Persona - Just in Time Roleplaying

[Andrew Norris]

I'd like to chime in with more than "This is intriguing, and I'd like to run a session", but I need more time to absorb it.

For me, I 'got' this much quicker than I have other Narrativist games. Somehow the idea of "player narrates aspect of their character in response to challenge" clicked with me much better than the way other games in this vein do it. This may be a mental block I have with games like Universalis, though. But I think it's explained well in Persona.

[Ben Lehman]

Ben,

Let me take this point by point:

1) From chapter 6: "When you are rolling 6D6 and have well over 500 Character Points, the average Challenge isn't really a challenge. Do not be afraid to set a character aside and begin again, tabula rasa. A blank sheet gives you the chance to discover a new set of personae, and a different person altogether. If the group decides to end a campaign and start another, you may try bringing an old character back, but throw away your old character sheet. Do not try to recreate a character. Discover him again."

BL>  Sure, you COULD wait until you have 250 traits, but frankly, anything over 30 points of traits (not, not CP, but points of traits) is just wildly unwieldy to my eye.  I do not like scanning a long list of nebulous traits to see what applies.  I love scanning a short list of nebulous traits to see what applies.  To give an example, Over the Edge uses 4 nebulous traits... which already results in a great deal of "what applies" discussion and "oh, right, I can do that."  I think over 10 is just too much.
 I think that, for short term play, there is no real need to have an expiration system.  However, for long term play, it is absolutely essential.  I'm thinking here of serial novel style play, where characters don't get "more powerful" from book to book, but there are certain abilities that really only come up once and then are disposed of.

I guess I just don't see the reason to employ only "tabula rasa" restarts and absolute permanentness to traits.  It seems to me to be counter productive.  I wouldn't do it if I played.

2) Ahh, you've hit on one of the great Persona debates.  It was Mike and Ben vs. Tim in the design phase.  This is also the reason I included the Mike Says box wherein he recommends ignoring the rule.  However, I'm still not convinced.  Can you give me more details?  Why do you think it's a "silly" addition?

BL>  More dice does note equal more powerful.  More dice does equal less random variance + slower character development.  Setting a high DR or rolling more dice does not, in any way, make something "tougher," "more powerful," or "epic."  It simply makes the numbers more unwieldy, and makes traits (the core engine of the game) less important.

It goes against the fundamental core of the game engine or, in a best case scenario (the GM scales the numbers), has little or no effect on gameplay.  That is why it is "silly."

3) Sample difficulties weren't really set intentionally high.  For the most part I wanted to make sure that there were enough interesting things going on in the examples so as to show off the system.  Let's face it, if all of the examples had DRs of 2, they really wouldn't be very helpful examples.  On the other hand, speaking from experience, you really do want to have DRs around the example numbers.  Remember, the point is to force players to purchase Fragments.  It's not going to happen on every roll, but in order for the game to progress, it has to happen on many of the rolls.

BL> Given the odds of rolling a 10 on exploding 3d6 take highest (not high), it seems odd to me to portray that as the "basic difficulty," which your examples essentially do.  If you are constantly getting above 10 on your rolls, you need to buy new, less weighted dice.  At that rate, a player would most likely burn through their CP in one or two sessions!  If this is the sort of play that you want to encourage, make that clear.

This really comes down to the fact that you need to explain the probabilities of your dice mechanics very clearly, so that GMs can set "difficulties" as appropriate to the length of game that they want.

As for difficulty representing character definition, you're right on.  Let me just clarify by saying that you won't fail unless you want to most of the time.  You are also limited by character points, especially if you're the type of player that likes to spend them as soon as the GM dishes them out.  In such cases, it's easy for a spend-happy player to get left in the lurch.  He'll be stuck making harder DRs, waiting for the other players to spend all of their points before the GM gives out a new supply.

BL>  Of course, character points are a resource, and they can run out.  But it seems to me that the ideal case of the game is that the player accepts just enough failures to never "run out" just "get low."
 The point is, at pretty much any point in the game, you "choose" to fail.  Thus, DR has nothing to do with difficulty at all.  You make this somewhat clear in the text, and then it is blatantly undercut by the associated "Mike" box.  This just left me bloody confused until I sat down and gave the mechanics serious thought.
 Really an editing problem, but I think that the whole text could use a once over with this idea in mind (it is blatantly incompatible with the "more dice" idea, for instance.)

