Hey Man, well this is Babylon

I’m still pretty divided on this idea, between two modes of implementation I’m calling The Steed Way and The Universe Way. On the first hand (The Steed Way), I’m envisioning using this third Code to represent the character’s relationship with their Steed, with the scale going from one extreme (“My steed is just a tool and nothing more.”) to the other (“I am the steed.”). Given the intended portability of the game, this could of course be a Bike in the default game setup, or a Horse, Spaceship, or whatever in alternate home-made scenarios.

Doing it this way would keep the three codes thematically similar, each one representing the character’s relationship with something external: The Team, the Sword, the Bike. These three relationships would be important to the situation in the game, and each would have social rules (the Codes) and expectations for maintaining good standing. The rules of the Pack dictate proper behaviour for members, like a motorcycle club charter. The rules of the Sword dictate proper use of the weapon, to the point of becoming the weapon. The rules of the Steed cover care and maintenance of your ride, as well as rules for proper traveling and such etiquette.

On the other hand, following The Universe Way, the Highway could also be a metaphor for the character’s relationship with the Universe at Large. At the low extreme, he again is just a tool-user, with no relationship to the greater world. At the high extreme, he has become the zen master, one step away from true consuming enlightenment, and everything else is just so much unnecessary time-wasting.

These two different ideas, I’m not sure if there’s a way to implement them both without overwhelming the player with too much Thematic conflict. Both implementations have a similar spiritual component, although the Universe Way would have heavier implications in this regard.

Each of the three Codes is intended to clash both within itself and with the other two. The innate conflict of the Pack is about keeping good standing within the ranks, while not getting consumed by the group mentality. Within the Code of the Sword, the character must find a good balance between using the sword to kill, and becoming a creature of pure emotionless murder in the possession of a Master. Likewise, the internal clash within the Code of the Highway could involve the balance between using the steed and becoming one with the steed, shedding your own identity in the process.

The inter-code conflicts, then, are a matter of balancing the extremes on their scales. One who has become consumed by the Pack Mentality will suffer on the other two scales, as loyalty to the team will be more important than skill with the blade or mastery of the steed. One who becomes the perfect weapon will be cold to his companions, and careless with his steed. One who becomes a melding of man and steed will be isolated from friends, and possessed of less reason to kill.

That’s a good question. First, I should re-establish that this isn’t just a “samurai game.” This is a Motorcycle Samurai game. It’s a game about inner turmoil, divided loyalties, wicked sword fights, and sweet bikes. Part pseudo-spiritual character drama, part bitchin’ battle-against-the-Crazy-88 sword fights, part hot motorcycle porn. These are all of equal importance to me.

So keeping that in mind, what’s going on here, Nathanael?

In the anime Kino’s Journey, each episode mostly follows the same format: the titular hero rides into a new town (they call them “countries”), is introduced to the local weirdness, and by the end of the episode he is riding away, having experienced some regional change or learned some important life lesson. He beings the episode with a ride in, ends the episode with a ride out, always moving, always subject to the winds of change.

I’m picturing a bit of Dogs in the Vineyard inspiration here, as far as episodic approach goes. The GM sets up a mission, with the intention of firmly yanking on the cords of a handful of the tenets of each Code – tenets which should solidly clash once all put into play. The pack is given an important mission by their patron, and they ride forth to the destination to complete it. Pretty basic right there.

Each “mission” should involve threats to each of the three codes. The Pack is threatened because Tobei and Hyuu are both trying to romance the same woman. The Prospect member has learned that the Patron is lying to them about his intentions behind the mission, but he is afraid to share this information with the Pack Leader, for fear of jeopardizing his membership in the Pack. That kinda stuff. The pack must deal with each of these threats to their Codes, while attempting to complete the mission at hand. This is how I’m thinking the basic scenario setup is going to look.

So with that basic frame in place, what do we actuall do in the game proper? How do the Codes affect play? What exactly is Play, anyway? What factors come into play when resolving game conflicts? What is the scope of this resolution? What is the balance between fiat and mechanic?

There is a possibility here to set some more rigid scene structure, if necessary. The Ride In, the Mission, the Ride Home, etc. I’ve played games that have more rigid scene framing rules, requiring certain types of scenes in certain sequences in order to tell certain stories. Those can be fun, but my gut right now is telling me to keep it more open. The vote is out on this one.

What do you think? What would be cool, fun, exciting, tense? How would your sessions play out? What would you want to see happen in-game, at the table?

