I want to see a game where the GM is a referee between two species competing for domination of the Galaxy.

The inspirations are
* Theory from the Closet's interview with David Wesley: http://www.theoryfromthecloset.com/shows/tftc_show060.mp3
* The discussion of game design starting with Color: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forge/index.php?topic=30197.15
* And the work of Nigel Howard on Drama Theory
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drama_theory
-- http://www.springerlink.com/content/q05425536442gh96/
-- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1905492/Nigel-Howard.html

In short, a Braunstein where player teams act out interpersonal conflicts which influence (or delay, or cancel, or promote) really kick ass space battles and vicious dirtside engagements.  A series of these interpersonal/space/dirtside conflicts results in the domination of the Galaxy by one of the two species.

Epehemera:
- Cool cards based on Howard's suggestions for mapping out 2-player dramatic conflicts
- Some kind of cool map
- Space battle tokens or Legos
- Dirtside battle tokens or Legos

One side should be human, the other non-human.  Both species' play should be impacted but not determined by evolutionary strategies.  Even if you are playing the humans, you are playing the humans-in-transition so any successful hominid evolutionary strategy should be available.

Oh yeah, since this is space opera, we are talking about a few generations.  Primal geneline, Grandparents, Parents, Children.
So I suppose we are talking about Dune here.  You had a great ancestor (like the house of Atreus for the Atredies) and now we are watching the descendants.

Totally unscientific.  But evolution comes in as colour.

Totally unscientific.  But evolution comes in as colour.

Wrong.  Unscientific or time-compressed evolution must be mechanical.  But evolutionary ideas and patterns are Colour that is stimulating me.

Books:
* Dorsai, Gordon Dickinson
* Dune, Frank Herbert
* Foundation, Asimov
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_saga_de_los_Aznar (I have only read ABOUT the Azna saga)

Dang, I find the politics implied in those first two books repulsive but the fiction is fascinating.  Foundation has a few interesting characters in the galactic shenanigans.

I guess I will have to read the Man-Kzin War books

But the sequence of important dates (2433,  2438, 2490, 2490, 2505) suggests that a story of one species' check by another can be told over several generations with repeating characters.

Designing your empire's logo should be important too.

An article about wargaming and role playing to keep track of.

http://muleabides.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/dd-was-a-wargame-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means/

Possible References

• Burning the Cosmic Commons: Evolutionary Strategies for Interstellar Colonization
(http://hanson.gmu.edu/filluniv.pdf)
• Weibull, J. W. (1995) Evolutionary game theory, MIT Press
• Maynard Smith, J. (1982) Evolution and the Theory of Games.
• Weibull, J. W. (1995) Evolutionary game theory, MIT Press
• Axelrod, Robert. (1984) The Evolution of Cooperation
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_dynamics.
• J.R. Krebs and Nicholas Davies, An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology
• Maynard-Smith, J.; Price, G. R. (1973). "The Logic of Animal Conflict".

The aim is to find out the meaning of being evolving beings in conflict, not to play out some Reader's Digest version of optimal evolutionary strategies (an unworthy goal and one I could not ever dream of creating mechanically)

I think its important to work out
a) how interstellar travel works
b) what is it about your world that makes ground fighting something that would actually happen (as opposed to nuking from orbit and/or throwing rocks at relativistic speeds and/or biological attacks from orbit, etc).

What you decide in this respect will colour everything.

i.e. Youd reckon that if it was possible to 'jump' ships or payloads very close to planets, it would be impossible to stop those kinds of devastating bomb attacks so your aim of spaceship-based combat would be moot.  (neutron bombs or biological warfare might even leave the planet largely intact if that was the aim) 

i.e. I cant remember where, but one idea I came across was that gravity fields prevented 'jumps' from working, so that invaders had to arrive a great distance from suns and planets, then travel the rest of the way at sublight speeds.  This wouldnt prevent invaders bombing from orbit, but it at least give defenders a fighting chance to repel before they got that close. 

But regardless, if you can land ground troops from space onto a planet, then you 'land'  bombs of various types a lot easier... so, why wouldnt you?

Or, you could take a leaf out of our own cold war history and say that it was perfectly possible to jump bombs directly into orbit around a planet, and use the Mutually Assured Destruction theory.  Basically both sides have ships stationed somewhere so that in the event of destruction of their homeworld by bombs, they can do the same to the enemy -- so the war must be waged by 'conventional' means on third party planets only.

I think its important to work out
a) how interstellar travel works
b) what is it about your world that makes ground fighting something that would actually happen

Now I need some justfication as to why a Planet or a System should be the target for invasion.

And what makes any planet distinct.

Fallen Dragon by Peter Hamilton had an unusual take on invasions.  Basically, this is a wormhole-jump-based concept so there is relatively little in terms of powered flight, but making wormholes is expensive.  Interstellar trade is therefore not economically viable, but what amounts to interstellar piracy is.  The company concerned buys up the loans that were given to new colonies (once they reach a suitable tech level), forecloses on them, and lands a military force which compels the locals to produce expensive goods.

While this probably isn't directly suitable for your project, I think it suggests lines of thinking that might be fruitful.  As above, it makes no military sense to land ground troops if you're fighting a war of annihilation; the only reason you would ever land on the ground is if there was something on the ground you did not want to destroy. 

All in all it's quite a thorny problem.

If you are not familiar with it, Atomic Rocket at http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/ is a valuable resource.

the only reason you would ever land on the ground is if there was something on the ground you did not want to destroy.

Ok, It's hard to imagine a non-human intellect.  So players on both sides would collaborate with designing the alien species.

And then ... for humans ... what?

Primal Geneline: yeah, which heroes from Earth sent humanity down the path that finally got it into space.

Erik wrote:

the only reason you would ever land on the ground is if there was something on the ground you did not want to destroy.

Bingo.

Let us assume both humans and aliens require planets on which to live.  Territory is to be acquired for the species.  Roasting them with nukes is not the point.

Perhaps other star systems are boiled but the Decisive Planet must be conquered for one or the other species.

1 Scene Setting
- informationally closed environment

2 Build Up
- create Common Reference Frame
(must be simple, represents positions a species holds)
- Set Final Positions

3 Climax
- involves Objectives, Threats, Boundaries, Missions
- Emotion and Reason brought in
(warning & notification, deception, irrationality)

4 Conflict (the 1st "E" in IIEE)
- use of force
(big freaking space ships, kick ass ground fights)

5 Resolution of Conflict

6 Implementation
- choice of Resolution, False Resolution, Conflict, Flunked Conflict
- understanding the Unexpected Future

Types of Decision
- Reversible and Irreversible
* I have sufficient preponerance of physical force not to need the physical strengthening I get from destroying assets
* I don't need to start destroying his assets to make it credible that I'm prepared to

War Fighting is Message Sending that is Part of a Long-Term Strategy for my species' domination of Galaxy's few habitable planets.

Players
- act out your characers' personal goals, and goals for the Planet, the Battle and for the War
- reach consensus about which actions your species' will take in the Buildup, Climax and Conflict

Player Teams
- Win 2/3 (3/5?) Battles for your species' and ensure it's Galactic dominance
- Decide on any changes to your species between Battles, or in the Coda
- Play to win your species' dominance

Referee
- Create interesting Character Conflicts within and between members of a species
- Create challenging Dilemmas for the Player Teams to resolve
- Determine the budgets that the players will have for Fleets and Armies
- Create challenging Spaces and Terrain for the battles
- Make the Galaxy and Decicive Planets real
- Resolve any indecicivenes on the part of Players or Player Teams
- Ensure and even fight between Species

GM = Galaxy Master?

