Let it never be said I'm not willing to do my homework.
Lowell Francis at Age of Ravens posted video from a panel discussion at the inaugural ConTessa online gaming conventions. Titled Collaborative World Building and Gaming, the eighty-five minute video features three games designers - the Microscope dude, the Diaspora guy, the Psi*Run woman - along with Francis and his wife, Sherri Stewart, who moderates the panel. In his blogpost, Francis expands on a few of the comments made in the video. I admit, I skipped the last five minutes, but as they were winding down with questions from the con forum, I think I got the gist of what the panelists had to say.
To no great surprise, the panelists make an argument for collaborative world building - CWB hereafter - including their personal experiences, presumably gained from actual play, their different approaches to it in their games, and why they feel more traditional roleplaying games would benefit from CWB; Francis in particular seems to be most interested in this application, particularly in his blogpost. Among the arguments offered in the video and accompanying post - and this is by no means the complete list - are that CWB encourages player buy-in and investment in the campaign, reduces referee workload, fosters an environment of trust between the players and the referee, and may draw out reserved players and curb domineering players. More efficiently trapping mice and curing the common cold may have been in there is well, probably in those last five minutes that I skipped.
Now to be completely fair, their passion for CWB is no less than my own for sandbox, status quo game-worlds and the associated playstyle, a topic on which I bang away pretty relentlessly. I don't presume that what I like is, or should be, universal to all gamers; I absolutely understand why gamers enjoy linear adventures, frex, and, as a rule, I attempt to offer at least some explanation or examples of other playstyles and preferences.
The panelists actually get close to this just short of the one hour mark. There's mention that CWB may not be for all gamers: in discussing scene-framing, it's noted that some gamers find it challenging to switch back and forth between character and player perspectives, with Meguey Baker - Psi^Run woman - suggesting that some havent' cultivated the skill "or don't care." Right at one hour, Ben Robbins - Microscope dude - finally gets around to mentioning that, for gamers who want a "world of mystery," collaborative world building can spoil the game. He immediately moves on to suggest that it's simply a matter of players being "in on the joke," and that they can learn to, in his words, "participate in an informed and joyous fashion."
That's as close to the panelists get to addressing what is the biggest sticking point of collaborative world building for me, and perhaps for other gamers as well: as a player, I want to explore the game-world, not build it. The "world of mystery" isn't something I want to get past; it's one of the most important features of roleplaying games for me.
The panelists generally display little appreciation for, or interest in, why the "player/GM dyad" works for so many gamers and has for so long, and that's fine as far as it goes, of course. In Lowell Francis' blogpost, it goes rather beyond simply ignoring other positions to exaggerating a fringe argument, that referees who don't embrace collaborative world building may do so because they 'fear the players,' instead. Francis goes on to note that, yes, the players may end up making significant changes to what the referee is interested in running, but that's okay, because the referee can still add surprises, even when the swords-and-sorcery campaign he planned to run is morphed into a high fantasy romp through the players' input. After offering a number of benefits from CWB to the traditional referee, Francis concludes with a few "drawbacks": it nay require going outside the referee's "comfort zone," the game system may not actually support the suggestions made by the players, and that - presumably from their new-found investment - the players may want to play longer than the referee planned to run the campaign at the beginning. Some drawback, that last, huh?
The sad and somewhat frustrating thing about this whole exercise is that neither the panelists nor Francis' blogpost take note of the trumpeting African bull elephant in the room: the difference isn't between the players collaborating in world building or not - it's between collaborating in world building in-character or out-of-character. The characters in my Flashing Blades campaign may, per the rules of the game, rise to the highest ranks among the ministers and courtiers of France and the princes of the Church; they can control armies and ministries and bishoprics, accumulate vast wealth, own chateaus and estates. They can rival or literally supplant Richelieu or Mazarin or Colbert or Turenne.
Or they can become pirates. Or knights. Or explorers. Or diplomats. They can change the game-world in any number of ways, large and small. But they do it in-character, in actual play, not out-of-game in accordance with a set of game designer's guidelines.
I understand that these particular panelists are preaching, and it's not incumbent on the minister to offer the devil's side of the argument, but honestly, I really wish that the panelists had recognized this and addressed it, because I think it would be a much more interesting discussion than the one I listened to.
