Hi, Pooka. I'm not sure what's going on.

So the PC and GM roll against each other, and the other players can add dice to either side. You're worried about whether the players will overbalance one side or the other.

Have you looked at The Shadow of Yesterday's Gift Dice? Everyone at the table gets a pool of dice equal to the number of people a the table. They can add a dice as a gift to anyone else, for any reason. I've seen them given to make tasks harder, easier, for genre reasons, for humor, for danger. Great little system.

Gift dice don't entirely overshadow the pools that the player will be throwing, though. If every player takes one side, gift dice will make a difference. But conflicts are wild enough that players get involved on every 'side' - they're just as likely to back the GM up.

So in your game, it depends how the dice _work_ and how much of an effect the uninvolved players get. You could give them _more_ influence than the other two. That'd be interesting. Both the GM and player would have to argue their case.

You could also give the non-participants specific roles or functions with the game. One in charge of rating how a conflict went, one in charge of balancing conflicts. You could reward them for that job in various ways. Lots of possibilities.

I'd be happy to discuss any of this with you if we game Thursday. BUT, if you want to lay out some more stuff here, that would be useful. Try and break down the purpose of conflict in your game, and what sort of results you see. Then we could attack the middle.

It sounds neat, but we'll need more details to help, I think.

Firstly, what are you trying to achieve? What's the game about? What effect do you want the conflict resolution to have? It's very difficult to criticize a conflict resolution system in isolation: we need to know what it does in the game.

Specifically:

1. How are you making that success curve work, mechanically?

2. What resources are gained, then lost?

3. How does that big die roll work: the one in which the dice clasped in hands are used?

4. How do immediate and overarching conflicts work?

Of course, it's possible that those four questions are the ones you want answers to. If so, then I think we'd have to go back and ask what you want the conflict resolution system to do.

Graham

Thanks for the responses, guys. I was absurdly tired last night, but had been meaning to make that post for three or more days, and just decided to do it. Foolish, I know.

So, let's start again.

Tentatively titled "The Hammer Falls: A Game of Dystopia" this game is an attempt to design a game that emulates the narrative pattern and feel of Dystopian fiction.

The setting is designed collaboratively, and has a simple system for random setting creation if the players desire. Participants choose or randomly determine the "Type" of Dystopia (From ten basic Types) and Emphasis of the Dystopia (a Spotlight Emphasis where the game focuses more on a struggle against the Dystopia itself, or a Backdrop Emphasis where they struggle against personal demon that is reflected in the Dystopia.)

Players have two "characters" - their Protagonist and another protagonist's Bane. The Bane is an antagonist, but need not be an individual - particularly in Backdrop Emphasis games, the Bane is likely to be a personal demon or urge rather than an organization or individual.

Protagonists are composed of a Concept, Ideal (A resource that represents what they care about most of all), Hopes (Resources gained during the first half of gameplay), Motivation (Escape or Destruction, mandating colour), Relevance (The personal or social issue the Dystopia represents to the Protag, mandating theme), and Potential (A pacing mechanism and soccess resource which is where my problems tend to lie ATM. More on Potential shortly).

Banes are composed of a Concept (determined by their Protagonist), Elements (as Hopes for Protagonists), Relevance (for reference, from Protag), and Potential (as above)

Potential starts high for Bane, low for Protag. Originally this was Bane 6 Protag 2, but I may change that. Both players declare the Element or Hope they wish to gain in the scene. Players play out a scene, framed by the player with highest potential, and ending with a conflict. Potential turns into dice, highest potential is d6s and lowest depends on distance from highest (eg, first scene is 2d12 v 6d6) Dice added together determines Resource winner, highest single die determines narrator and conflict winner. Every scene, after conflict resolution, the Bane gives one Potential to the Protag (so, scene two conflict res rolls at 3d8 v 5d6, scene three at 4d6 v 4d6) When the scores are completely reversed (Bane 2 Protag 6) a scene called "The Turning Point" takes place. This is a free scene, where the Protag crosses a metaphorical Rubicon - it's expository, without conflict. Then the second half of the game begins. The difference in this scene is that the players target the elements/hopes of the other player for destruction. Otherwise this plays out much like the first half, except that players may risk their elements/hopes for more dice. The penultimate scene is where The Hammer Falls - something cataclysmic and irrevocable happens to the setting as a whole, and things can never be the same. This scene has no conflict, and may not even necessarily involve player characters. The final scene, a sort of epilogue, sees what happens to the characters. The outcomes are directly determined by the state of the player's Elements/Hopes and Ideals (For example, a Protag that risked and lost his Ideal will either see whatever stands for his ideal absolutely crushed, or be turned by agents of the Dystopia into a believing drone, etc. More than one lost hope means a ambivalent ending at best. Some of this needs clarification, obviously.

