I'm not going to get time to create a proper AP post anytime soon, so I want to knock out a quick public post about how I thought Umläut worked, what was good and what needs changing.
(Bear in mind that this is just from memory. I'm doing this during a spare moment at work and don't have my notes to hand. So there will be things that I'll miss here. Please feel free to comment on anything else that stood out to you from the playtest)
Biggest and most fundamental change that's needed is that the song styles need balancing. I don't think I saw any Face Melters the whole time and there's a clear optimal strategy for winning gigs. That's dull. Also the way showboating punishes player who have it Go Bad is too harsh. I need to seriously re-think the values of the cards and try to balance them better. On the plus side, that's a good incentive to correct the spelling on the Ballad card...
Before the game even started, there was the topic of lines and veils. It had never occurred to me that this was needed in a game about musicians, but you guys quickly proved me wrong! So I think there needs to be at least a brief statement about that subject in the book. I'm currently not intending to use that terminology though.
First thing that came up in the game was Malcolm's setting of stakes on the first turn. That was very interesting to see. I've been wrestling with exactly how to talk about that subject in the rules text and when Malcolm started setting stakes in his first scene it became immediately apparent that how to explain it in the rules. From my POV, stakes are explicit in the mechanics. That is, the stakes for a Work Scene are automatically this:
If you win, you gain the Cash with no ill effects.
If you lose, you do not gain the Cash and also something happens which causes your band to gain a point of Ego.
If there's a draw, you gain the Cash and also something happens which causes your band to gain a point of Ego.
The exact outcome of the scene is determined by whoever wins narration rights during the conflict, but I'm of the opinion that the stakes which are set in the rules work fine.
Thoughts on that?
The next thing which came up was the need for a blatant publicity stunt scene. Scott tried this and couldn't, but it makes perfect sense. I'm currently thinking that it'd be very much like a Band member Scene. You spend some Cash and draw that many cards. Person to your left draws cards equal to your current Fanbase. If you win, you gain a point of Fanbase. If you lose, you gain a point of Ego. Draw and you gain both. Does that feel about right?
Andrew and Scott only named 2 members of their bands (and one of Andrew's band members was the Romanian Symphony Orchestra), but this didn't seem to make their story's any less interesting. Which I like. How does everyone else feel about that? On one hand, coming up with character names is quite often the hardest thing in any gaming session and coming up with 5 is obviously five times harder. So making players name all their band members seems harsh and unfair. Also, the five members of another person's band are hard to keep track of. But having 5 names makes it easy to tell neato stories (especially when they're as evocative as the ones Malcolm came up with) is fucking cool. Thoughts?
Another thing which bothers me is this: It's too easy to earn money for gigs and too hard to earn money by working. Actually, I think the money earned for gigs is about right now that gigs are shorter, but I think perhaps there ought to be more money earned for work scenes?
It seems quite hard to gain points of Hope outside of Gigs. I might just be worrying about nothing there though.
Following on from those two, here's a change I am thinking needs testing: When you get way more successes than you need in Work or Band Member scene, you get more points of Cash or Hope. I'm not sure how to implement that without making it fiddly and unbalancing though. I need input on that.
Also, there's this horrible "death spiral" for bands who get a lot of Ego early on. It didn't come up in this game (which was a massive relief TBH) but often there's a band which gets a lot of Ego early on and the player kinda resigns himself to "losing". Which makes for a cool story, but it means there's no incentive for that band not to use an Egotism every single time they play a gig, and this makes them very hard to beat. While that's great from the point of view of their story, it also has the effect of driving everyone else's Ego up as they always lose to them. I want to make it possible to get back from that early Ego/Hope deficit, although not easy.
There was the issue of having two gigs very close together which left Malcolm sitting there twiddling his thumbs for quite a while. This was unfortunate, but I'm not seeing an easy answer to that. Anyone else see something?
The song titles were fantastic, I think it's one of the most fun things about the game. On the other hand, I can see some people struggling to come up with stuff like that on the fly. I've looked at ways of tying song titles into the Material score, by having players create individual songs with their own stats for example and having them play those rather than choose a generic style for each song in a gig, but this seems a bit excessive. On the other hand, typing that just now it seems totally fucking awesome, so I might experiment with that...
Lastly (for now) I wanted to ask about the Split/Threat scenes. I think they should be awesome, but I also think that currently they are not. I've been toying with the idea that a band who's Ego gets too high has to worry about members leaving because that seems to make sense, but at the same time I think bands with high Ego scores have enough trouble already.
Please feel free to respond with the barbed-wire dildo of criticism. Just make sure you sterilise it first.
There was the issue of
Submitted by Graham W on Thu, 17/05/2007 - 11:37.
There was the issue of having two gigs very close together which left Malcolm sitting there twiddling his thumbs for quite a while. This was unfortunate, but I'm not seeing an easy answer to that. Anyone else see something?
It's difficult. The problem there was that playing a gig was obviously the right mechanical choice, even though I didn't want to. And my rule for myself was: if in doubt, play to win and see where it takes you.
Personally, I think I should have challenged two other bands to a gig. Would there be a way to make it worth my while to do that on my turn? Perhaps I get the cash from the Gig, but they get the Hope and Ego. Or they get the Fanbase cash, but I get the Door. Something like that.
