New game - Shadows in the Fog - help wanted

[clehrich]

http://auroragames.com/pdf/shadows.pdf" target="blank">Shadows In the Fog PDF

At this link, you'll find a first draft of Shadows in the Fog, a new RPG set in an occult version of Jack the Ripper's London.

Meta-Design Notes

The game is structured to have a pretty strong Narrativist perspective.  That is, the players as players will have a great deal of control over the flow of the game, not necessarily limited by their characters' perspectives.  Insofar as there is an explicit premise, it has to do with developing and dealing with the characters' increasing disjuncture between the world of Victorian social masks and the twisted reality they're participating in.

The game has some Gamist elements.  There is a definite sense in which a player can "win" through various kinds of play, ranging from in-character roleplay to out-of-character scene-writing, with a number of elements ranging in between.

The game uses Tarot cards for all its explicit mechanics.

The game is aimed at experienced play-groups interested in doing something a bit experimental.  I don't think or claim that any particular element here is brand new and whatnot, but I do think the total conception is somewhat unusual.  I also think that newcomers to the RPG hobby will find the game somewhat bizarre and lacking in guidance.

If you want to play the game, go right ahead, but please let me know what you think: what works, what doesn't, what needs fleshing out, what's cool, and so forth.

Comments on the Current Draft

Here's what's not done (so please don't tell me that it's not done - - I know!):

1. Volumes 2 and 3, which will include detailed setting materials (vol. 2) and some adventure ideas and GMCs (vol. 3) are not done at all.  It'll be a while - - don't hold your breath.

2. Descriptions of all the magic types are not done; some of them are here, but they're sketches.

3. The Bibliography is missing a lot of entries, and some of the publication information is not there.

4. The layout is ugly - - pure prose, in book form.  The final version will have lots of contemporary drawings and pictures, but I'm not there yet.

5. Text that will end up in neat little boxes is not that way now --- it just says [BOX: ].  I've put the contents of each box within the brackets, so it's readable, if unattractive.

Here's what I really want suggestions about:

1. The mechanics, particularly the issues of Bidding, and of Interpreting for magic.

2. The general tone and stance.

Thanks a lot!  I'm looking forward to some trenchant criticism, and who knows? maybe a brief play-test.
Chris Lehrich

[simon]

Read through your game with great interest - it's almost exactly the same setting that I'm developing: a Victorian culture where the supernatural exists (which surprisingly evolved from a near future SF setting). I too wanted to make a game issue of the social and cultural tenisons of the period (late Victorian/Edwardian in my case) and in particular those centred on class and 'gentlemanliness'. That said, our mechanics differ widely. But this is more a matter of our respective tastes - mine lie more towards the sim end than the narrative end of the spectrum. So, what's my point?

Well, given that you delinate such an intricate world why do you insist so much on (the equally well delinated and deliciously juicy) the game being character driven? My point is this: your central theme can work as well in any setting - the premise being something like "what secrets do you keep hidden and what do you reveal". It seemed to me such a waste of the richness of Victorian Britain as a setting centred game.

Secondly, and more specifically, why do you so actively discourage working class characters? It was the working classes that developed and produced a thriving occult culture of spirit-summoning, talking with the dead, etc. that lead to such 'professional' (I've never been comfortable with middle class - as indeed you show in your 4-tier expanison of it) interest as manifested in the Society for Psychical Research and what not. Not only does the addition of w/class add more tension and potential for conflict (the classes in Britain still have difficulty communicating with each other), but it also introduces some political elements to the storytelling.

I'm not sure why cards and not dice are used. Maybe I've missed the point - I intend to re-read it carefully. But if it is simply a gimmick, I'd stick to dice. And you also talk a lot about 'in-character' behaviour which seems to me more a simulationist concern than a narrativist one. Not that you shouldn't try to combine them, of course, but just that it makes the game pull in two directions which may occassionally be uncomfortable.

