Third Life Thoughts - Fate of Skills

So Cam Banks was having a conversation on twitter about Fate and it hit a lot of points that I've been thinking about in regards to Fate, and in particular the Skills of Fate.

I personally think that Fate is a great game, I just also think that the definitions of the skills is probably the worst thing about it. Attack, Defend, Overcome an obstacle, Create an advantage seem perfectly fine but then you get into "well, this skill doesn't defend, or that skill doesn't attack" and it gets into a bit of a chart to remind you what can and can't be used in certain ways.

It's a big part of what makes the system go clunk for me. Attack and Defend are easily defined. Create an advantage makes sense too. Overcome an obstacle just seems to be the kind of "well, if it isn't one of those other three things then ..." use for skills.

When it comes time to Third Life, I want to change that up. The idea behind what I want to do is that the core of any skill is change. You want to create a type of change to the environment or situation. I was going to use to the word change, but something that Rob Donoghue said made me change that. It's all about the push, how are you pushing on the situation?

Right now the break down is here are your skills, or we may use FAE and go with aspects who knows, and how do you want to push.

Is it a Physical Push?
Is it a Social Push?
Is it an Emotional Push?

What is the result? Does it create a new aspect? Does it get rid of an aspect? Does it reveal something in the scene that was already there? Does it create stress?

The answer to that is, whatever works best.

Anyway, bare bones thoughts on my monster game.

Veronica Monsterhearts - Playtesting Notes

Well, got some Veronica Monsterhearts playtesting done. Little playtesting done, but the character creation stuff gave me some thoughts.

1. Need to make everything immediate to the players. You just don't make it up and go, you have to make the city and I have to come up with that. Everything that's coming up is heavily influenced by 5 Fires, but I really don't want to just cut and paste that. It needs to fit this game, and not that one. However, that's the city creation that I'm enamoured with so it's going to be there.

2. Need to look at the scenes and how to frame them. There was a bit of panic about setting scenes with little or no direction on how to start them. I kind of did that in Geasa but I think this might be something that needs a little bit more direction since it's using AW.

I was directed to look at Murderous Ghosts but I didn't enjoy it too much when I read it the first time, but I'm sure that there is something there but I really don't want to do that.

3. I think I'll have to revisit the casefiles again, mainly because they need to be cleaned up a little bit and try to think about how to incorporate scene setting moves into them. No clue how I'm going to do that but that's there.

I think those are the three things I need to look over again, and then give it another playtest.

Rent's Due v.2

With a lot of fanfare, and a huge thank you to Mikael, here is the beta version of Rent's Due.

I think it's a lot better, with a lot more interesting choices to be made as well as a better way to deal with Park Problems.

You can check it out here if you're so inclined. It's almost 10k words and I think it could use a lot of examples (another wonderful suggestion from Mikael) and options to choose from but that's list building. It doesn't actually have any impact on the mechanics.

Thoughts, comments are always appreciated.

Veronica Monsterhearts - Looking anew at the Basic Moves

Why am I doing this? Because I didn't really like what was there, it was more the first thing that came to mind rather than something actually useful. There was also something that someone said about the difference between something like Apocalypse World and Dungeon World is that DW is about the players dealing with their environment and AW is about the players dealing with the other players. I think this game needs to be somewhere in the middle, and I don't feel that I managed to get there. The original Basic Moves as written are here. Let's see if I can improve them.

Basic Moves

Sweep the Scene

Whenever you're looking for information about a situation, a scene, or a crime, ROLL+eyes. On a 10+ you pick up 3 Clues. On a 7-9, you get 2 Clues, but you get interrupted, discovered, or attacked. You must spend at least 1 clue to ask one of these questions:

-Who should I talk to next?

-What am I missing here?

-Where is the next place to go?

-Why should I care about this?

-When is something going to happen?

On a 6- you get 1 Clue that you can't spend on any of those questions, and something bad happens ... good luck. 

Okay, I changed up the questions because I thought this is a little better. There's a few more leading questions that give the player a direction to go in rather than just have them answer questions about the environment. It should be more "how do I move this story forward."

I also wanted to make sure that you could get at least one clue from this move so that's why it got a -6 section as well. 

Open Up

When you reveal something personal to someone else, ROLL+Soft. On a 10+ you can either remove 2 conditions, or 1 condition you have and 1 condition they have. On a 7+ you can remove 1 condition you have, or 1 condition they have.

Confession time, I'm adding another change to AW here. I'm not using Harm or anything resembling an HP stat. I don't want this to be about damage, I want this to be about problems. With that in mind, I'm going to give people 4 conditions in 3 "branches." You hit the 4th condition in anyone of those branches and you're taken out. I don't know what that means yet, but I like that better for this game than Harm.

Three branches? Physical, Emotional, Social. Because that's where a lot of the hurt in Veronica Mars is. I like this a lot more now because you can open up to share, or you can open up to be selfish and I think that's really in keeping more with how the show goes than say filling up a circle or ticking marks of HP. I think that the one way everyone has to recover is more through opening up to other people which makes them possibly vulnerable later on is great. Maybe do it with four of them so that there's one for each STAT, and if you get a stat taken to -2 then you're taken out? That way if you have a high HARD 

And Action

Whenever you act where there's any immediate danger, ROLL+Rash. On a 10+ you get to act with no consequences of the danger. On a 7-9, you get to act but choose one: you take a condition; you get a cliffhanger even if you have another move.

