Guerilla Television (Quincunx Lite)

[Vulpinoid]

Much to my relief, Guerilla Television works.

I'm not only relieved that the game works on it's own as a two page experiment, but also because it's the core of the larger game I'm working on (albeit a far more tongue-in-cheek version).

After four games with wildly different groups, the game had a couple of consistent  problems (which I can now clearly identify as a symptom of the system, rather than a  symptom of the player set).

I've also rediscovered that I have a nasty habit when it comes to game design.

I design games one way, then run then a different way and wonder what's wrong.

Guerilla Television was designed to be a simple 1 page RPG (All the rules on the front and back of an A4 page). It's a pretty dense read, but for general play purposes, everything you need is there. Scene framing, character interactions, crisis development, conflict resolution. Many thrown together with interesting twists that make the game a bit different. It uses less tokens and counters than the Eighth Sea, and those tokens often perform double duties.

Have a read of it hereand the rest of the post will probably make more sense.

On the whole it works, a bell curve might show it to work between the 10th and 90th percentile, with irregularities showing up at the 5th to 10th band and the 90th to 95th band. While the game just doesn't handle the outer limits at all. Not bad for a one page game that allows a lot of creative freedom. I've certainly encountered tomes of 200 pages or more that have been less successful in handling a diversity of situations.

Like most games, I tend to have a few people at the end of each session telling me that the session was good. I indicated in my post on the cult of fame that people often say this stuff just to be polite, but if they care enough to be polite, then there is obviously something positive in the experience they've just had. I certainly haven't had anyone walk out...but then again this hasn't happened since the mid 90's, and that particular player walked out on at least half a dozen games over the course of two years (so I hold that as a player problem rather than a GM problem...another rant entirely).

What's more interesting though is that most of my sessions have had some experienced gamers of a few different types stay back to discuss the game mechanisms with me. 
Each offering suggestions for how they might be improved.



The core mechanism of the game starts each player with a single die from a collective pool equal to four times the number of players, the GM/Story gets a number of dice equal to the number of players, leaving a pool of dice equal to twice the number of players. Players try to claim dice from this pool by rolling 6's.

Success is achieved in the game by rolling a die and scoring a face value of 4 or better. If a player rolls 2 or more dice for their character and achieves more than one "4" then they accumulate higher degrees of success.

Players also score an automatic success from possessing skills relevant to the situation at hand.

Where we've found problems in the mechanism is the requirement to roll 6's to accumulate new dice. This has a very nice effect, of increasing game speed exponentially, but with low numbers of players it can start too slowly. Not really giving the game a dramatic thrust.

I tried to overcome this in one session, by simply allowing successes to claim dice from the communal pool, while 6's are necessary to pull dice from opponents (or from the story). But this drained the pool of dice too quickly (though other factors may have been at work in this game). Mid way through the second cycle of scenes, all of the dice were gone and the infighting began.

I pulled it back to allowing only 6's to accumulate dice in the most recent session, but with only three players things built up too slowly (this might also be due to another change I made though).

Given the balances of results, I think the accumulation of dice on a 6 works well. But I still need to fine tune the mechanisms around this.



Fan points are the next issue. And I've started to see how arbitrarily they are handed out. This really reflects the medium of Reality TV, and for the genre they work well. 2 dice, if 1 rolls 4 or better the scene is viewed on TV, if both roll 4 or better it is seen on prime time.

Basic probability: 25% chance of a scene not being viewed, 50% chance of it being on TV, 25% chance of prime time.

If a scene is viewed on TV, the active character gains a point of fame per unopposed success they rolled. If it's on prime time, they automatically get a point and two extra for every unopposed success.

If characters haven't completely killed each other off at the end of the session, the final round of scenes is played out and the player with the most fan points wins. It can make things cut-throat, but on a couple of occasions it hasn't been vicious enough.

Fans points have a follow on effect. Player may spend them to increase their die rolls on a one-for-one basis. They may also use these dice to make it more likely that their scenes will be viewed on TV.

During certain games it became a dilemma for the player to pay a bit of fame for the immediate advantage or hold onto it for the chance of winning the show. During other games it became quite dramatic to see two different players wielding their fame to modify as many dice as possible in climactic battles.

A few issues came up regarding fame though.

Firstly, the fame accumulated far more quickly than the dice. With a 1 in four chance early on of getting a successful die in a viewed scene (plus the characters automatic success for a skill earns them 3 pts), and a 1 in eight chance of being seen in prime time (thus accumulating 1 automatic and four extra points).

