Rise Up: narrative allocation mechanics

[Emily Care]

Hello,

I'm working on a game that takes place in a slave holding society on the brink of revolution.  The mechanics will guide the players to create  a framework of character and story that can happen in many different settings. Example settings will be included in the game along with scenario creation rules. The scenarios will be descriptions of the society and include rights of and limitations placed on slaves.

My questions about the specific mechanics I'm going to describe here are:
1) Are the normative/subversive/rebellious action mechanics ones that you would find fairly easy to implement and keep track of if you were playing the game?
2) What other games that you know of use similar mechanics, so I can see how others have handled facilitating player narration of negative outcomes to their own characters, especially in the absence of failure/success outcome resolution mechanics?


Players can create slave or free primary characters.  All the primary characters are connected to one another by being part of the same revolutionary cell, or part of a loose support network. The group will have goals they are trying to accomplish together and will also be connected to the tide of revolution rising in society. None of the primary characters may own one another, though it may be possible for a player to have their free character buy a slave character during the course of play.

Character generation will consist of various questions the player will answer about their primary character. The questions will be different for slave, freed, and born citizen characters.  After creating the characters and possibly the group connections etc, all of the players will be asked the following 4 questions about their character: Who do you love, Who do you hate, Who loves you, Who hates you.  The answers to these question will be the start of lists of other primary or secondary characters that the character is involved with. The names on the list may be added to, or shift over time: someone your character starts out loving may betray her so that she comes to hate her etc.  

The characters have no stats per se. Secondary characters only get written up on the primary character's sheets. Mechanics may vary to reflect the level of oppression in society, or to represent the different treatment accorded different types of slaves (hard labor vs. skilled or house slaves), but the  basic mechanics are as follows:

Characters can take Normative, Subversive or Rebellious actions.  A normative action is one that accords with the societal limitations on slaves or doesn't challenge  the norms of slave holding society. A subversive action is one that breaks those rules, but does so in a small way, or is done secretly so that no one who would care about the indiscretion would easily find out.  A rebellious action is a blatant violation of social norms with relation to slavery, done in public, or done in secret but of such magnitude that it could not go unnoticed or unpunished. For example, poisoning and killing a slave holder.

Normative Actions
Each player puts a coin, say a quarter, heads up near them. In order for their character to take a normative action, the player must turn their heads-up quarter tails up.  In order to get the quarter heads-up again, the player must narrate another action or event taken by secondary characters or occuring in the local environment of their primary character. This event will vary depending on whether they are a slave or free character:

Slave characters--the player must narrate something bad happening to the character, or another character on either of the "Who do you love" or "Who loves you" lists on the character's sheet.  Or something good happening to a character on the "Who do you hate" or "Who hates you" lists.
Free characters--the player must narrate something bad happening to any character on the character's "Who do you love", "Who loves you" lists or to one of the other primary characters who is a slave. Or something good happening to the "hate" lists.

Once this is done, the quarter gets turned back to heads and another normative action can be narrated.

Subversive Actions  

When a character takes a subversive action the player must narrate one of two things, which will be decided by a coin toss or d6 roll based on society's levels of oppression etc.

Slave characters--If fortune decrees so, the player may narrate a good thing happening to their primary character or a character from the "love" lists, or a bad thing happening to a character from the "hate" list. Otherwise, the player takes three pennies and must narrate three bad things happening to their own character or one from the "love" lists, or three good things happening to characters from the "hate" lists.
Free characters--If fortune decrees so, the player may narrate one good thing happening to their own character, or any on the "love" lists, or bad to those on the "hates". Otherwise, the player takes three pennies and must narrate one bad event happening for each to those on the "love" lists or any of the other slave primary characters played by the other players.  

The pennies are discarded once the narration for each is given.  All three must be discarded before another subversive action may be narrated.  If a player narrates another subversive action before all three pennies are gone, the action becomes a rebellious action.  

Rebellious Action
When someone narrates their character taking a rebellious action, they may afterwards narrate an event in the larger movement towards revolution, and increase or move the Tide of Revolution one level closer to happening.

