Hello,

This time it was with the campus group, including a new fellow. Same scenario, from the current rules.

1. Much to my pleasure, the players didn't notice the halfling was worth goose-egg Oog until after someone killed him. "What? Damn! Well, yeah it does make sense ..."

2. All of'em died horribly, in part due to a penchant toward back-stabbing. I suspect Great Ork Gods will actually hone people's practical understanding of the Nash Equilibrium, perhaps for more effective back-stabbing in more long-term games. Which is all to the better; in my experience, other players' resentment at being back-stabbed is at least 50% composed of annoyance at its random nature. They don't seem to mind as much when getting back-stabbed for a reason.

3. It is worth pointing out in the rules that if one's character dies, and if play is sufficiently late into the session that a new character is more trouble than he's worth, then the player is still involved in the game via playing his gods. That struck me as obvious, but at least one player was not emotionally ready to disconnect "my guy died" and "I can't play any more" from one another.

4. I strongly recommend providing at least four scenarios in the final version, with (as I've said before) suitable Prisoner's Dilemma based Oog rewards embedded in them.

5. In many circumstances in this game (much more than in my first), the player-characters were acting simultaneously (i.e. in the same scenes). The most obvious examples were the two ork fights. If the group conducts each ork's roll separately, that creates a serious issue in terms of the impact on Spite for the next ork's action, and a major window for debates about unfairness. So our solution was to run them truly simultaneously: both players announced their actions, both gods concerned set the difficulties, both players had the opportunity to spend initial goblins, all gods could then spend Spite on either or both players, both players could then spend more goblins, and so on. It worked extremely well.

6. In both games, no one had the slightest trouble with the idea that a single action might involve rolling against more than one god. However, the other "two-roll" situation described in the rules, regarding stunts I think, seems to be meaningless. It looks vestigial to me now and may well be removed, I think.

7. More players is better for purposes of spreading around the gods and sub-specializing player-characters. However, more players also leads to screen time becoming a serious issue. How does a GM get everyone a scene equitably? It could well just go round-robin, and it also strikes me as interesting that one might sacrifice a goblin (in-game, messily) in order to "grab" the spotlight, breaking the round-robin order. (This is swiped from Soap)

8. The elf and dwarf continued to be bad-asses, actually to a terrifying degree in this case. I decided that either one would not die unless he received two successful attacks that seemed escalatory, in the same scene. For instance, the elf received a small child tossed in his face by a rather mighty ork, then faced another ork who'd jumped up to fight him. However, that roll was unsuccessful and hence the elf Hong-Kong-kicked the ork silly and escaped. Players seemed to find this approach to these NPCs to be fair; no one wanted to see the elf taken out by a single roll (too much lost Oog potential for everyone else, you see). (This is swiped and simplified from Elfs)

9. The daughters didn't make it this time either, although one of them did turn into Sonia the Torch-wielding Fury for a couple of combats. Has anyone ever managed to bring all three daughters back to Dursil?

Great game, Jack!

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: 2. All of'em died horribly, in part due to a penchant toward back-stabbing. I suspect Great Ork Gods will actually hone people's practical understanding of the Nash Equilibrium, perhaps for more effective back-stabbing in more long-term games. Which is all to the better; in my experience, other players' resentment at being back-stabbed is at least 50% composed of annoyance at its random nature. They don't seem to mind as much when getting back-stabbed for a reason.

Not to sound grotesquely ignorant or anything, nor to imply that I'm too lazy to use Google, but what's a Nash Equilibrium?

Seth L. Blumberg wrote: Not to sound grotesquely ignorant or anything, nor to imply that I'm too lazy to use Google, but what's a Nash Equilibrium?

Ron Edwards wrote: in my experience, other players' resentment at being back-stabbed is at least 50% composed of annoyance at its random nature. They don't seem to mind as much when getting back-stabbed for a reason.

Hi Run,

Sounds good.

Did you run the sample scenario again because you liked it, or just because it was there?

I take it you used the intended God assignment rules this time - how did you find them? And, incidently, do you use the God Cards?

