Topic: [MULRAH] First Playtest
Started by: Mulrah
Started on: 10/5/2009
Board: Playtesting
On 10/5/2009 at 8:55am, Mulrah wrote:
[MULRAH] First Playtest
First Thoughts Thread: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=28761.0
MULRAH Rules: http://deaddogcafe.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/mulrah.pdf
MULRAH is basically a mash-up of rules that intrigued me from PDQ, Risus, FATE, Donjon, and other games. We did our first playtest today, and the session was much better for my group than the previous ones we'd run under Savage Worlds. Many thanks to the folks who commented on the First Thoughts thread, and thanks in advance to anyone who provides input on this thread.
Improvements
Pacing dramatically improved. Combat went more quickly and was more interesting, as describing chunks of actions and invoking lots of Tags at once is now the norm. "Downtime" between action scenes were now opportunities for players to use their Tags in creative ways rather than just a series of hidden Notice rolls by the GM.
Damage to Tags, a rule probably modeled most closely after PDQ's, worked out really well. It could be applied only to the Tags used in a Conflict, so we avoided the goofy "hit me in the girlfriend" results. Even though we wipe Damage only between sessions, successful rolls in Conflict can optionally recover Damage, which seemed fair and worked well into the story.
Player participation in the moment-to-moment storytelling dramatically increased. Due in part to wimpy opponents, the players kept getting stellar successes that enabled them to shape outcomes as they wished. I borrowed this rule from Donjon and will definitely be keeping it.
Challenges
We had two major challenges, the first apparent to everyone and the second just to me. First, due to so much tweaking MULRAH before its first test run, I ended up just continuing Savage Worlds the module we had used in the previous session, which had inspired the new system in the first place. Despite the dramatic improvements above, the players felt somewhat disconnected from the rather generic plot.
Second, neither the primary concepts I borrowed from FATE's Aspects played out in the session:
• "Everything is a Character" such that even Tags (Aspects) on buildings, settings, etc. enhance gameplay. I really like this concept and other players seem to enjoy it in gameplay. I think I simply did not implement this well, rather than there being an inherent contradiction in the rules.
• Seemingly negative or restrictive Tags (Aspects) like "I Hate Heights" could be as beneficial as "I Am Super Persuasive." This is largely because MULRAH does not have anything like Fate Points, so there's little incentive to avoid straightforwardly positive Tags. I might just change the rule to requiring a Weakness, which would move MULRAH a step closer to Risus/PDQ.
Conclusion
Unless some of my other tweaks really come into play, it's probably fair to say we're actually just playing Risus with Funky Dice and a few notable adjustments:
- No use of Inappropriate Cliches (Tags) allowed
- Damage equal to the amount by which you win/lose your resolution roll
- Instead of inflicting Damage, a successful roll can also dictate facts about the outcome, as in Donjon
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Topic 28761
On 10/8/2009 at 11:08pm, Simon C wrote:
Re: [MULRAH] First Playtest
Hey, sorry it took so long for me to get to this.
I'm still not clear on what you want play to look like, and how the rules will help you get there. Can you describe:
a) The best part of the playtest session, what the characters did, what the players did, and how the rules worked.
b) the most frustrating/boring/not what you wanted part of the session, as above.
On 10/18/2009 at 4:22am, Mulrah wrote:
Re: [MULRAH] First & Second Playtests
Simon, thanks for the reply. Part of my challenge is trying to figure out not only what style of play I prefer but also the preferences of my players. We had our second session today, which will also inform my answers.
Simon wrote: a) The best part of the playtest session, what the characters did, what the players did, and how the rules worked.
For the players, the best part of the game was the faster mechanics, making just one roll to handle a series of actions rather than going task-by-task or round-by-round. One of the players also enjoyed the strategy of trying to come up with creative ways in which his Tags could come into play, which is good, because that's really the essence of the game. I also prefer the stronger voice the players have in how conflicts resolved, as it takes the burden off me and makes each session as a whole more of a creative collaboration.
Simon wrote: b) the most frustrating/boring/not what you wanted part of the session, as above.
