Creating a Game (Part 5) - The Bits that Drive the Game

 I can see this game being predominantly played two ways;

1. Scarecrow Slice of Life - in which our characters complete a range of small duties for friendly spirits. This helps them build up their mystical energy, and gives them the chance to explore the world, make acquaintances, scout locations, and reveal useful fragments that might be drawn into later sessions.  
2. Tale of Vengeance - in which our characters find a threat to their world and need to confront it because it endangers their acquaintances, their homes, and potentially twists those fragments into something dangerous. This is te kind of things that has been killing the magic in the world, and it could be something as mundane as a property developer sending in their buldozers to destroy a sacred place of power, arsonists hired to clear a family off the frmland that has been in their lineage for generations, or chemical dumpers. Conversely it could be something more mystical, consuming the last remaining energies of the area as it creates chaos. 

If I were running it, especially as a long term campaign, I'd probably alernate between the two. Not an even split, with odd sessions being "slice of life" and even session being "vengeance", but more random, or more focused on the outcomes of one session to the next. 

The easy option is flp a coin, or to maintain consistency with the rest of the game...draw a card. Red card gives a "slice of life" game, black card gives a "tale of vengeance". 

(The random draw affests the story)

But while this is the easy option, it breaches our idea that the game needs to feed ito the story, and the story needs to feed into the game.  

I have this thing where I set up tension in games by marking a circle. 

If characters fail in their actions, but I don't really want something immediately obvious as a penalty result, I'll colour in a segment of the circle. Instead of having a small penalty manifest wit a single failure, the total failures accumulate and when the whle circcle is filled in, something far more dramatic comes into play. Characters can investigate the situation to have some understanding of what might be coming, and they can also cancel out the coloured segments with successful actions once they know what's happening.  

 

When we look at it this way, the default game mode might be "slice of life". Every time the characters fail in a mystical action, or do something that might draw hunters to them, a segment of the circle gets filled in. If one segment or less is filled in at the end of a session, the threat blows over and nothing much happens. If two or three segments are filled in, then a minor threat comes to town during the next session, and the characters will have to deal with it (while a new circle potentially escalates probles further). If all the segments are filled in, the game immediaely shifts from "slice of life" to "vengeance".

This might work better with more segments, but that's all a part of the playtestig process, and different groups might find that different numbers of segments work better fo their group.

I've alreay established a few of these ideas in the game's play sheet.

 

I'm going with an idea that a single session reflects a singe night in the "life" of the scarecrows. The session will aways start at dusk, and regardless of whether the characters have fulfilled their needs will end at dawn. When failure occurs, instead of building tension toward a threat, the time might simply progress...which builds a tension of its own, because now the characters have les time to resolve the issues in their lives, or less time to explore the world. There are six white circles in an arc at the top of the play sheet, suggestig the passage of the full moon across the sky from dusk to dawn. A moon token moves its way across the sheet as a visceral reminder of hw much time there is. A large circle is where time tokens are placed. If eight time tokens are placed in this circle, the count resets, and the moon token takes a step. That gives 48 time increments in the game, 15 minutes each for a total of 12 hours. Sure, summer solstice might be a shorter night, and winter solstice may be longer, and groups more familiar with the game might adjust the timing system (during summer, 6 or 7 time tokens might move the moon...during winter it might take 9 or 10 tokens). But let's stick with the 8 tokens and 6 moon movements for the moment.

It's probably safe to assume that an enire combat will take less than a 15 minute increment, so it doesn't make sense for a failed roll in a fight to cause a delay of 15 minutes. On the other hand, some actions might be deliberately slow, repairing something might take a minimum of 15 minutes, while problems associated with the roll might mean extra parts are required, extra time is wasted, or the fix leaves the item ot quite working right (an extra repair roll migh be needed). Similar might apply to gathering information, conducting magical rituals, travelling between locations in the setting, fortifying an area, or other tasks at the Oracle's discretion.

   

The key factor hee is that time marches on.

This all works with the existing structures of FUBAR. 

If you haven't looked at FUBAR...go and do it now, it's free. (and if you want to support me, go and buy a couple of the supplements, they're cheap) 

FUBAR works with a pool of tokens that gets shuffled around by the Oracle, it reflets wher the story has been, how far there is to go, and how dangerous things are at the moment. Allthe tokens begin in a starting pool, but get shifted around due to different reasons. 

At the bottom of the play sheet is a circle designed for containing a threat pool, which works a bit more directly like the circle segments. As tokens are placed in that bottom circle, the potential for threats to emerge becomes possible. These tokens accumulate with failed actions where the Oracle doesn't have an immediate penalty to apply, and they may add a token to the pool opnceper scene just because they feel like it. Once in the pool, the Oracle may spend them. If the Oracle spends a pair of tokens from this pool, a small threat emerges. If they spend four tokens, a more significant thrat emerges. If six tokens are spent, something truly dangerous emerges.

That stuff all works, those are the bits that establsh tension in the game and guide the Oracle toward a slow burn, rather than letting them get away with killing all the scarecrows out of spite. There should always be a sense of hope, these effects moderate the flow to help ensure that sense of hope lingers.

  

Even through there is a farly strict set of guidelines governing the flow of play and how elements may be introduced into the story, FUBAR can be a very freeflowig and unpredictable game engine. I know that my style of running a game tends toward gonzo, and I often need to make conscious decisions not to allow those element to take over. Hence I write rule systems that guide and focus play, rather than rule systems that are too open.

I mentioned that I can see running a game and writing a game system like cooking a meal...

GM: "I'm making Beef Vindaloo. Here are the ingredients." 

Player 1: "Can we add some more sugar?"

GM: "That's an odd request, but let's see what it does to the flavour."  

Player 2: "If she gets to modify the recipe, I'm adding some fish."

Player 3: "...and since this isn't very healthy, I'm addng some kale."

Player 4: "...and here's some mint."

GM Tastes the mix...

GM: "This ain't Vindaloo anymore is it."

Sometimes you've got to follow the recipe to get a certain experience, and sometimes you've got to learn how to say "NO".

If a player wants to play a human in this game about scarecrows who remain animated for a single night at a time, it may not seem like much of an issue (like a bit of extra sugar in the Vindaloo). But the whole idea of the time limit as a tension factor in the game suddenly doesn't apply to that character, it applies a very different dynamic to the story for this character. You certainly don't want to disrupt the game further by introducing elves, vampires, highlanders, or aliens into the mix.

I think that the next three things to focus on are: 

1. differentiation between various types of Scarecrow
2. scarecrow powers
3. the common positive and negative traits that might be present in the game.

Then it will be a case of laying out the game and getting it ready for sale.