Some of you may recall my game Shadows in the Fog, an occult history horror and weirdness thing set in Jack the Ripper's London. Well, after much agony and some playtesting, I have done a pretty strong overhaul of text and rules.

It's available as a zip file containing a hefty pdf.

Here's the .zip link to download from

I'm looking for essentially any comments at all, as before. What I'd particularly like to see is someone take the thing for a test-drive, but I realize that it's tricky because the game really doesn't lend itself to short runs. Still, any playtesting would be much appreciated.

Please note that there aren't enough examples. The thing was getting pretty long anyway. So one question is where examples are needed. I mean, examples are always helpful, but where in particular would they be helpful?

As before, Volume 2, which will contain all kinds of historical information, maps, and whatnot has barely been started. When I eventually consider the game "complete" it will have all this, but the game is entirely playable without it.

Many thanks.

Hi,

I read quickly through the game, skipping the options section. Very very intriguing. I like the concept, the use of tarot cards, the subtle magic, your admission and embrace of a slow pace, the 'theory,' even the introductory epigraph is great.

Here are some thoughts:


You mention the concept of a “Mask” a few times before explaining exactly what it is in the actual mask section.

Give a few examples or lists of possible masks beyond your mention of a character with a military background. Or direct players to the People of London section.

“Abyss” is a stark term compared to many of the examples, some of which are fairly subtle. I like the word, but you might want to “justify” it in a sense by explaining why the reality or secret behind the mask qualifies as an abyss.


“Group creation session” makes it sound like the players will share character concepts in advance so as to create a bunch of characters who work well together: the 'team' concept. But you’re actually focusing on defining the relationships between characters and fleshing out character backgrounds through points of contact. I like the technique of a social gathering by the way.

The example you give under the “Compleat Mask” seems too strong. The blatant reference about whoring seems to add an out of character ‘make sure you catch my drift here’ to what I had imagined as an in-character sharing of info.

It would be nice to have an example of a character with skills and ratings.

Two of the interpersonal skills, caring and trusting, are going to be harder to figure out than the other two which have corollaries in many games. Examples probably needed.

The meanings of the suits is under-emphasized in your rules explanations and examples. Suits don’t show up at all in your opposed actions and concessions examples. And the combat example of the swords suit should clearly state that the trick in the fight is an example of intellect. And then the pentacles card doesn’t seem to have anything to do with money. I like the extended example but you should strengthen the role of suits. Or am I misinterpreting what suits are supposed to do.

Need more examples of magick use, especially initiation and narrating the win.

Also could help to have an sample of game play for a magical resolution over the full five tricks.

Good summaries of types of magic.

I like the Levi-Strauss underpinnings. But examples under the Why this Way section seems too “hard” in the sense of it being unlikely that different players would remember earlier uses and refine them so carefully in a narrowing, ascending pyramid of meanings. Although maybe this is what you mean by play moving slowly so players have time to reflect upon past actions and draw upon fragments of info about the setting. The example of the tower card and the opposing spheres is even harder. (Don’t get me wrong, they really make me want to try the game but perhaps building from a really obvious example to your subtler ones would be a good idea).

Also, might you want to summarize these crucial concepts in the intro rather than leave them after all the rules.

Finally, two more conceptual comments.

Where’s the horror in the text? It is tepidly indirectly implied in a few examples, but do you need a section on the kind of horror experience you think the game can provide, and how to structure terror and mystery through collaborative narration? Or is the game not necessarily a horror rpg, you’re just going to provide plenty of details on the occult in the 2nd volume.

Along the same lines, ever thought of leaving the magic out, or suggesting a magic free game as an option? It’s a personal bias of mine to think that some rpgs can work just as well or better without the included supernatural powers. The game seems to have enough social, psychological, and setting depth to work sans occult. Trumps could still equate to unusual things happening; just not by supernatural means.

You got all that from a fast read-through? Damn, you're good!

I'll just walk through here, for clarity's sake. Most of the things I agree with to at least some degree.

redivider wrote: Give a few examples or lists of possible masks beyond your mention of a character with a military background. Or direct players to the People of London section.

“Abyss” is a stark term compared to many of the examples, some of which are fairly subtle. I like the word, but you might want to “justify” it in a sense by explaining why the reality or secret behind the mask qualifies as an abyss.

“Group creation session” makes it sound like the players will share character concepts in advance so as to create a bunch of characters who work well together: the 'team' concept. But you’re actually focusing on defining the relationships between characters and fleshing out character backgrounds through points of contact. I like the technique of a social gathering by the way.

The example you give under the “Compleat Mask” seems too strong. The blatant reference about whoring seems to add an out of character ‘make sure you catch my drift here’ to what I had imagined as an in-character sharing of info.

It would be nice to have an example of a character with skills and ratings.

Two of the interpersonal skills, caring and trusting, are going to be harder to figure out than the other two which have corollaries in many games. Examples probably needed.

The meanings of the suits is under-emphasized in your rules explanations and examples. Suits don’t show up at all in your opposed actions and concessions examples. And the combat example of the swords suit should clearly state that the trick in the fight is an example of intellect. And then the pentacles card doesn’t seem to have anything to do with money. I like the extended example but you should strengthen the role of suits. Or am I misinterpreting what suits are supposed to do?

Also could help to have an sample of game play for a magical resolution over the full five tricks.

I like the Levi-Strauss underpinnings. But examples under the Why this Way section seems too “hard” in the sense of it being unlikely that different players would remember earlier uses and refine them so carefully in a narrowing, ascending pyramid of meanings. Although maybe this is what you mean by play moving slowly so players have time to reflect upon past actions and draw upon fragments of info about the setting. The example of the tower card and the opposing spheres is even harder. (Don’t get me wrong, they really make me want to try the game but perhaps building from a really obvious example to your subtler ones would be a good idea).

Where’s the horror in the text? It is tepidly indirectly implied in a few examples, but do you need a section on the kind of horror experience you think the game can provide, and how to structure terror and mystery through collaborative narration? Or is the game not necessarily a horror rpg, you’re just going to provide plenty of details on the occult in the 2nd volume.

Along the same lines, ever thought of leaving the magic out, or suggesting a magic free game as an option? It’s a personal bias of mine to think that some rpgs can work just as well or better without the included supernatural powers. The game seems to have enough social, psychological, and setting depth to work sans occult. Trumps could still equate to unusual things happening; just not by supernatural means.

First, in terms of alternate history, you say that the idea is to be subtle about it, such that any use of the occult would not be discernable in the future looking back on the history. I get what you're saying, but does this apply to the players as well? That is, is this a convention that the players need to adhere to, or just the GM? If some player did use some flashy ability to kill Queen Victoria (she having been determined to have been replaced by a fake or somesuch), should that be disallowed? Discouraged?

I like the section on mode. It sets the idea that the protagonists, and likely the antagonists too, are those who have a disjunction between their internal and external personalities. I think that this makes for a rather clear method of finding appropriate characters to play.

The note on secrets is pretty good, but you might want to include a statement that the way to ensure that you have the "story power" over something is to be willing to reveal the secrets in question. A secret unrevealed is only fun for the revealer, so the "threat" of your secret being overrun by somebody else should simply be incentive for people to reveal their secrets. This might, in some ways, conflict with the pace of the game - but I don't think that it has to do so. In any case, it can work to prevent a lot of protracted farting around, waiting for something dramatically interesting to happen. I think as long as people are adhering to the other genre constraints, that the pressure to reveal secrets is fine.

