Hi everyone --

I am working on a group-oriented tactical quasi-RPG which is going by the working title "Tactics." The goal is to have a simple, sustainable tactical RPG (or RP-like game) that can be played by a fluctuating group of participants (no one GM, any number of participants is quorum for gameplay.) Tactics is flamingly Gamist, although I have some thoughts on drifting it Narrativist. In particular, however, it is not Sim, and drifting it that direction would involve essentially an entire rules rewrite. It is also, in particular, not PvP gamist -- all competition is "the group" cooperating to overcome external challenge.

Another possibly important note is that characters are not "owned" by any particular player -- they are considered property of the group, and anyone can pick up any character for any given session.

That all is background. My problem is with responsibility distribution.

The basic unit of play is the "Scenario," which is something like an adventure or module. Scenarios are of varying length, but the hope is that one instance of play would complete a single scenario, or possibly one meeting for set-up and one for play.

In any given play-instance, there are participants who take on the role of Judge (the person who decides on ambiguous outcomes) and the Antagonist (the person who controls the enemy characters.) These are not necessarily the same, although they can be. I'm working on ways for the Judge role to be optional, but you pretty much can't do without the Antagonist.

Now, I think that a lot of play of Tactics may very well end up somelike like a "classic RPG." Someone has an idea for a whole-cloth scenario and invites the rest of the group to take part in it. The group selects characters, and the organizer provides the background, layout, and goals and also plays the Antagonist and Judge roles. I think that this is fine, but I would like to have a way to distribute the creative responsibility, allowing for more "pick-up" oriented play and reducing the idea that one person does more work.

So what I would like to do is have a way for people to take responsibility for different parts of scenario design. I picture this as a sort of round-robin process, where folks sit around a table and Anne says "I want to do a game with a Village and some Bandits" and Bob says, "Oh, I can play Kyle, who is an ex-bandit, and..."

But, because one of the other design goals of Tactics is to nail down the process to a very rigid structure, I'm trying to outline how, exactly, this is done. The way I see it, we have the following categories of design, which could be split up or recombined. In no particular order...
(optional stages are marked with a *. These are either not present in every version of the game, or can be skipped in some instances, or both.)

*Selection of Primary Characters -- These are the character's whose Premises are going to get addressed by the scenario.

Decide overall situation -- this can blend with the above.

Decide group goals -- the groups goals can be as simple as "defeat all hostiles" or as complex as you would like. Things like "save the village from the bandits" or "retrieve the book without revealing your presence" are good examples. In extended scenarios, groups can also have multiple goals, in which case they get larger rewards for accomplishing more of them.

Assign / Choose characters -- everyone chooses which characters they will be playing.

Equip characters -- decide what skills and powers the characters will be using for the scenario.

Assign Antagonist Characters -- as above, but for the enemy.

*Establish large-scale tactical layout -- A number of "scenes" and the difficulty from getting to one to the other. Many scenarios only have one scene, so this is meaningless.

Establish small-scale tactical layouts -- each scene has areas of different height, different terrains, etc. This is important for pretty much everything. Also, link these with the large-scale layouts (where are entrances and exits, etc.)

Establish Narrative layout -- what is each scene, exactly. How are they connected, in a "dream" sense. What neutral characters are there in each scene (could be another step.) What are the connections between scenes. (This is the princess's bedroom, this is the bandit camp, this is the hamlet, where there are 5-10 villagers with these base stats.)

*Decide group starting locations -- from availible locations in the tactical layouts. Sometimes, there is no option.

Decide who is Judge and who is Antagonist -- self-explanatory.

*Decide if there will be a "party leader" and, if so, who it will be -- also self-explanatory. This is a purely OOG role -- someone who coordinates and oversees the PC actions.


My question to the general community is -- in what order should these be addressed, who should be responsible for each, and is a method of dividing said responsible helpful -- would it add anything to the game?

thanks--
--Ben

P.S. My apologies, but because of difficulties with my internet connection, I am unable to provide the present game text.