I like this one more than the previous And Action move. First of all it's a little more general, so that could be if there's a danger of getting caught, or a danger from another player. It provides you with the option to decide what happens if you get a 7-9, it immediately stops the scene or gives people damage in the way we're doing damage here. Is it too vague? I don't know, but I like it more because the immediate danger is less specific than "something physical."

Shut Someone Down

When you need to put someone in their place, ROLL+Hard. On a 10+ choose one: give them a Condition; they lose a String against you; if they held no Strings on you, gain a String on them. On a 7-9, choose one: you each give a Condition to one another; you each lose a String on one another.

I think this is something that belongs into the basic move section. I think shutting people down is something that should be tied to hard more than anything else so I think keeping it here is worth while. The others I think should be more open, and then I think we need to have the "Putting Clues together" move that I need to add.

Adaptable Moves

I'm going to keep Adaptable Moves for now because I still like the idea, I think it's workable, and I don't have something to replace it just yet. If I do, then we'll talk about it then, but right now let's keep this as is.

Pick which STAT will apply to each move. You must apply each STAT only once.

Manipulate an NPC

When you want to get NPC to do what you want them to, ROLL+. On a 10+ they'll do what you want depending on how you manipulate them except confess to a crime without evidence. On a 7-9, the MC will tell you what it'll take to get the NPC to do what you want. Do it and they will.

This is straight out of Monsterhearts with a little modification. I don't want people to manipulate the suspects with just a single move, so I modified it to make suspects a little harder to manipulate. You still need to be able to manipulate them to get them arrested, because solving the crime is 3/4 of the job ... the other 1/4 is getting them into the hands of the "authorities" with a smug sense of satisfaction.

Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!

When you want to hurt someone physically, emotionally, or socially, ROLL+. On a 10+ choose one: you give them 2 conditions,  you give them 1 condition and take a string on them or get a clue from them. On a 7-9 you give them a condition, but choose 1: They gain 1 String on you; They get a Clue from the exchange; They deal give 1 Condition to you.

Back to the conditions instead of Harm. I also like the fact that you can trade clues this way too. I think it's good that it doesn't generate new clues, but it still can move the clues around the table. I want to just leave it as hurt someone, but I think part of me feels that I should include physically, emotionally, or socially because that way there's less ambiguity. 

Hold OnWhenever you need to withstand something, ROLL+. On a 10+ you withstand whatever you needed to, and managed to get a clue, and a string on whoever was working against you. On a 7-9, you withstand whatever you needed to, but managed to get a clue or a string on whoever was working against you.

I like the results of this move a little bit more than it was before. Instead of being another avenue for conditions, it gives you the ability to get more clues and more strings by taking people's best shot and taking it. It's a little reminiscent of how you get more dice in Technoir when you take risks and damage. 

Put it All Together

Whenever you want to use a clue to help solve a mystery, ROLL+. On a 10+ you get to place two clues on a suspect. On a 7-9 you get to place a clue, and the player with the least clues get to place your second clue on a different suspect. On a 6- the player with the least clues places your clue on a suspect.

And this is the final one. I like that it's on the changeable scale, so you can be good at putting clues together even if you aren't good at getting them. I think this solves some other problems I had with how do you solve the mystery.

Veronica Monsterhearts - GM Less play

I think this is the next thing I need to talk about, because it's one of the big thoughts about this game on how I want to take AW and make it GMless. I mean, Murderous Ghosts kind of does that, but not really. It's very much a two person game, and it's got its on way to do things. I ended up writing down notes, because I think better with a pen in my hand than a keyboard in front of me, and here are some thoughts I have about GM less play and what that means for Veronica Monsterhearts.

1. Each person takes their turn as the Investigator. As the Investigator its your job to set the scene, describe who is there, and figure out what's going on. You have free reign to put NPCs in the scene, but you should probably ask if someone wants to have their PC there.

Side thought: Should there be a reward for being in a scene? One per episode mystery you gain 1 XP or 1 Clue for showing up. You can get each reward once and then after that you're there if it makes sense? Do I want to rely on "good playing" to get people involved, or do I want something mechanical to get them there.

2. Once the scene is set you can improvise as much as you want. If you want to have long discussions, and huge acting scenes because that's what you love then go for it. If you want to just describe things, have fun with that. Play it the way you have more fun in. However, in the scene you get to use two moves. Originally I had it written down as you get to do one basic move and one Casefile move but that might just be a little too limiting. I think that will have to be a test thing to see how that works.

When you're done, you resolve the scene by creating a cliffhanger. This can be a soft or hard move, depending on how well you did with you move, that you decide upon. You won't be able to resolve it, but it sets yourself up for your next turn as investigator. When you're done with your cliffhanger you pass that investigator hat onto the next person. Think of this as cutting

Who is that next person? You decide, you pick who goes next and because this is Marvel Initiative, everyone gets a turn at the investigator hat before it goes around again.

Note on not mentioning the move thing you see in all *World games.
I get the idea behind it, it's just reinforcing the idea that you want to sell the reaction and the fiction rather than say "You're now split up" but even AW breaks that rule when you tell them how much harm they're taking. The stronger phrase, and the one that I think the focus should completely be on, is tie the moves to the fiction. Also, because this game is GMless you're all taking part as the GM which means that you'll all get to use/see those moves anyway.

