Tuesday 29 April 2014

Gaslighting, Agency, and Continuity



                I was thinking today about continuity. My initial thoughts were not, initially, in the narrative sense of continuity, but in the sense of our frame of existence. Aside from memories and physical evidence, we have no way of verifying if events in the past actually happened. Normally, this isn’t a concern, memory and physical evidence is more than enough. Those facts change when it comes to games.

                When a game starts, players typically have a back-story for their character and then the GM sets the scene. Back-stories represent an individual character’s memories of the past and the current scene is, in effect, the present. As play progresses, especially if the GM improvises, individual scenes lose some details, the degree of which depends on the group’s memories. I’ve lost notes before and the names or descriptions of NPCs change as I’m forced to improvise the local bartender again.

                A tactic I’ve used in horror or suspense gaming is something called Gaslighting. Now, in the real world, this is a pretty horrible thing to do to someone. In the context of a game, it can help put the players on edge, something I think good horror roleplaying needs. As an aside, there is a very fine line when using tactics like this on your players. I would never condone, for example, using spiders to scare an extremely arachnophobic player. Horror roleplaying is fun in the same way a horror movie is fun. The players want to be scared, but there is a breach of trust if you use information you know about your players to upset them. Nevertheless, I digress.

                Gaslighting, to put it simply, is subtle manipulation of information in order to have people question their senses and their memory. The players are entirely reliant on the GM for information about the game world, barring any notes they take. Take the local bartender I mentioned earlier, for example. If I say in one scene that the bartender’s name is Rachel and in then, in the next session mention Rory the bartender that can either be a mistake in continuity or deliberate. If the players are a particular location looking for clues, or something similar, changing small details can serve to heighten the tension. If I mention a brass bell on a blue ribbon, and then later, describe the ribbon as black, this can throw players off. If you use this tactic, use it subtly and sparingly. Using it too much robs the players of their agency. For that matter, using it at all robs the players of agency in a small way.

                When you change information intentionally, your players cannot act on information previously given. If I say that a room has a door on the left, right, and center players choose a course of action based on that information. If I change that detail by removing the center door, this invalidates an option that the players might have picked. This violation of player agency can, if done right, put your players on edge. Their memories and the physical reality of the world don’t match up. Do it too much and it’s more annoying than anything else.  

                Now, I brought up back-story before for a reason. I wouldn’t recommend directly contradicting or changing anything in a player’s back-story. They put in the effort to bring material to your table, even if they’re the only one informed by it. By altering it, you are again, violating both the trust of your players and their agency. As GM, you are allowed a certain degree of editorial control of the content of the material your players bring to the table, but that is something you work out with the player, hopefully before the first session even starts. 

A way to manipulate the information your players bring to the table without cheapening their efforts is to change the context. Work with the material the players include in their back-stories to create narrative twists and turns. Don’t contradict any facts your players create, but write material to cast those facts in a different light. 

In terms of campaign structure, you can use manipulation of facts as the basis of a game. Completely invalidating the advice I gave earlier, separate your player’s back-stories into discrete events. Sort these events into two categories, factual and non-factual. With these details, you create a horror or investigative plot in which the mystery is the character’s own back-stories. With this set-up, you are not only engaging with the materials your players create, but also making it the focus of the game. I wouldn’t spring this kind of game on your players, make sure their okay with it first, possibly by trying some other tricks involving back-story first.

Tuesday 22 April 2014

Podcasts and Panels: The Hourglass Model in Adventure Design



I attended a panel at my local gaming convention earlier this year and attended a couple of panels on RPG design. I’m also a big fan of podcasts, one of which is the Co-optional Podcast put on by the Polaris Network on Youtube. Both are about gaming (tabletop and video respectively), but I didn’t expect to encounter thoughts on the same style of design in both.

In both instances, panelists brought up a style of plot Alex Flagg referred to as the hourglass model. He used it to describe a method of adventure design, so that’s the way I’ll describe it, as it fits better with the general theme of this blog. You start with a base point, the hook that introduces characters to the plot, or the introduction to the campaign. From there, you move out into a sandbox style of play in which you defeat challenges that lead you closer to a major event. This major event acts as a bottleneck between the sandbox style of play and the rest of the adventure. Completing the bottleneck event leads the players to a new hook and into a second sandbox. 