Showing posts with label story games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label story games. Show all posts
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Monday, February 4, 2013
The Queen's Cavaliers: An Interview with Caoimhe Ora Snow
A Really Bad Eggs Exclusive!
In a recent post on Big Purple, designer of Wandering Monsters High School, proprietor of Bold Pueblo Games, and gaming blogger Caoimhe Ora Snow mentioned that she is writing and playtesting a new swashbuckling roleplaying game, The Queen's Cavaliers. Caoimhe generously agreed to answer a few questions about herself and TQC.
Really Bad Mike: Thanks so much for taking the time to answer a few questions, Caoimhe. How did you become a tabletop gamer? What games - roleplaying, board, card - did you play, and what were your favorites?
Caoimhe Ora Snow: I've been gaming since I was in junior high school, over 30 years ago. I started on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and I still play 4th Edition D&D today. I've played a number of other fantasy, superhero, and science fiction RPGs over the years, from early games such as Marvel Super-Heroes, DC Heroes, Gamma World, and Alternity, to current games like Marvel Heroic Roleplaying and Apocalypse World/Dungeon World.
Second edition AD&D had the best worlds and concepts, although the rules always needed tweaks and rebalancing. My favorite D&D setting has always been the Al-Qadim Arabian Adventures line.
RBM: As a big fan of The Arabian Nights and the awesome Ray Harryhausen movies, Al-Quadim is right in my wheelhouse, too - my favorite 2e D&D product by far. What lead you into game design? What do you consider to be your most significant design influences?
COS: I've always been the primary gamemaster in most of my groups, so tinkering with the systems came naturally to me. I made conversions of Al-Qadim to 3rd edition and 4th edition D&D, and posted those on the Web. I've also written a number of fan supplements and adventures for D&D Gamma World.
In 2005, I spent a day working on a 24-hour RPG, and Wandering Monsters High School was born. I ran a kickstarter for that in 2011 and published WMHS commercially in 2012. I've written a few other games for Game Chef, such as Bone White, Blood Red, Awesome Women Kicking Ass, and I'm a Pretty Princess! – all of which have a tendency look beyond the routine and come up with unusual ways of creating and tracking characters. For example, BWBR used a cord with threaded beads for a character sheet, while IaPP! was based around coloring books.
RBM: You described The Queen's Cavaliers as "a clockwork Baroque swashbuckling fantasy." What is the setting like? What do the player characters do?
COS: TQC is set in a fictional analogue of 17th century France called Gallinea. Gallinea is a matriarchal monarchy ruled over by a young queen who strives to maintain her late mother's progressive policies in the face of growing discontent. Internal and external enemies abound – from the Speakers of the Desert Mother and their underground cult, to the scheming Guardian of the Faith serving the Empress-Goddess and his own desires. More conservative counts and dukes consolidate their power in the distant provinces, while the foreign-born Prince-Consort finds himself opposed by the Prince-Father.
The setting is deliberately low-magic; you won't find wizards tossing fireballs here, nor dragons. The practice of alchemy and the study of portents are both common in Gallinea, as well as the practice of charmweaving – embedding magical protections and enchantments into apparel.
Our approach to technology is decidedly clockpunk rather than steampunk; think more of Leonardo Da Vinci's designs than of steam engines. Gallinea has gunpowder, experimental airships, clockwork prostheses, and gearswords.
The default scenario for a game or campaign of TQC casts the player characters as the elite members of the royal military – the Queen's Cavaliers. Characters are either directly affiliated with the Cavaliers or work closely with them to further the queen's interests; in one of our playtests, for example, the queen's physician accompanied the Cavaliers.
RBM: How does TQC work? What are your influences rules-wise? What's novel about the game? What are you most excited to share with other gamers?
COS: A TQC character is built from the combination of two character classes – so you could be a Cavalier/Chaplain, a Dragoon/Provincial, a Charmweaver/Mechanician, or a Courtier/Pirate. Your classes determine your starting skill, weapon, and armor prowesses, as well as special maneuvers.
TQC uses a dice pool system – one that evolved out of Wandering Monsters High School's mechanics with influences from Marvel Heroic Roleplaying and Dungeon World. Each character has a dice rating for Verve, Affinity, and Guile, and adds extra dice based on skill ranks. Equipment, special maneuvers, and charmwoven apparel can add additional dice to the pool.
