Adventures in Improvised System

[lumpley]

My vision is more satisfying than my dude is in play.

The sad sorrow of roleplaying.  Seriously, did I tell you about that Rolemaster game that I almost played in?  I made up a kick-ass mean little fucker of a Trainspotting halfling, and I could just see how let down he and I were going to be in actual play.  What a relief that the game didn't happen.

Whatcha need is a System that makes collaborating on characters effective.  Which means that you need Systemic support for the other players' investment in and ownership of your vision.  Universalis is breathtakingly good at this: when I say that the young snake is brave, every single person at the table becomes immediately committed to having the young snake be brave.  My personal vision becomes very effectively very public.

Something that helps in our Ars Magica game in particular is being able to revise and re-revise our attempts to communicate our visions.  I can say "y'know, my guy's actually more a badass than that seems," and expect my fellow players to say, "oh! okay! so maybe you say something more like this, so my guy reacts more like this?"  This all happens in the midst of resolution, before the final E; it's not rewriting, it's current negotiation.  I suspect that in some games, the Heroic Drama Point metagame mechanics provide this kind of revision to action sequences.  For dialog, I don't see offhand an alternative to just asking.

You also have to trust the other players' contributions to your vision, which is hard.  But once your character enters actual play, he's not yours any more.  If you expect to hold him to your vision alone, you're setting yourself up.  What this means in practical terms is that sometimes your character's not the badass you thought - your fellow players have seen a flaw in your vision, a place where the character already didn't have integrity, and they're working to fix it.  Either you revise your character with their oversight, or they revise him with yours.  In most games this happens covertly and to your personal detriment.  That's what that Rolemaster game was gonna be - an unfulfilling struggle to compromise down to a poor but System-acceptible shared vision of my guy.  We were gonna have to cut his balls off.

I think that this is all just Egri.  We as audience know what whole characters look like, and we demand them of each other.  If my guy is a sucky lame-o in play, we'll reimagine him until being a sucky lame-o is consistent with his character.  Sad but true.  The alternative is making sure that what happens in play is consistent with his character, so we don't have to.

How do you get the foils you need in your games?

As near as I can tell, create and support the collaboration and it expresses itself in good foils.  In Universalis it's easy to see: we want returns on the young snake's bravery, so we find ways to foil it.  

Imagine if your fellow players were rewarded for having their characters treat your guy as though he were edgy!  The truth is that they are, socially, by you, but often other rewards get in the way.  Find ways to enlist, subvert, convert, or if all else fails do away with those other rewards.  (That last's what we finally did with Ars Magica, after trying many alternatives.  Now we're starting to rebuild rewards the way we want 'em.)

I would venture to guess that if Vincent played the aforementioned edgy guy; the group would be well aware of it, and would work to keep that vision in the same way Vincent would work to keep their's.

As you see, yep.

I think that a lot of the stuff we're both looking for as techniques for during play are actually part of pre-play. Once that foundation is laid, ideas like the neat rewrite spring from everyone being clear about perceived violations of that social contract.

Not quite - yes, the foundation, but not pre-play.  We worked practically all of this stuff out in play.  Pre-play, all we really did is commit to the process.

...And spend five years or so building a shared vision of the Setting, broadly, including a whole lot of historical Color, plus what kinds of Characters and Situations would be called for.  Which, um, maybe helped.

-Vincent

[Tim Alexander]

Hey Vincent,

Not quite - yes, the foundation, but not pre-play. We worked practically all of this stuff out in play. Pre-play, all we really did is commit to the process.

Your right, I downplayed the in game negotiation a bit too much. I think though that without that committment, it's really hard to have any of the negotiation work in play.

...And spend five years or so building a shared vision of the Setting, broadly, including a whole lot of historical Color, plus what kinds of Characters and Situations would be called for. Which, um, maybe helped.

Yeah, this sort of really tightly shared vision is what I was speaking to. It sounds like an awfully fun game you've got going.

