...do the procedures of play and the rules encourage (or even enforce) the way to play that you want them to play?

Or is the tempo and style pretty much up to the GM and players to set themselves?

I don't see harm in doing both approaches actually. You have a section that says "look, this game is best played this way, it was written as if you play it this way and it is probably most fun if you do X, Y and Z". Doesn't have to be preachy, just practical advice. In conjunction you have examples next to the relevant rules saying "example ... blah" that show a good illustration (show don't tell -- don't tell me this is good, show me a good example and I can figure the rest out myself).

Does that help?

Thanks.

It's a touchy-feely new-man of a game so whilst it may encourage, it never enforces :)

Thought there is nothing wrong with enforcing a type of play through careful planning of mechanics. Some games would not work if some of their rules were too flexible or wishy-washy, I am thinking of dogs as a prime example.

Cheers

Iain

Mob Justice now available!

'The Giant Brain':Small games, big ideas.

A large part of my philosophy is that the storytelling should be heavily emphasised over the mechanics. When I run my own games, my starting point is usually 'why do I even need mechanics at all?'

A good example came yesterday whilst the players were coming up with their characters. One of the players selected a level of Invulnerability for his character that was roughly equivalent of the Thing and explained his character had this because he actually became a living metal. Further explanation revealed that when in this state, the character didn't need to eat, breathe or sleep.

The reaction of the other players was that the character was getting free powers, mine was 'this makes for some cool storytelling opportunities'. It was fairly straightforward to explain this to the other players and I think in one case, it changed how a player looked at the game.

I can't enforce this in a mechanic, I need to explain it. In this case it's pretty straightforward just to drop this into the section on buying and using powers. Some others don't fit so neatly into the book though. I'm also a little unsure as to whether I should have a sidebar in my own voice explaining this or if I should just include it in the text.

Marvel Comics happily got away with "Stan says..." comments in panels for the last 5 decades, so you should too. I think it's a nice tip of the hat to Mr Lee too.

"Redben says..."

If the game has a particular strong "philosophy" this needs to at least be introduced right at the very front. Then the reader knows what they're getting into and it'll frame what follows.

There's a particular issue with supers that it covers a wide spectrum of possible styles and approaches, and folks need to be on the same page about what kind of supers they're actually playing. They'll also look for clues in the writing and art, so for instance if you do light, humorous sidebars people will take that as a cue to how the game is "supposed" to be.

Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk

The hope (and certainly the intention) is that you can do any kind of supers with the book. Extensive sections are given over on to how to recreate the major styles. I've even gone as far as producing examples of some of the major styles to go in the book.

Because without them you are doing pure storytelling and I don't need your book to do that. I have no problem with storytelling being emphasised strongly in a game over messing about with fiddly mechanics, just be mindful that you can easily create mechanics that support and/or enforce the kind of story you want to be told. Mechanics and storytelling are not mutually exclusive and should in fact be the total opposite in an ideal situtation.

I think for a supers game you do need to be careful of people thinking that one player has an unfair advantage compared to everyone else. I have seen this a couple of times in more mechanically heavy game like 'Aberrant' where some powers are just more 'useful' in terms of the story being told. Might it be an idea, if you want to emphasise storytelling, to come up with the type of story you and the players want to be told first then fit the appropriate supers into the game.

I have been playing 'City of Heroes' a lot recently and one of the things I like about it is that the other people in my party fill in the gaps in my skills. I would be tempted to write your system such that each player has a hero who will get their time to shine during the story you are telling.

As for explanatory voices, this can be very useful and can work very well. Have a look at burning wheel some time, Luke uses different voices to great effect in rules explanation.

Cheers

Iain
Mob Justice now available!

'The Giant Brain':Small games, big ideas.

I own BW so I'm familiar with the technique.

I didn't mean that when I sat down to design my book, my starting point was why do I need mechanics. I meant when I sit down to run something, I start by think why do I need mechanics for this. I just wrote that to illustrate where I'm at as a gamer.

I was part of the playtest and I think it was one of the more thought provoking sessions I have had for a long while. The easiest way I can describe the gist of Ben's game is:

"Liberty Comics Presents... is not a game where the conventions of comics are fitting into the structure of a roleplaying game - it is a game where the conventions of roleplaying are adapted to the comic medium."

It's played by the rules of comics, not by the assumptions of RPGS.

I think that the issues hit upon in this thread were the two that came out of it for me and a lot of it is to do with delivery of the aims of the game.

The first - the communication of that philosophy and how that influences the gameplay - will, I think, need to be addressed in text and mechanics. Whilst I know Ben likes to play very loosey-goosey with his enforcement upon players, the process that we went through of negotiating the themes, conventions etc. of the comic could be codified into a checklist of some sort? (I have to admit that we were playing without seeing the document, so this could be there). The gist of the game is quite different from stuff I have seen before and it does need to be able to be bought into by someone other than comics obsessives like Ben and I.