Ron Edwards wrote: 2. All of'em died horribly, in part due to a penchant toward back-stabbing...

4. I strongly recommend providing at least four scenarios in the final version, with (as I've said before) suitable Prisoner's Dilemma based Oog rewards embedded in them.

5. In many circumstances in this game (much more than in my first), the player-characters were acting simultaneously (i.e. in the same scenes). The most obvious examples were the two ork fights. If the group conducts each ork's roll separately, that creates a serious issue in terms of the impact on Spite for the next ork's action, and a major window for debates about unfairness. So our solution was to run them truly simultaneously: both players announced their actions, both gods concerned set the difficulties, both players had the opportunity to spend initial goblins, all gods could then spend Spite on either or both players, both players could then spend more goblins, and so on. It worked extremely well.

7. More players is better for purposes of spreading around the gods and sub-specializing player-characters...

8. The elf and dwarf continued to be bad-asses, actually to a terrifying degree in this case. I decided that either one would not die unless he received two successful attacks that seemed escalatory, in the same scene...

9. The daughters didn't make it this time either, although one of them did turn into Sonia the Torch-wielding Fury for a couple of combats. Has anyone ever managed to bring all three daughters back to Dursil?

Hello,

Sorry about the delay in replying, Jack.

Let's see ...

I ran the sample scenario again partly for experimental comparison (different group), partly because I like it a lot, and partly due to time constraints. I did indeed use the God assignment rules correctly this time. They intrigue me; I'm not sure yet whether there's a "completely hosed" position in the order of choosing. There were four players this time, and although screen-time issues didn't arise due to some effort on all of our parts, I betcha five players would have stretched me a bit for those purposes.

About the back-stabbing, it went two ways. The first way, which started small and then just increased in intensity in a linear fashion, was putting the boot in with Spite. That really ramped up just about after the first ork's death (impaled on the sharp or sort-of-sharp end of a hitching post by the dwarf). But the second way was plain and simple ork combat, which happened twice. That got going when the replacement ork came into play, and I think the player realized that he was going to be behind on Oog if he didn't back-stab. Although that particular combat didn't end up with a fatality (both orks succeeded in attacking, but both faced the Gate successfully), after that, everyone started eyeing one another and sidling around sideways. Players seemed split - most liked the back-stabbing but one pouted.

Regarding discomfort with writing scenarios, hey, you're talking to the Sorcerer guy - tell me about it. Years of scrubbing out patently absurd crap from published adventures have scarred me. Anyway, though, the virtues of the Little Umplingham scenario provide some clues for doing it right, for GOG purposes: (a) the game theory backbone that I mentioned in my previous thread, (b) wide-open possibilities of action, and (c) enough terrain/color to provide the GM and players with fodder for fun situations.

Here's how I do it: At any time one player has the 'spotlight', they have it because I (as GM) have just asked them what they want to do. Any action taken by the player with spotlight just happens then, although if the action takes a while the other players can do something while they doing it by saying 'while he's doing that...' or try interupt them by doing something that would stop them.

Although in the games of GoG I've seen the players spent most of the time doing their own thing so issues of synchronicity didn't come up much.

The elf and dwarf continued to be bad-asses, actually to a terrifying degree in this case. I decided that either one would not die unless he received two successful attacks that seemed escalatory, in the same scene...

Interesting idea, and it forces the Orks to co-operate... I like it!

Hi Ron,

Ron Edwards wrote: There were four players this time, and although screen-time issues didn't arise due to some effort on all of our parts, I betcha five players would have stretched me a bit for those purposes.

Although that particular combat didn't end up with a fatality (both orks succeeded in attacking, but both faced the Gate successfully), after that, everyone started eyeing one another and sidling around sideways. Players seemed split - most liked the back-stabbing but one pouted.

Anyway, though, the virtues of the Little Umplingham scenario provide some clues for doing it right, for GOG purposes: (a) the game theory backbone that I mentioned in my previous thread, (b) wide-open possibilities of action, and (c) enough terrain/color to provide the GM and players with fodder for fun situations.

Right. That's how I do it too.