TITLE

Definition:

Player Orientation
 
__________________________________________

Cooperation Dilemma

Definition: When a species could do better by switching to another position.

Player Orientation
* "The Xenos will remove their spawning pits from that planet, but at any moment they could renege."
* "Look at those Humans: They are always chaning their minds.  They are always weakening their position because they cannot trust themselves.  Heptazion Seven will be ours!"

Trust Dilemma

Definition: When the opposing species is tempted to defect from a current decision to cooperate (in some way) with mine.

Player Orientation
* "I am not sure those Humans will stick to the agreement we have made."
* "I think the Xenos might argue and the retreat from their current co-operative position."

Deterence Dilemma

Definition: When one species's threat might bring about a state of affairs it prefers to the future my species wants to see.

Player Orientation
* "You Xenos threaten to reduce the people of Leofantus Prime to mindless hosts for your worms?  Good!  I hate those bastards for what they did to my family.  Let them rot!"
* "The Humans threaten to build factories that will release a poison that prohibits our tadpoles from growing quickly.  That's good, because we have already taxed the oceans of Filligree to their limit."

Inducement Dilemma

Definition: When one species holds out the promise of a future that is preferable to a future state of affairs that I have threatened to bring about.

Player Orientation
* "You want to fight to the death to hold Mirrorberg?  Why do that when I could make you Grand Matriarch of the entire human species courtesy of the Drone Device?"
* "You Kleborgs work for a century to make sure that a chosen primary child is ready to take on the propagation of your geneline.  Well, I will escort your child to a safe quadrant -- if you pull those bomber ships out of the Ceti system."

Threat Dilemma

Definition: When one species is tempted to back away from the future is has threatened to bring about.

Player Orientation
* "We have threatened to use the brood herds of the Goatkin for target practice if their Alphas don't retreat.  I don't know ... I would rather just let them graze our fields."
* "Human and Klaxon leave Tidd to its inhabitants?  That might be nice.  But I don't know if I can abandon our beautiful breeding coves.  Too many lovely memories."

Positioning Dilemma

Definition: When another species position is more attractive than my own.

Player Orientation
* "I just called back the Slaughter Caste from devouring the Humans along the Equatorial Canyon.  Sure we have reached a stalemate.  But by the Sacred Nest I wish I could have the kind of territory the Human Army has established on the big continent."

The Execution or the "E"

* "Wait, if I just change a few of my own cards, I can reach a better future!"

* "Look, our characters have some common interests, let's lay out a few more cards."

* "Our species could both improve our current understanding if we lay out a few new cards."

* "Oh yeah!  Well the retaliation could look something like THIS." [player lays out a few more cards to punish the opposing character]

* "Hahh, look at all those threats you have made.  With all those cards you have added ... why should the Waspoids trust or co-operate with you indecisive humans?"

* "Look Tony, let's not drag this thing out.  If Lord Vax and Lady Immenthal set up all of those bases in the system [points to the cards] the MekkPurr will not really be able to trust us humans anymore."

* "Zizz -- hear me out.  This could work out really well if we agree to let the human settlements remain AND take out a few chunks of their spacefleet.  Simultaneous punishment and conciliation will teach the humans a valuable lesson about tangling with the Ophidian Emirate."

* "The humans are not affraid of burning an entire planet web ... even if that means pollution that hurts their own people.  They just don't value individual life the way we Spiderhawks do.  Expending a lot more resources by throwing down more cards is not the way for us to get our characters out of this mess."

* "Ok, the assasins are ready.  The bombs are in place.  President Slaggah is just the kind of guy who would send 10,000 Gopherling pups to a flaming death.  But he just might be persuaded to give up some of his principles if ..."

* "Jeebus H. Cricket!  I agreed to abandon all my hopes of becoming Alpha Ape.  I listened to all you Nutrino Apes jabber on and on about allowing more breeding by Betas.  And now you want me to give up Planet X.02?  Sorry, I have bent my principles too much to back down from my position now.  Sorry.  Ain't happening."

Designing the Alien species should be fun .. should it be co-operative?
Designing the Human ancestor or paragon or ideology should be fun ... should it be co-operative?
Designing the Planet should be fun ... should it be co-operative?

The GM should have fun creating the Dilemmas

The Players should have fun designing characters.

The Player Teams should have fun kiting out and spending resources on spaceships and armies (imagine a "Trillion Credit Squadron" Lite).

Waching the Players resolve their conflicts should be fun.

Their should be One moment of secrecy where the Player Teams leave the shared table and finalize their decisions about what cards to play.  Whether they work it out in character, argue strategically, browbeat and cajole fellow players does not matter.  They enter their own Magic Circle, and come back to the table with those decisions and play them out.

This is starting to get a little convoluted.  Unity has to be maintained in the various levels.

My creation of a species should produce some element that affects later decisions, call it A.

It would be nice if that A made it into character creation, and that decisions about character added B.

Then the Resolution of a Conflict created a C.

C the consequence of a conflict would then be transmuted into simultaneous changes at A and B.

Let us assume 2 players per team:

[font=Verdana]Before 1st Conflict: Xenos [Ax1, Bx1] : Humans [Ah1, Bh1]
After 1st Conflict: Xenos [Ax1, Bx1, Cx1] : Humans [Ah1, Bh1, Ch1]
Species Readjustment: Xenos [Cx1>Ax2 & Bx2] : Humans [Ch1> Ah2 & Bh2]

Before 2nd Conflict: Xenos [Ax2, Bx2] : Humans [Ah2, Bh2]
After 2st Conflict: Xenos [Ax2, Bx2, Cx2] : Humans [Ah2, Bh2, Ch2]
Species Readjustment: Xenos [Cx2>Ax3 & Bx3]: Humans [Ch2> Ah3 & Bh2][/font]

Interesting in that the end of one conflict produces changes in two areas, which two areas are then the starting point for the next conflict.
Uninteresting in that both sides get to decide on their own C.  The victor's victory doesn't matter.  All that has happened is that there has been a conflict and both sides decide on a result.

Let's spice it up a little.

[font=Verdana]Before 1st Conflict: Xenos [Ax1, Bx1] : Humans [Ah1, Bh1]
After 1st Conflict: Xenos [Ax1, Bx1, C1] : Humans [Ah1, Bh1, C1]
Species Readjustment: Xenos [C1>Ax2 & Bx2] : Humans [C1> Ah2 & Bh2]

Before 2nd Conflict: Xenos [Ax2, Bx2] : Humans [Ah2, Bh2]
After 2st Conflict: Xenos [Ax2, Bx2, Cx2] : Humans [Ah2, Bh2, Ch2]
Species Readjustment: Xenos [C2>Ax3 & Bx3]: Humans [C2> Ah3 & Bh2][/font]

In the spicy version, victory C produces changes in the Species and the Characters.

But again, it seems a little generic.  Both Species are marked by the conflict in the same way.
But winning should matter to the players and so should losing.

Now, it seems as if the Referee should introduce the shared consequence of a conflict.  But the victors should be able to define the meaning of their victory and the nature of the loss.

Let's make it extra spicy.  Let us assume that A and B are composed of 3 sub-components, and that C is simple.  Moreover, let us assume that the Xenos are victorious two times in a row.  Let R be the Referee's call as to the shared consequence of the conflict, let X be the result of victory as defined by the Xenos, let X/D be the result of Defeat as defined by the victorious Xenos.

