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).

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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.

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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.

Demos For You and Me - Part 2 - Running the Game

In part 1 we covered what you need to do ahead of time when running a game demo. Let's talk about what you need to do while you're running a game. This is where you're going to sell the people on the game, this is the actual test drive so make sure it's as smooth and wonderful an experience for the players as you can.

I'm going to assume that you've done the stuff in part one and have a tailor made adventure to introduce people to you game. What's going to make them feel like this is the best game experience in the world. Now here are some things you need to keep in mind over the next 2-4 hours.

I'm going to start with one of the most important ones, because it filters down to the other ones.

1. THIS IS A BUSINESS SETTING, AND A SELLING MOMENT.

There, that's out there. Yes you aren't wearing a three-piece suit, or even dress down to business casual, but if you're running a demo you can't forget that this is your business setting and you should remember that. You need to act professionally at all times. That means the things you wouldn't do because you're in a business setting, don't do them. Just don't. It doesn't matter that you're at a bar, convention space, church basement. You are selling something to someone, be professional about it.

2. Address your players directly

I'm putting this one out there because I have seen this, and have many people come up to me and tell me about this happening to them. You need to address your players directly. By addressing them directly, I mean look at them when you speak to them. It's not that hard. You look at them when you talk to them. You don't have to stare them down, you don't have to gaze lovingly into their eyes, you have to just address them as a person.

You'd be surprised how hard this is, apparently, for a good number of people who run games at events. It is also one of the larger complaints that I have heard from a wide variety of people. There are many stories about people not looking at people when they talk to them at a game, or addressing all questions to someone else at the table.

You can't do that. Can't, can't do that. One it makes the game not entertaining for that person. It's also a potential sale you are leaving on the table.

3. Make sure everyone has their moment

This is standard kind of GMing advice, but it doubly applies here. You want to make sure that every person at the table has a moment to be amazing. Otherwise they're going to get bored and think your game isn't worth buying. Part of that is making sure those moments are in your adventure, but another part is making sure that you give the player those moments in the game.

It's like the "Let the Wookie win" part of demoing a board game. People are more interested in buying your product if your product gives them an experience that they want to have.

4. Have fun

Ultimately we're all just playing a game. Remember that, and have fun when you're demoing a game. If you're having fun, the player can pick up on that and it will infect their play as well. Nothing can ruin a game like not having fun, or being bitter. That includes being bitter about other people's products. No one gets excited by negative marketing, so don't do it.

I'm sure there are more, but these are the four things I think you need to think about when you run your con game.

Previously Generated - Veronica Monsterhearts

Okay, so we all love Veronica Mars, right?

Here's a thought: Veronica Monsterhearts.

Now the more I think about it, the more I'd rather have its own set of playbooks (skins, but if it were to be redone then it would be something appropriate, right?) But barring that, how do you play Veronica Mars using Monsterhearts? By adding investigation rules!

Additional Basic Move

Get the Money Shot

Whenever you investigate a situation looking for information, ROLL+*. On a 10+ you get the information that helps further the case. On a 7-9, you get the information but it's either incomplete, gives you a new suspect, or costs a lot. On a 6- you get the information but the MC is going take this opportunity to make a hard move. Good luck.

Each skin picks an investigation style. There's the with Force, with Flair, with Deduction, with Seduction, with Connections. The *** depends on the investigation style: with Force uses Volatile, with Flair uses Dark, with Deduction uses Cold, with Seduction uses Hot and with Connections uses # of strings (max +3).

More Fun With Strings!

The second thing you add is another way for strings to play in with the investigation. If you have a string on someone, you can spend it when someone is looking to Get The Money Shot to implicate another character in the rim.

Example: The Vampire has a string on the Werewolf, and the Mortal is investigating the death of the Ghost. The Vampire spends the string to make the clue the Mortal receives to point towards the Werewolf. The Vampire doesn't actually plant information, he just spends the string to make that happen because Drama damn it.

Thoughts?

And a big thank you to Amber, Krista and Darcy for the slight kicks of "that's awesome do it."