Generally, I think the campaign and design parameters sections do a fine job of getting the feel of the style and such across. What they don't do, somehow, is to get across what gameplay will be like. We get all the color in spades, even some idea of who the characters are, but we have no idea what the situations are going to be like. I looks like we have to wait for that until way back in "Running the Shadows" (Shadowrunners?). But even there, again we get color, and tricks for generating color. It seems that, at the most, the only suggestions for generating situation is in terms of interpreting reads of the cards.

Is this the game's assertion? That nobody playing needs to think actively about situation, but that it will come about automatically as a result of the card play? Note, I'm not talking about scenes individually; you mention that it might do to have scenes with conflict pre-established. But nowhere do you say what sorts of conflicts make sense, or how to organize them, except in the long example in the "Running" chapter under "Why this way?"

Put it this way, it seems to me that either this will fail to work at all, or it will work, in which case it's extremely brilliant. But I'm doubting the whole Jungian forces concept that seems to be driving it. I mean, with Universalis, we don't expect any particular sort of result, anything can happen. So, basically, without anything in particular to inform what sort of action is supposed to happen, how do we get the right sorts of plots to happen in SitF? With all the remarks on color, I can see it feeling right - I just don't see what sort of conflicts are going to be built.

It sorta begs for a sample scenario, or the equivalent. Perhaps a sample of play? I mean, I can see the Group Creation session crystal clear. But then right off, as GM I'm going to flounder as to what to do to spur action. Do I create a villain ala Fu Manchu or something (or is that too pulpy?) Do I have somebody important discover the PC secrets one by one? What's appropriate? How can I keep it all coherent without falling into that CoC party play mode where it's just, "Dude calls us all together to investigate haunted house." Or is that the mode we're supposed to use?


I think that I said this last time, but it bears repeating; watch the negative language. You say too often that the game isn't pulp, but then don't say as much about what it is. Instead of trying to exhort people not to play pulp, I think it would be better to tell them how to play in the subtle manner that's good for the game.

For example, "Don't design your character around a gimmick." Replace with, "Design characters with depth." Then the Richard III example becomes how to use a characteristic for depth, with the other examples as counterexamples. So, instead of "Don't do this, here's a bad example, here's a good one" you say, "Do this, here's a good example, and here's what not to do." I think this has strong psychological effects. The first sounds like you're in denial of what might be fun, the second sounds athoratative and directly informational.

"Right away, I'm begging you to immerse yourself in Victorian Culture. The best way to do this is to read some helpful fictional works (it's also fun, of course)." Sounds like it's some horrible task that you're asking the participants to take on that you're trying to sweeten. How about, "It's very important before starting to immerse yourself in Victorian Culture. Do not begin play until you've read some helpful fictional works. It's fun, and failing to do so will make the game less fun to play."

We make other things requirements in play, why not reading assignments? As always, the player will ignore this at will. The way to get them to do it is to present it in a positive light as a requirement of good play. Which it is, no?

Your section on Austerity does this perfectly. To paraphrase, "Play is austere, not pulpy. Play is mostly internal, not external."


The part about The Abyss is interesting. Perhaps not important, but intriguing, you say that the character must have something eccentric about them to "deserve" having occult things happening to them. Thus conforming with the Victorian ideal. But isn't the game to some extent about questioning this ideal? I'm not suggesting that players should be allowed to take non-eccentric people. Just that this seems like a somewhat odd assertion. Are you saying here that the theme of fixed destiny due to behavior is inalterable in the game?

Also, is the character's Abyss a secret or not? The examples seem to be secret type stuff, but then some of the other text seems to assume that their peers would realize these things. For example, one of the questions is, "What do you think they think of you?" Shouldn't that be, "What would they think of you, if not for your mask?" Or do I read something incorrectly?

The section on Passing seems to offer a clue (that is, it could be either?), but it's still not clear.

Under drives, you have several questions. One of them is "What would you give up for them [your drives]?" I suggest leaving that out. Isn't that something that play should determine? If they answer the question up front, then I think that it takes some of the suspense out of it, no?


These are some fundamental level issues, I haven't gotten into the detailed mechanisms yet.

Oh, one last thing. How is the character recorded? It probably seems obvious to you, but...is there a character sheet or anything? Or is the character just recorded as a list of notes? All the many questions that go into chargen, and the intro session - how do we ensure that this doesn't get lost? What if the game is a once a month event? Or you play gazillions of games like I do, and forget the names of the characters between sessions, much less what their connections to each other are.

Did I miss a suggestion about this somewhere?

Mike

First, a very long response that is at the same time an example:

Mike Holmes wrote: First, in terms of alternate history, you say that the idea is to be subtle about it, such that any use of the occult would not be discernable in the future looking back on the history. I get what you're saying, but does this apply to the players as well? That is, is this a convention that the players need to adhere to, or just the GM? If some player did use some flashy ability to kill Queen Victoria (she having been determined to have been replaced by a fake or somesuch), should that be disallowed? Discouraged?

Continuing on to Mike's other points and questions:

Mike Holmes wrote: Is this the game's assertion? That nobody playing needs to think actively about situation, but that it will come about automatically as a result of the card play? Note, I'm not talking about scenes individually; you mention that it might do to have scenes with conflict pre-established. But nowhere do you say what sorts of conflicts make sense, or how to organize them, except in the long example in the "Running" chapter under "Why this way?"

Put it this way, it seems to me that either this will fail to work at all, or it will work, in which case it's extremely brilliant. But I'm doubting the whole Jungian forces concept that seems to be driving it. I mean, with Universalis, we don't expect any particular sort of result, anything can happen. So, basically, without anything in particular to inform what sort of action is supposed to happen, how do we get the right sorts of plots to happen in SitF? With all the remarks on color, I can see it feeling right - I just don't see what sort of conflicts are going to be built.

It sorta begs for a sample scenario, or the equivalent. Perhaps a sample of play? I mean, I can see the Group Creation session crystal clear. But then right off, as GM I'm going to flounder as to what to do to spur action. Do I create a villain ala Fu Manchu or something (or is that too pulpy?) Do I have somebody important discover the PC secrets one by one? What's appropriate? How can I keep it all coherent without falling into that CoC party play mode where it's just, "Dude calls us all together to investigate haunted house." Or is that the mode we're supposed to use?

I think that I said this last time, but it bears repeating; watch the negative language. You say too often that the game isn't pulp, but then don't say as much about what it is. Instead of trying to exhort people not to play pulp, I think it would be better to tell them how to play in the subtle manner that's good for the game.

For example, "Don't design your character around a gimmick." Replace with, "Design characters with depth." Then the Richard III example becomes how to use a characteristic for depth, with the other examples as counterexamples. So, instead of "Don't do this, here's a bad example, here's a good one" you say, "Do this, here's a good example, and here's what not to do." I think this has strong psychological effects. The first sounds like you're in denial of what might be fun, the second sounds athoratative and directly informational.

The part about The Abyss is interesting. Perhaps not important, but intriguing, you say that the character must have something eccentric about them to "deserve" having occult things happening to them. Thus conforming with the Victorian ideal. But isn't the game to some extent about questioning this ideal? I'm not suggesting that players should be allowed to take non-eccentric people. Just that this seems like a somewhat odd assertion. Are you saying here that the theme of fixed destiny due to behavior is inalterable in the game?

Also, is the character's Abyss a secret or not? The examples seem to be secret type stuff, but then some of the other text seems to assume that their peers would realize these things. For example, one of the questions is, "What do you think they think of you?" Shouldn't that be, "What would they think of you, if not for your mask?" Or do I read something incorrectly?

Under drives, you have several questions. One of them is "What would you give up for them [your drives]?" I suggest leaving that out. Isn't that something that play should determine? If they answer the question up front, then I think that it takes some of the suspense out of it, no?

