Hi all, Malcolm suggested I stop by and post some reflections on the playtest of my horror-comedy game Soth - a game where you play insane cultists in a small town, trying to summon your God and avoid discovery by investigators (it's the flip side of Call of Cthulu, basically).
We playtested it on Saturday, and afterwards I figured out that it's about playing a villain, and seeing if you can get away with it. However, the game is broken and needs to be massively simplified. It's also left me with a lot of questions, such as what strategic choices do I want players to make in this game, and how exactly do you encourage roleplaying?
My three playtesters were Malcolm (Craig), Fraser, and Mash. They all know each other through playing Ultimate Frisbee. Mash and Fraser have played quite a few RPGs together, while Malcolm and I have played Shock:, Dogs, and Umlaut together since he's arrived in the country.
We agreed to play strictly by the alpha-draft rules, changing nothing even if we found a problem. This came back to bite us when we hit the endgame which, as written, is kinda totally impossible to succeed at, leading to anti-climax. In fact the whole game is extremely difficult - while designing it, I wanted to make the investigators a real threat but it seems like I over-compensated. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.
I had a few questions going into the play test. Was the GM necessary? Did the rules provide enough space and motivation for role-playing? Was the game fun, and if so where was the fun?
After the game, (and after sleeping on it) I figured out what Soth is about for me. I want this game to encourage you see the world from inside the head of a cultist. I want playing it to create a sense of creepy, predatorial power in the players, punctuated by bursts of fear that they'll be discovered, and a gradually growing sense of competition between the cultists. So, after this first playtest I'm going to say Soth is about playing people who don't care they are doing something evil. They abuse the people who love them most, and hurt the people who oppose them, and the game is about whether they'll get away with it. You play the bad guys. That fact created some really interesting tensions in the game.
We started the game by deciding on a location. The rules specify it's a small town with a population of under 5000. We had some debate about time period and setting. We eventually decided on the 1930s, in the depression-era South. The players created that a cultist each: Sheriff Jacob Cleary. Dr Myron Breckenridge, the local dentist. Willie Beauchamp, the grocer's son.
Soth begins with the cult making their first sacrifice - someone who is a stranger to their town. The players decided to kill a travelling salesman in the electric chair of the old mental asylum/prison. This set up a chair motif that would continue through the game. Each ritual also creates, as a byproduct of the roll, a whole bunch of NPCs who the cultists can interact with in the following scenes.
(An aside: at one point the players decided that the cultists' next sacrifice would be the daughter of a local chicken farmer. Malcolm spoke out that he didn't want to see anything ... awful happen when they killed her, and is triggered a negotiation between all of us about what exactly was going to be acceptable in this particular circumstance.)
In the aftermath of the ritual, the players select from a variety of scenes to determine how they live their lives until the next ritual. Insanity Scenes (which illustrate the cultist's growing craziness) seemed to be particularly entertaining. Actions here ranged from eating a plate of raw chicken and more importantly taking milk with your coffee for the first time in 45 years, to wiring on a patient's jaw shut in the middle of a particularly unnecessary dental procedure. Something I noticed here was the players picked up on details from the insanity scenes of other cultists, and developed them. For instance, from the plate of raw chicken we got newspaper reports of chicken thefts at the local farm, the stalking of the chicken farmer's daughter, and eventually the discovery of the dentist smoking a pipe while bathing in a tub full of chickens.
The use of magic to hunt down and kill investigators also seemed to catch the players' imaginations. For each dice you use, you can describe one adjective about the creatures you have summoned. This created some vivid set pieces in which investigators were eliminated. Fraser also took the opportunity to use the betrayal rules and attack Malcolm's character. However, it also brought up a very clear complaint - that people who are investigating you can't be sacrificed no matter how rewarding that might be (as measured by the investigator' s Intimacy score with the cultist).
The playtest had a very stop-start to feel to it up until this point. Scenes where everything flowed - whether that's judged by in-character conversations, interesting situations, or engaging conversations - were often interrupted by questions about the mechanics or the underlying principles of the rules, or just long stretches where players were trying to decide what to do next. But even this broke down completely when we entered the endgame - where you try to summon Soth into the world. We had gone through three cycles of scenes, making the arbitrary decision (due to time constraints) to summon Soth at the end of cycle 3.