[font=Verdana]Before 1st Conflict: Xenos [Ax1[1][1][1], Bx[1][1][1]] : Humans [Ah1[1][1][1], Bh1[1][1][1]]
After 1st Conflict: Xenos [Ax1[1][1][1], Bx1[1][1][1],C1,X/D1] : Humans [Ah1[1][1][1], Bh1[1][1][1],C1,X/D1]
Species Readjustment: Xenos [Ax2[2][C1][X1] & Bx2[2][C1][X1]] : Humans [Ah2 [1][C1][X/D1] & Bh2[1][C1][X/D1]]

Before 2nd Conflict: Xenos [Ax2[2][C1][X1], Bx2[2][C1][X1]] : Humans [Ah2[1][C1][X/D1], Bh2[1][C1][X/D1]]
After 2nd Conflict: Xenos [Ax1[2][C1][X1], Bx1[2][C1][X1], C2, X2] : Humans [Ah2[C1][X/D2], Bh2[2][C1][X/D1],C2, X/D2]
Species Readjustment: Xenos [Ax2[2][C2][X2] & Bx2[2][C2][X2]] : Humans [Ah2 [1][C2][X/D2] & Bh2[1][C2][X/D2]][/font]

What's happening here is this: At the end of a conflict, the Referee figures out some consequence that both parties share.
Then the Xenos team figures out one change for their species and their characters and 1 change for the human species and characters.

Then, the Xenos have the chance to redefine some aspect of their Species and characters.  And the Humans/losers do not.
After their second defeat, the humans are still carrying around older definitions of what they are, a bit of a change but one specified by the Ref, and a change forced on them by the Xenos team.

The moment after the conflict the characters and their species are still carrying the consequences of the 1st conflict.  It is only during that moment of Readjustment that the 2nd conflict's consequence makes itself felt.

So there should be some roleplay that reflects a species and characters incorporating the results of the conflict, and the losers coping with the constraints that have been imposed on them.

I like the idea of the Referee imposing a shared consequence as it reinforces the neutrality of that role.

They are being defined by the Galaxy and by the opposing species, and failing to progress.  This might mean decreased effectiveness in a competitive wargame.  But in a roleplaying game, having your team and yourself defined by other players and watching other players progress seems to be a tough enough -- and interesting enough -- consequence.

The phases are getting complicated enought, never mind an elaborate series of phases.  2/3 should be enough to define victory.  But if I had 5 phases I could replicate the stages found in "The major evolutionary transitions" by Szathmary and Smith.  We are imagining a species as a kind of meta-organism (which is a terrible category mistake in biology and but kind of fun for sci-fi).

Stage 1: Increasing Complexity
Stage 2: Transtition from Independent Replicators (unicellular protists into the cells of plants animals and fungi, or solar system colonies into  "sectors")
Stage 3: Division of Labour
Stage 4: The Evolution of Heredity.

So Contact, Complexity, Interdependence, Division of Labour, Heredity gives me 5 battles in the war between Xenos and Humans.  Best out of 5 takes the Galaxy.  The Referee and the Victor should take into account the meaning of a progress to the next stage, or the stagnation that affects the loser.

I said :"Let R be the Referee's call" but then reproduced the old "C" designation.

I think the point is clear: The ref introduces a shared mutual consequence, The victor decides on a consequence for his/her species AND for the other species.

Erik wrote:
The phases are getting complicated enought, never mind an elaborate series of phases.  2/3 should be enough to define victory.  But if I had 5 phases I could replicate the stages found in "The major evolutionary transitions" by Szathmary and Smith.  We are imagining a species as a kind of meta-organism (which is a terrible category mistake in biology and but kind of fun for sci-fi).

Stage 1: Increasing Complexity (completion of FLT communication network)
Stage 2: Transtition from Independent Replicators (unicellular protists into the cells of plants animals and fungi, or solar system colonies into  "sectors")
Stage 3: Division of Labour (subdivision of galaxy into areas of specialization)
Stage 4: The Evolution of Heredity. (the birth of an intergalactic species)

So Contact, Complexity, Interdependence, Division of Labour, Heredity gives me 5 battles in the war between Xenos and Humans.  Best out of 5 takes the Galaxy.  The Referee and the Victor should take into account the meaning of a progress to the next stage, or the stagnation that affects the loser.

I don't know if players would like to play a series of generations, like the multi-generational campaigns of Pendragon.

The fun thing about Burning Empires are the persistence of Figures of Note through the Phases.

A few sci-fi epics have generation-spanning figures, like Hari Seldon in Foundation or Paul/God Emperor of Dune.

But Olaf Stapeldon wrote about clashes between variants of humanity going through epochs of transformation and mutation.

And Donal in Dorsai is the individual who represents a qualitative leap in the evolution of human species and in the course of a few decades really determines the future of humanity.

What to do what to do?

"Altruism -- benefiting fellow group members at a cost to oneself -- and parochialism -- hostility towards individuals not of one's own ethnic, racial, or other group -- are common human behaviors.  The intersection of the two -- which we term "parochial altruism" -- is puzzling from an evolutionary perspective because altruistic or parochial behavior reduces one's payoffs by comparison to what one would gain from eschewing these behaviors.  But parochial altruism could have evolved if parochialism promoted intergroup hostilities and the combination of altruism and parochialism contributed to success in these conflicts ... [Neither] would have been viable singly, but by promoting group conflict they could have evolved jointly (Choi & Bowles 2007)

Erik wrote:
Designing the Planet should be fun ... should it be co-operative?

Erik wrote:
Books:

Dang, I find the politics implied in those first two books repulsive but the fiction is fascinating. 

I need an opinion:

Could simple tables like these be generated at a role playing table and be used as a locus for setting out large-scale confrontations.

I am imagining that a referee would create the Frames, and that player teams would constitute characters.  The teams would signal their intentions with symbolic cards accompanied by role playing.

But could a set up of physical cards at a table provide a locus for roleplaying out stories like these:

http://beta.oedipus.drama-theory.com/dramas/theiliad
http://beta.oedipus.drama-theory.com/dramas/thenunsandthevikings

Social Contract
* a bit unusual: a referee between two teams, and play between the members of teams and within teams
* what to call that social contract?

b]Creative Agenda
* ah man ... is the premise "are you prepared to do what it takes to ensure your species' survival when it encounters an alien rival."
* I don't think that the Braunsteins were really about winning (unlike a wargame).  They were about exploring conflict.
* So am I actually going for "Right to Dream." Am I going for nuanced development of character, setting, and color to no other end than creating a holistically consistent experience?
* The Drama Theory and the fiction that are about exploring conflicts, and their unfolding consequences.
* no final decision, but I am vacillating between Story Now and Right to Dream

Exploration
* We have species' history to explore, an on-going confrontation between species, discrete conflicts over colourful spaces, and pivotal individuals interacting with each other and their opposite numbers. 
* This means lots to explore but with the potential for diffusion: the model for keeping multiple layers of setting together will be the system of Burning Empires.