Oh, one last thing. How is the character recorded? It probably seems obvious to you, but...is there a character sheet or anything? Or is the character just recorded as a list of notes? All the many questions that go into chargen, and the intro session - how do we ensure that this doesn't get lost? What if the game is a once a month event? Or you play gazillions of games like I do, and forget the names of the characters between sessions, much less what their connections to each other are.

Refering to the first response:

It seems to me that you're saying that, since the game advocates a certain kind of play, the players will enforce the genre conventions. Well, that's either true or it's not. Meaning, if it's true that the players will enforce the conventions, then the case will never come up. If it's not true for one player, then it might not be for all.

My question is, if a minority of players sees something as a genre violation, do they have any recourse? The GM? He certainly has veto power over some things like character concepts, and there is the section on monitoring interpretations, etc. Basically, does the GM's authority extend here, too? To protecting genre in terms of magic?

Anyhow, if the problem can't happen, then why the section in the rules telling us to watch out for it? Basically, what I'm getting at is that you have loads of comments about what the genre should be like, but very little in the way of powers to enforce it, other than a general notion of GM fiat that's enumerated here and there.

This strikes me as traditional. That is, it seems like you're assuming that the players will have played other RPGs, and have a tradition of GM fiat anyhow, and so they'll just get how to handle this sort of thing. I personally take the more rigorous road on these things. But others would advocate not even handling them at all. What I see as particularly problematic is leaving it halfway stated. If the GM has powers over these things, then say so. If it's just up to group consensus, then state the genre, and don't bother with any (to use a Ron phrase) "High Point's of Contact" method of determination. Just assume that the players will do it right.

Why wouldn't they?


As for the problem with examples, I'm afraid that I simply don't see it at all. In any RPG, there are places where the players have multivariate options. Just because you can't display them all in one example, doesn't make the example, useful. Just have each example display one or more uses of the rules of the game. Do I miss your point somehow?

Put another way, the example seems just fine to me.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: It seems to me that you're saying that, since the game advocates a certain kind of play, the players will enforce the genre conventions. Well, that's either true or it's not. Meaning, if it's true that the players will enforce the conventions, then the case will never come up. If it's not true for one player, then it might not be for all.

My question is, if a minority of players sees something as a genre violation, do they have any recourse? The GM? He certainly has veto power over some things like character concepts, and there is the section on monitoring interpretations, etc. Basically, does the GM's authority extend here, too? To protecting genre in terms of magic?

Anyhow, if the problem can't happen, then why the section in the rules telling us to watch out for it? Basically, what I'm getting at is that you have loads of comments about what the genre should be like, but very little in the way of powers to enforce it, other than a general notion of GM fiat that's enumerated here and there.

If it's just up to group consensus, then state the genre, and don't bother with any (to use a Ron phrase) "High Point's of Contact" method of determination. Just assume that the players will do it right.

As for the problem with examples, I'm afraid that I simply don't see it at all. In any RPG, there are places where the players have multivariate options. Just because you can't display them all in one example, doesn't make the example, useful. Just have each example display one or more uses of the rules of the game. Do I miss your point somehow?

clehrich wrote: See, what worries me here is that your questions imply that these things are tightly linked together, and I think you’re right. Which is yet another reason it’s so damn difficult to write up examples.

...the odd thing is that it does seem to work. But as you say, the question of “what sorts of plots?” is an amazingly important and difficult one. I’m wondering how to present this. I mean, I could provide a list of sample storylines, but I don’t know if that would by itself help enough.

Coherence is a really good question in SitF. And I’m not sure what the answer is. I do think that maybe starting out with the old CoC thing might be useful, but I find that the game tends at some point to start generating its own plots. See, if you take that magical example from last post, you’ll see that out of thin air we’ve generated a whole bunch of side plots.

So then people start following them up in normal play, and their magic keeps adding more plots, and so on and so forth. Which means that by the time you’ve run let’s say about 10 sessions, the storyline is so goddamn complicated that only the group can even follow it any more.

Jere’s espionage version, Age of Paranoia, has a Wiki to keep it all straight – and the thing is getting HUGE because NPC’s and stories and whatnot keep appearing out of nowhere. His version is very GM-driven, but when SitF has run well in previous versions, it happened exactly when the GM was really barely necessary except to toss in new weirdness from history. That’s what I’m trying to capitalize on in these rules: the ability to generate coherent strangeness on the fly.

I think that I said this last time, but it bears repeating; watch the negative language. You say too often that the game isn't pulp, but then don't say as much about what it is. Instead of trying to exhort people not to play pulp, I think it would be better to tell them how to play in the subtle manner that's good for the game.

Gee, I thought I’d toned that down.

Oh sure, it’s about questioning that, but SitF simply does not work if your character is a “straight shooter.” You can’t question it from the outside, only the inside. It’s not a fixed destiny, but it is true that the more magic you get involved in, the weirder you will get.

Nope, that’s basically particularizing the Mask. The idea is that your peers are in many ways like you, but although they pigeonhole you as like them, there are special things about you that do make you a bit different. And it’s very important to think about what if anything bothers them about you, why you’re not put up for as many clubs, and so forth.

My idea here was that you become fairly clear about how important these drives are. Basically it’s like Humanity in Sorcerer, which is I think what you mean about needing to leave it a bit open how you decide things, but the thing is that you have multiple drives and they’re not necessarily consistent or coherent. So if you’re conscious and deliberate about constructing the things as stuff you might give other things up for, that helps you flesh out the complexities of the character.

I guess what’s really missing here is that all this initial character work is eminently mutable. You expect that the character will change over time, but in subtle ways. So you’re setting up a hugely complicated three-dimensional mass of conflicting desires and drives, and then letting those things twist in on themselves over time.

Well, to me it seems like the best way is just to write a brief statement of the Mask, a detailed paragraph or two on the Compleat Mask, and a page of notes on the Abyss.

But your question about keeping track of all this over time is a really good one. Jere, as I say, has been running a Wiki, and I think that’s a really good way if you have the inclination.

Anyone else have suggestions on this? The game generates an enormous quantity of weirdness very rapidly, and it is indeed hard to keep track. I mean, if you think about that Queen-killing example, consider that every detail of that play could get picked up again at any time. And that every time someone used a Trump in there, that’s part of the card’s history now. On a Wiki, what you do is have a page that’s just the Trumps, with every use attached to the appropriate Trump and a link to the appropriate magical action. Every magical action also gets a brief page, with cross-references to the Trumps. And every NPC gets a page. And and and....

Here’s a concrete example. Remember the actress horribly killed while acting as the Queen’s double? Okay, well where was she before that? She got invented on the fly, but who was she? Well, maybe later on we’re mucking around with Maskelyne’s Egyptian Hall of Mystery and we need an actress who was once there doing something weird. Great, how about the same actress? ‘Course, we have to remember who she was and what sorts of cards might have marked her. Now how does that color the current Maskelyne storyline? Hoo boy, I come out in goosebumps just thinking about it.

I’m rambling like this to give some sense of what this game is about and why it’s so damn difficult to explain in concrete examples. Anyone have suggestions? I mean, as in specific advice for how to do this?

clehrich wrote: See, the weird thing here is that every time people read these rules, in whatever version, they worry about exactly these kinds of issues. But in play, I've never seen them come up in actual fact. What actually happens is that the whole group comes to a stable way of looking at cards and interpretations and when people go too far the whole group kind of indicates, more or less subtly but definitely clearly, that they're against it. Half the time the player says, "Can I take the card back?" within about 30 seconds. Usually what happens then is people say, "No, well hang on, how about if we made it like this, would that still work for you? 'Cause then you could play it." And the guy says, "Oh, yeah, cool." And he makes his speech and the magical resolution starts and so on. And I should note that this doesn't happen often -- like about once every five sessions or so, and they get less and less common.

