Okay, so I'm serious about this one. I really want to finish it, and to prove it I'll have copies at GenCon, with art.

You can read the current and incomplete version of the game at www.theriddleofsteel.net/otherstuff/lafamiglia.htm

For those of you that want to participate but don't want to read the whole damn game (that's me around here) here's what I've got/am planning:

Goals of play (GNS stuff, sort of): I'm going for Narrativist-support here. The game revolves around the Reputations of each character, which function as combination of Spiritual Attribute (ala TROS), Attribute, and Skill, all rolled into one. These fluctuate dramatically during play, and because they are the reward system as well as the resolution mechanic they drive play. All the GM has to do is attack and provide opportunities to enhance reputations, creating player-driven stories, yada-yada. The primary goal in all my game designs is to ask "is this worth it?" In La Famiglia, you're gambling your reputation with every conflict (and in the Family, Reputation is Everything).

Resolution and Mechanics: I'm going for a single conflict resolution system with branching rules for aspects that are important to the Genre as found in Movies and Books. The basic idea is that resolution is handled through Casino-style blackjack (everyone plays against the dealer) using the chips that rate your reptuations. If you lose, then the chips are gone, and they come out of your reputations. If you win then both the original bet and the winnings are used to buy results in the conflict. Narration is handled by the GM with heavy input from the player's bought results. Chips used to buy results return to the player's reputations, now with an increase.

Quirks and funky stuff I want to try: My main influences (mechanically) for this game are Universalis, TROS, Dust Devils, Sorcerer, and Ars Magica, in that order. Allyria is creepin' it's way in there now, too, dangit. So here's some things that I'm working on incorporating. I'm really attached to some of it, and just considering the rest.

* Troupe-style play - each player has multiple characters, a la Ars Magica.
* Introducing a character or a trait for an established character in-play (a la Universalis, but these characters are permanently relegated to their original players, as in a more traditional structure). I'm retaining the role of GM, but the players can do much of what a GM traditionally does. Sure, I could do away with the GM but I (a) like games with GMs and (b) Universalis does this so well there's no need to hop in on that market.
* Group creation of the PC's Family and possibly even the surrounding elements, taking influence from Ars Magica's "Covenant Creation" (but only in principle) and the story-mapping of Allyria. I'm even considering creating all of the initial players as a group and then assigning them to players as in Allyria.
* A few details that generally appear in "sim" games, like the difference between a shotgun and a pistol. I'm thinking a little more detail than Sorcerer, but not much.

The purpose of this post is really to start a discussion of the above bullets and to possibly add to or modify that list. Thanks in advance for your participation. I'll be working on the game most all day today.

Jake

Hey Jake, do you want to keep this particular thread fixed on those bullet points and start another thread for the rest of the game, or lump it all in here?

Your call, I have a couple of questions about the game itself, if you want to do that in another thread, let me know and I'll start a new one with the contents of this post.

My questions are more clarification ones, where I feel the rules are not 100% clear and could possibly do with some extra description and/or examples.

Creating PersonaggiOK, so as I understand it, I have 18 chips to create starting characters (I may have a Made man and a Thug, or perhaps a Hitman, a Footsoldier, a Thug and a Stoolie, or whatever. Them, each one of those characters gets 50 chips to bargain for his specific reputations across those 9 categories (tough as nails, god fearing, etc). You will end up with some number of chips in various reputations, some of which may be negative ones depending on how often you busted or lost.

What I don't get is how you work out how many chips a Personaggi gets for a given conflict. Is it his rank in the family (which starts out at 15 for a made man and 3 for a thug etc) plus whichever specific reputations he can convince the GM..sorry..boss should be applicable, or is it just those specific reputations, or just one...? How do negative reputations such as ugly or short or bad in bed come into things? Are they extra chips the opponent can gamble, etc.

Creating the family. This *really* needs an example. It seems to me that the 10 things you *must* include are going to be divvied up by the players first, but that nobody can really risk more than 5 chips per category because otherwisde they'll run out of the 50 before all 10 have been filled, and unless they go even lower than that they'll never get the chance to buy the extra, optional categories. Additionally, all it'll take is for one player to bid more than 5 for a gategory, and you mow can't fill all required 10 slots.

Conflicts. I'm unsure as to who gets to set the price. You say that the defender can set the price for the attacker to begin to buy in, but in the example, Louie is trying to convince the Don not to kill him, since Louie is initiating the action, surely he's the "attacker" and thus the Don should be setrting the buy-in price, not Louie? Also, the buy-in comcept seems flawed in that the person with the most chips is in a really strong position. Lets say Louie ended up with 40 and the Don with 30. Can could just set the buy-in price at 31, meaning that the Don can do nothing, and Louie then has 9 chips to dictate whatever he likes and the Don can do nothing about it as he can't meet the buy-in price. Do I have that right? Can you clarify?