Demos For You and Me - Part 1 - The Setup

With the noises of interest coming off of the whole Convention RPG Selling (Found here in Part 1, 2, and 3) articles that I posted. Not to mention Lilian Cohen-Moore's article talking about a frustrating demo experience at PAX, and Ryan Macklin's following up with his own list of things not to do when doing a demo. With that in mind, I had this sitting in my drafts folder for a while so maybe it's time to come down and talk about what to do when running a demo game.

Why do this?

Well, I think running a demo for a game is one of those skills that people just kind of assume they have, and that they can do it just like running any other game. I seem to get that vibe when talking about it with other people. I've seen it in demo kits from larger publishers, and from being in demos for other games. Most of what I'm saying is applicable to RPG demos, but some of this stuff works for board game demos too, I'll try to point out when that's the case.

What's the most important thing to remember?

A game demo is another place where you will be selling your game. It's a sales moment.

In Part 1 of Selling RPGs I talked about how selling RPGs is the Used Car Salesmanship of the game industry. I'm going to use that metaphor again, because this is the test drive. This is where they take the system out for a spin, try it out, see if they like it. This means that it's another point where you have to make a good impression.

This is the same thing with boardgames. You're at the part where they want to see it before the buy. If you make a bad impression here, you've just discouraged them from buying your game and you both walk away disappointed. The player is disappointed because they were interested and the game didn't live up to their expectations, and you're disappointed because you lost a sale.

The Setup

If you are going to run a demo, the first thing you need to do is be prepared. Being prepared means a couple of things. It means that you're prepared to run the game right away. It means that you're prepared to talk about what makes the game awesome.

What Makes Your Game Awesome
This is all about knowing your product. Really, this should come first because if you know this then your demo adventure will be amazing. You should know how to run the game without referring to the book every few minutes. You need to know what makes your game amazing, and how to bring that into the adventure and how you run it. This leads into the next section which is ...

Be Prepared

This means that you have to have an adventure scenario set up. Now before you grab one off the shelf, or just come up with something you need to remember that this is a sales moment. You want a very specific adventure. You want one that's going to highlight what makes the game awesome, and showcase it right off the bat.

When I run Critical!: Go Westerly as a demo, we start with You All Meet in a Tavern. Why? Because the adventure is funny right from the get go, and that's what we're trying to show. Critical can be funny without getting in the way of doing stuff, in fact it's more funny when you're doing stuff. Having an adventurer's night where local adventurer's can meet and then have them go off on an adventure gets the people in the right framework for what's going to happen next.

This also means that you have to set things up so that the players have to interact with the system right away. Remember, this is the test drive, you need to show the players the awesome stuff about the system and why they're going to have fun playing your game. Roleplaying is great, and fun, but they don't need your system to sit around and talk in character for an hour. Have them do things! Have them do awesome things! Quickly!

More example time! When we run YAMIAT the first thing that happens is that we make them figure out what's going on, and then roll on the stairs so they get an idea of how the system works out. Then, usually something funny happens. If not, then we go straight into another encounter to make sure the few other parts of the system that aren't immediately covered by them walking down the stairs happen.

What else does this mean? It means you're going to need pre-generated characters. Unless character/setting creation is such an integral part of your game (think Fiasco, or Geasa) you're going to want to have characters waiting for your players to pick up and run with. This also means you're going to want to leave out a little bit on the character sheet so that the players have some choice. The easiest way is to come up with quick backgrounds and let the players decide on the name, looks, and gender of their character. If you have characters with genders, make sure that you've got an even number of them so that everyone at the table has a choice. Nothing is worse than when you feel like you're stuck with one or two options. 

Make your pregens diverse and interesting, and because you have control over what the characters are you can also make sure that there is something cool for them do to in the adventure. Nothing is worse than feeling like you're sitting on the sidelines doing nothing because you have a character that "doesn't fit" the scenario. If you have a "doesn't fit" pre-gen then that's a problem with your prep that you're going to need to fix.

Next, I'll talk about what to do during a demo. If you have any questions that you'd like to see answered about running a demo, then you can leave a comment or drop me a line and I'll try to include that in the next section.