I'm going to respond to my own post in order to clarify the situation and my questions a bit, and hopefully get someone to actually reply ;-)

1) Do these need to be resolved in a specific order? What might be a good order? Is there a particular piece that you think needs to come "first?"

2) Should this be framed as "group establishing challenge for itself," in which case it is relatively freeform, or should it be framed in Sillhohouette tactics style -- each "side" (in this case, the antagonist and the rest of the players) spend points in order to define various truths, in which case it is a part of the tactical game and should be used for best tactical advantage. I'm worried that this would result in a great number of "showdon in the canyon" situations, though, where one side has violently exploited its design advantage.

3) Are there specific parts which ought to be in the hands of the Antagonist, or explicitly ought not to be? Are there any admixtures thereof that you consider interesting? Are there specific parts that ought to be linked?

thanks--
--Ben

I don't know that i have an answer to the questions you posed. I'll think about it a bit and get back to you. In the meantime have you considered randomized generation? At least to some extent?

I would ask the question: how many of these steps can be automated in a satisfactory manner? Let's see...

*Selection of Primary Characters -- These are the character's whose Premises are going to get addressed by the scenario.

Decide overall situation -- this can blend with the above.

Decide group goals -- the groups goals can be as simple as "defeat all hostiles" or as complex as you would like. Things like "save the village from the bandits" or "retrieve the book without revealing your presence" are good examples. In extended scenarios, groups can also have multiple goals, in which case they get larger rewards for accomplishing more of them.

Assign / Choose characters -- everyone chooses which characters they will be playing.

Equip characters -- decide what skills and powers the characters will be using for the scenario.

Assign Antagonist Characters -- as above, but for the enemy.

*Establish large-scale tactical layout -- A number of "scenes" and the difficulty from getting to one to the other. Many scenarios only have one scene, so this is meaningless.

Establish small-scale tactical layouts -- each scene has areas of different height, different terrains, etc. This is important for pretty much everything. Also, link these with the large-scale layouts (where are entrances and exits, etc.)

Establish Narrative layout -- what is each scene, exactly. How are they connected, in a "dream" sense. What neutral characters are there in each scene (could be another step.) What are the connections between scenes. (This is the princess's bedroom, this is the bandit camp, this is the hamlet, where there are 5-10 villagers with these base stats.)

*Decide group starting locations -- from availible locations in the tactical layouts. Sometimes, there is no option.

Decide who is Judge and who is Antagonist -- self-explanatory

*Decide if there will be a "party leader" and, if so, who it will be -- also self-explanatory. This is a purely OOG role -- someone who coordinates and oversees the PC actions.

LordSmerf wrote: I don't know that i have an answer to the questions you posed. I'll think about it a bit and get back to you. In the meantime have you considered randomized generation? At least to some extent?

Establish small-scale tactical layouts -- each scene has areas of different height, different terrains, etc. This is important for pretty much everything. Also, link these with the large-scale layouts (where are entrances and exits, etc.)

In terms of randomization, this presents an exciting possibility. Cards. Maybe something customized for your game, but it could be done with a deck of playing cards. Each card corresponds to a generalized map. This seems to be the stickiest part since you don't want to generate outrageous advantages through tactical control of this step. Randomization may solve this for you.

Hi Ben,

Neat idea. I imagine play could be something like being on the writing team for Z Gundam, or pick-your-favorite-adventure tv series. You might want to address tech-level or genre expectations explicitly as part of your set-up process.

Making the character group property is challenging. You may wish to use theme or premise you want to explore with each of the primary characters in some mechanical way to focus how they are used. If you want to use adventure fiction as your model, each of the characters chosen could be differentiated in some particular way or have a back-story/destiny that all of the players would be called on to collaborate to add to or tie in to the overall plot in some way. Connect antagonists to protagonists in all of the typical ways (brothers, lovers, old enemies). I think part of the reason why I thought of Zeta Gundam was the drama behind all of the characters--a lot of anime does this well: action and tactical challenge are interspersed with intrigue and character melodrama. Marrying the two gives the action a hook. And the depth of characterization need not be deep, unless the group so chooses.