One of our sessions saw players earning in excess of 20 fame points toward the end of the session, while other players in the same session were struggling along with one or two. This really made the game unbalanced when these "famous" characters could use their fame to increase every die into a success, then guarantee their scene was viewed on TV (pretty much refreshing their pool every time). The less famous characters just acted as pawns in the struggles between two really powerful characters. Realistic, maybe. 
Fitting in with the genre of reality TV, definitely. Fun, I'm not so sure.
   
I've toyed with the notion of limiting the number of possible fans in the show. In the last session I actually did this, but I think I went too far. I started with a number of fans equal to the number of players, then added the same amount each turn.

The problem here lay with the ratio of fan uptake by the characters compared to the amount of fans being added to the pool. Within two or three scenes, the fans were all gone, and the remaining characters each turn had no chance to gain fans. Earlier sessions had allowed expended fans points straight back into the pool, but this game I removed the spent fans, only adding the set value each turn. This had the benefit of restricting the final fan points to more manageable levels, but really hindered the visceral feel of having fans rooting for the characters from their home TVs.

Pulling everyone back to a more even playing field meant that co-operation was less necessary to get an advantage, Pushing the playing field to extremes meant that even with careful player co-operation, two players at the weakest end of the table were unable to successfully confront one of the more powerful players (in a game of five or more players).

How do I get a balance where two weak characters can make a meaningful attack on a powerful character?

Do I even need this? After all, if a weak player launches an attack on a strong player, this means the stronger player has to use some of their available resources to defend... and this might leave them vulnerable to the attack of another strong character.

Thus the weaker characters still have the ability to tip the balance between two stronger characters, but I'm still worried about what might happen when a single character becomes too powerful. It hasn't happened yet, and I'm hoping that as soon as one player starts taking the obvious lead, the other players will try to reign them in through a series of in character attacks. I'm hoping it will be self regulating, and making an assumption about human nature to this effect.



There's another aspect that I got wrong initially in such a simple RPG, but that's now been corrected with a few successful runs.

Initial versions of the rules allowed players to pick 3 skills for their characters, any 3 skills they thought might make it easier for them in an elimination gameshow environment.

I ran this way during the first game, and there was an immediate disparity between the players who wanted to make the game competitive and the players who were present for a bit of fun. The first category of players choosing things like "Possesses a spell for every situation", "Perfect shot with throwing knives", or "Invisibility" while the second group of players chose things like "Swedish Cooking", "Tightrope walking" or "Square Dancing". The second group of things were far more interesting to work into reality TV situations.

During later games I had players generate characters for each other, randomly distributed after character generation. This meant that most players took the skill sequence at a more "tongue-in-cheek" level, hoping that they'd get the chance to inflict bizarre and unusual skills on their companions (knowing full well that the other players would do the same for them).

There are a few other comments I'd like to make about how the game is evolving, but I'll get to them once the convention is over.

V

[Vulpinoid]

The convention is now over, and with a few more sessions under my belt, I'm happy that I've found enough converts to the system who've said they'll give it a try on their own and try to explore it's depth through a few sessions of their own.

That's probably the best kudos I could have expected at this stage.



There were some feedback loops noted in early sessions that have now been pulled into line through some modifications in the later sessions.

The fan points feedback loop became more manageable by applying a few checks and balances into them. These also brought some new tactical elements into play that I hadn't considered either.

Under the latest version of the fan point system, the game starts with a number of fan points equal to the number of players and at the beginning of every turn an additional number of fan points equal to the number of players is added to the mix. 5 players means that at the start of turn 1 there will be 10 points, and every turn an additional 5 points are added. In addition to this limiting factor, I've changed the way these points are gained. Players gain 1 fan point per unopposed success they score once their scene is complete (for example, 4 successes versus 1 success leaves 3 unopposed successes). Every gains a fame point if they appear in a prime time scene.

Fan points may be spent to increase die rolls on a 1-for-1 basis, or improve the value of dice being used to see whether a scene is viewed. Used fan points are removed from play.

These modifications had some interesting side effects.

1. Players occasionally chose to spend a fan point to get their scene on TV. Even if it meant that they would lose a point of fame in exchange for a single point of fame, they were deliberately it for the chance to spite the other players; stripping points from the available pool of fan points to prevent their competitors from getting fans.

2. A finite pool of fan points actually made the fans a more valuable commodity. People had to think more carefully about whether to spend the points or hold onto them, especially with the final victory conditions hinging on the total of the dice and fan points.