Well, because the group needs a baseline aesthetic sense of how to run things, since they really do all the running and ruling. And having advice about what kinds of things are "too far" or "pulp" or whatever is supposed to provide useful guard-rails so that when somebody does something too pulpy, the rest of the group has a sense that they ought to bend it back into line.

I don't know why the GM fiat thing seems so strong to you; to me, it's pretty incidental after the initial setup. As to "powers to enforce it," the players have insane powers to enforce anything they want, because no piece of card-play narration happens without other players' potential input, and in magic in particular there's always an enormous amount of input.

If it's just up to group consensus, then state the genre, and don't bother with any (to use a Ron phrase) "High Point's of Contact" method of determination. Just assume that the players will do it right.

Really? I thought you hated that sort of thing.

clehrich wrote:

“Group creation session” makes it sound like the players will share character concepts in advance so as to create a bunch of characters who work well together: the 'team' concept. But you’re actually focusing on defining the relationships between characters and fleshing out character backgrounds through points of contact. I like the technique of a social gathering by the way.

On this one, I wonder what others think. I see what you're saying, but that's not the connotation this term has for me. If your reading is relatively usual, though, some term-change or revision is definitely in order.

clehrich wrote:

I think that I said this last time, but it bears repeating; watch the negative language. You say too often that the game isn't pulp, but then don't say as much about what it is. Instead of trying to exhort people not to play pulp, I think it would be better to tell them how to play in the subtle manner that's good for the game.

Gee, I thought I’d toned that down.

For example, "Don't design your character around a gimmick." Replace with, "Design characters with depth." Then the Richard III example becomes how to use a characteristic for depth, with the other examples as counterexamples. So, instead of "Don't do this, here's a bad example, here's a good one" you say, "Do this, here's a good example, and here's what not to do." I think this has strong psychological effects. The first sounds like you're in denial of what might be fun, the second sounds athoratative and directly informational.

I’ll work on it, but as I say, I really thought I’d gone a long way in that direction. What do others think?

Here are some thoughts, but you should be warned that at a certain point I am going to go hareing away from the game as it is currently written. Hopefully my crazy suggestions will be useful rather than distracting.

What I'd like to see is a way in which the Mask and the Abyss become part of the system. Here's one suggestion, followed by a much more extreme one:

What if the player's hand of cards was divided into two groups: Mask and Abyss, held separately.

In this set up, cards could be played out of either pool at any time, with the following restrictions:

a) Cards played from Mask must be based skills and abilities supposedly possessed by the mask. If they don't (whether because they used for magical actions, or because (for example) Sir Henry shouldn't know how to pick pockets) any cards gained at the end of the scene must be placed in the Abyss pool.

b) When used for mundane actions, cards played from the Abyss pool, must be described as using abilities or resources that the mask does not possess.

c) When the number of cards in the Abyss pool is greater than the number in the Mask pool, the mask is fraying and i) any other magician can tell that the character is a magician, ii) a number of cards in the Abyss pool equal to the difference must be held face up.

The idea is to prodcue a tension in the player's resource use. On one hand, Mask cards are more flexible, in that they can be used to act without arousing suspicion, and if need be can be converted to magical use. Doing the later, however, moves cards into the Abyss pool.

On the other hand, while Abyss cards can be used for any action without affecting the allocation of cards, they often attract attention. Moreover, if you have too many Abyss cards compared to Mask cards, you aren't hiding yourself at all efficiently with the result that the entire table (and by extension the Occult world of London) will be able to predict what you might be able to do, because they can see the face up cards.


Which leads me to the following radical question: Why does the game have two separate systems, one for mundane activity, one for magic?

I know you want to keep the two separate, but even the very pared down skill list you have now seems too weighty for a game with the very free-form magic system. Fundamentally, I don't see any reason why the trick system shouldn't be used in 'ordinary' scenes.

More importantly, what _I_ would like to see is a game where the only limitation on actions is the distinction between acts that fit with your Mask, and those (coming out of the Abyss) that break it. All actions are divided into Mask actions, which must be consistent with the description of the character, and are thus limited; and Abyss actions which are unlimited because they use magic or hidden abilities, but as a result, harm the character's Mask.

That is to say, that if you really want to drive at what I see as the heart of the game, you need to build a tension between the need to maintain one's Mask, and the (potentially) unlimited power available if you open up your Abyss. There should be danger at both extremes. That is, the danger that you will either lose your Mask completely (and be swallowed up by the Abyss), or that in suppressing the Abyss, you will become nothing but a Mask.

Think of it as the opposing difficulties faced by Conradin in Sredni Vashtar, and Jekyll and Hyde. In the first case, Mrs DeRopp wants to squeeze the imagination and the life out of Conradin, making him an ordinary Mask-only individual like herself. (Seen from this point of view, Saki's heroes are individuals with open Abysses, and the crazed sucess of their pranks is the result of a magical ability to manipulate the world, that is unavailable to the mere Masks that inhabit the society around them.) By comparison, the Jekyll is confronted by increasing difficulty as Hyde becomes more and more out of control, until finally the difference between the two collapses, resulting in his ruin.

If you combine a system with Mask and Abyss scores with the ability to somehow attack those scores, you produce two ways of destroying characters: snuffing out their magical talent (turning them into bare Masks) or disgracing them in society (reducing the Mask to nothing). In doing so, you hopefully produce attempts to balance Mask against Abyss by the players, and continually bring the premise of the game back into focus.

I am really not sure how you would do all this, but even if this is way further than you want to go, hopefully it is provocative.

Piers

Mike Holmes wrote: First, how much independent playtesting have you done with it? I have no doubt that it works for you with your clear vision of how it should work. I'm just not sure that there's enough of that vision in the text to get it to work for anyone else. I'm not kidding when I say that I think I'd falter right out of the gate playing myself. That said, my opinion here sans actual play is about as important as yours is (not much, IOW).

No, what I think this needs is examples of actual play. That is, what your personal play of the game is good for is for informing people as to what makes sense. I'm not refering to some fictional example of play, but actual examples. If you've played, and it's worked for you, then one way to get across what should be in play is to put exactly what you did (mistakes and all) in the book. ... This makes examples really easy. You just publish what actually happened.

Yes, the whole actually strikes me now as a lot like Inspectres. Have you seen how "prep" is done for that? Basically, you do very little, except have the "Call". That said Inspectres has the advantage of a strong episodic structure, while your game seems to be more serial and freeform. ... Basically, I think you need something to replace that structure. One way would just be to throw in Sorcerer style prep ideas. The games strike me as very similar in terms of prep requirements.

Hmm. If this is true, consider that it might not be a feature. Have you ever seen a game of SitF "finished"? Does the proliferation of plots make it impossible to get any of them told?

OK, so what is it that you and Jere do to make things go? Is it only your play that tends to go well "freeform?"

If, in fact, it all just works out for real, well, then I think you've really got something interesting and new here. I'm just suspicious that there are forces at work here creating success where it might not work so well in general distribution. Or, I dunno, maybe this is a game only for those who are very into the niche? Not meant to be able to work for even those with only a slightly casual approach?

I think that I said this last time, but it bears repeating; watch the negative language. You say too often that the game isn't pulp, but then don't say as much about what it is. Instead of trying to exhort people not to play pulp, I think it would be better to tell them how to play in the subtle manner that's good for the game.

Gee, I thought I’d toned that down.

I bet you did. But I'm of the belief that you can get rid of it 100%. That said, at this point it's probably not a big deal. It's just that you have what I think is a powerful design going here, and it shouldn't have to seem apologetic or "requesting" at all.

