ENGLE MATRIX GAME REFEREEING: DRACULA ACTUAL PLAY

Three players, Tom, Bob and Chris are gathered together to play “Dracula: The game before the game” (available on RPGNow from Hamster Press). The game is about whither Mina Harker is saved or destroyed by Dracula. It is set  in Bram Stoker’s classic vampire story – after Dracula has made it to England. Tom champions Dracula, Bob champions Van Helsing and Chris champions the vampire Lucy.

In a Beginner Engle Matrix Game play goes around the table. The acting player picks a question from the game board and answers it. Each question essentially asks “What happens next?” They then pick another player to be their referee. The referee decides how likely the action is to happen. The first player then rolls and it happens or it doesn’t. In this example the players encounter some partisan refereeing.

Tom/Dracula: “I pick “What act of hypnotic seduction does Dracula use next?” My answer is this: “Mina first met me on the promenade and was enchanted by my foreign good looks. My accent pulled her in further. My stories made me even more appealing. Then my eyes sealed her fate. She is under my control! Swell of dramatic music.” I pick Chris/Lucy to be my referee.”

Chris: “My character hates what you’ve done to her. I think I don’t want you to get her friend. I think your argument is really weak. The argument strength table says you need to roll a 6 on 1d6 for it to happen.

Tom rolls a 6. It happens despite Chris’ ruling.

Play goes around the table with each player getting a turn to answer a question. Bob learns/makes up a clue to where Dracula is buried. Chris has Lucy start killing children and pinning the blame on Dracula. She picks Tom to be her referee.

Tom: “Pin it no me will you. I think your argument is really weak. How do you like them apples? Now you need to roll a 6.”

Chris rolls a 5 so his argument fails. What goes around comes around.

Tom/Dracula is up for his second turn: “I pick “How do I bite Mina?” My answer “She comes to me at night. She freely offers herself to me. This is my first bite. Two more and she will be my bride.” Now who to pick as referee. Chris? I think not. I’ll try Bob.”

Bob: “Sounds pretty strong to me. You need to roll a 3 to 6 on 1d6 for it to happen.”

Tom rolls a 3. Mina is bit.

DISCUSSION: Chris pulled a real hardball move on Tom in the first turn of the game. He made it clear that he is going to go after Dracula. This led Tom to not pick Chris to referee his second argument. Chris did pick Tom to be his referee so Tom was able to retaliate on him for giving his argument such a cruddy roll. The players are messing with one another. Messing with one another – pinning crimes on other people, setting people up to be destroyed, partisan refereeing, etc. is part of Beginner EMGs so both players are playing correctly. By doing this though they strengthen Bob/Van Helsing because he is the one they will turn to, to get fair rulings. It could lead to both vampires dying for real. Since it is just a game, it is okay to be partisan. Equilibrium emerges as people play without having to be imposed by rules.

This link is to a full game example of play http://www.freewebs.com/matrixgamer1/

2-7-07 Chris Engle

Hi Chris,

Tom seems to be grasping for control, but without adding to the game any further purpose or motivation for it. It'd be like saying "How do I get the holy grail?" answer "I pick it up with both hands, gaining firm control over it". It sounds like an end he's trying to meet, rather than a means to an end.

In the game, if someone goes for the ending in just one roll, what do you do next? Particularly if someone else isn't ready for an ending to happen?

In the Beginner EMG each turn a player picks a question to answer. That is what is happening in this example. There is one question at the bottom of the list, outlined in red, that is the "final question". This ends the game. In Dracula's case it is "Tell how Mina is saved or destroyed?" All the players have to agree for this question to be picked. When it is picked it is not done like regular turns. Instead of only one player answering the question, all the players make an answer and there is a big dice rolling competition to see which one wins.

As to people diving to victory in one turn. That has always been a potential in Matrix Games. I've seen people try it many times. I've tried it myself. It seldom works. If there is one player as referee they tend to rule such arguments as really weak (roll a 6 on 1d6) or impossible (roll 6-6's in a row on 1d6). Even when they do go through it just makes the "winning" player a target for everyone else. Sure they have the grail, but can they keep it? In effect the player pits himself against all the other players. As I said I've done these moves myself and been wiped out every time. They were still fun games though. At the very least I was in the thick of the action.

What mainly happens is that players jocky for position during most of the game and then at some point someone dives in for a victory. At that point there is somethign backing up their claims so people are more willing to accept it. This leads to a dramatic dice rolling climax to an evening of gaming. To me that is fun - but I understand it won't be to everyone.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press = Engle Matrix Games

That looks a good setup :)

There's just something about Tom's tactic that feels a bit curly too me. Like he was trying to force a hand, in a system which (I hypothesize) is quite focused on consent and agreement.

That's two hypothesis for me - what Tom's tactic was and what the system focuses on. So I'm on pretty shakey ground. Any shared ground there?

One of the things I find interesting about the EMGs ( and I think Callan is hitting on it also) is that there are two different levels of Cause and Effect going on during play:

1) In -Game Caues-and-Effect
The actions/events +back-up arguments with roll to succeed or fail, leading to a chain of causality. This one is pretty straight forward.