3. Dealing with Cliffhangers
You can deal with a Cliffhanger as the next scene, or even the next scene with another player in them. Basically player X gets his two moves, and creates a cliffhanger that now Player Y deals with because she was there at the same scene. Or when you get back to your turn you can deal with it.  There was also a though on how you could deal with a cliffhanger if you wanted to set your next scene elsewhere, you could handle it like a flashback but at the cost of a clue or something. Not sure how to do that, but I do like that whole kind of Leverage feel to it (it might be because I'm currently watching a lot of Leverage).

It's a little bit of everything really, a little bit of Geasa for GMlessness, but with a lot more control on the part of the person being the Investigator. A little bit of M:HR when it comes to the initiative because it's the best way to handle initiative I have seen, ever.

One thought could be to try to Fiasco it up a bit, where you either get to set the scene or choose the cliffhanger. That might be something to incorporate into the game. Still thinking about a lot of things really.

Veronica Monsterhearts - Get A Clue

I think I need to talk about how this whole Clue/String thing works, the difference between the two and how it affect GMless play for Veronica Monsterhearts.

1. Strings stay the way that they are

Strings are perhaps one of the best things mechanically about Monsterhearts is the concept of strings. Here are some nebulous things that get held over each other's head. You know where they come from, because they come out in the play, but mechanically it's just something one player has on another, or on an NPC.

They get used to push players to do things, either by making it harder to affect someone who has strings on them, but also to get someone to do something that you want. It's great because you can play up the roleplaying aspect if you want to, and talk about where the string came from and how it interacts with the story, or not. If you aren't someone who is big on improvisational roleplay then you can just talk about what happened and move on. Either way, it's great so I don't want to change anything there.

2. Clues are used for the mystery

Part of what makes a mystery fun, is watching the mystery unfold. Usually that requires someone having some outside knowledge of the whole caper, and the ability to not try to get the people playing the game stuck. That's a big problem in any RPG really, when you have the players who have to uncover something be unable to because they didn't get a particular thing, or talk to a particular person. These chokepoints cause a lot of problems.

This is where Clues come into play. Clues, like their counterpart Strings, are a neutral mechanic that discovers a character's ability to control the mystery. They can take the place of the GM as the players shape what's going on by what they find out. When a player uses a Clue to solve the mystery, then they're the ones who are figuring out who did it as they go along. As long as there's a steady stream of clues, then the action will continue to move forward.

The question becomes how do you spend them? Right now you can just spend them. Here are some thoughts on how you can spend them.

A. You can spend one of them when you're the investigator (person who is being the GM).

That way it limits the amount of clues you can spend so you can't overwhelm a story and have a super twist that comes out of no where. Not that those aren't fun, but if you get a bunch of people who hoard them and spend them all at once then there's less of a teasing out and more of a RUSH TO COMPLETE THE MISSION, which throws me for a loop.

That means as the investigator you can spend a clue on the mystery of the day, your personal mystery, and the season mystery. Depending on the amount of clues you have and the amount of times the investigation goes around the table you can go far on any individual.

B. You have to spend them as you get them, which means when you're investigating you have to say what you're going to spend them on before you get them. That will probably mean tweaking the moves a bit, but I like that because I'm not feeling to happy with the Hard Boiled.

C. You have to make a move to spend them. I like this because it has me thinking that there are too many basic moves in the game and that if I take out some of them there is room for a "Spending Clue Move."

Now to keep things going, you will always get to spend clues, the trick is how many or what control do you have over those clues? That's going to be the question of the move.

Ultimately when spending a clue, you need to explain how it ties that one suspect to the crime. That's something you can talk about as a group and figure it out, but the person spending the clue has the final say.

Another thought: It costs more to spend clues in order to get them moving on your personal mystery, over the daily mystery, over the season mystery. That way if you're going to spend an episode on the season mystery you can do that while others figure out the episode mystery.

3. Clues allow for tension and are the timer

Because there isn't a GM, and the players have to have a point in time that tells you that the mystery is done. They should be different for each, the episode mystery should be shorter than the personal mystery which should be should shorter than the season mystery.

As a starting line the idea would be to have 5 clues applies to a suspect to have them be the culprit of the episode mystery, 8 clues for a personal mystery and 10 clues for the season mystery. The closer you get to an ending, the more tension there's going to be if everyone has a reason for picking a different suspect.

Which brings me to the point where there needs to be a different incentive in order to make people want to pick different suspects, or even change who the suspects are. There also needs to be a point where it's too much and the criminal gets away, or someone gets caught who is innocent. I don't quite know how to do that yet, but it's in the thought process.

Veronica Monsterhearts - The Hard Boiled

Goal

What am I trying to do here? I think the Hard Boiled should have a lot to do with clues and strings. There should be a lot of flexibility with how the Hard Boiled uses them, and ways other than the regular way for the Hard Boiled to get more clues faster. They are the gum-shoe, so they should be the one dealing with the bulk of the investigating. 

One of the things that happens when you have half your basic moves be associated with what the player thinks they should be associated with is that you end up removing one of the easier Casefile moves you get which is Instead of Stat X for this move, you get to use Stat Y. This may make me want to rethink using a modular system for half of the moves that everyone can access. Or not, because then that kind of gives players the freedom to do what they want.

Anyway, on to the Casefiles!

STATS - Choose One

EYES: +1, RASH: 0, HARD: +1, SOFT: 0

or
EYES: +1, RASH: -1, HARD: +2, SOFT: 0
or
EYES: +2, RASH: 0, HARD: +1, SOFT: -1

Other thought here, we might just give people a stat line. Something that they use like in Dungeon World where you pick an array so something like and make it across the board.
+1, 0, +1, 0 or +1, -1, +2, 0

MOVES - Choose Two

Tequila Shots ... Never Again
If you need to talk your way into a place you shouldn't be, ROLL+Eyes. On a 10+ you get into the location, and pick up 1 Clue on the way in. On a 7-9, you get into the location but you raise suspicion, choose one: You don't get full access, you get interrupted, or trouble shows up.

