Hi everybody,

I want to continue the discussion of The Shab-al-Hiri Roach that began here in Actual Play.  I'm in the process of revising this game, and my most current drafts are here if you'd like to take a look (.txt files):

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

I have two current conundrums. 

1.  What's the best way to handle a PC with zero Reputation?  As written he can still participate in conflicts by wagering, under the principle that with no Reputation, there is nowhere to go but up.  I'm not sure this is the best solution, because it does not represent any penalty.  I could just say that Reputation begins at one and cannot go lower - any other ideas? 

2.  What's the best way to handle PC death?  Ron suggested - and I agree - that a PC dying does not need to be a problem, since the core Reputation mechanic is not predicated on being alive.  It supports the mood I'm going for, so I hate to just rule "you cannot kill PCs", which is what I have inthe rules now.  But PC death messes with the cards a bit, and it definitely messes with the power of the Roach to show up and take over. 

So how do I handle cards that direct character action, when the character definitively cannot act? 

What impact can the Roach have on a dead dude - or, more appropriately (and encouraging suicide), Death frees you from the Roach's iron grip, how can this huge advantage be balanced in play?

It occurs to me that the Roach could easily possess and animate a corpse, going through the motions of academic life in zombie fashion...but that seems like a different game. 

Thanks for your ideas and comments,

--Jason

jasonm wrote: It occurs to me that the Roach could easily possess and animate a corpse, going through the motions of academic life in zombie fashion...but that seems like a different game.

I'll let the death-discussion continue by others.

As far as 0 Reputation goes, I strongly recommend that the person with 0 can stake 1 chip, and may win it. This worked very well in both games I've played in, and in one case, that person came very close to winning (Maura, in the game I've posted about). It is not complicated, is not broken, and requires no kludgy stuff like "only goes down to 1."

However, you and I may be reading a different MS. We doped out the above interpretation through sheer desperation, as I did not find, in the IGC rules, any mention of how to deal with 0 Reputation. I'll head off to the new files now.

Best,
Ron

The IGC version actually said "when you have 0 Reputation, your personal die drops to D4" and did not address participation in Scenes.  I think my (sleep-deprived) assumption was that you simply couldn't. 

I recognize now that the D4 thing is brutal and unnecessary and I took it out.  The current revision adopts your suggestion and makes 0 Reputation "nowhere to go but up".  Whether this is the last word on the subject I don't know - I'd like for there to be pressure not to let Reputation slip, beyond the obvious end-game victory condition. Maybe it's not a big deal.

--Jason

I like the idea that, for dead characters, "having the roach" means that their corpse is animated by the roach, and (obviously) they can't win if that's the case.

yrs--
--Ben

OK, the whole zombie thing - first of all, zombies are always funny.  I love a zombie.  I just don't see how this improves the quality of play. 

If you are dead and just a Roachy flesh-puppet, you can't win, which isn't a super big deal, and you would act on the Command - maybe you're forced to perform the Command in every Scene, rather than once in the overall Event, because the Roach is truly in charge and things ought to be an order of magnitude crazier. 

So you've got a player who is really just there to fuck shit up - am I missing something?  Ben, are you thinking you can still go back and forth between Roach-bound and free even when dead?  If so, what happens when you are dead and free of the Roach? 

--Jason

Damn. The zombie thing seemed so sensible.

And it could work, I think, by the rules. Getting free of the Roach while dead simply means we do the "Rep at stake although I'm dead and not there" thing; getting roach-bound while dead means your corpse lurches upright and runs around doing stuff.

The trouble is, neat as it is, workable as it is, it moves the game into "somewhere else." Another game entirely. This is a game about real live academics, not about mystical Lovecraftian grue in a fanboy, horror-movie, Dead Alive sense. Or that's my reading and experience of play, anyway.

Damn damn damn. More brainstorming, maybe some days to sleep on it. No deadline on this one, after all.

Best,
Ron

So you've got a player who is really just there to fuck shit up - am I missing something?  Ben, are you thinking you can still go back and forth between Roach-bound and free even when dead?  If so, what happens when you are dead and free of the Roach? 

--Jason

My gut feeling is that there has to be a more elegant way of handling PC death.  Like I said, I love a zombie, and there ought to be a "zombie in the ivory tower" game (probably about figuring out who is dead and who isn't - not an easy task), but I'm pretty sure this isn't it.  In this game, being a Roach-controlled zombie would mean that you were actually playing the Roach, since your PC had been extinguished.  I don't like that. 

