Actual play report from JD Corley

From Verge

Contents 1 Actual Play 2 His Second Email (in response to my response)

Jason "JD" Corley emailed me an actual play report.

Actual Play

Hey man -

On Saturday we playtested the current version of the rules from the wiki.

For the compile phase, since all everyone knew was "Jason downloaded a game and wants to try it out", I just said, we're going to do a dark future game of cyberpunk, mid-21st century. Everyone agreed this was okay. Compile phase done.

The network went up great. Interestingly, it mimicked our usual play! That is, my wife and her friend did a lot of intertwined stuff, Ryan and I mainly linked to our own things and John was the most decentralized.

Notes: the "what you do in this phase" text from 6 and 7 needs to be more differentiated.

Physically, you probably want newsprint for the network, since it's the cheapest kind of large paper you can buy. You'll need 2 sheets of easel-sized newsprint and it's best to have them out at the beginning rather than adding them later. Colored pencils work best on newsprint.

Here's some thoughts from the players after we finished the network but before we started playing:

1. "This is a cool world but there's no game here. Just a bunch of separate characters doing separate things. We didn't have enough edges established between them. We should have established a party node of some kind. Now I don't see how it's even remotely possible in any satisfying way."

2. Nobody in our group ever struck anything. EVER. We are too polite to EVER say "I don't like your idea", especially in a brainstorming, experimental tone as you have successfully struck in the Compile and Load sections. Possibly a step in which you are REQUIRED to issue 3 strikes scattered around the network to get people over this step?

3. Should the GM claim a character? If so, why, given the narration restrictions?

I completed the network and set a scene using the camera of a gun battle in the halls of a government experimentation facility, my wife's character (victim of government experimentation) and a data pack sought by my wife's friend's character.

And. Everyone. Sat. There. Blankly.

Nobody wanted to narrate. At all. Period. In the least.

I tried to keep going, said I wanted to weaken her character's links to something. She shrugged. "Okay." she said. Her friend didn't jump in on the data pack either, even when I strengthened her connection to it. I was running low on story tokens and nobody was doing /anything/. I could not get even one person to take part in one scene.

"Look," my wife said. "I have no attachment to this character at all and don't really give a shit what happens to her. All I know about her is what's on these lines, she's not real enough for me to really care what happens in the game. Particularly since I don't know any of her motivations other than this one drive she has, which as far as I can tell doesn't really apply to this situation."

"Yeah," her friend added. "Plus, I don't know why I want this datapack."

"You can establish that if it's important?" I said. "Maybe it contains information related to your other drive? Just make an information node and a 'contains' edge..."

"No, I mean, why would I want it if I don't know why I want it?"

"Your character knows why she wants it, you the player have not established that yet."

"What if I don't want to want it?"

"Then you are objecting to the edge I'm drawing and we can resolve that with..."

"No, I'm not objecting to it, I just don't understand what I'm supposed to do or say. I don't know what the plot is."

"I don't either, the network contains all information known about the game."

"Why should I try to be in a game where there's no story?"

"We're making the story together."

"But I don't want to run a game, you're the GM. If I wanted to make a story, I'd GM. I don't want to make a story, I just want to play my character."

So in short it was a complete and utter disaster that left everyone feeling shitty despite having a great network.

I liked the camera as a scene setting tool. One thing that I thought of was to add in two other scene-setting tools:

• A voice recorder that records voices but not physical appearances or

locations.

• A document that recounts what happened but not specifics about the

incident and which may be inaccurate.

And I think there needs to be some incentive for someone to do something.

Jason

His Second Email (in response to my response)

I don't have a Forge account since I'm not a game designer and I don't have any business there as far as I'm concerned, otherwise I might post an Actual Play. Feel free to post this e-mail exchange if you want. :)

I am not a GNS aficionado, I read the essays and the forums and consider it a monstrous waste of time as a theory and only of modest use as a manifesto, so please excuse if I don't use that terminology.

The group has tried out a wide variety of games in the past, from mainstream to obscure, but anything with narration-passing has been highly resisted along similar lines.

What I was hoping was that having a map available to everyone in the form of the network, and the resource allocation in the form of tokens, would help people get over that by providing sufficient framework, but honestly I think what my group is largely after is simply participation in someone else's story. Give them too much control and they can't be surprised and they can't feel like they're discovering anything.

(I flat-out do not believe The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast is impossible /in the slightest/. I reject that categorically, it does not match the experiences of hundreds of gamers I have met over my life or of any reasonable definition of story, character or, for that matter, communally created art.)

