Indiecon 2011, The Omnimatt Narrative

[Omnifray]

Thursday:- totally randomly ended up helping Mark, James and Joe to gen up Soul's Calling characters. (Everyone else who played it got pregens.)

Friday, slot 2:- ran Soul's Calling for Dean, Mark, James, Joe and my mate Giles. Picked on Giles a bit because he's my mate and he can take it, so he was the one whose character ended up having to dance naked in the middle of the forest, which Giles did a reasonable impression of, though thankfully in clothes (!). I had set up the various scenarios so that the PCs would probably have to engage in two or three skirmishes. For one reason or another they ended up attacking almost everything they met (often after some dialogue) and I think we had about eight fights, which is by no means normal for my reffing style for Soul's Calling, but the game is what the players make it and I'm totally cool with it. For anyone who played that game though, let me just say that when I ran Soul's Calling in slots 5 and 8, [edited] thinking about it, slot 5 had one proper fight (against the witch), one fleeting skirmish (against the mountain beast which swooped in a few times but once injured did not return) and one brief incident with a ghost which wasn't quite a fight; slot 8 had just one single fight, against a centaur; all these were resolved in minutes IIRC [/edited]. Getting back to slot 2, Dean's character Mavro ended up terribly injured in one of the totally unnecessary fights, and could easily have died, but that's kind of what you have to expect if the adventurers pick fights they don't need to pick...

[Omnifray]

Friday, slot 3:- played "I would do anything for Lady Katja". Out of the three hardcore narrativist games I have played (Fiasco, Montsegur 1244 and this one), this was the one which I found the most comfortable in terms of how the game actually plays in terms of normal play within a [hypothetical] cohesive group of players [leaving aside some out-of-game issues about spotlight-sharing which we actually experienced].

What of the actual experience and the out-of-character issues which arose? My take on it is that the game's relatively freeform, indeed (or at least so at first it seemed) free-for-all structure, with Stuart acting as a quasi-GM and people piping in randomly, combined with the seating arrangements and the personalities of those involved and critically with their divergent expectations of the game, led to some difficulties in sharing spotlight time conveniently and harmoniously. I think clearer rules on spotlight time (a la Fiasco, for instance) or clearer GMing could have avoided that. The way Stuart ran it, it seems to me it would work well for a group of people who are all on the same wavelength, e.g. either all very polite and considerate of others and treating the game as one of creating a story in an enthusiastic but disinterested/neutral/unbiased way, or all very robust and happy to both interrupt and be interrupted (perhaps because they are used to LARPing where several conversations may be happening at once) and happy to treat the game as at least in significant part a cutthroat "gamist" competition (which is how I first understood it to be primarily intended), but a mix of some players of one type and some players of the other could be volatile.

A simple rule of "hand up to intervene, ref chooses whose turn it is and can stop them and move on to another person at will", if explained beforehand and implemented appropriately, could probably prevent most such issues from arising. What I mean is - I suggest that instead of running this the way Stuart did in slot 3, the rule is specified that no-one gets to speak except when the ref chooses them, but you can signify your burning need to intervene by raising your hand, and the ref makes sure everyone gets a fair share. [To do this properly, the ref ideally needs to be seated so he can actually see all the players easily - not have one player blocking his view of another player.] I really think that the way the game is set up (especially as it is expressly a competitive game) creates a special potential for these kinds of problem which needs to be addressed in the actual structure of play. To rely purely on the assumption that all normal and polite people will be on the same wavelength and have a compatible approach to sharing the spotlight time which will just flow smoothly in the manner of normal conversation seems to me to be a big mistake because different players all approaching the game in good faith may have genuinely very different and equally legitimate expectations.

Anyway, despite some real issues, overall I enjoyed most of the game. I'm not sure if I would want to play it again though, as I'm not sure how many times I can be motivated to try to win Lady Katja's hand.

[Omnifray]

Saturday, slot 5:- I ran Soul's Calling for John, Mark (again), Pete (who had been one of the people I had been playing Stuart's "I would do anything for Lady Katja" with in slot 4) and a gentleman who prefers to remain nameless. The absolute most tricky reffing moment of the Con for me was when Pete's character (under very severe yet at the same time understandable provocation) put something into Mark's character's drink which had been described on Pete's character sheet as "a deadly poison" --- and this was about half-way through the playing time of the session! With Mark's permission I confiscated 5 of his fate tokens at once, and someone spilt most of his drink. Pete's character filled the tankard up with more ale, Mark's character drank it and there was a poisoning roll, but with a heavy bonus due to the dilution. Mark's character was nauseous for three hours... without the bonus I'm fairly sure he would have been PvP'd there and then!

After the game I had the benefit of some of Pete's views on the general fate and luck mechanics and having run them past Mark I think I am going to make one simplification, namely having only one kind of fate/luck token instead of two, though I will have to make some adjustments to the rules to accommodate this intended simplification.