The worst part for me is having one player who simply does not seem to be fully engaged. We feel most of her issues are due to the hodgepodge character creation that started the Savage Worlds game (which we "converted" to MULRAH) and the subsequent blandness of the pre-made adventure modules we were using. We have decided this series of sessions is a lost cause and have agreed to start fresh with new characters the next time around.
However, this player did make a couple points that could be issues with the game system itself or merely signs that she is just not really into role-playing games in the first place. First, she stated that when they lose a conflict, nothing interesting happens (i.e., They simply don't succeed.), which I think is a fault with how I am framing "conflict resolution." Second, she does not like feeling like she gets to learn the "whole story" because she is limited only to her own character's experience. Finally, she feels like the process of creatively applying her Tags to the situation at hand is just a chore, which, as I said before, is the essence of the game. A more interesting character could address this latter issue, or MULRAH too could be a lost cause for this particular player.
On 10/18/2009 at 4:34am, Mulrah wrote:
RE: Re: [MULRAH] First & Second Playtests
Mulrah wrote: However, this player did make a couple points that could be issues with the game system itself or merely signs that she is just not really into role-playing games in the first place. First, she stated that when they lose a conflict, nothing interesting happens (i.e., They simply don't succeed.), which I think is a fault with how I am framing "conflict resolution." Second, she does not like feeling like she gets to learn the "whole story" because she is limited only to her own character's experience. Finally, she feels like the process of creatively applying her Tags to the situation at hand is just a chore, which, as I said before, is the essence of the game. A more interesting character could address this latter issue, or MULRAH too could be a lost cause for this particular player.
To unpack the issues in this paragraph:
• Losing a Conflict = Boring: That's an issue with how I am GMing. A better handle on conflict resolution could be worked into the MULRAH rules, or I could just do a better job with it in the game session. I think this is a result of my inexperience with the concept, which causes me to treat it more like lumped-together task resolution.
• Not Getting to See the Whole Story: This is going to be a problem with any game in which there's a relatively strong GM, isn't it? We could avoid it with a GM-less game, but I think she likes the idea of there being hidden secrets the players have to uncover, as long as they eventually figure it all out. I'm not sure whether this is a game system or a session prep issue.
• Manipulating Tags into Conflict = A Chore: I think a new character will largely mitigate this, or it could be that the whole concept of playing a specific role won't work for this player. In that case, we'd be looking for a collaborative story-telling game more than a story-oriented role-playing game.
On 10/18/2009 at 6:50am, Simon C wrote:
RE: Re: [MULRAH] First Playtest
Hi! Do you have a real name I can call you?
When I was asking about the best/worst parts, I was talking about actual moments of play, rather than broad areas of concern.
It sounds like maybe some of this player's issues aren't going to be solvable with this game, but she may find another game that suits her more.
The issue of losing conflicts being boring is an interesting one. It's pretty vital in my opinion that any conflict is between desirable and underirable outcomes. If either outcome is equally derirable, it's hard to care about them, and it's often a sign that the conflict isn't about what's really at stake in the scene. On the other hand, some undesirable outcomes are just boring. Your rules for framing conflicts can ensure that failure moves the game forward in some concrete way. For example, you can make a rule that when a PC loses a conflict, something bad happens to the PCs. Maybe some antagonist NPCs get to make a move, or maybe the situation changes in some undesirable way. In any case, losing a conflict should change the context such that trying again isn't an option. Losing a conflict should present the players with new difficult choices. You can make rules to make sure that happens.
On 10/18/2009 at 8:55pm, Mulrah wrote:
RE: Re: [MULRAH] First Playtest
Thanks for this input. Regarding conflict/task resolution, based on my review of archived threads here, it sounds like a) we have been doing grouped task resolution rather than conflict resolution and b), regardless of (a), failure/losing should be at least as interesting as success/winning, as you have stated. It could be that we continue with grouped task resolution but we become more clear up front about what happens if the players' roll results in failure.
