The Forge Archives

First off, I want to say thanks to Chris Edwards and Christoffer Lerno (Pale Fire) for helping me out with this game.  Chris played the infamous Colonel Horatio Bugger (the telepathic, deranged clam) and Christoffer played Tofu (the sleek looking, vegetarian fox).  Also thanks to Nathan Paganini for the use of his dicebot.  Rolldice  4 d2-1.  Heh, heh.

OK, so last night we had the very first playtest session for Aware: Roleplaying in the Age of Reason, my new WIP.  Actually it was more like 1/2 playtest and 1/2 prep as we still had some character generation specifics to hammer out, namely each character's event/relationships.  

The idea behind the event/relationships is to tie the characters both to the setting and to each other by writing down one event from their past, present and future (one of which must involve at least one other character).  

The breakdown for our animal heroes was something like this:

Bugger:  (past) Once helped a bull gets some pears out of a tree (somehow?), :)  (present) wants to get his shell painted by the local raccoon artist and (future) wants to convince Tofu to be his new taxi since the death of his old one (a raccoon).  

Tofu:  (past) Was taught fox glamour magic by his grandfather and (future) wants to find the pelt of his dead brother (killed by humans) so he can lay his spirit to rest.  I'm missing the present event here and darned if I can remember what it is.  Sorry, PF.

Once those were finished, we moved on to creating the upcoming story.  Now, in theory, (and I say in theory, because this was the first time it was actually put to the test) Aware relies on the players creating the framework of their next story/adventure through the use of 5 story elements---NPC, situation, complication, hook and reward.  

Ideally, all of these elements should center around the same NPC, but since I wasn't specific about that in the rules, Chris and Pale Fire started naming off relatively random elements.  After a moment's thought, I decided this was all right, because like the clam, I figured it would be a good test of the game mechanics.  

The story elements broke down like this:

-NPC - A mean Chow dog that lives in the nearby abandoned human town.
-Situation - Someone stole the Chow's chew toy and he wants it back.
-Complication - A big alligator thinks Tofu stole something of his.
-Hook - The Chow has information about a human threat to the Greenwood.
-Reward - Tofu wants to learn that he comes from a legendary line of foxes.  


Incidentally we lost our lurkers, Paganini and four willows weeping somewhere along this time, who must have been bored to tears by then.  Sorry, guys. :)

Anyway, after these elements were decided upon, I literally had about 10 minutes to mold them into some type of relatively cohesive storyline.  They're not finished with the story yet so I can't go into too much detail, but I'll give a summary of the actual playtest now.

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The story started with Tofu meeting up with Bugger in the shallow part of the creek where he resides.  They overheard a nearby conversation and spied an alligator and cat talking about something.  Tofu tried to sneak closer to hear what they were saying while Bugger burrowed deep into the leaves to hide. The cat noticed Tofu and both the cat and the alligator left the scene, the cat snarling something rude to the fox.  

Later in the day, the heroes learned from other animals in the Greenwood (the initial setting) that humans had been sighted in the area and they were warned to be on their guard.  

Still later, they were back at the creek when a dog staggered up to the water's edge, vomited (next to the clam!) and then passed out.  The clam and fox tried to help him and then realized he was dead.  The fox smelled chemicals in his vomit.  

While investigating the dog and discussing the situation, they heard some junkyard rats scurrying around in the brush.  The fox snapped the clam up into his jaws and chased them down.  They had a brief discussion with the rats, which almost led to a fight, but Tofu snatched up Bugger and ran off before anyone got hurt.

They decided to go into the abandoned human town and tell the Chow one of his pack members was dead.  In town, they found the Chow and the rest of his gang of dogs tormenting a wounded goat.  

After some initial posturing and attempted intimidation from the dogs, our heroes told them about the dead dog at the creek and they decided it was the humans who had poisoned him.  They struck a bargain with the Chow (who is not too bright) agreeing to find his stolen chew toy in exchange for more information about the humans in the area.  