Once the dice are rolled, the top two dice are added together for the total, while the number of success points is the smallest of those top two dice. For example, if the pool consists of 3d8+1d6 and you roll 5, 7, 2, 4, the total is 5 + 7 = 12 and the success points are 5. If you beat your opponent – or a standard difficulty roll for unopposed rolls – then you can spend your success points on various effects.
For example, if you successfully Parry your opponent's Lunge, you can spend 1 success point to negate the attack, then 2 points to execute a Riposte. If your Riposte hits (by beating his Dodge), you could move him closer to giving up by inflicting Yield on him (1 success point per Yield point), you could increase your own Advantage die (2 success points per die step), or gain another style point to power your style maneuvers (3 success points for a style point).
One key feature of the combat system is the Advantage die. Instead of the typical model of wearing down your opponent's hit points, swordfights in TQC are about jockeying for a position by building up your Advantage die from nothing, to a d4, a d6, up to a d12. Fights get more deadly the longer they go on, and are much more likely to end in a crescendo than a whimper – simulating the type of fencing battles you see in the best swashbuckling movies.
RBM: Wow, that sounds cool! If you could pick an author to write a novel, or a director to film a movie, based on TQC, who would it be and why?
COS: Oh, no debate, it would have to be Paul W.S. Anderson.
...just kidding! While we do take a little of our inspiration from the clockpunk technology in the 2011 The Three Musketeers movie, of course the ideal would be Richard Lester, plucked from the 1970s by some kind of clockwork time machine.
Since we started on this project, I've seen a bunch of Musketeer-themed movies – some awful, many of them with little tidbits of inspiration for TQC despite the quality of those movies. Lester's 1973 The Three Musketeers is the best of the lot, but I also enjoyed seeing a female Musketeer in La fille de D'artagnon (1994) and At Sword's Point (1952).
RBM: I love Maureen O'Hara in At Sword's Point - one of the best stage fencers in Hollywood in her day.
Thanks again, Caoimhe, for taking the time out to do this; I sincerely appreciate it, and I'm really looking forward to the release of The Queen's Cavaliers.
In a recent post on Big Purple, designer of Wandering Monsters High School, proprietor of Bold Pueblo Games, and gaming blogger Caoimhe Ora Snow mentioned that she is writing and playtesting a new swashbuckling roleplaying game, The Queen's Cavaliers. Caoimhe generously agreed to answer a few questions about herself and TQC.
Really Bad Mike: Thanks so much for taking the time to answer a few questions, Caoimhe. How did you become a tabletop gamer? What games - roleplaying, board, card - did you play, and what were your favorites?
Caoimhe Ora Snow: I've been gaming since I was in junior high school, over 30 years ago. I started on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and I still play 4th Edition D&D today. I've played a number of other fantasy, superhero, and science fiction RPGs over the years, from early games such as Marvel Super-Heroes, DC Heroes, Gamma World, and Alternity, to current games like Marvel Heroic Roleplaying and Apocalypse World/Dungeon World.
Second edition AD&D had the best worlds and concepts, although the rules always needed tweaks and rebalancing. My favorite D&D setting has always been the Al-Qadim Arabian Adventures line.
RBM: As a big fan of The Arabian Nights and the awesome Ray Harryhausen movies, Al-Quadim is right in my wheelhouse, too - my favorite 2e D&D product by far. What lead you into game design? What do you consider to be your most significant design influences?
COS: I've always been the primary gamemaster in most of my groups, so tinkering with the systems came naturally to me. I made conversions of Al-Qadim to 3rd edition and 4th edition D&D, and posted those on the Web. I've also written a number of fan supplements and adventures for D&D Gamma World.
In 2005, I spent a day working on a 24-hour RPG, and Wandering Monsters High School was born. I ran a kickstarter for that in 2011 and published WMHS commercially in 2012. I've written a few other games for Game Chef, such as Bone White, Blood Red, Awesome Women Kicking Ass, and I'm a Pretty Princess! – all of which have a tendency look beyond the routine and come up with unusual ways of creating and tracking characters. For example, BWBR used a cord with threaded beads for a character sheet, while IaPP! was based around coloring books.