As for your bibliography, what about the popular magazines of the period? They were full of short fiction - gothic, horror, SF - which are themselves reflections of (better, examples of) the fears of degeneration of decadency which characterised Late Victorian culture and which fed into interest in the occult, class-conflcit, 'mask' wearing as you put it.

I'm deeply interested in many levels in Victorian culture and have a PhD in the history of Victorian science - I'm pretty knowledgeable about the weird sciences of the period too (spiritualism, phrenology, etc.). If you want to chat about these things and how they could be translated into a game, send me a message. I'm be delghted to chew the fat.

[clehrich]

Simon,

First of all, thanks for slogging through the material, and thanks also for your criticisms.  Let me try to address (which is not to say deny) your concerns.

Well, given that you delinate such an intricate world why do you insist so much on (the equally well delinated and deliciously juicy) the game being character driven?

This may be an issue of overstating emphasis.  My feeling is that the wonderfully complex world of Victorian London needs exploration in the game, but that over-emphasis on setting per se tends to encourage a sort of "I'm not doing anything because I don't know the setting, but you do so tell me" approach.  At least, on one occasion that I ran a version of this, several players took this attitude.  In stressing character and some narrative devices, I want to lean on characters as constituent parts of the setting, not pawns or outside observers.  

The other point here is that I think emphasizing the complexity of these characters as Victorian people actually encourages a somewhat Sim attitude toward the setting, while simultaneously focusing attention on the ways in which the players have enormous control over the world (see below).  I don't know if this helps.

Secondly, and more specifically, why do you so actively discourage working class characters?

You're dead on about the w/class's centrality to many occult developments, especially Spiritualism.  Again, I think I may have over-stressed things.  What I've seen happen in various games with complex historical backdrops is that some players, out of laziness, weird powergaming, or just a lack of interest, will deliberately create characters who are not really part of the ordinary sphere of the rest of the characters.  Now if you want to play a working-class Spiritualist medium who has his ways and means of being somewhat accepted by a lot of professional-types, I'm very much in favor of that.  What I'm not in favor of is, "I'm going to play a Cockney thug for laughs, and that way I don't really have to read up on the setting."  Clearly I need to restructure issues of emphasis here --- what I want to avoid is gimmicks.

I'm not sure why cards and not dice are used. Maybe I've missed the point - I intend to re-read it carefully. But if it is simply a gimmick, I'd stick to dice.

The question is the magic system, i.e. the use of Trumps.  I don't think that's a gimmick; certainly it would be hard to do with dice.

And you also talk a lot about 'in-character' behaviour which seems to me more a simulationist concern than a narrativist one. Not that you shouldn't try to combine them, of course, but just that it makes the game pull in two directions which may occassionally be uncomfortable.

Okay, I'm covering up my head here, but the reality is that I see SitF as a not-at-all incoherent blend of Sim/Gam/Nar concerns.  I know from Ron's work that's impossible, but I don't agree with him.

Basically I see the in-character and setting stuff as very much Sim-oriented; I'd like to see characters really being Victorians, and complex ones at that.

I see the player manipulation of story to personal (character and player) ends as being rather Gamist, in the sense that players are encouraged to come up with ways to "do better" than each other, at many levels.

I see the player rewriting of story as it goes along as being rather encouraging of Narrativist perspectives; I'd like to see players having tremendous control of the feel, arc, and even major details of a story, and the mechanics largely support this emphasis, I think.

It sounds to me (as you say) as though you are strongly on the Sim side of things, and wonder why I'm inserting all the Nar stuff.  I guess I really believe that there is a way to have the characters exploring their very complex world (Sim) at the same time as the players are constructing a lot of the intricacies of that world around them (Nar).

I'm totally with you on the bibliography --- I've barely scratched the surface.  More to come on that one.

Does any of this clarify matters, or does it just show that I'm really confused?