I Know Who You Did Last Summer
If you want to make a character talk to you, ROLL+Hard. On a 10+ they stop what they're doing and talk to you, and have information that is helpful so you gain a Clue. On a 7-9, they can ignore you unless you spend a string on them. Then they mark XP and you talk to them.

It was the Butler's son ...
If there you want to solve a mystery and there are three or more clues in a episode mystery, five or more clues in a personal mystery, or eight or more clues in a season mystery, ROLL+Eyes. On a 10+ you figure out who did it, you just now need to bring them to justice. On a 7-9, you can add a clue to whoever you think did it, but you expose yourself to danger. 6-, you add a new suspect, and give them that clue and a clue from the suspect you thought committed the crime as well as expose yourself to danger.

3rd Degree
If you interrogate someone to get information, ROLL+Hard. On a 10+ you get some information, get 2 clues. On a 7-9 you get some information, you get 1 clue, but you also expose yourself to danger.

Get Mad, Get Even
You can use the Manipulate an NPC with Hard. If you've already chosen Hard for that move then you get +1 forward to all your rolls using that move.

You're a Marshmallow
Whenever you take on a case for someone else, you can either gain a string on them or gain 1XP.

Putting It All Together
When you would use a move that gets you a clue, you gain an extra clue.


Let's Make a Deal
You may spend clues as if they were strings.

RELATIONSHIPS

You've got dirt on everyone, take a string on everyone.

Someone used to be your friend, they now go out of their way to harrass you. They take a string on you.

You've spent extra time investigating a person, gain an extra string on them.

SEX MOVE

You've decided that this is someone you can open yourself up to, it's a touching moment and you both lose a string on each other. That doesn't mean that you aren't going to take this opportunity to do some sleuthing, so gain a clue that you can immediately apply if the person you had sex with is a suspect.

PERSONAL MYSTERY

A family member abandoned you out of the blue?
1XP - When you discover out where they are.
2XP - When you discover out why they left.
3XP - When you convince them to come back.

Are you related to one of the wealthiest families in town?
1XP - When you discover which family you might be related to.
2XP - When you uncover which of your parents had the affair.
3XP - When you find out, one way or the other, if you are related to this other family or not.

RESPONSIBILITY

You are primarily responsible for the Victim. Your secondary responsibility are the Suspects.

ADVANCEMENT

Gain +1 EYES (Max +3)

Gain +1 RASH (Max +3)

Gain +1 HARD (Max +3)

Gain +1 SOFT (Max +3)

Gain a Hard Boiled Move

Gain a Hard Boiled Move

Gain a Hard Boiled Move

Gain a move from Another Casefile

Gain a move from Another Casefile

Veronica Monsterhearts - The CaseFiles

Since this is going to be a *World game, it's gonna need those playbooks (or as we're going to call them Casefiles) and so that's something I think that I should be thinking about at least.

Let's see if we can find analogues for the characters in Veronica Mars that were reoccurring or talking enough in the show that they probably deserved some kind of look

Veronica Mars
Wallace Fennel
Logan Echolls
Duncan Kane
Eli "Weevil" Navarro
Cindi "Mac" Mackenzie
Dick Casablancas
Cassidy "Beaver" Casablancas
Madison Sinclair
Meg Manning

Discussion on this list is a good thing, because this is still just talk. Do you think there are characters that need to be included?

Now let's turn them into Casefiles.

Veronica Mars - The Hardboiled
Wallace Fennel - The Bestfriend
Logan Echolls - The Bad Boy (I want to keep it gender neutral in the file, but that's kind of what we'd call it, no? Thoughts?)
Duncan Kane - The Socialite
Eli "Weevil" Navarro - The Gang Leader
Cindi "Mac" Mackenzie - The Tech Geek
Dick Casablancas - The Ne'er Do Well
Cassidy "Beaver" Casablancas - The Schemer
Madison Sinclair - The ... (This is one I'm stuck with. I don't want to use the word Bitch because of the really bad gendered association with it, but Rich Bitch was the only thing that came to mind)
Meg Manning - The Innocent

What do they do? Who knows! Right now those are the general names and kind of direction I'd like to go with them.

Veronica Monsterhearts - We don't need no stinkin' MC

I've ditched the previously generated tag because that should be for stuff that's already created that I'm doing things for. Modules, adventure hooks, ideas, whatever. This is starting to become a thing so it's probably going to get it's own label and header because why not. It's something that's on my mind.

I commented earlier today that I'm wondering why does AW need an MC? Not to say that it shouldn't, or couldn't since that's what is has, but does any sort of *World game need one. I've had some thoughts about this game, and that it might not need an MC because the players are going to give themselves hard moves for fun, profit, clues and experience.

This all ties into the idea of the mystery, and not necessarily knowing the full details of the mystery when you play. Just the what happened to cause the mystery. Now usually the MC is the one who knows all the details of what happened and lays out the mystery, but do you even need that? Can you build towards a mystery without having some outside force guide it?

I'm thinking about that when I was reading the Gumshoe SRD:

Assuming that they look in the right place and apply appropriate abilities to the task, GUMSHOE ensures that the heroes get the basic clues they need to move through the story. The question it asks is:

What will the heroes do with the information once they’ve got it?

