Hook Us Fast

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

So, I bring back a load of indie rpgs from a convention, and I'd like to try a bunch with my local gaming group. This often doesn't happen, and when it does, it often peters out sadly.

After some thought, I have concluded that it is not because my local gaming group is intrinsically flawed. The people I play with have, by and large, compatible styles, and want enough of the same things. The people I play with, by and large, as the same as the people I socialize with.

I have a pretty smart bunch of friends, and they also have a fairly high tolerance for crunch, rules hacking, rules reading, and generally paying attention to the rules of a game. So, I am reasonably convinced that, if my fellow players tell me en masse that a rule is vague and fuzzy, they are not being astoundingly clueless.

We do, however, have limited free time. We also want our games to be fun for us. These two factors mean we won't leap to try every new game. Still, there are enough games with a good enough rep that enough of us are willing, nay, eager, to give them a go. We've tried My Life With Master, Primetime Adventures, and Sorcerer, as well as a bit of noodling with Dogs in the Vineyard and Capes, and a session of the alpha release of With Great Power.

The results have been, at best, mixed. Now, sometimes, it's a matter of what we want vs what the game provides. Sometimes, in our not so humble opinion, a given game isn't as good as it's cracked up to be. But, sometimes, there's a game that I think could work if we put more time into trying it. Makes sense, right? You don't get good at something overnight, do you?

But, we don't want to. Under the best of circumstances, a game is likely to get one shot. If it doesn't work out, well, life's too short, and there are games that do work for us.

Oh, I still think Primetime Adventure has potential, and I do hope agrumer gets off his duff and runs a game of Dogs in the Vineyard. We may well play The Shab al-Hiri Roach. I've run multiple sessions of a Sorcerer game, and I do hope to run Polaris. But, in general, if it doesn't work well the first time, there's not going to be a second time. It's like a book where, if the author doesn't hook me from the get go, I want to go on to the next one.

I don't want to hear that I need a new bunch of players. I don't want to hear that I'm not hip enough to get it. If the author can't communicate clearly enough that we get it the first time, that is the author's problem.

Comments

[mylescorcoran]

"I don't want to hear that I need a new bunch of players. I don't want to hear that I'm not hip enough to get it. If the author can't communicate clearly enough that we get it the first time, that is the author's problem."

Say it, sister!

I think that I have a group that could have more compatible play styles and certainly we could all use more focus, but I don't like a book (or a forum) that suggests the solution to all my problems is to find a different set of gamers.

Indie games often take a different approach to mechanics and I think the onus is on the innovator to explain clearly how a system or mechanic works.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Yes. Now, that said:

One of the worst offenders in the "get new players" was actually a passage from a gming aid for Legend of the Five Rings, saying that if the players had a problem with a particularly heavy handed tactic that the author was recommending, maybe the gm needed "a smaller group of samurai". Yuck.

Also, I do have sympathy for authors faced with this line of rhetoric: "We didn't have any fun with your game. It was awful. Huh? Well, no, we didn't actually use the rules as written. Why? Is that important?" I've been told that some indie authors have to contend with this a lot.

But, I'm talking about a group that does read the rules, that tries to play by them, and that runs into trouble doing so. A lot of indie authors are extremely generous with their time in online fora, and will answer question after question -- but exactly how does this help when I have the game and we're trying to play it and we hit a problem? Sure, going online is ever easier, but it shouldn't be a required supplement to the game in hand.

This is even before we get into communication issues ranging from an author saying, "Well, it's obvious from the rules that..." when, sorry, no, it isn't to overprotective fans of a game slipping into borderline flaming. All of these issues color our perception of a game, rightly or wrongly, and when we hit something like this, it's one more weight on the "life's too short to bang our heads against a wall" side of the scale.

[mylescorcoran]

Okay, I agree that it's not just the indie games crowd where this problem of 'change your players' occurs. It is at the heart of the GNS theory, however, in the choice of Creative Agenda and how you follow-through.

I firmly agree that life is too short to waste time on unproductive or unfun matters. It's clear that for some people a particular game is the bee's knees and for other it's... less so.

I know that for your group OTE suits your purposes admirably in most cases. I think that any new game has to offer something really good to make it worth switching from a system your group is comfortable with. I know I've inflicted a number of systems on my players over the years and that familiarity is really important for getting the rules to just work.

If, like for a lot of greying gamers, free time is in short supply, I want rules that are clear, easy to explain and easy to use in play, and that give me something that my current set of rules doesn't. Those rules shouldn't need a check with the author or a forum first to make me feel comfortable trying them out, even if my nature means I'll probably do that sort of digging anyway.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

... and that give me something that my current set of rules doesn't.