[Spooky Fanboy]

I read your game and the previous poster's reactions to it. Here, upon a brisk and therefore sketchy reading, is my two cents:

1) The use of Tarot for the magic aspect of Shadows in the Fog is well done! This is something that makes me slam my head into the wall and ask, "Why didn't *I* think of this?" I would be loath to change anything about it. Interpreting the cards is a good mechanic that (IMHO) rests easily on a solid foundation.

However, the other poster perhaps raised a valid point in asking why, for mundane actions, dice were not used, with the caveat that a player could throw a Trump on them to make it magical and unassailable by ordinary means. Granted, this means GMs and Players learning two sets of rules for a game: one for mechanical acts, one for magic, but that will also emphasize the difference between magic and the mundane.

OTOH, cards give the players a little more control on their impact than dice do. My preference would be to stick with cards, but that's me. I bring it up to remind that there are those more comfortable with dice than with Tarot cards.

I *am* confused about why the GM isn't allowed to know the contents of a player's hand. Knowing what cards a player has defuses the temptation of a player re-stacking his or her deck between games, and the downside to a GM knowing a player's hand is...something I'm at a loss to grasp.

2) I believe the rule on Bidding should include the player giving an explanation *why* they are bidding this way, in reference to how it improves the story. (They can keep personal reasons to themselves, or share them, as they see fit.) Counter-bids should also come with a game-specific justification. This way, if there is Bidding, it is more likely to be constructive to the game rather than distracting from it. (A little bit of Universalis in there; if the players are responsible for moderating parts of the game, then they should be held somewhat accountable for the success of the evening's entertainment. The above is, IMHO, a valid guideline.)

That's it so far. And so far, bloody well done!

[clehrich]

Spooky Fanboy,

Thanks for your input.  And thanks for reading the thing!

A few remarks:

However, the other poster perhaps raised a valid point in asking why, for mundane actions, dice were not used, with the caveat that a player could throw a Trump on them to make it magical and unassailable by ordinary means.... OTOH, cards give the players a little more control on their impact than dice do.

I guess I kind of like the idea of knowing you have certain options in advance.  If you know you have a 3 and a Queen in your hand right now, that has a different effect from if you really need to succeed at this roll right now and roll badly, or "waste" that fantastic roll on something dumb.  It also means that you might have a hand of Trumps --- or none at all.  It also provides a smooth transition from one kind of mechanics to another, and makes important "rolls" a resource.

I *am* confused about why the GM isn't allowed to know the contents of a player's hand. Knowing what cards a player has defuses the temptation of a player re-stacking his or her deck between games, and the downside to a GM knowing a player's hand is...something I'm at a loss to grasp.

I really hadn't ever thought of this.  Thinking about it now, I guess I don't really see the players as very likely to stack their hands much (if you're worried, you could put the hands in little envelopes or something).  I also think that when you get right down to it, there is likely to be a certain edge of Gamism here in terms of "me vs. the GM," and if the GM knows what's in your hand, that effect is less present.  But actually I can't see that it would matter very much.  Certainly I wouldn't be able to keep track of everyone's hands from moment to moment.  Do you really think this is a significant advantage, apart from the question of possible cheating?

2) I believe the rule on Bidding should include the player giving an explanation *why* they are bidding this way, in reference to how it improves the story. (They can keep personal reasons to themselves, or share them, as they see fit.) Counter-bids should also come with a game-specific justification. This way, if there is Bidding, it is more likely to be constructive to the game rather than distracting from it.

I think you're probably right about this.  My sense is that a group, once used to the system, will not need such a rule --- but it's a lot easier to drop out than to insert later.  I agree about counter-bids as well: once a bidding thing gets going, we want to be sure that it's got a purpose other than "I dunno, I felt like, got a problem with that?"  That said, one of the examples has someone bidding a difficulty up because she wants the guy to fail, mainly because her character is supposed to be the expert at this sort of thing.  I think that's legitimate, but it would also be most effective if the player explains this.  Then in future, when the first player says "Hey I'm going to go over there and do X," the other players will say, "Um, remember what happened last time?  Why don't you let the expert do it, hmmm?"  (shift this into Victorian language, please).

