Blood & Ink: Smooth Start!

Ran the first session of Blood & Ink, and it went really well. Which is good, because I’ve actually been bringing some thoughts I’ve had into game techniques for this, and they’re working well.

First off, a compelling situation, and pregen characters. I can sell the game based on a situation (after all, people want to play a game about a throne war, they don’t know why they should care about a game with multi-tiered reward systems to encourage narrative climaxes…).

The pregen characters let players skip on the whole character generation process and get right to play, it lets me make sure the characters fit well together in interesting and fun ways, and give the players clear goals to pursue.

Second, “Enticements not Homework” – 2 page quicksheets on the rules and culture are just enough that people can read it easily, and/or print it out to have on hand during play. Not 200 page setting books or a full rules read through. Not only is it often more work than what people want to put in, it also causes people to get lost and focus on the wrong things, whether setting or rules.

Third, demonstrating process. I would explain exactly the process of how an NPC would do an action (“He’s rolling his Soothing Platitudes, with a bonus die from Falsehood”) so the players could see how the mechanics work. Obviously, I won’t do this every time, or for everything, but it’s a good way to -start- the game and introduce concepts to everyone.

Fourth, keeping paper copies – mostly I did this because I was playing via Skype and didn’t want to have my computer screen cluttered with documents to navigate in the middle of play, but having copies of all the PCs made it easy for me to give concrete suggestions to players during the game (“Hey, you have X skill, why don’t you use that?”).

Fifth, the GM one-sheet. A list of the NPCs, maybe a couple of the stats I expect to see. A list of questions – “Will X side with Y or Z?”, “When will so and so find out about this?”, “How can X convince Y to do Z?” Etc. By keeping them questions, it makes it very adaptable to improvise with.

Burning Wheel and Casting Characters

As sort of an experiment, I’m putting together a little scenario for Burning Wheel. BW is already tested and proven, and the experiment is more in crafting my skills at casting characters as an ensemble.

In the process, I’m realizing how advanced BW’s Belief, Instinct, and Traits system is. I think a lot of folks overlook and underestimate it between getting caught in the crunchy bits of BW and also by falling into the trap of assuming it’s like character traits in traditional rpgs- superficial extras that never impact the system.

In A Wicked Age gives you a couple of clear “Best Interests” to direct your character- by comparison, having 3 Beliefs as goals, Instincts as constraints/conflict producing tools, and Traits as guides on top of that, you have the potential to build this really complex web of cross motivations just within a single character, nevermind across a whole group.

Burning Wheel demands shifting wheels- the reward system is not fight to fight or simply mission to mission like most traditional games- despite it’s appearance. The reward system is arced between scenes, dialogue, conflict (in the plot sense) up to the larger story. (This thread over at the BW forums is full of good AP observations about that in action and overall good advice for folks who might not see that larger reward cycle)

For my little scenario, I’ve started making sure Beliefs have both a long term aspect and a short term aspect- “I will regain the throne by united the Houses, starting with the Kaipara.” The nice thing about this is that it makes it clear what the character is trying to do both in the long term and the short term- the smaller part is a definite step which is achievable, but the larger part sets the whole goal- when it comes time to change Beliefs, I can keep the larger goal and alter the smaller goals as steps.

I’ve also discovered that it’s always interesting to have at least one Belief that involves getting someone else to do something for you/view you in a certain way. This forces character interaction and sets up a neat set of social ties which you can pressure, threaten, or reward with. “Convince Lady Aranui to restore my status as a warrior!”

I can -see- how it might be useful to do self-conflicting Beliefs- “Convince Lady Aranui to restore my status as a warrior by being the best servant possible”, but I think it’d be really tough to make work in play. I’d need a lot more play and practice to see those kinds of things clearly.

Mostly, though, I’ve been pushing the self conflict stuff to Instincts and Traits- leaving Beliefs as things to go for, with specific steps, while Instincts and Traits are the things that might restrict -HOW- you do these things. For example, “Regain the Throne, etc.” + “Maintain Honor and Justice to be Worthy of the Throne” is a good self conflict, but the second Belief is open-ended and doesn’t have specific steps.

To be sure, the GM is going to nail you in ways to hit those conflicting, but you’re probably just as well off taking character traits of Honorable, Just, etc. or the instincts- “When making choices, always act with Justice and Honor”. This way you can set up 3 Beliefs that are active steps and still have conflicts amongst your own.

You’ll also want to load one of your BITS to clash with another character as well. For the standard “All out Blood Opera Burning Wheel” game, you just set everyone at odds and call it good. But the trick to ensemble stories is that more of the characters aren’t directly opposed- they’re probably allied- but it’s about getting frictions that make for good drama without destroying the believability of the Alliance. In that way, you’ll want to make sure the motivations for working together/being friends is stronger than the friction causing elements.

I’ll post characters when I’m done, maybe with some commentary about the builds.

HQ2: Community Resources as Flags pt.2

While tinkering around with writing up some setting material, I realized that in order to really get the most out of using Community Resources as Flag mechanics, you kinda have to shift your view of them.