4) I really like the idea of giving the "blocked" character a reward, instead of punishing the "blocker."  This of course, would encourage players to interject with scene requests.  There is however an abuse factor that may crop up.  Player thinks, "Hmmm... I need some points.  How about I just request a totally outrageous scene that I know someone will block?"  Social contract would go a long way to prevent this though.

I'm going to think some more on this.  Actually, this is one of the few rules that received a lower amount of play-testing than all the rest.  So, I'm very open to suggestions.

BL>  In my own play experience, I would most recommend getting rid of the rule altogether, and saying that players can formally request scenes the GM (read: group consensus) decides whether a scene is allowed or not.  But if you want to keep the rule in I do suggest some reward for the blocking player.  Perhaps make it limited to once/session, such as to prevent abuse.  And since you are effectively "stealing" from your fellow players if you behave in the manner above, I imagine that social contract would prevent it.

5) I'm wondering if others wouldn't appreciate a few designer's notes however.

BL>  Those aren't "designer's notes" so much as confusing.  Good designer's notes tell you why a mechanics works the way it does, what else was considered, and how it fits together with the rest of the system.  These ones tell you things that are sometimes wildly at odds with the game text, system, and everything.

6) Not really sure what you mean here.  Maybe you misunderstood.

BL> Don't Equipment and Talent traits cost one extra?  Huh...
 If that is the case, I HIGHLY recommend changing over to a universally 1-1 buy system.  It is much more intuitive, and you could still keep "discounted traits" (I don't like that rule, myself, seems that it would lead to homogenization) as 1-2 buys.

I criticize because I think it is a good idea.

yrs--
--Ben

[LordSmerf]

Ok.  Most of my complaints seem to be simple matters of opinion.  I do feel like it unites some of the weaker aspects of "traditional" GM/Player gaming with Player-empowerment aspects.  I think my biggest problem is the use of dice, it seems that the system employed here just doesn't mesh well at all with the rest of the system.

Of course most of this is just my personal impression, so feel free to ignore them.

Thomas

[Tim C Koppang]

Ben,

Whoa.  Now that's one long post.  Let me see if I can tackle the whole thing.

Fragment Expiration:

As I said before, I like your idea of putting a time limit on a Fragment.  Then I thought to myself, "man this seems familiar."  As it turns out, there was some discussion going on about this exact issue back in the day within the original play-testing group.  I believe the suggestion then was to allow players to trade in Fragments as a way to both regain CPs and to keep your character fluid.  The way we hashed it out (before forgetting to give it a try), a player was only allowed to trade in X number of CPs at any one time, so as not to break a character entirely.

Let me explain with more detail.  Basically, instead of starting the game with 35 CPs, you would receive let's say 25 CPs and 10 play-around CPs.  Any Fragment bought using the pool of 25 was a permanent addition to the character.  Likewise, anything from the play-around pool was a temporary purchase.  The player was allowed to trade in temporary Fragments whenever he wanted and get something more suitable for the situation.  Of course, a player could always swap in permanent points for play-around points if he liked the Fragment well enough.

This is of course very different from expiration dates, but I think it was an effort to address the same concern.  In some ways however, I like the expiration dates better.

You made a comment about serial novel style play.  In defense of the way the system stands now, I'd argue that Persona can model this exceptionally well.  You just have to be willing to throw out old character sheets at the end of every "episode" and start fresh.  I don't really feel that this is counter productive in any way either.  Just the opposite.  It encourages players to abandon a closed or locked mindset.  If a player simply carries over the character concept from one session to the next, without any CP restrictions dictating how he has to begin that next episode, then you've opened up the door to some pretty expansive character development.

Dice:

I see what you're getting at now.  Basically, by increasing the number of dice, you're increasing the numbers rolled.  Higher dice rolls equals less of a need to purchase new Fragments.  Or the GM could scale DRs up, but this is artificial and unsatisfying.

Right?

I like that train of thought, and I would tend to agree with you.  However, getting rid of dice thresholds as they're called creates problems in other areas of the game.  The most obvious, is that the dice will only really matter in the beginning of the game.  As Fragment totals rise, the randomness factor will be overshadowed by boatloads of Fragments.  Actually, I think I wrote an email about this a few months back...

Here we go:

I can think of two situaions in which randomness matters.