The second - that of power balance and free powers - I think is more of a stickier subject in that the game has a rudimentary (and quite slick) points buy system linked to a power pool. The mechanics and the balance therein are really REALLY good, and not something that I would get rid of at all. However I think that the emphasis that Ben has given - that those cool little extras are great, give access to good storytelling and can be had with a good rationale - doesn't sit right with a points system. It does with something like Primetime, where you can have your Edge and define it.

(At this point I will contradict myself by saying to Ben, whilst I remember, that my idea about the Continuity Clause, would fit in perfect here - so if Dave chose that the Silver Archer would not have to breathe or eat, then with the Continuity Clause 'add-on' she could not take any benefit from any say, magic potions, orally prescribed drugs or pain-relief or indeed feel any pleasure from the touch of another person - which would balance out the so-called 'free powers' with some interesting story potential?)

Good stuff and I am looking forward to seeing where we go with it next week.

Neil

Because it comes with connotations and people get tied up in them. Think instead about how you will craft a process. Think about your process of creating a great story in game, and how you can make that process portable to others.

There are lots of games that have a process from the advice section and a process from the rules section, and the two interfere with or contradict with each other. This leads to problems in play as one player takes the advice as gospel, one player takes the rules as gospel and disharmony ensues.

You (hopefully) don't want your game to be a source of disharmony.

That's a great question to ask. And the answer will vary with what you are playing for. If you really do want to prioritise story, it leads you in the direction of asking "what is a story?", "what are the components of this kind of story?" and "whose story am I prioritising?", when you answer those questions you can judge if those mechanics are helping, or not.

One great bit of advice I can give, is when playtesting and you hit a point where you are tempted to fudge things, note it down. Note down why and what you would have done. Then after the game look at how you can tweak the process of play so as to encourage you in the direction you wanted to take.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

It wasn't but it will be now. This is very definitely something I took from the session.

The point system is intended to do two things. Roughly balance the characters and feed into the in-game point system. The discussion around Batman in his own comic book and Batman in the JLA is about as good an example I can think as to why the points system works this way.

This is a capital idea and something else I took from the session.

This is a fantastic summary of the game and something that may even wind up as a quote on the back of the book.

One of the things I appreciate most about Neil's contributions to my game is his ability to sum up my vague intentions.

Here's some art from the book -

Art

If I go on another forum and see that image again, I swear.......

Neil

You will, lots more. It'll be all you dream about.

That is a really nice idea of balancing powers against their story impact, especially if the story impact of bigger powers results in negative story effects. I would be careful how you put that kind of thing together though as I have seen systems with similar ideas, like hindrances in deadlands, were the negative aspect hardly ever cropped up.

The GM, if there is one, will need something to remind him to bring them into play, or advice on how to weave the story around them.

Cheers

Iain

Mob Justice now available!

'The Giant Brain':Small games, big ideas.

I think it should be incumbent on the GM to use everything on the player's character sheet. One of the players elected to spend a point on making their character an archeologist, if I never bring this into the game then it's a wasted point.

This is very true, but how are you going to facilitate this? If I am an archaeologist, what power do I have to get this fact into the story?

You could do it mechanically - Spirit of the Century uses compels, where either GM or players can tag their own aspects to bring them into the story, and gets a bonus for doing so.

Or you could to it narratively - beliefs in Burning Wheel (although these tie into xp too) are a key way to flag up what you think is important for your character, and the GM is strongly suggested to build adventures around this, but isn't necessarily mechanically compelled to do so.

Personally, I would ensure it becomes narratively relevant at times in the story. I'm not a fan of the mechanics compelling this type of thing.

Thing is, what you'll ensure and how you'll do it are a process you have built up over years of play. You do it without thinking. Hand your game to somebody without those experiences and it won't happen. Or at least, won't happen reliably enough to be a feature of the game.

So the question to ask yourself is: how do you go about ensuring it becomes relevant? And then embedding that in the game structure.

Again I'm avoiding using the word mechanics cos it's loaded and gets people thinking of "roll X to get Y at this point" and not "all players must take a dramatic opening scene" and other techniques that can be embedded at a structural level. The structure doesn't compel, but it can make it easy and intuitive for other people. The same way you find it easy and intuitive now.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

This is the kind of thing I would be very wary of. The reason I brought up my point was that I have seen to many games that take this point of view and then half the stuff never comes up or is forgotten about whatever. To make the GM responsible for remembering every tiny detail on a character sheet and setting up and running the game is a huge amount to put on his shoulders.

Andy and Matt's suggestions are good, just add a little mechanic that incentivises, i hate that term, the player to bring in their weaknesses. So maybe when the rest of the team are healed by some kind of magic gas, or whatever, the silver surfer person can bring in the fact it doesnt affect them for a bonus they can use later on.

Cheers

Iain
Mob Justice now available!

'The Giant Brain':Small games, big ideas.

There is already a mechanic in place that could handle that.