The summoning ritual starts with the cultists kidnapping all of the NPCs who aren't investigating them, in order to perform a mass sacrifice. However, all of the steps that follow, from how many successes you need to summon Soth to the dice you roll are either hard to achieve, different from the rest of the game, or boring and procedural. This section does not work - and as it provides the climax of the game, that's quite disappointing. We didn't get to the epilogue section of the endgame, where each cultists gets a chance to describe their life in a world ruled by Soth. Instead things petered out, we all wrote down our feedback, and then had a discussion.
So, the things that seemed fun (to me) about this game were:
-- acting out your growing craziness
-- casting magic to victimise investigators
-- betraying your fellow cultists
-- investment and interest in the NPCs
-- capturing and sacrificing victims.
That's all good stuff. My biggest concern is that all of the above comes pretty naturally out of the game's situation, and that the system itself might be getting on the way of that fun. The common complaints about the game were:
-- too many variations on the dice rolling and tie-breaking system
-- investigators are almost always successful, and the odds are heavily stacked in their favour
-- whether you role-play your character or not makes no difference
-- it was very long - about three hours, instead of the hour and a half I had in mind
-- the endgame was way too difficult
-- too much paperwork, of writing down secret notes, creating NPCs, and handling the different investigations.
Given all of that, there were things that were obviously wrong and that I definitely want to change.
-- simplify cultists scenes so that their mechanical effects emerge through playing
-- collapse investigations into either a single Investigation Pool, or giving them two scenes insteadof of four
-- make summoning Soth easier
-- eliminate the GM (provisional) ... Malcolm and I agreed that a GM was unnecessary to the game, as the responsibilities of the GM role could be distributed to other players or embedded in the rules. Mash disagreed, seeing advantages in consolidating the playing of NPCs and providing conflict in one person.
I've also tried visualise where Soth sits on three axes: How hard is it? How flexible is are the events in the story? How much of an RPG is it?
Challenging ----------------X----------------------------- Easy
Constrained ---------X----------------------------------- Flexible
RPG ---------------X------------------------------ Board game
Those are the answers I've come up with for now, anyway. I want the game to be reasonably challenging, almost possible to lose. I want it to have a reasonably fixed sequence of scenes that lead to the summoning of Soth (but for the fictional content in those scenes to be up for grabs). I also want it to be a role-playing game, and that leads me to the first of my many questions: How do you reward or encourage roleplaying? (And have I just written another parlour narration game?)
Other questions include:
-- How is Soth about "playing villains, and seeing if they can get away with it"?
-- What behaviours does Soth support/reward?
-- What strategic choices do I want in Soth?
Anyway, my conclusion was that the game (as is) is utterly broken. I'm going to have to rewrite it and retest it, and what comes out of that will hopefully be a real alpha-draft. In the next three or four days I'll make a decision on whether that's worth pursuing right now.
How To Encourage RP
Submitted by Ashok Desai on Mon, 03/12/2007 - 09:17.
This is always a tricky one. A good case in point of how it can be done extremely well is the Shadow of Yesterday. In tSoY, every character has 'keys' which are like personality quirks, and you earn your experience points by introducing those quirks into the game... and in no other way. If you want your XP, you have to role-play.
That's probably one of the more overt methods however, as there are others you might try. You could for instance take the route of offering bonuses in some form to future dice rolls if characters role-play particularly well, or by using a character creation system that by its very approach weaves a thread of story through the characters themselves. Take a look at Greg's "Best Friends" for an good example of how that can work to your game's advantage. My last game, Fearmonger, used a tactical system that encouraged people to attempt tasks that they would probably fail in order to get rid of their bad cards and replace them with fresh ones for future, more difficult and important, tests. I found during playtesting that this really led to some interesting situations and RP opportunities, although it did not appear at first glance to openly promote RP.
In the end though a lot of it will be down to the players. You can only encourage RP after all, not force it.
Ash
Chickens & So Forth
Submitted by Malcolm Craig on Mon, 03/12/2007 - 10:29.
Thanks for taking the time to post this here, Steve.
I think that your analysis of the playtesting outcomes is pretty much on the ball.
As regards the GM role, it just didn't feel that there was a huge need for someone to take that position. In fact, it seems that the only time all of the cultists were in a scene together was during sacrifices. So, in all other scenes there was one person available to take an NPC role, if needed. OK, so this can be guaranteed, but the way the game was set up, it seemed like we, as the player had a vast amount of influence whereas you had very little to actually do that had any impact on the outcome of the game. Just a thought.