If you think about it, this is how the source materials we base our mystery scenarios on handle clues. You don’t see the forensic techies on CSI failing to successfully use their lab equipment, or Sherlock Holmes stymied and unable to move forward because he blew his Zoology roll.

You don’t see this because, in a story failure to gain information is rarely more interesting than getting it. New information opens up new narrative possibilities, new choices and actions for the characters. Failure to get information is a null result that takes you nowhere.

In a fictional procedural, whether it’s a mystery novel or an episode of a cop show, the emphasis isn’t on finding the clues in the first place. When it really matters, you may get a paragraph telling you how difficult the search was, or a montage of a CSI team tossing an apartment. But the action really starts after the clues are gathered.

That's why I wanted to talk about clues. The idea is that I don't think we want to limit clues at all, we want to make sure that they're plentiful enough that there's sense at the end that the players have uncovered the mystery. The trick is that no one knows exactly what the mystery is until you've finished it.  You've seen clues showing up in moves, and I think that they need to be worked at a little bit more to make it more cohesive as an idea, but with clues you actually get to point the action toward a certain goal.

What are those goals? Well, if we look at the structure of Veronica Mars, one of the things that I enjoyed was that there was the episode mystery and then there was the season mystery. You had the mystery of who killed Lilly Kane that took place over the entire Season, there were personal mysteries and then the mystery due jour which was the focus of the episode. I think that's the kind of feeling we'll need to have in order to have the game go right.

How do we do that? Well, each file (because let's be thematic and call playbooks files) should have it's own Season Long Mystery, let's call them personal mysteries. The idea really comes from the Milestones in Marvel: Heroic Roleplaying, but instead of choosing what direction you want the character to go you're going to talk about your personal mystery, the thing that drives you. There's also going to be a Season mystery and the episode mysteries but those are things that you're going to build as a group.

To use Veronica Mars as an example you have the Season mystery that affected a large group of people, which was who killed Lilly Kane. Then you had the personal mysteries, Veronica and her mother ... Logan and her mother ... Mac and her family ... there were a lot of family mysteries in Veronica Mars but they were all to the individual and carried over for a bunch of episodes. Then there was the mystery of the day which depended on the episode.

The idea is that there needs to be a way to figure out those various mysteries and "clue tokens" are the path to it, at least right now. This may change depending on the casefiles (changing the name again from file to casefile because that's even better) and how they interact with each other and the clues. The hope is that you can piece together what happened and what the resolution of the case is by letting the players use the tokens to create the connections that will make up the mystery (kind of like the plot map in Technoir, but really only in basic idea).

---

Thoughts about anything before or what's going on now? Again this is all vague, but it's what's percolating in my head at the moment.

Previously Generated - Veronica Monsterhearts - Stats and Basic Moves

I'm sitting here and have other stuff to write, so clearly that means I feel like I should write more about Veronica Monsterhearts.

For the little bit of work I've done on doing anything AW-ish, the most important part for me to start are the stats and basic moves. Because everyone has access to these two things, they inform the basic feel for the whole game. If you want a game about investigating, you shouldn't have three basic moves that deal harm. With that in mind, here are the basic moves that are working their way around in my head for this game.

Stats

EYES: How good you are at being aware of what's going on.

RASH: How good you are at getting things done when they need to, damn the consequences.

HARD: How good you are are doing what needs to get done, regardless of the personal cost.

SOFT: How good you are at being emotional and vulnerable, because damn it you just need a moment.

I chose these four moves because I feel that part of the action in Veronica Mars. 

Eyes are for your ability to notice things, and be aware of your surroundings. This is part of being a detective, and some people are better at the smaller details than others.

Rash because there are many moments in the show when the characters do things without thinking about it. It's kind of the teenagerness of the show, but it's also because of how driven they are. Veronica does stuff for clues that is just as Rash as Logan does when he's upset.

Hard because Hard Boiled. There's a scene in the show that I love where Lamb is talking about how Logan was arrested to Keith Mars and Lamb comments on how Hard Boiled Veronica is. That's why I think that Hard is a good stat.

Soft well ... that Veronica ... she's a Marshmallow. I do think having an ability to be vulnerable is something that helps the game from becoming too much of a HARD DETECTIVE GRITTY game. It's still about their relationships and not just about figuring out the mystery.

Why not an intelligence stat of some kind?

Well, the thing is that I had CLEVER up there as a stat for a while and then I changed it for EYES because part of me didn't want anyone to put a -1 in CLEVER because one of the things that made Veronica Mars so much fun to watch was that all the characters were clever, they wasn't that comic relief foolish character that comes into play. So, they can be less perceptive, but still clever this way ... however, I'm still debating that.

Basic Moves

Sweep the Scene

Whenever you're looking for information about a situation, or a scene, ROLL+CLEVER. On a 10+ 

you pick up 3 Clues. You can spend a clue to ask a question. On a 7-9, you get 1 Clue, but you get interrupted, discovered, or attacked. You can spend a clue to ask a question.

-Who should I look out for?

-What am I missing here?

-When did this take place?

-Where is the best way out?

-Why is this happening?

And Action

Whenever you do something that requires a lot of physical exertion, ROLL+RASH. On a 10+ you do that physical thing you wanted to do. On a 7-9, you slip, hesitate, pause or land in a different kind of danger.