In fact, this might be the only way MULRAH works. The original idea behind the game was to make generic all my favorite elements of indie games, but I am not sure conflict resolution can be made generic at all. A GM truly open to conflict resolution cannot predict how a player will attempt to achieve his character's goals. Preparing for a session seems futile, as cronies you place around that next corner might not even exist if the players roll successfully. On the other hand, making up opposition as you go seems as illusionist as as railroading players along a specific plot.
Therefore, it seems that the only way conflict resolution works is if the game is very specific about the kind of conflict that is going to be resolved and how exactly that will be handled. If players want to play avengers of fallen villages taking out the pirate clans marauding the coast, that's going to be one kind of conflict resolution and one kind of game. If players want to play characters who gradually unlock mysteries about their past, that's another type of conflict resolution and a whole other game. I'm not sure these can be made generic.
Simon wrote: When I was asking about the best/worst parts, I was talking about actual moments of play, rather than broad areas of concern.
It sounds like maybe some of this player's issues aren't going to be solvable with this game, but she may find another game that suits her more.
My favorite moments of play came when players came up with creative "facts" about how a conflict they won played out and when they creatively worked their Tags into conflict in a negative fashion in order to recover damage. For example, when escaping a manor after a rescue, one player invented a hidden path into the woods that only he could detect with his "Man of the Wild" Tag. In the next session, he recovered damage to this same Tag by discouraging a fellow player from rescuing a party member sinking into quicksand, arguing that it was useless to evade the laws of nature.
The least favorite moments came mostly with pre-scripted parts of the session--including the stuff I came up with myself--and when the disengaged player was mentally drifting out of the game. For example, the players had entered a temple where they found the sacrificed body of their former employer and were then set upon by a newly undead creature. I used all the tricks in the book to describe the scene as horrifically as possible, but the disengaged player at the center of the scene did not really seem to care what happened to her character. She half-heartedly called upon some of her Tags to resist the attack, lost, and just stopped participating. When she lost, her "Ass-Kicking Teen Girl" Tag became depleted, which led to interesting play on the part of the other player later, as he tried to recover her damage for her, but she just checked out.
Simon wrote:
Hi! Do you have a real name I can call you?
My name is Chris; I changed my profile name to match.
On 10/19/2009 at 3:42am, Mulrah wrote:
RE: Re: [MULRAH] First Playtest
Chris wrote: In fact, this might be the only way MULRAH works. The original idea behind the game was to make generic all my favorite elements of indie games, but I am not sure conflict resolution can be made generic at all. A GM truly open to conflict resolution cannot predict how a player will attempt to achieve his character's goals. Preparing for a session seems futile, as cronies you place around that next corner might not even exist if the players roll successfully. On the other hand, making up opposition as you go seems as illusionist as as railroading players along a specific plot.
Therefore, it seems that the only way conflict resolution works is if the game is very specific about the kind of conflict that is going to be resolved and how exactly that will be handled. If players want to play avengers of fallen villages taking out the pirate clans marauding the coast, that's going to be one kind of conflict resolution and one kind of game. If players want to play characters who gradually unlock mysteries about their past, that's another type of conflict resolution and a whole other game. I'm not sure these can be made generic.
Although I find examples of conflict resolution to be somewhat contradictory, I feel the most compelling common element is the ability for players to author content. ("I search the office to find dirt on the Big Bad." Success --> Dirt on Big Bad exists in office, whether or not the GM had thought it was there before the session.)
My concerns above are that player content authority leads to unpredictable play, and therefore needs a tight resolution mechanic to focus the game. The "Silent Railroading" thread implies that the Pool is an example in which conflict resolution does not necessarily mean player content authorship, but this seemed to be an example that Paul, the original poster, never fully grasped, and I can't say I get it either. If conflict resolution does not include player content authorship and, as noted elsewhere, it is not simply task resolution at a larger scale, what is it then?
On 10/19/2009 at 5:16am, Simon C wrote:
RE: Re: [MULRAH] First Playtest
Hi Chris!
It sounds like we've got to some pretty meaty stuff here. What is conflict resolution?
