[Acts of Evil] - Scene Framing Shennanigans

[DWeird]

What if the game isn't about proactive "spider in the web" characters with grand plans. What if it's about power, and pain, and living and reacting in the moment, and not about long term plans at all?

How do I get players out of the planning mindset? My advice to "live in the moment and express your curiousity from a position of confidence in your power" hasn't been equal to the task.

Hi,

As far as I can gather, you're looking not so much for a general way to show what play is about as much as to show what *specific* way of being evil your game is about... If that's about right, I think the disctinction you're looking for is between the Magnificient Bastard and the Chessmaster. I've always been interested in games (and other such stuff) about power without the responsibility that's usually tacked on to it for some reason... Playing the villain is fun. However, after a few lazy attempts to make something along those lines, I've found that there plenty of different ways of being the badass badguy. And, to me at least, that tropes site was surprisingly helpful in pinning these different ways down.

And since I tend to think in one-liners whenever I try to establish a theme... Try this one on for size: "Your plans can fail, your limbs can rend - but hey, in the end, you can still have your way."?

[Paul Czege]

Hey,

As far as I can gather, you're looking not so much for a general way to show what play is about as much as to show what *specific* way of being evil your game is about... If that's about right, I think the disctinction you're looking for is between the Magnificient Bastard and the Chessmaster.

Yes!

But damn, how do I prime players for that? I've been thinking it's about creating sketchy characters, and then being prepared to react to situations and define the character through play. But maybe I'm wrong. Is it just that I'm failing to teach the genre?

It's a nice phrase, but if my advice to "live in the moment and express your curiousity from a position of confidence in your power" isn't teaching the genre, I'm doubtful your "plans can fail, your limbs can rend - but hey, in the end, you can still have your way" alone is going to do it.

What would you do? Should I try to prevent players from having more fleshed out characters, desired themes, and occult plans in their heads somehow? Or do you think just some fun, grabby color text would do the trick?

Paul

[Valamir]

To help find the answer it might help to articulate what about this "live in the moment and express your curiousity from a position of confidence in your power" makes it so important / of so much interest to you.  If you're working this hard to avoid the chessmaster in favor of the magnificent bastard there must be a very compelling reason.

Perhaps the act of articulating what exactly it is you find so useful / appealing / desireable / important to the entire purpose of the game in this distinction will help drill in on the missing piece of the puzzle.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Ralph,

Two reasons, I think:

1. One of my design goals for Acts of Evil is to make a game that trains me to be better at prep. That is, it's an intensive course in creating cinematically compelling settings and situations. And basically with the current mechanics I've achieved this. And I love it. I don't run My Life with Master much anymore, because I've learned what it can teach, but I remain excited about prepping Acts of Evil. Except if the players don't live in the moment, as magnificent bastards, then in play I'm not leveraging my prep, I'm improvising. The hobby is increasingly full of no-prep/lo-prep story games. Acts of Evil is about prep.

2. The secret inspiration for the equations that define the actions of the player character occultists in Acts of Evil are my personal perceptions (and frustrations) with corporate entities. And although I'm aware of corporations that have planned and executed some pretty evil shit over the long term, my most direct and frustrating personal experiences with evil by corporations is that it accrues from self-absorbed tactical tunnel vision and ego-based decisions. In retrospect it might seem like a grand malevolent plan, but in reality it's the gameplay of an escalating series of tactical decisions gone amorally amok. Anyway, even if this isn't true, Acts of Evil makes the argument that it is.

And I think designing the game has captured and held my attention (when other projects of mine have idled) is because those two goals are so congruent. The magnificent bastard needs compelling situations and circumstances to react to, and upon which to explore and discover his occult identity. And the GM interested in developing his prep skills needs characters interested in growing and developing upon the energy he bakes into his situations.

Are we drilling in?

Paul

[Valamir]

Yes...I will reread this a few times to let it gell a bit.

In the mean time, remind me how the initial character creation and setting creation works in brief (I forget what those unique setting instances are called). 

[Valamir]

Dang lack of edit button...

...Also upack "prep" for me.  What sort of prep are you excited about, want AoE to recquire GMs do.  There are, of course, significant differences in prepping NPCs with agendas vs. prepping plotlines.