We ended the night with the dogs sniffing around for humans and the heroes leaving the town, in search of Bugger's magpie friend who they hoped would help find the chew toy.  
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OK, let's see how to break this down.  Let me start by saying that I felt vaguely dissatisfied with the actual playtest session---not that it was bad, and the players certainly were helpful and made it entertaining, but the session itself was just nothing to "write home about".  Afterwards though, the three of us had an _invaluable_ post session discussion that helped me put my finger on where I felt I went wrong.  

Let me start with the chargen part.  Before last night, I had briefly outlined the setting they lived in.  I initially figured that since it was a playtest, I could just use a generic forest setting and let them fill in the blanks.  Somewhere along the line, I decided to write up an actual setting, complete with NPCs and a few vague plot hooks.  

In retrospect, I'm glad I did.  The players seemed to have a good feel of the setting and even tied some of their event/relationships (I'm going to come up with a better name for that, incidentally) to local NPCs, like the racoon artists, which was extremely cool.  

The players also picked up on the story elements pretty quickly and I really like this mechanic, although I could have put parts of it to better use (see below), as it not only creates the basic story for you, but also creates a story the players are interested in playing.  

Now, on to a critique of the actual session.  

The most glaring error I made was not taking full advantage of the "plot hook" story element.  I have heard Ron discuss "Story Now" many times in these forums but it wasn't until last night that I actually "got it".  As a GM, I have grown too accustomed to throwing out a few plot hooks and then letting the players follow one of them on their own (or not, as the case may be).  With Aware (and incidentally IRC I think, although I will discuss that further below) you almost _have_ to begin with some action, otherwise you begin the game like I did, with the PCs just lounging around, waiting for something to happen.  Boring.

Now, I think I knew this beforehand, which is one reason why I included the plot hook story element, but somehow I overlooked this when it came time to play.  The hook element was purposely designed to draw the PCs into the story; in other words, why they should get involved.  I started the game with them just hanging out by the stream, then let a few events happen that they just nicely happened to follow up on but like Pale Fire said, they could just as easily have ignored the whole thing.  

This oversight of mine was caused by many things---mainly a pre-conditioned desire not to railroad players into going somewhere or doing something they haven't explicitly stated they wanted to do.  The problem was that they _had_ stated what they wanted to do via the plot hook element!

In retrospect, I should have jumped on the hook and started them in the town, talking to the Chow about the humans, and then have the dog mention he was looking for his chew toy.  This would have given them an immediate incentive to go find it/get involved.  All I can say is that from now on, a new story will begin with the hook element like it was supposed to and I think it will run a _lot_ smoother.

Another glaring oversight on my part was the lack of player narration upon a successful roll.  There are two instances that immediately come to mind, both involving the junkyard rats; 1. the fox chased and caught up to them and 2. he bluffed them into thinking they might be in trouble.  In both instances, I narrated the results for the fox, more or less like I would normally do with my tabletop group.  It's such an ingrained habit that didn't even realize I was doing it until Pale Fire pointed it out at the end of the session (and I wish he would have done so sooner!).  :)  This is made worse by the fact that characters get Story Points (XP) primarily for GOOD NARRATION!  Now, how the hell are they supposed to gain points if I don't let them do it?  Yeesh.  

A few other points were brought up, mostly dealing with the game mechanics.  The biggest was the definition of the Might stat.  As of now, it's a static number based on the animal's size and is used primarily for physical tests.  It doesn't differentiate between strength and quickness though which they felt might be a problem.  I was trying to take a minimalist approach with just 3 stats.  I might bump it up to 5, but I was trying to avoid that.  