-Tim

[Meguey]

Hello all - the other third chiming in -

I just wanted to second Paul's question here. The twist on the scene being what the covenant heard is nothing short of brilliant. If you guys have techniques that you've developed that you can articulate, please give us your pointers.

Tim (and Paul), I think there's two anwsers - one is, as Vincent sort of says, have a long-time stable gaming group. The other is to take into account the breadth of the world. There've been two other times in our current game when we had a whole sub-plots resolve and our main PCs have heard either nothing of it or only rumors (Vincent & Emily - the stuff with the Lake Rusalke and the whole murder thing). I love being deep in character, but often in the drive to protagonize the main PCs, the rest of the world gets sidelined too completely.

(Warning: YMMV) To clarify: the world in which your story is set is not populated by your PCs alone. To act as if your PCs somehow know all, see all, meet all the important people and get all the right news, is so '80s box-set w/module. In our Ars Magica campains, we have group consensus that there are plenty of conven folk, villagers, etc. around, not only in our home covenant but in the tribunal at large. Therefore, there are many other POVs than our main PCs. In the scene Vincent out-lined, he brought in the NPC who was killed and re-animated without asking or batting an eye because we all knew there was a high liklyhood of someone being there. By using these available other POVs, we can get rumors, hearsay, undeserved praise, misunderstandings, eavesdroppings, and out-right lies. One of the funniest scenes in our current campain involved a language barrier between the mage (Vincent's main PC) and a generally off-camera kitchen maid still unfamiliar with the ways of mages. In the scene, the kitchen maid was talking to a long-time covener, and the results were tear-inducing funny. *When we, as players, forget the presence of the minor characters in the scene, we make our own experience less rich and rob it of it's potential.* That's what I mean by "often in the drive to protagonize the main PCs, the rest of the world gets sidelined too completely".

(Vincent says I have to tell the joke, so here goes: Acanthus, Vincent's main PC mage, is feeling breakfasty, and sends Fleur to make him a coddled egg. Fleur is in a state, not knowing what a coddled egg is. She asks Gertrudea. Gertrudea helps with translating 'coddled' as 'treated very gently, handled with great care' Having just seen another mage do a healing spell with a raw egg, Fleur carefully sets a raw egg on a cushion, and brings it slowly and carefully to Acanthus,  presenting it with great solemnity. Acanthus, bewildered, thanks her for her service. Now, by the time Fleur asked Gertrudea for help with a strange word, we were chuckling and by the end we were all laughing so hard it was difficult to keep a straight face long enough to get the words out. If we'd stuck with the camera on Acanthus as he waited for his egg, we'd have missed the whole thing.)

As far as techniques, I'd guess you could quantify it somehow, but it melts down to talking out the wrinkles in the social contract. Pretty much the iron gets called in when we've played something and one of us says "That doesn't sit right" or words to that effect. Then regualr play stops and we go into a meta-game mode, pretty seemlessly by this time, and discuss what's not sitting right, what our various visions were/are, and come up with a solution. Being aware of the camera helps, by which I mean, being aware of who's there, which PCs are getting scene action and who's around being extras on the set who could spread the news later.  I guess if you wanted a mechanic-type technique, I'd have some sort of red flag or other pysical thing that a player could drop on the table when something didn't sit right or was damaging character integrity, then break play and do something like bluegargantua said above, sort it out, and dive back in.

~Meguey

[Meguey]

About character integrity: then there are those times when a key part of one's character concept (He's a charmer with the ladies) just plain does not mesh with the setting of play (we're in the middle of nowhere and all the ladies are either involved elsewhere or not interested). Also, there are times in our group when we've directly opposed character concepts because the character was stagnant at the start and needed a direction to grow. This happens a lot with IC younger characters who think they've seen stuff when they're still green. As they grow, we can support the emergent character without damaging the initial concept - too much.