[Paul Czege]

The settings are called Terrenes. The player characters may all start in separate Terrenes, but likely at least a couple of them will start in the same Terrene. Regardless, they are all members of the same Onset, which is a group of occultists with true potential for chthonic godhood who are all somewhat aware of each other, even if they're strewn throughout time and space.

A starting character sketchily consists of a name, numeric stats, and a one sentence public description representing the entirety of what the other members of the Onset truly know about you.

For prep, the text instructs you (the prospective GM) to go to Wikipedia and read about the Terrenes chosen by the players, and to follow whatever links capture your interest. (Wikipedia turns out to be the game's killer app.) Let your reading inspire you to imagine an endeavor of occultism specific to each Terrene; NPCs with a different understanding of the supernatural and the occult from the tradition of the player characters are up to something.

As an example, one of the Terrenes in a recent playtest was the middle of the English Civil War in the year 1646. I prepped that Royalists, including Prince Rupert of the Rhine, were endeavoring to raise the corpse of William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury beheaded by Parliament, so that he could invest King Charles with the sword Excalibur, which Rupert had brought home from Normandy in secret. They believe the Royalists can win the war if Charles leads the army bearing Excalibur.

And in play you don't keep this occultism secret. You reveal it via establishing narration (sort of a "what is going on" dramatic monlogue when the GM frames into a new Terrene) and roleplay of NPCs. The intended effect on play is to naturally position the Manaster tradition and actions of the player occultists in interesting apposition to other occultism.

So the hard data of prep for a given Terrene is the endeavor of occultism, the names of NPCs you might use in the Terrene, and a few rough ideas for situations involving the NPCs into which you might frame the player character. Likely during a session you won't per player need more than three or four scenes in a Terrene. You'll prep more characters and more scene/situations between sessions, basing them naturally on how things have played out.

Paul

[Valamir]

Excellent, thanks.

I've got idea #1 starting to form in my head...I'm gonna sleep on it and revisit.  Look for it sometime this weekend.

I've got idea #2 as kind of a vague notion at this point.  I'll let that slosh around a bit, but to feed into it, let me ask one more question.

Thinking from a fictional perspective (not a mechanics one, or a player's interest one) what causes an PC occultist to care about Rupert and Charles and Excaliber?  What's their fictional motivation for getting mixxed up in that mess?

[Paul Czege]

Hey Ralph,

I think there are two ways a player gets engaged.

1. I'm a character with true power over my flesh, voice, imagaination, and memory in interesting and exotic circumstances. If the GM frames into a bullfight arena in Pamplona in 1923, I want to participate. I want to grow horns and lock horns with the bull. If he puts me into the Vatican, I want to steal the Shroud of Turin and sweet-talk the cleaning lady into making it into a shirt for me.

2. I chose England in 1646 because I'm interested in the setting. Though I'm not a protagonist the GM engages me by having the situation treat me as significant, same as in Trollbabe.

Human beings like to think they have rational reasons for the choices they make. In reality a lot of our choices are heavily fueled by neurobiology. The presence of possible rewards (attention, power, respect, thrills, new experiences) in an environment triggers our pursuit of them. So the in fiction reason for getting involved is because the occultist is responding to the presence of possible rewards.

Paul

[Valamir]

Excellent.  Ok.  Again, not thinking of mechanics or hooking the player, how do those actions translate to reward in the fiction.  Wearing the shroud of Turin as an undershirt is cool and all...but what's it get me (me the occultist in the fiction).  How do I (in the fiction) translate that into personal gain / recognition / prestige.  I'm assuming that some sort of notoriety or infamy or attention seeking is the real pay off here for these sorts of people.  How does that work in?

[Paul Czege]

I'm not sure. Being installed with a Manaster is like winning the Lotto. It changes your identity. You know that game everyone plays, "What would you do if you won the Lotto?" What rewards you pursue is the game's authorial void. And it's not a game about getting even for past scores. It's not about who you were. It's about discovering who you are now.

Are we still drilling productively? The goal is putting together the puzzle that makes the "magnificent bastard" work for the players.