Hold On

When you need to resist something physical, or emotional, ROLL+HARD. On a 10+ you resist and gain a string on that person. On a 7-9 choose one: you get hurt but don't show it and take a string on them, you don't get hurt but your resistance doesn't impress anyone.

Open Up

When you reveal something personal to someone else, ROLL+SOFT. On a 10+ you can remove a condition and 1 harm, or 2 conditions or 2 harm. On a 7-9, you can remove 1 condition, or 1 harm but the person you revealed to gets a string on you.

Adaptable Moves

I was thinking about having some sort of adaptability when it comes to using AW. Basically, you get to assign one of the four stats to the following Moves. This will flavour heavily how you use that move. For instance, if you Chat Someone Up with SOFT then you're more likely going to get information from them by sweet talking and being honest with them. If you Chat Someone Up with RASH you're going to threaten and beat people up to get them to talk. 

Shut Someone Down

When you need to put someone in their place, ROLL+. On a 10+ choose one: give them a Condition; they lose a String against you; if they held no Strings on you, gain a String on them. On a 7-9, choose one: you each give a Condition to one another; you each lose a String on one another.

Manipulate an NPC

When you want to get an NPC to do what you want them to, ROLL+. On a 10+ they'll do what you want depending on how you manipulate them. On a 7-9, the MC will tell you what it'll take to get the NPC to do what you want. Do it and they will.

Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!

When you want to hurt someone physically, or emotionally, ROLL+. On a 10+ choose one: the harm is great (add 1); you gain 1 String on them; they need to Hold On before they can Fight back this scene. On a 7-9 you harm them but choose 1: They gain 1 String on you; They get a Clue from the exchange; They deal 1 Harm to you.

Get the Money Shot

Whenever you investigate a situation, looking for clues, ROLL+. On a 10+ you get 3 clues and they help you further your case. You can decide to split them among the current mystery, or your mystery. On a 7-9, you get 2 clues, but others can spend strings to give you extra clues that target another player. On a 6, you get 1 Clue, but the MC is going to take this opportunity to make a hard move. Good luck.

--

What do you folks think? Any suggestions about different stats, different moves? There's a bunch of Monstershearts still here, because that somewhat what this is based off of. I also know I cheated and added Clues that you can spend I have some thoughts about how to use them in the story to create your mystery but it's very vague. I just think we needed something other than Strings to keep track of that.

Previously Generated: Fiasco - Sudden Death

This is something that Clark and Amanda Valentine and I talked about last Origins, I think. It might have been the one before that.

At any rate, I finally got off my behind and "finished" (that term is used very loosely) Sudden Death, the Fiasco Playset where you play a hockey team about to come unglued in game seven of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

I like some of the rule modifications to make it fit a hockey game, and I enjoy the scoring mechanic so you can see how well or poorly you're doing as the game progresses. I'm sure there are better elements, and tonnes of mistakes, so if you have suggestions, ideas or anything just post them here. When I have enough of them I'll probably make the changes to the document and then we can get a better playset!

Download Sudden Death

Let's talk about - Making Pregens for you Convention Game

This is something that's kind have been buzzing around my head since Origins.  It was a whole bunch of things, but basically it led to this kind of thought.

How do you split your genders when it comes to making pregens for your con game/adventure module?

If you'll notice, when we did Critical!: Go Westerly, which is available for the low price of five bucks, Geoff made sure that there were 4 women and 4 men.  Ultimate we ended with 5 women and 4 men, because of a quick of licensing that didn't pan out we had already created one character and included her anyway because her origin story is pretty funny, which ... kind is an anomaly when it comes to pre-generated characters.  I just went through some of the "free" stuff that was nominated for an Ennie and saw that when they had a chance to do a 50/50 split the adventure modules ... didn't do it at all.  There was usually just one woman character and the rest were all dudes.

This leads me back to Origins where there was a game that Geoff was running.  He was running the introduction campaign with a table of 8, which is the maximum that the game will go.  That means that there were 4 characters that were men and 4 characters that were women.  One of the players noticed this, and the first thing out of this mouth was, "Why are there so many women characters?"

Geoff replied, "Well, half of the population is made up of women.  So, half of the population of the characters are women too.  It only makes sense."

To which the player scoffed, "Not in gaming it isn't."

Which is of course, patently bullshit.  You didn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to notice that there were a wide variety of people, all of whom where there for gaming in some form or another.

We talked about it later at Big Bar on 2 with Amanda Valentine, who played in the intro game the day before this all happened, and she commented that she had instinctively picked up one of the female characters, and then a second one and stood there contemplating her options before she realized that there were two other characters she could pick from.  I believe, and she can correct me if I'm wrong here, she said that "One is usually all I get, two female characters is usually decadent."

Having two options is considered to be decadent.  Think about that statement for a moment, and then realize the fundamental absurdity of it.  I know if I have a stack of pregens put in front of me, I'm probably going to have more than two choices.

I leave this to you know, fellow game designer people.  If you're going to make a set of pregens for a game, a sourcebook, a campaign, or whatever.  Let's at least try to start making sure that we provide some equality here.  It's not that hard really, just make your characters and then sit back and look at them and count how many of each gender you have.  If it's not a 50/50 split then you should probably fix that.

Just saying.

Geasa - always learning stuff

You can never really know your own game well enough not to learn something about it. I ran Geasa for some friends tonight and got a pretty good wake up call on what not to do. I am now going to share this sage advise with you. This is in the hopes that you avoid this mistake.