Also, let me put in here a shameless and blatant plug for the use of gestures, pysical habits, and voice pattern shifts to increase not only character indentity and immersion, but increased edge, charm, sex appeal, etc., etc.

~Meguey

[Emily Care]

Another aspect of the way we play, as I see it, is that we are sensitive to and prioritize player experience over in-game continuity. Meg discribed is at things "not sitting right" (hi Meg!).  Disruption of character integrity can be an unpleasant experience for the player, and instead of saying "suck it up", we'd rather modify the in-game material until it does sit right.

So, we are interested in preserving continuity in ways that support player experience.  Since our system is flexible and includes re-interpretation of events, it never feels like "cheating". The lumpley principle schtick that what happens in the game is only ever what folks agree is what happened, is up front and overtly applied. As Vincent said, the final E can have a lot of discussion before it gets set in stone. And even then, it could be revisited.

Good discussion, all!

--Em

[Paul Czege]

Hey Vincent,

First off, I agree that Universalis is brilliant. But I must say I'm unconvinced that its workings can be correlated to any great extent with the dynamics of what you, Meg, and Emily do during play. A game of Universalis is essentially a mechanically regulated conversation. Your gameplay is a conversation as well, but qualitatively quite dissimilar to a Universalis conversation, I think.

Consider the common dynamic of a group of guys talking. They interrupt each other. They challenge and contradict. They redirect. They talk over each other. The mechanics of Universalis regulate that kind of conversation. It's a male conversation. It's about challenges, and elaborations, and the only kind of support recognized by the system is unqualified agreement.

Your gameplay isn't that. Your gameplay is not an unregulated version of Universalis. If Meg's character enters a room, you take up an NPC and do your best to support what she's trying to do in her scene. Universalis isn't about attentiveness and respectfully facilitating each other. Sure that stuff can happen, but it does so entirely off the radar of the system. Notably absent from Universalis are mechanics for being sympathetic to the efforts of another player even if you disagree with what they're trying to achieve. You either support them in their effort, or you don't. There's no way to give the game equivalent of a plate of homebaked cookies to someone who failed at something you warned them not to do. And there's no "thank you" mechanism for support received during a challenge other than supporting someone later when they're being challenged. But I bet you guys play around with stuff like this in your games all the time. Am I wrong?

Anyway, in case it's not obvious, I'm seriously interested in what a non-systemless non-male "Universalis" might be like.

Paul

[Jonathan Walton]

Anyway, in case it's not obvious, I'm seriously interested in what a non-systemless non-male "Universalis" might be like.

*cough*Ever-After/Facedance*cough*

:)

[Jason Lee]

I haven't had much time for the Forge as of late, but this thread rocks my lame ass and I've got two copper pieces burning a hole in my pocket.

In regards to group devotion to character integrity, do you gals/guy talk about the whys of in-game events (in or out of game)?  Character X did blah because he feels blah because so-and-so did blah when blah happened.  That kind of stuff.

In my experience, character motivations aren't necessarily something that becomes apparent through play, particularly with relationship-centric motivations (love, loyalty, family, etc).  To the outside observer a character can seem sorta random because their motivations change with their feelings.  I fucked the corpse because cold flesh makes me hot is nice and clear.  I fucked the corpse because it reminds me of my mother is a little less clear if you don't explain it.

Discussing the inner world of the characters I think helps solidify the construct of the character in the minds of all the players.  The more solid the image becomes the more invested a player is in something.  Other players are much more likely to uphold the integrity of what they are invested in.  Once the players are invested in your character being edgy they will support that, because it would violate their vision not to.

Also, knowing the why's allows you to predict what someone else's character would do, and hence make decisions that take that into account; further allowing you to preserve integrity.

Anyway, just curious.  My suspicion is this is something you do, and I suspect it helps.  But...I'm not there, ya know.

[lumpley]

Let me throw something out for consideration: conversation among women is often characterized by participants working to elicit details from a speaker. "He said what? You're kidding!" What's the reward? A little bit of ownership of those details, installed credibility when you relate the story later? The dynamics of social significance are different.