Thanks again.

[Spooky Fanboy]

But actually I can't see that it would matter very much.  Certainly I wouldn't be able to keep track of everyone's hands from moment to moment.  Do you really think this is a significant advantage, apart from the question of possible cheating?

No, I don't. However I do not like the idea of the hands being secret from the GM, who, in the event of a problem player, is supposed to arbitrate. Most mature groups would not need this; however, most mature groups don't have problem players in the mix. I agree that the idea of putting the cards in envelopes at the end of the game is probably the best idea.  

That said, one of the examples has someone bidding a difficulty up because she wants the guy to fail, mainly because her character is supposed to be the expert at this sort of thing.  I think that's legitimate, but it would also be most effective if the player explains this.

I agree; when I first read that example, however, I didn't get that. That's why I think that part has to be clarified in the rules. If she had announced that, and explained how it made the story more rewarding, that would have cleared the air from the get-go, and probably would have prevented further occurences.

Just some things that I'd feel comfortable if they were clarified and emphasized; most Narrativist games, even if they don't need that kind of structure, should have it there for the GM and players to discard as they see fit.

[clehrich]

Spooky,

Thanks.  I haven't written a Nar-type game before (not even a sketch), so any advice you folks can offer on emphasizing or stressing things which I'm taking for granted is much appreciated.  I will rewrite the remarks on players' commenting when bidding.

I like the idea of suggesting the envelopes for cards.  Simplifies matters, I guess.  Do you think there is any other reason the GM really needs to know the players' cards?

Thanks.

[Spooky Fanboy]

I like the idea of suggesting the envelopes for cards.  Simplifies matters, I guess.  Do you think there is any other reason the GM really needs to know the players' cards?

With the envelopes or some other method in use, no. I don't want to give either side an "advantage" over the other, as their should be no "sides" in a Narrativist game to begin with. Some groups, however, are going to need "training wheels" to get into the Narrativist groove until they're ready to move on. I believe that the game rules should give them those training wheels until they decide that they're no longer necessary.

It's one of the biggest dilemmas of GMing a game: Players hate to be railroaded, but boy, do they love having those tracks!

[Spooky Fanboy]

Also in the envelopes' favor: it helps people remember what cards they had between sessions. I know players: Real Life plays hell with the memory, and so few have the discipline to write down what went on. I can easily see some of them forgetting which cards they had.

[marknau]

I like the character creation quite a lot, particularly the way the process goes through layers of development from the exterior to the core of the characters. It is very well-suited to the Victorian setting. I also like the explicit "strike it from the record" rule; it's a nice touch to explicitly give the players permission to take that freedom. The warnings against making a crazy "gimmick" character are good, but are scattered throughout rather than being as explicit in intent as it might be right up front. I think at pg.11 it could be more clear what the term is referring to and why it is undesirable.

From my notes, I see that I didn't notice where it was mentioned how scenes are managed. Is it assumed that the reader is familiar with the process of kicking off, wrapping up, and changing scenes? Or did I miss that? Also, I'm not sure if I noticed what the pre-game role of the GM should be. What sort of prep is suggested?

I really like the way magic is handled. That is the stand-out feature of the game, and is an obvious winner.

The concessions examples aren't as clear as they might be because the skill of the sample character is always 0. It made me overlook that the skill reduces the number of concessions. You probably want an example where skill is not zero to clarify.

It might be nice to have more guidance regarding translating complications into damage.

On a related note, something I tinkered with after reading Chalk Outlines a while ago was making some guidelines for various level of concessions. SO, a 1-point concession is something like "I drop a somewhat distinctive button off of my jacket" and a 3-point concession is "I leave a monogrammed handkerchief behind" IMO, having a huge laundry list of concessions is a bit clunky, and I would prefer the feel of giving 2 3-point concessions rather than 6 concessions.