When someone provides you with the opportunity to interact with their character, that is an opportunity you should take and introduce them to the story.  Flat out, right thing to do.  Starting to deal with a drug deal, and someone talks to you ... then you should probably make them part of the deal, even if they're ultimately going to be the ones taking you down.  Someone feels like their waiter needs to be talking to your character at your table, then let it happen and draw them into the story.  If you're too rigid with what you expect your character to do then you're going to either end up not having a lot to do, or you're going to end up isolating someone else.

Lesson learned, when someone says, "My character sees your character" that's when you walk over to say hello.

AIR - v0.4 - Playtest Document

It's that seasons again folks, that's right it's playtest season.  A time where game designers, and even large companies, get in on the fact that someone, somewhere might be interested in seeing a game before it's out.

Let me introduce you to AIR, my ghost stories in space game.  You all play Victims who wake up to find that that something has happened to the station you're in, there is only the oxygen that's left in the air and the little you have on you.  You want to escape but there's a malevolent force trying to stop you, can you survive to the escape pod?

If you want to check out the Playtest Document, you can find it here.

Feedback is appreciated, either at the email address in the document, or here on the blog post.  Let me know what works, what doesn't work and what you think would make the game better!

Design Thoughts - Worst Enemy and Templates

How do people feel about templates? I guess it depends on how we define templates because that's kind of a wide ranging word. The most obvious answer are things like classes, because that's probably the most encompassing example of a template

I kinda hate classes though. They're extremely confining, in a YOU MUST ALL BE LIKE THIS, kind of way. I know there are ways around it, but if your reaction to a class is to try to find a way to circumvent it, maybe the best thing to do is do away with them all together.

However, maybe a template is less like a class and more like a race. Think of the race you are in Bulldogs and it gives you a some typical Aspects of each race. You don't have to pick them all, in fact you're encouraged to pick a couple out of all of them. It makes sense that you should have somethings in common with others of your kind, I just don't want it to have it be the be all and end all.

Right now I'm leaning towards that kind of idea. Where you have some traits in common, and some things that make you, you that are stricktly something that's your characters.

I was also thinking that as you play you should uncover your personal history, since a lot of these types of characters are immortal, or Damn near close to it. Atrocities committed, enemies made. Sure it's kind of like a plot path but why not? I mean these are old being, I think they should have a bit of that world weariness to them. Maybe this change is how they're trying to break free?

Thoughts?

Signal Boost!: Curse the Darkness - Playtest Stuff!

Okay, I don't know if you've been following Matthew MacFarland's Curse the Darkness? It looks like a lot of fun, and it touches on post-apoc stuff which is very firmly in the category of games I enjoy playing.

What I'm doing is letting everyone know that he's got a playtest booklet out that you can download from his website. It looks great and I'll let people know what it's like after I've read it more and played it.

I gots Interviewed! - RPGamer.com

One of the fun things that happened was an interview with Scott Wachter at Fan Expo 2011. We talk about the pun that is my company name, CyberGeneration, Geasa and Critical!: Go Westerly and some future projects!

You can listen to it here!

[Need Catchy Contest Name] - Brrr! It's Cold Sports!

There seems to be a large amount of contests that are going about the place. You've got Game Chef which should be starting up in a couple of months. You've got the Ronnies, which I still think is one of the most masturbatory titles in all of game publishing, which happen ... well whenever it seems. The key thing is that they get the creativity flowing and some really cool things happen from them. Heck, someone hijacked my almost empty lets tell a story thread to tell me that Fall of Granada was going to be turned into a real live book.

All this is cool.

However, what I see that is lacking is a sense of diversity. They all try to kind of do the same thing, here are some keywords and some stuff and here's your time frame and then we'll see what comes up. This is good, again there are plenty of cool games that come out of this. What I'm going to do is start my own contest, in honor of The New Toy selling The Licensed NHL Hockey Guys from Kaskey Kids. Let's see if someone can come up with a game, and I'm not going to limit it to RPGs, but a game that can take a sport and turn it into an RPG, Boardgame or Card game? That's right, I'm going that route. AMAZING.

Now, for the limitations. Because limits are what make things challenging.

1. It has to be a winter sport. By that I mean something that would get played at the Winter Olympics. Here is a handy, dandy list:

1. Alpine skiing
2. Biathlon
3. Bobsleigh
4. Cross-country skiing
5. Curling
6. Figure skating
7. Freestyle skiing
8. Ice hockey
9. Luge
10. Nordic combined
11. Short track speed skating
12. Skeleton
13. Ski jumping
14. Snowboarding
15. Speed skating

2. Mutant League XX - This is also inspired because I got the urge to do a version of Blood Bowl. That means there has to be some sort of mayhem attached to the game. Now I know someone is going to make a, "well I just have to do hockey normally then, don't I?" joke. That's fine, you can make the joke but I think it could do with some over the top violence there.

How do I enter?

1. Well, post here expressing your interest.
2. When your game is done, post it in the completion thread over at the "What's been done" post with a link to the game.
a. If it's an RPG, a link to the PDF is fine.
b. If it's a card game, a link to the rules and a PDF of the cars works.
c. Board game see above, though if you have specialty pieces you're gonna wanna tell us how to make them.

Deadline
I think this should give people plenty of time to think about it. Let's say September 31st because that's con season plus 1 month. I'm flexible on this, if you think it should be shorter, that's fine. If you want to submit early, that's fine.

