Topic: First reading: fast thoughts
Started by: Dev
Started on: 8/28/2004
Board: Polaris Playtest Forum
On 8/28/2004 at 7:33am, Dev wrote:
First reading: fast thoughts
I'm moving, so I can't elaborate, but here's an email I gave to Ben recently after a first read. I'll break it up and elaborate more when I have net again!
(1) Very chewy. They say Ron's writing style is "dense", and I don't
quite dig (it doesn't strike me here or there), but the content here
is... chewy. Good, flavorful, lots of data, and chewy, without much
fat. Good. However, I can see a lot of this tries to be written for
newbies, right? I'm not sure if this was a design goal (making
something newbie-simple is great, but it might necessarily limit the
game complexity for other RPGers, etc, blah), but in any case some
refactoring in that regard could be thought about, later (after
playtest).
(2) Stat-doing. At first it looked crunchy, but then I realized what
was going on and really dug the simplicity and unity of it all. You
know what would be uber-great (especially for a game-for-newbies)? If
you could fit it all - chargen + attribute defintion - onto a single
charactersheet. In fact, I spent the better part of an hour trying to
puzzle out if it was possible to make some diagram such that you could
intuitively just fill in bubbles and get the stats without doing math.
I almost succeeded (i.e. for a Novice, have 9 spheres, where the left
is marked "Ice" and the right is "Light"; fill in as many as you like,
and the unmarked spheres are Zeal; and so-on) but the Veteran/Novice
difference kept me from making something fitting, and also the
Frost/Glacier/Freeze and such things were kinda tricky to do in a
graphical way that didn't just make it more wiggy...
Am I saying design the stast from the perspective of creating
something that's easy to graphically display? Maybe.
(3) Roles / Authority: Neat. This is another thing where if you had
printed out cards that you swap around the table (to whomever is the
New Moon this round, etc.), that would be easier than memorizing it.
As an analogue the Buffy boardgame has, in fact, a good deal of
complexity, but any special rules are shunted onto the "special effect
cards" you play, or onto each player's cardboard item-holder, or
whatever.
(4) The Stakes Table. I wish there wasn't a table as such, but maybe I
should learn to stop worrying and love the table. Again, just having a
table out there to consult (and me imagining it printed) crosses the
line from RPG-with-table to totally-harmless-storyboardgame, and this
is a good thing for me.
(5) The Seasons: I remember you mention Pendragon-like estate stuff,
and than I saw the Seasons... Were there some rules I missed about
having a strict story structure or other metamechanics relating ot the
seasons? That would be neat, but also not necessarily critical.
On 8/28/2004 at 5:48pm, Ben Lehman wrote:
Re: First reading: fast thoughts
(1) Very chewy. They say Ron's writing style is "dense", and I don't quite dig (it doesn't strike me here or there), but the content here
is... chewy. Good, flavorful, lots of data, and chewy, without much
fat. Good. However, I can see a lot of this tries to be written for
newbies, right? I'm not sure if this was a design goal (making
something newbie-simple is great, but it might necessarily limit the
game complexity for other RPGers, etc, blah), but in any case some
refactoring in that regard could be thought about, later (after
playtest).
BL> My eventual goal is to have a newbie friendly text. However, I am aware that presently vast swathes of text are not newbie-friendly, namely the conflict resolution sections and bits of chargen.
Now, an interesting question is whether it is worthwile to have a newbie-friendly text -- not in general terms (clearly it is good for some RPGs, and not others) but rather in terms of Polaris -- given that the color is a little geeky, is it worthwile to try to open up the text, or will it just ignore the old-schoolers? Anyone have thoughts?
(2) Stat-doing. At first it looked crunchy, but then I realized what
was going on and really dug the simplicity and unity of it all. You
know what would be uber-great (especially for a game-for-newbies)? If
you could fit it all - chargen + attribute defintion - onto a single
charactersheet. In fact, I spent the better part of an hour trying to
puzzle out if it was possible to make some diagram such that you could
intuitively just fill in bubbles and get the stats without doing math.
I almost succeeded (i.e. for a Novice, have 9 spheres, where the left
is marked "Ice" and the right is "Light"; fill in as many as you like,
and the unmarked spheres are Zeal; and so-on) but the Veteran/Novice
difference kept me from making something fitting, and also the
Frost/Glacier/Freeze and such things were kinda tricky to do in a
graphical way that didn't just make it more wiggy...