Characters
* Heroic individuals or their descendants
* "Meta" characters of species
* NPCs created by Referee

Setting
* 2 levels
* Planets
* Galaxy
* The Galaxy can be provided by the designer
* Planets designed by

System
* Confrontations Framed by the Referee using Drama Theory's Card Table
* Perhaps Designer can provide a set of 6 confrontation types, Referee chooses which ones will be played in what order, and then elaborates them for the Species in question.
* Confrontations worked out in tension-filled steps by the Teams/Species
* Decisions of Teams/Species worked out between players
- by free play?
- a sub-table in the Drama Theory mode?
- some other simple system (The Pool?)
- multiple-points of contact resolution mechanic?
- there should be a place for a fun mini-game in the resolution of military conflicts (or should there be? -- I like the combat mini-games in Burning Empires and Diaspora but, then again, I am a Traveller fan)]

To continue

Characters
* The default: a commander of a battlegroup assigned the task of keeping, seizing, blocking, subverting, pillaging, exploiting, dividing a solar system or planet
* Other players on a team: diplomat (representing non-military power group), NGOs (representing other interests from the cores of the competing Species)

Colour
* big freakin' space battles
* kick ass ground battles
* furious negotiations conducted on command deck com-screens
* strange face-to-face confrontations between mutually hostile species
* introspections as to the meaning of the whole thing
* dramatic clashes between powerful leaders within a Species
* galactic civilizations making sudden qualitative leaps in sophistication
* planets ending as smoking ruins or tense DMZ zones or as doorways through which galactic civs pass to the next level
* creatures with very different needs and approaches coming to some kind of understanding
* key decisions and feints and then a slam-bang determination of a planet's fate
* evolution (K/r strategies, sexual/a-sexual/hermaphrodidic, varieties of sexual diamorphism & child nurturing roles, air/land ocean origin, carnivore/herbivore/omnivore ancestry, herd/social group/hive/solitary hunter organization, high/low/0/gas giant origins, local gravity), high energy & high mortality worlds vs. low energy & cautious worlds)
* leaders keeping power, handing on power to new generation
* occasional grunt's-eye view of the war
* impact on civilians (one's own and one's opponent's), coreworlds, the colonial battlegroups as social organizations)

Situation = Characters + Setting
* fate of galaxy is the situation explored/resolved in campaign
* fate of planet is the situation determined in a session
(or "Phase" if resolving that fate takes more than 4 hrs playing time)
* results of previous situation feed into current situation but do not determine player or team's effectiveness in current situation
* Situation hooks into System: the current type of conflict under way will not be the same as a preceding one.  The system will demand new challenges for the player rather than repeats.  Players will not have diminished efficacy if their team lost the previous planet, but that previous defeat sets the nature of the challenge in front of them.

Techniques
* I am really into the Frame/Act/Scene/ structure of Drama Theory's card table technique and unsure what other resolution mechanics can or should be added to it.
* The Referee establishes shared information, confrontations are worked out at the table, a moment of secrecy and hidden information to determine final choices before the big conflicts

GM Tasks
* creating interesting confrontations out of player's choices concerning Species and Character
Character Creation
* defining the Teams: Humans & Culture, Xenos & Evolution
(Components - ?, Currency - ?  something that carries through from character creation to frame setting to confrontation to determination of planet's fate to the cool battles to the galaxy's fate)
Resolution
(DFK -- the cards in Drama Theory operate through Karma and could be made interesting by having the revelation of certain choices be revealed in stages but still avoiding any stochastic elements, IIEE -- happens at the level of the battle for the galaxy and resolving the fate of a planet but both levels should have homologous steps),

Reward System
* a bit weird as there should be some kind of reward to motivate and engage the Referee!
* earlier notes suggest that the power to define one's own change and growth and to limit the changes of another offers a kind of 0-sum reward
* resolving the player vs. player confrontations should contain some kind of reward
* a team's successful grab for a planet should have a reward
* conquering the galaxy or making a few qualitative jumps for your culture should have some kind of reward although taking over a galaxy should have an intrinsic reward!

Ephemera
* The system is multi-layered and might cover too many different types of colour to be encompassed by a single set of ephemera
* On the other hand, concentrating on themes and premises might require a tight set of ephemera
* Am I going for Burning Empires or The Pool?  Is there any way to get colour rich space battles with simple ephemera?

1. What is your game about?
  2. How is your game about that?
  3. What behaviors does it encourage or reward to achieve that?
  4. What do the players do?
  5. What do the characters do?
  6. What is fun to you and why do you want to play this game?
  7. Who do you want to play the game?

We then talk about the elevator pitch, and that you need to consider how art, text, and everything else you do expresses the games mission. Then we discuss various elements of Game Design.

    * The reward system: Is a feedback loop that can have positive or negative reinforcement. It’s a way to get players to engage a mechanic or behavior that you want to encourage.
          o A positive example; fan Mail in Prime time Adventures.
          o A negative example; the loser keeping the token in Death’s Door.
    * The social dynamic
    * Currency: What the game rules give the players and GM to interact with the fiction.
          o In a lot of storygames this will be dice.
          o Can also be statistics on the character sheet. For instance Strength in D+D defines how the character can interact with the environment like doors, weapons, armor, etc.
    * Fortune, Drama, and Karma.
          o Fortune is using some element of chance in the resolution.
          o Karma compares things and then the result is generated.
          o Drama
    * Escalation
    * Player interaction
          o I’ll be there for you.
                +
          o Nobody gets Hurt.

What is this?

A sci-fi version of S/Lay with me?
An elaborate framing device for a PTA series?

I would like some colour to be hard-coded into character and species creation.  Something like Burning Wheel's traits and skills or the Secrets and Keys from TSoY, or Vincent Baker's lists.  (The free-form prose of The Pool or the little bits of prose in SotC or Dresden Files don't appeal so much).

To draw two points from Wesley's Braunstein discussion:

http://www.theoryfromthecloset.com/shows/tftc_show060.mp3

* the referee should have the fun of playing with hidden information
* but the referee should remain impartial
* however, the referee should have the fun of putting what the characters and teams value at risk
* the ref should use reason and emotion and history (previous battles' results) to put pressure on players and teams to change their values BUT NOT FORCE THOSE CHANGES with either his secret information or his access to in-game resources, or social bullying
* the players should not be afraid to argue or use mechanics to enforce consequences on other players' decisions, but they cannot change another character's emotions or reasons or values with game mechanics (exception: in the consequences of a battle)

Erik wrote:
I don't know if players would like to play a series of generations, like the multi-generational campaigns of Pendragon.

What to do what to do?

Erik wrote:
* the ref should use reason and emotion and history (previous battles' results) to put pressure on players and teams to change their values BUT NOT FORCE THOSE CHANGES with either his secret information or his access to in-game resources, or social bullying

I oversophisticated this one.

Deternence Dilemmas are your old-school antagonistic, 0-sum game.  Easy to conceive but hard to achieve.

Erik wrote:

Deterence Dilemma

Definition: When one species's threat might bring about a state of affairs it prefers to the future my species wants to see.

Player Orientation
* "Ok.  Here comes a fleet of 9 twin guns, 3 carriers, and 5 fighter squads.  Let's see if you can obtain that "full space dominance" you wanted to exercise!"
* "XENO: I want this planet.  I will hold it.  You think your space marines are going to win against my rapidly spawning clone troopers?  Every one you strike down will be replaced by twins hungry for vengeance.  Let's see your hand, pardner.
HUMAN: You think the Legions of Ageinkort aren't without means?  Twice our longbowmen won legendary battles on Old Earth.  It's been a long time coming, but here is the third.  Get ready to face our Long Range Railguns!
XENO: Damn.  That's a lot of Hearts in your hand."
HUMAN: [snicker, snicker, snicker]"

Erik wrote:
Cooperation Dilemma
Trust Dilemma
Deterence Dilemma
Definition: When one species's threat might bring about a state of affairs it prefers to the future my species wants to see.
Player Orientation
* "Ok.  Here comes a fleet of 9 twin guns, 3 carriers, and 5 fighter squads.  Let's see if you can obtain that "full space dominance" you wanted to exercise!"
* "XENO: I want this planet.  I will hold it.  You think your space marines are going to win against my rapidly spawning clone troopers?  Every one you strike down will be replaced by twins hungry for vengeance.  Let's see your hand, pardner.
HUMAN: You think the Legions of Ageinkort aren't without means?  Twice our longbowmen won legendary battles on Old Earth.  It's been a long time coming, but here is the third.  Get ready to face our Long Range Railguns!
XENO: Damn.  That's a lot of Hearts in your hand."
HUMAN: [snicker, snicker, snicker]"
Inducement Dilemma
Threat Dilemma
Positioning Dilemma

Sigh: correction

Erik wrote:
The 3 roles per team can be divided up as follows: Millitary, Colonial, Memotechnic
Perhaps each role can have a different amount of Currency to indicate it's predominance of a particluar conflict?
During the Deterence and Threat: Military = x2, Colonial = 2x, Memotechnic=x
Co-operation and Positioning: Military =x, Colonial 2x, Memotechnic=x
Inducement and Trust: Military =x, Colonial = x, Memotechnic = 2x

If, in their Final Action, 50% or more of the players (regardless of their team affiliation) elect to burn the planet, it burns.

