This blog post is my attempt to think through some of my (Stentor's) design philosophy for the three game design projects currently at the front of my mind. I'm not claiming these ideas are new or sophisticated, and I'm certainly not proposing them as normative for anyone else's design. It's just useful to me to spell out what I'm trying to do.
The three games I'm currently working on are:
* Catpocalypse World: Cats surviving after the human apocalypse
* Get Ready 2 Rock: A band on tour getting themselves in trouble
* Admiral Earth: The Earth Team uses the powers of nature to battle eco-villains and summon the planet's greatest defender, Admiral Earth
All three games are rooted in the Apocalypse Engine to various degrees. In particular, all three adopt the "moves" structure -- when a character does particular actions, then you are given a description or list of the sorts of things that might happen in the story. Most moves involve the application of a randomizer (dice roll or card draw) plus modifiers to select between good, compromised, or bad menus of outcomes. A very large percentage of the design work on these games involves writing, testing, and re-writing moves.
The important distinction I'm trying to keep in mind is between what I'm calling success mechanics and story mechanics (or success moves versus story moves, since I'm focused on writing "moves" in an Apocalypse Engine context). Success moves clearly separate the role of the GM and the player. The player inhabits and controls the character, while the GM is fully in charge of the rest of the world. Like real people acting in the real world, characters then encounter situations where the outcomes of their actions are uncertain -- they don't know whether their skills will be adequate to overcome the challenge posed by the outside world, and whether luck will favor them in executing their plan. Success mechanics step in to give us rulings on these outcomes, usually with the application of some randomizer (e.g. dice or cards) to represent the character's uncertainty. The result of the mechanic tells us whether the character succeeds in overcoming the world's barriers or not. The nature of those barriers, and the sorts of outcomes available from overcoming them, rest in the GM's hands (albeit sometimes with their own mechanics and randomizers). Games that are heavily investigative ("solve the mystery") tend to rely heavily on success mechanics. The GM has already decided what the truth behind the mystery is, and so the real question to be decided at the table is whether different strategies by the characters succeed at uncovering clues and piecing them together.
Story moves, on the other hand, put the GM and players both in the role of storytellers crafting a story about the characters and their world. While players may have primary responsibility for choosing their character's actions, the question faced by the player in acting is not "am I good enough (and lucky enough) to succeed at this?" but rather "where does the story go when I try this?" That is, does the overall story go in a direction favorable or unfavorable to the character. This question goes beyond just the things under the character's direct control, potentially reaching into any aspect of the world not yet made canon by appearing in the story. An investigative game in a story mechanics context would give the players control over how the mystery unfolds and perhaps even what the real story behind it is. I specifically like the structure of "moves" (as opposed to the "skill checks" that appear in many games) for story mechanics because it creates the opportunity to give specific narrative prompts for how the story proceeds.
There is definite overlap between the two -- succeeding at one's intended task is one obvious way that the story can go in a direction favorable to the character, and vice-versa for failing at it. But thinking in terms of story moves opens up new possibilities.
For example: say you have a move that applies when a character hacks a computer system, and one of the characters in the game hacks into the villain's email to find incriminating information. In a success mechanic context, the GM will have already decided what kind of incriminating information is potentially available. The question to be answered by the mechanics is, is the character a good enough hacker to get some or all of that information? In a story mechanics context, the question to be answered by the mechanics pertains (or at least may pertain) to the content of the emails themselves as well. A poor result from the randomizer may mean that the information in the emails turns out to incriminate an ally rather than the villain, because uncovering that is one way for the story to go poorly for the hacker character (despite being a "success" in the sense that their skills were adequate to access the computer system).