Judging Criteria
Me and a panel of me will be the judges on this one. Not because I think I'm overly qualified for this, but because I think it'd be kind of cool to judge this. We're going to do it, a la dancing with the stars kind of judging. I'm going to give each game a rating, based off of the criteria below, and then we'll use that as the base point value. Then we'll have a vote off to determine the winner.

The Criteria are:
1. Completeness: Can we play the game, or does it feel like it needs a lot more work.
2. Fun: Is the game fun to play? Does it do the things that make you want to play it again, or continue the campaign.
3. Mayhem: How much mayhem is there? Blood all over the ice, or does it feel like too goons tweeted to stage a fight?
4. Look: How good does the game look? Is it pretty, is it awesome looking? Does it inspire the crowd to riot when their team wins?

Each is based out of 10 and that will provide the base score.

I'll make one too, it just can't enter the contest. There may be something cool at the end, I don't know. I may not have the power of an OGB behind me, but maybe a gift card for IPR, or Drivethru of undetermined value would be up for grabs.

That's right, I'm not cool enough to get people on my own. I'm going to have to bribe them with piddly sums of non transferable cash.

Geasa - What I've learned

I've picked up a little bit more knowledge in how Geasa works. Not enough to do something about it, that also requires some more energy, but it's still something that's worked itself out.

I think the ideal amount of people to play Geasa with is 4. I've noticed that most, or all of the games where I feel that the plot kept moving towards a central point. When you add more people it's still possible to do it, but you're probably adding on another hour or two to the game. If you're playing with 6 you should probably understand that you might need an extra session or two to complete your story. There's just so much that's going on that even if you want to get it towards any type of conclusion you're looking at probably 8 to 10 hours.

That leads me to the second point, which was kindly driven home by the people I played with at Dreamation. This game requires breaks. Frequent breaks. Being on all the time is kind of intense. Even in the most intense RPG there are moments when you don't need to give your full attention. Geasa doesn't allow that. I suggest that every two rounds you take a break, otherwise you'll start to run down quick. That's just a guideline. You might find that your group varies with their needs for breaks depending on the action and what's happening, but breaks are important.

Movie Mashup 2011 - Spade vs. Indy

Since I'm involved in a contest that doesn't end until June 1st, 2011, I figured that I would do what I did with Game Chef and do reviews for people who have put forth entries into the 1km1kt.net Movie Mashup 24 hour RPG competition. I put my game up already, but since I'm not really going to review my own stuff, I'd rather get feedback from other people, I turn my attention to those the other contestants.

I'm doing this because I know that feedback is important, and that it is rather notoriously hard to get. I offer free copies of a book to people who will do a review of the PDF and I still haven't gotten any reviews that fit the contest (though Ed at Robot Viking did one, which is always appreciated).

Anyway, I'll be doing this review using most of the criteria put out by the contest. Copying from the 1km1kt.net thread here are the criteria for judgement.

Poor you! Our panel of monkeys will be judging you on:
Must include an NPC called Keeton
Proximity: How close to the two films is it?
Complete: Is it complete? Could you run it?
Attractive: Is it attractive to look at?
Professional: How much effort went into layout and style?
Extras: Did they include actual cover, index, character sheet or any other cool things you get in a proper RPG?

Don't worry too much about the Keeton part. That's a running joke on the site.

Today's game is Spade vs Indy by Tamás Kisbali aka Evil Scientist

Spade vs. Indy tells your right away what kind of game this is, and what movies were used to mash things up. This one uses the Maltese Falcon and the Indiana Jones movies to create a wonderfully film noir, pulp adventure experience. This one just kind of popped up for me, I hadn't been to 1km1kt.net in a while, so I didn't have the same sense of anticipation when I read the game but it's still a pretty damned good idea.

Proximity
Yes. This is what I see as a mashup. It's not one, or the other, but it takes elements from both movies and turns it into an original game. It's pulpy, and campy, and full of the potential for backstabbing, doomed romance, and mustached twirling villains. You always feel like you're in both movies, without feeling too much like you're in one or the other. Perfect.

Complete
100% complete. It would have been nicer to have a few more examples, just to make sure that some of the rules are clear. The game uses a card system to determine everything from stats to success. Not only do you have a set of cards for character creation and tricks, but you'll need a second one to be the random challenge difficulty.

Where the game shines in a place where it might fail is the role of the secondary characters. There are two main characters, your spade and your indy but if you've got more than three players then normally what you're left with is a bunch of unhappy players. However, here the associates get the fun job of trying to screw up the two 'main' characters to get what their characters want. It's a really elegant way to solve the problem of not being in the spotlight since it's not "your story."

Attractive and Professional
The few graphic elements in the pdf are nicely placed and are perfect for the setting. Same thing with the header fonts. The separate colours really make them pop well.

The standard body font is serviceable, unless we're dealing with quotes. That's when I want to take what's been done with the book and throw it out. Seriously jarring to have to deal with one of the quote marks on the bottom and the other on the top. It's the only thing I would change in the whole document, but it's a big one especially in the opening story text section where you're going to either capture your audience or lose them.

Extras
It's got the character sheet at the bottom, with a little nifty crest watermarked in it. The slots are big enough to place the cards in, but in reality I'd rather just write the number and suit down rather than have to worry about fixing the cards to the paper somehow.

Also, a little personal quip of mine. I'm kind of sad that it's got a No Derivative Clause in the Creative Commons License. I think this is a wonderful mechanic, to the point where I start to wonder how I can hack it. Just a personal qualm, nothing actually bad about the game itself.

Would I play it?
Hell yes. It's in the current, games I think that should win this contest.