In general, there seem to be several places where player and character drives get confounded in the text. I'm guessing this is somewhat stylistic, attempting to get the player into the head of the character or whatnot. I'm not going to argue against that here, but only say that I personally find that it's better if the texts don't try to confuse these things. For example, I think it's generally harmful to refer to "you" when actually refering to characters.

Not sure I'm getting you. To restate, then, there are differences in terms of the character's Mask being less than totally acceptable to society, and then there's the Abyss, which is a much deeper infraction? Or am I still grasping here?

My idea here was that you become fairly clear about how important these drives are. Basically it’s like Humanity in Sorcerer, which is I think what you mean about needing to leave it a bit open how you decide things, but the thing is that you have multiple drives and they’re not necessarily consistent or coherent. So if you’re conscious and deliberate about constructing the things as stuff you might give other things up for, that helps you flesh out the complexities of the character.

Well, like in Sorcerer (which is precisely what's informing my idea here) humanity, yes, critical to this is deciding what is important. But the humanity score is precisely about not pre-deciding just how important it is. Rather, the humanity score is what's important to the player, but it may mean nothing to the character. Now, you can play this through character drives as well, but I think that establishing what's more important than what doesn't leave that to be established in play. Which is what's fun about such things, IMO.

Right, but that's my point. By asking the player how important X is, you fix it in place. Well, for some players, but probably not others. The point is that if you want them to be mutable, then ask the question in mutable terms. "What might be important to your character and why might it be?"

But your question about keeping track of all this over time is a really good one. Jere, as I say, has been running a Wiki, and I think that’s a really good way if you have the inclination.

Wiki's rock. I completely advocate their use for things like this. And I'd even suggest you say so in the text. ... But for people who don't want to learn Wiki (something that I can't understand, but then I wouldn't)?

But a whole nother angle to consider is that maybe you should have some sort of reward for bringing things back full circle to things established previously.

Here’s a concrete example. Remember the actress horribly killed while acting as the Queen’s double? Okay, well where was she before that? She got invented on the fly, but who was she? Well, maybe later on we’re mucking around with Maskelyne’s Egyptian Hall of Mystery and we need an actress who was once there doing something weird. Great, how about the same actress? ‘Course, we have to remember who she was and what sorts of cards might have marked her. Now how does that color the current Maskelyne storyline? Hoo boy, I come out in goosebumps just thinking about it.

Again, in Universalis, using the Actress already established gives you rewards, essentially, so people come back fast to avoid running out of resources. ... Another thing to think about is "sunsetting" things. That is, only keep notes on the last two sessions. Anything that doesn't get used in that time becomes invalid. Just chuck it. Doesn't mean you can't come back to it, only that none of the mechanics will still work for it - you have to start over as if the thing were newly created. This would have players thinking as sessions start to end how to bring back things from the last session so they don't lose their potency.

Mike Holmes wrote: You misunderstand me. I completely think that this can and does happen, that group power works just fine. Again, this is Universalis in a nutshell. My point isn't that the group can't enforce it's will, you've given plenty of power to do that. The question is why should their will be to play, for example, Austere instead of Pulpy? Other than your suggestions that they should not?

Again, in Universalis, the power to limit to a certain sort of play is part of the overal general power given. But any genre can happen, because the rules don't make it go any particular way. Your rules seem similar to me. Where in the mechanics are the players constrained to the genre?

Well, because the group needs a baseline aesthetic sense of how to run things, since they really do all the running and ruling. And having advice about what kinds of things are "too far" or "pulp" or whatever is supposed to provide useful guard-rails so that when somebody does something too pulpy, the rest of the group has a sense that they ought to bend it back into line.

This is my point. Color text can inform, but not enforce. V:TM says that the game is about playing up the character's struggle for humanity, but it plays a lot different than that because of the system. ... Basically this sounds like "system doesn't matter." That you can just tell people what play should look like, and the system doesn't have to support that.

Again, this was my point. I was asking if the powers were strong, not saying that I thought they were. That is, strong powers would be one way to enforce genre. The other, just as valid, is to not say anything about it. That is, why have the GM contol caveats where they are at all? If the players have the power, and you think that the players will be inspired by the setting material so much that they'll enforce the genre, then you don't need the GM to be able to veto in these cases, do you?

Where you potentially part with the theory is the question of whether or not your system supports the genre of play. Sorcerer definitely supports playing about demons and sorcery, etc. Your system definitely supports playing about using supernatural powers to alter reality. But does it support Victoriana at all? Note how Ron doesn't even try to enforce color with Sorcerer? That's not to say a system can't support color, or that yours doesn't. I'm just not seeing how it does. And color seems so, so important to this particular game.

To give you a bad example of how this could be done (note, a bad example, just meant to spur ideas, not meant at all for adoption), you could have the GM give cards to players who stayed particularly in genre. So, players who played to kill queens in violent storms of energy would not get these rewards. Meaning that the players would be systematically informed of how to play.

I think that it's interesting that the "Advancement System" is entirely "play" and not a reward system. I like that. Thing is, you don't have any reward system. Replenishing cards is, if anything, gamism based, and certainly there's nothing there that supports any particular genre. So, have I missed the reward system?

Cemendur wrote: On the other hand, one does not present the feeling of occult and horror, by repeating the phrases "occult" and "horror". Remember, show don't tell.

Actually, it feels like you are supporting color, but not of the intended type. The portrayal of the setting feels more like "anthropological essay" color than Victorian occult horror color.

Piers Brown wrote: Here are some thoughts, but you should be warned that at a certain point I am going to go hareing away from the game as it is currently written. Hopefully my crazy suggestions will be useful rather than distracting.

What I'd like to see is a way in which the Mask and the Abyss become part of the system. Here's one suggestion, followed by a much more extreme one....

Which leads me to the following radical question: Why does the game have two separate systems, one for mundane activity, one for magic?

I know you want to keep the two separate, but even the very pared down skill list you have now seems too weighty for a game with the very free-form magic system. Fundamentally, I don't see any reason why the trick system shouldn't be used in 'ordinary' scenes.

That is to say, that if you really want to drive at what I see as the heart of the game, you need to build a tension between the need to maintain one's Mask, and the (potentially) unlimited power available if you open up your Abyss. There should be danger at both extremes. That is, the danger that you will either lose your Mask completely (and be swallowed up by the Abyss), or that in suppressing the Abyss, you will become nothing but a Mask.

I am really not sure how you would do all this, but even if this is way further than you want to go, hopefully it is provocative.

Well, to me the point is that the Mask and Abyss are really not actually different, it's just that Victorian society assumes that there is no Abyss, and the character would really like to think that somehow the Abyss doesn't show, and so forth…. I will say that what you propose starts to drift rather toward Nephilim, doesn't it? I mean, I like Nephilim, but it's quite a different shtick, all secret history of how things really work and that stuff.

That is to say, that if you really want to drive at what I see as the heart of the game, you need to build a tension between the need to maintain one's Mask, and the (potentially) unlimited power available if you open up your Abyss. There should be danger at both extremes. That is, the danger that you will either lose your Mask completely (and be swallowed up by the Abyss), or that in suppressing the Abyss, you will become nothing but a Mask.

That's very cool. I need to think about that one; I'd sort of forgotten about the second worry. Thanks!

Which leads me to the following radical question: Why does the game have two separate systems, one for mundane activity, one for magic?

…The way magic plays out, you wouldn't want to run an actual regular game that way. It's oddly distant and intellectual, and very mentally difficult and intense. But on the other hand it's amazingly good for things like magic.