For a public, flagrant violation:
Slave Characters--three bad things must be narrated as happening to the character herself, immediately.
Free Character--It will vary depending on whether the character is a citizen or is a former slave in most societies.  I'm still developing this: for a natural born citizen, probably a character involved must be added to their "Who hates you" list, and three bad things will happen to slave characters on their "love" lists, or played by other players.  Freed slaves would have the same, plus the danger of losing their freedom, in some scenarios.

For a secret, but sizable transgression:
Slave characters--Deal out three pennies, and three bad things must be narrated as happening to your character and many people on your "love" lists. All if possible.  For example, if a slave holder was murdered in Rome, all of the slaves of the household would be punished--even up to being killed--for not preventing the murder, and possibly causing it.
Free characters--sames as for slaves, but not affecting the freed character, and adding in all the other slave primary characters.

Additional bits:

Characters will be able to sacrifice themselves for others to take negative consequences onto themselves. Sacrifices will have metagame rewards like the Rebellious action reward of narrating something about the Revolution, but perhaps affecting the kind of revolution it will be: Bloody vs. Peaceful.  Other things may effect the type of revolution as well, that's still in development.

Also, people other than the player in question will probably be able to narrate events to get rid of pennies, or turn over quarters.

Thank you for reading all that if you've made it this far!  I'd appreciate any insight you may have on the questions at the top, or other comments and reactions you may have to the game.

--Emily Care

[Mike Holmes]

Quick question. Is this turn based? Would seem to me to make a big difference.

Also, is this GM-less?

Mike

[Emily Care]

Quick question. Is this turn based? Would seem to me to make a big difference.

Also, is this GM-less?

No turns, people narrate what they will,  when they think of it, popcorn-style I suppose.

This game is gm-full, everyone ends up with the responsibilities.

At the start of the campaign, the group will have to come up with goals for the group to work towards, as well as a premise for the overall societal struggle.  The individual characters' stories will be woven together, and the players will be explicitly asked to work together to create interesting story.  

--EC

[Emily Care]

Quick question. Is this turn based?

Sorry to answer again, but I forgot to mention that the final version may have scene framing guidelines...

--EC

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Emily,

Now this is interesting stuff. All Premise and narration determined by Currency.

You might not like this idea, but I think a certain amount of Fortune to shake things up might work very nicely, much in the same sense that Complications do in Universalis. I especially like that mechanic in Universalis because it introduces Fortune without relying on or claiming that it's there to "resolve player disagreements." In many ways, it's the opposite - by doing something which prompts a Complication, the player is enlisting the other player, not disagreeing with or challenging them.

So I'm thinking some kind of dice-y thing, maybe something that gives outcomes to Love and Hate in action, would be worthwhile to consider.

Best,
Ron

[bluegargantua]

My questions about the specific mechanics I'm going to describe here are:
1) Are the normative/subversive/rebellious action mechanics ones that you would find fairly easy to implement and keep track of if you were playing the game?
2) What other games that you know of use similar mechanics, so I can see how others have handled facilitating player narration of negative outcomes to their own characters, especially in the absence of failure/success outcome resolution mechanics?

Hi Emily,

 My two answers are:

 1.)  It wasn't immediately apparent what the difference between free and slave characters were.  It might be easier to say that, in most cases, task resolution is identical except that free characters have the option of dishing out Bad Stuff to slave PCs.  A simple chart would also probably go a long way towards fixing things.

 2.)  Baron Munchausen is the first game that springs to mind when you mention using coins in a narrative sense.  It's not quite the same, but often you'll find yourself saddled with a "bad penny" (i.e. an unpleasant complication to your story that you didn't really want but couldn't bid away).  You have to somehow get past the obstacle in your path to continue the story.

 I am also reminded of Entropomancy from Unknown Armies.  It was a school of magic that encouraged you to take ridiculous dares and risks.  It didn't matter whether you won or lost, you'd get the magic mojo anyway.  The point was that you would surrender to fate now in exchange for mastery of fate later.  You have something similiar here in which you get guaranteed successful actions in exchange for guaranteed Bad Stuff.

 And, of course, Bad Stuff makes me think of Amber, the king of zero-sum games.  Sure, you can have the power cosmic, better-than-God stats, AND the Jewel of Judgement -- your miseries will make Promethus's little slap on the wrist pale in comparison.

