On the Move!

Well, I've finally taken the plunge. I've been spreading myself far too thinly for a long time, so I'm bringing all my points of access into one location.

If you want to read the kinda blogs you read here, then you'll have to turn your RSS feeds and bookmarks to: this link.

If you want it all, aim at my blog.

You will find all parts of my efforts combined into a big mixed blog. The categories will separate it into the old familiar content streams, so take your pick.

This is one of my first php-based web design efforts, so expect a little rough on the edges. I've integrated a blog, a forum and a wiki (as well as I could) to allow a better place for feedback rather than blog comments and to have a place where explanations can grow and evolve as my understandings of the world do.

I hope you like it and humbly invite you to join in the fun!

Fang

Yes, it has been quite a while....

I've been sunk deep in the outline (mine are VERY detailed), working the new 'gamemaster sheet' into it. It's so similar to the idea of a chara sheet, it partly writes itself; however, there are some crucial differences. That's what makes this go so slow.

As a writing diversion (on no-less crucial components), I've been sifting through TV Tropes for comic book tropes (it has expanded beyond the original mission). I can start from there and built out to a simple start-list for playtesting Universe 6. Having those will also spur work on the 'gamemaster design sheet'.

Signing Off,
F

Well, it’s begun.

I finally solved the unfinished part of Scattershot. It’s all in my head now. I can write it.

I am writing it.

Here are the parts I’m using in the recipe so far:

Structure of the piece
http://scattershotunseen.blogspot.com/2005/12/appendix.html

Chapter arrangement
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=673.msg5708#msg5708

The new Challenge mechanics
http://scattershotunseen.blogspot.com/2006/02/list-of-illustrations.html

Game flow, gamemastering, scenic breakdown, playering and for the connoisseur
http://scattershotunseen.blogspot.com/2006/01/chapter-three.html

Original mechanics
http://scattershotunseen.blogspot.com/2006/02/table-of-contents.html

Glossary
http://scattershotunseen.blogspot.com/2005/12/glossary.html

I’ll keep you updated as I work on the piece. I’ll announce the first draft here!

Fang

For a long time now, I've been rebelling against the current trend in role-playing game design theory to look at the act as a conflict of competing directions to take the game with dice as the arbitrary adjudicator. It all seems so 'you versus me'.

I'm learned the craft of gamemastering by playing in women's groups. You don't interrupt, you embellish; you don't contest, you compliment; dice don't decide; they enhance.

This is how I play and how I want to design. As the Game Design Heretic, I also have to subvert the typical tropes of gaming at the same time. This is why Scattershot seems so traditional with dice-offs and point-bases. Where I subvert is the use of experience dice to formulate the experience I want the players to have. (This is an idea I sorta stole from The Riddle of Steel and it's spiritual aspects.)

Now I'm a very big fan of Moyra Turkington and her thoughts on 'Pull' play. I've been sore attempting to recreate the essence of Scattershot around this idea. I can't do that without abandoning the subversion. However, I do see a place where it beautifully applies.

The Gamemaster

Gone is the role of referee; gone too the work of 'crafting the story'; a gamemaster will function on one level to smooth out pacing issues, keep everyone appropriately involved and keep an eye on dramatic tension. Where does pull come in? Instead of introducing elements of story, the gamemaster will 'Pull' players to create them themselves out of their expectations. As it happens, this is a terrific description of how I do it. (Remember "What Would Fang Do?")

I'll be developing this more in the future; just wanted to keep you in the loop!

Fang

What's Next?

I'm going to start eliminating the cruft from the 'chapters' in my TheUnseen.blogspot.com blog. I've just changed all of them to originating in February, if I remove the cruft, I can send people to the February batch as an example of a rough draft (and give me something to port over to The Unseen Wiki).

I'm also going to start putting a list of my blogs on some of my posts to introduce people to my blog cloud. In case you're wondering why I post so slowly, check it out! I'm posting on all ten of my blogs.

• Scattershot presents: Universe 6 - The super-hero product for Scattershot
  
• Scattershot presents: The Unseen - An ARG LARP for Scattershot
• The Scattershot Design Continuum - This weblog
• Fish or Sofa Magazine - For all things Scattershot
• Costumentality - A Webcomik I aspire to do based in Universe 6
• Impswitch Development Thinking - An isometric turn-based strategy MMORPG I tinker with
• Azeroth Gazette - I do have other hobbies (World of Warcraft: email me for the server)
• Cerebrum Abusive Ideas - Just ideas to hurt your brain, that's all
  

And I have a short article on Role-Play Gateway.