[Omnifray]

Saturday, slot 6:- I played a fire mage in Chris Loizou's freeform Cursed Empire.

Being freeform, this game bore some resemblance to Stuart's Lady Katja game (which has dice and tokens but mostly plays in a freeform way), but where they differed was that the Lady Katja game allowed, indeed forced players to invent NPCs, create traits for existing NPCs etc. (i.e. act outside the medium of their character), whereas Cursed Empire was GM'd in an essentially more or less "trad" manner, with players essentially acting through their characters, or at most bending that a bit to add colour to their characters [I actually bent it quite a big bit myself in terms of how I described the effects of my magic, wresting control of that from Chris by sheer brazenness, but I only did that when it felt natural and easy to me to do so so it wasn't particularly jarring for my immersion in character to be doing that]. So, the two games were similar in that they were largely (Katja) or entirely (Cursed Empire) freeform, but actually operated in totally opposite ways.

Of all six games I can remember ever having played at Indiecon (Cthulhu, Montsegur 1244 and Curse Empire at previous Indiecons, and Fiasco, Lady Katja and this one this year), this freeform version of Cursed Empire was the one I most enjoyed - when I was actually at the table playing (which was intermittently for reasons I will explain shortly). But that's not necessarily a fair reflection on the hardcore storygames:- I'm a notorious immersionist, and could probably be fairly regarded as utterly biased in favour of immersive roleplaying games, and against narrativist games where the players have freedom to invent narrative elements alien to their characters.

Now, onto the major issue:- spotlight time. The game potentially suffers from the same problem as the Lady Katja game:- how to apportion spotlight time fairly in a freeform game without a rigid and artificial structure? Whereas in the Lady Katja game I may have grabbed too much spotlight time, in Chris's game due to the nature of my character's actions I often in effect took myself out of play, e.g. getting myself knocked unconscious by casting ridiculously powerful magic repeatedly. This was compounded by the fact that Chris often GM'd a character's secrets one-on-one and although we were free to continue in-character dialogue in the GM's absence, I didn't really have sufficient material to maintain that dialogue because the main topic for discussion was tactics and my character was not (as I envisaged him) particularly militarily minded. However, I think this problem of intermittent spotlight time was probably only really an issue for me, partly because other players made great efforts to maintain in-character dialogue in Chris's absence. (I'd also speculate that some players might very occasionally have had the same issue in Soul's Calling.) Even so, I think the game and/or Chris's reffing could benefit from careful thought as to how to avoid too much disruption to a player's direct involvement in the game.

[Omnifray]

Sunday, slot 8:- I played Ashley's Fiasco. It was reasonably good fun. Some of the thematic subject-matter was right at the limits of what I can tolerate. I think my inexperience with Fiasco specifically affected my contribution to the game because the climax that I introduced for my character ("bang!" - went the gun) in combination with the way final outcomes are determined in the game may have hamstrung some of the other players' final scenes a bit. Also, I am not very good at playing teenage girls, and my contributions to the storyline were a bit iffy. But overall it was an interesting experience to play it and I think I would play it again, though probably not in the next couple of years.

[Omnifray]

Sunday, slot 9:- I ran Soul's Calling. Mark turned up again (!), and we were joined by Roger + Wilson. I was delighted when at the last minute Indie Pete relented and joined us (!), along with Dutchman Erno, swelling my group to four players plus me. This was the first playtest where anyone has tried out the role of "permanent assistant referee", which I offered to Indie Pete, but when he opted for a more traditional role, I imposed it on Erno instead. Partly due to constraints I had to impose because of the structure of the game (a sock-hunt - Milo the pixie had lost his socks and they HAD to be found!), Erno didn't exploit the perm a-ref options much, but what he did do with the role worked relatively smoothly so I regard it as sufficient to be treated as a success for the perm a-ref concept. The game as a whole was, unfortunately, rushed. I had thought we would be starting at 7pm, but we didn't get to start until 8, and maybe I spent too much time on opening the session (again) and I think one of the players felt overloaded with background information (especially when Mark's character was forced by two of the other PCs to explain certain things... and ending up more or less having to give a precis of nearly everything that happened in slot 5...). Also, I was tired, and I expect everyone else probably was as well, and there may have been one or two instances of a particular player's attention wandering as a result either of that, or of being frustrated at not having narrative power when someone else in the group had it in relative abundance (I'm not naming names!). However, I'm very grateful to all of my players for playing, and I think this slot, even though it was rushed (and I had to hurry things along a bit in a not-exactly-railroady-but-nearly way at times) was an important moment in the playtesting of Soul's Calling. I particularly resent the fact that Naish stopped serving food before slot 8 finished, which meant that I lost one potential player who had to find food elsewhere. She would also have been my only female player of the con (!); in fact Indiecon is the first time I have reffed Soul's Calling for a group which didn't include at least one female player, and many of the games I have reffed up north have been for female-dominated groups.

