TMW:COTEC - "Butchering the GM..."

[RobMuadib]

Hi All

I have been plugging away at the Game Concepts: Shared Play chapter
for TMW, and have layed out the basic idea of the Game, and what you do
when playing it,i.e. what your goal is. What you need to play, and what
everyone does in order to accomplish that goal.

The last part, about who does what is where we get the subtitle of this
post. I have come up with 6 "Guide" roles that players take during the
game, and my question is, are there any important duties/responsbilities
that I neglected to include, given the games focus and goal.

For those interested, I have uploaded a quick PDF dump of my word
document so far, you can download the PDF from my
website

Note, it is 6 pages and about 2800 words. Yes, I know, I
never ever post little bitty haiku rules for people to comment on, sigh

As you'll be able to see, I am now working on designing the
Numen/Nomen/Noumen/Nomenar rewards economy for the game. Oh
speaking of all my titles, I had an idea that I'd like some feedback on,
Since I already tied the name of my "Meta-Currency" into the games
Meta-Setting, I decided to tie the currency more into the game
Universe via the terms used for the players "bankroll", and the "bank",
as well as the name of the basic currency as well. What do you think
of that?

Also, what do you guys think is the best name for the currency out of the
four names above?


As for the funky terms, I wanted the game's universe/mythos to guide
and influence the feel and style of the game. I mean, it is a Universal
Game WITH a Universe. Oh yeah, speaking of Funky Terms, do you think
the terms I coined in my explanation are explained well enough, and
more importantly, appropriately convey the games goal?


Anyway, your time and input are appreciated.

[Mike Holmes]

I thnk the divisions ar fine as far as they go. I'd also put a clause in that one of the Guide positions, perhaps Rules or Game or Play, such as, "All powers that do not fall to any other guide specifically, devolve to this Guide." That should settle a number of potential sorts of power problems.

Are you going to include a part somewhere on how they are selected? I'm thinking about his because it occurs to me that as long as you have the powers spread out that you should play on that. Keep any one player from geting too piled up. The Narrator and Persona guides are a little outside of this consideration but for the four remainng types, I'd put in somthing to get them as spread out as possible.

For example, you could have the distributon occur from a list of the four, and players would bid on each as they came up. After a player recieved a Guide role, he would not be able to pick up a new one until all other players had picked up one. Which would mean that with four or more players that you couldn't end up with more than one. Perhaps something like this would make a good option. I can also see allowing duties to stack up on individuals.

BTW, I think that players should definitely have Persona Guide Cards as well as the other Guide cards. The Card would have the character's name on it instead of saying Persona Guide. And the character reference would be on the back. Anyhow, I see play progressing with players waving a card to indicate why they were interupting. If I wave the Rules Gide card, it's a signal to the Play Guide that I need to interject with a rules clarification or something. If I wave a Persona card, that indicates to the Narration Guide that I want to burn a script on behalf of that character. In any case, I should never be holding up more than one card at a time. This way, the other participants will know what character I'm playing the role of, or what non-character role I'm excercising.

The mental picture I have of this is very cool.

Mike

[Gwen]

I am REALLY looking forward to seeing this finished product!  Bust your ass and finish this mofo!

[RobMuadib]

Mike

Hey, good point about reserving powers not named in the descriptions of
the other Guides to one of them I am thinking umm, Play Guide.
(Suddenly I am writing the Constitution or something;) )

Are you going to include a part somewhere on how they are selected? I'm
thinking about his because it occurs to me that as long as you have the
powers spread out that you should play on that. Keep any one player
from geting too piled up. The Narrator and Persona guides are a little
outside of this consideration but for the four remainng types, I'd put in
somthing to get them as spread out as possible.

Yeah, I going to include that later in the chapter when I get around to
describing playing an actual session. At the moment, I am thinking that
there are a Big 3 that have to be divvied up during session play, Play,
Game, & Rules Guide. (Setting Guide I currently see as being more active
between sessions and such, and generally decided during Genesis
Session, as well as being easily Sub-divided by subject.)