Outside of that, it's been a quiet fortnight.

See you in 14,

Fang

I'm going to begin building out The Unseen wiki using Tikiwiki. In there I will be bringing in all the old material I can (for archives) and fleshing out the game as I can. By some deadline, I hope to make 'the rules' pages print out nicely (like book pages). Other 'live' gaming materials will be formatted as downloadables or web-supplements.

I'll be doing the same for Universe 6 (although not with Tikiwiki). Both will allow me to write out more detailed explanations or descriptions for things than I could ever do in print. A full 'how-to' section will give me a starting place to write the final chapter of the same material for print. I'll be able to really flesh out NPCs and Extras on these wikis. I'd also like to link them to a shared chara design engine that prints out to PDFs.

In the distant future, The Unseen wiki will also host the playtest for the ARG and the LARP of it. Hopefully developing into The Unseen social networking site.

All of my development blogs will become just that, nothing more. I may even set up a archival section of all the notes I've ever taken for Scattershot. I AM planning on typing those all up (and having my home go paperless).

In more Scattershotish news, I've been strongly pondering how each games' metaphors and symbolism will integrate and support their Fruitful Voids.

We've finally decided that 'Safe Word' terminology belongs in all supplements, not just the mature 'romance novel' book.

See you in about a fortnight.

F

So here are a few updates I've been considering for the mechanix of Scattershot.

Mode Switching
Instead of everything stopping when the dice come out, I'm toying with the idea of converting the current mechanix to a 'silent mode' mechanic. For example, someone is narrating along on their merry way and another player at the table decides that the situation needs some complication. Rather than stopping the discourse, he simply tosses an experience die on the table, a challenge if you will. I need to think out the resolution / application though.

Pull Mechanix
I sorry to say, but I'm really attracted to these kinds of rules. One thought was to prompt players to team up their chara by urging a Pull technique using only people actively involved in the scene. I'm also trying to wrap my mind around the idea of Pull as a form of setting stakes. Mostly I want to get far away from letting dice override a player's choices. (I'd like resource management do that.)

Positive Failure Stakes
I'd also like to get away from one-sided stakes; that is, either you do some complicated thing or nothing happens. The olde gaming false dichotomy. For example (I don't know if it will work like this), when the dice say you don't pick the lock, the result isn't 'the lock stays locked', it would be 'when working on the lock fails, you notice an open second story window.' A positive failure, if you will.

Danger
Some types of gaming allow you to face permanent character death in order to create tension. This only escalates the false dichotomy problem. One bad die roll and you're back to making yet another chara. What is really needed are some kind of mechanix of tension. Instead of failure results, I've been pushing more towards furthering complications. In a way, making a new chara is quite a complication, but it's a bit of an extreme. I'm thinking that a type of clearer stakes might make for a better tension mechanic. If you know that it all comes down to one die throw, the pressure is certainly on. (But often doesn't fit many genre expectations.)

Spotlighting
I'm also playing on the idea I just posted on my Heretic Blog, spotlight time might be a better way of mediating resolution. Perhaps, rather than failing a simple action and thwarting an entire movement, perhaps a dramatic increase in complication is what 'failure' means. Thus, 1) you succeed and do the thing you wanted to varying levels of quality or 2) something goes wrong and dumps you into a hell of complications (the intensity of which would be based on a running tension level). In 1) you get what you wanted and in 2) you get a lot more spotlight time dealing with the new complications. Both are rewards, but I can hide #2 cleverly in the mechanix. (Actually, thinking back, this is how I frequently run.)

Suggesting Complications
While I haven't had many ideas about prompting or the rationale, I have had some ideas about player-introduced complication. So far I've been trying to figure out where it would feel most like a typical game. Interrupting a narrative (as above) is pretty far out there. Creating the complication replacing the typical game's failure is closer. I also considered scene staging might be interesting; the gamemaster asks why your chara is in a certain situation and another player comes up with an interesting story 'hook' you might have been following. (This is also Pullish, right?) I'm not sure that would work; I still need to work out how much 'power' I can steal from the gamemaster before people realize that this isn't your daddy's role-playing game.

Still thinking. More in 14!

Fang Langford