RBM: You described The Queen's Cavaliers as "a clockwork Baroque swashbuckling fantasy." What is the setting like? What do the player characters do?
COS: TQC is set in a fictional analogue of 17th century France called Gallinea. Gallinea is a matriarchal monarchy ruled over by a young queen who strives to maintain her late mother's progressive policies in the face of growing discontent. Internal and external enemies abound – from the Speakers of the Desert Mother and their underground cult, to the scheming Guardian of the Faith serving the Empress-Goddess and his own desires. More conservative counts and dukes consolidate their power in the distant provinces, while the foreign-born Prince-Consort finds himself opposed by the Prince-Father.
The setting is deliberately low-magic; you won't find wizards tossing fireballs here, nor dragons. The practice of alchemy and the study of portents are both common in Gallinea, as well as the practice of charmweaving – embedding magical protections and enchantments into apparel.
Our approach to technology is decidedly clockpunk rather than steampunk; think more of Leonardo Da Vinci's designs than of steam engines. Gallinea has gunpowder, experimental airships, clockwork prostheses, and gearswords.
The default scenario for a game or campaign of TQC casts the player characters as the elite members of the royal military – the Queen's Cavaliers. Characters are either directly affiliated with the Cavaliers or work closely with them to further the queen's interests; in one of our playtests, for example, the queen's physician accompanied the Cavaliers.
RBM: How does TQC work? What are your influences rules-wise? What's novel about the game? What are you most excited to share with other gamers?
COS: A TQC character is built from the combination of two character classes – so you could be a Cavalier/Chaplain, a Dragoon/Provincial, a Charmweaver/Mechanician, or a Courtier/Pirate. Your classes determine your starting skill, weapon, and armor prowesses, as well as special maneuvers.
TQC uses a dice pool system – one that evolved out of Wandering Monsters High School's mechanics with influences from Marvel Heroic Roleplaying and Dungeon World. Each character has a dice rating for Verve, Affinity, and Guile, and adds extra dice based on skill ranks. Equipment, special maneuvers, and charmwoven apparel can add additional dice to the pool.
Once the dice are rolled, the top two dice are added together for the total, while the number of success points is the smallest of those top two dice. For example, if the pool consists of 3d8+1d6 and you roll 5, 7, 2, 4, the total is 5 + 7 = 12 and the success points are 5. If you beat your opponent – or a standard difficulty roll for unopposed rolls – then you can spend your success points on various effects.
For example, if you successfully Parry your opponent's Lunge, you can spend 1 success point to negate the attack, then 2 points to execute a Riposte. If your Riposte hits (by beating his Dodge), you could move him closer to giving up by inflicting Yield on him (1 success point per Yield point), you could increase your own Advantage die (2 success points per die step), or gain another style point to power your style maneuvers (3 success points for a style point).
One key feature of the combat system is the Advantage die. Instead of the typical model of wearing down your opponent's hit points, swordfights in TQC are about jockeying for a position by building up your Advantage die from nothing, to a d4, a d6, up to a d12. Fights get more deadly the longer they go on, and are much more likely to end in a crescendo than a whimper – simulating the type of fencing battles you see in the best swashbuckling movies.
RBM: Wow, that sounds cool! If you could pick an author to write a novel, or a director to film a movie, based on TQC, who would it be and why?
COS: Oh, no debate, it would have to be Paul W.S. Anderson.
...just kidding! While we do take a little of our inspiration from the clockpunk technology in the 2011 The Three Musketeers movie, of course the ideal would be Richard Lester, plucked from the 1970s by some kind of clockwork time machine.
Since we started on this project, I've seen a bunch of Musketeer-themed movies – some awful, many of them with little tidbits of inspiration for TQC despite the quality of those movies. Lester's 1973 The Three Musketeers is the best of the lot, but I also enjoyed seeing a female Musketeer in La fille de D'artagnon (1994) and At Sword's Point (1952).
RBM: I love Maureen O'Hara in At Sword's Point - one of the best stage fencers in Hollywood in her day.
Thanks again, Caoimhe, for taking the time out to do this; I sincerely appreciate it, and I'm really looking forward to the release of The Queen's Cavaliers.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Tour des Coeurs
I used to play a lot of Hearts with friends and co-workers.