So ... you die, but your Reputation lives on, is even enhanced by the fact of your death.  You still have narration rights like any other player, and Reputation to gamble on conflicts.  You lose your Enthusiasms.

You are immune to the Roach and, therefore, have a powerful edge in the game.  Something must counter this advantage.  Maybe you don't get a personal die and must rely on others to promulgate your legacy.  That's not enough.

Cards - Opportunities - no longer make sense for you.  This is a problem.  Maybe you grant your card to another player somehow?  Maybe they bid Reputation for it?  I'm open to suggestions.

--Jason

Ben wrote:
you're still playing the same thing, but there's your lurching, zombie-like corpse fucking up (or inadvertantly helping) your legacy.

You could just stop getting new cards when you're dead, you'd only get them if roach possessed. Or dead people might lose their enthusiasms. It's a bit difficult to be enthusiastic if you ain't breathing. Just thinking out loud really.

But there is, as Ron says, the issue that this moves the theme into Reanimator territory, which is definitely part of the HPL canon but you don't necessarily want to be in the Jeffrey Coombs version.

Perhaps you might suggest different ways to deal with the dead:
- zombies - as above
- ghosts - you can act in scenes but cannot interact physically.
- don't speak ill of the dead; your reputation survives at what is was when you died, and you count as roach free too. You just can't act directly in a scene even though you can frame one. Whether you can use your enthusiams is moot too although. Perhaps the dice you roll depends on what your rep was when you died. This might be too powerful an option.

jasonm wrote:
So ... you die, but your Reputation lives on, is even enhanced by the fact of your death.  You still have narration rights like any other player, and Reputation to gamble on conflicts.  You lose your Enthusiasms.

You are immune to the Roach and, therefore, have a powerful edge in the game.  Something must counter this advantage.  Maybe you don't get a personal die and must rely on others to promulgate your legacy.  That's not enough.

Cards - Opportunities - no longer make sense for you.  This is a problem.  Maybe you grant your card to another player somehow?  Maybe they bid Reputation for it?  I'm open to suggestions.

jrs wrote:
I like the idea of reputation and narration continuing, and the elimination of enthusiasms and the personal die makes sense.  I don't know that opportunity cards are completely useless, some maybe, but not all.  It will just take more creativity to incorporate them into play and forces the player to utilize NPC's.  I can easily imagine taking advantage of opportunities post-humously or through other forms of influence (*cough* research assistants *cough*).

What a lovely game. OK, Jason, here's some very quick thoughts:

jasonm wrote:
1.  What's the best way to handle a PC with zero Reputation?  As written he can still participate in conflicts by wagering, under the principle that with no Reputation, there is nowhere to go but up.  I'm not sure this is the best solution, because it does not represent any penalty.  I could just say that Reputation begins at one and cannot go lower - any other ideas? 

jasonm wrote:
2.  What's the best way to handle PC death?  Ron suggested - and I agree - that a PC dying does not need to be a problem, since the core Reputation mechanic is not predicated on being alive.  It supports the mood I'm going for, so I hate to just rule "you cannot kill PCs", which is what I have inthe rules now.  But PC death messes with the cards a bit, and it definitely messes with the power of the Roach to show up and take over. 

Hiya,

Here are some of my thoughts on all this.

1. I don't see any problem at all regarding dead characters employing CHAMP, PUBLIC SCANDAL, RECEIVE ACADEMIC APPOINTMENT (post-humous! happens all the time), EARN TENURE (ditto!), and SHOVING MATCH. The only tricky one seems to be INFLUENZA.

2. I also think that any proxy (grad student, whoever) contributes no die to your side, and that the character's base die should still be employed. In fact, it might be interesting if that character were available as an opposition die, if anyone wanted to claim it (and well they should).

3. Dead characters ought to be able to win the game. Memory-rep is just as important as I'm-still-living rep. Talk to some academics some time; you'll see.

4. Dead characters cannot initiate nor be drawn into physical conflicts such as stabbing someone with a butcher knife. Not even through proxy.

5. Death, in general, should neither be undesirable nor desirable in terms of play. Rep is still at stake through the same rules, some of the cards need a little interpretation, and certain attention to plausibility must be observed. But that's it.