I know you want to keep the two separate, but even the very pared down skill list you have now seems too weighty for a game with the very free-form magic system. Fundamentally, I don't see any reason why the trick system shouldn't be used in 'ordinary' scenes.

This one I need to see in action, and I just haven't…. My hunch is that a skill system is valuable for regular play, but it's worth noting that in actual fact Jere's Age of Paranoia game jettisoned this -- although we pretend it's on the books. At the same time, I note that the big problem thus far with Jere's game has been that people feel the regular play is too unstructured, and I think that this mild skill system would add exactly that structure.

You wouldn't want to playtest up in your neck of the woods, would you?

clehrich wrote:

Mike Holmes wrote: First, how much independent playtesting have you done with it?...

None whatsoever. John Kim started to run it, but then a couple players moved away and the thing ended after one quick session. No one else has ever tried, to the best of my knowledge. I do think it's possible that this is because there isn't enough guidance from me, but it's a little tricky to provide it without seeing where others have difficulty. Sorry, just bitching.

The best stuff to communicate, the stuff that really runs very well, is the stuff that happens once an enormous amount of weirdness is already in place. And then, in order to write an example, you end up with about five pages of background material that sounds like one of those "What happened last year on Days of Our Lives" blurbs. Consequently I end up abstracting examples -- and they end up unclear for precisely that reason.

Of course, this also means that this is a difficult game to get running, but I can't really speak to that directly because I need to know what it looks like for others to run it, or start running it. So one of the purposes of posting these rules is to try to encourage someone else to go out and run a few sessions.

But what happens is that the players do have enough narrative control -- almost all of it, really -- that they can decide which stories they really want to finish, or at least give closure to.

... and create that kind of weird tunnel-vision that everyone who's ever been in a multi-year campaign (one that went well, I mean) recognizes.

My guess is that there is something new here, but that it's not a game that's going to work for general distribution. I never intended it to be so, so that's not a problem.

But I will say that even Jere, who's a careful reader and pretty much into this sort of thing, walked straight into one of the lightly signposted pit-traps within three sessions. And you know what? I could feel the flames start to flicker within another session.

If this works, and in a sense when it does, what happens is that those identities start to blur in a somewhat disconcerting way. I don't mean you get emotionally involved or something. I mean that you start looking in the mirror in a somewhat odd way. I really cannot explain this, but it has happened, and when it does it's unique in my RPG experience. I'm sure it's not actually unique, but it's one of the shticks of this game to push in that direction. If you read the Assumption alternate rules, you will see some of the implications of this going too far.

That's what I need to know: what are the hooks by which I will get to work dragging myself into the mud?

No, the idea is to ask how important X is in order to ask whether it's possible, over time, that X might become something of really large importance, and how and why. Do you see the distinction?

Yes. For people who don't want to learn Wiki, what DO you suggest? That was the question. Sorry, but you're throwing this question back at me and I still don't have an answer.

This is what I love about this game: the basic social dynamic of "God, that's cool, I wish I'd thought of that" makes it imperative to be cool, and the way to be cool in this game is to recycle background material, and that generates yet more material to recycle, and all told that makes for VERY powerful spells. And all of that creates a huge incentive to keep track of everything, as tightly as possible, because that's where skill -- and thus power -- really lies. Trust me, it's neat.

And let me tell you, every single player was totally into that and wanted to be a part of it. That's exactly what drives this game.

Piers,

I have to think about that. I did have an idea like that a while back, and I need to think about why I discarded it -- whether it was a good reason or a stupid one, or one that's no longer relevant either way.

----

Mike Holmes wrote: [On independent playtesting] I thought you mentioned at least one other play of the game, the one with the Wiki? Jere's game? Or is that for your game, too?

Have you offered any trades with anyone?

[On elaborate examples] Another way to do this would be to share what you do for prep. If this, too, is lengthy, then perhaps what you need is to display one whole campaign throughout the book. It may be that it might just take that much effort to get the idea across. In any case, if you break it up, then the parts can be chosen to specifically illuminate the ideas that they're presented in context with, while relying on each other for the neccessary overall context.

[Getting the game running] Well, actually it doesn't seem really difficult, just like it's missing a couple of critical things. ... Again, for me it would be simply how to have the characters come together, and what sort of action happens from there. ... In fact, you could present a couple of these sorts of things, if you were afraid of setting play in a bad rut. With more than one, players would be able to extrapolate others, potentially.

I think if you can come up with a good way to give the idea of the Soap Opera method, that it would be both new and pretty cool.

But, again, what did you do in your actual play? You had to have done something. If you can show the practical example, then maybe we can determine the principles working behind it. Might be a completely unique method that you've discovered.

... and create that kind of weird tunnel-vision that everyone who's ever been in a multi-year campaign (one that went well, I mean) recognizes.

Kinda lost me there. To what do you refer? I've played in lots of successful multi-year campaigns - weird tunnel-vision?

The point is that sans a clear idea of what the game should be like, players wander some from the guidelines that you do have. And then, yeah, it falters, because it's not following a vision of what play should be like.

We're going in circles here. I agree it's important to indicate what's potentially important to the character. I just think that determining precisely how important can be left to play. WIth the example of wealth, I could say, "Wealth is potentially important" or "Wealth is something that I'd kill for." The former allows wealth to be a draw, but for me to discover just how much in play. The latter fixes that answer.

Well, what I was implying earlier. A character sheet of some sort for each player, which may end up looking more like a diary or something. For the GM, notecards.

What if you're a geek like me, and the stuff you make isn't cool to anyone but you? Not a game for me?

clehrich wrote: Jere's game is very similar, but sharply divergent on a number of points, from mechanics to character design to basic conception. So while I'm learning a great deal, I don't think I can really count it as an independent playtest. It'd be sort of be like playing Marvel Superheroes and calling it a playtest of Champions. Interesting, valuable, but rather different. It's not actually quite that different, of course, but enough so that I don't think I can count the data directly.

Hmmm. Well, now I have a really strong urge to playtest the game. Actually I think this is somewhat problematic, as I'm probably too close to the game right now for an impartial playtest (my bias will probably show on the outcome), but I think it really does need a playtest. I'm also starting to get an idea from all of the examples of what play might look like (still fuzzy, but better than before). So that's part of why I want to try it out.

And the game just deserves a playtest.

Not sure when we can fit it in, but I'll see if I can generate some interest. Another problem with it is that, if I understand it correctly, we'd have to give it a rather lengthy test of at least several sessions for it to work out. So I can't promise anything. But it can't hurt to ask.

Josh? Are you interested at all? Josh is a very literary guy, so this might be right up his alley. That said, he does gravitate towards pulp.

Matt? How about you?


I want to say something about the "tunnel-vision" effect. I wasn't going to say anything at first, but...I don't think this is something to shoot for. Possibly. That is, there might be functional and dysfunctional versions of this, but the only versions that I've seen of it are dysfunctional. In the experiences I had where this happened, the reminisinces were overblown accounts of events that were really rather blah when they occured originally. That is, this was nostalgia generated as a response to the fact that people weren't really having a good time playing. Instead they'd remember some play as though it had been really great as a way of justifying their current participation. Like, "Gee, remember when Ragnar cut that guy's head off? Wasn't that cool? Man, I love playing this game." Instead of having been really interested when it happened, or being generally interested in the game, or, most importantly, being engaged in the current action of the game.

Now, like I've said, this is all based on my having never experienced the phenomenon in a positive fashion. And also on the fact that I detest (no, detest isn't strong enough, hate) nostalgia. I want what I'm doing right this moment to be what's engaging, not wan reminiscences of something that I did previously that I'm looking at with rose colored glasses to feel good about it.