Overall, how do I feel Soul's Calling did? Well I guess I feel that some people really liked it, and some people were a bit indifferent. Really looking forward to seeing more comments from those who played it!

[6d6fireball]

some people were a bit indifferent

This is not anything to be concerned about.

All game designers naturally want their players to jump up and down and scream about how good the game is but this isn't realistic. Especially at Indiecon where players have a wide gaming experience and are probably trying half-a-dozen new games over the weekend.

What is important is that you get one or two people who are really keen about the game. These are the important players who you should cherish and encourage. All the the people who are indifferent or even hate the game should be ignored unless they offer constructive feedback about why they are indifferent / hate it.

[joe redd]

For one reason or another they ended up attacking almost everything they met (often after some dialogue)

all of those were neccisary they started every one of those fights

[Omnifray]

For one reason or another they ended up attacking almost everything they met (often after some dialogue)

all of those were neccisary they started every one of those fights

Honestly Joe, the fight with the deadly unseelie goblin - totally unnecessary. All he wanted to do was to wait for his mate to come back so they could sacrifice the four seelie fae together. The adventurers didn't have to have anything to do with this at all - after all, why would they pick sides between seelie and unseelie fae, when the adventurers themselves are simply terrified and desperate to leave the place? It was a bit of an OMG moment for me when the party attacked the goblin without any direct threat. All he wanted to do was keep you away from his contraption.

Then, there was the sleeping huntsman [the one with the goat's head]. First the party nicked his goblet, then they surrounded him with crossbows out... he wakes up as someone is trying to kick his spear away, and they shoot him dead!! What a fair fight!! The party absolutely did not need to nick the goblet in the first place and if not everyone had chosen to be wearing chainmail armour, perhaps they might have just snuck past without even speaking to him...

As for the troll, if the party had listened to the gnome and followed him, he could have led them to a hiding place - they chose not to trust him (fair enough!).

I'm sure there were other totally unnecessary fights too though my memory is now dimming.

[edited to add] don't get me wrong though, everyone played brilliantly - the choices the party made were all valid choices, it's just that some of them weren't the ones I was expecting them to make - which I guess is a good thing, as it's more fun to be surprised by your players.

[Mick Red]

All he wanted to do was to wait for his mate to come back so they could sacrifice the four seelie fae together. The adventurers didn't have to have anything to do with this at all - after all, why would they pick sides between seelie and unseelie fae, when the adventurers themselves are simply terrified and desperate to leave the place?

Sounds to be like they decided good should prevail in this one....... and it does not sound to me like the characters were terrified and desperate to leave..... unless that what you assumed they felt.... speaking to the players after this it seems they got exactly what they wanted from the game....there is no right or wrong way to play any game

[Omnifray]

All he wanted to do was to wait for his mate to come back so they could sacrifice the four seelie fae together. The adventurers didn't have to have anything to do with this at all - after all, why would they pick sides between seelie and unseelie fae, when the adventurers themselves are simply terrified and desperate to leave the place?

Sounds to be like they decided good should prevail in this one....... and it does not sound to me like the characters were terrified and desperate to leave..... unless that what you assumed they felt.... speaking to the players after this it seems they got exactly what they wanted from the game....there is no right or wrong way to play any game

Yes the important thing is did the players enjoy it? I hope they all did, and I think most of them certainly did. And did I enjoy it? Yes. So, all good. And definitely, the players were not "doing it wrong". Everyone played brilliantly and I hope we all had a blast.

Yes it seems the characters decided good should prevail. Terrified or not, they spent the entire adventure trying to find a way out of the seelie realm, which they eventually did. Fighting the unseelie goblin was a big risk to take though; they maybe didn't realise how big a risk (how hard the goblin was), because most gamers would assume that goblins are not too hard, but I did show them a picture of a similar goblin, and he looks pretty mean and scary to me. My goblins are more like magically empowered dark elves with dark green skin and red eyes, and one on one this goblin would have totally outclassed any of the PCs.

I guess my assumption was they would have been simply keen on trying to find their way out of the seelie realm and not get waylaid by fights they didn't have to engage in - especially against powerful fae. Maybe that was my misjudgement. But it's important to give the players meaningful choices and it was important that they had the choice to fight or not, because that choice is part of the game, so obviously I agree, there's no right or wrong choice to make, all I'm saying is it took me by surprise the way they went with it! And I guess it's good to be taken by surprise by your players...