Another example: my current favorite basic (i.e. available to all player characters) move in Catpocalypse World is called "You Meant To Do That." The inspiration, of course, is the way cats can fall off of something or otherwise have a total wipeout, then pick themselves up as if everything is going just according to plan. This is such a distinctive cat behavior that I knew there had to be a move about it in a game featuring cats. Originally, this move was called "I Meant To Do That," and its structure heavily drew on the "Keep Your Cool" move in Monsterhearts. The question to be answered was, when pulling off a stunt, do you draw negative attention and look foolish, or do you convince others that you're still in control. I realized that I had written it as very much a success move, deciding whether the character was successful at keeping their cool in the face of obstacles like nervous tics and other characters' perceptiveness. But I saw an opportunity to turn it into a more story-focused move*. The new text reads:
You Meant To Do That: When someone has seemed to fail at something but you wish they had succeeded, roll [2d6] + the same attitude [stat] they took (but using your own bonuses etc.). On a 10+, explain how their apparent failure actually created a great opportunity or accomplished something useful, and they take +1 to taking advantage of it. On a 7-9, your confidence gives them +1 to extricating themself from the mess they made.
The new mechanic gets away from the idea of a character succeeding or failing at some action they're taking in the context of obstacles in the world. Instead, it gives the player a chance to re-write the next step of the story, pointing out how an apparent failure could actually turn out for the best, perhaps in a way anticipated by neither the target character nor the GM.
I don't intend for all of my moves to be quite as meta as "You Meant To Do That," but it illustrates my approach. When writing prompts for outcomes, I want to ask myself not "what would it look like for a character to succeed/fail at this?" but rather "what would it look like for the story to go in a direction favorable/unfavorable to this character?"
*As well as using this move to cover the need for a "helping" mechanic, which was open after I removed the very Monsterhearts-ish strings mechanic that didn't fit the game's approach.
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Saturday, June 30, 2018
Sunday, March 12, 2017
Playtest Report: Get Ready 2 Rock in the frozen north
The band was traveling by dogsled to a big music festival in Fairbanks, Alaska. They stopped for the night at a Canada's Greatest Motel location in the remote not-even-a-village of McConnell's Crossing. The whole band had to share a single room because the rest of the motel had been reserved by their rivals, Blond Riot, who soon arrived in their reindeer-drawn sleigh.
Blond Riot is only "pretty good," though that makes them better and more popular than Sleeping Ginger. Ed overheard Blond Riot's roadies grousing about how the band acquired fancy $8000 amps, but isn't good enough to hear the difference between that and lower-quality $4000 amps. Sleeping Ginger hatched a plot to trade the roadies their lower-quality amps plus $4000 to get the better amps from Blond Riot. But first they needed to get the money, since between them they only had $200.
Ricky used his charm to convince Marlene, the receptionist at the motel, to call corporate HQ and make a deal that Sleeping Ginger would write a version of one of its songs that was about the motel chain and play it on stage, in exchange for $3800. Meanwhile, Drax and Sir Clemens called a mysterious phone number they found written in the hotel attractions guide to arrange a drug deal with "Randy," who wanted to meet them at the old dock on Black Lake. Though Sir Clemens' drug habit breaks the heart of his father (and the band's manager) Cecil, the two set off into the dark woods to meet Randy. After performing a wild rock'n'roll stunt that left Drax up to his waist in cold water, Randy agreed to sell them $1000 worth of Extasy for only $100. On their way back to the motel, the band members ran into a couple members of Blond Riot, who were also aiming to score some drugs from Randy. Randy -- who had sold his entire stash to Drax and Sir Clemens -- used his satellite phone to call the police. Luckily the members of Sleeping Ginger were able to hide their drugs in a hollow tree, and the police didn't find anything on them. The members of Blond Riot and Randy hitched a ride back to town with the police. When Drax and Sir Clemens got back, they broke the door handle on one of the Blond Riot rooms, to delay them in the morning.
The next morning, Sleeping Ginger headed out on the road. Around midday, they reached the border checkpoint. Fearing that they would be caught bringing drugs into the USA, the band exploited their celebrity to get Charles the border guard -- a huge Sleeping Ginger fan -- to just wave them on through. That night, Sleeping Ginger had to camp at a National Forest since there were no motels in this remote area of Alaska. And wouldn't you know it, Blond Riot arrived at the same campground hours later. Since the members of Blond Riot were clearly frazzled from their day's adventures, they were willing to buy the extasy for $1500. While Blond Riot lay in their tent getting high, Sleeping Ginger decided to prank them by building a bunch of threatening snowmen around their tent.