I wanted to defer to common sense in a lot of cases (a cheetah would automatically outrun an elephant, despite a difference the elephant's greater Might, a humming bird could automatically evade a hawk by diving into a bush, etc.).  There was some concern that this should be more defined and I agree, but I also don't think this is a game for everyone, for that reason among others.  A rat should never win a fight against a lion, but in this game you can---it would be less than heroic if you couldn't and besides you'd end up with a party full of bears and/or escaped (white) tigers.  :)

Also, again re: the mechanics, the default target number of 5 is a bit too high.  I think I am going to lower it to 3 or 4 in most cases.  I also think I am going to call for more resisted rolls (I'm thinking of the fox sneaking up on the cat where I just had Pale Fire roll for the fox, maybe should have had the cat roll as well).  

Chris also brought up a point that there might need to be a bit more emotional investment for long term play, which I will certainly have to consider.  The game's concept is roughly centered around the struggle to remain "animal" with human emotions and intelligence, but unless you continually use Reason to solve problems you are in no danger of succumbing to your human nature.  More stuff to think on.  

As to IRC, for those of you who have never run a game via chat, expect a heck of a difference.  You have to be able to read and type fast.  With only two players, comments were jumping, jumping, jumping, especially when it came to dialogue.  I can only imagine how it would be with a larger group.  Of course, it didn't help either that the game ran from 12:00am -4:00am my time.  :)  Tired, so tired.

Also, during play I wrote sparse descriptions to keep everyone interested because that is what I thought the players wanted (after a couple of initial Tofu: ZZZZZZZ comments)!   :) But afterwards, they both indicated they wouldn't mind waiting for better descriptions, and I realized that Pale Fire was just breaking my balls a bit.

Which brings me to another difficult thing about IRC.  There is no real way to gauge player reaction, as in when to throw in some action when they are getting bored, when to slow things down when they are enjoying a scene, when they are just kidding about something, etc.  You just can't really tell whether or not they are enjoying the game.  

Similarly, I got jammed up a few times on player actions.  I'm used to waiting for people to explicitly state frex, "We're going to chase the rats," whereas in this game the players thought they were chasing the rats and I was waiting for them to say they were.  That's a minor thing though, just an IRC (or perhaps a Pete Spahn) quirk I thought I'd mention.

Also, I have to make better use of "cut scenes" to speed time along during the day.  I was hampered in this by only giving limited descriptions though so I should be able to account for it better next time.  

So in closing, I really dropped the ball on the hook/story now part, and it made the rest of the adventure seem somewhat contrived and uninspired.  In my own defense however I do have to mention that under normal circumstances the story elements are supposed to be defined by the players at the end of the session.  Then the GM has time to put together an interesting story.  But still, I did not start the game with the hook although I certainly will next time.  

But, overall I had a lot of fun and I learned a lot, specifically in regards to design vs. actual play, especially in the post session recap.  I believe that future sessions should run a bit more smoothly.  Most importantly, the game passed _my_ first real test and that is: when running it, does it feel like something I would want to play?  The answer is yes (probably as a wolf or German Shepherd, no telepathy), it certainly did and I am now more determined than ever to make this game work.  

Thanks to those who slogged through my ramblings here to make it this far.  Chris and Christoffer, please point out anything I missed, or add new comments since you've had some time to mull things over, and thanks again.  I'll see you next Tuesday!  :)

Pete

I think you covered just about everything Pete.  My main concern is that Aware is supposed to be about struggling to remain animal when, well, that struggle doesn't exist unless you, as a player, force it to exist.  What I'm trying to say is that the Reason trait/mechanic doesn't have you by the balls the way, say, Humanity does in Sorcerer.  There aren't really any inherent drawbacks to not using Reason until a character has a higher  Reason score than the initial 1 point, and a character can't get a higher Reason score unless he uses Reason.  So that downward spiral into becoming more human will not occur until the player decides it will.  That just doesn't create the sense of "dramatic struggle" that I think you were trying to achieve.

On a different note, playing a clam is more fun than a barrel of hoomans.  The Colonel seems to have developed a personality not unlike that of the grandfather on King of the Hill tempered with some Machiavellian cunning.  Now if he can only figure out how to become Emperor of the Greenwood... ;)

-Chris