I suspect that this is one of the key factors that kept us playing HERO for so many years. When we had an abundance of idea-machines within the group, there just seemed no real need to move over to using other games. We tried a few here and there, but typically fell back on HERO for most of our stuff.

Only in the last few years have we been stretching out to try other systems. I think the primary motivation there was the gradual tightening of our time to play. 10 years ago our game sessions were three to four hours long. Now, they're two to three hours long. If you have any tactical action in HERO, it's difficult to do much other than that in a two-three hour session.

[mylescorcoran]

Okay, you can also go too far in sticking with a beloved old car that just eats petrol and costs a fortune to run. Sometimes it is better to make the change. (Not meaning to rag on Hero in particular, though I've had experience of the long action scenes and I'd never go back to it now.)

My sessions are down now to about 2-2.5 hours in length, with a crowd of chronic digressors (myself included). Any system we use has to be low handling time, quick but comprehensive resolution. I think setting clear stakes makes a huge difference for us. If only I could get better at it, and at encouraging my players to really get stuck in when it comes to defining stakes at the beginning of a conflict.

[(Anonymous)]

Greying gamers -- yes. I used to be utterly impatient with rpg books that had huge text, clearly designed to fill up space. Now, while I still don't want huge text as a substitute for getting my money's worth of content, I am quite glad to have something easier on the eyes.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

That was me.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

If the author can't communicate clearly enough that we get it the first time, this is the author's problem.

With a lot of the new crop of indie-games, it seems to me that this isn't the only potential problem. The genre-focus is set so tightly that, unless you really want to be playing twisted, ugly servants of a mad scientist, or vigilant soldiers of a proud God, etc, then the game isn't going to hook you either. This is all very well, I suppose: there's no point in making you eat apples if you don't like them.

But I think there's still something to be said for games that focus less tightly on their genre, and instead provide you with a wider and more flexible palette.

No surprise, I suppose, that most of my gaming experience has been forged by HERO. 8/

Indeed

[mneme]

The indie crowd has gone very heavily into tight-focus games (though I think you mis-characterize Dogs -- which is really all about putting the players into an unappetizing ethical structure and having them judge that society as much from the player perspective as from the character one...but that's still a pretty tight focus).

Not -all- the indie games are tight-focus -- Sorceror's "focus" is "you've all made some kind of double-edged bargain. Go." Whereas PTA's is even looser. But he Forge development structure very much tends to a "design what matters" process that goes very narrow and then focuses the design details around it, whereas most of us (the gamers, that is) don't really want to be told what matters so much as given a way to decide what we -want- to make matter in a game.

That said...Hero doesn't grab me mostly because of those 2 hour tactical combats. :)

Re: Indeed

[avram]

It’s the two-hour tactical character generation that gets me.

Re: Indeed

[(Anonymous)]

2 systems have failed my Smoke Test, aka Can Lisa Create a Character in the System? test.

The first was one of Palladium's games, I think Beyond the Supernatural. There was some stat I couldn't figure out how to generate.

The second was HeroQuest. I so, so, so wanted to love that game. I can't stay awake when I try to read it.

Again, not talking about flavor, mood, setting, or anything like that. I'm talking about comprehending the rules.

Re: Indeed

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Again, me. Sigh. Can comments be edited?

Re: Indeed

[jl8e]

You can always delete your comments and repost as yourself.

I've developed the habit of visiting my "My LJ" page first, because that forces me to log in.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

True, but a separate issue. I'm not going to play Mountain Witch if I don't want a samurai tale of angst and betrayal. No problem -- the author is quite up front about what kind of game it is.

My problem with My Life with Master isn't the limited storyline -- there's a surprising amount of flex in it, and I rather like the idea of playing a mad scientist's minion. My problem is that it feels to me too much like a board game and not enough like a roleplying game. Clearly, other people don't have this problem, and I have less of a problem with the idea of my playing it than with the idea of my gming it. I'd play it again at a convention, in theory -- in practice, there are enough other things competing with it that limited time is a factor.

Dogs in the Vineyard strikes me as extremely flexible if one is willing to go outside the genre, something the author has been very encouraging about. Jedi, samurai, Norse warriors -- a lot of that's been done. But yes, the Mormon setting has turned people off. Interestingly, ebartley, who has a much higher tolerance for crunch than I do, has a lot of trouble with the conflict resolution mechanics, whereas I find them easy to use.

Polaris is definitely limited as far as genre and story go, and very up front about that. I still really want to play it, and I still think that one could have fun twisting it into something the author doesn't intend for it to be, but that's a separate topic.

[jl8e]

I think that for both Dogs and Polaris, one could extract the resolution mechanic, and use it for a game with a completely different premise, and it will still work very well. Both seem to be well-crafted to me. (though I haven't played either yet.)