The next day the band arrived in Fairbanks. After checking in at the festival HQ, Ricky and Widowmaker headed to a local coffee shop to meet Heather, the head of advertising and PR for Canada's Greatest Motels. While waiting for Heather, they were met by Charles. He told them that he had been fired from his job as a border guard for letting them through without checking their passports or inspecting their vehicle. Border Patrol was now on the hunt for Sleeping Ginger. Moreover, the Forest Service was also after them, because to make their snowmen they had pulled branches off of an endangered tree.
Meanwhile, Drax and Sir Clemens decided to try to sabotage their amps, so that when they traded them to Blond Riot, they would sound bad. However, they mostly succeeded in breaking the amps and electrocuting themselves. They took the amps to a local repair shop, and paid a premium to get them repaired quickly. Then they made their deal with the roadies for Blond Riot, swapping amps along with $4000.
Charles helped the band get in touch with his former supervisor, Officer Ramirez. She didn't buy the band's excuse that, coming from a remote part of Canada, they didn't know that you had to show your passport to enter the US. However, she told them that if they played a song about the importance of conserving endangered species, the Forest Service might both forgive their damage to the tree, and sponsor their application for a visa so that they could be in the country legally*.
The next day, Sleeping Ginger had their big show. Not only did they perform a brilliant song for the Forest Service, they also held up their end of the bargain with Canada's Greatest Motels, and won over a bunch of Blond Riot fans.
*Yes, I know this is not how US immigration law works.
Sunday, July 31, 2016
Laser Kittens is here!
Friday, June 10, 2016
Glittercats at Origins!
- Thursday 4-6 pm
- Friday 4-6 pm
- Saturday 12-2 pm
We also have a slot at Indie Games on Demand in the Hyatt Fairfield room, starting at 9 am on Saturday.
Laser Kittens won't be quite ready to sell at the dealer's hall at Origins, but you can preorder it through Backerkit if you missed our Kickstarter. We'll have our other two games, Bunny Money Gunny and The Fool's Journey, for sale, alongside a bunch of other awesome games at the Indie Game Developer Network booth. Come on by!
Monday, February 1, 2016
Laser Kittens is live on Kickstarter!
Laser Kittens is a cooperative storytelling game suitable for everyone from pre-teens to adults. Using two standard decks of playing cards, you'll bid for control of the story. Players take turns being Class Captain, setting the scene and controlling any NPCs while the other players narrate the actions of their kittens. When your laser goes off, you never know if it will do something amazing or backfire terribly, creating kitten chaos. The fun is in seeing what happens!
When you back Laser Kittens you can get a PDF and audio versions of the rulebook, or a softcover physical copy (100 pages, 6x9 inches). At higher pledge levels, you can get your cat included as an NPC, or even have our artist (Cynthia Lee) incorporate your cat into the book's illustrations. Back Laser Kittens today!
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Recent Press
Hello everyone!
2016 is proving to be a big exciting year for Glittercats. We are gearing up to bring Laser Kittens to Kickstarter on February 1st and we can not be anymore excited for that!
Below, I'm adding links to a bunch of press that we've done, just so you can hear what we've been talking about,
One Shot Podcast
Chey did a play thru of The Fool's Journey while at Metatopia 2015. We had a blast?
http://www.oneshotpodcast.com/podcasts/one-shot/128-fools-journeytanya-de-passe/
(also, I've included a picture of the journey track from the game with the amazing Happy Tarot deck by Serena Ficca.
Geek Initiative
Again, from Metatopia 2015
http://www.geekinitiative.com/women-rpgs-cheyenne-wall-grimes-interview-metatopia-2015/
We will have so much press coming out in the following weeks, make sure and stay tuned!
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Why -- or why not -- use the Apocalypse World system?
I love games that use the Apocalypse World system. At Metatopia I playtested a bunch of AW-bsed games, ranging from relatively straightforward transpositions of the mechanics into new scenarios, to wildly creative reimaginings of the system. It's my go-to system for a more traditional* game.