[Omnifray]

Highlights:- tense, atmospheric moments of Chris Loizou's musically accompanied freeform Cursed Empire; Chris's feedback on my roleplay; Erno describing Soul's Calling as "rules-light" (!!); three people being willing to gen up Soul's Calling characters with me in the bar (thanks Joe, Mark and James); Indie Pete agreeing to play Soul's Calling (even if only for a dare!); Mark turning up to all three slots of Soul's Calling; figuring out some reasonable rules changes to accommodate having two kinds of tokens instead of three in Soul's Calling (thanks Pete A.); Dana really enjoying the Con, which exceeded her expectations; some players really enjoying Soul's Calling.

Lowlights included:- the interpersonal breakdown during the Lady Katja game, which it is simply not right to blame on any one individual; no food being available for sale between slots 8 and 9 meaning that I lost a player; having to [try to] "impose a line" (in Forge speak) during the Fiasco game.

Overall:- a slightly better Con experience than previous Indiecons. Still finding my groove.

[Mist77]

Matt, thanks for running the games.

I did have a perfectly good reason for picking the goblet up. Most of the problem was a lack of clarity on the positions of everyone, unfortunately this happens unless you use figures and maps all the time which is a style some players associate with a certain play style they don't like. Result failure to take noisy mail clad PC's far enough round the issue. Ooops.... forcing us to dispatch the critter who had my plan worked would have simply woken up hours later less an object i had a use for!
Certainly a couple of the fights could have been avoided but..
This is one of those things where you try to strike a careful balance between keeping the players on the scenario, because most folks would like to get a resolution within a hard timeline and not railroading players. From a comment made on another thread it would seem someone misunderstood my attempts to encourage characetrs do do something practical and planned for rather than run so far off the plot i don't know how i would have run a roleplaying as opposed to military small unit tactics simulation for special forces game... It unfortunately happens.
Oh and Joe, well the other years Shadowrun at Conception and organised crime Joe..... (long tale my memory is not up to)

An interesting introduction to Fay in Matt's world. There are some serious differences to what folks are used to, which while interesting may have benefitted from a situation slightly less likely to break out into violence with critters tougher than any single PC. It turned out that just about everything was out to get us, was i going to trust that goblin and run into the trees where i Knew for a fact the will O the wisps were trying to kill me on the off chance the troll existed? no chance. I did try plan two but the party wouldn't co-operate, though given some of the roleplaying going on thats understandable.



Slot 5 worked well apart from a character personality clash.
One of the PC's tried to smash something up, understandable but as it was on the local tavern door! cause for problems with the locals.
Mine was a bit rough with him.
Something unpleasant in my characters drink would havebeen fine, but with the long game intro deadly poision was not a good plan OOC, stuffing over characters is fine but not players under half way through. I suspect something interrupted the Ic roleplay and i know for a fact i didn't get accross anything like the IC point i was trying to make, though playing my character wasn't exactly helping my chances (his approach was a 'little' [severe understatement i suspect] forthright)
Unfortuneatly although Matt patched it this broke some of the immersion as it was all too obvious OOC what had happened...
But it worked and apart from that we seemed to have fun.


I think by far and away the biggest issue with slot #9 was it was slot #9 and everyones brains were running slow.
It actually worked quite well.
The Centar was bolshy, i was bolshy back, i sure heck didn't expect to defeat it but as i didn't actually attack it kind of hoped i might get a few words in before a 10 foot tall critter tried to disembowel me... The overall result was ok though.

A pity i ended up a bit sidelined later as the tension got going nicely. I very intentionally massively compacted the tale of slot though i still suspected i might get dragged off by my fellow PCs.
But they wanted to discuss without me which got tricky. In the end we got less slot time than we thought we had and it got a bit compressed but some nice scenes.



Overall.
Well i went back for two more doeses so Matt must have been doing something right.
The dice and counters system in Souls calling is that little bit simpler to just sit down and play than Omnifray light. Once Matt manages to get a short and simple briefing sheet on it together then it will be easy enough. I know i nicked some of the explanations off Matt in the latter slots, but over many years of reffing at con's i've had to get passable at least at trying to cram 'what the players HAVE to know for this slot' into a few minutes. Ok i won't claim i'm perfect but.
Interesting world.
There is a lot of quite novel to Matt background out there as far as i can tell but you can only give hints in a con game is it is to be a game not a 3 hour lecture and a sample scene.
The mechanism around your 'souls calling' and playing character tendencies has the potential for some real inter PC drama. Slot #2 worked, the others both tripped over it a bit in a similar way to how Matt describes some of the games he played getting folks a little entangled with each other. As long as everyone sets out to look after each other and try to fit with what works best for con games, keep em at least liming so they can roleplay for the first 3 - 3 1/2 hours but anything goes in the showdown battle (unless someone absolutely insists on attacking the equivalent of a great wyrm dragon with a starting PC after you've slapped em once ortwice) it should work well.

Interesting.

Constructive discussion of some issues you saw at the Con Matt.

Good game

thanks