The most effective scene type, for me, was the insanity scenes. However, they did, in the main, get played for comedy. But is Soth really a comedic game? I'm not sure. There were some moments when it could have turned into something rather dark (the Sheriff and the farmers daughter, for example) and disturbing. But, you just had the scene and gained your insanity, there was no real feeling that there was something at stake or that is represented a genuine increase in anything tangible.
The endgame certainly needs thrown out and re-worked. It would have been impossible for us to actually summon Soth using the existing mechanics. I still feel that having one overall investigative pool is the way to go with this. Scene wise, it could represent many smaller investigations, but it all goes into a single pool, representing the general level of fear and suspicion in the town. Thinking about it, you might find Vast, Cool & Unsympathetic by Joe Murphy quite interesting in this regard.
Cheers
Malc
Contested Ground Studios
Soth it to 'em
Submitted by JoE PrincE on Mon, 03/12/2007 - 11:21.
Sounds like a fun idea and game set up. It's very interesting to read after trying Acts of Evil recently, which is another game about occultists on a quest for Godhood, also a bit broken but certainly not a comedy game.
Providing incentives for RP can be fairly problematic, as Ash has mentioned. I'd say RP is it's own reward - players who like it will do it. Mechanically, you could borrow from My Life with Master, which awards bonus dice when players role-play certain actions or emotions (intimacy, desperation and sincerity). Another successful mechanic I use in a lot of my games is Flair Points, basically fate points that are awarded for good role-play, entertaining the group etc. That said, the best role-play usually comes out when the mechanics get the hell out of the way and give the players time to improvise (like in Contenders).
Hope this helps a bit!
Cheers
+++
JoE
+++
Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....
There was an interesting comment at the Indie...
Submitted by Gregor Hutton on Mon, 03/12/2007 - 12:34.
There was an interesting comment at the Indie Games Design seminar at dragonmeet.
I think it was Luke or Jared that said a GM can be vital in games where players often aren't best at creating adversity for the group or each other.
Certainly in My Life with Master the GM fills a role that Mash is perhaps seeing. On the other hand if the adversity is mechanically there and you just need someoen to role-play that adversity it could be another player.
Oh, I think it would be interesting to add some unpredictability to the turn order in a game about Yog-Sothoth. Contenders has a regular sequence and it works for that game. Acts of Evil has a clockwise order but starting with the lowest Clairty each round. I think there is potential for something similar (or more pronounced) in your game, perhaps.
Useful stuff. Soth thanks you.
Submitted by Steve Hickey on Tue, 04/12/2007 - 06:56.
Gregor, I think your comment about whether the adversity is mechanically there or not is key. At this stage I think it's almost certain that the next draft will have a strong lean in that direction. Up to and including having some benefit or reward for either roleplaying or providing that adversity effectively.
Malcolm, any chance you could expand on this comment: "But, you just had the scene and gained your insanity, there was no real feeling that there was something at stake or that is represented a genuine increase in anything tangible." I've had some ideas along this line (which I've explored slightly in the forge version of this thread), including making changes to stats of PCs and NPCs completely up for grabs depending on how the dice rolls go.
(Oh, and thanks for linking to Joe's game! What a cool idea.)
Thanks everyone for their ideas on how to encourage roleplaying - they go into my "To Mull Over" folder, along with Gregor's idea to mix up the order of turn-taking.
Next on the agenda: think about what behaviours Soth is currently rewarding.
Cheers,
Steve
I am confused slightly as to
Submitted by Iain McAllister on Tue, 04/12/2007 - 18:06.
I am confused slightly as to how you think this is going to be a comedic game as it stands. As Malcolm points out things could have become rather nasty and certainly uncomfortable for the players. You proabably need some sort of 'content' discussion if you think this is a risk in future games.
If you really want to play it for comedy you maybe want to take the idea and put it in a bizzare setting: summoning demons in a theme park etc. You will probably also want to play up the rivalry side of the game, as players wailing on each other is always amusing.
You might want to check out a board game called 'The hills run wild' which did a sort of culty thing in an amusing fashion.
Humour is going to be hard in a game which is about cultists sacrificing people. If you made the people they are sacrficing horrible and petty then that may go some way to alleviating it.
I have been thinking about a humour game called 'What a shambles' about relationships and zombies. Humour is easier here, see 'Shaun of the Dead', because zombies are not seen as people.
Oh that could be good, sorry thinking aloud for a second. What if the cultists really want to summon a god but are a bit squeamish about it, so they sacrifice chickens, cows, cupcakes etc.
