So I'm revising one of my Game Chef entries, The Governor's Report Concerning the Doomed Assault on the Fire Moon.  You can see the revision here if interested:  http://www.meekmok.com/sassy/games/fire_moon/

One important element of play is a steady progression of increasingly severe elements that must be included in a Witnesses narrative, in each of three scenes.  My original entry handled this with cards that each had  both a good and bad item on them and a die roll that gradually weighted the bad as scenes progressed, but it was awkward and I'm revising it.

My current idea is to have a list of 36 narrative items in ascending order of severity, from "unexpected triumph" to "utter disaster", with a 2D6 roll by each Witness, at the start of each scene:

* In scene one, place the lower number first when consulting the chart. If a witness rolls two and four, for example, the result is 24.
* In scene two, the Witness may place the dice in either order.
* In scene three, place the higher number first. If a Witness rolls two and four, the result is now 42.

This doesn't quite get what I want (still not really a relentless progression, since in round three you can still roll a 1,1, for example) and I'd like to ask for your suggestions.  My goal is a minimally-intrusive, low handling time random element that gets inserted in each Witness testimony, that is mechanically inclined to be more severe, ugly, and disastrous in each passing scene.  Ideas?  Thanks!

Maybe have the die rolls indicate how much the "disaster slider" travels, not where it ends up?  So if your last resolution was "23: Crisis momentarily averted" and you roll to move it ten points up you might end up at "33:  Horrible dismemberments!"

Then you just choose a die roll that has a probability distribution that favors the house.  2d6-5, for instance, will slowly, inexorably, build toward crisis, but still allow things to occasionally "get better" in minor ways.

Thanks, Tony, that's an excellent idea.  There are three discrete scenes in a game - no more, no less - and there's a metagame understanding that things must get worse, but I really want to mechanically enforce that as well, providing ammo for your rivals and inspiration for your own turn as Witness.  I guess it could be as simple as "your number cannot be lower than the number used in a previous scene; use that number plus one if the dice can't resolve to meet this restriction otherwise."

But that seems inelegant.  I'll play with your suggestion and see how it feels.

--Jason

Heya,

Similar to Tony's suggestion, you could have a floor for each scene that the dice roll adds to. Like, the first scene is the lowest first, the second one is 5 + your choice, and the third is 10 + highest first. Or whatever numbers end up giving you the progression you want.

Not to mention that you have the best title evar!

Thanks,

I had the title before I knew what it was about...

One thing I'm considering that would be thematically appropriate would be to just sort the possible events into three piles, print each on a sheet of paper, and have them in manila folders.  When it was your turn to be a Witness, you'd draw from the appropriate folder and incorporate the result.  It might add to the "board of inquiry" air of the game to have shuffling papers, and it would remove the need to consult charts and roll dice, which might distract from the somber mood.

Hi Jason,

You know, that was just what I was going to suggest before I read your last post. Not the folder thing, but simply using different stocks, tables, whatever for each scene. Why make it complicated if you can make it simple?

- Frank

Thanks, Frank, and everybody who contributed ideas.  I appreciate it. 

Folders is how I've decided to go, and it is a better choice to remove the dice entirely.  So now it works like this:

There are 36 possible events (poor training, vehicle crash, garbled communication, etc), each on a sheet of paper.  Before play begins, the board of inquiry collectively sorts them out into three piles, one for each scene.  The general idea is that they are sorting them based on their perception of severity, but there is not rule they must abide by other than making sure there is at least one per Witness in every scene. 

Witnesses draw a sheet of paper from the appropriate folder at the beginnign of their testimony, and we are off to the races.  You get all the folder-shuffling, page scanning action of a courtroom drama and let the players choose how to shape events mechancially. 

--Jason

OK, I changed it around a tiny bit and linked to an enormous pdf.  I like the way it reads and will playtest again soon.

http://www.meekmok.com/sassy/games/fire_moon/

I'll see about reducing the size of that thing.  Right now it is 5.4 MB for 36 pages.