Better Days: A Game of Nostalgia and Memory (long)

[Jay Turner]

Hello all,

I've lurked here for a while now, and reading these fora has been a huge help for my own designs. I have a few games I'm carving out and which mostly exist in my head and in Word docs on my hard drive, but I want to get going and get people to see what I have so far.

So, here's Better Days.

A rough, rough, early draft of it (more of a semi-organized brain-dump, really) is available here as an RTF file. I'll go into it a bit below, though.

This is my first post in this forum, so if you have any input as to the correct process for posting here, that's as welcome as comments and suggestions on the game itself. Please PM me with posting suggestions, rather than posting them here. Thanks in advance.

Better Days is a game in which you and your friends play the roles of old buddies sitting around a table and reminiscing about the good ol' days. One player takes the role of the Historian and takes it upon himself to guide the tale you're all telling together. Unlike a typical GM, the Historian is a player like anyone else, but with unique powers for nudging the story to keep it moving.

You start a game by getting everyone together, makign characters, and having one player say, "Remember that time when we...." The game goes from there, with players inserting memories of events as they see fit. The idea is to craft a tale as your characters would remember it, with all the imagination, peril, and down-to-earth heroism that tends to exist in our memories of our youth.

To make a character, you get together with the other players and discuss your Clique. Just decide what you all liked to do together, be it exploring, getting into fights, jamming in a band, etc. Then each player comes up with a concept of who they used to be. Characters in the game are usually kids on the cusp of adolescence, straddling a line between childhood and adulthood. Each player chooses their role in the group (The Smart One, the Leader, the Fat One, etc. No two characters can have the same role). Once that's done, each player sets their Traits and gets playing.

The traits are binary in nature, with a breakpoint between any two numbers on the scale. The scale goes from 1 to 10. The traits are as follows:

Toughness: Beefy (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10) Wiry
Brains: Book-smart (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10) Street-smart
Imagination: Creative (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10) Cool
Parents: Cloying (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10) Stern

To set a Trait, you place a breakpoint between any two numbers. That point decides the numbers you need to roll above or below on a d10 to properly use that Trait.

So if you're trying to run away from a mean neighbor's dog, you'd roll a d10 and try to land on the Wiry side of your Toughness Trait. If your Toughness looked like this:

Beefy (1 2 3 4 5 6|7 8 9 10) Wiry

You'd want to roll a 7 or higher.

Another Trait, Memory, describes how well you remember events that don't directly have to do with your character's Traits. You use this to introduce story elements like speeding trains, a gang of bullies, or, say, a dead body in the woods. Your Memory starts at 5, and you must roll under it to succeed. Failure on a Memory check loses you a point of Memory, but Memory can be bought back up with But Points (below). The Historian doesn't need to roll Memory to introduce story elements, but he can be overidden by a Memory roll from anyone else at the table.

The only time you roll is when someone else at the table challenges your description of how an event happened (read: they "remember things differently" from the way you remember them). If you succeed, your memory is correct. If you fail, the event happened the way the other player remembered it. Winning such a check gains you a But Point. If multiple people are rolling, the one who rolls closer to thei breakpoint without leaving the desired side of the Trait wins.

But Points are simply points you use to add a "Yeah, but..." to a situation. If you fail a Trait check, you can spend a But Point to throw in an extra consideration for the event. Say you failed a check to get away from the dog. You could spend a But Point to say, "Yeah, but the dog was on a leash, so he didn't reach me." No one can contest a But Point when spent, and only one may be spent per Trait check. You can spend a But Point to modify any check made by any person at the table. You can also spend 10 But Points to buy your Memory score up by 1. The Historian has an infinite amount of But Points for use in Memory-based situations, but he must draw from his character's But Points in situations involving his character's Traits.

Cuts N' Bruises represent injury, and you can take Cuts n' Bruises equal to the highest number on the Beefy side of your Toughness. Once you take that many wounds, you cannot make Toughness checks--if someone contests your Toughness-based action, you fail (though you can spend a But Point). You're still in the game, though, and can play through the adventure of being the injured one on the "quest." Injuries like broken bones and gunshot wounds fill up your Cuts N' Bruises automatically with one injury.

The player characters cannot die in this game, or they wouldn't be there to reminisce in the present.