3. The final interesting effect arose from limiting the fan points available to the scene's active player, but keeping a single point accessible to any player in a prime time scene. Even though players would not find out whether a scene was viewed in prime time until the scene had been concluded, players started to roam in packs. Each counting on the odds that the more scene's they'd appear in, the more chance they'd get fan points and fame.

Each of these effects make perfect sense in retrospect.



Another development involved a standardised map.


Originally I allowed players to move anywhere at will, but this reduced tactical play because players weren't able to hide once they had accumulated fame. 

The new system includes enough nodes for this. With low numbers of players, play often seems to cluster around three or four closely linked nodes, and these nodes become incredibly rich with description as players add more detail with subsequent scenes. With larger numbers of players, the game play seems to start more spread out as players try to reveal as much of the map as possible, but even then it starts to coalesce in three or four nodes toward the end of the game again. This pattern seems constant despite the number of players. 

With a standardised map, I've also allowed the possibility of characters erecting barricades to stop other characters from following them (or conversely using successes to break down barricades). Both of which allow a new way for skills to be used in the context of the setting. It's probably something else that could use a bit of development.



Some of the later groups I ran through the system added something that I hadn't even considered, but an aspect that was needed none the less.

The player framing the scene created a specific challenge that the active character had to engage in. The nature of reality TV typically involves challenges that the participants have to engage in.

Stupidly I didn't even think of this, even given the threads on this forum about the Zombie Big Brother game. But once it was added by the players it's definitely going to play a part in future revisions of the system. 



I guess I wasn't too clear with the skills in my write up, and this was put to the test. But a few good tests brought out the problems in that part of the system for my examination.

Players gain an automatic success on any challenge where they are able to use one of their skills. Initially I was running with the idea that a player could gain multiple successes if they were able to bring more than one of their skills to bear. But I found that many creative players were usually able to bring two skills (or even all three) in many situations...certainly not something I was after.

I limited it to a single skill per scene (which basically meshes with what I'm doing in the advanced version of the system), but I still found that many of the more creative players might have been able to use a single skill throughout all of their scenes. "Parkour" and "gets away with murder because she's really cute" were particularly nasty culprits of this.

On the other hand, in the last couple of games when skills like this kept being used, the players framing the scenes started to really come up with creative ways to set scene. Trying to come up with scenes in which these critical skills would NOT be useful. This was especially brought into effect when groups start to frame scenes with specific challenges involved in them.

I'm not sure if this was a symptom of refining the game to the point where it's started to really inspire the imagination of the players (which would be a great success), or whether it was purely a symptom of a good and experienced gaming group.

I'm thinking of adding some kind of rule that forces players to use different skills. Perhaps roll a die every time a skill is used (this is added to a cumulative total for that skill), a player may not use the skill with the highest cumulative total (limiting them to a choice between the other two). The player to the right might get the added task of framing an element in the scene explaining why this skill is unsuitable in the current situation.

As an added feature of this I'm thinking that if a player chooses their skill with the least used skill they might get some kind of bonus.

This game isn't meant to be cathartic or deep, it's designed to be a springboard for the imagination. Surreal, perhaps even Dadaist, and quite often filled with absurdist non-sequitur.

They way you'd wish reality TV was rather than the way it often is.



I'll certainly be running a few more playtests and expanding the concept a bit (even for this light version), but it seems to be working.

If anyone has questions or suggestions regarding the development of the game, I'm open.

V

[JoyWriter]

On the speed thing, it sounds like you might want to match a negative constant acceleration to the positive exponential one. What source could this come from? Well one way to do it might be to make the dice pool start higher but fade, as a kind of exhaustion mechanic. In other words drop one dice per round/turn. That doesn't grab me particularly, so what about something like "inner confidence" a store of self generated fan points that can only be spent for rolls, and act as a cuthullu sanity limit on fan points, as no one likes the smug one! This would naturally deplete, as people stop relying on it and more on the fanpoints that recharge. I suspect it also says something about the reality tv format too!

The map plus narration build-up is a bit of an eye popper for me, it gives me a lot of brainwaves! It can add a form of fighting for territory that I find very interesting, particularly if shifted into another game, where "ownership" of a territory is what decides scene framing rights, and people build up the character of an area as it shifts hands. Actually I think that combative scene framing is more risky than I know what to do with at the moment! Regardless I like the idea of prepping an area so that your skills give you an advantage, providing it is done in an interesting way.

[Vulpinoid]

I had thought of the negative to counterbalance the positive acceleration. But my theory in this regard was more for the long term and "heavy" version of the game.