It's easy to be confused about, because the term gets used to cover a wide variety of resolution systems, some of which are very different from each other, so it's hard to see which bits make it conflict resolution.
You're right to identify content authority as something that's often confused with conflict resolution. The two are often related, but there's no inherent link between the two. You can have task resolution with content authority, and you can have conflict resolution without it.
Here's the key difference, as I understand it: Task resolution is about resolving "Execution". Conflict resolution is about resolving "Effect".
Do you understand Intent, Initiation, Execution and Effect (i.e. "IIEE")?
Intent is your overall goal. Initiation is how you try to achieve that goal. Execution is how well you do at what you were trying. Effect is whether what you were trying achieves what you wanted.
So.
Intent: I want to kill you.
Initiation: I shoot you with my gun.
Execution: Did I hit? <----- Task resolution decides this
Effect: Are you dead? <----- Conflict resolution decides this (yes, that means rolling for damage in D&D is conflict resolution)
Intent: I want to get into this tower.
Initiation: I climb up the side of the tower to the window.
Execution: Did I climb up there ok? <----- Task resolution decides this
Effect: Did that get me into the tower? <----- Conflict resolution decides this
Intent: I want you to give me your wallet.
Initiation: I'll try to seduce you.
Execution: How did the seduction go? <----- Task resolution decides this
Effect: Do you give me your wallet? <----- Conflict resolution decides this
Does that make sense? Feel free to ask questions.
Here's a game where players have content authority:
Player: I want to get into the tower.
GM: Cool. How?
Player: I'm going to climb into a window.
GM: Cool.
Here's a game where they don't:
Player: I want to get into the tower.
GM: Cool. How?
Player: Is there a window?
GM: Yep.
Player: Cool.
In some games, players only get content authority after they've won a roll. In others they don't. That's not conflict resolution though.
Please also note that you can roll the dice at pretty much any point in the IIEE process, and still be doing task resolution or conflict resolution.
Still making sense?
On 10/19/2009 at 5:46am, Mulrah wrote:
RE: Re: [MULRAH] First Playtest
Simon wrote: Here's the key difference, as I understand it: Task resolution is about resolving "Execution". Conflict resolution is about resolving "Effect".
Do you understand Intent, Initiation, Execution and Effect (i.e. "IIEE")?
Intent is your overall goal. Initiation is how you try to achieve that goal. Execution is how well you do at what you were trying. Effect is whether what you were trying achieves what you wanted.
Simon, thanks for the help here. My thread on this over at RPG.net is now 9 pages long, and, although it got me to the point of confusing conflict resolution with player content authorship (which actually feels like progress), nobody seems to have as clear a handle on it as you do.
When I read about authorship, IIEE, and conflict/task resolution, it all makes sense. The confusion sets in when I overlay them and zoom in and out on them.
In one of the examples you provide, a task-oriented player will be inclined to just say "I climb the side of the tower." A GM in a game using conflict resolution will ask, "Why?" and get "I want to get into the tower."
But let's say the player starts out with "I want to get into the tower." Can't the GM also just ask, "Why?" to get an even broader "intent," making getting into the tower the "initiation?"
When explained alone, the linear nature of IIEE makes sense, but in the context of a whole game, it seems like every initiation's intent is another intent's initiation and every execution's effect is another effect's execution.
Thus, every conflict resolution is another conflict resolution's task resolution. In other words, "I want to find the evil sorcerer!" makes "I want to get into the tower" an Initiation, and thus "Did I get into the tower?" is Execution, not Effect.
With conflict resolution and task resolution rather indistinct for me, I have latched onto the idea that conflict resolution = player content authorship, which seemed like the only "real" difference between all the examples I read.
On 10/19/2009 at 7:06am, Simon C wrote:
RE: Re: [MULRAH] First Playtest
Yeah, that's a good insight about conflict resolution. Deciding the appropriate scope for conflicts in your game is a big part of rules design, and the skill of playing the game. But watch out for a thing! If you start to get too broad in your conflicts, and get sloppy about intiiations, you can get something that looks like this: I__E
In other words, you stop noticing how anything gets achieved, and just care about intents. It goes like this:
Player: "I wanna get my wife to love me again!"