The book lists them as literal resources or abilities (“Wealth”, “Influence”, “Magic”)- though in the examples you see it becomes abstracted to themes (“War”, “Peace” etc.). And this works well enough, but if you focus it a bit more, it really shines.

“One Thing”

Make the first Resource the “one thing” the community has that makes it stand out and gives it influence and power. For example, “Controls the Southern Trade Routes”. This sets up their biggest source of power and sets a tone for what the community is about. If you choose to focus play on it, it becomes a big source of conflict, while if you focus play away from it, it still sets up the base of legitimacy while wrestling with other issues.

“We need THIS to survive.”

Pick two resources specific to the community and situation that they need to survive. “Safety from Sand Beasts”, “Oases, Water, Housing”. These should fit local to the setting and be things the players would want to call on often (in this case, a desert campaign would make sense). The strength of a community is not just the numbers, but how appropriate the resources are to the kinds of conflicts you expect to see fairly often.

“This is who we are.”

Finally, have at least one resource set to define the social/cultural identity of the community. This sets up a combination of morale and culture. “The Southern Trade Clan, and the ways of the Old Royalty”, “The last of the Dynasty style weavers”.

As a whole

By doing so, you set up communities in basis of power, necessary resources, and cultural identity, all of which make great places to set up conflicts. You’ll also notice that more than one could stand in for the recommendations in the book- military, wealth, magic, etc., while at the same time giving it a bit more context if you’re using it to generate situations to play with.

Inspectres keeps getting deeper

I’m gearing up for some Inspectres in a couple of weeks, and I swear, everytime I pick up the book, I discover new, awesome design features about it. It’s like it’s infinitely deep in it’s elegance. Here’s what I noticed this time…

Mutual character building

During a Confessional, you can assign a characteristic to another PC (“Clumsy”, “Flirty”, “Muttering”, “Missing Finger”, etc.)

And though the other player doesn’t have to actually play that, you get bonus Franchise dice if they DO. And Bonus Franchise Dice are really the best way to get grow your business and NOT catch Stress.

So an “optimal” strategy is to make sure to assign each other characteristics each game, and play up the ones you get, and maximize your bonus Franchise dice. (the group is rewarded for accepting each other’s input).

Also- design feature- players are rewarded for pushing focus on developing each other’s characters AND accepting input.

Know when to fold’em

There’s a larger scale game at hand- figuring out how to make more Franchise dice than you lose from having people catch Stress rolls. If you’re getting bonus dice from playing as above, it becomes a more viable strategy to end a mission early and lose 1/2 the Franchise dice, especially if it looks like it’s going to tank completely, instead of digging deeper into the hole by trying to push through on a failing venture. (see how that mirrors a startup as well? Brilliant).

Weird Agents for the assist

So Weird Agents always start with Cool dice, and they often have stupid high scores in certain areas. Because Weird Agents can’t score Franchise dice, this means they’re no good at completing the mission directly- but they do serve as great assistants for the normal agents.

How? After a normal agent catches a lot of Stress and perhaps is weak in a Skill, the Weird Agent can step in, make the roll to change the situation until the Normal Agent can make rolls with an undamaged Skill.

Don’t forget that Weird Agents can also use Teamwork for the Normal Agents too. They also make good “shields” for stress by letting them deal with the stuff you know is going to be crazy.

It’s all about the fictional positioning

On that note- I was surprised at how much of the game runs on fictional positioning. Again, it’s not a good thing when you have a Stress freakout- but you can do some things to change your situation so you, or your teammates, can bring in some better skills.

“I freak out and totally jump through the magic portal before it shuts! When I wake up, I’m in the middle of the hidden Chamber of the Kings… and it’s covered in undamaged hieroglyphs… Oh, hey, my Talent is Ancient Languages, lucky that!”

Again, using your narration power to force the kinds of rolls, or the people making the rolls, to the most favorable situation.

Planning for Disaster

So many people overlook the value of the official titles- CEO, Chief Technical Officer, and Chief Financial Officer- but when you realize the first (in theory) has authority and the latter two control actual resources (tools and technology and funds, respectively)

So, the way any business is successful is when people actually coordinate and get things running smoothly. Here, the game gives responsibility/power over through the titles, but doesn’t give you any actual procedures or policy to follow…

Which means the team is forced to negotiate policy on the fly. While being Stressed and maybe trying to save the world…

No wonder a lot of people’s Franchises tank…

Visualizing Characters

I’ve started doing something new- drawing a character before I do anything else- stats, name or even character concept.

You know how some writers talk about the characters “tell them” where the plot needs to go? I sketch characters and it becomes easy to see what kind of character they are- the personality, background, all of it starts to flow from the sketch.

This has come out of me putting together pregen characters for a 4E adventure over the last month or so. Part of it is the problem of POC focal settings- our mainstream media has left us short of such genres (and quick to rob us of the few we get), so it becomes a situation where you’re building up from scratch- pregens serve as archetypes for players to be able to understand what kind of characters work in this setting and also show off bits of the setting in the process.

I think it’s a process I’m going to stick with as a player, as it seems to work a lot better for me to get the creative juices flowing.