The only trouble with this approach is that "it works except when it doesn't," i.e., it has no solid external constraint that the GM is subject to as well as everyone else, and when actions are opposed in goals and simultaneous in imaginary time/space, it comes down to GM fiat. This is barely tolerable in a light-Sim game like kill puppies for satan, but in GOG, any GM fiat in conflict resolution is flatly undesirable, in my view.

I do think my solution of running every step simultaneously with all concerned characters worked very well.

Hi Jack,

Now I'm confused.

Confusion #1. On the one hand, you're saying that when two ork characters attack one another, only one should roll. But on the other, you're saying that you like my suggestion about running simultaneous and opposed conflicts together, step by step.

That isn't making sense to me. Should I clarify exactly how I ran ork-on-ork conflict?

Confusion #2. In my previous thread, you wrote that you understood my IIEE concerns about the game. But in this one, because "it's always worked for you," you don't think it's a big deal.

I agree with you in full that anticipatory patch-rules are usually very, very bad ideas. But in this case, we are talking about IIEE. That is not a patch-rule, it is a fundamental requirement of the role-playing process. How it's done varies greatly, and if GM fiat is the way, that's fine - but the rules must say so.

I'm not sure if you're seeing why I consider the same feature to be a minor problem for kill puppies and potentially a major one for Great Ork Gods. Should I clarify that?

Best,
Ron

Hi Ron,

Confusion #1. On the one hand, you're saying that when two ork characters attack one another, only one should roll. But on the other, you're saying that you like my suggestion about running simultaneous and opposed conflicts together, step by step.

That isn't making sense to me. Should I clarify exactly how I ran ork-on-ork conflict?

Confusion #2. In my previous thread, you wrote that you understood my IIEE concerns about the game. But in this one, because "it's always worked for you," you don't think it's a big deal.

But in this case, we are talking about IIEE. That is not a patch-rule, it is a fundamental requirement of the role-playing process. How it's done varies greatly, and if GM fiat is the way, that's fine - but the rules must say so.

I'm not sure if you're seeing why I consider the same feature to be a minor problem for kill puppies and potentially a major one for Great Ork Gods. Should I clarify that?

Hello, I was the new player in the mentioned game. First playing this game I was blown away. Until recently i was the type of player who that roleplaying = dnd and that was that. After playing I printed up a copy of the rules. I presented it to my friends, who were intially skeptical. They asked me where I heard of it. Opening the front page and pointing to a name in the credits defenitly made them more interested.

I explained the rules and the three players picked it up right away. There was some confusion on the relationship between oog and goblins but it was short lived. Merry destruction ensued.

What was really fun was when I convinced my non geek friends to play (beer helped this proccess). I explained the rules on a as you go basis that worked well. The tough part was getting them to act like orcs. One figured out a good rythm by basing his actions on what a very drunk person would do. Another found his groove by just acting with extreme bloodlust which also worked out well. Everyone had a really great time.

Both groups asked me if there were any other scenerios in the rules. Scenerio creation wouldnt be too difficult, but what I really like about the game as GM is that it requires zero preperation on my part, so another scenerio or two included would be very cool.

My idle unteseted suggestion:
For a period of time the players were not trying to do anything really signifgant and no one was breaking out in front, so the players hoarded a decent amount of spite, with one player having 8 at one point. I suggest being able to spend 3 spite to increase the difficulty of an action from Hard to Impossible.

Matt

Hi Matt,

After playing I printed up a copy of the rules. I presented it to my friends, who were intially skeptical. They asked me where I heard of it. Opening the front page and pointing to a name in the credits defenitly made them more interested.

What was really fun was when I convinced my non geek friends to play (beer helped this proccess). I explained the rules on a as you go basis that worked well. The tough part was getting them to act like orcs. One figured out a good rythm by basing his actions on what a very drunk person would do. Another found his groove by just acting with extreme bloodlust which also worked out well. Everyone had a really great time.

Both groups asked me if there were any other scenerios in the rules. Scenerio creation wouldnt be too difficult, but what I really like about the game as GM is that it requires zero preperation on my part, so another scenerio or two included would be very cool.