So when I design a game, it's worth asking why I am, or am not, using the AW system as my basis. The two games I brought to Metatopia make a good illustration of this, since one is AW and the other is not.
My AW game, tentatively titled "Get Ready to Rock," is about a band on tour. It was inspired in part by some sessions of the "Touring Rock Band" and "Touring Rock Band 2" Fiasco playsets -- so I know that you can tell the kind of stories I wanted to tell without AW mechanics. And my use of AW started in part simply from noticing the similarity between the name "Apocalypse World" and the name of the show "Metalocalypse" (another key inspiration). But the game has progressed and worked because the AW system does certain things that are useful for the kind of stories I want the game to produce.
First, one of the key drivers of the game is the tension between the cohesion necessary to play music together, versus the clash of egos that arises when a band hits the big time. This is supported in part by some of the base AW mechanics. The use of differentiated playbooks geared to different roles in the story helps to model both the complementary differences that make a band work (made obvious in the formulas used by music executives constructing boy bands and supergroups), as well as the different directions that each member's personality will tug the band in. I also borrowed the "strings" mechanic pretty directly from Monsterhearts (which I regard as the paradigm of an AW game, perhaps even more so than AW itself) as a way of intensifying the need to make complicated choices that implicate your fellow band members. I also implemented one innovation which followed smoothly from the AW base: the band as an entity has its own playbook, separate from the players' individual ones, with its own set of stats, its own harm track, and moves that can only be done by the band as a whole.
Second, I wanted the game to motivate the characters to make bad decisions and get themselves into trouble. This is not a game where the GM dreams up a set of challenges that the players then work to overcome -- instead, the characters' own actions should get twisted to draw them further into complicated situations and force them to make difficult choices. The aforementioned strings are an obvious way to do this, and I enhance their role in the game to allow players to make things complicated for each other. But even more importantly, the "partial success" mechanic in AW leads directly to complications. Having clearly structured "moves" means that players are confronted with tough choices and a framework for complicating their own lives when they roll anything less than a 10.
On the other hand, I think there are good reasons that Laser Kittens is not an AW game. For this game I developed my own system, based on bidding cards from two standard poker decks. There are several aspects of the gameplay that I wanted, which would be difficult to model using an AW basis.
First, Laser Kittens is a game with a rotating GM. Now, I know there are GM-less AW games out there, so it's not an impossibility. But it doesn't follow easily, because there is a tension between the player-level decisions involved in bidding to GM a scene, versus the character-level actions of using your playbook's moves. Bidding for the GM role would have required a separate mechanic, whereas my original system was able to seamlessly merge the mechanics for picking a GM with the mechanics for resolving conflicts within a scene.
Second, I wanted to model the chaos of kitten life. While much emphasis is placed on the partial success mechanics of AW, ultimately characters in an AW-based game are more or less in control of what they're doing, within known parameters of probability. On the other hand, kittens are not in control -- they have limited knowledge and limited control over their own bodies. The card-bidding mechanic of Laser Kittens generates a good deal of chaos. (I had one playtester tell me that she had more fun when she selected her bid entirely at random, rather than trying to purposefully choose a good card.) Moreover, bidding from a fixed set of cards encourages players to deliberately invite failure by spending bad cards, both as a way of refreshing their hand and as a storytelling end in itself. This is something that can't be done with a dice-based system, where each roll is uncontrollable and statistically independent of each other roll.
Third, there are the lasers. I'm planning a longer post about how I developed the laser mechanic, so for the moment I'll suffice it to say that nothing in the standard AW toolkit allows for modeling some of the key characteristics of lasers in the game. Specifically, lasers (unlike character moves in an AW game) 1) build up "pressure" over time until they're forced to go off, and 2) have success/failure levels that can be progressively learned about, and adjusted, during the power-up period.
That being said, translating what Laser Kittens has become into an AW-based system is an interesting challenge, and a potential stretch goal for Kickstarter!
*I know some people regard AW games as super indie. But to me, "traditional" encompasses any game in which there is a distinction between GM and players, and in which each player controls a character whose abilities are defined by a set of "stats and powers."
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