If you were able to automate elements (especially the actions of antagonists in some way) that would allow your participants to run single-sided adventures. And, since you want the game to be modular, it sounds extremely feasible for it to be up to the play group in question to decide if they want to oppose one another or be one team against the foe. As long as the participants "get" that they are making the game fun by coming up with their own challenges, there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to set up the opposition. Group decision with some randomization might be adequate to give enough interest.

Hope that's of help.

Regards,
Em

Hi, Emily--

Wow. Thanks for your response and your kind words. You managed to hit on a different area of the game which I'm also working on. This makes me very happy, because it means that there is a level of coherence to my game design and overall vision.

Tech-level and genre expectations are a very important part of the Tactics set-up, and they are defined in the initial set-up session for the entire campaign. Each setting has an associated "class tree" which shapes character advancement and abilities, and a set of "descriptions" which shape the other expectations.

The overall design goal of The Tactics Project is to bring ideas like shared GMing responsibility, characters as group property, and such into the realm of a crunchy and Gamist tactical RPG. There are a lot of very nice features of this (like being able to have a large play group who don't all have to be there) that I think could be very appealing to gamers of that stripe, and certainly are to me when I'm playing in that style.

Making the character group property is challenging. You may wish to use theme or premise you want to explore with each of the primary characters in some mechanical way to focus how they are used.

If you were able to automate elements (especially the actions of antagonists in some way) that would allow your participants to run single-sided adventures. And, since you want the game to be modular, it sounds extremely feasible for it to be up to the play group in question to decide if they want to oppose one another or be one team against the foe. As long as the participants "get" that they are making the game fun by coming up with their own challenges, there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to set up the opposition. Group decision with some randomization might be adequate to give enough interest.

Ben Lehman wrote: It takes as its base the classic video game Final Fantasy Tactics...

I like this idea a lot Ben, and I’m not even familiar with Final Fantasy Tactics. I think Dev has pointed out some interesting possibilities that let the players challenge themselves by taking risks while running the antagonists. You might go so far as to make the rewards even greater if the players put their own characters in risk. Say you gain more resources for putting the group in danger, and maybe even a bit more for putting your own character in danger. In this case, to rephrase Dev’s suggestion, you’re putting the players in the situation where they’re walking a tightrope of sorts. How much danger are they willing to put the protagonist group in, in order to reap the rewards? That sort of thing.

This sets up, I think, a situation that is rife with “step on up” opportunities. And I think players will eat it up. I know in my group, we’ve long been in the habit of playing groups of antagonists who are observing and opposed to the PCs. As GM, I’ve seen my players put their characters in a kind of danger that I wouldn’t dare put them in, stuff like having an NPC sniper target their own unwitting character’s head. Then, somehow, they wriggle out of danger, often inadvertently (obviously, inadvertently for the character, but quite intentional on the part of the player).

So, the “group establishing challenges for itself” angle has a lot of potential, from my point of view, and there are real possibilities for games where no one individual must take the role of the antagonist. Instead, it can work as a "round robin" or group control thing.

Also, I’d suggest that while it may be quite flexible in play, it probably should not be “freeform” in set-up. I doubt that’s really where you’re headed with it, but not being able to read the game text, I thought I’d mention it. Gambling mechanics may let you get the kind of balance between flexibility and quite strict/predictable rules that would seem to be conducive to this play. Of course, it’ll also be important that the players are able to accurately gauge the level of risk/reward that they’re undertaking.

Rich

Dev wrote: For truly intelligent play, you're going to need the players (seemingly, the protagonists) to control the antagonists in turn. My thoughts:

I'd recommend a "stable" of characters that players choose from; the players themselves should have some Metagame Resource that may carry over in-between different characters. Aside from controlling their own characters, the players should take turns in controlling antagonistic pieces.