GM: "Awesome! sounds like a conflict!"
Player: "Sweet!"
*clatter*
Player: "Yay! We love each other very much!"
Good games don't let this happen, because they have rules to stop it.
Can you talk through the IIEE process in your game, with an example?
On 10/19/2009 at 6:38pm, Mulrah wrote:
RE: Re: [MULRAH] First Playtest
Simon wrote: Can you talk through the IIEE process in your game, with an example?
The rules I wrote are not explicit about this at all, but I tried to be consistent during the game in the following way. Generally, each scene probably had a sequence of two to four goals the PCs would want to achieve, each of which would be an "Intent." Sometimes, the player would be too specific, and I would ask them, "What is your goal for taking that action?" to get them back up to the right scale. At the time, I thought asking that question was "conflict resolution."
Players could then describe a series of actions or even a mini-plan for how they would achieve their Intent, which I take to mean I was allowing them to conceptualize multiple Initiations at once, or maybe just a single but more complex Initiation. If their actions related to one of their character's "Tags" (traits, aspects, skill groups, whatever), they could roll an extra die.
When they were done describing their plan, I would whip out dice in opposition to them, depending upon what other characters and obstacles might oppose them. Sometimes they knew about them beforehand ("The wall in front of you looks pretty sheer."), but other times they did not (Guards right around the corner.).
We roll the dice.
Whichever side has the highest roll on a single die wins. When the players won, basically their whole plan went off without a hitch and they achieved their goal, so Execution and Effect were collapsed into one. However, we also had a rule that on some successes, they could state "facts" about how they won that they had not previously included in their plan ("As we escape the manor, we see a pathway into the woods!"), which, unless I'm mistaken, would have been exercising content authority during the Effect phase of resolution. I thought this too was a key characteristic of "conflict resolution.".
If the players lost, then whatever was opposing them prevented them from achieving their goal and caused damage to their Tags, which we would usually collaboratively describe ("Oh, she got caught trying to steal, so she has to lay low for a while." i.e., can't use "thief" Tag.). I would usually pick whatever the most likely scenario was for their failure, but it was almost never as dramatic as their victory because I was worried about the pre-scripted adventure getting "off track."
I can't think of a single instance in which they achieved their goal without their plan going their way or when they had their plan go their way but did not achieve their goal, so it seems kind of like the blurred I__E, but I never let them do anything (Intent) without a full description of their plan/actions (Initiation).
Example
The PCs were with a group of pirates trying to retrieve some treasure their wounded captain had hidden ashore. The area in which he'd hidden it was now swampy due to recent downpours, so the stream they were supposed became lost amidst the marsh. Losing the stream meant getting to the treasure was no longer a gimme, so the PCs would have to roll.
One player called upon his character's "Man of the Wild" (d6) Tag. The other player did not have any pertinent Tags, but each player gets to roll a d6 anyway, so they were rolling 3d6 and a d4. I think their highest roll was a 4.
In opposition, I said the swamp was particularly hard to navigate (d8) and the crew member leading them was totally inept, also opposing them with a d6. I rolled and got a 5.
In my mind, even though their stated goal was simply to get to the treasure, I had mentally broken this down into two or three segments, the first one being "make it partway to the treasure without endangering the crew." Therefore, I ruled that the failed roll meant they became lost and that one of the crew members got stuck and was sinking in a mud pit. In addition, the players who used a Tag had to take a "level" of damage to it, so "Man of the Wild" could now roll only a d4.
I could continue with the scene, but I think this one segment shows how the game works. I still am not sure whether this is conflict or task resolution. I've recently been thinking of it just as task resolution with stakes ("Cross the bridge without taking 3d6 damage" from the "Silent Railroading" thread), and I'm not sure how to even use the term "conflict resolution."
On 10/19/2009 at 6:58pm, Mulrah wrote:
RE: Re: [MULRAH] First Playtest
Fixing some errors in my previous post:
Chris wrote:
Example
The PCs were with a group of pirates trying to retrieve some treasure their wounded captain had hidden ashore. The area in which he'd hidden it was now swampy due to recent downpours, so the stream they were supposed to follow became lost amidst the marsh. Losing the stream meant getting to the treasure was no longer a gimme, so the PCs would have to roll.
