*Cross-posted from Story Games*
Yesterday evening Per, Malcolm, and I playtested my dystopian fiction game, The Hammer Falls. It went well, I received an absolute ton of useful feedback, and I wanted to talk about it here, with you lovely people. (Here we merely have a more UK-style of loveliness)
First, setting and characters.
We ended up rolling "Alien" and "Population-Based" for our types of dystopia. I immediately developed a sinking feeling, as Alien dystopias are some of my least-liked - and later Malcolm indicated he had a similar reaction. We continued on, however, answered the setting questionnaire, and developed a colony planet in deep space, colonized by inhabitants of a generation ship, travelling at sub-light speeds. This planet is ruled in a somewhat benevolent manner by a Theocracy that closely resembles Eastern Orthodox belief. At some point (I'm not sure that we settled on crop failure) the colonists discovered that the native sentient but uncommunicative alien race tasted excellent, and in desperation perhaps turned to hunting and eating them. Turn the clock forward hundreds of years, and the colony is an interestingly "rustic" (for want of a better word) society on the brink of disaster - another colony ship from homeworld is arriving soon, and brings with it the advances of centuries of technological innovation, plus outside ideas that people may fear. Also, colonists are beginning to experience strange behaviours from the aliens, now known as "The Folk", and changes in themselves as a result of ingesting The Folk for generations.
I'll just briefly sketch the characters before heading to bed, and will post more in the next couple of days.
Juniper (Malcolm)
Concept: Hunter of aliens for the Archimandrite's Table
Ideal: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité
Motivation: Destroy
Hopes: I hope the Archimandrite continues to look favourably upon me, I hope to keep my Faith, I hope I can learn more about the aliens
Bane: The alien religion (Pooka)
Sarnee (Pooka)
Concept: Human/Alien Chrysalid
Ideal: Belonging
Motivation: Escape
Hopes: I hope nobody finds out about what is happening to me, I hope to find true expression through Art, I hope to embrace my alien side
Bane: Eelo, her husband - a celebrated chef (Per)
Garlic (Per)
Concept: Alien prodigy
Ideal: Freedom
Motivation: Destroy
Hopes: Mobilise a people's revolt, Gain the trust of the non-people (humans), I hope the non-people's Faith shatters
Bane: His contact within the Theocracy, Arch-Metropolitan Wycke (Malcolm)
There were a number of great moments; I loved Sarnee's husband being a chef and forcing her to eat his newest dish, made from alien flesh (and herself slowly transforming into one of the aliens), especially when Malcolm uttered the line "You taste War."
Thank you Per and Malcolm for the insight and assistance with my game. :)
Hey!
Submitted by Gregor Hutton on Thu, 02/10/2008 - 11:46.
You gotta vocalise those sinking feelings when they come up!
I must say I thoroughly
Submitted by Malcolm Craig on Thu, 02/10/2008 - 22:19.
I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the session of play we had. There was lots of good stuff that came out of it in terms of colour, conflict and critique.
The way that the setting evolved into this archaic, benignly theocratic society that was in danger of being torn apart by internal and external forces was very satisfying. One thing I really love in games is the chance to create interesting colour, which this game allowed me to do in spades. In fact, I wonder if I was too enthusiastic about creating such colour and put too much into the game? Per, Pooka? Thoughts?
The mechanical elements were certainly interesting, there were certain ways you could game the system to achieve (or hope to achieve) a certain outcome in a conflict. There are parts that could do with greater clarity or instruction, for example the individual scenes, which could do with a brief line of description appended to each scene to give greater guidance on what the scene should contain.
Like Pooka, more thoughts as I formulate them.
Cheers
Malc
Contested Ground Studios
Well,
Submitted by Pooka on Sat, 04/10/2008 - 16:48.
I've had some thoughts about the system.
The system concentrates on the idea of "sides" - for example, if you have 12 sides for a conflict, you can roll a d12, or 3d4, or 2d6, or a d8 and d4. There are three axes of success: Highest Die, Lowest Die, and Highest Total on dice. Highest die wins scene framing rights for the following scene and gets +6 sides for the next conflict. Lowest die winds conflict resolution and narration for the current scene, and gains +6 sides for the next conflict. Highest Total damages the opponent's long-term resource, which can cause Protagonists to lose Hopes or their Ideal, or damages the Dystopia.
Unfortunately over the course of our game we noticed that the Highest Die and Highest Total line up in every conflict. Later in the game that is less likely, but it's still a problem. So I think I have a fix for that; Lowest and Highest die are removed from the calculations for Total. I'm also going to swap the effects, making Lowest Die the next scene Narration, and Highest the Conflict resolution, to put pressure (especially early in the game) on choosing between long-term success and conflict resolution.
Malcolm, I found your colour narration very engaging, and it really fleshed out the setting for me, I think. You certainly didn't put too much into it by my reckoning - but that's me, and I'm very fond of that sort of thing.
I like to think that the game allowed and encouraged brainstorming with regards to setting creation. The setting creation system is there to spark ideas, not constrain the players, and I felt the system succeeded admirably (as it has even in early playtest) so that was again encouraging.
While the system is still having kinks worked out, I had been looking for a way to implement a similar system (with sides to allow the player to choose dice) from the beginning of the design process, and I think it's definitely working now, although the rough edges need smoothed out.
I think the way narration leads to conflict can at times be confusing or difficult for players, although I don't know if you both felt that way. Likewise, people often forget the rules to allow NPC introduction. I'm trying to think of a manner by which I can remind players of the NPC rules without being too obtrusive.
Gregor: I agree! However I wanted to see if the setting creation system would hold up in that circumstance, and it does - because we didn't involve any of the elements about those Types of dystopia that we dislike, I imagine.
More to come...
-Pooka