Let us assume 3 of 6 players choose the Scorched Earth policy.
One has the 2 of Spades, another the 8 of Hearts, and the third the 9 of Hearts.
Player one explains what he/she does in the fiction to make the planet uninhabitable.
Then player two explains his or her planet killing actions AND decides if player one survives either the first world-killing action or the second.  Player one may have a brief final monologue if player two elects to send him to his death. 
Finally, taking into account the two fictional elements just introduced, the third player narrates his planet killing action AND can decide the survival of the two previous and/or his own.  Any killed players will deliver a final monolog, starting with the one holding the lowest ranked card.

The pre-generated conflict maps will have a "default future" that will happen if the players simply persist in the orders sent to them from the core world.  There will be a column of threatened futures.  For example.  The military commander's default future in the Deterrence Dilemma is "my fleets limp home, halved in strength."  The threat he delivers to his enemies is "Your fleets will be blasted out of space and mine will be untouched."  Players can expend resources to make either of these threats come about.  Also, they may substitute their own threats or inducements that are less destructive, more positive.  So the Xeno Commander's threat can be reduced in lethality ("I offer a fair engagement, let the best commander win"), reduced in scope ("I will ruin your carriers" or "Your colony ships will not land"), or made personal ("I will eliminate your command ship," "I will capture your ship and you too" or "I will capture your ship, take you prisoner, and make you the host for my mind larva.  They will call you 'Mommy'").

Erik wrote:
So the Xeno Commander's threat can be reduced in lethality ("I offer a fair engagement, let the best commander win"), reduced in scope ("I will ruin your carriers" or "Your colony ships will not land"), or made personal ("I will eliminate your command ship," "I will capture your ship and you too" or "I will capture your ship, take you prisoner, and make you the host for my mind larva.  They will call you 'Mommy'").

Players introduce fictional details but the resolution revolves around the goal specified in the reduced scope.

The mechanics: a reduced version of Solar System.

There are Keys to motivate behaviours within the fiction and to track experience: in the form of poker chips which characters carry with them from Planet to Planet.

There are Secrets to allow specific forms of intervention in the fiction and improve odds in a conflict: they help you draw more cards.

Abilities are the standard way to intervene in the fiction and improve over time.

Poker chips can be spent to improve abilities, improve odds in a conflict, and --- not sure what else.

The model is Deadlands>Savage Worlds.

http://itsic.wikia.com/wiki/ItSIC_Wiki

It was inevitable

[img]http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100924000850/itsic/images/7/7e/Amphibiot.jpg[/img]

[img]http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100923235656/itsic/images/0/07/Human.jpg[/img]

The card should have an X next to Vanquished to show the humans lost the last engagement.

These are characters after a fictional 1st Planet.

On the character should go a description of the character's history, relationship to officers, parents, place in reproductive activities and social hierarchies of homeworld.

Froggy should be here:

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100924002131/itsic/images/7/7e/Amphibiot.jpg

[img]http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100924002131/itsic/images/7/7e/Amphibiot.jpg[/img]

People are asking me how this all fits together.  Here I have an example of a simple resolution mechanic.

[img]http://itsic.wikia.com/wiki/File:1spb.jpg[/img]

[img]http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100924050811/itsic/images/thumb/6/65/1spb.jpg/624px-1spb.jpg[/img]

This board gets covered up

[img]http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100924050838/itsic/images/thumb/a/a3/2pbwc.jpg/737px-2pbwc.jpg[/img]

This image suggests how players orient their strategies

[img]http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100924050843/itsic/images/2/2f/3slt1.jpg[/img]

The implications of a credible threat are illustrated here:

[img]http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100924050851/itsic/images/thumb/5/53/4slt2.jpg/722px-4slt2.jpg[/img]

This game is not about moving cards around.  Characters must engage in mechanic to make changes happen.  Moreover, declaration of and response to the fiction precedes any draw of the cards AND establishes what can and what cannot be narrated in response to that draw.

[img]http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100924050903/itsic/images/thumb/8/8e/5hwt.jpg/333px-5hwt.jpg[/img]

How the Thread Was Made Credible
1 GM described the ships coming into the system and some justification for Clubs (Ground Troops) being key to scenario.
2 Humans won a card pull to go first
3 Human commander Eliarie explains how she makes her "wipe out enemy fleet" threat credible and justifies making that text visible.
4 Then Referee introduces a complication by flipping over the card covering the default threat.  The resulting card must be beaten for threat to be implemented.
a) card on commander's threat is turned over, revealing 7 of clubs
    [Threat] We wipe out enemy fleet [Default Future] fleets limp home @1/2 strength
b) The Humans must defeat that 7 of clubs to make their threat credible and to move the card to the right, making the threat visible.
5 The referee looks at the Club and describes how the colonists are demanding ground troop coverage, thereby limiting the availability of marines for space actions.
6 The humans narrate how they aggressively cope with the need for more ground troops, or challenges to stationing troops.  Then they check their available resources with a card pull.
* The commander pulls 1 card to initiate the action
* The commander's rating of 1 in the ability Strategy gets her another card
* Her description of being aggressive merits activation of the Secret of Aggression and she wins a 3rd card.  That last card is the Black Joker and that beats anything, except a Red Joker (the trump suit is red)
7 Before the card is moved off of the Threat column, the Xenos player pulls a card to initiate an interruption.
8 The Xenos commander narrates scrambling fighters to intercept the Human gambit.
* The interruptor must exceed the challenge the planet (7 of clubs) and the Human effort (Black Joker)
* The Xenos commander is hoping for a Red Joker -- a rather desperate hope.
-- The commander pulls 1 card to initiate the action
-- The commander's rating of 1 in the ability Strategy gets her another card
-- The Secret of Bearing Down allows for fast concentration of fighters, and that merits another card
-- The first card allows defeat of the planet's obstacle, but there are no cards strong enough to prevent the Humans from establishing a position that might allow them to carry out their threat.  Their threat is, at this stage, credible.  The Xenos gets to explain how this came to be.
-- 2 characters engage in a little banter
9 Card moved off Threat column, exposing the Threat and concealing the Default Future.
10 Now the human player may create an original Threat instead of the default threat that her orders and equipment gave her.

An unusual feature (or bug):

I have said that players must describe their fictional actions and then pull cards.  The cards might put the weight on some fictional aspect of the universe that differs from what the players state.