One player called upon his character's "Man of the Wild" (d6) Tag. The other player did not have any pertinent Tags, but each player gets to roll a d6 anyway, so they were rolling 3d6. I think their highest roll was a 4.
On 10/20/2009 at 6:23am, Simon C wrote:
RE: Re: [MULRAH] First Playtest
Hi Chris,
"Task resolution with stakes" IS conflict resolution.
Blurring Execution and Effect is a common thing, and not a bad thing either, provided you're explicit about it. You do lose a little bit of nuance and detail, but that's not a problem, depending on the kind of game you want. I__E is all about losing the "how" of a conflict, which it doesn't sound like you're doing.
So here's the next step:
The PCs come to the island to find the hidden treasure.
Is this a conflict?
What will happen if they don't find the treasure? Is there any reason they can't just keep searching until it's found? Is someone else looking for the treasure?
If the answers to those questions don't raise an interesting situation, it sounds like you're not in a conflict. You can either make it a given, or you can change the scope of the conflict. Can the PCs find the spot where the treasure is buried before nightfall? Will the PCs get lost in the bush before they find the treasure?
What counts as a conflict in your rules will have a major effect on how they feel in play. In "In a Wicked Age", it only counts as a conflict if you're acting physically against someone. In Sorcerer, it only counts as a conflict if you're acting against the interests of someone else. In your game, maybe it only counts as a conflict if there's something dangerous that might happen. Maybe it only counts as a conflict if two characters want something different.
Remember that conflict resolution never resolves differences between what players want - only what characters want. That's a mistake that some designs make, but it doesn't sound like you're going down that road.
Think about the conflicts that were fun, and which people cared about, and the ones which were not so fun, and maybe you can work out the kinds of conflicts that your game should recognise.
Regarding Content Authority:
You are correct in your interpretation of Content Authority in your game. Here's a thing I don't understand:
As far as I understand, your game looks a bit like this in resolution:
You say what you want to achieve
You say what your plan is, and describe it (sometimes you do this first, and add your intent afterwards. That's fine.)
You roll dice
If you succeed, you describe your plan going off, and you get to add extra details (content authority) at this stage.
If you fail, the GM says what happens next.
Here are some problems I see:
All the interesting description happens before you roll any dice. You describe your plan, in detail, before you roll. If you succeed, you're basically left with "it happens like I said". But you've got the content authority *after* you roll, when it's only useful for minor details and things.
Here's how it works in Donjon:
You say your intent "I want to find traps".
You say your initiation "I look around the place"
You roll dice
You say your execution and effect, with content authority based on how well you rolled "I find a trap - it's a trap door that drops down a chute into the Dragon's lair. The others haven't seen it yet"
So the interesting narration happens after the roll, when you've got content authority and you can really use it.
Now that works for Donjon, but it has a very radical effect on play. It's basically impossible to pre-plan anything in Donjon.
I get the feeling you don't want the same thing in your game. Is that correct?
Here's a question: How much PDQ, Risus, Donjon and FATE have you played? I feel like some really succesful play of those games will help you discover what you want in your own game.
On 10/20/2009 at 7:44pm, Mulrah wrote:
RE: Re: [MULRAH] First Playtest
Simon wrote: "Task resolution with stakes" IS conflict resolution.
Hmmm... That did not seem to be the conclusion of this thread: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=17778.0;wap2. Either I misread the thread, or perhaps the cause of my confusion is now fully apparent.
Simon wrote: What will happen if they don't find the treasure? Is there any reason they can't just keep searching until it's found? Is someone else looking for the treasure?
The only thing given in this scene is that the PCs make it out of the swamp alive. If the PCs failed to recover the treasure, then the next "scene," in which they return to the port town ransacked by a PC's escaping nemesis, would have presumably caused them to move on. They could have come back for the treasure, but that probably would have been in a subsequent session.