The skill differences seem very small compared to all the difficulty swinging that can happen with the cards. I can easily be convinced that it doesn't seem that way in actual play, but the numbers assigned to the cards are much more varied than the 3-point difference between Terrible and Brilliant. Also, maybe that's OK.

I was struck negatively by the idea of trading in cards for character improvement. Here's why: Although the "best of" bonusses at the end will tend to reward those who brought goodness to the play session, the card-turning-in mechanism seems to reward players who reign in their level of participation. Is that desirable? Why should a person who saved up 5 high-value cards have his character improve? I'd be more comfortable with a system that just turned "best of" votes into character improvements.

I'm also mildly concerned that the low-number cards are strictly less useful than the high-number cards. If there were some tradeoff that could be found, some mechanism where the low numbers were better than the high ones, that would be nice. Maybe in actual play it all tends to even out, but I was left with a worry that a run of bad cards could feel like unwarranted punishment.

Lastly, the GM is given 6 cards per scene, but told that he shouldn't be too heavy-handed in using them, but that he wants to "get the cards out of the players' hands." Is there a better way to make a mechanism that accomplishes these goals, or is it really necessary to rely on the GM that much to make things work out right? Or is it a non-issue during play, it just happens to work out OK?

Overall, I quite like the game idea. The main points are the Tarot Magic and the detailed character creation process. I'm not totally sold on the particulars of the difficulty->concession mechanism, but that's hard to judge without play. Your components do a good job of serving the intent and feel of the whole game. I enjoyed reading the rules, and would be interested in playing (not necessarily logistically possible for me, but theoretically, I'm interested.) Nice job.

[clehrich]

marknau:

Thanks!  Here's some remarks and responses.

The warnings against making a crazy "gimmick" character are good, but are scattered throughout rather than being as explicit in intent as it might be right up front. I think at pg.11 it could be more clear what the term is referring to and why it is undesirable.

I think you're right.  I also think there are a number of small organization and emphasis problems, but this may be a big one, especially since simon also worried about gimmicks, albeit from a different direction.  I think there needs to be a bit more up-front, in the Character Generation stuff, about what's likely to work and what't not.

From my notes, I see that I didn't notice where it was mentioned how scenes are managed. Is it assumed that the reader is familiar with the process of kicking off, wrapping up, and changing scenes? Or did I miss that? Also, I'm not sure if I noticed what the pre-game role of the GM should be. What sort of prep is suggested?

I don't know, frankly.  I guess I do sort of feel that a GM likely to run this game probably does know her stuff already, and doesn't need too much coaching.  At the same time, I think maybe a bit more about prep is indeed in order.  I'll have to think about what has worked for me, and what would be helpful to say.

I really like the way magic is handled. That is the stand-out feature of the game, and is an obvious winner.

I'm not quoting a lot of compliments, but thanks!  This is (as is I think obvious) my favorite thing here; the rest of the mechanics were in some ways built around it.

The concessions examples aren't as clear as they might be because the skill of the sample character is always 0. It made me overlook that the skill reduces the number of concessions. You probably want an example where skill is not zero to clarify.

Yeah --- those aren't the only examples that suck, either.  Definitely needs some revision there.

It might be nice to have more guidance regarding translating complications into damage.

Agreed.  I'm still working out how I think damage ought to work.  Any ideas?

On a related note, something I tinkered with after reading Chalk Outlines a while ago was making some guidelines for various level of concessions. SO, a 1-point concession is something like "I drop a somewhat distinctive button off of my jacket" and a 3-point concession is "I leave a monogrammed handkerchief behind" IMO, having a huge laundry list of concessions is a bit clunky, and I would prefer the feel of giving 2 3-point concessions rather than 6 concessions.