> Wow, this is awesome feedback. I SO appreciate you giving Verge a try

> and I'm really sorry the experience fell apart but it lets me know in

> a BIG way where I need to focus my attention. I suspect it's too late

> to get your group to give it another try, too, which is unfortunate.

> If you give me the names of the people involved, I'll include them in

> my playtester credits, though.

That would be great, I do intend to give it another try with another group. I am super-enthused about playing on the network, I think the main issues (in general) are:

1) Getting from Load to Run needs to be narrowed down to a chokepoint so everyone knows where we're going and why. 2) It needs to be clear who is picking up the ball and running and how.

> In my talks on the phone with Ron, he told me this particular problem

> would happen, and I just haven't gotten to fixing it. I just haven't

> figured out how yet. Vincent talks about "no way but out" as a game

> design tenant and I know what he means but not how to do it with

> Verge. The Narrativist support just isn't in there, I think, and I

> need to amp that up in a MAJOR way.

Well...I don't want to get in the way of what you want, but I am not going to encourage you in that direction! What you've got in the network is a powerful game engine. If it comes to only address moral questions on the player level, or be specialized in doing that, I likely won't be as interested in it. We do love to play around with genres and stories and not do any player-level addressing of anything. (As I noted in the story-games Games and Politics thread, if you can identify a political statement in my games, it's typically a statement I strongly disagree with. I don't think that makes me a liar, but if it does, oh well ;)

I think what you've got is a strong generic campaign design framework and you need to go in the exact opposite direction from narrowing it down to narrativism. Our preference would be strongly against such a focus.

> I assume you used the wiki version and not the PDF, right?

Yes yes. Actually one thing I liked better about the PDF and livejournal versions was ?s instead of -s. !?X is a little easier to see and count, particularly since edges are already in the form of lines? Not sure why you switched to minus signs? I liked the question marks.

> >Physically, you probably want newsprint for the network, since it's the

> >cheapest kind of large paper you can buy. You'll need 2 sheets of

> >easel-sized newsprint and it's best to have them out at the beginning

> >rather than adding them later. Colored pencils work best on newsprint.

>

> I got along fine with one easel sheet but I haven't played the new

> rules yet, and they call for a lot more writing.

Remember that players who have never played before don't know how big or small they should write. My wife's first node was heeeeyuuuuge. She put a heart around it instead of a circle. Later we ribbed her for it because it was taking up a looot of space and a lot more popular nodes were tiny.

)

> >1. "This is a cool world but there's no game here. Just a bunch of

> >separate characters doing separate things. We didn't have enough edges

> >established between them. We should have established a party node of some

> >kind. Now I don't see how it's even remotely possible in any satisfying

> >way."

>

> Yeah, they all need to be tied together with some kind of theme at

> the very least. I may also use some kind of Kicker adaptation for it.

Maybe you could get more specific in the Compile phase and insert a new step 1, or piece of step 1. If the game is going to be about a party, step 1 is to do a node for that. "Vampire Troubleshooters" or "Energy-Sword Swinging Anarchist Cell". The "concept" phase as currently written sounds more like a concept for the world - maybe it could be specifically a concept for the /game/?

If it's not going to be a shared story, obviously you don't need something like that.

> >2. Nobody in our group ever struck anything. EVER. We are too polite to

> >EVER say "I don't like your idea", especially in a brainstorming,

> >experimental tone as you have successfully struck in the Compile and Load

> >sections. Possibly a step in which you are REQUIRED to issue 3 strikes

> >scattered around the network to get people over this step?

>

> I've never had a playtest where someone didn't strike something. Did

> you as GM strike anything?

One thing.

> If you're all on the same page and are

> feeling invested in the story you're creating, it's hard not to be

> protective of the fiction and toss out at least one strike. I think

> three is way too many though. Maybe I'll require one.

That's the thing, I don't think anyone was particularly invested in anything. What you have in the network rules is a strong element of "let's communally brainstorm this, if we don't like it we can change it later", which makes people like our group not even bother deciding if they don't like something. They'll ratify their favorite stuff but won't even consider striking things because they figure if they don't like it they can always mess with it later and clearly /someone/ likes it, so why ruin their fun?

In other communal brainstorm sessions I've experienced in different contexts, there is a VERY strong social and sometimes explicit rule that you must not express disapproval of something during the brainstorming, only when you have to make a decision.

