unWritten Continuum

Sherllyn and I are going to try and play a game of uW tomorrow night. Tonight we created the setting. She “doesn’t” like fantasy or scifi… or so she says. So we created a setting that has the following Tagline: A woman lost among the chaos of oppression. We’re striving for something along the lines of an American woman traveling through India that witnesses the displacement of the Harijan (untouchables) by the Vaishya (merchant caste). The group goal is self discovery, and the obstacles are fear and doubt. She’s playing Annie, while I’m playing Bansi (that means flute in “Indian,” at least in one of their dialects.)

It should be interesting. I’m looking forward to it.

In my last post I mentioned that I was struggling with instructing people how to create and push conflicts. Either I’m explaining it poorly, or I don’t have a grasp on what it is that I do when I play with my regular group. I’m not sure how to approach this topic…

In unWritten there is a Setting Player (like a GM but not) that frames a scene then using elements from the story index.

The story index is like a character sheet that also has all of the setting details that is used to frame scenes, these things also provide mechanical benefits to the players if they choose to use them. However, the players maybe forced to alter the elements on the story index if they succeed or fail at certain rolls. Additionally, there is a tool on the story index called the story pattern, modeled after the hero’s journey that is used to guide the setting player to focus on certain types of conflicts.

So, based on the story index the setting player pushes conflicts based on the story’s premies and the story elements that are present on the story index. once a conflict is dealt with and resolved the players the scene ends and the player to the right of the previous setting player becomes the new setting player.

So, because you only have one conflict before your role as the Setting Player transfers to another player you need to make sure that the conflict counts, that it’s pertinent to the story being told, and that it’s interesting.

But, I’m struggling to keep people aware of the requirements for what makes an interesting and pertinent conflict. How does one express that? I feel like I have all of the key ingredients, but something just isn’t there…

Today I went to the UCI RPG club and ran my game for three people that have never been exposed to a story game, and in one case, never exposed to a table top RPG. However, the experience went very well.

There are two issues that I have with my game, 1) that it takes too long to create the setting, which is fine for people that have played it before and know what to expect, but it’s tough in situation in which I need a demo. And 2) creating and pressing conflicts isn’t expressed well. Perhaps it’s because I explain it poorly, or maybe that I just don’t have a grasp on what it is that I do when I play with my group.

Let me unpack the first issue, and the second in another thread.

1) Setting creation is pretty straight forward. You follow these steps and your done:

Brainstorm a series of ideas that based on books, TV shows, and movies that everyone would like to explore. As you do that begin to whittle the idea down to something managable that everyone buys into.

Now that you have an idea of the elements that you want to approach or explore in a story you need to define the story’s genre and the Narrative Focus.
Genre is defined as the mood and texture that the group wants to invoke during play.
Narrative Focus is the type of conflicts that the players want to focus on during play, they are: Dramatic, Cinematic, and Fantastic. The first two are pretty self explanatory, but a Fantastic NF is one that focuses on the elements that make the story Fantastic.

Next you answer a series of questions that helps the group refine the setting. These questions are organized in a way that leads you from the macro level of world creation to the micro level of defining those things that motivate characters. This question section is only used in games where the players intend to play for more then 2 sessions. but this isn’t mandatory.
When you’re answering the questions you need to make sure you answer them in a way that reflects the genre and the Narrative Focus.

Finally, you create the games Premise. In unWritten Premise is defined as something that is explicetly states or subtley implies the stories central conflict. This will guide the players through play when they are acting ast the Setting Player and they frame scenes.

That’s setting creation, but now you create the characters, which is considered part of the same process. So now you answer a series of questions that determines what the group of characters overall goal is, who oppose them and what obstacles they face. Then personal questions are answered that determine why they want to resolve the central conflict. and finally you define the characters traits, there are 4, and their behaviours there are 2…

In the end you have a setting that all of the players have built and bought into, you have characters that all of the players are excited about and that have a clear relationship to the setting. Now your ready to play.

This process usually take about an hour and half. It’s always been successful and quite rewarding, but when i tried it today it seems a bit forced, and I’m not sure how to do this in a demo. The key thing about the game is that you collaboratively create the setting and characters. But then it takes so long…

I’ve uploaded the latest changes to unWritten. You can download the playtest copies by pressing the text to the right that says… latest playtest.

