Synthesis Playtest

[Mike Holmes]

I got a chance to try out my system Synthesis with Josh and Rich at GenCon. We all wanted to talk about it, but have not gotten around to posting on the subject. So I thought I'd start it off with a quick recap.

The rules were close to what is posted at the Synthesis site.

There were a few modifications, however, which are things that will be out soon in the 2.0 Version. Namely, players are allowed not only to declare their own Conflicts, and Traits that they will be using, but the Traits of the opponent's as well. And the rewards from a Conflict are limited by the total number of dice that you roll against. Thus if I roll my mighty eight die pool of ass-whuppin against a wimpy one die pool from a Pixie, I stand to only gain one point of Trait. Thus it is advantageous to roll against more dice so as to get a larger reward. Essentially this is a gambling mechanic.

Anyhow, as the session started, we chose a setting and premise per usual. I suggested that we use a setting that we all were familiar with so as to have a common base from which to communicate. I also suggested something that the players felt was a cool, yet not well presented because of a poor system. Unsurprisingly this resulted in the players deciding on using a D&D setting, namely Spelljammer. As for the premise we decided that it should have to do with the characters grappling with the ethics of revealing the existence of Outer Space to unaware denizens. Very much the classic Prime Directive premise.

The characters they chose were fairly straightforward which befits a playtest. Josh played a captain of a small Spelljammer on the side of Law intent on protecting the innocence of worlds that were unaware of the existence of Space. His Personal Conflict was that he was going to be wrestling directly with the Prime Directive. Rich chose to be one of the uninformed people down on the planet who was an apprentice of a wizard who had once been a knight (at his father's request, and later dismay at the change of professions. His Personal Conflict was that he was going to find out somehow about the outsiders, and would have to struggle with whether or not to reveal the secret to his friends.

I was very pleased with the characters, and after a bit of explaining the system, the players seemed to get how to select traits. It was not perfect, however. I accidentally let Josh take the Ship as a Trait at only level 3. This should probably have been his highest Trait, and potentially very high. But for the most part the players seemed to grok the CharGen.

Play started with a scene in which Josh's character was discussing reports with his female first mate. He immediately generated a Trait, something like Infatuated with So'n'so at level 3 or so. I then threw in a Bang that the ship's oracle had seen a group of beholders descending into the sphere of Krynn (which is where Rich's character lived). He decided to go to the edge of the sphere and get a better scry on the situation.

Meanwhile, in Rich's first scene, he was working out an Indefinite Trait about how he was having a hard time with his Mentor. This ended up resolving in him leaving his master with a knight that had come to collect him to fight off the beholder invasion that was terrorizing the countryside.

Josh's oracle told him that the beholders were attacking villages, etc, and Josh decided then and there to abandon the Prime Directive (pulled a Kirk?), and descended to take care of the beholders. As Rich proceeded to the nearest village under attack, he encountered Josh's ship just as it crossed a ridge to engage a beholder. He clambered aboard just as Josh's character valiantly attacked the beholder, backed by his crew. This wasn't too effective (remember the too low ship Trait?), and the fight was somewhat inconclusive at first. Then Rich's father arrived at the head of a body of knights. Inspired to impress his father, Rich joined in, and altogether, the beholder was driven off.

It turns out that a book that Rich had taken from his master's tower turned out to be something important that the Beholder's were looking for (Rich made this up, as the result of some conflict). As such the majority of them chased the ship back into space using the book as bait, and taking Rich with them. They ended up entrapping the beholders in an ambush with the rest of the fleet.

They returned to Krynn to fight the one remaining beholder that was still rampaging, and upon encountering it, discovered that it had unearthed an artifact of some sort from a temple that it had been rummaging through. A big battle ensued, and in the end the heroes won, of course.

Josh's character in the course of things had managed to translate his infatuation for the first mate into a Love Trait, and later managed to get her an Interested Trait as well. Rich's character had decided to give up magic (I think), and once again be the knight that his father had always wanted. Which means that, had we gone to a new session, that there would have been plenty of room for their Personal Struggles to develop, as Josh would have to defend his actions to the fleet commanders, and Rich would have to decide whether or not to explain the wonders that he had seen to his father and others (certainly they were wondering about the origin flying ship).

I'm sure I've accidentally altered the events, or omitted things, but I wanted to get a general idea of the story down.

Personally, I was very satisfied with the system. Even though I didn't get to use some of the cool stuff that will be appearing in Ver 2.0 Synthesis. At the core I think it does what I want it to do fairly well. One of my favorite moments was when Josh was rolling to determine what his character would do in a certain circumstance. I told him that it wasn't necessary to roll for every decision, and that he could always decide what the character wanted to do. His response was, "Yeah, I know that. It's just fun to roll for things." Thanks for that Josh. That's exactly what I was looking for. The players have incentive to create conflicts for their characters and advance the plot.

Any comments from the players? Or anything in general? All feedback welcome.

Mike[/url]

[joshua neff]

I want to elaborate on that last comment.

A number of times in the earlier parts of the session, Rich & I would roll for something, & Mike would say, "You don't have to roll. You only really have to roll if there's an important conflict."

But the interesting thing about the system is that it's fun to roll. Rolling causes Traits to be created, which further defines the setting & pushes the narrative. Traits are improved. Traits are lowered. Often, Rich or I would roll on of our PC Traits against an opposing Trait of the same PC--so, you're rolling against yourself, essentially. Lots of internal conflict going on, which is great. And since anything can be a Trait (a personal characteristic, a skill or ability, a relationship, a possession, etc), there's room for all sorts of conflicts & all sorts of rolls.

The only problem I had with the system was that it was a bit vague as to how conflicts would be resolved. Since a roll creates a new Trait, or lowers or raises an existing Trait, it wasn't clear when it was appropriate for a Player to declare an NPC had been killed or otherwise defeated. When I was fighting a Beholder, I wasn't sure how to apply a victory of 3 to a Trait that would defeat the thing--is it okay for a Player to create a Trait of Defeated-3 for an NPC? It seemed as if it depended on the general strength of the NPC, but since I, as a Player, didn't know what the NPCs strengths were, I couldn't tell how I was able to decide when they were defeated, or if that was completely the province of the GM.

Otherwise, the system is really cool. A little bit of Hero Wars, a little bit of Story Engine, but meshed really well.

[Mike Holmes]

The only problem I had with the system was that it was a bit vague as to how conflicts would be resolved. Since a roll creates a new Trait, or lowers or raises an existing Trait, it wasn't clear when it was appropriate for a Player to declare an NPC had been killed or otherwise defeated. When I was fighting a Beholder, I wasn't sure how to apply a victory of 3 to a Trait that would defeat the thing--is it okay for a Player to create a Trait of Defeated-3 for an NPC? It seemed as if it depended on the general strength of the NPC, but since I, as a Player, didn't know what the NPCs strengths were, I couldn't tell how I was able to decide when they were defeated, or if that was completely the province of the GM.

I did relate the rule to you that's going into ver 2.0 that addresses this, but it may indeed be too vague. We're working hard to get it into 2.0 in such a way as it will be much more clear. But essentially, you have to reduce the opponent to zero Self. The only complicated part is that, since Self is a Defining Trait, it has to be done by employing some appropriate Indefinite Trait. So, you give a thing a Wound 3, and then you use that to force it to die, essentiall,y with a further roll. As such it requires you to Spend Self, and, we're looking at how that works in fine detail right now.

IOW, you're right, it's a problem, but one we're working hard to fix.

Mike