the girl went crazy, ate her fiance, and was being held in the jail.  The players would of course be given an opportunity to see her, and try to learn as much as they could.  This would also lead them to interrogate the sherriff and the families of both the girl and her fiance, from which they would learn that Gil Cutter had also been sweet on her, but she chose whatsisname over him.
4.  Preparing the pie - In order to get a clue towards this, they had to go to Gil Cutter's house, which isn't too great a jump (although my players had a misguided theory that the orchards themselves were the source of the fruit) -- interrogate three different parties, all of whom mention his connection to the crazy girl (and add on that the reverend had told them about how mad Gil was about the land).  Not to mention that my players did a ritual in the room of the slaying using a scrap of the girl's clothing, and received a vision of Gil giving the girl a peach hours before she went crazy, and some spooky, vague images of the tree).  They would, of course, have to get past Gil's two swamp gators that he had fed on the strange fruit, and defeat the tree itself which was in the yard, but once inside the house they would find the evidence that a pie had been recently made.
5.  Feeding the pie to people - Every single NPC mentioned the upcoming Fruit Fair, and most of them mentioned the pie contest.  Once you know that A) strange fruit turns people into frenzied cannibals, B) guy who owns strange tree has made a pie, and C) guy has a revenge motive against town officials, who will be judging the pies, then you know you need to head to that festival post-haste and destroy that demon pie.

[David Berg]

Yeah, I have plenty of practice providing "news & rumors" hooks -- stories of missing people, sheriffs and jailed loonies to interrogate, etc.  But what about that tiny whirlwind of leaves?  That's exactly the kind of thing I'd like to throw at my players (with no perception check), because it adds color and mood.  But how to make it pique their curiosity?  And how to enable them to pursue it?  (I mean, I know how to work that in a game where every bit of color the GM provides is essentially a clue or suggestion, but I don't want to do that with Delve.) 

Have you had any success with subtle signs presented subtly?

(Also: thanks for the info about the order of your prep, and nighttime refreshing.  I'm mulling those.)

[Marshall Burns]

Regarding subtle signs, I think the best thing is to make them a little bit jarring; they should come completely out of left field.  If they're sitting around the campfire on a warm night, trading stories, while crickets sing in the background, and then the crickets suddenly go silent and a cold breeze blows through -- sure, it could just be  a normal thing, but the context and juxtaposition is what makes it an omen.

Have you had any success with subtle signs presented subtly?

Lots of success in the area of unnerving the players and heightening the mood.  Not much success with providing actionable information.  There's an omen, and it's chilling and cool, and now we know that there's something around here, but how the hell are we to know what it is or how to find it?  I've been using the News & Rumors kind of stuff to get leads on that.

There's something I've been wanting to do with this game but haven't figured out how, and that's a scenario that takes place entirely in unsettled territory, without any folks around to provide News & Rumors.  To do it, I'd have to figure out how to bridge the gap from subtle omens to actionable information.  With WT, I expect that the key to this is in the magic; the PCs all are trained in it.  It's rare for it to be used more than once or twice a scenario, but the option is there, and it's pretty open-ended, such that the players could, say, test a hypothesis that a spirit of the air is nearby by laying down a hex that responds somehow to air spirits.  If I could find a way to make this as conversant as interrogating townsfolk and investigating old windmills and stuff, I'd be golden, but all I've been able to come up with so far for investigation methods is trial and error, which isn't much fun.

[David Berg]

In the "Strange Fruit" scenario, I actually started with a guy growing a demon tree and watering it with blood.  From there, I asked myself, "Why is he doing this?  And what is the tree for?"  And everything else sort of fell into place.

After trying to engineer quality threat goals that would inspire fallout in the form of colorful clues, I discovered it was quicker to do it your way.  I started with a colorful image first, then worked into "what does the demon want?" and "how will it get it?"

My most recent mini-playtest suggests that a useful technique may be putting a Clue at the end of a Task.  The idea is that performing the Task makes the players feel cool, and when they've finished it they get a Clue which is reward, curiosity-prompt, and pointer toward the next Task.

A Task in this context can be a brief skirmish to get the adrenaline going (Small Task), or a multi-session mission to break into a fortress and smuggle out an item (Big Task).  I think the problem in my recent play may have been too many Big Tasks without time pressure, producing an unacceptably long gap between Clues. 

I'm wondering now about the best way to stagger these -- probably something like a series of Small Tasks and Local Clues (clues to the specific scenario) leading up to a Big Task and a Secret (i.e., a Clue that relates to the players' larger interests and to why they opted into the scenario in the first place).

For generating Clues, I'm refering to whatever scenario features I've invented plus a list of connection types:

• want (i.e., discover the value of soemthing)
• use (decode / translate, activate / deactivate, assemble)
• take (lift, conceal, keep safe)
• find (locate, identify, perceive)
• access (unlock, remove ward, sneak in, be allowed in)
• avoid threat (know where it is, know when it occurs)
• defeat threat (disarm, kill, misdirect)

For generating Tasks, I'm refering to whatever scenario features I've invented plus a list of task types:
Small Tasks:

• fight
• dangerous physical challenge (climb, smash, lift, manipulate)
• single puzzle / riddle
• use unique character ability (perception powers, special possessions)

Big Tasks:

• get into place / escape place / stay in place for certain time / defend place from threat
• find person/item / escape person/item / defend/hide person/item
• get people/items into/out of places
• multi-part puzzle / riddle

Has anyone used anything similar to this, or something different but with similar goals?

More list brainstorms also welcome...