One night I was flipping through the notepad with which we kept score, comparing point totals from different games, and I noticed that one person who won one night might've had the highest point total another, or scored just a few more points than the winner in a third. When I looked more closely at not just the scores, but the differences in point totals, it reminded me of pro cycling, with a rider's performance reflected in how many seconds he is behind the leader.
And thus was born the Tour des Coeurs.
Each game of Hearts became a 'stage' in a race, with five or seven stages making up a 'tour' - later I added a 'grand tour' of twenty stages. Instead of tracking overall points, we tracked margins between racers - the leader's score for the stage was zero, and everyone else subtracted the leader's score from their own to determine how many seconds back they were on the stage. These margins would be added together after each stage to determine the overall leader of the tour.
What was interesting about it is that the strategy changed. Sure, everyone wanted to rack up stages wins - winning individual games of Hearts - but it was possible to take the overall tour lead without ever winning a stage by finishing with the smallest margin after each game. How points were dealt in a hand could be affected by the overall score; instead of simply dumping the queen of spades or a handful of hearts, giving them to a particular player - 'putting time into a rider' - became a goal to take or keep the overall lead. For the grand tour I introduced time bonuses for the first three places in each stage, so, frex, a first place finish also subtracted an additional twelve seconds - points - from the total.
The overall winner won the yellow jersey, while the winner of the most stages in the tour got the green jersey - usually the prizes were dinner and a beer, respectively.
The Tour des Coeurs proved to be a remarkable simulation, and soon a few narrative conventions took hold. Taking the queen of spades meant a rider 'went off the road' or 'slipped a chain'; taking a lot of points in a turn meant the rider 'cracked on a climb.' Shooting the moon was an 'attack,' and a player whose score was significantly lower than everyone else's in a game was 'off the front.'
Of course, all of these narratives arose post hoc - the ability to plan an attack at a particular point in the 'race' was limited, with no way to work with a team mate or make an alliance on the road to work together 'til the finish sprint to keep away from the peloton, as pro racers may do. There was none of the strategy and tactics which are the most exciting part of bike racing, except in hindsight.
Put another way, while the results told an interesting story of a bike race, the experience of playing it didn't feel like participating in a bike race.
Now let me tell you how I feel about story games.
Actually, I think I just did.
And thus was born the Tour des Coeurs.
Each game of Hearts became a 'stage' in a race, with five or seven stages making up a 'tour' - later I added a 'grand tour' of twenty stages. Instead of tracking overall points, we tracked margins between racers - the leader's score for the stage was zero, and everyone else subtracted the leader's score from their own to determine how many seconds back they were on the stage. These margins would be added together after each stage to determine the overall leader of the tour.
What was interesting about it is that the strategy changed. Sure, everyone wanted to rack up stages wins - winning individual games of Hearts - but it was possible to take the overall tour lead without ever winning a stage by finishing with the smallest margin after each game. How points were dealt in a hand could be affected by the overall score; instead of simply dumping the queen of spades or a handful of hearts, giving them to a particular player - 'putting time into a rider' - became a goal to take or keep the overall lead. For the grand tour I introduced time bonuses for the first three places in each stage, so, frex, a first place finish also subtracted an additional twelve seconds - points - from the total.
The overall winner won the yellow jersey, while the winner of the most stages in the tour got the green jersey - usually the prizes were dinner and a beer, respectively.
The Tour des Coeurs proved to be a remarkable simulation, and soon a few narrative conventions took hold. Taking the queen of spades meant a rider 'went off the road' or 'slipped a chain'; taking a lot of points in a turn meant the rider 'cracked on a climb.' Shooting the moon was an 'attack,' and a player whose score was significantly lower than everyone else's in a game was 'off the front.'
Of course, all of these narratives arose post hoc - the ability to plan an attack at a particular point in the 'race' was limited, with no way to work with a team mate or make an alliance on the road to work together 'til the finish sprint to keep away from the peloton, as pro racers may do. There was none of the strategy and tactics which are the most exciting part of bike racing, except in hindsight.
Put another way, while the results told an interesting story of a bike race, the experience of playing it didn't feel like participating in a bike race.
Now let me tell you how I feel about story games.
Actually, I think I just did.
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