Previously Generated - Monsterhearts - The Leech

This was in my head all day, and I wanted to get it out. A huge thanks to Mikael for the huge amount of input in a short amount of time. Anyway, let me know what you think about it in the comments, or on twitter, or facebook or wherever because feedback is always appreciated.

You woke up and didn’t know who you were anymore. Everyone seems so secure in themselves, so certain of what they want and what they can do. Not you, you just floated about wondering if you would ever find what you were meant to be.

Watching the others didn’t help. You just got to know them better than they ever could. They were destined to do important things.

Unless you do those things first. Unless you become them first.

Your Backstory

You’ve been watching someone intently for a while now. Gain two strings on them.

Someone’s caught on to your creepy little act. They gain one string on you.

Your Stats

Add +1 to one of these:

Hot 0, Cold -1, Volatile +1, Dark +1.

Sex Move

You get to study someone up close, to the point where you can take up to three strings they have on other people as your own. They also get a string on you and you take the condition “Not as good as they thought.”

Moves

You get the following moves

In Depth Study

When you spend enough time with someone, ROLL+Dark. On a 10+ gain a string on them. On a 7-9, Gain a string but choose 1:

-Someone else notices you studying, another player gains a string on you

-Your target notices you studying, and gains a string on you

-You get the condition “[the person I’m watching] is way better than me at [action they were taking]”

Change

If you have a string on a player, you can take their shape. You can take any other shape you want too. If you do, ROLL+dark. On a 10+ no matter how oddly you act, other people will believe that you are that person. Any strings players get on you while in their shape are taken on the player whose shape you take. On a 7-9, you take the shape like above but choose 1:

-It hurt a lot, take 1 Harm

-It doesn't last, as soon as someone gains a string on you, you change back. That person gains a string on the person you had changed into, as well as you.

-You get the condition “I can’t do anything right”

Choose One More

Thoughts to Thoughts

You can spend a string to ask a player one question that they have to answer truthfully. It doesn’t have to be anything you would know, or even something reasonable. You’ve got a string on them, ask them a question that they have to answer.

You are Your Things

If you get a hold of something that belongs to another player, gain a string on them. You can have it given to you, or you can steal it but it has to be something that they value, even a little bit.

Darkest Self

When you trigger your Darkest Self, trade Skins with the player with whom you have the most strings with. If there is a tie, you decide which Skin to trade with. You become them, and you aren’t bound to anything that has gone on before. There is no switching back. You now have a purpose and whoever you took over becomes the uncertain, overwhelmed sad sack that you once were. The new leech player removes all their strings.

Advancement

Add 1 to Hot (max+3)

Add 1 to Cold (max+3)

Add 1 to Volatile (max+3)

Add 1 to Dark (max+3)

You watch others, you can take this advancement as often as you’d like

Take a move from another skin if you have a string on that player.



Playing The Leech

You are every single bit of imposter syndrome, and not good enough feeling made flesh. You take everything from everyone else, you only have your basic moves. Any other skills you get in advancement are through not just others, but having some sort of knowledge on them. You aren’t as co-dependant as the mortal, but you’re a close second. You can take a lot of conditions when you do things, which just reinforces your feelings of inferiority.

That said, you’re all about strings. Everything you do is related to strings, either getting them or spending them to cause trouble. You can push towards your darkest self, or you can just constantly be the one who knows everything about everyone. You get a string just by being around someone long enough, it doesn't even have to be particularly focused. You’re there, you can make that move because this is what you do.

A leech tends to take control of the narrative not by inserting themselves, but by breaking down the walls that the other skins keep. No one can have secrets around the Leech, either you’ll discover them and use them against the others, or you’ll create them by playing the parts. You create all the drama and get to enjoy watching it go all around you.

Changing your skin is a dramatic darkest self, only because it changes the entire structure of the game. The Chosen that was lusting after the Vampire, now he’s interested in the Fae and the Vampire is left wondering what happened. You leave behind another husk, another shell that’s no longer confident in their ability to do anything but sit back and watch.