So that's KINDA what the game is like. It needs lots of work, but I think it seems a decent frame to work off of - however I have some misgivings about COnflict Resolution (less than last night - that post clarified some of my rules in my head) I still am not sure how the audience dice will manifest, and I really like the hands clasped no speaking angle, but have to work that out.

Graham, question #3 is the only one I don't think I addressed in that overview, but if it's still unclear, please let me know and I'll try to clarify. Same to Joe, and anyone else with questions.

-Pooka

I think it helps to know exactly what the game's about (which you probably do), then tailor the mechanics so they make the game about that.

We could dig slightly into Forge theory, if you like, and ask whether you want to:

• Create, explore and enjoy dystopian worlds. ("It's a completely grey city. It's raining as I emerge on the deserted street. Robots with spotlights search for curfew-breakers.")
• Tell human stories of dystopian fiction. ("As I reach the electric fence, I realise my dream of freedom is farther away than ever. I break down.")

Do you see what I mean? It helps if you find exactly what you want and focus on it. (I think you probably want the second).

Having chosen what you want your game to be about, ruthlessly revise and prune your mechanics until they're about that. For example, your idea of holding dice until you give them is cool, but does it actually contribute towards telling stories of dystopian fiction*? How? If not, throw it out.

Your conflict resolution system seems to do what you want to do: things start hard, get easier, then there's a turning point and they get hard again. That's what you want and that's what the mechanics do. Cool.

One worry, to me, is that the conflict resolution system seems disconnected from the rest of the game. OK, things get easier, and then harder again, cool. But how does that help tell stories of dystopian fiction*?

My first thought is that Relevance should be much more involved. You say that mandates theme, which seems right to me. It seems to be the centre of the game: you could frame scenes around Relevance and Ideals and have them enter into die rolls.

I mean, I don't know. I'm just throwing things out. But the game might become more focussed if you put something like Relevance, or Ideals, at the centre of the conflict resolution system.

Anyway, so to be clear, what is the game about? Oh, and how's it uninspiring?

Graham

* Or whatever you want the game to be about.

And could you mention some source material so we're on the same page?

You've got it right!

I feel like it adds to the mood and ties the mechanics somewhat to the setting. Whether or not that would wash in actual play is an entirely different question. I think that addition was my attempt to draw the conflict resolution into the setting somewhat, because as you pointed out, it's feeling disconnected from the setting. I'll look at this more closely, and brainstorm more mechanical integration.

I feel it's generally representative of the manner in which Dystopian stories are told - the protagonist struggles at first, because they are only beginning to awaken to their situational horror. When they become aware and rebel, they have power - the dystopia isn't used to / aware of the danger of independent people. Then eventually, the Dystopia exerts it's power over them again, potentially crushing them in the process.

Does this not seem to emulate accurately? If not, please unpack, I'd like to look closer at this as well.

This is astute. I'm not sure that it needs a mechanical effect, but if I find an elegant one after some thought, it's going in.

I may have trouble deciding which is more important. I don't want every Protag to turn into a Randian superhuman (which could happen with too much emphasis on Ideals).

I'm not sure. The mechanics aren't making me jump for joy - not yet, anyway.

Thanks for the help Graham, it's very appreciated.

Joe, do you mean which Dystopian Fiction? I have more than a few books and movies....

12 Monkeys
1984
Brave New World
The Handmaid's Tale
Parable of the Sower
Children of Men
THX-1138
V For Vendetta
The Man In The High Castle
Naked Lunch
Videodrome

...and I could go on!

Cheers, Pooka. You seem to have a good sense of the source fiction and what aspects of it you want to incorporate. And I'd not heard of 'The Parable of the Sower'.

The system all sounds solid enough. I can see where you might not be thrilled by it, sure, but it doesn't have to be thrilling. It seems to work, and it seems to do a lot of 'the heavy lifting' as Rich would say. I like that.

I do quite like the idea of players holding dice behind their backs. It's not specific to a piece of fiction. But I like how it's 'blind justice'. And the active player would feel isolated.

As Graham says, conflict resolution feels like it doesn't tie in to the scenes or progression of scenes. But like DRYH, you could have the Bane slowly adding obstacle dice to their hand, say. That rates tension. Then a breakpoint occurs.

Very cool. Do you risk relationships or outright spend them for extra dice? Can you gain extra relationships?

IMHO, you should get some of this down on paper and do some testing. Skip over the mechanics which don't exist yet and see if the stuff you have works, or nearly works. You seem to have enough of a skeletal system to test.

