GCG

Salve!

Visto lo scopo anche "dimostrativo" di questo play-by-forum, in questo thread posterò il mio materiale preparatorio per le partite (a volte dop la fine di una città per evitare spoilers).

Inizio con le cose che fanno fare ancor meno fatica ai master pigri, e in particolare questi siti:
The Order Set Apart Tools e le sue liste di nomi.
Dogs in the Vineyard Wiki con altre liste di nomi, e alcune spiegazioni sulle regole ma soprattutto...


[size=18]Il generatore di proto-NPC![/size]

Già il sistema di base di Cani nella Vigna permette di prepararsi i proto-NPC in anticipo in breve tempo, a questa pagina quel tempo lo annulla: andate e stampate, e avete i proto-npc!

Ecco per esempio i pro-NPC che userò per la prima città:

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During play, assign the following dice to these 6 NPCs as desired: 2d6, 4d6, 2d8.

NPC #1:

Acuity: 5d6
Body: 4d6
Heart: 3d6
Will: 4d6

Trait #1: 2d4
Trait #2: 1d10
Trait #3: 2d10
Trait #4: 2d10

Relationship #1: 2d4
Relationship #2: 1d6
Blood: 1d6

NPC #2:

Acuity: 4d6
Body: 3d6
Heart: 4d6
Will: 5d6

Trait #1: 2d6
Trait #2: 1d10
Trait #3: 2d8
Trait #4: 1d8

Relationship #1: 3d8
Relationship #2: 1d6
Blood: 1d6

NPC #3:

Acuity: 4d6
Body: 3d6
Heart: 5d6
Will: 5d6

Trait #1: 1d10
Trait #2: 1d8
Trait #3: 1d4
Trait #4: 1d8

Relationship #1: 1d4
Relationship #2: 1d8
Blood: 1d6

NPC #4:

Acuity: 5d6
Body: 2d6
Heart: 5d6
Will: 3d6

Trait #1: 1d8
Trait #2: 2d10
Trait #3: 1d6
Trait #4: 1d6

Relationship #1: 1d6
Relationship #2: 2d6
Blood: 1d6

NPC #5:

Acuity: 2d6
Body: 4d6
Heart: 3d6
Will: 3d6

Trait #1: 1d10
Trait #2: 2d6
Trait #3: 2d4
Trait #4: 1d4

Relationship #1: 2d6
Relationship #2: 3d8
Blood: 1d6

NPC #6:

Acuity: 5d6
Body: 3d6
Heart: 6d6
Will: 4d6

Trait #1: 1d4
Trait #2: 2d4
Trait #3: 1d6
Trait #4: 2d8

Relationship #1: 1d6
Relationship #2: 1d6
Blood: 1d6

Tempo impiegato: a parte il tempo per scrivere questa spiegazione? Circa cinque secondi per trovare il link, caricare e stampare...

(c'è nessuno che fa un generatore di proto-NPC in Italiano?)

Questo thread è dedicato al conflitto di iniziazione di fratello Gabriel (Mauro)

Nome
Fratello Gabriel Garvey

Passato
Passato Significativo - Strong History.

Nato da genitori benestanti, ha vissuto una vita tranquilla, venendo istruito nella Fede e nel Verbo del Re della Vita, in una famiglia che ha sempre diviso ciò che aveva per aiutare i Fratelli in difficoltà; a sedici anni è stato scelto dal Sovrintendente di White Blow, ispirato dal Re della Vita, per mandarlo al Tempio dei Cani, dove lui, sebbene un po' a malincuore, visto che avrebbe preferito rimanere con la famiglia, si è recato per essere addestrato a servire la Fede.

Caratteristiche
Acutezza: 4
Corpo: 3
Cuore: 4
Volontà: 2

Tratti
Il Re della Vita mi ha scelto, mio malgrado 2d10
"Il Re della Vita ha detto..." 2d8
La povertà è una piaga 1d6
Sono vergine 1d6
La famiglia è importante 2d8
Ben educato 1d6
So spiegare la Fede 1d10

Relazioni
La mia famiglia 2d6
Il Sovrintendente di White Blow 1d8
Avarizia 1d8
Dadi disponibili: 1d4 1d6

Proprietà
Pistola 1d6 + 1d4
Libro della Vita di famiglia 1d6
Simbolo usurato del Re della Vita, che la famiglia aveva nel venire all'Ovest 1d4
Terra consacrata 1d6
Faith, cavallo grigio regalatogli dai cittadini di White Blow al momento della partenza 2d6
Cappotto colorato ma semplice, con il simbolo del Re della Vita cucito all'altezza del petto con tessuto preso dall'abito della madre 1d6

Conflitto di Iniziazione: Essere rimasto saldo nella fede in una situazione difficile.