 I don't think I know of any immediate, direct comparison to what you're tyring to do here though.

---------------------------------

 Now, I've got a couple of questions:

 1.)  How "bad" is "bad"?  This is sometimes a problem in Amber where GMs treat someone with a Bad Stuff of 2 equal to a character with a Bad Stuff of 200.  If I get to narrate bad things happening to me, how will that be balanced against the good I received?  Can I be a skeezer and say "I steal 1000 gold wheels from my master to fund the Revolution.  My three bad things are...uh, a hangnail...umm...a few grey hairs (my slave is very vain) and...uh...my girlfriend has to do an extra load of laundry."?

 2.)  What determines who is a Slave?  At character creation, do you determine your social status randomly or choose?  Again, the skeezer in me always plays a Free Citizen because the Bad Stuff doesn't hit me as hard and I can always opt to dish it out on my fellow players if I want to.

 3.)  Is the game a self-contained scenario or is it designed to play out over several sessions?

---------------------------

 Other, general comments:

 1.)  I like how there's a strong sense of Pyrrich Victories embedded in the game.  You can be a noble crusader for what's right and you and your followers and your friends and loved ones all get hosed.  Far too frequently the champions of freedom have paid terrible costs for their victories.

 2.)  Does this model, or have you researched how, slaves and slavery get overthrown historically?  I suspect that often times, abolition is a "top-down" sort of deal where enough members of the free class decide that they won't support slavery anymore.  I don't really recall any "mass revolution" of slaves that results in toppling the established order.  I suppose it could be argued that the French Revolution involved peasants who were nearly slave-like in their poverty and limited freedoms, but I'm not sure if it's completely one-to-one.   I'm not really expert in this field, but that's partially why I play games.  :)

 3.)  Does the game end with Revolution, or does a new one begin?

later
Tom

[Jonathan Walton]

I don't really recall any "mass revolution" of slaves that results in toppling the established order.

Besides the one in Haiti.  And several, as I recall, along the coast of West Africa.

[bluegargantua]

I don't really recall any "mass revolution" of slaves that results in toppling the established order.

Besides the one in Haiti.  And several, as I recall, along the coast of West Africa.

Well there you go then.  Perfectly good examples.

Oh, one more thing for Emily, which falls under the "I'd like to tweak it before it's finished" category (and can thus, be happily ignored or discarded):

The use of coins is neat but it got me to thinking about what connection there is between coins and slavery.  I think it's always really cool if a game's resolution mechanics have some sort of thematic tie-in to what the game is about.  Deadlands is a perfect example of this.  It uses dice, cards, and poker chips in this Western Gambling motif that's really fun and helps reinforce the idea that it's a Western game.

For slavery, my mental image was one of chains.  Specifically adding or breaking links of the chain.  For a moment, I had this literal image of players sitting around with links of chain, but then I suddenly had the idea of players making paperclip chains.  You can link/unlink them easily and they're sufficiently chain-like that most people could envision it easily.  I'm not exactly sure how this would work in the context of the rules you describe, but it's something to think about.  I'd assume that adding links is bad, removing them is good.  The length of your chain may act as a modifier to various actions you undertake.  

You might also use a different "mechanic-item" for Free Characters as opposed to Slave Characters.  My thought is that it's somehow in opposition to the chains of the slave character because it's sort of a measure of how stable Free Society is.  As tensions grow and the chains of the slaves gets shorter, the Free players find their items altering to show a less stable state of affairs.  Things they used to do very easily become harder and harder.  This item could be individually based (real rebels quickly become outcasts) or one item for all Free Characters (the whole of society goes up and down).  What I'm thinking of at the moment is one of those Jenga games where you've got a tower of wooden blocks.  When bad things happen, you have to pull a block and stack it.  When good things happen, you get to return a block.  When the tower falls, revolution!  This would be a collective item, not an individual one.  For an individual, I'm imagining a series of bright ribbons tied into a bow.  This would be a representation of the "ties that bind" in Free Society.  Here, tying and untying the various bows would show how "bound-up" in Free Society a character was.