Perhaps if play had gone on I would have seen more, just as after a brainstorming session you start to pare down what you want. That sounds plausible to me.

Also note this may be a cultural thing - a similar example is game mechanics which require someone to interrupt someone else are just flat-out hard for us because most of the group was raised to believe that interrupting is rude and disrespectful. (It makes it hard in my profession too. JDC . o O ( That question is objectionable! I should object! I must object! Crap, it's over. ))

> >3. Should the GM claim a character? If so, why, given the narration

> >restrictions?

>

> No, it was just easier to write that way, as if the GM was just a

> normal player. Laziness on my part.

Well, I think there might be something there...see some ideas below. :)

> I should make the rules clearer here. The GM is expected to provide a

> Bang in the Sorcerer sense. That is, some situation that calls for

> action and no matter what the player chooses the character to do, it

> says something about them.

That seems a lot to do after a relatively simple network creation that is more highly focused on the world rather than on the moral aspects of the character. After all, you're only required to have one "wants to _____" edge and one "has" or "is" edge. That to me gave a strong signal that the other parts of the network (a lunar colony, terrorism, the World BBC Network) was just as important or at least we could shine a spotlight on them as much as we could on the characters.

And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I think that people can be motivated to enthuse about high action, ominous intrigue or goofy jokes just as much as they can about Saying Something About Their Character.

So I'm leery about "solving" this issue by going further in that direction - as I say, if it's what you want to do, great, I'm all for people doing what they want to do, it'll just take it further away from what we like in gaming.

> How about you as GM?

I did, and I did keep going but eventually I figured out that nobody was really doing anything and it petered out.

> There had to be some enemy links, right? The best way to make players

> invest is to attack them. Have them do something dastardly. I see

> that I need to write this advice into the rules. <=)

Hell, make it more than advice! Make it /required/!

Say, for example: The first scene takes place when an enemy does something. The GM must narrate a scene of the enemy attempting some nefarious deed, and spend a story token to draw a new edge from someone's enemy to an existing node. Narration then passes to the person who controls that node or to the person who controls the enemy node.

By the by, one thing everyone was specifically grouchy about was that they controlled their character's enemy. I was okay with it since I come from a comic book MU* background where controlling your archnemesis is typically the rule, not the exception, but everyone else was sort of blah about it.

Maybe make an optional rule that enemies are controlled by the player on your left?

> That could be a big problem with the rules. Realize though that Verge

> is largely "develop in play," meaning that you do start out with a

> sketch of a character and it gets filled in as you go. Also realize

> that the rules provide about as many data points for fleshing out a

> character as, say, Dogs in the Vineyard or Sorcerer. I apparently

> just have not done as good a job at making players invest in those

> characters. Still, motivation doesn't spring magically out of the

> rules of most games. That's generally what players bring to the table.

I think part of it is that you're so successful in the "let's try this out and brainstorm!" tone in the Compile and Load sections. Because you - rightly, in my view - emphasize that everything you do in those sections can and will be changed later, you make it so people are willing to just put down whatever pops into their heads at the time.

Again, I think the solution is going to be back in the Compile and VERY early Load stage, where once you've identified what sort of game you're going to be playing, you put in some special requirements - perhaps you need to claim not only a character, but a very concrete goal (perhaps one that will earn you the covetted development tokens when you accomplish it?)

> I'll make the rules more clear. Players should be explaining why they

> want these things when they write them down (though I thought the

> rules did say that; I'll doublecheck).

Hmmmm. Maybe this is a disconnect. I thought by explaining drives, you wanted them to describe /how/ they "want to ________" something. So we had a lot of answers like "Dr. Parrish wants to discredit the reporter, he might frame her or feed her bad information or spread nasty rumors about her" instead of "Dr.Parrish wants to discredit the reported because she exposed his illegal genetic experiments". That could use some fleshing out.

There is also an issue with adding motivations to claimed characters. I understand that players can't affect the /volition/ of other characters, but can they also affect the desires and drives? In other words, can I draw a line from a claimed character to a "Cool looking gun" node and write "wants to buy" on it?

> The end of the LOAD step needs a checkpoint where the GM asks, "Does

> everyone like this? Does everyone care about their own character?

> Does everyone care about the other characters, at least to the point

> of being curious what happens to them next?" Because if anyone says

> no, it isn't going to work. If anyone says no, why are you doing this?