Sorry to ask so many (possibly) stupid questions :-)

Brian.

Brian-

Those are good questions. I'm entirely re-working the creating personaggi part, so ditch it.

We've actually done a family in play, and it worked pretty well with modifications. I'll get an example in.

As for conflicts--I'm re-working prices so that it isn't so arbitrary, but so that I also don't need 1000 charts (and we all know I'm partial to charts). I'm actually trying to figure out the best way to do this.

I'm happy with comments, criticism, and ideas concerning my above post or the orginal game.

Jake

Jake Norwood wrote: As for conflicts--I'm re-working prices so that it isn't so arbitrary, but so that I also don't need 1000 charts (and we all know I'm partial to charts). I'm actually trying to figure out the best way to do this.

It could, but I'm reasonably decided in that area. This is my "artsy-ist" design by far, but I'm still designing it with specific goals in mind. I have a very hard time taking games where the narration passes from place to place very seriously. I like having a semi-traditional GM. I think that most of us do, or we'd play more games like Otherkind (which I do respect, but isn't my style). Trollbabe is really on to something as far as narrating your failures go, and I like that a lot; I also really like the idea that a player gets a big hand in what really happens, but the GM in LF is going to help tidy things up a bit and give "final-word" narration.

The area I think that I really do want feedback and discussion on is about characters, the family, and the players as relationships. Currently I'm thinking that every Player has a bankroll of free chips that can be used at most any time to buy a new reputation for any character (with some kind of GM or table consensus, a la Universalis), or even to buy a new character on-the-spot. The current plan is that you start play with only one character, but when the GM scene-frames a Player can say "I'd like to introduce [new character], who has the following reputations at this time:

.

A new character comes into the world with only a few Reputations, and the players discover more about him as the game goes on, just as we would if reading about this character. I want the characters to take on a life of their own and to suprise us sometimes.

The Family I see as being a little more static and the only fully developed "character" in existence at the beginning of Play. This is also where the Allyria influence is really starting to tweak with me, as I think it would be neat to have the group come up with some characters and then divvy them up...swell idea, really.

The Player? The player has to be separate from his characters, because character death (a la "whacking") is going to happen from time to time, and sometimes a player will whack his own character with another character he's got. That's the life.

The next issue is "what do we do in the game," or the Forge standard (shame on you guys for not asking). I want there to be a lot of exploration of being a mafia guy (racketeering, etc.) involved. The premise at hand is "what is your repuation worth to you?"

Thanks in advance.

Jake

On the guns issue, for a narrativist game, you'd want to consider the ramifications of each sort of weapon. That actually does include how much of a threat the weapn is, but not really how much damage it does. A kill is a kill, whether it's done with a room clearing ten guage, or a .22 to the head (which is actually the traditional method of a hit, IIRC).

So I'd rate weapons by how much fear they instill, and by how conspicuous they are. Why don't we see mafiosos with shotguns in the movies? Because you can't conceal one easily. Even in a gangland shootout, the ammount of firepower available has little to do with money, or such, but more to do with how fearful the carriers are of pickng up weapons convictions.

Essentially the Conspicuous factor would be something that would cause problems all it's own. Carry around a shotgun with slugs long enough, and the cops are going to catch you with it. Or some other family is going to notice, and decide you're a loose cannon. Etc. Essentially I see it as something like a reputation with a double edge. Carries Arsenal is likely to make you feared, but also likely to catch the wrong sort of attention.

Just a thought.

Mike

On the guns issue, for a narrativist game, you'd want to consider the ramifications of each sort of weapon. That actually does include how much of a threat the weapn is, but not really how much damage it does. A kill is a kill, whether it's done with a room clearing ten guage, or a .22 to the head (which is actually the traditional method of a hit, IIRC).

So I'd rate weapons by how much fear they instill, and by how conspicuous they are.

Jake Norwood wrote: BTW, the "Lupara," or sawed-off-shotgun, was the traditional vendetta solver in sicillian families.

1) It was lots of fun, but it also turned out pretty silly. I do not want silly. Part of it was the group (they're just destructive), part of it was me (as GM I blew a building up on a "botch," early on, which set the chaotic tone, making it mostly my fault, I think). Unless players are pretty serious BlackJack players things seem very random (if you're better at it they're not, but who is?).