For a period of time the players were not trying to do anything really signifgant and no one was breaking out in front, so the players hoarded a decent amount of spite, with one player having 8 at one point. I suggest being able to spend 3 spite to increase the difficulty of an action from Hard to Impossible.

Hi Jack,

I think I'll start this post with a principle of what this whole dialogue is for. First, I very much appreciate you taking time to answer posts, as quick & fast replies are actually pretty destructive to Forge discourse. So your instincts about that are good; don't let people's expectations of how fast you "should" reply influence you. Or to put it differently - Sean, settle down a little. Slower person sets the pace at the Forge.

Second, I want to lay out some rules for how you and I, specifically, are going to deal with rules and design of your game.

(a) It is your game, and nothing I can say, do, think, or whatever can change that. My comments are not directions or challenges to your authority. My hope is that everyone's comments just pop into a big stew, and you get to use whatever parts of the stew you want.

(b) I and others here are going to push and criticize your game and its text very, very hard. Why? Because it's awesome. It's at that stage where it really works for you, and it works very well for others - but whether it has procedural holes, or whether its text really nails how to do it for the reader, are currently unknown. So our play of the game is going to generate huge comments, most of which will be brutally pushy and full of suggestions. This is a harsh time for the author. Paul, for instance, can tell you a lot about My Life with Master at this stage. It was beaten with a stick in actual play by dozens of people and turned up many criticisms that he decided weren't a big deal after all, many confusions which led him to change how something was phrased, and some actual holes that did need procedural changes. No one who provided the comments knew which was which - but all of them had to be processed by Paul, on his own. He didn't have to justify his decisions to anyone.

The reason that I'm going into all this is that many of your replies seem protective to me, and I suggest that there's no "attack" to protect against. You don't even have to tell a person whether you agree or disagree with a suggestion: saying "H'm" is enough and deciding later is actually the best possible response. If I'm off base on any of this, just ignore me.

Now for the clarifications of what I was talking about earlier.

Issue #1
Here's how I ran it when two orks were trying to kill one another.

1. Identify which god applies for each action. In one instance, Ork A was trying to slap a horse to gallop over Ork B, and Ork B was (I think) basically hacking/spearing Ork A. Ork A must cope with Obscurer of Things, Ork B must cope with Slashings and Slayings. (A simpler combat would just be Slashings and Slayings for each.)

2. The controllers of the respective gods set the difficulties, using all normal rules. If I recall correctly, at least one of them was controlled by one of the combatants and hence faced an automatic-Easy.

3. Both players are permitted to assign a goblin to drop the difficulty to Easy, if (a) applicable (i.e. difficulty is higher), (b) possible (i.e. they have a goblin to spare), and (c) desirable.

4. All players may now spend Spite as they see fit. Adjust all difficulties accordingly; players of orks A and B may assign further goblins as they see fit; rinse & repeat until everyone's done and the difficulties are set.

5. Both players roll. Orks are struck or not struck. Clearly both A and B could succeed, A could succeed and B fail, B could succeed and A fail, or both could fail.

6. A "struck" ork must face the Gate. If both orks are struck, then the Gate-facing is handled exactly as #2-5 above.

Now I'll break the issue up into its two parts: (a) simultaneity, and (b) player-vs-player.

Why do I handle it simultaneously like that? Because if we do #1-6 for Ork A, and then #1-6 for Ork B, then Goblins and Spite are severely altered around the table before B gets to go - it biases the outcomes in one ork's favor (either one) based on a completely arbitrary and non-strategic factor. Doing it this way means that goblins and Spite are being strategized for both rolls at once, which in my view is both more fun and more fair.

Does this apply for any simultaneous action, even if it's not player-vs-player? It could, but (just as you say) it's not especially important. It seems that in all our experiences, play is mighty fun for everyone when orks are running around in separate places doing entirely separate things (the God-determined difficulty and Spite-fests keep everyone involved). If two orks are doing unrelated things which happen to occur "simultaneously" in game-time, then I don't think modeling that mechanically is a big deal. However, I do think it is necessary when conflict of interest is involved - say, when one ork is trying to get the three daughters out of the building safely and another ork is trying to kill one of the daughters.