On the Co-optional Podcast, this was an example of a problem with Mass Effect. It always funnels you towards a particular set piece, despite having a free roam style of play, typically. I can’t say for sure how true this is, having only really played the first game. This was a problem with the design and took away from their enjoyment of the game. Now, when I was at the panel, I thought that this model was an improvement on the usual sandbox style of design because it gave forward momentum and a chance to create impressive set pieces.

One of the biggest issues, I think, with sandbox games in tabletop gaming is prep time. A linear story requires the least amount of preparation but grants the least player agency. A branching story has a balance between prep time and player agency. Sandbox style play has an immense amount of prep time but grants the most agency to players, often to the point of overwhelming them. To me, the hourglass style is a mix of the branching story and the sandbox. Players are moving towards the bottleneck but can plan how to do so. Having a bottleneck means that you can spend the time making an impressive set piece with complex mechanics or narrative impact without worrying that your players will miss it entirely. Your sandbox play can be looser, evolving organically in play because these important moments have more impact on the players.

Now, I’m a designer and GM first and a player second so my views on adventure/ campaign design are skewed towards set up and structure more than they are playability. When I heard the panelists on the Co-optional podcast cite this design philosophy as a problem I had a few issues. Notably, these people are players, not designers. I saw three possibilities:
1)      This style of game only works in tabletop
2)      This style of game is more appealing to designers than players
3)      This style of play is not for everyone

I don’t have an answer. The reason for this post is to explain the problem. I may post later explaining the options in detail. Also, I may look at player agency and how it relates to design choices. Also, listed below are some links to the podcasts and panels I referred to today as well as Alex Flagg’s company. At time of posting, the recording of the Co-optional Podcast episode I mentioned isn’t up.


Relevant Links:



Wednesday 16 April 2014

Events in Fisher Kings

I was going to do the introduction to this setting as a piece of short fiction but that sort of stalled. Hopefully, I'll be able to finish it, or something like it in the near future. In the meantime, I'm posting a short introduction and timeline for Fisher Kings.

The game takes place in a fictional version of Bellingham, WA and the surrounding towns. The fictional city on this spot is called Portsmouth. Setting it in a fictional city gave me the freedom to essentially arrange the landscape however I chose. I divided the town into four districts, using the name of towns in the area.

1) Portsmouth (the district) is primarily industrial, mostly abandoned with the decline of heavy industry in the area. It is home to the majority of the city's squatters and homeless. What isn't factories and warehouses, abandoned or not, is predominantly row houses and other low income housing.

2) Bellingham (again, the district) is the city's downtown core as well as home to many apartments, large and small. Over the course of the game, this region of town has taken the most beating, having hosted multiple superpowered brawls.

3) Fairhaven is an upper class district with trendy stores and expensive houses and apartments. For the first eight or so sessions, the group was based here.

4) Sehome is a middle class district mostly made up of suburbs. The very rich tend to live on the border between here and Fairhaven. The PCs have spent very little time here. I don't write much in the way of crime-fighting hooks in suburban America, oddly enough.

Structurally, the game is in a sandbox style of play with occasional moments in which I lean in to take narrative control in order to have a structured adventure, but I've only done that twice so far. So, with that in mind, here is the spoiler free timeline for the background and first few sessions. I'll post a character overview soon.


Timeline



August 16th 2013- The night sky is filled with a strange pulsing ring of light. This ring is visible around the world and stays in place for exactly one rotation of the Earth.

August 17th 2013- Unknown Human Form Threat 01 appears in Chicago. The media comes up with various names for him, including “The Destroyer” and, “The Chicago Monster”. UHFT1 appears to be, one Mister Ewan Brown. Mr. Brown was a tax consultant known for having a bit of a temper and a large ego. He snapped and destroyed most of Chicago in a matter of hours, exhibiting the powers of flight, superstrength and the ability to project waves of lethal force from his hands. Brown is the world's first taste of Superhumans. Their next tastes are the few superhuman that are recorded standing up to Brown. The army is swift to blockade the city. There is a stalemate. Brown kills anyone who enters his city, but will not leave. Many civilians are left alive and made to worship Mr. Brown.