[ewilen.livejournal.com]

I agree somewhat with respect to Dogs. With Polaris, though, I don't see a way to extract the resolution mechanic from the overall premise of the tragic character arc (essentially, succumbing to the dark side).

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

I gather that, in the case of Dogs, Vincent is working on something like that for horror.

For Polaris, I think you can extract the resolution mechanics. What you have are mechanics for a particular tragic arc, but, after a demo, Stephen, Rich, and I were speculating about turning it into a fall and rise arc, or more general collaborative storytelling. Ben made it quite clear that this was not what he had in mind, and I would want to play the basic game as writ before tinkering, but I think it could be done. Whether you'd want to call the end result Polaris or not is another question.

[adamdray.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I should have read further before replying above. What you said.

[adamdray.livejournal.com]

I don't want to be Defender of All That is Indie or anything, but there are a number of really good indie games that are not so specifically focused or that are super easy to tweak for a different genre.

Lots of people use Sorcerer for things other than sorcery. I've seen some cool ports of Dogs in the Vineyard to play Star Wars Jedi. Not a lot of work to do that.

The Shadow of Yesterday is basically just a generic fantasy RPG with a basic setting that you can replace with your own. FATE is a very generic game with no setting supplied and it's pretty easy to make that your own.

Certain games like My Life with Master and The Mountain Witch are definitely aiming for a specific type of play and won't easily be ported to other genres or styles. But don't totally give indie games a miss cuz there are some gems there that can be repurposed if you want.

And nothing I'm saying invalidates drcpunk's main thesis that some groups just ain't gonna like indie games. That's fine. Understood. Find games that work for you and play the hell out of them.

[avram]

A thing to keep in mind about indie games: They’re indie. In other words, they’re generally labors of love by individual designer/authors, who generally do their own editing and layout. That’s practically guaranteed to produce some confusing game text, because the author has, in his head (and possibly in his word processor file), not only the current rules, but all of his earlier drafts, and has the full context of the game to lend interpretation to otherwise obscure rule descriptions.

As far as hipness goes, well, I suspect that The Shab al-Hiri Roach works best if the players have dark senses of humor. That’s a trait that goes with ironic detachment, which is also a contributing ingredient to hipness. I strongly suspect that ebartley will not like it, and I’m not sure about you. But that has nothing to do with understanding the game text; it has to do with enjoying the game.

[jl8e]

and has the full context of the game to lend interpretation to otherwise obscure rule descriptions.

In theory, that's what cold playtest is for. Not sure how often it actually gets done, though. Sorcerer has pretty clearly never seen any such thing. The game Ron talks about has only a vague relationship to the game on the page.


As for the Roach, the more I see actual play of it talked about, the less sure I'm interested, and I have a dark sense of humor. There just doesn't seem to be anything at the core of it all, just horrible characters doing horrible things to each other.

[avram]

just horrible characters doing horrible things to each other

You say that like it's a bad thing.

That is a lot of what's going on in the Roach -- players egging each other on to come up with ever more outrageous stuff. And there's a strong element of, um, like those social games where you draw a card and maybe have to do something you might not want to do -- like impersonate a celebrity that you're not sure you've heard of, or try to draw something even if you can't draw.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I should have been clearer. When I say "hipness", I am referring to a specific comment on the Forge that left a bad taste in my mouth, that Sorcerer was written for people who just Get It. This was not a comment made by Ron, but it was endorsed by him. We were not talking about the mood of the game, but about THE FRIGGIN' MECHANICS. I do not want to be told that the mechanics would make sense if I Got It, especially when I've been told that they're clear as crystal, and that, even if they aren't, well, it doesn't matter, because if I search the web long enough, I can find the answer to my question.

I do not accept the line that, if only I understood the context of the game -- all that led up to the published version -- I'd be fine. Make your text complete. Or don't waste my time.

And, I do hold Indie games to higher standards because it is my understanding that the authors of such games claim that they meet higher standards. Possibly, I am attributing the attitude of one or two people to a lot more.

I am not talking about games that are metaphorical oranges when I want an apple. So long as the game is clear about being an orange, it's my own dang fault if I expect it to be an apple.

I am talking about mechanics that are not clear. For example, Primetime Adventure is a game that should work well, but we hit several confusing bits. Are you at all interested in trying it again? I am, but I'm not sure I could get a local group together for it.

I am taking as my premise that those who make such games want us not merely to buy them, but also to play them. I don't think it's useful to say, "Well, I want an apple, but you're making a game that's an orange." I'm more interested in the games that we've hit problems with for other reasons, games that it looks like we would really enjoy, but, either we don't try, or we try once or twice, and then abandon for reasons other than "Nah, that's not the kind of game I want to play."