It's funny, I was just thinking that last night my own self.  I think it makes a lot of sense to grade concessions into blocks of 1, 2, or 3, which might also scale nicely into damage grades of some sort.  This would certainly help deal with the stack o' concessions problem.

The skill differences seem very small compared to all the difficulty swinging that can happen with the cards. I can easily be convinced that it doesn't seem that way in actual play, but the numbers assigned to the cards are much more varied than the 3-point difference between Terrible and Brilliant. Also, maybe that's OK.

I tried to weasel around this with the 1/2 rule, but I think maybe it's not enough, given the card scale.  One thing I thought of a while ago, and I'm not sure why I didn't include it in the end, was that the skill levels would scale x2; thus Brilliant is +4 (i.e. -4 concessions), Terrible is -2, and so on.  I think this would help a lot, since the worst that could happen to you is difficulty 14.  At the same time, even granting that action resolution is only going to happen in pretty serious circumstances, the average drawn card is around 7.5 (not including Trumps), so on a random drawn the difficulty is going to mean Brilliant gets 4 concessions.  But....

Going out of order

Lastly, the GM is given 6 cards per scene, but told that he shouldn't be too heavy-handed in using them, but that he wants to "get the cards out of the players' hands." Is there a better way to make a mechanism that accomplishes these goals, or is it really necessary to rely on the GM that much to make things work out right? Or is it a non-issue during play, it just happens to work out OK?

I think I again mis-emphasized.  My feeling is that most action resolutions are going to happen on Good or Brilliant skills, and that the GM will usually want to set the difficulty rather than draw for it.  This way, the average difficulty of around 8 is actually going to be reduced a lot, unless the GM wants it harder for some reason.  But again, if I upped the scale to x3 (Brilliant = -6, thus 2 concessions on an 8), this would mean that a totally average thing for a Brilliant person would have some trivial but interesting plot hooks.  Hmm.  I'll have to think about scaling.

I was struck negatively by the idea of trading in cards for character improvement. Here's why: Although the "best of" bonusses at the end will tend to reward those who brought goodness to the play session, the card-turning-in mechanism seems to reward players who reign in their level of participation. Is that desirable? Why should a person who saved up 5 high-value cards have his character improve? I'd be more comfortable with a system that just turned "best of" votes into character improvements.

Erg.  That's a really good point: I'm rewarding people for refusing to play cards.  I'll think about the "best of" thing, but are there any other suggestions out there?  At one point I had the idea that you could get rid of low cards this way, but I could never work out a simple mechanic for it.

I'm also mildly concerned that the low-number cards are strictly less useful than the high-number cards. If there were some tradeoff that could be found, some mechanism where the low numbers were better than the high ones, that would be nice. Maybe in actual play it all tends to even out, but I was left with a worry that a run of bad cards could feel like unwarranted punishment.

The easy way would be to allow more than one card to be used at a time, up to some maximum number of points.  The problem is that you lose a card each time you play two, and saying that you get to draw two if you play them means that people will "dump" low cards haphazardly.  I don't know.  I think you're right, but I'm not sure what to do about it.  If I scale up the cards, then the skills have to scale up or someone can really slam you very hard, but then the effect scales down, so.... and so on.  Anyone have any ideas here?  I'm thinking.

Overall, I quite like the game idea. The main points are the Tarot Magic and the detailed character creation process. I'm not totally sold on the particulars of the difficulty->concession mechanism, but that's hard to judge without play. Your components do a good job of serving the intent and feel of the whole game. I enjoyed reading the rules, and would be interested in playing (not necessarily logistically possible for me, but theoretically, I'm interested.) Nice job.

Thanks very, very much.  I appreciate not only your willingness to slog through the thing, and to say nice things, but also especially your tough criticisms.  Eventually it might be a good game!