Now there's a title I wasn't expecting to see! I've always thought of Naked Lunch as more a drug-addled fantasy than a dystopian setting.

Ash

Terribly bad form I know, but have you glanced at 'Shock: Social Science Fiction' by Joshua Newman? In the game you have protagonists and antagonists, the antagonist has 'credits', an amount of dice which can be spent during the game, at the rate of 3 - 6 dice per scene (depending on how hard the antagonist is being). When you get to five or less dice, that means the next scene will be the last one for the protagonist.

Is this the kind of thing you were imagining with the 'pacing' concept? The manner in which the current allocation of dice is described had me scratching my head a little, would you be able to clarify?

Perhaps is could be the case that the protagonist always uses the same type of die (keeps things simpler on that side), while the bane gets to vary the dice, within certain constraints? For example, the protagonist always rolls D6s, but the bane has a pool of dice from D4 to D10. Or something.

And while we are amassing a solid list of dystopian sources, I thought I would throw down a few of those that immediately spring to mind when I hear the term (might be useful, might not):

Metropolis
Farenheit 451
Brazil
A Clockwork Orange
Swastika Night

Cheers
Malc

Contested Ground Studios

I know he has read Shock, because I played it with him at Nerdinburgh, and I'm guessing it is quite an influence on this game design :)

Pooka, I'm having trouble understanding the relative dice. You say

But I'm not grasping how that works, which is maybe what is making the whole thing seem dense to me. Why don't you just roll D6s equal to Potential and then pass dice?

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

Well, you should absolutely read it. It's also one of the pieces of fiction that are causing me some consternation. It's hard to categorize for my Dystopia Creation purposes, because it is more psuedo-apocalyptic, yet undoubtedly a Dystopia. Meh.

Really? Cool. There's a silver lining. :)

Yeah, a friend of mine got quite interested in the game, from a mechanical perspective, when I mentioned I might incorporate that. I think I'm just going to have to hammer it until it fits. I still can't work out at which point the bound audience may interact or become unbound. But I think it's worth persevering on.

In some sense I am trying to achieve that with the increasing Bane Potential in the second half. I can see the use in isolating that quality, the increasing tension, etc. but I feel like I might end up tell only half of a story. OTOH, I really think I could streamline or overhaul the way potential works in the pacing arena.

I swear, how fiddly!

Risk! A straight risk, in that it causes your dice to be the same as your opponent's dice, and at failure that Hope changes and eis mechanically worthless. So risking the Hope "I Hope I Can Protect My Family" could become "I Can't Protect My Family" when it's lost.

Expect to be recruited for this at some point, if you're willing. :) Gatting a group together to test that is aware of and interested in mechanics is quite difficult for me. :P

It falls into an interesting band of Surrealistic Dystopia, which in some ways diverges from standard Dystopia. Drug use is common to these Dystopias.

And then Malcolm and David!

Thanks for the other suggestion, Malcolm! Swastika Night is the only one there not on my list - is it Uchronian Fiction? I've not read much of those.

Well, here's the odd thing - a lot of this was designed before I had contact with Shock! I'm now well aware of the similarities, and that is hard for me - I really don't want to reinvent the wheel here. The only way that Shock had much of an influence on the design is that I realized the importance of audience buy-in.

Varying dice is something I'm toying with. Like the highest Potential rolls D6, but the other can choose as many dice up to their potential that equals the number of sides or something? So you could end up with 1d10 1d20 and 1d6 vs. 6d6? I can't quite put my finger on this...

David, I guess my problem with making it straight d6s is that that functionally precludes the Protagonist from success in the first scene unless they get a LOAD of audience dice (2d6 v. 6d6, right?) and also I like the idea that a player may have to sacrifice conflict success to retain their resources and "win" long-term.

So...

I think I might combine Relevance and Ideals, because on analysis they are in some sense the same thing for different characters. In a Spotlight setting the Ideals are of utmost importance, because they show why the Protagonist struggles. In a Backdrop, the Protagonist is struggling against something more personal, be it despair, or drug addiction, or whatever, and as such the Relevance - how the setting highlights their struggle - is more important. Maybe call it Significance, or Importance? Any thoughts?

Thanks so much, everyone, for the excellent help. I feel a bit more positive about this than I did when I started the thread, which is great! Keep it coming!

I see what you mean about the success, given the value of the high dice, but it looks like loads of dice types just for the sake of it. Couldn't you use just one dice type throughout and find a different mechanism to assign narration rights?

I can't help thinking the whole thing would seem more streamlined if you didn't have the extra step of judging relative levels, picking dice types and the like.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/