Segnalo un altro post interessante, stavolta riguardo al "Sandbox playing". Visto che spesso nei forum e ng italiani si parla di Sandbox playing (intendendo un po' di tutto con questo termine) come opposto o alternativo al narrativismo, ho pensato fosse utile segnalare questo post su come si fa a giocarci narrativista...
"Sand Box" Adventures

(come bonus, fra i vari link c'è anche un altra definizione: the Bobby G scenario

Oggi per cercare un vecchio articolo di Clinton R. Nixon sono andato a vedere in un folder nel mio hard disk che frequento raramente. Perchè mi dà tristezza. Il "cimitero dei blog", dove salvo gli articoli che riesco a recuperare da blog chiusi e defunti prima che spariscano dalla cache di google.

E ho visto il subfolder dove tengo quello che ho salvato di "deep in the game", il vecchio blog di Bankuei, chiuso nel 2006.

Guardando quei vecchi files, ho ritrovato qualcosa che a leggerlo adesso pare ovvio e scontato, ma allora provoco' una marea di polemiche. E mi pare il caso di ripostarla...  

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Friday, February 10, 2006
The Fun Now Manifesto

(nothing new, just formalized)

1. Not everyone likes the same thing
2. Play with people you like
3. Play with rules you like
4. Everyone is a player
5. Talking is good
6. Trust, not fear or power
7. It's a game, not a marriage
8. Fun stuff at least every 10 minutes
9. Fix problems, don't endure them

posted by Bankuei @ 11:48 AM
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Monday, February 13, 2006
The Fun Never Manifesto

Contrast and compare with the Fun Now Manifesto:

1. Everyone must like the same thing
2. Keep playing with people even if you don't like them
3. Keep playing with the same game, even if you don't like it
4. Not everyone gets to play (and by play, I mean engage & input)
5. Talking is bad
6. Fear & Power, never Trust
7. Commit. Forever.
8. Be amazed when fun actually happens
9. Endure, but do not fix problems.

No one in their right mind would suggest these, right?

Try looking in some of your favorite games about "problem players", "Don't let them get too much control", "Planning a campaign", "fudging", "Acting out of character", etc. Try looking on some of your favorite forums & online advice columns about "problem players"/"problem GMs", "Forming a group", "punishing powergamers/munchkins/ruleslawyers".

Try reading Knights of the Dinner Table and pick out the cartoons you can't relate to at all.

After all, no one plays like that, right?

posted by Bankuei @ 6:31 PM
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E un altra cosa interessante, un articolo su Dogs in the Vineyard:

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Saturday, January 07, 2006
Thoughts on Dogs

So, we're in our 8th-9th game, just starting our 3rd town (and third GM). Here's some thoughts about how the game works from a play-experience standpoint. (Actual play reports to follow after our last town.)

At The Table

So, this is one of the books I point everyone to for clear examples of what to do at the table. The two standouts from a text point are the "Structure of Play" that tells both GMs & players what they ought to be doing in play, and putting the rules on the character sheets (God that's helpful, I can never remember which 2 stats go to which action. I'm Sam.)

Ammo

First off, Ammo-wise, the town creation rules...well, rule. It's a formalized way of making a shitstorm of fictional problems, an explosive R-Map, and the hierarchy of sin puts it on that downward spiral that demands the Dogs get involved. Not assigning stats until the last minute has been terribly useful, AND also prevents the GM from getting abusive with overpowered characters. (only grey area- large groups of people- what prevents GMs from overstacking the numbers? Not a problem yet, though we've seen the GM call in more and more people a couple of times.)

The demonic influence allows GMs to turn the screw and escalate the conflicts to a climax (in the traditional, literary sense of the term), also without abuse. As Matt Wilson put it- as a GM, you can throw your all at the players in adversity without worrying about crushing them- the system handles that.