Simon wrote: What counts as a conflict in your rules will have a major effect on how they feel in play.
In our games, anything that presented an obstacle to the PCs achieving their goals created a "conflict" and led to rolling the dice. As you say, "if two characters want something different," there was conflict, with traditional NPCs (inept crew member) as well as inanimate objects (the swamp) considered as "characters."
Simon wrote: How much PDQ, Risus, Donjon and FATE have you played?
None. I was looking for a game that provided more authority to the players, liked all four of these games, and decided to mix and match from them.
In terms of player authority, it seems like my game gives them pretty strong Narrational Authority with minor Content Authority if they make good rolls. The GM retains all Situational and Plot Authority. By your description, Donjon provides far more Content Authority to the players, which I personally enjoyed the most but conflicted with pre-planning sessions, as you note.
The disengaged player most at risk of jumping ship altogether would actually prefer no Content and less Narrational Authority. The rest of us could explore other games, but my focus now is trying to find something that fits this one particular player. As a player, I think she wants to have something of a mystery she has to figure out with clues that her character finds and interprets. She doesn't want to figure out how her character can exert herself on the story, which is basically the focus of my game, but rather how the various clues of the game setting work together to reveal a larger, hidden story.
At the risk of returning to murky GNS waters I do not fully understand, it seems that, from Savage Worlds, I went the Narrativist direction with MULRAH when I should have gone the Gamist direction. That might mean MULRAH gets tabled for this player, because, generic though it may be, it was written to be about telling character-driven stories, not unraveling mysteries.
Forge Reference Links:
Topic 17778
On 10/21/2009 at 2:53am, Mulrah wrote:
RE: Re: [MULRAH] First Playtest
Chris wrote:Simon wrote: "Task resolution with stakes" IS conflict resolution.
Hmmm... That did not seem to be the conclusion of this thread: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=17778.0;wap2. Either I misread the thread, or perhaps the cause of my confusion is now fully apparent.
After responding to a couple thoughtful posts on my thread at RPG.net, I have some clarity around this now.
Conflict resolution is not task resolution with stakes. Task resolution without stakes is just bad gaming, and stakes without task resolution is kind of like I__E.
The difference is in what triggers the dice rolling and/or what ultimately ends up being the central focus of the game. For me, examples of when dice wouldn't be rolled are most illustrative.
With a task-oriented game, dice are triggered when a character's competency is low relative to the difficulty of his action or the potency of opposition. A farmer would always have to make a roll (or just be told “no”) to fly a shuttle to the moon, while he'd probably wouldn't have to roll at all (or roll with massive positive modifiers) to ride his tractor into the field, no matter the situation.
In a conflict-oriented game, dice are triggered when a character's interests are at odds with other interests in the story. Thus, the GM could actually let the farmer fly to the moon, if it has nothing to do with any of the other story elements already in play, whereas a task-oriented game would never let this happen. In contrast, something as simple as driving his tractor could call out the dice of the whole story is about nature of tilling the earth, and the field, the tractor, and the weather are all “characters” that will play important roles in that story.
Therefore, I do think I framed MULRAH as a conflict-oriented game, since inanimate objects can be “Tagged” and I explicitly say that Tags are a measure of “story power,” not competency. However, the game rules themselves could do a better job at ensuring that losing a conflict is interesting. In other words, the “trigger” for rolling should be moved up for when the stakes are more significant. Being too trigger happy in a conflict-oriented game is just as bad as when it's in a task-oriented game, even with stakes, but instead the complaints will be “failure/success is boring” rather than “that task is so simple—why did I have to roll?” Having the above farmer roll every time he starts his tractor to see if he can drive it without taking 2d6 damage from an unforeseen accident is trigger-happy task resolution that sucks, even with stakes. Rolling for interesting successes with minorly consequential failures is trigger-happy conflict-resolution that also sucks.
Ensuring that conflicts are interesting to players is an area of improvement for MULRAH and this thread. Finding the right game for the disgruntled player is probably a topic to be handled elsewhere, though I welcome your thoughts here anyway.