Obviously, you have to decide on a Play Guide first during a session. I
like your one to a customer rule, while supplies last, as it were.  I see,
Play Guide as being needing to be decided, Game Guide maybe player to
his left barring volunteers. And like Rules Guide player to left of Game
Guide, barring Volunteers. Other thing is that I see Rules Guide being
more fluid, kind of left in the middle of table to be grabbed up by whoever
has the most knowledge of that rules area, and going to the left of the
Game Guide, as a default.

Perhaps an additional rule that the PG and GG shift to the left after a
scene or some such. Especially, since I am thinking of having these roles
earning Numen directly out of the Mithal when they are filled, thus
creating a forced reward and a sort of Salary type mechanic.

BTW, I think that players should definitely have Persona Guide Cards as
well as the other Guide cards. The Card would have the character's name
on it instead of saying Persona Guide. And the character reference would
be on the back.

Another excellent suggestion. You could have the Persona Name, as you
indicate, while on the back you'd record the Initial introduction cost, as
well as the Persona's relevant Persona Expectations via Disadvantages,
Perhaps any Narrative Expectations, as well as the RP rewards associated
with them. (This would be seperate from actual Record, except for simple
extra types, which could have actual game stats on back, or whatever.)

In addition you could simply wave the character card to indicate when you
are speaking as that character. Tieing into some of the Ergo multi-
medium collaborative RP stuff, this card waving could even be
accomplished within IM/IRC type environment by having the players
preface their comments with a role Abbreivation, a character name, or
perhaps with a bid, or just as themselves. So you might have a log like
this.

Rob> PG: Ok Mike, your NG, lets go.
Mike> NG: alright, Elrikan, Norwood, Turk and the 10 members of the
Imperial Patrol are outside Baron Harkomir's Castle, it's night-time, the
moon having just risen, when Elrikan notices a shadow pass over the 3rd
moon.
Rob>Elrikan: Take cover, the Duke has unleashed his Dragonriders on
us!!
Rob> I pay 10 Numen to introduce the squad of 5 dragonriders as Shared
Entity.
Jake>GG: That leaves you with an Anwa of 21 Numen Rob, Mike, that's 5
Numen for you as Design Royalties.

etc., etc.

The mental picture I have of this is very cool.

Yeah, it is an interesting method to indicate the role/POV shift going on.
Oh, one other thing, when players make a challenge, they would raise
their hand with their Bid, which would represent they are speaking from a
pure player preference, essentially.

To tie into the Vanilla/Pervy thread, and Mainstream threads, it might
even make a game comprehensible to the mythical interested non-role
player. Since the actual abstractions of the game are well represented
and codified. So one might call it Self-Actualized Vanilla, accomplished via
lots of pervy mechanics.

Also on the Pervy thread, if you apply this to the traditional GM+Players
paradigm, you have one guy at the end of the table with five cards
stapled to his head like some indian chief's headress, who may or may
not be hiding a pile of chips behind his funky screen to fudge things with,
leading his faithful tribe of braves, each with a single character card stuck
to their head, to whatever he might be interested in, while trying to keep
them happy enough to stay in the tribe.:)

TFYI

P.S. Gwen, hey I am plugging away, unfortunatley the Design
Frameworks are going to make it a rather hefty project, but
instrumentality continues, or something.:)

[Mike Holmes]

(Suddenly I am writing the Constitution or something;) )

There are worse documents to emulate.

At the moment, I am thinking that
there are a Big 3 that have to be divvied up during session play, Play,
Game, & Rules Guide. (Setting Guide I currently see as being more active
between sessions and such, and generally decided during Genesis
Session, as well as being easily Sub-divided by subject.)

Hmm. I had assumed that the Setting Guide would interject reguarly with setting details. It's one of the things I really like about the idea. If there is some detail vaccuum, it's his responsibility to create something to fill it. For example, if an inkeeper is needed, the Setting Guide should be responsible for producing the Persona. That seems very cool to me.