Paul

[DWeird]

Well, as far as educating the players goes, there's no real reason to limit yourself to any one thing - gameplay explanations, colour-text, examples from TV/comics/anime, putting the characters in a situation where long-term planning is impossible, etc.

'course, the more interesting question is always not how to stop your players doing something but how to get them to enjoy the sort of play you want the game to be about.

If you want this game to be about ego and power, a way to do this may be to incorporate a sort of "I dare you to..!" mechanism into the player dynamic. Wearing the shroud of Turin is cool, but it gets cooler if I can boast right there on the table about doing it. Establishing some sort of fluid pecking order among the cultists, one that allows players to boss around those below them, could also help this.

Power is fun, but playing a character who's supposedly powerful according to rigid rules may not be. The above suggestions would help the irrational reasons for wanting power to be present right there at the table.

Which may not be what you want - the atmosphere would likely get a lot more heated (for better or for worse), and you'd probably have to fill your setting with Things That Go Boom instead of carefully crafted encounters.

Dunno if that helped.

[Valamir]

Ok, so here's idea #1.

The flow of play you want from the game is for the characters to take more of a reactive role vs. a proactive role.  You don't want them coming up with their own master plans and then seeking out opportunities to drive them forward.  You want them living in the moment where the primary purpose of play is seeing how they respond to external stimuli.

I'm a big believer in trying to make the experience of the players mimic (at least on the level of approach and feel) the experience of the characters.  So that leads me to suggest that an effective approach to AoE would be to put the players in a position of being primarily reactive rather than proactive.

The expectations new players have towards a game will often be set early on during their first contact with actual play of the game.  How they interact with the first part of play, will be how they expect to interact throughout play.

The first part of play is establishing the Terrenes and making characters.  Here's where I now think you have a disconnect between the design and the goals.  The first part of play has the PLAYERS creating the Terrenes and then the GM reacting to that by going off to prep stuff for that.  So if the very first thing players do in the game is to say "this is what I want, now Mr. GM go and find a way to deliver it to me" it probably shouldn't be a surprise that you're seeing a fair level of that same expectation in the rest of play..."here is the scene I want, now Mr. GM go and frame it for me". 

I'm thinking instead, you want to establish right from the very beginning that the players' job at the table in a game of AoE is to react to what the GM gives them.  "You can respond anyway you want...but what you're responding to...is THIS".

So.  Here's my suggested potential fix #1.  Reverse the way Terrenes get made.  The GM comes to play with a number of Terrenes equal to the number of players already selected.  When the initial rolls of the players give them the result that in current-rules would allow them to invent a Terrene, instead that result lets them choose which of the GM's Terrenes they'll be in.  The players who don't get to create a Terrene in current-rules would still (if I'm remembering this right) have to choose to be in one of the other player's chosen Terrenes.


Benefits:

1) if one of the design goals of AoE is for the GM to enjoy prep, then the game should ensure that what the GM is expected to prep is something they find interesting.  So letting the GM select the Terrenes, will help make sure that those settings are something the GM is curious about learning more about.

2) If players select the Terrenes, often times they are going to select settings that they have a bit of knowledge about already.  I might pick Ancient Egypt, or Reconquesta Spain, or Napoleonic France because these are periods I know something about.  As a result, the following two things are likely to be true:  a) the player probably will know more about that setting then the GM, and b) the player...in true fetishist fashion...will probably be very interested in showing off that knowledge.  It is difficult for the GM to be proactive in a setting where the player has superior knowledge, and players will tend to be more proactive then you wish them to be because they have the knowledge necessary to say "I want to go here and meet him and do this thing".

Therefor, by having the GM pick Terrenes...especially if there is advice to pick Terrenes that your players aren't likely to be amateur experts in, the situation is reversed.  If the GM knows more about the setting then the players do, then the players really can't be proactive.  They don't know the world, they don't know the culture, they don't know the power structure, they don't know what's going on.  They become reliant on the information the GM feeds them.  When the GM is in the position of being the player's eyes and ears, then the GM is in the proactive chair and the players are reacting.  Even if they want to be proactive and go do something, they'll likely have to ask for more information first like: "Is there a person who does X is this culture that I can talk to?".  And of course questions like that are once again cedeing the initiative back to the GM.