Forge Reference Links:
Topic 17778
On 10/21/2009 at 3:34am, Simon C wrote:
RE: Re: [MULRAH] First Playtest
Theory discussion on rpg.net is not going to clarify matters.
In the thread you link, Vincent says
"I think that "in conflict resolution, we say what's at stake before we roll" is a great way to put it, far better than how I've put it in the past."
That seems a pretty clear statement that the critical factor of conflict resolution is that we resolve stakes, rather than finding out how well someone performs a skill. Now, more recent discussions have criticised explicit stake setting and have moved to more implicit models of conflict resolution (and in fact Sorcerer uses this model), but that's not relevant to your game or to the discussion you linked to.
Also probably best that we leave GNS out of this, since it's not useful to this discussion at this stage.
Here's what I think would be a good idea:
Play some of the games you're referencing. I don't know Risus and PDQ very well, but I suspect they have rules for conflict resolution that lay out the process clearly. Follow the rules closely, and let the rules take you where they will. Experiencing some fun moments of play and some unfun moments of play will help you decide what you want your game to be like.
I'll return to the question I started this thread with:
a) What do you want the experience of play to be like, and
b) how will the rules help you get there?
On 10/21/2009 at 4:59am, Mulrah wrote:
RE: Re: [MULRAH] First Playtest
Simon wrote: Theory discussion on rpg.net is not going to clarify matters.
In this case, it did clarify matters, at least for me. I agree that stakes are the focal area of conflict resolution, but it is not enough to say that conflict resolution = task resolution + stakes. You can have task resolution with stakes that is not really conflict resolution.
Simon wrote: Also probably best that we leave GNS out of this, since it's not useful to this discussion at this stage.
Fair enough.
Simon wrote: I don't know Risus and PDQ very well, but I suspect they have rules for conflict resolution that lay out the process clearly.
Both of these games focus on task rather than conflict resolution. Since my game needs work on defining conflict, I'll take your advice to heart but with different games.
Simon wrote: I'll return to the question I started this thread with:
a) What do you want the experience of play to be like, and
b) how will the rules help you get there?
The point of MULRAH is to avoid the first question, leaving it up to the GM and provide a toolkit of rules that the GM can turn on or off to make the experience of play however she wants. While I'm somewhat satisfied with what I have so far, I'm not sure that a generic framework is possible for conflict resolution. Therefore, as soon as I refine this aspect of the game, it's no longer MULRAH, but, if I don't refine it, then MULRAH is somewhat incomplete.
Regardless, my players want something I don't think MULRAH as a collaborative story-telling game can deliver right now, so I am going to find a game that can engage the players in solving a mystery or recast MULRAH so it can handle that itself.
Simon, thanks again for all your input!
On 11/2/2009 at 2:42am, Mulrah wrote:
RE: Re: [MULRAH] First Playtest
After playing a round of Pantheon and Primetime Adventures, both of which the player I'm trying to please preferred to MULRAH and Savage Worlds, I'm putting MULRAH's development on hold. I provide a more detailed assessment on my blog, and I welcome comments there or here, especially from Mr. Simon C, who has been kindly following MULRAH's development thus far.
In the future, I will either use MULRAH as a minimalist non-system in the vein of PDQ to create my own lavish setting, or I will completely restart MULRAH as monumental endeavor to create a toolkit for Forge-inspired game design. Both seem equally unlikely in the near future, especially with our impending CSI: Bob Jones Prep Primetime Adventures series...
On 11/3/2009 at 12:54am, Simon C wrote:
RE: Re: [MULRAH] First Playtest
Hi Chris,
I think that's a brave decision. Don't think of it as wasted time though. I think designing a game, whether it ends in a successful printed product, or a half-finished .doc file in the depths of your hard-drive is a worth-while thing in itself. I know that my appreciation of playing games is vastly improved by the experience of designing games, and talking to other designers.
Conversely, playing some really successful non-traditional games has really opened my eyes to the possibilities in design.
I think you'll be able to come back to this project, or to another project, with a whole new range of ideas and experiences.