I think that's about the bones of it. The RTF goes into more detail about setting and Traits, and it has more examples.

Any feedback (on the game or on the process of posting in this forum) would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Simon W]

I like the mechanics of Better Days and the 'setting'.

What I don't understand, unless I missed it, is why another player might call for a discussion of an event, unless her own character is affected?  (your example of remembering climbing over the fence and getting away from the dog, compared with another player's memory of the dog getting the kid).

That is from my initial reading. Look forward to seeing some of your other games when you've put them on your site.

Gideon
http://www.geocities.com/simonwashbourne/Beyond_Belief.html

[Jay Turner]

Thanks, Gideon. :)

I'm working on that, actually. I was considering putting a But Point pot in play, where if you challenge someone and they fail their check, you then get a But Point yourself. That might inspire players to challenge each other more often.

The only real incentive I have built in right now is that of creating a better story. The price for being Historian and having the extra Memory/But Point powers is that you need to use them to keep the story moving. If the players are falling into more traditional roles (not down on the jargon here quite yet), you might need to take up a more traditional GM role and prod the story along.

Do I need to provide a Gamist reward for challenging others' memories, like the But Point wager above?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jay,

Wow - this is interesting. It's like The Adventures of Baron von Munchausen except that it's about something.

Based on my (possibly comprehension-limited) reading of your presentation so far, I'm pretty sure you don't need a power-based reward system for Challenges.

I'm even thinking that "Challenges" may not even be the concept that would play best ... instead, I'm thinking of something like alternative views of an event that are compatible (in memory terms) such that no one knows what "really" happened ... that would be the usual outcome of a "Challenge" with actual refutations, literally establishing what damn well did happen instead of what the first guy remembered, being saved for special occasions.

I guess I'm thinking of the "softer" outcome (which actually requires more creativity) being the default "win" of the dice roll somehow. What I'm trying to get away from is a motor of "story" that most effectively relies on player disagreement, which is a common issue for currency-based Narrativist games. Both Soap and Universalis struggled with this during their design stages.

Best,
Ron

[Jay Turner]

Thanks, Ron. :)

I'm not sure if I fully get your meaning about soft outcomes. Are you saying it might be best for player disagreements to be solved in actual spoken discussion, and for "Challenges" to be saved for really important events (like fights with bullies, parent/teacher conferences, etc.)? If so, I'm not sure how that would work. Honestly, I'm coming from a Gamist/Sim background, so I'm still in the process of opening my mind to Narrativist styles. My first reaction was to propose some form of possible loss facing people in a Challenge (like the loss of the Memory stat possible in any Memory check) that might encourage the players to come to some concensus without involving the dice for most situations.

Am I understanding your point correctly? How might I handle the softer outcomes?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jay,

You're not quite seeing it, so let me clarify.

I'm saying, keep the dice - never mind all that floofy "let's talk about it until we agree," I hate that stuff in role-playing and am now restraining myself from a biased tirade.

Back to the point (sorry 'bout that). The idea is that Player A says, "This is what happened," and Player B says, "That's not how I remember it." All right, they roll. My suggestion is, instead of either A or B being right, case closed, have the most common outcome being some kind of forced compatibility between the two stories. Such that either memory is a version of what happened.

The player who "won" the roll, then, might be the one whose character was most favored in the situation in both versions (or something; this is just a suggestion). I could also see that if the A and B versions were rock-solid incompatible from the start, then we'd have to move to a Challenge mechanic more like what you described. And that's cool too, just "harder" in terms of one person getting his or her way.

How's that sound? It also seems interesting to me to pose, at some point (beginning or middle of the session) some issue that the adult characters are resolving among them, through this discussion of memories. In movies based on this idea, they usually get together for some typical reason like a reunion or family gathering, and you can tell there's just a little bit of tension going on. Sooner or later, the source of the tension has become apparent as everyone's versions of what happened way back when are showing some incompatibilities (as well as clarifiers, and audience-hooks). So working out "what happened" in the past (and I use those quotes on purpose) becomes a venue for reconciliation or confrontation in the present.

Best,
Ron

[Jay Turner]

Okay, I think I see where you're heading.

