After two sessions of playtest, I've been thinking Acts of Evil needs some kind of collaborative situation fabrication prior to play. (And Michael S. Miller's [Mortal Coil] Arthurian enthusiasm post today has me now even more convinced.) The stark minimalism of the setting at the beginning of play and limited scene options makes it really difficult to frame dramatic and interesting early scenes. In the first session, Scott's character's scene with the debtor went well. The power imbalance between his occultist and the NPC made for a pretty dramatic scene. But damn if it wasn't supposed to be a scene with a Nobody, and the power balance was unwarranted. My dramatic sensibilities had installed the scene with power by authoring beyond what the rules had provided for. So I'm thinking the rules ought to provide a better starting situation for scene framing.

And this is what I've got:

Every player starts with thirteen points. And before creating characters there's a blind bid from these points for the ability to create a situation. You cannot bid all thirteen points, but you can bid zero, if you want. Bids are revealed and the player with the highest bid wins, and creates a situation by specifying time and place and by spending the points he bid on Traits for Nobodies and Victims in that time and place. Then he creates his character (Flesh, Voice, Imagination, Memory, Ambition, Rage, Clarity) in that time and place from the points he has remaining. The other players lose the points they bid and create their characters in that same time and place from the points they have remaining.

Except I'd like for the option of more than one starting situation. So before the winning bidder creates his situation, he has the option of "accepting" the bids of one or more of the other players, totalling up to the whole value of his own bid if he wants. The amount of every accepted bid is subtracted from the winner's bid. The players whose bids are accepted create situations with Traits totalling the amounts of their bids, and create their characters in those situations from what they have left. The winning bidder creates a situation with Traits totalling the amount of his reduced bid, and a character in that situation with what he has left after paying the bid (actually a more powerful character than what he'd have made if he hadn't accepted any of the other player bids). The other players lose the points they bid and create their characters from the points they have remaining in any of the situations created by the winner or those with accepted bids. If the winning bidder accepts other bids for a total that exactly matches his own bid, he actually does not create a situation at all; he has completely eroded his bid and so creates a thirteen point character in someone else's situation.

And if there's a tie for high bid...well, I haven't quite decided how to resolve that.

What do you think? Does it sound fun? What changes would you make? Is the ability to create situation, and to start with a Victim or two, enough of an incentive to bid? Or will everyone bid zero to avoid starting with a weaker character?

And I'd love to hear alternative suggestions.

Paul

My hunch is that the majority of players would see little point in investing character points in situation (it's GM's job!), while some would do so gladly (I know what I want!). The problem is that an auction only works if the participants value the prize even a little. Traditionally players come upon a game in passive mode, and they should be rewarded for creating situation, not punished. The mechanic itself is interesting, but I fear it'll default in one semi-GM setting up the situation.

One way to go about situation-creation would be to start with the era and the situation, and then call for characters. Like this:
1) The group picks a time and a place, and an event of occult significance. "Ancient China, the conjunction of seven planets", or something like that. Several eras can be created simultaneously, if that's your thing.
2) Players invent ideas for nobodies and write down their names on a sheet of paper, decorated with arrows and circles. Any people half a span or less apart know each other as people. Any people with arrows between them have a hierarchical relationship (job, state, religion). Any people within the same circle have a communal relationship (family, village, club).
3) For each circle of nobodies the players invent an occult resource controlled by the community in question. This is always related to the occult event happening in that era, so in the above example these could be powerful telescopes, moondust, ancient star maps, children born on other planets or similar.
4) A player may pick one of the nobodies to be transformed into his occultist. Any nobodies with an arrow starting from him become his victims, any of the characters having an arrow for him become his teachers (player's choice). He may control occult resources at the beginning only insofar as nobody else in the circle does. Two player characters cannot reside in the same web or circle, although they may know each other.
5) If a player is still without a character because of willing so or not fitting on the map/s just created, start the process anew from 1). This time around at least one of time, place and event have to be different. The occult resources are the same, however, and new ones can only be created if the map is larger than the first one. The resources in question have survived transportation through history and space from one era to the other.

I don't know, something like that at least gives you a solid setting and something to pursue. We know that the occult oneupmanship isn't the point, but the characters don't. That's why I think it's important to create some occult "strata" for the various occult characters to relate to, while also providing a social situation.