6. All that remains is the risk of the Roach. Which I think should indeed persist, and then we have to consider how, if the zombie thing gets put by the wayside.

And Jason, just in case all this talk is getting into your sinuses like a roach-spawn, you always have the option of saying, "This game is for the living," and disallow player-character death. In fact, it might be the best option, although it's fun to thrash through all the permutations at the moment.

Food for thought!

Best,
Ron

Graham, Ron, thanks.  I think I can resolve some of my own discomfort simply by renaming the cards.  Influenza in particular, although it is thematically appropriate and I quite like it. 

I'm not keen on making a zero Rep player more powerful, because that would discourage trying to actually win, which is a motivating factor for doing ridiculous things. 

I agree that if death is allowed, a dead player must be able to win.  But unless somebody comes up with a nice way to either keep the Roach in play for a dead PC or balance the advantage that freedom from the Roach conveys, I'm going to stick with "living only".  I really like the "Reputation lives on" thing, so I'll be thinking hard on this one.  PC death adds an appropriately hard edge to the game.  I'm definitely open to suggestions. 

--Jason

Graham wrote:
With regard to the various things you listed: I don't have a problem with CHAMP or PUBLIC SCANDAL being posthumous (posthumous scandals are quite common, I think).

See now, when it was first mentioned that the Roach reanimate the deceased character I totally wasn't thinking 'zombie'.  I was more thinking something along the lines of "Holy crap, wasn't I dead yesterday?  And this salad fork jutting from my temple is terribly uncomfortable."

But I have no idea if that would be in-line with the flavor of the game either.  Which can only lead me to conclude that Jason must promise to run this for us at one of our sessions in September.

-Eric

You're on, Eric!  Here's a revision.  I'm still not happy with the balance, but at least this spells out the most obvious advantages and drawbacks. 

DEATH (THIS NEEDS WORK)
You can never set the stakes as the death of the Roach (its oily brood scuttles under every wainscot), but go ahead and try to murder another player character.  Or, like poor Dr. Applewhite-Jenkins, try to kill yourself.  It is perfectly acceptable to make a player character's life or death the stake in a conflict.  Being dead is hardly an impediment to an academic career. 

A dead player character has some special rules. When dead:

Your character's Reputation lives on - in fact, it is even enhanced by the fact of your death.  You automatically add a point of Reputation at the time your death is publicly announced. 

You no longer have a personal die at all.  Any Opportunity that enhances your personal die can be ignored. 

Your character immediately loses all Enthusiasms.

You still have narration rights like any other player, and can still gamble Reputation in conflicts. 

You may still frame Scenes and introduce NPCs and groups into them.  Certain card Opportunities may require a bit of creativity to play; it is fortunate that you have a devoted graduate research assistant to promote your legacy at Pemberton. 

Finally, being dead, you are immune to the Roach and, therefore, have a powerful edge in the game.  This alone should put a curb on player character bloodletting.  It may seem like a great idea at first blush, but being dead really isn't - you are down at least one die in all conflicts, and many of the best Opportunities will pass you by like fog in a graveyard.

Oh!  So killing a PC will only make them stronger?  That's a great solution!

I can't wait to play this.

-Eric

It's not quite right, yet. 

In this take, killing a PC makes them stronger by eliminating the Roach, which means they are automatically a contender at end-game, no matter what they do.  I dislike that. 

It makes them weaker by removing some of their juice - Enthusiasms, their personal die, about 25% of the Opportunity cards - but also makes them less fun to play.  Getting Roached up is fun!

But I love the idea of dead PCs still in the running.  It just needs to be refined.

--Jason

Ok.  So, if No Roach = less fun, then you don't want to eliminate the possibility of the Roach, right?  That seems to lead to the fairly simple conclusion that either dead characters can get Roached or characters shouldn't die.

Questions:

Why does dead have to equal no Enthusiasm?  If it's a mechanical balance thing, ok cool.  But if it's a flavor thing then I really don't see it.  I mean, who's more emotional than the recently dead?  No one, that's who.

Would some hard-core haunting harm the flavor?  Not like a spectre of Marley floating about the place, but more like;  "Ok, he pissed me off with that eulogy.  I'm gonna fling a chair across the room to freak him out."  or  "I'm gonna start smashing things in the upstairs lounge to distract them with the noise and break up that conversation."