Am I saying design the stast from the perspective of creating
something that's easy to graphically display? Maybe.
BL> Anyone who has any suggestions for a simpler presentation of the stat system please let me know.
(3) Roles / Authority: Neat. This is another thing where if you had
printed out cards that you swap around the table (to whomever is the
New Moon this round, etc.), that would be easier than memorizing it.
As an analogue the Buffy boardgame has, in fact, a good deal of
complexity, but any special rules are shunted onto the "special effect
cards" you play, or onto each player's cardboard item-holder, or
whatever.
BL> That goes straight into a "hint."
(4) The Stakes Table. I wish there wasn't a table as such, but maybe I
should learn to stop worrying and love the table. Again, just having a
table out there to consult (and me imagining it printed) crosses the
line from RPG-with-table to totally-harmless-storyboardgame, and this
is a good thing for me.
BL> At this point, the stakes table may be pushing its usefulness. Honestly, although I am beloved nor hating of tables, I have a couple of thoughts about this one:
First, as it it stands, the stakes table provides one useful piece of information -- that a novice cannot die and that a veteran must narrate his own death. That, really, is all.
Second, that it has the potential to do much more, if I could find a way to integrate the other aspects of effects on the society / world / etc into the table. I just haven't really had a good thought on how to do this yet.
(5) The Seasons: I remember you mention Pendragon-like estate stuff,
and than I saw the Seasons... Were there some rules I missed about
having a strict story structure or other metamechanics relating ot the
seasons? That would be neat, but also not necessarily critical.
BL> Eero had some thoughts on this that he had expressed in IM, namely giving the Moons some control of seasonal flow. I thought it was cool, but I'd like him to bring it up if possible. Eero?
yrs--
--Ben
On 8/28/2004 at 7:48pm, Eero Tuovinen wrote:
RE: Re: First reading: fast thoughts
Ben Lehman wrote:
Now, an interesting question is whether it is worthwile to have a newbie-friendly text -- not in general terms (clearly it is good for some RPGs, and not others) but rather in terms of Polaris -- given that the color is a little geeky, is it worthwile to try to open up the text, or will it just ignore the old-schoolers? Anyone have thoughts?
Absolutely, go newbie-friendly. Except stop thinking about it as "newbie"-friendly right this moment, and rather go with "I'm gonna make a game that's so good and fine that even a normal person will get it." This is essential, and it's a great failure of our hobby that you even have to ask.
As for the color, I firmly believe that fantasy, especially fairy tale fantasy, is mainstream. Very mainstream. There's nothing geeky in Polaris, only expectations that we the geeks put in there. I suggest that you should write the final version the same way Lucas directed the first Star Wars movies - show the wonder, don't tell. You don't have to grind the point of starlight swords or warring with demons, the players will find those themselves. Drop all hints for experienced roleplayers, they will fend for themselves. Make the very first sentences say "This is a funny little game you can play with your friends tonight. Read the rules beforehand and copy some sheets, and it's ready to go." Don't even explain what roleplaying is, take it as granted that the player will pick it up from your examples and such.
Or at least that would be how I'd approach a game like Polaris.
BL> Anyone who has any suggestions for a simpler presentation of the stat system please let me know.
I'll come back about this is a couple of days. Suffice to say that the idea of streamlining the design through graphical props is an important one. The rules are clumsy to use without, but are really just as easy as any German boardgame - the difference lies solely in the way information is presented.
As tasters, I suggest having two different character sheets. It only adds gravity when you have to switch sheets when the character becomes veteran. I also suggest researching the option of spreading the character on four sheets, so that all players have a customized sheet with the relevant information for his role.
Second, that it has the potential to do much more, if I could find a way to integrate the other aspects of effects on the society / world / etc into the table. I just haven't really had a good thought on how to do this yet.
Two obvious options:
1) Make the stakes directed: the player who plays the trait names the entity that is put at stake. Revamp the table to account for the fact that there will be smaller stakes per character. This way the stakes become the main way of affecting things: if the Maiden wants the senate to fall, she'll have to play enough traits towards that.