1. When character with little or no Fragments in a given area wants to make an attempt at doing something.  In this case the dice give him an, albeit small, chance of success.  This is also assuming that he wants to spend his Char Pts on something else.  The three dice mechanic helps him, and depending on how many total char pts he's earned over the course of the campaign, the Dice Thresholds could significantly increase his chance of success.  Meaning that the longer a player particiapates in a Persona campaign (when Dice Thresholds are used), the better his character gets at "unskilled" activities.

2. Dice matter most in all of Perona when two equally "skilled" opponents (read, opponents with the same or similar Fragment totals) go head to head.  In this situation the outcome of the dice roll basically determines the winner.  The Three Dice Mechanic is a stagnent bonus; without Dice Thresholds it's a perfectly even match (also assuming netiher purchase additional Fragments).  However, with Dice Thresholds, the character who has been around longer and therefore has a higher Dice Threshold, will have a significant advantage over the more inexperienced character.  Very cool.  This means that an eight year old and a forty year old can have the same skill level, but experience will beat out youth in most situations.  Even better, Dice Thresholds are a built in motivator for players to show up to game night without being overly harsh.

So, your point is well taken, but I'm still not sure how to address the above issues in a satisfying way.

Difficulty Ratings:

Yes, you're right.  As I view them, DRs are a measure of how much the GM wants to push a player to develop his character.  Or rather, how much the GM wants to force a player to make a meaningful decision about his character.

I apologize if the Mike Says box here confused you.  It was really meant as a stepping stone for players uncomfortable with the idea.

Requesting Scenes:

I think I'm leaning towards getting rid of penalties/bonuses altogether.  If I want to keep a group consensus mechanic, I suppose I could go with something along the lines of taking a quick vote or something.  Hmmm...

I suppose what I'm really worried about here is that, because a requested scene is essentially very character centered, one player's request may interfere with someone else's character development.  This is possible mostly because I gave the players a lot of power to involve other PCs in their own scenes.  But I don't want another player stepping on anyone else's toes so to speak.  By requiring only one player to veto a scene, I made sure that this couldn't happen.  With a vote, or group consensus mechanic however, the power is much more dispersed.

Ugh... I'm kinda tired right now.  I think I'm going to need some revision in this area.  I'll probably post some more tomorrow on the issue.

Don't Equipment and Talent traits cost one extra?:

Umm... no.  I'm not sure where you got this idea from.  Let me run through this again:

Under normal circumstances, all Fragments cost 2 CPs per level.

Three Exceptions:

1) GM-Awarded Fragments may not be purchased at all and don't do anything in terms of CPs.

2) The two discounted Fragments (that can change from session to session, thus avoiding homogenization) cost 1 CP per level.

3) Negative Fragments (such as fear) don't cost you any CPs, but instead net you additional points.



Regards.

[Tim C Koppang]

Thomas,

Hey, I'm not looking to ignore anyone at this point.  Please don't feel turned off just because I argue against your opinion.  I'm just an advocate.  But really, criticism is what this is all about.

You said that you felt like Persona "unites some of the weaker aspects of "traditional" GM/Player gaming with Player-empowerment aspects."  Is this a good or bad thing in your mind?

And then as far as the dice are concerned... could you please explain to me again what your specific problems were?  I'm gleaning from your original post that you'd just as well use no dice.  Why exactly do you think that a diceless system would "mesh" better with the rest of the system?  Any thoughts on the use of dice as a character development tool?

Thanks and regards.

[Tim C Koppang]

Ben,

I forgot to talk about sample DRs.  Whoops.

Yeah, point taken.  10 might be a bit high for beginners.  I need to take another look at my examples and maybe think about including some explicit guidelines.

On the other hand, after a little while 10 doesn't seem that crazy to me.  After all, players do start the game with around 35 CPs and it's possible to really make those points stretch.  If you are buying Fragments exclusively for a particular situation your point economy goes way up.  Also, keep in mind that you aren't just buying specific Fragments for a specific situation, but you can also try to buy Fragments that will give you a Modifier bonus right out of the gate.  Suddenly 35 points is a lot to play around with, and level 10 DRs can quickly come into play.

Regards.

[Tim C Koppang]

Andrew,

Hey, thanks for the compliment.  It's always nice to see a smiling face in the midst of a critical discussion.

Interestingly enough, I kinda see Persona teetering on the Simulationist edge.  There's a whole heck of a lot of emphasis placed on the exploration of character.  For example, when a player purchases a Fragment, he has to ask himself how that Fragment will affect the character in the future?  Or moreover, how would this character react in this situation?  This seems very Sim to me.