I say something about my Science Priests spreading propaganda but pull a number of cards about Space Combat.
My fictional intention is not cancelled.  I don't have to change it to put the cards' colour contribution first.  The cards give me "and":  So my Science Priests are working away AND the co-ordinated sensor sweeps of my fleet are what leverage my scientists' efforts.

This all assumes that the cards are pulled from a common deck instead of selected from a hand.

But to get to the substantially different modes of IIEE:

PLAYER
The player states an Intent, Initiates it with a card pull, Executes it against obstacles under Referee's control, and possibly against another player's interference.  Effect is determined.

REFEREE
The referee as signalled a broad intention with the selection of the Trump (Space, Ground, Colonization, Memes).  But the actual nature of the intention is dictated by a card pull (like a die roll dictates Random Encounters in a D&D game).  Then the ref justifies it fictionally.

we are getting Initiation, Intention, Execution, and then Effect.

Is this kosher?  It makes the Referee the fictionizer of simple events initiated by the System.  Very weird to me but it has a kind of appeal too.

To conclude by comparison:

PLAYER1: Intention, Initiation, Execution, .... [suspended Effect]
REFEREE: Initiation, Intention, Execution, .... [suspended Effect/or Ref narrates failure: think of it as an "and" or "but"to the effort executed above]
PLAYER2: Intention, Initiation, Execution, Effect ... [suspended Effect/or Player2 narrates failure but does not wipe out prior fictional input]
....... PLAYER1 can narrate successful implementation of threat but must integrate previous fictional elements

Also, don't be too rigid.  Plenty of free-flowing "Royale with Cheese" discourse can accompany all of these mechanical steps.

Wow.  It's ready to playtest.

I am taking it to Peterborough Ontario's Phantasm and Hamilton's Hammercon.  After that, who knows.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg43kk9myNc

This goes to Playtesting now.

Erik wrote:
How the Thread Was Made Credible
3 Human commander Eliarie explains how she makes her "wipe out enemy fleet" threat credible and justifies making that text visible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooFMRrvRTCU

I worked out a method for resolving large scale conflicts.

Players who have set a high priority action (Level 4) will simply be able to narrate the success of their action if they are not opposed by an action of the same priority on the part of the other player.

If you really, really, really want to burn down the Sacred Spires of Canopus and no-one is there to stop you it happens (after overcoming a token resistance and risking a bit of resource).

If there are logically incompatible aims (i.e. both species' colonists have set the Threatened Future "colonize entire planet" at Level 4) that must be worked out with the conflict mechanic.

There is Build-up where players make their threats credible.  Again, simple declaration of intent and a minor risk will achieve Credibility in the absence of an active counter-move by another player.

Players my also threaten small, specific actions like colonizing a sector instead of attempting the whole planet.  Or engaging with an enemy army in the hopes of capturing the commander.  Or inducing the commander to defect.
These actions can be simply accepted by the other player, or actively resisted, or the other player can appeal to emotion or reason in an interstitial scene to get a change.  But once a player is satisfied with his or her particular choices, the consequences of those actions and the priorities associated with them unfold.  Unresisted, individual actions; individual characters' actions, then big species-wide strategies.

Consequences determined, results of post-facto review by coreworld authorities. 

Modification of characters for next session.

To clarify:

Unresisted, individual actions; individual characters' actions, then big species-wide strategies.

Superficial Note:

I am thinking of tweaking the name to either

In this Sign, Conquer (ItSiC)

or

With this Sign, Conquer (WitSiC).

Any thoughts?

from Confrontation Analysis: How to Win Operations Other Than War by Nigel Howard (1999).

The Dilema of Violence
"It appears then that force, although often an integral part of conflict resolution as carried out by armies, should be avoided if possible.  To avoid using it, its use must be made credible."  (28)

A Game
"A game lays out a fixed set of choices (sequential or simultaneous), specifies what outcomes (stochastic or deterministic) to expect from each combination of choices, and requires players to have specific preferences over outcomes ... The result is that as long as actors play the game, they have nothing to do but predict what others will choose and choose the most preferred outcome for themselves, given their predictions.  This is precisely what game theorists mean by rationality."  (67)

A Drama
"in a drama we see characters being emotional and irrational and participating in rational debate.  In doing so, they pass through a crucible that changes them.  Both their value system and tehir views of reality change.  The very rules of the game change."  (67)

Games vs. Drama
"The main thing we learn from a drama is not, as with games, how to be rational in the sense of pursuing fixed preferences against others with fixed preferences, all the time keeping to fixed assumptions about what is possible.  Instead, we learn how players (now called "characters") in interaction with each other use reason (in another sense of the term) and emotion to change their common assumptions and to work on the value roots of their own and others' preferences to change them also."

Endgames and Final Acts
"The way a drama ends differs from the ending of a game.  A game ends with the victory of one side.  Losers are left in an artificial state of frustrated discontent ... By contrast, a drama ens when none of the characters has anything left to hope for or to fear. (67-68)

'Losers of a game look forward to another round, if they do not demand a replay or resort to violence.  Characters at the end of a drama are content, seeing no alternative to acceptance of what they have."  (68)

Credibility Supports Both Reason and Emotion
"Emotion may make me heard; I need reason and evidence to make me believed.  The reason I need to be believed is that I need to make my position credible."  (66)

Howard's Steps:
His steps for modeling complex conflicts works something like this

1 Team 1 has a default future (let's call it "total war").  Reciprocal is the case too.
2 Team  1 makes moves to indicate that this future is credible. Reciprocal is the case too.
3 Team also establishes a threat (let's call it "capture border territories") smaller than default. Reciprocal is the case too.
4 Individual players take a variety of positions where they establish actions that they will do immediately.  Such actions reflect the priorities of factions within a larger "side" (frex: the religious elites may insist on keeping exclusive possession of a sacred place whereas military commanders may wish to make a tactical retreat).
5 Once there all individuals and teams have publicly committed to positions, we move to implementing them
6 A player or team may betray a commitment which then moves us back into jockeying for position
7 Once stability is in place we carry out the default future.

In short: teams approach each other as committees with unified goals.  But as we approach implementation of those goals the chance that an individual player on a team may betray a declared position increases, and the negotiations have to start again.

It a war game the full on commitment of resources to violent conflict is the pretext of the activity.
But in the multi-layer conflicts addressed by Howard it is the last step and one to be avoided.

In Howard's model there is a lot of talking back and forth and the assertion of different points of view.  In a freeform game that wouldn't be a problem.  For me it is.

Erik wrote:
Howard's Steps:
[T]eams approach each other as committees with unified goals.  But as we approach implementation of those goals the chance that an individual player on a team may betray a declared position increases, and the negotiations have to start again.

It a war game the full on commitment of resources to violent conflict is the pretext of the activity.
But in the multi-layer conflicts addressed by Howard it is the last step and one to be avoided.

In Howard's model there is a lot of talking back and forth and the assertion of different points of view.  In a freeform game that wouldn't be a problem.  For me it is.

Erik wrote:

Erik wrote:
Howard's Steps:
Howard's model there is a lot of talking back and forth and the assertion of different points of view.  In a freeform game that wouldn't be a problem.  For me it is.

6. Action Scenes
- a cycle of individual actions involving objectives, threats, boundaries, missions
- emotion and reason brought in (warning & notification, deception, irrationality)

The sequence of setting and character creation impacts a game a great deal (see Burning Empires and Freemarket)

The basic pair of steps is:
Species>Character

I want both Human and Xeno to feel the weight of their clade in their individual lives

Fuller Options:
Species>Character>Planet

This way the players could invest their beliefs and goals into the substance of the worlds for which they will be contending.  That is sort of the point of the game.