2) Revamp the table to have half a dozen columns without names on the top. The left side has more important effects than the right. Whenever a player plays a trait, the opponent can choose a new entity for the next empty column. This way a bigger challenge has more entities that are affected, and the ones chosen first take the brunt of the challenge. Interesting sacrifice scenarios abound, as the player has to decide whether he puts his own knight on the line rather than the whole citadel, for example.
Note that I don't consider the difference between characters and societies etc. essential. You'll just have to define the results generally enough to apply to both.
The latter option could be made even more exact by having four tables: one for novices, one for veterans, one for major entities and one for minor entities. Then the effects could be gauged very exactly by considering both the type of entity and how many others are before it in the columns.
In practise the latter kind of tables could be collated into one, big, table, like this:
[code]
Traits bid& 1st 2nd 3rd ...
type:
Novice
0 Min Min Min
1 Sig Min Min
2-3 Life Sig Min
...
Veteran
0 ...
1
2-3
...
Major
entity
0 ...
1
2-3
...
[/code]
This all would give quite unexpected results overall, and all kinds of different fallouts for different characters. The added complexity of the table wouldn't be a problem, as a table is a table anyway. The players would have to decide on all kinds of risks, and there could be ways to switch entities from column to column to alleviate risks: a noble knight sacrifices himself by going first, to lessen the fallout for his love. That kind of thing.
By the by, the fact of there being a table gives added strength for the idea of having a playing board. I'll come back about this, too.
BL> Eero had some thoughts on this that he had expressed in IM, namely giving the Moons some control of seasonal flow. I thought it was cool, but I'd like him to bring it up if possible. Eero?
Where was this? I tend to throw out all kinds of ideas, and then I blissfully forget it ever existed. I vaguely remember suggesting something about control of seasons, but cannot remember what it was or when. Let's see if I could reconstruct:
So, I remember asking Ben how he intented to make sure that the pace of play stays fast enough, so that the Seasons will actually get to work. Then I suggested that there'd have to be some semiformal controls for it.
Could it work with the principle that when a season is ended for a character, that character can no longer gain new scenes before the new season starts? Then the right to end a season for the character given interesting opportunities, as well as the ability to force the season to continue. The season would continue until all characters have ended the season, after which the story would skip straigth to the next season.
My suggestion was probably that the moons could in accord close the season for a single character at the end of a conflict. As the player whose character's season has ended is a moon for someone too, one closing would predicate more, when the player wants to get to continue his own story too.
Then there is the possibility of hooking some game mechanics into the actual seasons themselves, but I don't think that I'd have suggested such - the game is multilayered enough without checking for seasonal modifiers.
I imagine that I might have suggested some "downtime" mechanics as well, to be applied between seasons. Maybe making all experience checks after season, automatically refreshing traits, or something? If somebody finds the original suggestion I might be able to spout some more on the matter.
On 9/2/2004 at 5:12am, Dev wrote:
RE: Re: First reading: fast thoughts
Ben Lehman wrote: Now, an interesting question is whether it is worthwile to have a newbie-friendly text -- not in general terms (clearly it is good for some RPGs, and not others) but rather in terms of Polaris -- given that the color is a little geeky, is it worthwile to try to open up the text, or will it just ignore the old-schoolers? Anyone have thoughts?
Yes. If you got some nice art, maybe even did some parts of it more like an illustrated storybook rather than a standard "RPG", I can see you selling this at Anime conventions rather than Gamer conventions - certianly, both would apply. As Eero said, fairytales are also rather mainstream.
As for the stats and such: I'm really saying, are you willing to reduce the stats or change the numberwise mechanics in order to create more radical simplicity? An issue to punt until playtest info comes back in, but I'm throwing it out there.
As tasters, I suggest having two different character sheets.Yes. Also, once you get there, see if any of the designers on this bored (like gobi, if he gets free time) want to take a hack at making something that *fundamentally makes the rules/play easier* - an open challenge with potentially mighty results.
Eero, I like the outlines of what you're saying. Let me reconsture:
- the two Moons agreeing can make any scene the last of the season for this PC (but should say so before the final conflict resolution)
- the above will have a cascading effect on ending the season; but are there potentially dysfunctional cases where players will keep a PC from participating much due to this?
- each season has certain kinds of conflicts/scenes that can occur (i.e. love beings only in spring); if we have tables, maybe each season has its own resolution chart? (And by putting that chart down on the table, we also have a clear visual on what season/mode we're in.)