Ted remembers that he managed to beat up the bully by himself, but that he took a couple of Cuts n'Bruises in the fight. Gary remembers something about Ted getting beat up fairly badly, and that Gary had to jump in and save him.

They roll, both aiming for the Beefy side of their Toughness. If Ted's roll wins, then Ted's player must come up with a version of the fight in which Gary jumped in, but Ted was doing well enough without him, and Ted wins the fight. If Gary wins, he'll remember a version of the combat in which Ted was maybe doing okay, but Gary jumped in and turned the fight decisively in Ted's favor.

In the incompatible-outcomes case (Ted says he won the fight, and the Historian says he lost it, for example), the Historian would call for a Challenge, and it would work like it's stated in the RTF.

Is that more along the right line?

I think there's a certain amount of this already in the game, in the form of But Points, which let you alter a losing outcome just a bit in your favor. Would you suggest going further?

editing to add: I like the idea of present-day conflicts entering into the game, too, but I'm not sure exactly how to handle that. I'll give it some thought.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jay,

Yeah, that's more like what I was thinking - kind of in between the But Points (which I saw as add-ons without much "change" of the already-stated memory) and Challenges.

However, I'm not sure if right is really the issue, in terms of the overall game design. These are just my reactive notions, as a potentially-interested player, not meant to be corrective Word or anything.

Have you seen Bedlam or Once Upon a Time? Both are extremely competitive games involving story-creation, and you can contrast them very well with Universalis or Soap which are story-creation games which occasionally dip into competition.

Best,
Ron

[Jonathan Walton]

Yea, a nostalgia game!  I was planning to write one of these!

Check out the game I describe in this post:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=5796&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30

It was originally going to be a Little Fears-ish sort of game called "Childhood's End," with people reminiscing about when they were kids.  You can even see hints of it in Vespertine when I talk about the Last Great Summer.  About a year ago, when it was on one of the front burners, I made some graphics for it, here.

In any case, it looks like you're doing something pretty different.  I applaud you and definitely encourage this effort.  I don't have time to tackle a project like this right now, so it's great that someone else is doing it.  Go, Jay, go!  Push that envelope! :)

[Simon W]

But, that's not how I remembered the question....(he he)

I still don't see that this will lead other players to 'but in'. Without an incentive, I am sure that some players (certainly in my group , if we tried this) would sit back and let a player tell his story, without creating those little twists, using their 'but points'.

Perhaps part of the incentive is to get 'one-over' on one (or all?) of the other characters, maybe based upon their respective 'current day situations'. Eg one character is now in a highly paid job and lets the others know all about it, or one married the beautiful girl who was the girl of another characters dreams or one of them stole (borrowed without giving back?) something from the other and so on - they use these narratives partly as a means of 'scoring points' against the other character through the narrative of what happened way back when....

The character who is the object of this 'point scoring' may not even know what he has done? He might be trying to score points against one of the other characters for his own reasons? Each player might even have to try to guess what it is he is supposed to have done, by the end of the narrative?

I hope this makes some sense? I haven't really thought this through properly, I just needed to get this idea down. Maybe it's drifting away too much from your original idea?

Gideon
http://www.geocities.com/simonwashbourne/Beyond_Belief.html

[Jay Turner]

Ron,

I'll add Bedlam and Once Upon a Time to my list of things to check out. :)

Jonathan,

I checked that post, and man, it looks like we must have seen the same ad on TV for Stand By Me. That's uncanny. Better evidence for psychic powers need not be presented. I'll be looking closer at Vespertine, too. :) Thanks for the encouragement!

[Jay Turner]

(Cross-posted with Gideon)

I see where you're coming from there, and I think it might help in my quest to find some "present day" context for the players at the table. Maybe a Rivalry stat of some kind, to represent tensions within the current group? Something like the Vaulderie stat in Vampire, that represents your character's relationship with each individual in the clique? Then there could be a mechanic by which any challenge won vs. a character with which you have a rivalry gets you a But Point, but the mechanic should also reward attempts to reconcile those differences. I'll have to give that some thought. I don't want to get too rule-y with that stuff, but I agree with you, because my current group is a bit too Gamist/Sim to really jump in with memory challenges just to further a story without a reward of some kind.