[Valamir]

Okay, I'm covering up my head here, but the reality is that I see SitF as a not-at-all incoherent blend of Sim/Gam/Nar concerns.  I know from Ron's work that's impossible, but I don't agree with him.

Hey Cle, wanted to say I've found this thread fascinating and put Shadows on my list of games to check out.  Wanted to make a quick aside about the above though.  Your sentiments are almost word for word what nearly everyone says initially.  Most often thats a result of of the first superficial contact with what the model is actually saying.  Its pretty deep, and currently pretty dense but I just wanted to note that ones initial reactions to it usually change over time if its something you're interested in enough to pursue further.

[clehrich]

Valamir,

I know what you're saying; really I do.  If this turns into a debate, we should take it to the GNS forum, but here's what I mean:

1. There's a heavy Nar thing going on in Shadows, where the players as players construct and bend the universe by player action.  Some of this is mechanical, but most of it is just a question of players essentially making up the universe's rules as they go along, to fit their conception of what sort of story they want to be in.  The focus here is story and character arc, and revising the setting to fit.

2. The setting is a kind of mainstay for the game, and there is certainly significant emphasis on simulation in an historical mode.  That is, the game stresses having characters who are reasonably plausible Victorians, not stereotypes.  Exploration of Victorian London is a big deal here, but that world (since it's a real world) is so complex that it can be bent and twisted by the players without stopping being itself.

3. The gamist thing really comes in with players using mechanical devices and so forth to outdo each other and the GM.  The game emphasizes these possibilities as legitimate and desirable.  The GM is almost certain to construct detailed, intricate occult plots; the players are encouraged to use their various means to stun the GM.  Similarly, a significant part of character improvement at a mechanical level is based on the group voting you the "best" at one or another thing in a given session.  So you need to do better than the other guy.

Frankly, my feeling about Ron's model is that it is excellent and a great mine for theoretical perspectives, but I don't agree with his basic conclusion.  As I read it, his thesis is that since these GNS priorities are somewhat mutually contradictory (I'd agree, on the moment-to-moment in-session level that the model deals with), therefore a game that tries to serve them all is incoherent.  But what I think he actually means here is that a game which says, "Hey, no matter what your perspective, you'll love this!" is going to be incoherent.  That I'd agree with, but I also think that most experienced players have a wide range of GNS abilities, and can enjoy different takes on things from moment to moment.  So this game says, "There are ways to use those different styles in this game, and they will all have value; if you pick one and ignore the rest, you will need to revise heavily."  I think that's a very different thing, and I think this is a logical flaw in Ron's model.

But if you want to debate this, let's take it the GNS forum.  I'd be genuinely interested in doing so, but I don't know if you would.

[Gwen]

clehrich,

Here is my major question.  Exactly how much am I going to have to research and memorize about Victorian culture to understand or enjoy this game?

I know pretty much nothing about the Victorian time period and it doesn't necessarily strike me as anything I would like to learn a whole lot about.  I'd bewilling to learn some basic stuff, but are the basics all I need to play the game?

For example, the Legend of the Five Rings which was released (before the do20 sys version) was a cool game.  I liked the card games and the world was rich and well-developed!

But when it got time to roleplay my character, I felt as though I had to take a bunch of 400 level Japanese culture classes so I knew when to bow, who to bow to, what to call this guy on feast days and what to call him on saturdays.  It was rediculous and we never once played the game.

So, does your game put this kind of demand on the players?  I'm willing to try your game because I think it has a very well thought out system (and an interesting magic system), but I'm weary of the tons of things I am going to have to remember in order to roleplay correctly.

[clehrich]

Gwen,

Can I just say how good a question I think that is?  I think you've hit the big difficulty with Shadows in the Fog, and it's something I've thought about a great deal.  Let me try to respond coherently.