System clearly defines input & authority

Second, stake setting makes things explicitly clear. What I love is that if you get the Stakes well defined, you can cut away a lot of "floatiness" to play right away. "Do I find out why he did this?" means, no qualms or fudging, if you win the conflict, you know it and don't have to keep pressing the issue. There's no, "Aha! But you missed this! (regarding this subject)" kinda crap that sometimes gets pulled in other games(especially investigation types). You get the info and you can move to a different area or conflict without having to worry about going back to it.

Likewise, knowing that you could lose the Stakes also gives you incentive to escalate. Now, most people assume the escalation is words to violence- though you can also go violence to words. What's interesting to note- is that violence is always in there. Either way, if you want the most dice for your conflict, you gotta include violence in there somehow AND you gotta include words in there somehow. Mindlessly beating your way through the problem alone won't suffice, nor will trying to "roleplay" and talk it all away. You have to be able to pull out both to really get the most effectiveness out of your character. Turtling under violence alone or trying to "stay clean and peaceful" alone will likely leave you losing conflicts.

Stuff That Matters

Whoo-whoo! What a loaded game. Obviously you have the fat question, "What is right/justice?", along with many others, "How do we make people stop being asses to each other?" ("CAN we make people stop being asses to each other?"), "When is violence ok?", etc. Slightly more subtle questions include, "What happens if you fuck up someone's life or many people's lives while trying to fix things?" "Is it ok to sacrifice some innocent people to save some others?" "At what point is violence THE ONLY option?" "Can there exist such a thing as benevolent dictatorship?" "What happens when ideals meet reality?" and thousands of other real world relevant questions.

That's just in the premise of play and the system alone.

The chips on the table

But here's the real interesting part- I feel like the real "resource" at stake, in every conflict, is your character concept of your Dog. Every town makes you address the questions above, but your Dog is what carries from town to town. And you carry the memory of where you choose to escalate and where you chose to give and over what. If anything, I've watched people give or escalate very hardcore based on what was most important to them as a player about the character.

Vincent says, "If you don't want to see your character changed, don't play Dogs", and it's true. That doesn't mean it's not important to you, in fact, that's why it's so focal. You could likewise say, "If you don't want to take the chance of your character dying, don't play D&D", and it would equally apply. Your concept of who your character is, and what he or she is willing to do, that's the stakes on the table. (behind that, is, also, what are you willing to say about this character, and perhaps, about yourself through that).

"Address the premise"/say something meaningful

Everything about the game says, "Say something meaningful". The town situations often deal with real issues (and then add demons) to address. The traits and relationships you choose say something. (other players were surprised to see me add, "The Territorial Law is an evil & heartless thing" or, "Not afraid to pull the trigger") Even the way you choose to narrate your sees & raises says a lot.

And scarily enough, probably one of the MOST telling things is where you choose to lower your characters' Traits, not for a single conflict, but permanently. There's no in game incentive to do so (you could choose to take a new trait/r-ship instead), so you're only doing it to say something.

My "Seen the worst in people" is at 4D10. My "Seen good in people, too", has dropped to 1D4.

What's that say?

Awesome game.

posted by Bankuei @ 10:46 AM
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Ho un folder pieno di centinaia di articoli di questo livello, presi da una mezza dozzina di blog defunti ed ormai irraggiungibili.  Che nessun altro leggerà mai più. Tristezza.

Ciao a tutti!

Nel blog di Vincent Baker si sta svolgendo in questi giorni (non è ancora terminata) una discussione molto interessante su come le piccole differenze creative all'interno di un gruppo di gioco posso essere costruttive o distruttive a seconda del sistema di gioco. I link sono:
That Reminds Me
Creative Tension

Per quanto molto interessante, la discussione è molto "teorica" e andrebbe probabilmente segnalata nella sezione "sotto il cofano" (quella per le menate teoriche che si fanno i designers e gli iperappassionati di teoria ma che non sono necessarie per giocare), ma non era il thread nella sua totalità che mi interessava segnalare, quanto un singolo post di Vincent Baker che è la spiegazione più bella che abbia mai letto di come si setta in gioco il Supernatural Dial, e il perchè non va MAI deciso prima a tavolino.

Ecco il testo copia-incollato:

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So we're playing Dogs, it's the first session, and there's an enormous bonfire in town and it's a problem (I forget the details why). It's my raise. I say "I put my hands into the fire and I say 'peace, be still,' to extinguish it."