2) The Player level Cause-and-Effect
This one is interesting in a different way. As players riff on each others' actions, they also react to one anothers' proposals and judgements on argument strength.

These two different levels of interaction are constantly occuring, and affect one another in some very funky ways. I realize that this occurs in other games as well, but in EMGs it's very obvious.

[Total Aside: When I was tinkering with EMG core rules a while back, one aspect i was playing with was that a person judging an argument should always start with a default success roll of 4,5,6 and then shift up or down, based on a variety of stuff. It isn't hard to go staright to a judgement on strength, but having that 50/50 shot as the normal starting point would, I hoped, give a reference point for new players and judges]

A side request for Chris:
Could I get you to post a bit about what goes into the creation of an EMG? From the designer POV, I mean. What sort of inspiration do you start with, how do you determine the factions/characters, goasl, questions- really the whole thing I guess?

I understand how it can look like Matrix Games are based on ideas of consent and agreement. Personally I don't think they are. When a player makes an argument it is in effect a gambit. They are trying to get a fact into the game. Sometimes small changes to the "matrix" can lead to big world shifts. They need to get the referee (in a set referee game) or a referee (where they pick refs each turn) to give them a decent shot at it - but once that is done it is up to the dice gods. If they smile, the event happens and everyone else is saddled with the world as it is. (Kind of like being a Democrat in Indiana - we never get a presidential vote).

Tom is a good example of this. He has looked at his character and is trying to do something that moves him one step closer to achieving his goal. His move is not just putting the bite on Mina but also demonstrating his hypnotic hold over her. This fact should help him in future arguments. He picked Chris as referee because he was running Lucy (an evil character) unfortunately for him Chris is opting to view Lucy as an enemy of Dracula. He uses that biased position to screw Tom over by ruling his argument unlikely to happen. So Tom is trying to force his agenda and is unlucky in who he picks as referee. In his second turn he finds that Bob/Van Helsing is more friendly to his cause.

Bob - I'll address your on writing EMGs question in a separate topic. I like your comment on refereeing starting at 50/50 and going from there. I'd not thought of it that way but that would work well. It would make it easy for a new referee. When I started using dice to resolve arguments (late 1988) I did it because I'd noticed that about any stupid plan had about a 50/50 chance of happening. Ronald Reagan was president and Voodoo Economics was king - it seeemed to fit.

Chris Engle

Ah, I figured what was scratching at me. It's Tom - I don't think his going for the win is also a desire to add facts to the imaginary space. He saying Dracula is suave and good looking, he's not interested in adding it as a fact (I think). By fact I mean something other players could riff off - like another player might invent an NPC who falls for his looks as well.

Its intent is a winning gambit, to end the game. That means whatever hes saying (suave/good looking) isn't in the interests of continuing the game. It's kind of like a dogs in the vineyard character who puts his life on the line by jumping in front of some bullets. The player isn't interested in other players helping build up a story about a bullet riddled man - this is 'the end', its not something to continue building on.

The thing is, I'm sure you could have players who attempt to attach story to Dracula's looks (like a new NPC falling in love with him) and turn to someone who'll give a good argument chance. Did anyone try to attach something to his maneuvering during play? I'm estimating though, that Tom would be quite disinterested in this - like you see players being disinterested in their characters disadvantages being brought into play. He added it to win - it was perfect for that purpose (that's why he used it) - any other use of it by another player is a disadvantage to him.

I don't see him actually contributing to the shared game space, because no one else can touch/attach somthing to what he's doing (can't attach because he wouldn't be interested in it). Well to be accurate, he does influence others material, but no one can influence/use his material. Basically because there's no advantage to him to happily agree to that.

If it were a traditional table top wargame, it'd be like fighting a guy who has no army on the board - he can come and attack your pieces, but you can't reach his pieces because he hasn't agreed to a means by which you can reach them. His pieces are the good looks, the neck bites, etc.

I think that's half of what I found curly.

I think your right. Tom is using elements of his argument (like Dracula's good looks) as reasons why it should happen. Other players may pick up on this and elaborate it in their arguments but Tom's motive is merely to get a better chance of happening. He is attaching "statuses" to people in the game though that he hopes will influence referees in future argument rulings.

For instance: Having hypnotic control over Mina should increase the likelyhood of arguments getting her to do things. Just as his good looks and foreign accent might help him seduce someone else.

As to the player's forces being off board - given that the player is not their character (people champion characters but really just use them to make the story they want) - all players are equally invulnerable. A character's death does not put a player out of the game. They keep on making arguments as before - they just pick a new character to champion. Players can also share characters (which can be fun - if they disagree it is a battle over the character's soul).

Riffing off one another, as happens in a lot of narrativist games, doesn't happen in Matrix Games. Players can do impromptu role plays but in the end the player still makes their argument. The best another player can do to "riff" in arguments is to make a counter-argument but this is competitive. My understanding of narrativist play is that it is cooperative. The GM says yes when people make suggestions. A MG referee just rates argument strength between competing arguments and the dice god sort it all out.

"Curly" sounds like a negative judgement - which is to say - not your cup of tea. That is fine. I imagine if players were looking for a cooperative narrativist game they would feel the same.

Chris Engle