I had to duck out of the one demo I took part in but I'd like to give my impression of the basic setup. This will only really go towards answering point 2 of your query.

The situation was appealing: the windy wasteland, concrete, chainlink fences and the demon dogs was immediately engaging. However (and this is purely a personal thing), I didn't really find the characters that engaging. So on the one hand I was drawn in by the situation and setting, but slightly put off by the characters.

Cheers
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios

I enjoyed the demo. However, there were two things that struck me from it.

1. It never explained why the two characters were together doing what they were doing. That, to me, was something I heard a couple of times regarding Solipsist ('Oh, how can there be more than one of you?'). Explaining the group rationale and how that sits with the idea of you trying to create your world as your ally is trying to create theirs as well, might smooth out that wrinkle.

2. The challenge, as presented, was rather hard. I think it had a 'shadow rating' of 15 which required the two players to use virtually every trait on their sheet. It felt very much like I was stretching the 'trait whoring' value towards cheeky at points (I was playing the Big Game Hunter character)

Those two things aside, Gregor rattled off an excellent 15 minute sampler. I think Solipsist might need a little longer to explain some of the deeper concepts. I know I understand the mechanic but I'm not sure I understand the 'game'

neil

Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/

It got me intrigued about Solipsist but, for me, didn't show off the game well.

I agree with Malcolm: the set-up was intriguing. That was great.

The characters were interesting, but they felt like someone else's favourite character. I picked them up and thought "Huh, interesting" rather than "I want to play this character!".

Personally, I'd go for grabby characters with an instantly understandable thing: I want to return the world to nature; I want the Norse Gods to rule. I don't know, something like that.

They were a bit overwritten, too. I'd prefer one line of description and very short descriptions of the traits.

I also agree that the challenge was a bit too high level. After the challenge was issued, we spent most of the demo doing maths: right, well I can bring that in, and then you can bring that one in...

But I think the game looks great and I'm interested to play a full game.

Graham

Cool thanks!

Re: Characters

Did people find both of the character difficult or was Johnny Wu (the martial arts / fu dog) character more opaque than the big game hunter? I'd kind of assumed that the hunter would be easier, and I am sure I could do a new character to replace Wu.

Graham, I'm surprised you thought they were over-written, I worried they were too sparse! Was it the Visions that were too long? I was trying to provide some sort of meat for riffing off in a change.

Re: Challenge level

What I was aiming for with my 15 was a level where one character could hit the difficulty on their own with a real stretch (i.e. they would have to push) but both together could manage it easily enough, maybe I need to knock it down a point or two?

The two characters have 14 points of Obsession and 10 (I think) Infestation between them, which should be more than enough even if the GM spent some Infestation tokens to raise the difficulty some more. One player is likely to muster 5 Obsession and 5 Infestation (on average), needing to push to meet the difficulty. Maybe 14 or 13 would be better?

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

I think we both agreed that Gregor did a good and enthusiastic job, but it fell short of *selling* the game to us.

Definitely the Johnny Wu character was more opaque. The other one wanted to be Tarzan in Harmonywildworld, fairly easy to get your head round, but the Wu one wanted to be a lion-dog guarding the steps of heaven... I said at the time that it felt like someone's very personal concept that wasn't easy for anyone else to interpret.

One issue of context is that we started off not knowing what we were capable of. It'd be handy to have some reference point - maybe "you did this mildly amazing thing earlier and now you've ended up here."

It did end up as a lot of explanation of the concepts of the game, followed by throwing the characters into a very brief encounter so tough that we were pretty much automatically defeated. I strongly suggest that you start with some scene where the characters can succeed fairly easily if they use their abilities in a creative way - probably something involving normal people, like getting information or bypassing security guards/systems. Then go into a tougher one. Actually, the easy encounter might satisfy the previous point about benchmarking.

Also, I think it needs to draw out what's cool and saleable more. What would that be?

In keeping with what was suggested to me for the Questers one, would it be worth having partial characters with smaller numbers of traits to puzzle over?

Finally, are there bits of the mechanics that can be left out of the demo?

Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk

Hi Tim, thanks for the comments

I love the idea of telling the players how they got to where they are, to give them an example of what they are capable of, that is a great idea. I am not so sure about letting the players have that previous scene, since then it's hard to get to the *bang* without asking much more from the GM than seems reasonable of a 15 minute demo (but I could be totally wrong).

Johnny Wu is weird, it was just a pick out of about 10 characters I did at the same time, and I think the inspiration was some random object in the room at the time :) He definitely needs to be replaced.

So ... anyone in the demo who *succeeded* at the change? :) I am sure Gregor mentioned that people did.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

Quick responses, probably specific to me:

1. I found both characters difficult, not just Johnny Wu.
2. Yes! Visions too long. One or two sentences, please.
3. I think the whole thing of basing the demo around one high-level challenge was difficult. Even if the level had been 13 or 14, we'd still spent the demo working out how we could shoehorn our attributes in.

Personally, I'd use two smaller challenges, one of about 7 (easy to overcome, just makes you think a little), one of about 12 (needs a bit of thought or working together). That way, you always succeed in something, and it matters less if you can't get the second.

Graham

I think I did, although, as has been said already, it did feel a bit of a stretch in a laundry list kinda way. Ooh, how can I fit this in, can I squeeze this in, etc, which maybe wasn't the impression of how the game works that you want.

I'll echo the previous comments about the setup being very grabby. A great conflict to launch into. I wasn't so sold on the characters, and didn't really want to play either. The big game hunter was an easier sell than the martial artist, although both seemed to share goals. I couldn't envisage how a typical game (or rather, a game group) would work after the demo, which could be a problem. It'd be nice to come away with a clear idea how the game should work in full, and I didn't get that sense.