Yes.  And you're right, and you too Jason.  We do a ton of that.  Somebody has their character do something, odds are that somebody else will tip their head to one side and say "you do? how come? what's that like? where's that come from?"

How to build that into a formal mechanical system...?  Very, very interesting.

-Vincent

[bluegargantua]

Somebody has their character do something, odds are that somebody else will tip their head to one side and say "you do? how come? what's that like? where's that come from?"

How to build that into a formal mechanical system...?  Very, very interesting.

 It sounds like there's just one question being asked here:

 "Why did your character just take that action?"

 With a focus on in-character reasons behind the action rather than player reasons.  (i.e.  I killed him because I thought he was my father's killer rather than, I had my character kill him because I saw this cool Hamlet action and I'm big on Shakespearean set-pieces).

 There might also be a related request:  "That action sounds interesting, tell me more about it".  Although looking back it seems to really be saying "tell me more about how your character experiences that action".  So again, it's an internal thing.

 So we're looking to elict internal thoughts, feelings, experiences, and motivations of charcters when they take actions.

 It would be fairly easy to produce some sort of system that gave out rewards for asking for these kinds of questions.  But I don't think that would really produce the results desired.  Some people would just see it as a candy machine and start asking for the deep inner motivations behind getting a glass of water.  You'd want to encourage it, without making it the whole point of the game.

 I could envision the following:

 Everyone starts with a number of tokens equal to the number of other players in the game.  Each person's tokens are uniquely identified so you know which player it belongs to.  Before the session starts, you pass out one token to all the other players so wind up with one token from all the other players and they all have one of yours.

 During the game, you can hold up narration by a player and return their token to them.  Along with the token come one of these "why" questions.  The player receiving the token has to give the question a serious answer.  Other people are allowed to ask follow-on questions without returning any tokens.  Once everyone has had a chance to ask their questions and get their answers, narration resumes.

 After the session is over (or whenever rewards are handed out), check to see how many tokens you got back.  You receive a bonus award proportional to the total number of tokens you got back.  This depends on the reward system so it might be 100xp per token returned, or 1 bonus die per 2 tokens returned, or whatever.

 The upshot is that there's no direct reward for asking the questions, but there's a fair amount of value in being asked.  So players will hopefully start thinking about a deeper level of personal motivation for their characters and then using them to take actions which will draw a question.

 That's a pretty basic solution, you could stagger the handout of tokens so that different people are more likely to be asked questions than others.  Or add a light penalty for not asking questions.  But again, I don't think you want to be heavy handed with this kind of stuff, you just want it to pop up on a frequent, but not regular basis.

 Does something like this seem to address the issue?  Is this the kind of information you want to extract or the kind of stuff you want to add to the game?

later
Tom

[lumpley]

Hi Tom.

Hm.  We ask those kinds of questions across all our various and permuted player / GM type roles.  Not just about the characters' internal lives, but about the whole landscape.

"Soraya, dude, you killed a dragon?" I might have my guy Acanthus say.  "What's up with that?"

"I haven't figured out all the details," Emily might say, "but I know that [Soraya's abusive master] Severin made me do all the dangerous work, like I was the one who played the riddle game with it to distract it while he bound it, and he made me cut its head off, he didn't help."

Maybe she makes a facial expression to show how much it sucked.  "That musta sucked," I might say.

"Yeah.  Y'know, every time I think about him, Severin is more a prick."

So there's me asking questions to draw information out of Emily, and it's all good information, and it'll all eventually come back into the game, but it's not just Soraya's motivations or experiences, it's whatever.  A stew of character-level, player-level, and level-crossing stuff.  (Who is the "I" in Em's last sentence, Em or Soraya?  Probably both.)

conversation among women is often characterized by participants working to elicit details from a speaker. "He said what? You're kidding!" What's the reward? A little bit of ownership of those details, installed credibility when you relate the story later?