2) There needs to be lots of streamlining, and some more guidelines to set generally bad Reps from generally good ones.

3) I have no idea how I really want to handle NPC's chips. I'm trying to decide if the "House" has chips (kinda like Drama dice in 7th Sea) or if each NPC has it's own chips.

For that matter I'm thinking about having more solidly defined "stats" that don't flux, making Reputations more add-ons than everything. It goes a little against my initial design goals, but it also seems more functional. I'm even considering some "binary" Reputations or stats, like Pendragon's traits.

5) Modifiers are a little sticky, still. Currently they add-on to the pot after the hand is played, meaning that if you have, say, 6 chips worth of advantages and you lose your Chips at stake, you still have 6 chips for narration/resolution, but you don't get them into your Reputations. Thoughts?

Mike-and-Ike Holmes wrote: This has been noted as what happens in some systems if there's nothing to indicate that play should be otherwise. Make sure that the rules concentrate on something non-silly, and it's less of an issue. Otherwise, left out in the open, players often just seem to resport to silly.

Quote:
2) There needs to be lots of streamlining, and some more guidelines to set generally bad Reps from generally good ones.

Why particularly? Was there a problem in play?

NPCs can get their own chips if players invest in them. This is cool because it sets up the power split really tightly.

Were there some reps that just seemed critical in play?

How about just using them (Modifier Chips) to modify the TN like Reps do? That is, positive modifiers add to Rep for purposes of determining success, and negative ones cancel positive ones or reps in use.

"It was lots of fun, but it also turned out pretty silly. I do not want silly. Part of it was the group (they're just destructive)"

I heatedly resent the accusation that we were destructive. We just have very a selective defense mechanism when it comes to our surrounding enviornment and the existence of potential evidence against us, or police trying to arrest us.

That, and we like to blow stuff up.

The playtest was fun, but it did come off as a sort of "Extreme Soprano's".

The one thing that was talked about after we'd left was that it was kind of hard to take things serious when the results were so random. Part of that was our lack of blackjack skill. I at least felt that at least with dice (or a die pool) there are certain mathematical probabilities you can count on to succeed at certain things. With the cards the randomness factor increases multifold. They call it the luck of the cards (or draw) for a reason.
Some of this randomness can be countered with good blackjack play, but the odds are in the favor of the house in the long run. With me the fact that chips and cards are used isn't an issue - just the apperant randomness of the results. I like the idea of bidding the chips for better results... perhaps a diffrent card game than blackjack to determine results?

I, however, really liked the idea you talked about of having the charactors go through a period of riding high then undergoing a gradual downward spiral. I wish you could incorperate this concept somehow more fully into the game

As far as purposfully losing points in a bad reputation - one way you could deal with that is that is by having the player go into the hole for the amount of rep he lost - this negative amount then goes into a sort of 'house pool' that can be used by the GM to counter the player's efforts once per adventure until he gets it into the black.

Oh, just thought of a different card mechanic...
You play a round of five card draw poker, but... at the beginning of each game the players draw five or so ranadom cards that go into a sort of "backup hand" or "up you sleeve" card pool.
- you can exchange cards from your backup hand to your playing hand.
- but the card you replace it with gets put back into the deck.
- the number of cards "up your sleeve" would gradually reduce during play slowly or quickly depending upon how you play.
- so if a Player blows all his cards to get one good hand early on then he migh be out of luck later on when a card could have been more useful. Also they would have to make choices whether or not succees at a certain task was important enough to risk using a backup card (one could still be beaten backups or no). And what one has up his sleeve at any moment may be useless in a particular hand.

The GM perhaps could assign a certain number of backup cards to PC's as an attribute of sorts. depending on th NPC's power/importance.

The benefits as I see it:
- Poker is a bit less arbitrary than other card games (in my limited experience).
- backup cards mitigate this arbitraryness more, forcing the players to make judgement calls on the importance of certain actions.

Negatives:
- may require use of two decks, depending on the number of players. perhaps using cards with diffrent color backing red/blue to help differentiate which gets put back into the play deck and which into the backup deck.

Of course I thought of this BS at 4:00 in the morning so I don't know how good of an idea this will seem later on.

Actually, I've been thinking about "up your sleeve" cards. I'm thinking that every player gets a sort of permanent card up their sleeve that has a set value. For example, Player A has a 5. Anytime he wants he can play his 5 instead of taking a hit. This puts odds more in the players' favor.

I'm thinking that the card's value could be based on some kind of in-character aspect. I'm also trying to decide whether character could have multiple cards, and whether it's the character or the player that has a given card assigned (since multiple characters are possible).