I see,
Play Guide as being needing to be decided, Game Guide maybe player to
his left barring volunteers. And like Rules Guide player to left of Game
Guide, barring Volunteers. Other thing is that I see Rules Guide being
more fluid, kind of left in the middle of table to be grabbed up by whoever
has the most knowledge of that rules area, and going to the left of the
Game Guide, as a default.

Hmmm. I think that these are important enough that you may want to refrain from assigning them in so haphazard a manner (might even make sitting down for the first time a weird exercise). What I'd do, if nobody wanted it is to have a vote or something where a player was elected to the position. That way he'd have the weight of that decision thrust upon him and feel the responsibility more acutely than if it devolved to him randomly.

Even better would be to do something like from the game Republic of Rome in electing consuls. Essentially, the players would debate who wanted to be who, and then after a bit they would take turns going around the table proposing combinations of positions. Bob is Play, Jim is Rules, Eric is Game. If voted down that combination cannot be reintroduced, and the next player must suggest another combination. If it goes around the table once and the group can't agree on a suitable combination, then go to random assignment. Or somthing of that nature. The idea is to get the optimal set for the group.

Also, if the group puts that much effort into assigning, it should essentially remain stable indefinitely. Roles should only change when players want them to. That is, if two players agree, they can trade roles, or give them to other players (if the "spreading it out" rule is in effect a player cannot take one of the Big Three if it would put him out of compliance; he can trade, however). This way the group ensures yet again that only those most interested in the position will have theose responsibilities.

OTOH, a rotation rule for intrepid groups could be fun. In that case I'd just assign the positions all randomly, however.

To tie into the Vanilla/Pervy thread, and Mainstream threads, it might
even make a game comprehensible to the mythical interested non-role
player. Since the actual abstractions of the game are well represented
and codified. So one might call it Self-Actualized Vanilla, accomplished via
lots of pervy mechanics.

Hmmm. Not convinced about that one way or the other, personally. But I want this game for me, so I'm unconcerned.

Mike

[RobMuadib]

At the moment, I am thinking that
there are a Big 3 that have to be divvied up during session play, Play,
Game, & Rules Guide. (Setting Guide I currently see as being more active
between sessions and such, and generally decided during Genesis
Session, as well as being easily Sub-divided by subject.)

Hmm. I had assumed that the Setting Guide would interject reguarly with setting details. It's one of the things I really like about the idea. If there is some detail vaccuum, it's his responsibility to create something to fill it. For example, if an inkeeper is needed, the Setting Guide should be responsible for producing the Persona. That seems very cool to me.

Mike

Hey, that's another damn good idea. I had seen his job as more passive and inter-session till now, coordinating the design of stuff by other players. But, making him the general extemperaneous detail/Entities guy is an awesome idea. Definitely makes him worthy making it a Big 4.

Hmmm. I think that these are important enough that you may want to refrain from assigning them in so haphazard a manner (might even make sitting down for the first time a weird exercise). What I'd do, if nobody wanted it is to have a vote or something where a player was elected to the position. That way he'd have the weight of that decision thrust upon him and feel the responsibility more acutely than if it devolved to him randomly.

Even better would be to do something like from the game Republic of Rome in electing consuls. Essentially, the players would debate who wanted to be who, and then after a bit they would take turns going around the table proposing combinations of positions. Bob is Play, Jim is Rules, Eric is Game. If voted down that combination cannot be reintroduced, and the next player must suggest another combination. If it goes around the table once and the group can't agree on a suitable combination, then go to random assignment. Or somthing of that nature. The idea is to get the optimal set for the group.

Also, if the group puts that much effort into assigning, it should essentially remain stable indefinitely. Roles should only change when players want them to. That is, if two players agree, they can trade roles, or give them to other players (if the "spreading it out" rule is in effect a player cannot take one of the Big Three if it would put him out of compliance; he can trade, however). This way the group ensures yet again that only those most interested in the position will have theose responsibilities.

Mike, I like your suggestions here, will definitely implement someting like that. So like, I just penciled you into the game credits as a Design Contributor, thanks for your suggestions and ideas. Heck, I'll ink you in at this point:)

Thanks