3) The psychology outlined above I think is very powerful.  If the first thing the players do is react to the GM, then they'll be in the mind space that reacting to the GM is what you do in this game.  If the first thing the players do is take ownership of what they want, then they'll be in the mind space of taking ownership throughout the game.  I don't think it will work to expect them to take ownership over here but then not over there.

I think you can probably take it even further for maximum effect, not just having the settings to choose from, but also the initial character concept as well.  Like "you are the son of a merchant family being squeezed by the local potentate.  Your family is rich enough to attract the potentate's attention, but not rich enough to be untouchable.  You've just swallowed the Manister, now go create your character".  Taking a strong hand like that definitely establishes that this is the game where the GM is setting up the situation that the players are expected to perform in.  That puts the focus where you want it...on the performance...not on where you don't...on deciding where and what to perform.

In a similar fashion, I'd go through the rest of the rules and uncover all of the places where the the rules say "the player decides this, or the player creates that, or the player determines how this other thing will be" and perform the same test.  Does the granting of player authority in this instance indirectly encourage proactive player behavior? And if it does, reverse that and reposition the players into a more reactive posture.

4) I also found a bit of analysis paralysis coming into play with having no great understanding of the genre and being asked to decide on a Terrene from scratch.  I don't think your #2 point above "I chose England in 1646 because I'm interested in the setting." can be relied upon.  I think "I chose Engand in 1646 because I was put on the spot and had to think of something quick, and that's the first thing that popped in my head" will be at least as common.  Choosing from a limited set of options I think would be much faster and more comfortable.

That's idea #1.

Idea #2 is still pretty foggy.  Your answers to my last couple of questions threw me a bit.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Ralph,

Your most recent questions, "what causes a PC to care" and "what are the in fiction rewards, the in fiction pay off for the PC," are essentially what we're trying to figure out, right? What does it mean to inhabit the desires and motivations of a magnificent bastard? So my answers are my thoughts about the desires and motivations of a magnificent bastard. But if you have an alternative perspective, I'm open to it. What's important is helping the player achieve creative engagement with playing a magnificent bastard.

Paul

[Valamir]

Well, where they threw me, was your answers are hitting around the edges but not really hitting the bullseye.

You touched on WHAT you want the players to be doing...but not why.

Ok...I'm in Pampalona, it would be some cool imagery for me to fight with the bull...but why?  What does it actually get me to do that?  Wearing the Shroud as a shirt...again...cool imagery.  But what's the point?  What does having done that get me?  Is there some international affiliation of my fellow occultists who are going to be awed by my chutzpah?  Did my prestige amongst my fellow practitioners just go up?  When word gets out into the proper circles of my latest coup are legions of wannabes going to be knocking on my door begging me to teach them the mysteries of the universe?  What's the payoff?

If there is no payoff, then you're relying primarily on the Vandal's Instinct:  "Why did you throw a brick through the stained glass window?", "for the thrill of it, I mean...what the hell right?  Why not?"

I think motivating players using the Vandals Instinct is alot harder.  My design instincts say that that sort of motivation relies more heavily on the GM's ability to deliver the thrill then the actual game design.  I mean at the end of the day, determing which formula applies to the conflict at hand, running some math, and rolling some dice...isn't really that thrilling.  Getting the players to react requires bait.  Bait that relies solely on a game mechanic reward can work, but often seems rather flat.  Bait that delivers an in-fiction reward that appeals to the player's sense of achievement and accomplishment is typically the most compelling.  Bait that relies on the GMs ability to set up and describe situations that by their nature are so thrilling and exciting that players will want to jump into the bull ring and wrestle with a bull just for the fun of it...pretty difficult to recreate reliably, and more of a GMing technique issue than a game design issue. 

So if that's what you're after, your efforts will need to focus on GM techniqes.  Which I'll not is distinctly different from GM advice.  GM advice tells GMs what they're trying to do.  Techniques tell them effective ways for doing it reliably.

But again, this is all very half formed vague, thinking out loud stuff.

Idea #2, I think is much more solid and thoroughly imagined at this point.  I'm still working on idea #2.