Jake

Uh, how are cards more random than dice? I mean there are 13 values that can be produced, four of which are ten, and one of which is one or eleven, your choice. This is less random than, say, a d20. In fact, I was going to comment that, with the ability to tamper with the end result, that the odds of winning are really rather high. Maybe I missed something in how the mechanic works, but it seems pretty reasonable to me.

Mike

Edited to add: you haven't gone back to just playing straight up Blackjack, have you Jake?

Mike Holmes wrote:
Edited to add: you haven't gone back to just playing straight up Blackjack, have you Jake?

I thought that you'd gone to some sort of thing where reputation affected the outcome. Adding up to the rep in question as a card or something like that. We'd discussed some options like that, and you said you had something in mind.

Jake Norwood wrote: Incidentally, what's the most useful card to have up your sleeve. I'd say a 6. Mike? Any actual idea?

Jake Norwood wrote: The realy danger in blackjack is busting, not losing to the dealer, who actually has worse chances to win than the players (as the dealer's hits are pre-determined by the 16/17 rule). As long as the player doesn't go for bust he should beat the dealer most of the time.

Jake Norwood wrote: Incidentally, what's the most useful card to have up your sleeve. I'd say a 6. Mike? Any actual idea?

Then, Brian, the card would be useless in about fifty percent of plays (as it would bust you). In another 25% of plays it would only get you to the point where you'd need to draw again, anyhow. You don't need 21 to win. You just need better than the dealer. Small is better.

Also, how would this relate to the five card rule, Jake?

BTW, the way that the house gets it's edge is that it usually either wins on pushes (ties), or wins automatically when it draws Blackjack (you'll know these casinos because they have little automatic thingies that look at the hole card to tell the dealer if it's an ace so they can just turn it over and take your money).

Mike "never been to Potowatomi casino as far as you know" Holmes

5 card rule? I think that means that if you survive to the 5th card (3 hits) you win, but I'm not sure.

As for the dealer winning on blackjack--I think I'll cut that out, to even things up. That being said, I'm really not sure what advantage the dealer has.

Jake

Jake Norwood wrote: 5 card rule? I think that means that if you survive to the 5th card (3 hits) you win, but I'm not sure.

As for the dealer winning on blackjack--I think I'll cut that out, to even things up. That being said, I'm really not sure what advantage the dealer has.

Jake

Yes that's the five card rule. If in play, either side can win with it so it doesn't affect edge. I was just thinking that, if you had a "sleeve card" and the rule was in effect that an ace would make such a win much more likely.

As to the edge, I've described it above. Basically, the house has an even chance of winning. The only thing that gives it it's edge is that it wins on ties, or, more commonly with Blackjack. Brian, the insurance case allows the player to theoretically mitigate his losses, but as you point out, really only reduces the losses in a small percentage of cases. But the other case is where the ace is on the bottom. That's when the little detectors com into play, and the house wins before anyone can even do anything. I think with pushes, the house edge is something like 5%, with blackjack normally it's about 1%, and with insurance it comes to .5%. Twice these numbers if you consider the "swing".

Yes, Blackjack is in most cases the best game to play against the house as the edge is miniscule. You can see the house rate posted by law somewhere in the casino. It'll say something like "The house take is 50.5%" meaning that if you play 1000 games for 10 dollars each, that the house will win 505 of them, and lose 495. Resulting in a total loss of 100 dollars.

This thin edge is what keeps blackjack players coming back. They know intuitively that all they need is some tiny edge, and they can overcome the house edge. This is why the houses use multiple decks of cards, and watch for card-counters. Even with multiple decks, a good card counter can overcome the house edge. Takes forever, but it can be done.

Compare this with, say Roulette. With a French wheel (one zero), the edge is 2.7% (1 in 37), with an American wheel (add a double zero), the edge is 5.2% (2 in 38).

Poker and betting on horses and sports actually have larger edges for the house (assuming they're efficient at setting spreads), but you have the hope that you're smarter than the next guy, which, if true gives you the edge. (the main problem being that you're not smarter than the wiseguys)

Mike

The only games I know that is weighted less in the houses favor than Black Jack is Pai Gow Poker (which is possible to play for hours and never loose money because of the generous rules for pushing) and Baccarat which I believe is exactly 50/50.

Which is why you rarely ever see these games offered in casinos.

Games like Baccarat and Poker, "fair" games, are only played between the people who come to play. The house does not participate. (This is why they're always playing Baccarat in Bond films, so the characters can play head to head). The way the house makes money is serving drinks, and lodging, etc. They're rare because it's so easy to make so much money on the rigged games.