Planet>Species>Character

Having colour rich planets might stimulate the subsequent steps.  "Why would a species want this world?" and "Why might a character want this world?" would be productive questions.

Species>Planet>Character

Aside from being a logical possibility, I can't think of why this might work.

Any thoughts?

Maynard Smith, Evolution and the Theory of Games

"... in seeking the solution of a game, the concept of human rationality is replaced by that of evolutionary stability.  the advantage here is that there are good theoretical reasons to expect populations to evolve to stable states, whereas there are grounds for doubting whether human beings always behave rationally."

I am not so much interested in looking at species' adaptations to the physical environment.  Wing size, lung capacity, high G resulting in certain phenotypes -- those are engineering problems. 

The dynamics of inter and intra-species interaction holds more appeal.
"... the evolution of dispersal [of traits] depends critically on how other conspecifics are behaving, because dispersal is concerned with finding suitable mates, avoiding competition for resources, joint protection against predators, and so on."

These are the factors that I want to foreground in species creation:

- Finding mates
- Avoiding resource competition with other members
- protection against predators
- sexual dimorphism
- dispersal across territory
- resolving contests (bulls butting heads, eating the defeated, submission postures)
- sex ratios
- parental investment
- resource allocation
- polyandry/polygamy/hermaphrodism
- territorial behaviour
"the theoretical possibility [is] that information transfer will be favoured by selection when the resource being contested is divisible."
- altruism

Chapter 11 and 12 seem most pertinent as they deal with
- evolution of life history strategies
and "the most difficult theoretical issue in evolutionary game theory -- the transfer of information during contests."

Perhaps species creation could involve selection of a number of morphological traits that would work as Secrets ("Secret of the Mandible," "Secret of Fission," "Secret of Hibernation") and broader patterns of behaviour that work as Keys ("Key of the Pack Alpha," "Key of the Caring Parent," "Key of the Altruist,"  "Key of the Hive Queen").

Math was never my strong point.

Previous estimates of game length were wonky

Erik wrote:
Scene Setting [happens once @ start of Conflict Session] 15 to 30 minutes
Build to Climax: 1 to 3 hours
- 6 Action Scenes

• players will be aiming at establishing a position and making a threat credible, which means the cycle will be repeated at least twice: (5 min Action Scene x 6 roles x 2 action average = 1 hour)
but if players feel the need to interrupt other players' actions, the cycle might take longer.  Plus the failure of uncontested actions needs to be taken into consideration: (5 min Action Scene x 6 roles x 4 action average = 4 hours)
considering acts of interruption, limited resources, etc., the action average should be kept down to 3, to make a 3 hour sequence
•

Big Battle 60 minutes
Adaptations (30 minutes)

I dunno, seems pretty tight for time.
The idea of 1 planet = 1 session = 4 hours might have to go by the by.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPZgcWDcjpM
- lots of hemming and hawing but still some progress.

Boy are there a lot of decisions to solidify:

What's missing is a sense of how other players -- including the extreme case of player's from one's own team -- might step in and prevent establishment of a fictional outcome.

Also, how to track consequences given directly to a player character (including capture, alteration, death, injury, loss of confidence, etc.)?

Narration outcome: success or failure of player's intent dictated by the cards
(still need to see how to make failure interesting -- at least one has a few cards to hand so even a failed action has opened up resources for you)

Final narration rights: seem to belong to the player, but in player vs. player conflict the highest card of any suit would win the right to narrate the outcome, perhaps the GM could draw a card if he/she really wanted to contest for narration rights.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPZgcWDcjpM

Too big for youtube.

http://www.vimeo.com/15595315

-- Does this make what we do at the table a little clearer?

The Grand Stages of a Session

I have simply translated the way one theorist of conflict has broken down the way complex confrontations work up to climaxes. It's not the same as a straightforward zero-sum, I win-you lose, battle. But I need to move away from an abstract importation of a social science model and really concentrate on making a functioning game.

1. Introducing the Confrontation
- Referee has set up the representation of the planet and the conflict table
- Referee highlights the attractive aspects of the planet, reminds players of the features that are of special interest to each of their characters, etc.
- A brief caucus in which players specify their starting locations and actions and the overarching strategy is developed. These notes (no more than "The fleets stay in deep space, the marines land at Grand Ocean" "I seek to capture the ship bearing the Human mentat") are then taken by the Referee
- Players take their seats and begin role playing
- Referee frames "bridge scenes" in which the teams discuss their plans for the benefit of their opponents. These color scenes hint at what is to come, allow expression of character, inter-character frictions may become evident, etc. The default to be avoided, and the homeworld-sought maximum victory should also be articulated -- possibly by the GM intoning a recorded message from high command, playing a political officer addressing the various commanders. (Think of a sequence of scenes showing the Enterprise making their plans and some Romulan Warbird shenanigans.)
- The orders are placed on the conflict table and we are off.

2. Building to Climax with Tactical Actions
- players can carry out small actions to make their sides' grand ambitions credible (think of a Burning Empries Color Scene but with 1 dice roll), or try to carry out an action that affects the planet in some important way -- like capturing a ruin, or seeding the oceans with spawn, or undertaking research into exotic plant life, or to directly challenge other characters if the fiction allows it (think of the Building Scenes from B.E or the Bloody Versus tests of the Burning series of games).
- think of this as Kirk alone against the Gorn, Luke and his sis trying to liberate a captured Han, The imperial planetologist trying to grok the local fauna, Robert DuVal trying to get someone to surf a bitchin' curl near some river delta, Donal of the Dorsai leading some daring raid, Picard confronting the aliens who once assimilated him
-- or think of something realworld like British officers forcibly driving out Acadians from newly-conquered territories, a foregin army looting the temples while driving out their enemies, or an anthropologist gone native wants to protect some of the aliens who have made this world their home
- for all stages, actions are declared first and then resolved mechanically, all consequences are interpreted in connection to established fiction
- an action that attempts to change the environment (a token risk but it must be accounted for by the pacing mechanisms in the game), further a side's broad strategy, or accomplish an individual character's aim, will be resisted by the referee
- the referee should play the resistance to a character's aim but is limited to in-character persuasion and does not deploy resources to punish or reward choices
- any action that targets another player directly will have to overcome both the environment (a token effort) and the active resistance of the target
- players who wish to interrupt or frustrate the actions of other players may do so but will find that they run out of resources they will need to accomplish their own aims or the grand strategies of their side
- at this point the characters are role playing their efforts, the referee voices NPC opposition or complications, and the characters communicate their intentions to one another
- this phase comes to an end when individual characters have undertaken all desired discrete challenges that they can implement with their finite resources

3. Resolution of the Confrontation with Strategies
- it is hard to explain without access to a diagram: but the players will indicate their highest preferences as they undertake their individual actions, and the aggregate of their preferences will establish a basic frame for the decisive conflict
- think of this as the Conflict Scenes from B.E. or one of the subgames from Diaspora
- it one stumble through, I had the humans be very focused on their characters' goals but the aliens much more focused on realizing the aims set by their homeworld
- the aliens' aggregated preferences suggested that both the military and the colonists were going to collaborate very closely on some final push while the mentats would be able to do either a prepatory or follow-up action
- the humans were all about the individual commanders' goals but had a lower aggregated priority than the aliens'
- in this case the referee would have to establish a set-up where the humans could use the pool of resources accorded to their whole species to work out their aims, but would have to face the onslaught of the aliens has they tried to realize their species' grand ambitions for the system
- if one of the individual aims were something like "convince alien mentat do defect by promising her territory where she could become a queen and start her own colony," that would have to be sorted out before the grand conflict, or possibly after
- if one of the insects had tried to convince her queen "allow some of them to live to serve us as captive amusements" this would require some compromising of their homeworld's command: eliminate all terran life from this system, that would have to be taken into account as well

4) Adaptations
- figure out fictional consequences for species and individuals
- figure out mechanical consequences for species and individuals
- declare the status of the planet: it is possible for a species to be declared the master of a planet that has been ravaged
- decide which planet will come next and what kind of conflict will be there (only one of the 6 generic conflict tables to be created is a simple zero-sum war scenario).