Cheers
Iain
Mob Justice now available!
'The Giant Brain':Small games, big ideas.
Umm, well, my tuppence... [and this is probably quite important]
Submitted by Gregor Hutton on Wed, 05/12/2007 - 18:20.
My tuppence... is that it is the designer's vision that is important on what they want a game to do.
Sure, we can try to help the game meet that vision, or flag up where we think the game is currently creating something different. But, I think it is very important that we let the designer's vision not get cluttered by what we would do with the game or what setting we'd have for it. So, that's for all of us in the peanut gallery.
And, for Steve, it means that when taking on our feedback or musing about stuff I suggest he keeps his own vision paramount. Steve nails it in the very first lines of this thread...
"...my horror-comedy game Soth - a game where you play insane cultists in a small town, trying to summon your God and avoid discovery by investigators (it's the flip side of Call of Cthulu, basically)."
You go on to it more with "...I figured out what Soth is about for me. I want this game to encourage you see the world from inside the head of a cultist." but I really think that has to be seen in the context of that first, powerful vision above.
So, whether we, in the peanut gallery, think it should be serious in tone, have a weird turn order, have pre-game lines/veils and contentious issue discussions, or be funny in the way we would make it funny ourselves are all potential red herrings. And I flag them up as potential distractions too. They may be good for you and they may work with your vision. Cool. But if they don't then, frankly, don't use them or worry about them at all.
Stick to your vision.
A bit of expansion
Submitted by Steve Hickey on Mon, 10/12/2007 - 07:44.
Hi Iain, my intention is to have quite a bit of comedy emerge from the clash between contradictory pressures on the PCs. For instance, Paranoia uses the clash between your mutant powers, and the demands of your secret society, the bureaucracy of Alpha Complex, and the Computer to create comedy. In the same way, Soth is going to use the clash between the demands of the cult & your life in the town to force PCs into difficult situations.
How? ... I'm not sure yet. Gregor, I've been giving a lot of thought to my vision for the game, and answering Jared's questions. Here's what I've come up with so far.
1. What is Soth about?
You play insane cultists living in a small town, trying to summon your dark god and avoid discovery by investigators. You play the bad guys -- covering up your crimes, maintaining your cover story, and competing to lead your cult. The game is about whether you can get away with being evil.
2. How is Soth about this?
Cultists are being pulled in two incompatible directions: (i) to fulfill the demands of being a cultist, and (ii) to live up to the expectations others in the town have of you. In both directions, you have to make sure your cult activities aren't discovered.
The pressures on you (and all the cultists) increase no matter which direction you choose. The more you help the cult, the more suspicious regular people become of you -- because you're neglecting your 'normal' responsibilities by going crazy and secretly killing people. The more you neglect the cult, the less power you will have with them -- because you're not earning Magic dice, and are less able to defend yourself against any suspicion that's directed your way.
3. What behaviours does Soth encourage and reward?
If you want to gain power in the cult, you have to:
-- gain Magic
-- lead the cult
If you want to maintain your cover in the town, you have to:
-- reduce/minimise Suspicion
In both cases, you have the opportunity to increase Intimacy with NPCs. For some reason, I don't see this as a conflict of interest at the moment over the of -- perhaps I should.
Finally, if you want to deal with investigators you have to reduce their Insight.
***
Hopefully that'll give me a strong set of principles to redevelop the game from.
Cheers,
Steve
It sounds to me as if the
Submitted by David Donachie on Tue, 11/12/2007 - 22:59.
It sounds to me as if the greatest source of tension and comedy, could easily be the tension between being a crazy cultist and trying to be a good small town citizen (which is often a pretty crazy proposition in the first place).
Trying to explain to the tobacco-chewing sheriff what exactly you were doing in Ma Brown's barn on the night of the full moon, or trying to hide your sorcerous robes from your mother in law, or being interrupted mid-summoning by scouts selling cookies ... all could be examples of that tension creating comedy by the bucket load, especially if those sorts of complications are an integral part of the system (as mutant powers, briefing sessions and malfunctioning weapons are core parts of paranoia).
For example you could have the main mechanical opposition in each scene be comedic small-town complications rather than investigators (with investigations played as a thread through the story rather than opposition for one task or scene). Investigators, of course, should all be bumbling academics, Norwegian sailors, or rich playboys :)
Solipsist RPG, on its way ... eventually