Now, supposing there are players that are not like me, and who really like this stuff, and that the action in question is really actually interesting when it happens, and that the "conspiracy theory" effect is just a vibrant reinforcement of the current situation...then I think you have something there. This all could just be my own misapprehension.

BTW, the games I played in had tons of this effect, before I hit the Forge. Here I realized that one could really have the sort of fun that one wanted at the moment of play, and it didn't require romanticizing past play to exlain why the current play existed. That's right, I was playing solely under the notion that "someday" the right sort of play would happen if I just played long enough. About 25 years of play I wasted this way.

In the "big five" social threads, or something like them, Ron identified this phenomenon ("backloading story?"), and I've been extremely wary of it since. As soon as players start reminiscing in play, it's a sign to me that what's happening now isn't currently engaging enough. So you'll have to understand if I'm a little wary of the idea.

Mike

Mike,

Boy do I hope you'll playtest. Who cares about impartial?

As to tunnel-vision:

Believe me, I'm as jittery about the "backloading story" thing as you are. But I have seen this as a functional thing. What you have is immense background story, a whole bunch of connections and details that seem amazingly important right at the time... but which are very hard to explain to someone outside the circle.

The thing is, in a lot of ways it doesn't post facto look a lot like story, and when you try to relate what happened you try to turn it into a story, and there's a mismatch. I'm extremely focused on this "post facto" issue myself, both theoretically and practically, and the effect I'm trying to produce ain't that one -- I hate that. Sort of like ouija board play in the memory, you know?

Anyway, I look forward to whatever happens.

Yeah, I get what you're saying. And I hope it works out right. Sounds good in electrons at least... :-)

If I can't get a FTF game going, would a PBEM game be a reasonable substitute (wincing)? I think that there would be problems in counting on the outcome, but it might be informative to some extent. And for some reason I see this being particularly good for the PBEM format.

That said, perhaps I'm "pulpizing" here, as I'm already envisioning someting like De Profundis, where the interaction is nothing but physically separated characters confering by post. Hmmm.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: If I can't get a FTF game going, would a PBEM game be a reasonable substitute (wincing)? I think that there would be problems in counting on the outcome, but it might be informative to some extent. And for some reason I see this being particularly good for the PBEM format.

That said, perhaps I'm "pulpizing" here, as I'm already envisioning someting like De Profundis, where the interaction is nothing but physically separated characters confering by post. Hmmm.

In the "big five" social threads, or something like them, Ron identified this phenomenon ("backloading story?"), and I've been extremely wary of it since. As soon as players start reminiscing in play, it's a sign to me that what's happening now isn't currently engaging enough. So you'll have to understand if I'm a little wary of the idea.

clehrich wrote: And it actually looks like a couple groups out there, including my own at last, are going to take this puppy out for a drive, so every version of a playtest is spectacular.

The only objection I could imagine is if everyone tries to write in this hyper-flowery pseudo-Victorian voice. "At that moment, the gentleman betook himself...." That crap. Write straight.

About the only real difference in prose style that's likely to matter is that Victorian educated people had much better command of the language than most modern Americans, so they tended to use larger vocabularies and more complex sentences, and they rarely made serious grammatical errors.

Just don't be thinking puffy sleeves, if you know what I mean.

See, the thing is that it doesn't matter in SitF whether the PCs actually speak much in person. Sort of like MLwM a lot of the time. This is where the soap opera structure would come in, if I can ever get that clear in my head (and on paper).

In the "big five" social threads, or something like them, Ron identified this phenomenon ("backloading story?"), and I've been extremely wary of it since. As soon as players start reminiscing in play, it's a sign to me that what's happening now isn't currently engaging enough. So you'll have to understand if I'm a little wary of the idea.

I can't find this. I tried a search, but it didn't help. Can anyone point me to the thread?

Hiya,

I mentioned this topic most recently in the Ouija Boarding section in the Narrativism essay. If I can find some earlier references (because I'm pretty sure I mentioned the behavior more generally a long time ago), I'll let you know.

Best,
Ron

Mike Holmes wrote:

clehrich wrote: And it actually looks like a couple groups out there, including my own at last, are going to take this puppy out for a drive, so every version of a playtest is spectacular.

Cool. Hope we did some good here in getting people interested. :-)

About the only real difference in prose style that's likely to matter is that Victorian educated people had much better command of the language than most modern Americans, so they tended to use larger vocabularies and more complex sentences, and they rarely made serious grammatical errors.

I thought that this was a myth. That, generally literacy has remained about the same over time. That is, there was then in England, and is now in both America and England, about the same range of illiteracy to people able to write well, in about the same proportions. (Whereas the American's of the Victorian age were actually more illiterate, depending on how you count). In any case, we're talking about the middle class, so I'm sure they're generally literate. Hmm.

On the topic of letters, have any of you read Steven Brust and Emma Bull's _Freedom and Necessity_? It's a two-hander epistolary novel--one of the those that was essentially constructed by the authors writing in-character letters to each other, sort of making it up as the go along. As a result, it is slightly of uneven--the characters written by Steven Brust are very good indeed and those by Emma Bull, merely okay to good. The difficulties with this actually show up in terms of plot--you can sort of see them drifting apart, veering towards pulp, and then pulling themselves back-together. It's reminiscent of a role-playing campaign.

In any case, the story revolves simultaneously around the Chartists and an occult conspiracy, and actually fits well with Shadows. At its best it has the pull of Dumas in _Count of Monte Cristo_, and it does provide a reasonable template for an epistolary campaign--slightly puffy-sleved at times, but all in all, well worth looking at.

I nominate "Puffy-sleeved" to go into the lexicon immediately.

LOL

Ever see the movie "From the Hip"? Judd Nelson argues before the court for the admitting of the word "Asshole" into the record on the argument that no other word has the same connotation.

Same thing with "Puffy-sleeved." No other term is going to capture the meaning of "Overblown victoriana, specifically that which tends to be too flowery, filled with purple prose, and too emulative of the pulp genre."

:-)

But we're getting off topic now. Perhaps a new thread (with links to the ones on De Profundis) if people want to discuss this method of play.


Back to the subject of the thread - can anyone verify or provide a differing account of the reading of the text being problematic in terms of play vision? Or any other comments about the game itself?

Mike

Here's an example of the sort of thing I'm thinking about as a kind of running account.

WARNING: If you are planning to play in this game with me early early next year, DO NOT read this!









Please!






So I’ve decided to get cracking and finally run a new Shadows in the Fog campaign. The first thing to do, is to provide some sort of setup that will suck the characters into the Ripper murders but will give them occult hooks to play with. I don’t want much to be predetermined; if I do that, they’ll try to follow my lead and figure out “my plot,” instead of inventing the madness themselves. The hope is to trick them into doing all the work and getting deeply involved in what they’re inventing.

First will be the Group Creation session, in terms of actual play, but I need to lay a little groundwork. I’d like at least one person in the group to have a formal connection of some kind with Scotland Yard. He’ll be the official liaison, through whom they can get access to police reports. But these investigations are going to be secret, kind of like “X-Files,” so I can’t make this completely above-board.

Character notions are streaming in. One player has responded to the Scotland Yard invitation by producing a somewhat maverick CID (Criminal Investigation Department) Inspector. Cool. He’s maverick apparently because he’s kind of a brutal thug, which sounds fine.

Okay, so this tells me where I’m going to start things off. Basically the Group Creation thing should probably be a party, as usual, so we can get to know each other. We need a situation in which they can all meet and maybe start to get the sense of how they are in a way intertwined. I’ll set that around March, 1888. Then, about six months later, Inspector Grimmond will hit them up to help him on these secret investigations. We can do that at the tail-end of the group session, if that one player is feeling up to it (memo: must warn him about this so he’s thinking), or by email, or at the start of the next session. I’d like to avoid that last, because it’ll waste time getting started.

