unWritten Continuum

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I had a blast at Orccon this weekend. I met great new friends and reunited with old ones… Let me tell you a bit about the games I played.

Friday:

unWritten

Commitee for the Exploration of Mysteries

Saturday:

Sons of Liberty

unWritten

Roanoak

Don’t Rest Your Head

Sunday:

Inspectres

unWritten

Spione  

Commitee for the Exploration of Mysteries

This is a great game in the spirit of “Baron Munchausen.” Though I can’t actually say it’s a great drinking game, because, well, we didn’t have drink, at least not any drinks with spirits.

The game consisted of a group of adventurers traveling from Madrid to Mexico(?) seeking the elusive Crystal Skull of … I don’t remember. The game ran very smoothly, and was easy to boot, and well it should, because you need to have a stout drink or delicate wine to play it right.

My favorite scene was having the pirate return from the dead riding a giant snake as it swallowed Dave’s character whole!

I have to add, that the game was run by Eric Boyd, the game’s designer. That was both a pleasure and exciting. He’s a great guy and he made a great game.

ericjboyddesigns.com/The_Committee.aspx

Sons of Liberty

Saturday morning I was given the great pleasure of being able to play President God-King George Washington of Georgistan. Yes, as our Pre-Prez lead the founding fathers around the east coast a bit, we rewrote history in a way that would capture any kids imagination. And, as you might guess, it ended with George’s ability to speak fluent European and renaming Germany Georgistan. Indeed, we don’t need to mention the minor affair that dethroned our buddy George on the coasts of England.

www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/product.php?productid=16490

Roanoake

Saturday evening I spent with several people living the end of the first settlers. This story takes you through the last few days of those that tried to settle Roanoake and ended up disappearing. This game is based on Wushu, and this was my first experience with it. I enjoyed the game, I loved the setting and the situation. I don’t think I need to play Wushu again. It just isn’t my style. Though I can see how people enjoy it.

http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/product.php?productid=16220&cat=24&page=4

Don’t Rest Your Head

DRYH and Ryan Macklin, this is a good mix. I played with Turo and Nicholas. It has to be said here that Turo is very funny and that he has a really cool jacket. Ok, I played a Real Estate agent that was falling apart at the seems, while Turo played a “The Dude” character. It turned out that our characters were each other’s opposites. The game was a bit short, it was late, but excellent. In the end the Dude and the RE agent switched places, bodies and all. For the RE agent it was a welcome relief, he could finally be “normal.” But for the dude, well, it was his own little hell of perfection.

www.evilhat.com/home/?page_id=101

Sunday:

Inspectres

Inspectres is always, one of my top ten games of all times. You can never go wrong with it. This is a game of a franchise ghostbusting squad, and I played a femme fatale. In fact, that was my characters trait: femme fatale. We cleaned house, figuratively, at least, well, the ghost has been exorcized, and the house needs a bit of repair.

www.memento-mori.com/inspectres/

Spione 

Spione is Ron Edwards “Spy vs. Guy” game. It’s based on the works of John le Carre and the like. Stuff I’m not familiar with. The game itself was great. I had a lot of fun, if you get a chance to play it at a con, don’t hesitate. I don’t think I’ll be playing other then in cons, but I’ll definitely look for it.

http://spione.adept-press.com/

unWritten

Finally, unWritten. Probably the best game at the con… OK, I kid. I had 3 playtests and they were both great fun and incredibly insightful. I thank all of the people that came to the game, and all of the help that I got from Ryan, Josh, Meghann, Vasco, and Eric. The game, having been almost done for the 3rd time, is now entering into it’s newest final stage of completion.

This weekend we played 3 games of Torchwood. The first took place in Cardiff, where half of the team got “unstuck in time.” While the other half of the team struggled to find a way to bring them back. In the end we succeeded, except for the simple fact that as part of the team was getting stuck, the other part was getting unstuck… yeah, a lot of trouble. And a lot of fun.

The second game consisted of, SETI: Task Force UNIT (STFU). This was more of a Dr. Who meets the X-Files, and not so much Torchwood. In it the team fought the forces of Evil and the media. With a grand finale of my character sacrificing himself in order to destroy the evil aliens is he signs to Meg’s character “I Love You.”

The last game consisted of a team of Torchwood operatives in London that was faced with K.A.O.S. And cultists, who were both after the Codex… In the end, the characters suffered implants/homing beacons attached to the backs of their eyes, but the sacrifice was worth it. For we save the world again!

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.