Now, I begin to dip my pinky toes into the waters of actual game mechanics consideration. The three Codes have mostly been set into wet plaster, so now I want to erect some sturdier scaffolding around it, and prepare for some heavier work in the coming days.

Today, I’m mulling over the actual visual implementation of these three Codes. I’m envisioning each separate code as a seven-spot track. While I’m not intending to numerically number them just yet, doing so for the sake of discussion will help with imparting this vision.

In this idea, the “lower” numbers are closer to the Internal, aka the Self, while the “higher” numbers are further away from the self, and represent a greater connection to the External. True middle is perfect balance.

1: Isolation from / Rejection of the Code
2: Neophyte within the Code
3: Acceptance of the Code
4: Understand of / Balance with the Code
5. Empowerment by / Reliance Upon the Code
6. Deeper Connection with the Code
7. Consumption by / Fatalism resulting from Complete Immersion within the Code

I’m picturing one of two visual layouts for this (please excuse the crappy hand drawings):

Figure 1

or

Figure 2

In both setups, the rings go outward, with the Self on the inside and the External on the outside. The circle is set into three wedges, with seven rings. I’m currently leaning more towards Figure 2, being the Circle-within-a-Triangle. In this case, the circle would only have four rings (yes, I realize I drew the circle with only three. that was a mistake), while the extensions beyond the circle would have three more stages.

The player would mark their character’s current place on each of their scales. Using Figure 2, if the outermost ring is filled in, the character is in a state of true balance with his external forces. Continuing deeper into the Code, the outer points would be marked. Rejecting the ways of the Codes would drive the character more inward. In either case, there is imbalance, and imbalance will being the character into constant conflict with the world.

Indeed, a state of true balance would be even more conflicted, as it is just not in the nature of the world to allow such balance to maintain itself easily in the shadow of human emotion and necessity.

In a previous post on this game, I set down the basic premise of the game’s core dynamic: the three-way clash between Family Loyalty, the Warrior’s Honor, and the pseudo-spiritual Code of the Highway. Today, I’ve got the concept of Master on my mind, and am trying to figure out exactly what it means to me and this game.

One of the core inspirations for this game is the book Hagakure – the “book of the Samurai” that is sorta-famous in media as being the source of all of the quotes in the movie Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai. This book is all about defnining the essence of the samurai as the perfect retainer – made perfect by commitment to death for the sake of the Master. Only by acting as if one is already dead can a retainer be the perfect extension of the master’s will.

I want this master-retainer relationship to be in the game, but I’m not yet certain of its implementation. As it is currently conceptualized, Hagakure 66 is about a pack of motorcycle samurai who travel the post-war highways, seeking food, supplies, money, and either reattainment or absolution of their past possessions (physical, emotional, or otherwise). Currently, the only innate “master” of this dynamic would be the Pack Leader.

An enhancement to this core situation would lay down the idea that the Pack needs an external patron (Master) for its greater livelihood. This would add a new active component to the story at play: the seeking and supporting of a patron. Narratively, the gang would have a tough time finding a patron in the harsh social post-war landscape. Trust is a rare commodity in these troubled times. Finding a Patron, protecting a Patron, and doing the Patron’s bidding could be major in-game play concepts, and thus could provide the Master-Retainer relationship.

I’m not entirely sold on the idea of the Pack Leader being the de facto “Master” of the dynamic. My goal is to have the “relationship with the Master” implemented via the laws of the Way of the Sword, and have it clash with the Laws of the Pack. In other words, I want the master-retainer relationship to clash with the brother-family relationship. This could be done with the Pack Leader as Master, but it would be a stretch, and the lines would be a little too blurred than would be good for the initial conceptualization of new players.

What say you?

What does the Code of the Highway represent in what I am now calling the Thematic Trinity of Hagakure 66?

On my ride home today, I had this subject heavy on my mind (set aside your fears, I was paying more attention to the road, of course). It hit me the heaviest at a certain point on Skyline, when we took a sharp blind curve. At that moment, in the pouring flash thunderstorm rain, a truck coming the other way sped across our path to a side street and a bicyclist only 80 or so feet ahead popped out of a driveway. It would have caused an average rider’s sphincter to clench a bit tighter, but for me the situation was far more personal and tense.