August 18th 2013- The Bellingham Police Station is emptied out late that night. Paul Abramson, career criminal, kills the police on duty, the other prisoners, and anyone else he comes across on his flight to freedom. There is one notable exception: Automaton. This hero is wearing homemade powered armour. The hero and the sociopath's monster fight in the streets, neither getting the upper hand until Abramson's monster vanishes, its master nowhere in sight. Meanwhile, on the other side of the district, a new superhuman makes himself know, he appears to be a teleporter with a sword.

August 19th 2013- Despite the police's best efforts, they are unable to find either Abramson or Automaton. Disappearances start in Sehome and Fairhaven. They seem more like evacuations, money and personal items are taken with no sign of struggle or forced entry. The only thing connecting them is a small stone tower, shaped like a rook, left somewhere on the property, visible from the street. Announced over the internet, a group of superhuman wannabes meet up in a fast food restaurant. Somewhat concealed among their numbers are a number of true superhumans who exchange information with each other.

August 20th 2013- Rumors appear about a teleporting creature stalking the rooftops of the city. A cluster of house fires start in Sehome. Automaton and two new heroes, dressed like high tech Greco-Roman warriors, appear at the scene and help rescue workers to extricate those trapped in the burning buildings. Automaton gives his name to reporters for the first time. The other two introduce themselves as Ares and Vulcan. While the armored heroes take up the spotlight, a masked superhuman uses their strange powers to heal those injured with a touch.

August 21th 2013- 8 police officers and 13 homeless people die when they attempt to flush Paul Abramson out of his hiding spot. Abramson escapes again in the confusion.

(Game Begins)

August 22th 2013- A group of super heroes and super villains clash at the site of a bank robbery. This fight ends with three of the heroes dead. The Superheroes were members of a team out of Seattle who came down to hunt down Paul Abramson. The remaining member of the team, a shapeshifter called Feral vows to hunt down those responsible.

August 23rd 2013- Multiple people in Bellingham report being interrogated and savagely beaten by a dark haired, beast-like man.
A group of superhumans step in to stop a jewelry store robbery. This results in the death of one of Portsmouth’s homeless, apparently one that possessed superpowers. The other two thieves surrender to the intervening superhumans and disappear with them to parts unknown.
Ares and Vulcan stop an attack on an upscale restaurant in Fairhaven by four strange, beetle-like humanoids. These creatures, upon their defeat, revered back into humans and seemed to have no memory of the events that led them to attack.
Lastly, a massive crop of strange fungus infests and destroys a medical research building in Sehome.

August 24th 2013- A anti-power militia lynches a pair of young superhumans (One with the power of flight, and the other who can generate a spray of paint-like pigment). They beat and hang the two superhumans. In retaliation, radicals from the group Powers Unite hunt down and kill those responsible.
Radicals from Powers Unite retaliate and kill the skinhead militia “True Americans”
The President declares the creation of the Anti-Human Form Threat Division or A.T.D, an organization specifically created to deal with the growing danger of Unknown Human Form Threats (i.e. Superhumans) 

August 25th 2013- The Portsmouth Heroes put Loot and Pillage on parole and use them to help bust the arms dealing Rook Gang. All except Armory and Scatter die. Armory is taken in. A mysterious masked woman in a scaled cloak retrieves Scatter. Their mansion in Sehome is the site of a mass exodus as the brainwashed victims try to go back to their homes. The Portsmouth PD cordon off the area, a retrieve the weapons contained therein.  
A new hero, Android makes his debut. He busts a drug den that the police knew about but could not get the evidence to make a move. Bristol is overthrown by someone calling himself ‘Liege’.

August 26th 2013- No major news.

August 27th 2013- Saul Hayes, of the law firm ‘Marino and Hayes’ in Bellingham releases a statement in support of the A.T.D and his firm’s resolve to deliver funds and aid to nascent alphabet organization. A banker is murdered and hung by his feet on a busy thoroughfare.

August 28th 2013- ATD sets up a branch in Bellingham under Director Anna-Maria Nesmith. The Gygax building, home to ‘Marino and Hayes’ collapses out of the blue. Abramson attacks a group of street kids, killing them all. The city of Bangalore vanishes.