Theme-Chaser rewrite

[Tony Irwin]

I've rewritten my text for Theme-Chaser. It was from reading (and rereading) the rules for Universalis and Paladin that I think I've gleaned a few tips for how better to present my rules in a written text. They both seem to me like really good rule books for the "progression" in them.

Anyway, apart from the rules rewrite, the whole PDF is a bit nicer to look at, hopefully making it easier to digest. Most exciting of all is the new... uhhh... "artwork" that I've added. I'm especially proud of the "Were-Ape" on page 7. Ahem. Seriously though... it breaks the text into portions nicely.

Here's a summary of changes:

Terminology reworked: Story Stages are now Story Foundations (you use em to build your story - intuitive eh?!)

Examples: Examples of play throughout the text.

Acting Out: The Act it Out option has received a lot of work, hopefully now it shows how the system can be used to generate "conventional" RPG play.

Credits: Just started these, more to come.

Pretty Pictures: Uhh, well actually no.

As always I'd be very grateful for any feedback on the game system. Even a "I don't get it, it don't make sense" can help me to develop it!

Link to my site is http://uk.geocities.com/tony_irwin50/

Tony

[ThreeGee]

Hey Tony,

I read your rules, but before I comment, please allow me to ask the question, "Why would I play your game?" If you can answer that, it will help me focus my impressions around what you want out of the game.

Later,
Grant

[Tony Irwin]

Hey Tony,

I read your rules, but before I comment, please allow me to ask the question, "Why would I play your game?" If you can answer that, it will help me focus my impressions around what you want out of the game.

Later,
Grant

Thanks for taking the time to read it Grant! Good question, here's the reason I'd say I enjoy playing it:

Its a game structure for a group of people who want to tell very different stories. Everyone can maintain director stance in their own story, and invite others to have controlled participation with author, or pawn stance.

Tony

[ThreeGee]

Hey Tony,

Interesting. I noticed a definite lack of crunchy bits and was wondering if you meant theme-chaser to be a generic game. I can see now that the player's token is their story rather than a character.

The rules are rather abstract, so I had to read them a few times before I felt I had the gist of the game. Also, I felt that concepts were explained before being introduced. Perhaps defining game terms, then giving the instructions for play, and then going into detail would help.

Theme-chaser seems to be more of a collaborative anthology than a roleplaying game. At the end, where dice are introduced, it seems a little jarring. The rest of the game relies on a collaborative process which would seem to also cover changing the basic premises of the game.

The biggest problem that I foresee is related to the openness of the rules. The players are generally free to do anything they please, including ignoring the rest of the universe in favor of their own story.

Anyway, it is an interesting take on round-robin storytelling. I am curious how playtesting has gone.

Later,
Grant

[Tony Irwin]

The rules are rather abstract, so I had to read them a few times before I felt I had the gist of the game. Also, I felt that concepts were explained before being introduced. Perhaps defining game terms, then giving the instructions for play, and then going into detail would help.

A good point - thankyou! Initially I had been ok with just a nice progression where you kind of learn it as you go along. It was short enough where it wouldn't matter if you had to jump back everynow and again to clarify something or reread the same section a couple of times. I think its long enough now though that it does merit a proper introduction where the reader can see me properly explain "This is what your game will look like" before going on to examine the concepts in detail.

Theme-chaser seems to be more of a collaborative anthology than a roleplaying game. At the end, where dice are introduced, it seems a little jarring. The rest of the game relies on a collaborative process which would seem to also cover changing the basic premises of the game.

Again a good point - the dice are a different way of doing things from the rest of the game, so its all the more important that I give a play example for that part of the rules (I think its the only main rules concept that doesn't have an example, doh!)

In play the dice have been great. Because it ties into your theme-strength, other players can limit your powers simply by not using your Foundations and thus keeping your theme-strength. In one game where I purposely decided to try and "break" the game, the other players where able to control me this way.

The dice add some excitement to the game, introducing or changing material to the game world could involve disrupting the flow of narration - the dice still disrupt that but do it in a fun way. Anyway the onus is definately on me to show (through examples in the rules, and writing up a few games in Actual Play) how its worked, rather than just talk about it.

The biggest problem that I foresee is related to the openness of the rules. The players are generally free to do anything they please, including ignoring the rest of the universe in favor of their own story.

In play, we've always seen a very gradual convergence of stories even when people have purposely chosen to differentiate their plans from everyone else's. By limiting the amount of things you can have in a scene, and how far you can progress and change the scenes, everyone is forced to at least look for opportunities to share and co-operate even if nothing satisfactory turns up. Again, I tried breaking this aspect of the game, when I had my own little story in my own little world I did have fun - but it was clear that everyone else was having much more fun! Again however, the onus is on me to show examples and write ups of play of how this has worked.

Grant, thanks for taking the time to read it so thoroughly and make such insightful points. I appreciate that a lot, cheers!

Tony

[ThreeGee]

Hey Tony,

You bet. There are a lot of neat concepts in Theme-Chaser, so I am glad that you have put a lot of thought into making it work well.

Later,
Grant