So the first non-creation session will happen in a special meeting room at the Diogenes Club. Mycroft Holmes meets them and sends them up, but doesn’t go himself. (Why not? Who is he? What’s the Diogenes Club?) Grimmond will have warned them of the club rules—no talking except in the Strangers’ Room—and if someone jibes we can have a little punishment or something. But let’s hope not!

Anyway, upstairs they meet James Munro, former head of CID, ex-commissioner of police in India, one of the guys who put down the Thugs, and so on. He’s going to get chosen to head Scotland Yard one of these days, when Warren is forced out, but I’m not going to mention that unless someone happens to know it.

(Memo: Munro can’t be trumped away from me this time out. If someone tries, trump back. But someone else can run the scene if he wants to.)

So basically Munro’s thing is he wants the group to work together to deal with some oddities of the Whitechapel Murders (at this point, nobody’s calling them the Ripper murders). I guess this is just before the Double Event; that’ll give a little excitement when it happens and boost the brutality level. Mmm, tasty ears.

Now I’m going to need some basic hooks for them to run with, but I can’t have a whole lot of detail. Let’s see, what’ve we got? It’s got to be (1) strongly connected to the Whitechapel murders, (2) involving potential big baddies, (3) hinting at but not obviously occult, and (4) playing off some character hooks and the like, as in it’s possible someone in the group knows people involved or something.

For the moment, I think I’m going to go with the Milverton idea I have. Charles Augustus Milverton, the society blackmailer who lives at Appledore Towers, Hampstead, along the Heath, is at this point going strong. He is also, oddly enough, a philanthropist, and has given generously to train mentally-retarded (memo: what did they call this then, “imbecile”? “mentally unfit”?) paupers as servants, and then to have them placed in good homes to work as menials. There isn’t any question that these people are genuinely happier, getting some social contact outside of East End horror and doing meaningful work. But the trick is that Milverton uses magic to “ride” their minds, borrowing their eyes and ears to listen in on what happens in these houses. Since these servants are menials and retarded, they are sort of beneath the radar; people will talk and do things in front of them because they know there’s no possible harm in it. And this is part of where Milverton gets his information. He also gets to see people hiding letters in secret drawers and stuff, because nobody really notices the retarded “boots” picking up the shoes, and if they do they’ll quickly hide their letters – but that can be seen. And as soon as people notice that the servant doesn’t even seem to register what’s happening, they will get complacent. Then Milverton can hire cracksmen to steal what he needs.

Which creates a whole bunch of NPCs, of course. Or rather, it makes the players invent them, on the fly. Oh–and it gets us some nice society folks to talk to about all these retarded servants. Perfect!

The hook would be something about the workhouse where these people are being recruited from, probably around St. George’s-In-The-East, an easy walk from Dorset St. and Flower & Dean (where the Ripper attacks have happened, roughly, and where the victims’ doss-houses were), along the Ratcliffe Highway, and bringing in a nice Hawksmoor church. I could also put it in the shadow of Christchurch Spitalfields (another Hawksmoor creation), depending on how things go, but I think a little breadth is probably in order. Now I just need to connect the workhouse with the Ripper, and explain why Munro is suspicious, and I’m ready to roll. Once that’s going, it’s all gravy.

If this flies, there’s a nice tragic twist to it all. The thing is that what Milverton is doing is certainly as vile as it gets, but it’s actually a good thing for those servants. And if Milverton weren’t riding their minds, it’d be wonderful all around, positively saintly! But if the PCs put a stop to it, what’s going to happen to all those retarded paupers? A little blackmail may be a horrible thing, but isn’t it pretty horrible to put mentally retarded folks into destitution just because a few fancy people are inconvenienced monetarily?

I’ve also hooked in the Ripper and Nicholas Hawksmoor, which is nice because it allows me to steal from Ian Sinclair’s Lud Heat and Peter Ackroyd’s Hawksmoor. Ah, Sinclair’s Eye of Horus theory of the Ripper murders....

A couple of quick questions:

Is this opening designed to foster some sort of 'party' cohesion or is it intended merely to bring together characters who will often be pursuing different plot-lines? I had kind of imagined that the relation between characters would be somewhat looser from the text--some commentary there on this would be useful, or at least interesting.

It also strikes me as obvious that running a couple of Magic contests would be the perfect way to create more than this acquaintance level of background between characters. Is this something you have thought of including in the character creation process? Is it too much? What sort of effects do think it might have?

Piers Brown wrote: Is this opening designed to foster some sort of 'party' cohesion or is it intended merely to bring together characters who will often be pursuing different plot-lines? I had kind of imagined that the relation between characters would be somewhat looser from the text--some commentary there on this would be useful, or at least interesting.

It also strikes me as obvious that running a couple of Magic contests would be the perfect way to create more than this acquaintance level of background between characters. Is this something you have thought of including in the character creation process? Is it too much? What sort of effects do think it might have?

I just found your game, and my head is spinning about it, and I ask this question without having yet fully read it...

But could you use the occult incident gameplay system in reverse to allow the players to investigate and explain an occult event they are looking into? You start with the roundup (made by the Host), and then interpret it backards to 'explain' how it came about?

-B

Bailywolf wrote: I just found your game, and my head is spinning about it, and I ask this question without having yet fully read it...

But could you use the occult incident gameplay system in reverse to allow the players to investigate and explain an occult event they are looking into? You start with the roundup (made by the Host), and then interpret it backards to 'explain' how it came about?

-B

Bailywolf wrote: I just found your game, and my head is spinning about it, and I ask this question without having yet fully read it...

But could you use the occult incident gameplay system in reverse to allow the players to investigate and explain an occult event they are looking into? You start with the roundup (made by the Host), and then interpret it backards to 'explain' how it came about?

-B

Lee Short wrote:

Bailywolf wrote: I just found your game, and my head is spinning about it, and I ask this question without having yet fully read it...

But could you use the occult incident gameplay system in reverse to allow the players to investigate and explain an occult event they are looking into? You start with the roundup (made by the Host), and then interpret it backards to 'explain' how it came about?

That fits in fabulously with an idea I've been tossing around in my head about this game -- using it as a history-building game rather than what we typically think of as an RPG. I haven't had time to flesh out my ideas yet but the basic concept is this: you are not exploring the actions of a few characters within the history of the world, you are exploring the events of the world as they would be seen in the headlines of the newspapers of the time. A session works as follows: each player brings 2-3 headlines to the game. During a player's turn, he presents one of these headlines. This headline is unalterable: it is the headline in the newspapers (or the town criers, or . . .). The players could then use the game's occult resolution mechanism to determine the real events behind the headline.

Actually, I wasn't intending to use real newspaper headlines -- players were going to be expected to simply make them up (though nothing would stop them from using real ones if they wanted).

Also, I think I've got about 6 ideas for different takeoffs of this game. It's given me so many ideas about things that might be cool. I'm sure some of the ideas won't pan out, and I have no idea when I will have time to flesh them out.

About the wiki, I hope you set it up so that we can create our own "setting modules". The setting I'm most psyched about applying this game to is 1550's underground pagan Knights Templar.

Lee Short wrote: Actually, I wasn't intending to use real newspaper headlines -- players were going to be expected to simply make them up (though nothing would stop them from using real ones if they wanted).

About the wiki, I hope you set it up so that we can create our own "setting modules". The setting I'm most psyched about applying this game to is 1550's underground pagan Knights Templar.