In a sense, the player discovers the character that he's playing as a direct result of playing the character, and only by playing that character.

But then of course, that development, those choices, always come in the face of a challenge.  It's the nature of those challenges that can really shift things into a Nar mode of decision making.  Combine that with scene requesting rules and I think there's a lot of room for Nar play.

This is actually something I'd like to discuss in more detail.  I've never been very good at identifying what style of GNS play a game encourages, but I tried to think about GNS while writing up and designing Persona.

Thanks and regards.

[alessan]

Greetings All,

I'm Ben, one of the original co-creators of this game, I'd thought I'd chime in here with some of my thoughts on the discussion and maybe something about running persona.

First things first, the dice.  The dice have always been a sticky situation.  We have moved between many different systems, and I agree that none of them ever seem to quite work.  We started with a 1d6 + fragments mechanic originally.  This proved to be basically unworkable.  When you sit down to play a game, you want some chance to succeed is stuff, if even you are totally unskilled.  Similarly, there is nothing quite like the thrill of rolling your dice and getting that great roll.  You get a 24 of 3d6, and you know that whatever else comes of this roll, it will be really really cool.  :)  Some of you evidently don't agree with this :).  I understand, I am a die-hard Amber (diceless) fanatic myself, but for most people to end up playing the game, they need dice, and that is at least one reason why we originally designed Persona to have dice.  That being said, dice are fiarly superfluous to the game, if you don't think it adds anything, don't use 'em (a cop-out suggestion if I ever heard one).  That being said, I've never actually used the particular dice changes that are in the rules tim published.  We've only ever used graduating dice types, i.e. start with d6s, then d8s, d10s, d12s, and then, heck, even d20s and so on!  The intension with the dice was to make sure that even with a higher-point character you could count on your dice being able to win you that really great roll.


On the difficulty note....  When I think about it, you are right in that 10 seems a little high for a standard difficulty.  Certainly, we've never sat down and thought about what difficulties we would set for Persona in a sterile world.  The difficulties were always made on the fly, and tailored the power level of the character/group.  That being said, as I think about it, 10 was a fairly regular target number, and sometimes things would go a lot higher.


I'd like to put in a note on the "get poitns for fear" thing.  I really think these are necesary things.  The purpose behind them is to let you write stuff down in a mechanical way about the disadvantages of your character, and since players need a reword for limiting themselves, we gave them CPs.  That being said, we note in the descriptions of the fragments the possibility of situational modifiers.  For instance, Fear acts at level x1 if you are running from it, while if you are trying to face the incarnation of your fear (like a giant spider) it acts at level x -3.  So, if Rupert has fear spiders at level 3 (terror) then he gets a +3 bonus to run from the giant spider.  If he attempts to stand his ground and fight the giant spider he acts at -9 to all his rolls.  As mentioned before, all the negative fragments are meant to be quite serious.  You would probably never take fear for spiders unless you had been trapped in a casket with a few hundered of them, for instance (ok, that was a little extreme, but the fragments were never meant for something that was not an integral part of your character, which you probably don't  need me telling you).

Designer comments (The Mike Says boxes).  I really like these, of course, that may be because of my history with the system and my knowledge of the disagreements that each of those boxes provoked.  Mike and I are really not narritivist roleplayers or theoreticians, we want dice, we want simple rules, we don't want to have to ask for scenes, and we made the game.  Tim, however wanted to write it up, and we didn't, so he gets to put whatever he wants in there :).  Once that was done, however, mike and I realized that the message seemed to have drifted fairly far from where we would have put it, hence the mike says boxes.  Just thought you might want to know the history.  As to weather or not they add anything... I like to think they do, but I can really see where they might confuse the message and interrupt the flow.

Finally, on the different costs (2 per level for most, 1 per level for one or two fragments).  I think this is really great.  it encourages people to think about getting those cheaper fragments.  Additionally, the cheaper fragments, as we originally envisioned them where Comrade and Persona, two fragments that have significant down sides.  With Comrade, if your friend is in trouble and you are not actively working toward helping them (even if you can't help them at all) you get a level x -1 modifier.  And you don't get the good modifer until you are back to back (in a very tense situation, not the average scene).  So originally the point break was to offset the more balanced effects of those two fragments (item for instance, could rarely be construed to have a negative effect on rolls, so it is worth 2 per level).