You see, nine weeks ago today, I had my first motorcycle accident on that exact curve, in the exact spot where the driver cut us off today. Circumstances were different, but I would be a liar if I said that I didn’t get a little tense every single time I’ve taken that curve since (read: every single day of the work week, usually twice). Read more

Lately I’ve been working on a new game which has the working title of Hagakure 66. It’s a “Motorcycle Samurai” game, with the following premise: “The war is over, and your side lost. Everything you knew and loved is gone, destroyed or taken away from you. All you have now are your bike, your sword, your pack, and The Highway.”

It’s a game about riding around with a pack of motorcycle swordsmen after “the war,” finding a master to provide purpose to the pack, dealing with intra-pack tensions and conflicts, maintaining a pseudo-mystical bond with The Highway, fighting in sweet motorcycle sword duels, and upholding obsolete standards of honor and lifestyle in a world forever changed by “The War.”

Its primary media inspirations are Samurai Champloo, Sons of Anarchy, The Seven Samurai, and Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai.

Most of the game’s conflicts will come from imbalances between the three core forces of the system, each a separate Code of Conduct: The Law of the Pack, the Way of the Sword, and the Code of the Highway. Each character must constantly deal with threats to all three of these codes, and determine how they affect his or her life in this changed world. All three both complement and comflict with each other equally.

The primary mechanical purpose of these three conflicting codes is to give the GM some buttons to push. Each “adventure” setup should start with the GM picking at least one (hopefully more) of the avenues for threat within each of the codes, and narratively assaulting them, so that the players all have to deal with conflicts of Code from all sides, and prioritize them individually.

The other night I sat down before bed and worked up a quick mind map of some of my ideas. Here’s what I’ve got so far. I’d like some feedback on ideas. If you have any suggestions for additions and such, please please please send them my way.

Take a look at that and give me your input.

A common situation:

I’m working on a game design project, and I’m thinking that maybe I want to consider making this one a GM-less game. Sure, it’s primarily a “group of characters working together to achieve a central themed goal” kind of game, but that can be GM-less, right? I start to explore that idea, and I eventually get to musing on the mechanics behind the actual introduction of conflicts and challenges. For a GM-less game, I think I’ll need to make it so that any player can throw in a challenge at any time. I’m thinking each player has both a character in the game/story, as well as an additional role of conflict-instigator for the other characters. I eventually take some of these ideas and bounce them off a fellow game designer, and get a response along the lines of “Okay, but what incentive do the players have to actually throw conflicts at each other? Wouldn’t it be in their best mechanical interests to work together, beat the game, and not challenge each other? What’s your currency, what boon do the instigators get out of this?”

This has happened to me more than once, and each time it happens I don’t have an immediate answer. I think “yeah, she’s right, the instigator needs some mechanical incentive to actually do said instigating.” Then I fret over it and try to come up with a non-character-centric system of conflict-introduction currency… and then I sit back and ask myself: Why?

Looking at the other side of the coin, most GM-run games out there have no such conflict currency. The GM has the right to throw challenges and encounters at the players left and right, and gains no specific mechanical reward for doing so. There is no limited pool of bad guys to use, or set currency of “challenge points” with which the GM must purchase new conflicts. No one is keeping a point tally of who does what, or why, and there is no winner. Obstacles appear when they must, players overcome them, and the GMs get no mechanically-tangible rewards for continuing this process.

And why should they? The (usual) point of the whole setup and gaming experience is for the GM to focus on story and opposition, and the players to focus on reaping the tangible rewards. The GM is rewarded based on their own style, be it by telling a good story, or by mystifying the players, or maybe just by murdering their characters in a sick gauntlet of aggression transfer. None of these reaps the GM any “gamer points” or “conflict enhancements” or “monster totems” or the like. The GM is usually free to throw in what she wants, when she wants, without need for mechanical explanation.¹

Now if the established Big Names of the mainstream GM-run games don’t feature such a reward, why should it be necessary to mechanically entice a player in a GM-less game to actually introduce conflict, when both the Social Contract and the innate Situation of the game already establish cross-table challenges as a core game theme? When players sit down to play a game of D&D, they know what they’re getting into. They are aware that the GM will throw challenges out and the players will try and overcome them, for no other reason than because that is just the way the game is played. If the GM-less game establishes this fact up front, then there really shouldn’t need be a reward mechanic in its play, either.²

So I ask you: do you believe that a GM-less game of mostly-cooperative character-driven storytelling should require such a conflict incentive? Why or Why Not?