I'm not sure whether it'd be cooler to have individual items or group collective items or a mix.  Personally, I kinda favor the group item for the Free characters because if people believe that the revolution will cost them too dearly, there will be both meta- and in-game social pressure to conform and "not rock the boat".  Their collective cookie-jar is in dange of breaking "at the wrong time" and there will be a push to wait "until the time is right".  Fun stuff.  

Again, this is a lot of rambling, but perhaps you'll find something useful to adapt to your needs.

later
Tom

[Emily Care]

Thanks for the input, everyone.  Good food for thought here.

Ron:about the use of fortune  I'm going to take a close look at the Complication mechanics in Universalis to see what you're getting at.  My first impulse was to go "fortuneless", but after some thought I'm not averse to it. I did include it in the mechanics as written.  What I am after with these particular mechanics is to enlist the players in exploring for themselves the kinds of conflicts a character in this society would encounter.  Oh, maybe they could roll to see who on their love or hate list got affected, then narrate accordingly.  Yes, that would facilitate the process.

John:  Thanks for bringing up Haiti. It's one of the four introductory settings I'm planning to include in the game. Where in West Africa? Liberia?  So far I'm looking at the US (as an example of economic/political pressure bringing emancipation about), Rome's Sparticus (an almost successful  revolution affected by slave population levels and access to arms/training), Haiti, and something in Asia if possible. China's has a long history of peasant uprisings.  

I think it's always really cool if a game's resolution mechanics have some sort of thematic tie-in to what the game is about.  Deadlands is a perfect example of this.  It uses dice, cards, and poker chips in this Western Gambling motif that's really fun and helps reinforce the idea that it's a Western game.

For slavery, my mental image was one of chains.  Specifically adding or breaking links of the chain.  For a moment, I had this literal image of players sitting around with links of chain, but then I suddenly had the idea of players making paperclip chains.  You can link/unlink them easily and they're sufficiently chain-like that most people could envision it easily.

That's very cool!  Normative actions a player takes could add links to the chain.  Subversive actions could potentially remove some, or add many. And it's through Rebellious actions that characters will eventually break the chains. Thanks, Tom!

As tensions grow and the chains of the slaves gets shorter, the Free players find their items altering to show a less stable state of affairs.  Things they used to do very easily become harder and harder.

Yes, that's just how it should be.  A Free person who throws in with slaves will become subject to social pressure and eventually to the same kind of violence the slaves endure.  The characters' experiences need to be dynamic, reflecting the changes in society.  

I'm not sure whether it'd be cooler to have individual items or group collective items or a mix.  Personally, I kinda favor the group item for the Free characters because if people believe that the revolution will cost them too dearly, there will be both meta- and in-game social pressure to conform and "not rock the boat".

This would help some of the dynamic you talked about in your first post here--where your skeezer side would be tempted to always play a free character to skimp out of having bad things happen to you and so you could hose the others.  Everybody's got to be in the same boat.   Since the free characters are less negatively affected personally by slavery they need to be tied in to the group goals in other ways.  The more they do to encourage revolution, the more danger they are in of being caught. They should get vested in the outcome as a consequence of what they do.

--Emily Care

[Jonathan Walton]

Haiti was the obvious one, just because it was famous and fairly successful.

As for Africa, I don't remember exactly, but I seem to recall one in French West Africa that led to the formation of an independent state.  I'll try to look that one up and see if I can find anything.  I could be wrong.

In the US, the most famous slave uprising was probably the Nat Turner Slave Revolt that took place in Virginia during the early 1830's.  There's also Amistad of course, just because many people have probably seen the movie.

As for the others, I think you definitely need a Marxist-themed one, since most Communist Revolutions used the image of "the slavery of the working classes."  Tsarist Russia would be neat, with the serfs as protagonists.  Communist China would work less well, because the peasants really weren't slaves in the same manner that the serfs were.

Similarly, to model peaceful revolutions, you might think about including either Aparthied South Africa or Gandhi's British-controlled India, or at least mention them as possibilities.

Finally, on peasant uprisings in China, it's hard to find one that would be a good model for you.  There is the Mandate of Heaven, supporting the dynastic cycle and the "right" of the people to overthrow governments, but that wasn't historically connected to slavery or the oppression of the people.  Often it took place because of famine conditions or outside military forces that the existing government couldn't protect against.  So I don't really have any good advice for you there.  Sorry.