Ok, I'll stop now... Hope some of that made sense.

-Ben (bernard, not the other one :P)

[Andrew Martin]

Welcome to The Forge, Ben/Bernard.

...but for most people to end up playing the game, they need dice, and that is at least one reason why we originally designed Persona to have dice.

One of things about designing systems, whether they're RPGs, or even computer languages, is that when the designers loose track of the goal of the system and put in parts catering for other people's desires, the whole design looses it's way; looses sight of it's goal or purpose. I can give the examples of Pascal and Java computer languages where they where designed for other people's reasons or to fit perceived desired, rather than to fit the goals of the language designers, and where the designers gave similar reasons as yours in their design notes. I can also point to other RPGs both Indie and main stream where the designers "petered out" and put in things to please others instead of holding true.

Please don't fall prey to same desire to "please" others superficially. Instead, look to what the game needs; what the game is showing yourself here below:

That being said, dice are fairly superfluous to the game, if you don't think it adds anything, don't use 'em (a cop-out suggestion if I ever heard one).

I feel that this example is heading towards what Persona should be like; something like a "diceless" game in the conventional sense. But I also feel you need some randomness, to drive uncertainty and "chaos" into the story flow, otherwise it becomes boring and tame.

Please note that this post isn't meant to harm or diminish the designers in any way. Instead I mean to encourage you all to seek the best for the Persona game, instead of settling for an uncomfortable mediocrity.

[Tim C Koppang]

Hey Ben!

That being said, dice are fiarly superfluous to the game

Ahh, but Ben the dice aren't superfluous at all.  You said so yourself.

When you sit down to play a game, you want some chance to succeed in stuff, even if you are totally unskilled.  Similarly, there is nothing quite like the thrill of rolling your dice and getting that great roll.

If anything, I'd want to keep dice for those exact two reasons.  The unskilled character doesn't really need dice to suceed at anything.  His starting CPs guarantee that he can succeed at whatever he wants right out of the gate.  BUT, a high die roll can play a huge part in determining how a character is defined.  The direction in which an unskilled character progresses is largely determined by that player's die rolls.

And of course lots of dice explosions are always exciting!

Regards.

[alessan]

Thanks for your comments, Andrew!

I have to disagree, though :).

One of things about designing systems, whether they're RPGs, or even computer languages, is that when the designers loose track of the goal of the system and put in parts catering for other people's desires, the whole design looses it's way; looses sight of it's goal or purpose.

I can't disagree more on this point, but perhaps it is the way we are approaching the game.  When I look at making a system, one of the primary considerations for me is: is it fun to play?  And not only is it fun to play for me, but my rp'ing group.  I think this can be an overlooked consideration.  Take the great poet presenting a piece for the king.  You can be sure that the poet isn't going to give the diddy he composed about the king's bumbling for the guys at the bar.  Instead, the poet will taylor the message to the audience.  Similarly (to borrow from your programming analogy) C++ was written to be almost entirely syntacically compatible with C.  This was so that people familiar with C would have an easy time switching to C++ (too easy, IMHO, but that is another discussion), and similary Java borrows from C/C++.  If you want your game to be played, you need to consider who will be playing it.  Dice are a very nice and familiar thing.  The instant you remove dice from a game, you become, in many people's eyes, some pansy free-form game.  I believe in dice for persona.  I think it takes a certain kind of universe/mechanics/play-style set to get rid of the dice and make it comfortable for all the players.

Above all, Persona, in my mind, is meant to accessible.  You can pick it up in an instant, the rules are very light, and you can on-the-fly tailor your character to the situation/group.  Similarly, you can tailor the rules (as in Tim's "switches") to how you want, and since the rules are very easy to grasp, most things you might do won't come back to bite you in an unexpected way.

All that being said, you mentioned that you thought that randomness is necessary in persona:

I feel that this example is heading towards what Persona should be like; something like a "diceless" game in the conventional sense. But I also feel you need some randomness, to drive uncertainty and "chaos" into the story flow, otherwise it becomes boring and tame.

if not dice, what kind of randomness would you suggest? :)


-Ben

[LordSmerf]

Ok... A couple of things.  I've not got much time, so this may seem aprupt, feel free to ask for clarification.