So how to preserve the grabby setup along with the need to have smaller changes rather than big ones?

I could have a constrained first change, something like you are in the wasteland, looking for X, and are confronted by an obstacle (locked iron door or something, for an underground bunker, just to keep Malcolm happy), and then when you open that the dogs attack?

The only problem is that it's hard to script anything for Solipsist, after all I could get into the bunker by turning the world into floating islands, or both characters into ants, and then where do the slavering dogs come from?

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

Can't you keep the slavering dogs but make the challenge slightly easier?

I wouldn't worry too much about the details of the encounter. I'd look towards some of the comments that have been made about not understanding the scope of the game after the demo.

I played in Matt's Covenant demo at Games Expo. I have never even picked up a copy of Covenant before but by the end of it I understood the basic premise of the game, who the characters would be and what they would do within the game. The problem I had with Solipsist is that it is so high concept (IMO) that this is the area that needs explaining more than the mechanic. Specifically:

Who are the Solipsists?
When do they transcend this reality into their own?
Why do they work together?
What is the Shadow?
How does it seek to stop them?

That means that the characters have to be developed together so that they have a reason to be in the same place as each other maybe? The conflict can run from there, but without that information the game sits without a context that the players can grasp. Or at least I could - lets not have me speak for everyone else!!!

Or, you go in a different direction and have the demo as a PVP demo where the players compete to assert their reality over the conflict, so there is a winner and loser and an outcome which can be explained in terms of progression in the game?

Neil

(ps. I'll add a caveat to all of this by admitting that I had to look up what a solipsist was when I first heard of the game, therefore my understanding might be a little borked from the get-go)

Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/

Thanks Neil, interesting thoughts there

I guess my problem is that I don't really grasp what can and cannot be done in a 15 minute demo. I had thought that there wasn't time for much more than once scene, and that it really should be one *in the action* to get people's attention, whereas you are clearly after more of a context setting thing.

The Hows and Whys needn't be complex. Why are you together? Because there is a threat to reality strong enough to drag you half out of your isolation and make you work together. How are you working together? With difficulty ... hence the idea of two characters with different world views.

I'd hoped that both characters would want to defeat the dogs, but that they would differ strongly on the methods, one wanting harmony and peace, one wanting mastery and destruction. I guess I need to make that very explicit.

So I need to re-cast the characters to make that need for co-operation *and* the conflict of ideals clear. Also I need to make it clear that the more buttons you hit in your change the better it is, but the more Tears you can get.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

I didn't play in the demo, but does the following ring true to those who did:

There's nice setting colour...
There's some cool characters...
There's a problem to be resolved...

...but there's nothing that links the three elements in a solid way.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

No, that wasn't what bothered me. Neil's comments weren't what bothered me, either. What bothered me was that one, high-level challenge.

David, my ideal set-up for the demo would be:

1. Describe the setting.
2. Describe the first challenge, the locked door. Make it low-level: Difficulty 7, perhaps. Easy stuff, just a demonstration of the mechanics, set it up, let the players knock it down.
3. Describe a second follow-up challenge. The default is the slavering dogs (which can be narrated in almost anywhere), but if the GM sees something else, go for it. Aim it at any player who didn't take part in the first challenge, if appropriate. Make this harder: difficulty 12.
4. Whether that second one succeeds or fails, end the demo.

Graham

Thanks Graham, I can do that, *and* address Neil's comments I think.

The first change would be difficulty 5 (Normal 3 + 2 for Shadow influence), so *easy* to do.

How to suggest that they can go overboard though?

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

I would say that the first change in the game on the schedule was pretty grabby and meaningful.

One of the PCs wanted to stop a colleague dying in hospital from illness. Pretty easy to do, diff 3 + their own unease with death (2). So they only had to beat 5.

The other two PCs actively opposed and he failed, since they wanted the order of things to stay as they were and for dying people to die and so on.

But it was quite an emotional scene, and a bit tragic.

Maybe even bringing a character back from the dead might be a Change to make? (It's quite easy though as poor Jhonny Wu would have to find out.)

Oh, and that first change in the hospital had NO SHADOW. That might be a good thing to bear in mind, David.

Answer: very little of anything.

So you have to strip away layers of Stuff till you get down to the absolute key stuff. I ran the Questers demo for CE members twice at GE, and each time their feedback was about subtracting stuff to let the essentials come through.

Much of the art of it is choosing what those essentials are. Getting into detailed system or metaphysics certainly ain't it, regardless of how much one likes them and wants to show them off.

This process is pretty much bound to be really difficult for Solipsist. I suspect the frame is something like:

* There are these people with great power to change reality. This comes out of their individual obsessions, which can be pretty much anything, as you see on the sheets. They also struggle against their limitations (?). In play you have to get the balance right between these or bad things (tm) will happen.

* Normally they hang out on their own, but there is this force called the Shadow that seeks to unmake reality, and they get drawn together to oppose it. That's what's happened to you. You've arrived at (situation).

* Easy obstacle to overcome. Purpose is not to be a challenge but to walk through how you'd think about applying your powers and how you'd use the rules to resolve it.

* Harder obstacle to overcome. Real chance of failure, so a bit of stress, but having had a practice run they've a better sense of what their scope is (if X turned out to be easy, maybe I can try Y). If necessary, make it a medium difficulty and end the demo with an even more scary threat appearing. That is, a Loch Ness monster made of razor blades rears its head; fade.

* Very brief wrap-up about what would happen over long-term play that's interesting. Or maybe a handout...

Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk

...the character sheet had a lot of blurb on it. If so, the demo version probably shouldn't.

Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk

I am surprised the character sheet seemed crowded, to me they were scarily sparse!

What did you see as the reaction to the sheets Gregor?

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/