Hans wrote a nice review of Serpent’s Tooth forGiant Fire-Breathing Robot. Thanks Hans!
Suspended Animation – Review
Suspended Animation was reviewed in the french blog Narrativiste It is nice, a bunch of folks from france have been requesting the Beta, this is just what I needed to get over the design hump and finish the game.
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Game Chef 2012
Game Chef is an annual design competition that challenges participants to take a set of “ingredients” and craft an alpha draft of a game in 10 days.
This year one of the ingredient options was a set of 4 random threads from the legendary Forge design forum. (indie-rpgs.com)
After reading my threads, I decided to use this opportunity to explore some OSR concepts that I’ve been discussing with folks over at story-games.com.
One challenging thing about OSR-styled design is that they tend to rely on the interactions between many mechanical systems. It was difficult to conceptualize how all those moving parts worked without actual play.
Another realization I had was that at some point, it really helped me in the design process to actually start laying out the graphic elements of the rules. Diagrams to explain mechanical systems, character sheets, and other game components really helped me to figure out what the game was about and how it would play.
I’m going to hold off on sharing till after game-chef. It is really-really alpha right now and I have a commitment to finish serpent’s tooth this month.
but I will be playtesting it at storygamesolympia in early may, and perhaps have something to share in june.
Serpent’s Tooth beta clarifications #2
Seizing Banners
Plotting, and Seizing a Banner each have a mechanical, and narrative component.
When you Plot, you show how your character is planning, or otherwise preparing to Seize the physical object that represents the Sword, Crown, or Castle in the story.
After you do that, you take a Tooth, showing us all that what you just said counts as a plot.
Same thing goes for Seizing a Banner, you show us how you pull off your Plot, then pay the Tooth and take the banner.
In both cases, you have to follow what has been established in the story. If you are a lowly intern can you walk into Jeff Bezo’s office and say, “hey jeff, this is mine now” of course not, that would never work. We are generous when it comes to interpreting what counts as a plot, but we are always beholden to the internal logic of our story.
Here is a scenario that could conceivably happen…(not yet in any game I’ve seen)
In the first scene, each player manages to narrate a plot to take over a separate one of the King’s Banners. Perhaps working together to usurp the king?
In the second scene, they each show how they execute their plots and take a banner. Now they are in control of scene framing!
In this, fastest possible revolution scenario the game dosen’t have to be over yet. Personally I’d be really interested in what happens to the Kingdom and the Characters. In addition the players can still Seize banners from each other. There are a lot of places the story could still go.
So if this happens, its cool, the game can take it.
Sword and Ending Scenes
The way the sword works is you end the scenes whenever you want them to end. You just go “scene.” and boom. we stop and move on to the next one.
This can lead to really long or really short scenes, both of which are fine.
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Serpent’s Tooth – How about a Queen?
“I have read the base book and have a couple of questions. In the prom King scenario, could you make it prom Queen? and could someone play a male character that wants the prom King?
Strange ideas run rampant.
We talked at the con, I still have concerns about the playability and pliability for really experienced gamers. I like the simplicity, but wonder if it is too simple.”
Pamela
Hi Pamela,
Yes and yes! If you are playing the King role, you have creative authority over The King. It is a metaphors that is for you to define.
The same goes for someone’s character.
It is a simple game, there are no rolls for success or failure, no stats, instead, each player has is in charge of a clearly defined part of the story and we determine what happens through agreement.
Let me know if you have any other questions, I will post this on my blog for other people to read.
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Player Agency / Buy In
chris asked this really good question…
“So, from what I understand, the notion that players have agency in games is an illusion, where the GM defines the vessel we know as the game, and the players pour themselves into it.
I’ve struggled thus far in the 2 games I’ve run to get emotionally involved into the game. I’ve gotten skepticism, curiosity, and the ‘whoa, weird, let’s push the red button and see what happens’ feelings.
I’ve gotten the idea that it requires getting the setting, the right players, and the right characters, but I suspect that it requires some form of medium of an emotional lubricant/conductor to actually get the entire thing to generate a reaction?”
Lately when I talk about what makes a story games different from traditional rpgs I talk about three things.
-creative equality as opposed to gm-fiat
-play to find out what happens as opposed to story-before
-collaborative vs competitive
I’m just going to talk about the first one right now because I think it is most relevant to your question.
Traditionally the GM has final say when it comes to what happens in the story, they describe the world, your place in the world, they get to tell you when you can talk, and they can step in and invalidate any thing you say.
It is a pretty f-ed up power dynamic. But RPGs didn’t invent it. It really just mirrors the way oppression works.
So when we play these games it is our job to treat our characters like real people and treat the world like it is real.
I played someone’s Nazi ex-boyfriend in the spanish-revolution era game. In the first scene I was everything you expected a nazi to be, controlling, jealous, a total dick, then I realized that was going to get old really fast, we all know Nazi politics were fucked up, but people get wrapped up in fucked up institutions all the time, that dosen’t make them bad people.
I resolved to play up his heart-broken side, talking about all the love letters he tried to send but were intercepted by the censurs, and when the Nazi’s showed up at the front door, we realized that he’d actually gone AWOL to be with his lover and they were here to take him away.
thats where the gold is at.
I’m kind of just blabbing here, I feel like I have to talk around this subject because the truth small to see by looking directly at it.
hope this helps!
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Serpent’s Tooth – open playtest through april 7th
UPDATE:I am taking this down as I prepare to write the final draft, but I am still accepting playtest feedback.
Serpent’s Tooth gives us tools to explore what it means to rule, and what happens when the reins of control break loose.
One person plays a powerful King in the twilight of his rule. The rest of us play members of the Court. As the king, you get to be in control but you’re also going to lose everything, maybe even your life. As for the trusted members of the Court? We’ll find out who they really are when the reins of power fall into their hands.
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Serpent’s Tooth – Kingdom Envelopes
I’m taking a game design day. My goal is to wrap up the beta version.
This is my template for the Kingdom Envelopes, they are kind of like playsets in fiasco.
At the start of a game of Serpent’s Tooth, we pick one of these and decide who is going to be the King, then we pass around these worksheets to generate the main characters, places, and threats to the Kingdom.
I thought it would be handy to gather up all of these materials in envelopes to keep them organized and make for a nicer presentation at the start of the game.
About Story Games
In this short documentary by Jay Loomis, Ben Robbins, Tori Brewster, Jamie Fristrom, and yours truly share our thoughts on Story Games.
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the most important things
Here is an excerpt from a game I’m working on called Serpent’s Tooth.
It’s titled, The Most Important Things. Since this is my first blog post, I thought it’s be a good place to start.
When ever I facilitate a Story Game, there are a few things I like to say.
Trust your Instincts
Don’t worry about trying to be funny, or dramatic, or trying to do the right thing. When in doubt, go with the obvious. Everyone here comes from a different place with different life experiences. What seems obvious to one person is usually surprising to the rest of us.
We’re In This Together
We’ve all got something really valuable we can give each other, our curiosity. If someone says something you don’t quite get, or you’re having a hard time picturing what someone is talking about, be curious about it. Ask questions, draw them out. They are saying it because it is important to them somehow and it is our job to fold those ideas into the story.
Respect the Veil
The Veil is a safety mechanism, its the emergency break. Storytelling is powerful stuff and you might be taken off guard by the emotions or investment you feel in our story. Pay attention to your personal boundaries. If something happens at the table that approaches or crosses those boundaries, ask for it to be veiled, and we’ll skip it, no questions asked. The veil also carries the understanding the when someone requests to veil something you’ve said or contributed to the story, this doesn’t make you are a bad person.