(emphasis added)

As it happens, I'm playing Severin.  Soraya's relationship with Severin is one of the top two, top three drivers of the game.  (Those of you who might still find the GMful thing weird can think of me as the GM and Severin as a major NPC.)  Every single thing that Emily tells me about Severin and Soraya is crucial to the way their conflict plays out.  I want every scrap of detail.  The reward, it seems to me, isn't that then I own those details, but that then I won't let Emily down.  Playing Severin to Emily's satisfaction is my part of the bargain.  

So, in Universalis-like terms, imagine that when I introduce an element, as part of its introduction I give it to you to play.  ("There's a young snake, it's brave times 2, and Paul, will you play it?")  Then whenever I think you're playing it "right," I give you a coin from the bank.  Thus you're motivated to do whatever it takes to figure out my vision.

I have no idea if Meg or Emily see it this way at all.

-Vincent

[LordSmerf]

Very interesting Vincent.  I think the real key to what your saying is that you are looking beyond the mechanical payoff towards a social payoff (i.e. not letting anyone down, holding up your end of the experience, making it fun for everyone).  The question that arises is: is it possible to develop a mechanic that rewards this sort of play without shifting the focus to gaining the mechanical benifit?  Or instead will the inclusion of the mechanic make it harder to play with that social rewards focus?

Thomas

[lumpley]

Hi Thomas.

I think that the goal of the girly-Universalis thought experiment is to figure out in-game rewards that match the social rewards.  It won't matter whether you're shooting for the social rewards or the mechanical ones, because you'll play the same way either way.

The advantage being that mechanical rewards are more portable, group to group, than nonmechanical ones, especially than unspoken nonmechanical ones.

Right Paul?

-Vincent

[LordSmerf]

I guess i realize that.  Maybe i'm just being pessimistic, i just don't know if it can be done.  It's something that we want to design because spurring that sort of play will hopefully be a tool to teach people that such social rewards are available and fun.  I've been slowly feeling my way to this point without direction just by playing.  But it's taken me months to get to a point where i understand how much fun playing for social rewards can be.

So don't let me rain on anyone's parade here.  I'm all for designing a system that rewards mechanically what is also rewarded socially.

Thomas

[Emily Care]

Hey there, Tom, Vincent, and all,

We ask those kinds of questions across all our various and permuted player / GM type roles.  Not just about the characters' internal lives, but about the whole landscape....

Every single thing that Emily tells me about Severin and Soraya is crucial to the way their conflict plays out.  I want every scrap of detail.  The reward, it seems to me, isn't that then I own those details, but that then I won't let Emily down.  Playing Severin to Emily's satisfaction is my part of the bargain...
 
I have no idea if Meg or Emily see it this way at all.

Pretty much. That's at the heart of what we do, for me. Talking, talking, talking.  Developing it together is one of the main attractions to gaming for me.  What we do is actively mirror each other, and extend that into our development and gming.  It's pretty typical narrativist or even traditional gm'ly activity (like Vincent described: taking back-story about my character and her master and weaving it into current plot), but instead this activity is open to us all.  And it doesn't get in the way or feel contrived because it is fundamental to the way we play.  

Good insight that the emphasis isn't on owning the details, Vincent, but on bringing them into play. There's our step-on-up.

I wonder if what may be required is a basic foundation of collaborative interest.  The mirroring and listening etc. require a lot of time and energy investment, and are most ably realized in the long haul. Creating the world and plot together are what have kept my long-term campaigns going, I believe.   Perhaps the general simulationist  (toy oriented) and narrativist leanings of my groups fostered that attitude. We may see the gaming experience is a long term collaborative endeavour, constantly in development, rather than as a static recreational resource to be consumed. The common work brings our resources together, and since it is never finished, the games last a long time.  Mechanics like the one you suggested, Tom, would be helpful in encouraging people to approach

yrs,
Emily