Footnotes

¹ I am aware that D&D and some other games have Challenge Ratings and Encounter Levels and the like that serve to limit the power of most in-game adversity, but those fit more as pacing mechanics than conflict incentives.
² I haven’t played all that many GM-less games, but the less-than-a-handful that I have played have all tangibly rewarded players for introducing conflict. I’m not sure which others are out there, and which ones do and do not. Please, educate me!

After a conversation with Jake yesterday at the studio, on the subject of a new design project, I’ve decided to take some time an analyze a bunch of “disaster movies.” My specific focus here is to lay out the core threats and dangers present in each one. I’m looking for basic defined components, the dangers that work together to compose the central threats of each story.

Sunshine

Since it’s fresh on my mind, I’ll go ahead and start with Sunshine. The most obvious here is the Sun. While it of course provides the object of the entire movie’s conflict, it is also an ever-present danger for the crew. On numerous occasions it fries, melts, and explodes things, including parts of the ship and even people. Next would be the second most obvious: the Cold Dead of Space. This danger presents itself quite frequently, and is pretty much unavoidable. The third one might not be so obvious, because the director did such a good job of blending it in seamlessly with everything: the knowledge that these guys are all that’s left, and if they fail, it’s all over. There are no second chances, there is no one else to help you. That knowledge is understood by every crew member, and it is there in every decision they make. Finally there is the “twist.” Yeah, sure, that’s a danger too (grumble grumble).

In summation:

• The Dying (yet still mega-hot) Sun
• The Cold Dead of Space
• This is our only shot
• The “Twist”
• Here’s a possible fifth: “Nowhere to Hide”

Other dangers present themselves, but only as short-term obstacles, and not really “core” dangers and threats. Even the “Twist” is more of a temporary thing, I guess.

What about some others? Read past the cut for my takes on them. I’ll try to keep them as spoiler-light as possible. Read more

This weekend at PAX (I have another full post on that forthcoming), I came up with a random new game idea while in the bathroom looking at the crazy pictures I had snapped that day¹. I’m giving it the working title of Cosplay Costume Combat/Gaiden. The premise: walk around the convention and take pictures of cosplayers² and any other weird freaky shit you see. Meet up later with others who have done the same. Randomly pick photos from your camera, and then make those characters fight. Throughout the course of the weekend I mentioned it to several groups of other gamers and cosplayers alike, and all of them found it to be an interesting premise (the Rollerderby girls were especially animated in their ideas), so I figured I’d draft up an initial post for some preliminary design musings.

First and foremost, I want the game to avoid design pretensions and established indie considerations that are common with the current gamut of small-press RPGs. This should be a game for brand new players, a game I can actually get cosplayers to play on the spot just by walking up to two of them at a con. Simple to understand game terminology, with a focus on Kicking As and Dressing Awesome. Kinda the “Barbie Takes Mushrooms and Goes Shopping” of action-oriented RPGs.

I’m picturing two modes of play: Combat! and Gaiden! The first mode is quick and easy to demo, and played in one of two ways. You can either follow the format from the initial idea, and make up stats for random cosplayers you’ve photographed during the con, or you can approach two or more actual cosplayers while they walk around and convince them to play Real-Time. The latter format would also allow them to get more sweet pictures taken of them from bystanders, so it’s a win-win situation for cosplayers and game promotion alike.

The second game mode, Gaiden!, takes it much further. Again, two formats of play: digital and live. The digital format also involves scanning your cameras for cool photos, and then turning them into an epic quest to save the people of the convention from certain doom. Look over the photos, pick some heroes, some villains, and some points of contention, and then go with it, using the Combat! mode mechanics to resolve things. The other Gaiden! format stick with live-action cosplayers, leading the actual players across the convention on a LARP style of play to save everyone from certain doom. Quite certain to get lots of photographs, too.

Mechanics musings to come in the near future.

—–

¹ Yes. In the bathroom. Indeed.
¹ I didn’t take these, but here’s a good mix of some of the awesome PAX cosplay this year.

This past Gamestorm, Jake Richmond and I won second place in a design contest. The contest was a “Junk Drawer Design War” – the organizer brought six identical bins filled with identical parts, most of which were salvaged from other board games. Each team of contestants had an hour (or two? i don’t remember) to create a game based on some or all of the included parts. Teams could trade with other teams for more parts.

Our game was called Laser Mummies.

The following rules are those we came up with on the fly during the design contest. So, without Further ado… Read more