Gor for it, and tell me what you think.

Protagonist vs Protagonist conflicts cannot have results that are mutually exclusive of the opponents success. That is to say one protagonists success doesn’t interfere with the other protagonists success. For example, two protagonists are dukking it out their results can be to knock the other out, that would simply mean there is a tie if neither succeeds or both succeeds. Success isn’t mutually exclusive of each other. (appreciated from Shock:)

(Biggest Change!) The hero’s journey needs to be simpler. What I’m doing now is having a box per “HJ’s chapter on the front of the character sheet. Each box will have a 1 word description (what was the chapter titles) and the reducing core dice. I believe (thanks Brendon) that simply reducing the core dice will naturally draw tension to the game. Then single words describing the boxes will “guide” the players. If they should be so curious as to look them up in the book they can get further guidance. (I believe it was Greg that originally suggested an “advanced” play section… well here it is.)

Scene framing needs better explaining, with an algebraic rule for creating scenes in those cases where the a player is stuck for a scene, i.e. (any cue) + (last cue invoked by player) threatens or is threatened by (a cue that a protagonist cares about.)

Premise needs a better explanation.

Clarity in describing what it means to cause/push a conflict. (Basically what I just said about scene framing.) Force Protagonists to make a choice between 1 or 2 things… Perhaps scene framing includes the choice that the Protagonist will have to make. You come up with that ahead of time?
Chapter 9 must specifically answer the 1st Protagonist Question.

Whenever an Acting Player invokes a Cue that Cue must be incorporated into the following scene by the next Setting Player. This, however, doesn’t allow the player who just invoked the cue to uncheck its box yet.

As I said, the con was great and I had 3 opportunities to playtest the game.

Brendon will be posting 2 AP’s, so I won’t go into the games too much other then to say they were great, give a breif description, and provide the premise.

‘Winter Gulch’ -
Was about a group of settlers in the old west that were trapped in a perpetual winter for “offending” the land in someway.

Premise: “Winter Gulch cursed by the land for settling it. Can they find peace?”

(Ender’s Game meets the Matrix) - this game didn’t actually get played.
The second game was a bizzare story that kind of melded enders game with the matrix.

Premise: “They were trained to survive the enemy, but can they survive themselves?” (In an engineered environment without the emotional or intellectual maturity to do so.)

(The EU vs China) -
The third game we almost played (just Brendon and I) was an espionage game that took place in the near future were the US is falling and the EU are struggling for power. We were each going to play characters that opposed each other.

Premise: “America has stumbled. The EU and China are fighting for dominance over it”

(A medeival society vs itself and aliens!) -
this story focused on the ambitions of two characters that were attempting to secure their place.

Premise: “A trouble noble house confronts strangers from the stars in need.”

I’ve had 3 playtests of unWritten in the past week. I’ve gotten great insights from all three, however, one of them was a terrible play experience.

The first one was with my son and girlfriend. My girlfriend is committed to hating RPG’s and my son compares everything to D&D… It was late, everyone was tired… it was terrible. But I figured out some things that I can do to streamline some of the more bulky processes, and I was able to identify somewhere in text where there was a problem… I didn’t fix it until I has some pretty indepth conversations with some friends from my regular gaming group that will be continuing.

The second was with my regular Saturday gaming group, Greg, Brendon, and I. The setting creation was amazing, however the play was lacking and I couldn’t figure out why until the third playtest…

The third playtest was with my other regular group, that as of today is no more… Bye Carla! Anyway, in this game we did a one shot and I realized that the hero’s journey mechanic wasn’t yet complete and there is one protagonist question that with a slight tweaking totally changes the answer it provieds. Which in both instances if they were implemented in my second game it would have made the game awesome!

I’ll post actual plays within a week.

Hi, This is the first public playtest for unWritten. The text in red is incomplete, other then that I’d like everyone and anyone to go through it and tear it apart. Thanks for giving it a try.

To see the latest playtest check out the link on the right called “latest playtest” just above the blogroll.

I’ll be taking the outline from below and creating a playtest file that people will be able to try out. Hopefully it will be up by friday.