Dice: The best dice mechanics (in my mind) either mesh with the setting or are completely seemless.  The 3d6 w/ stacking (i define exploading dice as rerolling without adding to the previous die) seems to be a pretty inelegant solution.  It seems to be at least a little jarring, mainly due to the probabilities involved.  That may be intentional, but any stacking dice system using a 1dX has a 1/X chance of rolling above X and a 1/X^2 chance of rolling above 2X.  This means that there isn't really a signifigant chance to roll above 10 (if that's standard difficulty.)  It seems like it doesn't really fit.  It feels like you just tried some stuff, found something that sort of worked, and then left it alone since it wasn't all that important anyway.

My suggestion would be either to use no dice or dice based on Fragments (where you can always buy more Fragments, roll more dice, and add them post facto).

Fragment List: It seems like breaking Fragments down beyond Positive/Negative is more work than it's worth.  As i understand it there is no mechanical difference from one Fragment to another.  The only thing that a list facilitates is focusing on a category, but it seems artificial to me.

That's it for now, i hope you find something useful somewhere in there.

Thomas

[alessan]

Greetings,

Good point on the dice.  I obviously want there to be dice, but its always better when the dice mesh well the the system and you described exactly what happened with the system (we found something that worked, and left it).

On the fragment list, I have forgotten to chime in on.  I would disagree with the notion that you don't want a list.  I fear free-form things where you just sort of "make up" your powers.  When I play, especially persona, I want some ideas of where to go with the fragments, of what I can puchase.  Having the descriptions there also gives an indication of what we expect each fragment / level to be.  For instance, excalibur is a 3 point item (I believe, looking it up now).  When mike and I first wrote the fragments down, we wanted to use them to impress upon people that the idea was to play badass characters, excalibur is within your point reach, so take it!  Similarly, if its just some sword, its not worth spending your points on.  If you spend points on a fragment, it should be an important part of your character, and therefore powerful and interesting in its own right.  If there was no list, I think people would be inclined to do things like: yeah, I've got some talent with a sword, umm... level 3 then...  

I hope I'm making sense :)

-Ben

[Tim C Koppang]

Ben and Andrew,

I know that I departed from the original concept that Ben and Mike came up with when I wrote the game.  This was a choice that I made when I decided to take on the project.  I would tend to agree with Andrew.  When I wrote Persona I wasn't trying to cater to any specific type of player.  The "Mike Says" boxes were my only nod to to the masses, or to some sort of "traditional" RPG style--whatever that is.  Otherwise, I tried to express the potential I saw in Persona as best I could at the time.  I believe that if you make a game as good as you can on it's own terms, then that game will find an audience eventually.  Likewise, if you always try to design games in some sort of "comfort zone" then you'll never really get anywhere new.

That being said, I don't think the issue by itself is particularly on topic for this thread.  On the other hand, I'd be happy to discuss it in another thread.  I'm sure I could even dig up a couple of old threads on the Forge that tackle this exact topic to get us started.  (Ben, you might be interested in these just for you own sake.)  If someone wants to get the ball rolling, I'll follow.

Regards.

[Tim C Koppang]

Thomas,

Two things about the Fragment list from your post:

First, there is a mechanical difference from Fragment to Fragment.  Remember, that each Fragment has a different range of available levels.  The Comrade Fragment for example, maxes out at +5.  On the other hand, the Item Fragment ranges from -1 to +4.  This is a big difference when you think about it.  And it's not just a mechanical difference either.  If you have a level 5 comrade and a level 4 item, they're both at their respective maximums.  But that comrade is always going to mean more to you then the item.  If I was going to do anything with the Fragment list, I'd go back and take a much closer look at how each range weights the Fragment in respect to all the others.

Second, even if it seems artificial, I think listing out Fragments by name and limiting the influence of each is a good idea.  In one respect the categories or names act as guidelines, and as a means to encourage uniform char discovery across the many players (players, not characters notice).  By agreeing on a defined list of Fragments, the group can decide how they want to explore their characters, or maybe even what type of situations they want their characters to be thrust into.

What I'd like to do is clearly set out some rules (with plenty of examples) for customizing the Fragment list.  Although I think that even the "combat" type Fragments for example, can be applied to non-combat situations, illustrating how adding or subtracting specific Fragments to the list can focus play would really open up the game.  So, if the group chose a list with a majority of internal or emotional Fragments, you can see how that game would be wildly different from a game using a list comprised of primarily relationship and physical Fragments.  The Fragment list, like discounted Fragments, might even change from session to session.

Does that idea make sense?  It does in my mind anyway.

Regards.