(interesting idea snipped)

How does this suggestion strike you? Also, this as suggested works if all the players want to be on the same side; something different might be necessary for two-team play.

Rich Forest wrote:
This sets up, I think, a situation that is rife with “step on up” opportunities. And I think players will eat it up. I know in my group, we’ve long been in the habit of playing groups of antagonists who are observing and opposed to the PCs. As GM, I’ve seen my players put their characters in a kind of danger that I wouldn’t dare put them in, stuff like having an NPC sniper target their own unwitting character’s head. Then, somehow, they wriggle out of danger, often inadvertently (obviously, inadvertently for the character, but quite intentional on the part of the player).

Also, I’d suggest that while it may be quite flexible in play, it probably should not be “freeform” in set-up. I doubt that’s really where you’re headed with it, but not being able to read the game text, I thought I’d mention it.

To solve your Antagonist solution you might look to Wizkids' MageKnight: Dungeons miniatures game. Though the game is one of player competition rather than cooperation, the monsters (who are equally hostile to all characters) can be controlled by any player on their turn. Essentially you sacrifice an action for one of your characters to activate one of the monsters.

Combine some sort of similar system with currency gained by "challenge" and you have a system in which there is not Antagonist character, but in which it is in each character's interest to do at least some good stuff with the opposition. Of course you run into the danger of players misusing enemies, making them do stupid stuff in order to get easy kills and such. I don't know a way around that, but i'm sure there's something there.

Thomas

Hi Ben,

Looking over it again, I think I was misreading what part you were referring to when you used the word “freeform,” which pretty much makes my point moot.

But thinking about it got me thinking about another main question I have. How do the players (or the antagonist, if someone is taking that role) make the choices that create challenges and risks for their characters? Most games don’t formalize this much, right? I mean, the DM in D&D3 has some guidelines like challenge ratings, and games with a strong tactical sub-system like Heavy Gear include threat values and such for building armies, but that’s about it. I’m keenly interested in seeing this done elegantly because the version presented by Rune of round-robin GM-ing with GM prep, etc., proved pretty time consuming for my players when we played the game. It was something that most of the players in my group simply weren’t too interested in going through (from the GM/set-up perspective). The exciting thing I’m seeing in The Tactics Project is the set-up phase being possible without it becoming too much of a burden on the players, or especially on just one of the players. But I’m really unclear on the currency of how these things get decided. I’m wondering about how risks and rewards are handled by the system, both during set-up and actual play. Also, do you see the field of conflict as something that players and/or antagonist set-up before play and then play out, or something that can be later modified (say, a player decides to “up the ante” by adding enemy reinforcements, or having a hazard appear that endangers the characters, having an enemy turn out to be more powerful than expected, etc.)? I’m interested in the idea of a changing field of battle that allows the players to put themselves in greater and greater dangers, if they dare and they think they can pull it off.

Also, I’ve gone ahead and started a new thread to describe some of my group’s “us against ourselves” play.

Rich

Rich Forest wrote:
How do the players (or the antagonist, if someone is taking that role) make the choices that create challenges and risks for their characters? Most games don’t formalize this much, right?
(snip)
The exciting thing I’m seeing in The Tactics Project is the set-up phase being possible without it becoming too much of a burden on the players, or especially on just one of the players. But I’m really unclear on the currency of how these things get decided. I’m wondering about how risks and rewards are handled by the system, both during set-up and actual play.

Also, do you see the field of conflict as something that players and/or antagonist set-up before play and then play out, or something that can be later modified (say, a player decides to “up the ante” by adding enemy reinforcements, or having a hazard appear that endangers the characters, having an enemy turn out to be more powerful than expected, etc.)? I’m interested in the idea of a changing field of battle that allows the players to put themselves in greater and greater dangers, if they dare and they think they can pull it off.

actual death is an entirely seperate problem, which I have also yet to address well, but one thing at a time, perhaps.