Similar issues across the hobby
Yes, there's political stuff going on in the world...
Yes, that political stuff is important and has a massive impact on many designers I know and respect...
...but this post isn't about that.
I saw this post on G+.
It really reflects a lot of the ideas I've been thinking about with the story fragments in this game about spirits. I like the idea of having narrative goals measured in some way, and I don't want the measurement simply to be handled by GM fiat, but like in the examples indicated I've also seen a break in the immersion when other players are used to gauge someone's performance in character. This can get really messy when one character has a goal at odds with another character, and that other character's player is given an adjudicatory role.
I like this concept of having a series of resources or traits that need to be accumulated over the course of the story. Make friends, accumulate gold, raise an attribute, train in a skill, kill a nemesis, solve a number of puzzles, etc. We've already got these concepts in place through the threshold tasks that need to be met before those character levelling events unfold at the end of a story. There's even the potential for varying the difficulty factor of different stories, where some stories allow a quicker path to the critical moments of ascension while others have a slower and steadier path. As indicated in previous posts, this speed variability doesn't disrupt the game.
But now I'm a bit torn by this idea of having introverted scenes where a character reaches thresholds in their story, then explains the thought processes in their head, how they think the events of their narrative have changed them, and what they think they've gained as a result of their journey so far. At each threshold, one of these "introversion scenes" is resolved, and a player gets no more than one "introversion scene" per game. The other players act as a "council of elder spirits" and vote on what bonus is actually achieved by the character. Over the multiple threshold scenes, a character will need to achieve a certain range of these bonuses before they may confront the stories resolution.
But what are these bonuses that need to be accumulated?
I don't have the answers yet, and I'm sure other designers have also worked through these ideas in the past, so I guess it's time to do some more research. Maybe have a dig through Eclipse Stage (which I'm sure I've got sitting on a hard drive somewhere )
Yes, that political stuff is important and has a massive impact on many designers I know and respect...
...but this post isn't about that.
I saw this post on G+.
It really reflects a lot of the ideas I've been thinking about with the story fragments in this game about spirits. I like the idea of having narrative goals measured in some way, and I don't want the measurement simply to be handled by GM fiat, but like in the examples indicated I've also seen a break in the immersion when other players are used to gauge someone's performance in character. This can get really messy when one character has a goal at odds with another character, and that other character's player is given an adjudicatory role.
I like this concept of having a series of resources or traits that need to be accumulated over the course of the story. Make friends, accumulate gold, raise an attribute, train in a skill, kill a nemesis, solve a number of puzzles, etc. We've already got these concepts in place through the threshold tasks that need to be met before those character levelling events unfold at the end of a story. There's even the potential for varying the difficulty factor of different stories, where some stories allow a quicker path to the critical moments of ascension while others have a slower and steadier path. As indicated in previous posts, this speed variability doesn't disrupt the game.
But now I'm a bit torn by this idea of having introverted scenes where a character reaches thresholds in their story, then explains the thought processes in their head, how they think the events of their narrative have changed them, and what they think they've gained as a result of their journey so far. At each threshold, one of these "introversion scenes" is resolved, and a player gets no more than one "introversion scene" per game. The other players act as a "council of elder spirits" and vote on what bonus is actually achieved by the character. Over the multiple threshold scenes, a character will need to achieve a certain range of these bonuses before they may confront the stories resolution.
But what are these bonuses that need to be accumulated?
I don't have the answers yet, and I'm sure other designers have also worked through these ideas in the past, so I guess it's time to do some more research. Maybe have a dig through Eclipse Stage (which I'm sure I've got sitting on a hard drive somewhere )
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