The rules as written state that when a player uses dice for their actions, they need to recover those dice at the end of the turn.

A player with three dice, might exhaust two of them to perform a specific action (leaving them only a single die to defend with if someone decides to betray them). Once everyone has had their turn, each player rolls their two exhausted dice and if a die comes up successful it returns to their active pool.

The biggest problem here is when players start with only a single die, they might roll their die for an action, and then not get it recovered. This means they are incapable of acting during the next turn.

If they're really unlucky they can't act for a couple of turns as they wait for their die to come up with a successful recovery result.

A few dice rolling simulations also showed that this type of effect slowed the game down too far (especially with the single starting die).

I'm actually toying with a modified version of the game now where all players start with 3 inherent dice (plus any dice gained in play). It might not be a good fit for Guerilla Television, but for the new game it might be just the thing...substitute "Reality Television" for "Hindu Dogma" and have characters earn benefits for confronting their dharma instead of earning fame from the fickle fortunes of viewers...apply a better system for skills and abilities revolving around castes and ethnicity...it's a step toward the grand Quincunx goal. Gradually refining everything I need to create the idealized game I've been dying to play for the past decade.

...but that's another rant.

While I'm here I'll add another note regarding the map plus narration aspect.

At the beginning of every scene, two open dice are rolled and two closed dice are rolled. The closed dice are revealed at the end of a scene and are used to determine whether the scene was viewed by the public. I'll get to them shortly.

The open dice are used to determine if a character's  favoured or unfavoured situations are present. Consider an unfavoured situation to be "Indiana Jones in the presence of snakes", the character freaks out a bit and get's distracted from the task at hand...a favoured situation could be "Paris Hilton in front of the paparazzi" playing up the situation for all it's worth.

All characters get a single favoured situation and a single unfavoured situation, each is assigned a value from 1 to 6 (any number, as long as the favoured and unfavoured situations have different values). If either of the open dice comes up with a natural face value equal to the favoured or unfavoured situation, then this situation WILL be present in the scene. If both come up, then the player framing the scene may choose to incorporate both, or may choose to have them cancel out. If the dice come up with doubles matching a favoured or unfavoured situation, then the situation is present in an exaggerated form (the bonus or penalty is doubled).

A notable character in one game had chosen an unfavoured situation of "Tentacles", and the dice dictated that they were present in almost every scene where he was the focus. With at least one set of doubles...poor guy.

Throughout the game, the player to the left of the current focal player sets the scene, the player to the right adds in any effects from favoured or unfavoured situations. I rolled the dice at the beginning of the scene, but the player to the left kept moderating their scene description based on the presence of these favoured or unfavoured situations. The player to the right then didn't get much of an input.

In later runs of the game, I held off rolling the open dice until the player to the left had finished their opening pair of sentences describing the room (or describing any changes to the room since it had been last encountered). This worked far better and gave some fun situations like...

Billy-Bob has a fear of being "ALONE".

He enters a room and the player to the left describes it as being a kindergarten/pre-school filled with kids. A fire alarm is going off and his challenge is to get the kids into one of the adjacent rooms for safety.

Dice are rolled and his fear comes up.

The player to the right has to think fast on his feet, if there are kid's present how can Billy-Bob feel alone? A new sentence is added into the description indicating that since Billy-Bob is the only adult in the room and the kids are all running around, screaming, and generally not listening to him...Billy-Bob feels alone as the only competent adult in the room, he really wishes there was someone here to help.

Another situation came up later.

Billy-Bob is in a room with another character, and his unfavoured situation of being alone comes up with doubles.

The player to the right is really frustrated at this, and has to devise a reason why Billy-Bob is alone when there is clearly another player-character nearby...

Simple solution, the lights turn off and there is a dull droning noise that fills the room. He can't see or hear anyone else and really feels the isolation.

I should also note here that when a favoured or unfavoured situation is present, it is only the current character who is affected by it. If two characters are in the same room, and both have a favoured situation with a value of 5. If a 5 is rolled for the active character then only this favoured situation enters the scene.

Similarly, once a scene is over, any favoured or unfavoured situations are reset.

Just because a character has a fear of "chocolate sundaes", and they were previously in a room filled with ice-cream and chocolate sauce, it doesn't mean that next time they go into the same room it will still be there. The room will have been cleaned up by support crew behind the scenes, if the unfavoured situation is rolled again, the chocolate sauce will start flowing again in a new method described by the player to the right.



Thinking about it further, I'm liking the idea of the "inner confidence" factor. I'm interested in incorporating it somehow.

Thanks for the idea.

V