Anyhow, I'd definitely play "fair" Blackjack (also known as 21), Jake. But that still doesn't allow for characters or player skill to affect the outcome other than preventing inordinate numbers of losses (a player can't play well enough to win regularly, but he can play well enough to lose only half the time).

Aren't these prerequisites for your designs?

Mike

Hello,

To my understanding, part of the house advantage in blackjack is that the dealer is constrained to incontrovertible rules regarding hits and stays. These rules happen to be optimal. However, the gambler tendency is to try to overreach them; for some reason, the human mind finds it hard to believe that you can go bust from 14 very easily and prefers to think of the cutoff as being around 17 or 18.

When the dealer always stays at a 14, if even 51% of the people playing can't stand it and typically ask for a hit at 14, the house comes out ahead. (Example is slightly simplified from the actual rules/standards.)

Note that I said "part" of the house advantage. Giving ties to the house and similar are involved too.

Best,
Ron

Mike Holmes wrote: Games like Baccarat and Poker, "fair" games, are only played between the people who come to play. The house does not participate. (This is why they're always playing Baccarat in Bond films, so the characters can play head to head).
Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: But that still doesn't allow for characters or player skill to affect the outcome other than preventing inordinate numbers of losses (a player can't play well enough to win regularly, but he can play well enough to lose only half the time).

Aren't these prerequisites for your designs?

Mike

Here's an idea I had from the original thread, that might be applicable:

Free Hits
A heavy pistol might grant 1 free hit, a shotgun or submachine gun 2 or three (other situational advantages and the like similiarly rated). You can ditch 1 Hit card you don't like and draw a new one for each free hit. Less likely to go bust armed with a machine gun against a guy with a knife.

{Edited to not the cross post with everyone}

Like I said, Ron, one can play worse than optimal. But optimal in Blackjack is pretty easy. Yo can actually memorize the rules, and if that's too hard, you can buy little cards in the gift shops that tell you exactly the best way to play. They are accurate because it would be fraud to portray them as such if they were not.

So anyone who's losing more than the the house "take" rate is only doing so because they're ignoring simple probablility.

I found an article that clarifies the actually somewhat cloudy issue of Baccarat.

http://www.gambletribune.org/article.php?pid=186

I was refering to Chemin de Fer, apparently, a very similar game, and what is commonly played these days. In the Bond films apparently they play Chemin de Fer in some cases, but call it Baccarat (possibly in error). Or perhaps the rules were different at the time.

Baccarat has an interesting history. I'd like to see a mod of "Famiglia" that uses it instead for a spies game. Still, ironically about reputations.

Anyhow, now that we've thoroughly derailed the thread, I still haven't heard from Jake (whose name just happens to be really appropriate to the topic) whether he's going to allow some system to modify the odds.

Mike

Mike-

Did you miss my above post?

Ralph-

Here's an example with the revised system I'm starting to favor.

[example]
Tony 2-tons is trying to wrestle a guy (Steve) to the ground so that Mikey can break his legs. Tony's got a reputation of Both "Tough guy" and "Tiny " (meaning Huge muscles). The Tough guy Rep has 2 cards in it--a 3 and a 7. The Tiny Rep has 3 cards in it, an Ace, a 4, and a 6. The other guy (Steve) has no reputations that could help him out.

Tony wagers 10 Chips from his Bankroll into the action. Steve Wagers 15. Initial hands come out. Tony has a net 13, Steve has a net 18, and the Dealer has 8 showing.

Tony activates both of these reputations by taking his 7 from Tough guy and his Ace (as a 1) from Tiny for a total +8, giving him 21 for the hand. Steve stands at 18, and the Dealer reveals net 19, and stands.

Now Tony has 20 Chips (he won against the dealer) and Steve has 0 (he lost to the dealer). If Tony had lost the hand then he would have lost the 2 cards he used as well. Because he won he can keep them.

[/example]

I think that whenever you buy a Rep. card you just draw randomly.

Jake

Ok, I see that...but it seems a little easy to win with that many sleeve cards to deal with.

I saw your post after posting, Jake, hence the edit at the top to note that.

I agree with Ralph's assessment. But that gives me an idea. Play multiple hands (all of which you have to win) for harder tasks. That gives you a difficulty mod. Then the skill involved is marshalling your reputations through the entire thing. Each could only be used once.

A little bulky, perhaps, but it might work. I'm sure there's a solution to this somewhere just around the corner.

Mike

Valamir wrote: Ok, I see that...but it seems a little easy to win with that many sleeve cards to deal with.