Like all right Dogs players, we haven't talked about the supernatural up-front at all. Never, ever talk about the supernatural up-front, except for the GM to say only "hey, supernatural things might happen, we'll see."

So. Peace, be still, to extinguish a bonfire.

a) Is it a legit move on my part? YES. I am clearly within my rights to say that my character does that.

b) Is it a legit raise, though? YES. The GM rolled demonic influence against me; ritual is how you make raises against the demons.

c) Is it tacky? UP TO YOU. Ron thinks it is, probably. I think it's cool. I think, most importantly, that it's true to the stories of my childhood and respectful of my family's faith and mythology.

d) Does it work, though? HERE'S THE FUN. This is why you don't set the supernatural dial up-front, but through play.

What dice did I push forward? High dice? Then I'm making a bid at nudging the supernatural dial upward. Low dice? Then I'm making a bid at nudging it downward.

How does the GM see? Both the dice he uses and what he says matter a whole lot. A block like "you can't bring yourself to put your hands in the fire" is a whole different thing from a block like "the fire leaps away from your hands but burns up more brightly elsewhere." So here's the GM participating in nudging the supernatural dial one way or the other.

And then, how often, over the first few sessions, do people get up to shenanigans like this, and what are their outcomes overall?

We played one game where, by luck and synergy, the raises we all made with magic were crap, but the sees we made with magic were good. In that game, the supernatural was there to protect you, not to let you advance your agenda. After three or four sessions of that pattern, it becomes what you expect and what you look for. The GM screws around with that expectation at his own peril.

I think this is the same thing. I think that, if I were to play Dogs with Ron, his considering my moves tacky would be a fruitful component of our play, a productive, or at least not destructive, tension between us.
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Ancora una ragione per cui il sistema di gioco di Cani nella Vigna è un capolavoro, come se ce ne servissero altre...   :roll:

In questi tempi di blog che chiudono, viene voglia di salvare da qualche parte i post migliori. Non che si possa fare per tutti, ma almeno per alcuni...

Questo è un post che Paul Czege ha postato nel suo blog in aprile.  Parla dei motivi per cui ha scritto il gioco, e di altro. Sono due post, li copio-incollo tali e quali, e poi aggiungo una mia domanda a commento e la risposta di Paul.

In the Clutches of a Game Design -- 04/15/2008
I used to say I created My Life with Master to show other designers the kind of games I'd be excited to see from them as a consumer. Of late I've realized that's only part of the reason, and that myself I didn't even understand what exactly I was trying to "show". And as a result I've started to understand why I've kept designing games.

If you file the serial numbers off of My Life with Master, and then keep filing until all that's left is the underlying framework, you find a social structure for collaboratively creating a story that relies on: shared creation of antagonism, to be managed in play by the GM; conflict resolution, based on a few thematically meaningful character stats that fluctuate with each and every conflict outcome and manage progress toward story closure; and an institutionalized preservation of the protagonism of player character.

Now take a look around. Take some recent games and file them down to the framework, and you find shared creation of antagonism, conflict resolution built from a small knot of thematically relevant character stats that fluctuate with every conflict, etc. You find what's effectively the same architecture of collaboration, transported to new themes.

So, mission accomplished, right? Time to retire.

But damn if I haven't been dug in on Acts of Evil for all I'm worth since early 2005. I spent the better part of a year working on a game called Soul of Man prior to Acts of Evil, and then put it on the shelf after alpha playtesting. But Acts of Evil has had me in its clutches for three fucking years!

Why?

(Enjoy psychoanalyzing me in the comments if you're so inclined. I'll hold off on what I've realized until tomorrow.)


In the Clutches of a Game Design (part two) -- 04/17/2008
In The Sorcerer's Soul Ron suggests playing a game of Sorcerer, and then playing a second game, this time among the prior generation of characters, and which results in the situation that was dealt with by the characters in the first game. When I read that suggestion I asked him how it played. And he said he didn't know. That he'd never done it.

Recently, for only the second time ever, I had the experience of playing My Life with Master, as a minion, rather than running it. My wife Danielle ran the game. So in that game there's this scene where I'm wanting the Sincerity die and I'm roleplaying for it. And Danielle says, "If you want the Sincerity die you're going to have to do better than that." So I close my eyes and think for a bit, and then I come back with more passion, and more intensity. And she gives me the die.