Note: I have to stop saying "mentat" 'cause that's proprietary.  How about "Savant"  "Memotechnician" or "Science Corps"

I have no copies of Gregor Hutton's games but I see similarities between what they are (said) to be doing and what I am doing.

From http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=520150

The whole game is centered around goals. Your character is only defined my conditions, all other values relate to your goals how to achieve them. In a scene you can either try to get more prepared to finish your goal (tick a parameter: Ready, Willing or able) or increase your chances to tick a parameter.

Basically it is you running around gathering information, equipment and so on until the game defines that you have everything you need to get to your goal.

Now Agon has no goal, but Quests and subquests. Those quests are basically goals for your group. I wondered if it would not be possible to use goals from Remember Tomorrow and put them into Agon (or any other game for that case). Every subquest is a "parameter" for the main quest and when you have the subquest fullfilled, then you have everything to finish the main quest.

I am sure not everybody likes that or that my post may sound strange...but this mission and goal concepts. It is something that helps me to GM a game.

The other thing I like about those games is how they handle combat. Especially Agon andf 3:16 do it in a really cool and abstract way, that has become my favorite way to handle weapons and ranges. It is just brilliant.

I can only recommand those three games to anybody who likes his games structures or goal/mission based.

Hi Erik

Hey, I can take a stab at (b) and (c), with (b) first. I hope it helps, even if to settle in your mind that it's not applicable to your game.

Is it as simple as every player reaching "Able" to invoke completion of a goal.
In Remember Tomorrow each PC has a Goal, and if they achieve it they leave the story (they Exit the Episode). To achieve a Goal you have to tick three boxes in play: are you Ready, Willing and Able to achieve your Goal? You can only get a tick on one of these (R, W or A) in any one scene, and only if the scene involved conflict and rolling of dice (note you don't have to win the roll to get a tick, but it helps). Furthermore you can only get a Tick on Able, say, if you rolled a success on your Able "stat" (same goes for Ready and Willing).

Other ways for PCs and Factions (the "opposition" in the game, jointly created and available for anyone to play) to leave the story are by death (you are "Injured", "Dying" and then receive a further outcome that kills you), being reduced to 0 in a stat, or by gaining 8 Influence (a Faction only).

When there are 3 "Exits" of PCs or Faction the story (called an Episode) ends. It doesn't matter if other matters are left hanging/unresolved.

What I think interested that poster was the idea that each PC had a tracker for achieving goals. The other interesting thing was that the opposition could directly oppose that goal and work at unticking Goal boxes as a primary motivation in scenes (or as something to do with further outcomes in conflicts).

Somewhat similarly Hot War by Contested Ground Studios has "Agendas" that require either 3, 5 or 9 results (both successes and failures) to complete. (It was "inspired" by a character sheet of my game in progress Cantare, where "Motivations" are resolved to lead to character advancement). The disadvantage of this is that you might expect an Agenda to take 9 scenes to resolve but with 5 successful scenes the remaining 4 are a moot point. You also can't mess with established success or failure. Also the "grind" is very much mandated (this level will be 3, 5 or 9 scenes long).

Even more fundamental to that I'd suggest looking at Trollbabe (which I'm pretty sure Malcolm wasn't aware of when doing Hot War, but which did influence Remember Tomorrow for me), and how it deals with extended conflicts. You have some conflict that is resolved over multiple rolls (conflicts can be best of one, three or five rolls), and so to get three successes on something you might be having a best of five rolls situation. And since each roll can have re-rolls you get a very dramatic situation. One thing of note is that at the end of a roll it is a success or failure and the best of rolls number is finite, so three losses in a row seals your fate. I feel there is less "grind" with at worst five rolls (potentially five scenes or more if you don't have a roll in a scene, or as little as one scene if all the conflicts happen in the same scene).

For Remember Tomorrow I said it can be any number of rolls to get the Goal (the trigger is getting all three boxes ticked). And furthermore I allowed for the possibility of "set backs" where previously achieved success is targeted and reversed, and for "unticks" to be "reticked" -- if someone makes you unAble to achieve your Goal that can change as a result of future conflict. The decision on whether to go after a ticked Goal box is open to the interest of the players and their sense of what is "right" for the story/scene at that moment in time.

So that's how Remember Tomorrow does it in context of how other games do it.

So, on to (c).

c) 3:16 and Combat
In [http://boxninja.com]3:16 Carnage Amongst The Stars the "map" of combat is "abstract" in that each PC is marked as being "Close", "Near" or "Far" from the enemy in an Encounter. And PCs not in the Encounter are "Beyond Far" and can't be affected by events in the Encounter. PCs can move, or be moved depending on the results of rolls, from Close to Near to Far and even out of the Encounter.

What makes an Encounter even more abstract is that the number of enemies is defined by Threat Tokens. When all the Threat Tokens are removed from an encounter then the encounter ends. When all the Threat Tokens are removed from a planet then the Mission ends.

The good thing about these Threat Tokens is that they allow the GM to modify the number, danger and frequency of Encounters based on what is happening in the fiction of the game. Are the Marines running headfirst into a Hive? Throw down a load of Threat Tokens. Are they scouting around the edges? Throw down 1 or 2 Threat Tokens.

When in an Encounter the exact detail of where the PCs and Aliens are is left up to the imagination/preparation of the players. You can have maps of the combat zones and I find it useful, but what matters mechanically is whether you are at Near, Close or Far.

Also the Threat Tokens turn into "Kills" on being removed. The number of creatures killed depends on the weapon, and at what range, used to remove the Threat.

Players look after their own Armour rating (basically most get Armour that saves them from being killed once per planet, fancier Armour is possible that can save your ass for a whole Encounter.)

The thing I like most about the system is the flexibility, it allows the people at the table the opportunity to pace the game session/story to their satisfaction.

A Mission can be over very quickly if everyone uses their Strengths to vanquish the enemy. Fine, it just means that tonight we have time to get through two planets rather than one. In other cases it takes two sessions to get through a single planet. Fine, the book-keeping is easy enough that splitting it over two sessions is trivial.

The most extreme in one way that I've heard of was a group who played in their lunch hour. So a session might just be an Encounter or two, but the way the Threat Token pacing works this isn't a problem. You just note how make Threat Tokens are still left on the planet at the end of the session. Next session you pick up where you left off. The other extreme was where a whole campaign was played out in a solid day of play (>>10 hours of play).

Personally I prefer a game that is flexible enough to contract and expand to fit what's "right" for that session, rather than be a mandated grind of 5 Encounters, each of a fixed value. It certainly seems to aid playability.

I hope that's of some help, Erik.

Very, very, very, very useful.

Thanks Gregor.

More video of attempted resolutions.

http://www.vimeo.com/15825693

Here is what the scenario sheets would look like:

http://itsic.wikia.com/wiki/Scenario_Sheets

Thanks for all the comments and advice.

I think that I have got all that I can out of "First Thoughts"

I will keep posting thoughts to the game's blog but playtest is needed.

http://itsic.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Erik_Weissengruber