1. I have run several versions of this, with 2 different groups of players, and rather varied mechanics.  In one run especially, there was the difficulty that some players didn't know enough Victorian stuff to be able to play comfortably, and they felt frustrated.  Not only did they not know enough, but there was also the sense that I had obviously done a lot of research and thus did know, and I think here and there I gave the impression (my fault, totally) that if you did something non-Victorian, I'd stomp on you.  So this has been a problem in the past.

2. This problem got me thinking about balance.  Not the usual RPG balance question (is everyone equally powerful?), but the balance between work (research, etc.) and freedom.  What I want, ideally, is for this game to have a certain initial learning barrier (you have to be willing to do some background reading), but for that to be (1) not insane and (2) liberating in terms of play.  If that works, the theory is that players who are enjoying themselves and notice that reading up on things helps them enjoy themselves will now start doing more reading.  Eventually everyone will have a high familiarity with the setting, without a lot of pain and hard research.

3. The mechanics are intended to lower the barrier by encouraging what I call "faking it."  Provided you can sort of talk the talk, you don't have to walk the walk --- you don't have to know what you're talking about, so long as it sounds right.  This is, after all, how many SF games work: you don't have to understand physics to tinker with a Warp Drive, you just wave your hands and say "I'm turning the 3-8 Dilithium power coupling down to minimal flux, which will rebalance the system towards the left nacelle I/O linkage; this will let me access the membrane plasma conduit in the right nacelle without danger, and then I can fix the problem by just re-routing power from the Impulse drives."  All complete bullshit, but boy, you just know it's going to work.  So all you need to research is how to talk that talk.

4. I further break this down into three parts.  

First, there's learning to talk the social talk, for which there is lots of support in the character generation section.  The research for this is reading Sherlock Holmes, which shouldn't be any great burden.

Second, there's learning to talk the magic talk.  Since you only need to know about your particular kind of magic, you just read a fairly short section (a few pages) of Volume 2 [on which see below], play with some Tarot cards at home, and make it up.  You don't have to know much about real astrology; you just have to be able to sound like your version of astrology makes some sort of vague sense.  See the example of the dowser going into trance about Lambert the butler: what does the player actually need to know about dowsing here?

Third, there's learning to talk the London talk.  This is much harder, and a potentially serious difficulty for the game.  This is really the point of Volume 2, when I someday actually finish it.  It will be a much-condensed primer on Victorian London, covering a range of topics briefly.  The idea is that you don't really need to know much, but you need to have a kind of vague sense of what and where.  Then there are lots of notes and such, which will help if you decide to follow something up for one reason or another.  For example, you really do sort of need to have a vague sense (one sentence would do it) of what the Parnell Affair was, since it dominated all the news for most of 1888-89.  But if your character is going to be an Irishman with a political bent, you probably want to be able to talk the talk of the Parnell Affair.

5. One of the big points of using various Nar-style mechanical tricks to put power into player hands is to stop GMs from doing what I accidentally did: it becomes much more difficult to say, "No, you can't do that, that's not really Victorian."  The question is really whether the group at large considers things sufficiently historically accurate, not what the GM thinks.  If you say, "I'm going to hop into my car and drive down to the local internet cafe," I sure as hell hope your group will assume you're joking.  But if you don't happen to know which kind of carriage is a growler, who cares?

So I think ultimately a lot will depend on Volume 2 for this.  At the moment, um, yeah --- you'd have to do a lot of research.  Sorry.  When Volume 2 is ready, however, it should pretty much do this for you.

That said, I do think a certain amount of work is in order.  I don't know 5 Rings, so I can't comment, but I really can't stand the sort of player (I don't think this is you) who says, "Well, I haven't thought about my character or the game or the setting at all until right now, at the session, so you have to let me do whatever I want."  That's just plain laziness.  On the other hand if someone says, "Look, I've read some Holmes, and I've really worked on this character, and I've thought about my magic, and I'm ready to go," then that player should not be stomped on because he doesn't know that St. John's Wood is an infamous place for rich men to keep their mistresses.