*ponder*

Ok, that's enough from me.  I haven't even finished reading your text yet.  I've got other ideas but I may as well be just shouting out random words.  I'll be back later.

-Eric

Thanks Eric, I appreciate your thoughts.  No need to specify what sort of scenes a dead PC's player can frame, I don't think, although poltergeists is not what I'm after.  It's your Reputation that is on the line and central to the game, so conflicts - living or dead - should reflect that. 

Ron suggested adding a rule that the dead explicitly cannot mess with the living, which is what I'm getting at. 

I'm looking forward to your incisive comments after you've read the draft!

--Jason

Some questions:

The unknown factor of deciding who to direct a Command card toward before knowing the content is so much fun.  Should Opportunity cards also be used blind?  It would up the chaos and lower one of the few advantages of being Roach-free.  Just an idea.

I'd appreciate it if someone would look over my examples ("Exempli gratia" in the rules, typically at the end of chapters) to see if they are easy to follow and representative.  These will probably change some.

I revised the sequence and topics of the six Events - are the new ones compelling and do they present good opportunities for mayhem and fun narration? 

Are the various Enthusiasms distinct enough, or should the list be tightened?  Expanded?  Did I miss anything obvious?

For ties in Reputation at end-game, I wrote:  In the unlikely event of a tie in Reputation between two Roach-free characters, create one final conflict with the stakes being "Which professor will be humiliated and brought to heel by his iron-willed rival?"  Does this make sense, is it fun or anticlimactic? 

Thanks for your input,

--Jason

Hiya,

Here's my take on those.

The unknown factor of deciding who to direct a Command card toward before knowing the content is so much fun.  Should Opportunity cards also be used blind?  It would up the chaos and lower one of the few advantages of being Roach-free.  Just an idea.

I'd appreciate it if someone would look over my examples ("Exempli gratia" in the rules, typically at the end of chapters) to see if they are easy to follow and representative.  These will probably change some.

I revised the sequence and topics of the six Events - are the new ones compelling and do they present good opportunities for mayhem and fun narration? 

Are the various Enthusiasms distinct enough, or should the list be tightened?  Expanded?  Did I miss anything obvious?

For ties in Reputation at end-game, I wrote:  In the unlikely event of a tie in Reputation between two Roach-free characters, create one final conflict with the stakes being "Which professor will be humiliated and brought to heel by his iron-willed rival?"  Does this make sense, is it fun or anticlimactic? 

Whilst you've put some more on how decide whether Professors get a d8 or a d6 in conflict, some more explanation about what Status, Knowledge, Power and Privilege represent would be good. This was possibly the area that caused the most discussion. It's not that we couldn't and didn't resolve it amicably but more guidance would be helpful.

I've just printed up a set of cards on inkjet business cards J8414 and printed an updated copy of the rules so I'm ready to go for the game at SteveCon tomorrow.

Thanks, GB Steve.  I want some things to be defined by the group, since standards for what constitutes "Status" can and should vary and even spark debate.  But some examples are probably in order, to illustrate the possibilities.

Good luck at SteveCon!  I'm looking forward to hearing how it goes. 

--Jason

jasonm wrote: I want some things to be defined by the group, since standards for what constitutes "Status" can and should vary and even spark debate.

Hi, Jason,

Something's been bothering me. In "The Cards, And What To Do With Them" in chapter 4, you write:

To be clear:  Every player must draw a Card prior to the beginning of each Event. ... Each Card has both a Command and an Opportunity on it.  If your character is currently possessed by the Roach, you must ignore the Opportunity and carry out the Command. ... If you are not possessed by the Roach, you must act on the Opportunity part of the Card

Joel is immediately tempted to swallow the Roach to get that killer Command, but decides that it is too early for such drastic measures.  He ignores the Command (written in Sumerian), and must act on the Opportunity during one of the Scenes that make up the Event.

if at any time you wish to have the Roach occupy your brain, simply declare that you are Roach-bound, and it is so.

Whoa, thanks for that, it never occurred to me and it has yet to come up.  But some explanatory text is in order. 

My gut feeling (I'll think more on this and try out some combinations) is that it makes sense to be able to actively target that first, sweet Command. 

Again, thanks for pointing out this potential loophole.

--Jason