What I've realized is that I designed My Life with Master to do that.

Honestly, I don't think I'm a very good player. I tend to create emotionally repressed characters who aren't particularly interesting for other players to watch. Yes, if the GM does everything right with his or her delivery of antagonism to my character, for maybe three sessions, everything, then my character explodes into dramatic protagonism. And it has happened. Once. Usually the GM doesn't do everything right, and my character fizzles, or rather, remains...unaccessed.

I designed My Life with Master to stretch me as a player, to train me where my skills are weak. And as a GM too. The whole group gives me, as GM, a challenge of delivering meaningful antagonism through the concept of Master they create, stretching the range of my creativity.

Bacchanal teaches me to create narrative that holds the interest of the other players using uncommon content. And in current local Acts of Evil playtesting I've realized the game is a crash course for the GM (with a player feedback loop) in creating interesting NPCs.

What I've realized is that I design games, at least in part, from an awareness of my own creative weaknesses and a desire to move through them. And I think then my games are compelling to folks who share my creative desires. Acts of Evil still has me in its clutches (in a way that Nicotine Girls doesn't), because it still has something to teach me.

I think that's what My Life with Master tries to show other designers that I'd be excited to see from them as a consumer: games you designed to challenge the limits you perceive to your own creative and collaborative skills when you play them.

Comments (2)

 What about Nicotine Girls?
#1 Moreno R. on 2008-04-19 09:04

 Hey Moreno,

I put Nicotine Girls to the Internet in May, 2002, but I didn't actually play(test) it until early August, 2003. I designed the core of My Life with Master in the months prior to July, 2002, and playtested it at Gen Con that year. It went through external playtesting and got written and published for Gen Con 2003. So by the time I playtested Nicotine Girls, My Life with Master was designed, playtested, written and off to the printer. And what I realized after the Nicotine Girls playtest is that everything the game could teach me about delivering antagonism customized to the player characters, and about aiming for the end of play as a creative destination I'd already learned from My Life with Master. So, Acts of Evil, which yet has something to teach me, still has me in its clutches feverishly designing. But Nicotine Girls doesn't. I do love Nicotine Girls, and it wouldn't be that hard for me to write the rules up more fully, with examples and play advice. But with so many other design ideas that represent real learning opportunities I wish I had time for, I just don't ever seem to find time for Nicotine Girls.

Paul
#2 Paul Czege on 2008-04-28 13:13

Ciao a tutti!

Il sito "Play Passsionately" di Jesse Burneko, man mano che accumula articoli, diventa sempre più interessante.  E' l'unico sito (a quanto ne so) a descrivere quello che Jesse chiama "passionate play", cioè la maniera di giocare narrativista che privilegia l'immedesimazione, la tensione emotiva e l'imprevedibilità delle storie.   E' un sotto-insieme del narrativismo (si può tranquillamente giocare narrativista gestendo i personaggi "dall'alto" e molto più freddamente. Anzi, per molti che hanno solo sfogliato i manuali e non hanno mai visto in azione certe tecniche, è questo il narrativismo e il passionate play è una cosa sconosciuta), ma è la maniera di giocare di gran lunga preferita da me. E dagli autori dei giochi di Narrattiva (cosa che mi fa ritenere che anche Michele e Claudia apprezzino più questo tipo di gioco). E pure Non Cedere al Sonno andrebbe giocato così, quindi si può in pratica dire che questo sito parla proprio in particolare di come giocare ai giochi pubblcati finora in Italia (3:16, House of the Blloded o Contenders per esempio non sono così)

E' una funzione importante, di cui si sentiva la mancanza, perchè spesso si spiega solo come come "giocare narrativista" senza tener conto che di maniere di giocare NAR ce ne sono un esagerazione, e bisognerebbe approfondire un po' di più. Avere un unico sito che raccoglie tutte queste tecniche e consigli finora dispersi in centinaia di thread è utilissimo.

Era un po' che avevo in mente di fare un post per segnalare questo sito, ma attendevo che Jesse postasse abbastanza materiale. Dire che, con l'articolo di stanotte:
Walk, Don’t Run To Conflict
... che parla dell'errore principale che ho visto fare più di frequente nei giochi forgiti, direi che quel momento è giunto!