I like this idea a lot...in fact maybe the last step of the Load sequence, after Cashing Out, should allow people to make "pre-flight" nodes and edge additions. And it's a good place to remind everyone of what we thought the game would be about when Compiling.

Alternately, maybe non-GMs could frame scenes like this: "What do you now want to add to the network or change about the network? Make your proposal AND THEN FRAME A SCENE ABOUT IT."

Already went over the narrativist stuff above, but here's this:

> If the Verge rules had told each player to author a Kicker (during

> COMPILE, write the first scene for the character -- something they

> absolutely cannot ignore), would they have been able to do this?

Absolutely they would have done it! We have used player-authored kickers for many, many, many years. But I think it would have to be a Load or Compile step for these folks to grab onto it - I agree with you strongly that design-in-play was at least the source of some of the consternation. Once there's some inertia going, I think that might help too.

Another thing that might help is for each Run session to have an /end/, and for there to be an intervening Load session on the new network that exists at the end of it?

> Think about what she said at a fundamental level. She just wants to

> play her character but doesn't want to make a story. Whose story is

> it then? The GM's? If so, what does "play my character" really

> entail? Rolling some dice and making some very small decisions that

> really don't affect the story. Is that how you want your game of Verge to be?

I was certainly wanting more player guidance on things beyond their character's reach, but the rest of the group did not want that. I disagree with the characterization of character decisions as "minor". That implies a value judgement that is not accurate as far as what this player wanted and wants from the gaming experience. She does not perceive her character decisions as minor, she sees them as the central element of the game - the GM's story, including plot twist, mystery, explosions and shiny guns, are the backdrop that makes her character decisions worth making.

In other words, nobody watching really thinks James Bond is going to die in a James Bond movie, even if he's tied down and a laser beam is about to cut him in half. The fun part of a Bond movie is quips, gadgets, girls, explosions, villains, and guns. So you can characterize the plot as a "minor" element of a Bond movie and to some degree be accurate.

That doesn't mean it's an unnecessary element. Unless the villain is stopped, the space laser is going to destroy London, and that's what impels the secret agents and girls to go around seducing and shooting each other. Only by marrying this faux-suspense of the characters not knowing how it's going to end with the excitement of the audience who certainly does know the day will be saved does the movie have any sort of juice at all.

Saying that a character's decisions are only a "minor" part of an expected GM's story is only looking at it through a particular sort of lens, the sort that says that resolving whether James Bond escapes from the laser is a big deal and whether he seduces Pussy Galore, persuades her intellectually, or bribes her is not. That is not how a lot of genre pieces - including a lot of cyberpunk pieces - go, or what the thrill of them is.

What's the plot of New Rose Hotel? Some nonsense about stealing biological information and the girl turns on him. There are a thousand - ten thousand - mystery short stories from 1920 to today that have the same plot. But without the plot - without that mystery/noir-genre source material - there is nothing for any character decision to be /about/.

The short version: your questions don't make any sense to me by the definitions I use and based on the experience I have, which is that, especially in genre pieces, it's all a grand tapestry. :)

> >I liked the camera as a scene setting tool. One thing that I thought of

> >was to add in two other scene-setting tools:

> >

> >* A voice recorder that records voices but not physical appearances or

> >locations.

> >* A document that recounts what happened but not specifics about the

> >incident and which may be inaccurate.

>

> I don't know how the voice recorder would be used. Got an example?

Well, the example on the wiki for the camera is: "Jim is standing in a dimly lit parking garage with a disk. The camera moves left to reveal Joe standing there with a bag, possibly full of money."

A voice recorder scene would be: "A male voice says 'Did you bring the disk?' Another male voice, a few feet away, says, 'I've got the disk in a safe place. This is a partial copy so you can confirm it. Did you bring the money?' The voices echo as if in an open, empty concrete area."

One thing that might be cool to get the ball rolling is if the GM ONLY has the power to set the scene that way, and someone else is required to pick up narrating the scene and start incorporating things? Not sure.

> Jason, thanks for giving this game a whirl. I wish it had turned out

> better for you. If you don't mind, I'd love it if you posted this as

> an actual play report on the Forge's Playtesting forum so that I can

> discuss it further with you and others. I enjoy the brutal honesty

> and find it incredibly useful. Thanks again!

Thanks for the good thoughts and I wish you all the best, whatever direction you want to take it in. If you get another version that you want me to try at our local convention, me and some of the story-games guys are going to be a posse there. That's November 10-12.

Jason