[clehrich]

I actually played in a really weird game like this, albeit a long time ago.  My recollection is that people mostly wanted to "butt in" when their own characters got involved, or when things got dull.  So it seems to me that you want to encourage people to jump in and insert their own characters.

You have the example of Ted's fight.  So what did Gary have to do with it?  I mean, all you've really got initially is Ted in a fight, and mostly winning.  At this point, Gary's player wants to get into the action, because Gary is really the one who was into fighting, so he says, "Yeah, but Ted, the thing is I had to pull your ass out of the fire, remember?"  "No way, man, I was doing great until you butted in."  And so on.

What I'm saying is that if you encourage people mostly to stick to the old "don't mess with others' characters" principle, then the others in a given story are going to want to jump in anyway, because otherwise they don't get to do anything.  Half the time you won't really need a formal resolution:

"No, see, Ted, what you're forgetting here is the other guy, you know, the one who was behind the bush?  See he was coming up behind you to really kick your ass, and I figured, hey, two on one ain't fair, so what I did was I just came up and whomped that guy, and helped out a bit with the first guy, and you were pretty much okay, and didn't even cry all that much."
"No way, I totally did not cry!  I kicked that guy in the nads, and then I was practically pulling that other guy off you, but I agree we got him eventually, and remember? we found the first dude's wallet, and--"
[Fred] "Found it?  I was running up and like totally saw you pull it out of that guy's pocket!"
[Gary]"No, sorry, you're going senile here, he dropped it on the ground and we picked it up."
[Ted]"Yeah, and you [Fred] were all like 'No we shouldn't take it 'cause that's stealing' and we were all like 'No way, they tried to beat on us, so it's only fair' and you were all like..."

And so on.

Seems like I'd find this fun -- I'm inventing rapidly in this context.  At any rate, I think the way to get people to "but" is to more or less require it if a given character is going to enter the story.

My remaining question is how you're going to start all of this.  I mean, I'd think you'd need some sort of core event or something, and perhaps a notional first climax: "Remember the time we played hooky and found that dead body?"  So we start with the hooky, and slooowly weave toward the dead body, and then try to figure it out from there.

[Jay Turner]

The RTF (which is not finished yet, but is linked above) goes into more detail about how the game is played. Essentially, the game starts pretty much how you say: One player says, "Hey, remember the time we stole drinks from that store, and the owner chased us around all day?" That player becomes the Historian, who has a few powers that give him the ability to jumpstart a stalled story (No risk of Memory loss when challenged on a plot event, But Points spent to modify others' Memory checks don't come from his character's pool). The other players just run with it from there.

Your example sounds fun. I don't think I'd require checks for everything, just things on which the players can't agree. In your example, when Gary says he didn't cry, if Ted insists that he cried, and that they were going to call his Mom but were scared what would happen if she found out Gary'd been in a fight, then Ted might ask Gary to check Toughness or Memory to see for sure.

I'm currently trying to figure out how important the characters' lives in the present should be in the game. If you've come back to hang out with old friends, it would matter to you if things had happened in the interim that affected your lives. Say Gary and Ted were roommates in college, and Gary stole Ted's girlfriend and ended up marrying her. That might affect the way they interact, no? I just can't figure out if that dynamic (a second game around the first, involving resolving problems among the friends in the present) would be that much fun.

The best thing I have so far is for each player to create a binary attribute for each other character at the table, with "Friends" at one end and "Rivals" at the other, then set a breakpoint for that trait. Whenever you challenge someone to make a check, you can roll your relationship with that person; if you roll on the friend side (the upper side in this case), the person you challenged gets a +1 (or +2 if you roll a 10), and if you roll on the Rival side, the other player gets a -1 (or -2 if you roll a 1).

The effect of that (I'm guessing, since I just came up with it a moment ago) would be to encourage people to roll a) whenever they really want a friend to succeed or b) whenever they really want a rival to fail. Rolling it, though, always risks going the other way. I'd say that players can change their breakpoints on these relationship traits at any time by 1-point jumps. The check on this is that it isn't to your best interest to give more Friend room to a character your character doesn't often agree with.

I don't know if that makes sense. The questions are a) Is the dynamic among the characters in the present interesting and fun enough to include in the game, and b) would a system like the one above invoke that feeling of friendship and rivalry?