My point for you is to consider that such elements of play do need structure. I imagine that you are handling them in some way during play, and it's worth considering just how you're doing that. If it relies solely on Social Contract stuff specific to your group, then I suggest either articulating the details of that contract right into the text, or coming up with a structural procedure (as above, for instance).

Issue #2
IIEE stands for Intent (character commits to doing a thing), Initiation (character moves to start doing the thing), Execution (the thing is performed), and Effect (the thing succeeds or fails, and has whatever outcome it has). When a player says "I hit him!", which of these is being established varies greatly by system and by group, and sometimes even by person. When several people are announcing stuff at once, how IIEE is parsed among them has enormous impact on the possible outcomes of the whole situation.

IIEE structure (of some kind) is fundamental to role-playing. Without that structure, one person swiftly develops the ability to determine a vastly disproportionate amount of conflicts and scenes simply by managing who gets to announce actions when, and which actions get "how far" per announcement before being interrupt-able. The classic example is the GM who interprets his girlfriend's announcements about her character either way back in Intent if he considers the action "wrong" (hence allowing her to abort the action) and way up in Effect if he considers it "right" (hence increasing her effectiveness and impact relative to the other characters). The classic response by a group is to start bullying one another in order to optimize how their announced actions fit in terms of IIEE.

Oddly enough, IIEE mechanics in RPGs are incredibly primitive and often extremely boring (wait, wait, wait, go!, wait, wait ...). They are often full of exploitable holes in terms of maxing effectiveness, and the worst of the bunch is "Oh, GM decides," as it generates the hassles mentioned above. It can work, but won't do so reliably except in groups where full GM authority over scene-outcomes is desired by all participants.

In kill puppies for satan, which is a zero-sum Sim game, such arbitrariness can be part of the fun. Who cares if you're hosed - you just are, and the GM's job is to do it to everyone. The author of that game, Vincent, plays in a group which is both extremely personally intimate (in and out of game) and is famous for splitting up GM-tasks and group consensus to an extreme degree, so IIEE negotiation is merely a quick chit-chat.

I suggest, however, that the more focused the Creative Agenda, the more IIEE needs to be "unbreakable" for a given game, which still permits a whole range of design options. GOG is tremendously focused in GNS terms, which I consider a major virtue, and since its mechanics (very much unlike kpfs) operate at the among-players level rather than simulate-in-game level, the order of actions is a big deal. From my perspective, playing GOG should work well whether people really turn up the competitive heat with the Spite/failure mechanics (as with the campus group) or try to cooperate strategically to some extent. It'd be a bummer if leaving IIEE open to GM-fiat permitted people to bully the GM in such a way as to override the clean and fun mechanics themelves.

Anyway, that's the end of my full-on speechifying. Let me know if you think it's interesting.

Best,
Ron

Hey Matt,

I suggest being able to spend 3 spite to increase the difficulty of an action from Hard to Impossible.

Although the game text isn't explicit, the example on page 8 where Vomit uses a goblin to shatter a window suggests that there is no upper limit on how many dice you can be forced to roll by players spending Spite against you. Vomit's player is compelled to roll four dice in that example.

Paul

Hi Ron,

I don't think I'm being protective; at least I'm trying not to be protective - I know perfectly well I'm not being attacked and that being protective will not help anything. Hell, if I'm being protective all the time then I may as well not bother posting - it won't get me anywhere. I have felt an obligation to respond to everything people are saying, and this may also be coming across as protective. I will aim to control this urge.

Anyway, on with the actual discussion:

My point for you is to consider that such elements of play do need structure. I imagine that you are handling them in some way during play, and it's worth considering just how you're doing that. If it relies solely on Social Contract stuff specific to your group, then I suggest either articulating the details of that contract right into the text, or coming up with a structural procedure (as above, for instance).

Anyway, that's the end of my full-on speechifying. Let me know if you think it's interesting.