- experience checks only after a player's final scene for a season: great.
- perhaps define each game session as playing out at least one season, if not more?
On 9/2/2004 at 8:42am, Eero Tuovinen wrote:
RE: Re: First reading: fast thoughts
Dev wrote:
Yes. If you got some nice art, maybe even did some parts of it more like an illustrated storybook rather than a standard "RPG", I can see you selling this at Anime conventions rather than Gamer conventions - certianly, both would apply. As Eero said, fairytales are also rather mainstream.
Hey, anime fandom is a good idea here. I can totally see that supporting sales. You'll just need a solid, manga style artist, like my old pal low grouse ;D
As for the stats and such: I'm really saying, are you willing to reduce the stats or change the numberwise mechanics in order to create more radical simplicity? An issue to punt until playtest info comes back in, but I'm throwing it out there.
My gut is telling me, don't simplify. The game is at a sweet spot of simplicity with depth, where you cannot figure the implications out all at once. Instead, I suggest making a free, simplified version. This could be used to draw newbies to the game and the hobby, and the interested people would anyway get the more complex version. Kinda like WW does. An outline of what I'd do:
Castor and Pollux - the polar fairy tale
Castor and Pollux is a two-player storytelling game, where each player takes the role of one of the knight brothers. They live in a magical land of ice and light, which their knightly order defends from demons. Castor and Pollux is a fast, simplified version of Polaris, the game of tragic fairy tale by Ben Lehman.
[some notes about the setting]
...
The rules
A simplified version of the real thing: each character has only the three statistics (Ice. Light and Zeal/Weariness), and there's correspondingly only two types of traits, the Deeds (material stuff, skills) and the Valours (everything else). Characters are created otherwise normally, but both have to be novices at start. Both get their brother as a trait.
Each player plays the Ice Maiden for the other's Heart. There is no Moons at all. The stakes include three aspects: change to self, change to others (including NPCs and the society) and change for your brother. The Heart player decides the primacy of these, and thus who is at risk in each stake. The stake columns are identical for each, so only primacy of fallout matters. The conflict rules considerably simplified, as there is no moons and no need for complexity.
Seasons change always after a scene that causes an experience check. Play ends when one brother dies. Include a couple of fixed events:
1) In the first year, all scenes are fixed by your preplanned plot.
2) In the second year, there's only two fixed scenes per player.
3) In the third, there's only one.
4) After the third year, the players are on their own to figure out where the story continues.
That's about it. Give it mucho illustrations, make it about ten pages long, and start spreading it around to generate interest. Use manga illustration and fairy tale writing style and concentrate on spreading it withing those scenes. Watch people come in droves to get the full version.
I'll come back to the graphical representation thing when I get my presentation ready. Meanwhile, I'd like to see comments on an impression:
Is the conflict resolution too complex with optional rules? There's, like, a million and one options the other players can offer the Heart. Is this not a problem?
I'll have to play to say for sure (I don't even yet see if there is some symmetry there that justifies the multitude of options), but it might be that this needs to be lightened a bit. Maybe make some of those deterministic, or move them to some other part of play to lighten the conflict load. Maybe put the trait getting/losing option into Season change: you might get a new trait in spring, if the Moons are favorable. You might likewise lose a trait in Fall. This would also further separate the trait economy from conflicts (and thus experience checks). which I deem a good thing.
On 9/2/2004 at 2:43pm, Ben Lehman wrote:
RE: First reading: fast thoughts
I just wanted to pop in and say that this is an interesting discussion, and useful, although most of these things are "after playtest" concerns. However, it is a little crowded Here are the topics that are being discussed in this thread:
1) The Possibility of a Rules Simplification / Rules Light(er) version. I'm open to either of these, but after the game has been played a little.
2) Various rules complications, including revamping the stakes system and adding seasonal elements.
3) Art direction for the book and general approach to the outside world.
4) Character Sheets and Notation Techniques (These are especially important in conflict, which oddly hasn't been mentioned.)
Like I said, all great stuff. The first two are after-playtest concerns, though, and the third is very-far-after-playtest, but yet still on my mind recently, so I'll be commenting on it soon. It may be more useful for us to carry these into seperate threads at this point, though.
yrs--
--Ben
P.S. If I don't respond, it is because I am interested in what is going on here, but would rather go "hmm... perhaps" that "yeah" or "nay."