So, here's two things that worry or intrigue me about the Stitch central mechanic:
1. Failure's too arbitary. Failure in the final seconds could be down to whether the GM brings in your doubt or not.
2. Connected to 1, I think it needs some drama, some sparkle. At the moment, success or failure is all down to adding numbers. Some randomness would add drama (or, failing that, something like Polaris' "But Only If..." mechanic).
2. I wonder if you could combine it with the whole Inconsistency mechanic?
Here's what I'd do, off the top of my head.
a. The team gets one die for every event they resolve. (Right at the start, you get no dice, apart from the additions below).
b. Add one die for every belief or hope you bring in.
c. Other members of the team can contribute one die each if they help.
d. If the GM brings in your doubt, he removes the highest die.
e. To succeed, roll all the dice and total them. If you roll over the time on the clock, in minutes, you succeed. Otherwise, you fail.
f. If you ever roll over thirty, you've done enough to resolve the knot: time to eject.
So...what's going on here is...there's an incentive to solve events as quickly as possible. At the start, you've got no dice, so you need to get some to stand a chance of succeeding.
As time moves on, it gets harder, obviously.
To roll over 30, you need to be rolling about nine dice and being lucky. That means you've solved about six events, you've brought in your belief or doubt and someone's helping you out.
So...I don't know. There's bits about this I like and bits I don't. I like the randomness. I like that it's fast. I'm worried you could solve the whole thing early, just by using all your beliefs and doubts and the whole team helping out.
Note that, if you like the inconsistency rule, you could still have that. Just take out "f." in the rules above, use the inconsistency rule instead, and it still works.
And, really, I'd like to be using a countdown timer. That'd be cool. Then you'd roll under the time left on the timer. Perhaps you'd start with a pool of dice and reduce it gradually.
I don't know. Any of that spark ideas, Iain?
Graham
I know the system I have at
Submitted by Iain McAllister on Tue, 30/10/2007 - 21:35.
I know the system I have at the moment is arbitary, but random failure to me is no less frustrating. Also I need th resolution to be instantaneous almost, not just fast. Dice rolling and calculation would extend resolution time.
These are just my initial thoughts, let me think on it for a day or so and get back to you.
Cheers
Iain
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'The Giant Brain':Small games, big ideas.
Here's an idea. Instead of
Submitted by Destriarch on Wed, 31/10/2007 - 09:21.
Here's an idea. Instead of making the doubt a big stick for the GM to hit the players with, maybe you could engineer some method whereby the players could bring about their own failure at one task in order to give themselves a larger bonus on a task later on? That way, the GM doesn't have to keep track of doubts, because the players are introducing it, it doesn't feel arbitrary, and the players have another trick up their sleeves for when the clock is getting close to TMinus 0 and everything is a lot trickier than it ought to be.
Ash
I am still unsure, and will
Submitted by Iain McAllister on Wed, 31/10/2007 - 20:41.
I am still unsure, and will have to think more on it.
One thing I would say is that the GM is meant to be the resistance of the timeline to change. I may introduce some kind of resource that regulates the GM's ability to introduce obstacles but that could cause problems of its own.
Cheers
Iain
Mob Justice now available!
'The Giant Brain':Small games, big ideas.