And, there's a feedback effect. The more we try and abandon any given Indie game, the less eager we are to try another one, I think. I've invested a lot of money in Indie games, and, well, I'm already hitting a lack of payoff. I bring the game home, I find I can't explain it well, despite sitting in on a demo, it doesn't run so fun. Heck, I couldn't even get Primetime Adventures to click after playing in a wonderful full run of it.

[avram]

I don't know if I've got the history right, but wasn't Sorcerer one of the early Forgie nacho yar manger games? Which means that, when Sorcerer was published, there was a whole lot less It to Get? And that it was supposed to be a vector for introducing people to It? Or perhaps that was Trollbabe. (Anyway, I suspect that people dislike the Forge in direct proportion to the degree that they interact with Ron Edwards.)

Awkward thing about PtA for our group: We generally like to know in advance what sort of game we're going to be playing. But PtA requires you to defer that decision to the first session.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Yes, Sorcerer was an early game, and Ron would have done it quite differently now. Nevertheless, that was what was said, and that was what Ron endorsed.

Interactions with the author are indeed another part of how a game resonates or doesn't with a group. Thus, some of what would still annoy us about the Sorcerer mechanics would likely annoy us less if some conversations on the Forge had gone differently. I consider this part of the Lumpley Principle.

But, even trying to factor that out, there's, for example, a mechanic in Sorcerer about rolling victories from one roll into another, and the question came up about how that worked if I'm trying to roll over my Cover: Swordswoman into my Stamina. Roll one vs the other? Roll against one die? The first is annoying and slows the game down to a crawl when it should be moving fast. The second seems more generous than the rest of the system feels.

Ron answered this one clearly, politely, and simply: He rolls against three dice. This was an example of a fine interaction with the author.

But. That simple rule of thumb is nowhere to be found in the core book or its supplements. This is a flaw in the game. It is a flaw in explaining the mechanics -- not in the author's unflagging support for the game, not in it not being the sort of game I want to play, not in it being an early Forge game, and thus not with the program. It is a flaw in communicating the mechanics that make the game playable.

As for PtA, I don't think the question of what we were going to play was a hugh problem for us. We knew we were going to do Keruton. I simply would not allow individual players to draw me into long discussions about it before all of us met together.

No, the problems we ran into were things like: How are Contacts used again? What was the actual rule about multi-stage combats? Understanding the mechanics of a short and simple game. Recall your comments on the writing. These were not motivated by the fact that we didn't decide in advance what kind of game we were playing.

[avram]

Oh, yeah. The actual writing about multi-stage combats implies the opposite of what Matt has said the actual rule is.

My point about Sorcerer is that, since it was an early Nar game, it's pretty stupid for people to claim that you have to Get Nar to understand it, since it would have been one of the vectors through which Nar was Gotten. In other words, Ron talks out of his ass again, but this time by proxy.

One thing I'm doing for Dogs, in anticipation of playing, is going through the discussions on the Lumpley Games Forge board and collecting Vincent's various rulings on thorny questions. (I'm compiling the Talmud!)

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Yes, various Indie games have a Talmud. Actually, I presume this is true of non-Indie games, but I'm not usually as interested in them.

On the one hand, Indie game designers are very generous with their time, and generally extremely willing to answer questions. And, often, people compile, well, Talmuds. I see a few problems with this.

1. Acessibility. Can a gamer get to it? That is, does the Talmud for Game X exist? Is it online? How does a gamer learn about it? Currently, I can't access your Talmud, correct? You're still working on it. Is it something I can print out or put on a pda? Is it easy to use while playing the game?

2. Utility. This overlaps with #1 above. If I have to search the web for the one site or the one forum where my question is answered, then I'm going to have a hard time using the Talmud for Game X while playing it. Also, is the Talmud complete enough? Is it well organized? Doyle's got a good site for Sorcerer, but it doesn't usually have the information I'm actually looking for. Nev's constantly updating his Quick Reference, but there too, he doesn't tend to have the answer to the question that came up mid-session. Do I know where to look for my answer in the Talmud? This one overlaps with #1. There is a wealth of material in various Forge threads on Sorcerer, but finding the one thread one needs is a challenge, and, again, less likely to help during a session.

3. Effort. So, back to my original point. I'm playing this new game. I'm hitting problems comprehending the rules. Do I want to spend the effort hunting down the Talmud and finding the answers I need? How often do I need to use the Talmud?

4. Dang, it, the game should be complete. Despite my admiration for generous, patient authors trying to help people who play their games, despite my admiration for generous, patient gamers creating and releasing Talmuds (is that the correct plural form?), I don't like the pattern of sloppiness this can create -- and has created.

So, yes, I'm looking forward to the Talmud, and yes, I understand that no author can think of everything. And, yes, I want to play Dogs. But, I hope that the Talmud gets compiled into a new edition of the game.