On Egotism: does anything happen narratively when you use it? I can't remember. It'd be more palatable if it wasn't purely mechanical: if, say, they had to narrate some egotistic excess into the scene. (The band has a fight live on stage. That sort of thing.)
Graham
Graham, I don't have my
Submitted by Rich Stokes on Thu, 17/05/2007 - 12:07.
Graham,
I don't have my notes and can't remember exactly, was it you causing a split scene with Andrew which made the second-gig-in-a-row thing happen?
The question of "Why did you target Andrew?" arises. He wasn't ahead in the game at that point (Scott was I think) but I imagine there was a pretty good reason you wanted him to be under the gun.
WRT Egotism, currently there is text along the lines of:
Once per match, a Band can bring their Ego to bear upon the crowd. They gain a number of cards to their Attention Check equal to their current Ego, and a number of cards equal to their current Ego minus 1 to any Impression check they might make for this song.
Believing in yourself can make you pretty big headed. Any band which does this gains one point of Ego after that Song.
There is then the space where an example is supposed to go, but I didn't have time to write one before Spodley.
There ought to be a more explicit comment about including the Egotism in the narrative, but here's the thing: I don't see how you do that most of the time. As it stands right now, it's meant to represent the fact that the band are so overconfident and self absorbed, they can belt out a blinding number perfectly. That's kinda hard to narrate.
Fights on stage are more of a showboating thing, or possibly the reason a band might get kicked off for a bad showboating.
So in short, yeah, there's a narrative reason for Ego adding to the stats, but not one that necessarily leads to an interesting story.
Which isn't very helpful.
Rich, Ii there a risk of any
Submitted by Matt on Thu, 17/05/2007 - 12:24.
Rich, Ii there a risk of any immediate consequence for relying on ego? Like a fan backlash kinda thing? Something that's not certain but might just cause problems...
-Matt
Realms Publishing
Regarding ego: One time at
Submitted by Malcolm Craig on Thu, 17/05/2007 - 13:06.
Regarding ego:
One time at the Glasgow Barrowlands (greatest rock venue in the world), I was watching Pop Will Eat Itself who, in response to heartfelt requests from the audience went "We don't do fucking requests." Did the audience hate them? No. That's successful Egotism in action.
Regarding thumb twiddling:
Yep, having two gigs in a row (plus the intervening scenes) menat that I wa sout of the loop for quite a while. I think Contenders avoids this by being more personal: you are playing one character, so you can bring those who are sitting out in and NPCs (and this works very well).
How about some way in which the bands playing are encouraged to bring other players in to play supporting roles? The road manager, the roadie, the guitar tech? Maybe they get to say that they come on, do something amusing/disastrous/Spinal Tap-esque and get their own little part in what is going on? Helps keep people involved.
Regarding other things:
I felt that there was a lack of association of the people round the table. Referencing Contenders again, everyone is encouraged to bring other players in as NPCs in scenes. Obviously, being a band, that's harder. How about in members scenes you need to ask one or more people to play band members, say what they are doing and so forth? In work scenes, you get to do a little roleplay about the work and bring others in? I feel there should be more opportunities for this kind of thing.
Still, I loved playing the game.
Cheers
Malcolm
Contested Ground Studios
Matt, There's a mechanic for
Submitted by Rich Stokes on Thu, 17/05/2007 - 13:49.
Matt,
There's a mechanic for that in the shape of Showboating, which is pretty much analogous to Dirty Tactics in Contenders.
Showboating can be chosen as a song style. It gives a pretty big bonus. If the player loses narration though, that showboating Goes Badly: Either it was rubbish (like a tiny Stonehenge) or it goes wrong (like unopening pod things).
So this is the chance of audience backlash.
Here's a scatter shot of
Submitted by Andrew Kenrick on Thu, 17/05/2007 - 14:13.
Here's a scatter shot of replies. I'm sure I'll post more as I think of it:
>Face Melters
The only face melters I remember were the ones I played with my electric tubas after Graham's split scene forced me to. I think face melters are a valid tactic if you have a high technique, but ballads are generally a safer bet as you're more likely to "hit."
>Stakes
I think we immediately jumped in with stakes because we'd been playing with them all weekend. I think as written worked well - you set the general premise as to what you're doing as you narrate the scene, but what happens beyond the mechanical effect is in the hands of the player who drew the highest card. I think it opens up more possibilities.
>Publicity Stunts
I think these absolutely fit the theme of the game, but wouldn't they work just as well as a work scene? Would it help if you redefine work scenes as band-based activities that don't involve the stage, such as publicity stunts, record signings and album launches, as well as the menial stuff that comes with being shit.
>Naming band members
Actually I named all 5, but only ever used 2 in the narration. On the one hand it'd be nice to be able to pull off a White Stripes and just have a guitarist and a drummer, but at the same time each of the 5 band members provides a bonus so you'd have to work out some way of distributing that out without it being obscene.
>Gigs
Gigs should be the optimal way of earning money - they're the centrepiece for the game after all. I'd hate work scenes to be an easy route. But maybe work scenes should be easier or give a bit more cash?
>Supporting roles during gig scenes
I think this could work well, possibly throwing in some "behind the scenes action." How about the possibility of support bands too? So a band who haven't played for a while could be used as a support act to join in the narrative and give a boost to one side or another?
>Ego/split scenes
How about if ego goes over a certain level (5?) and is twice as high as hope, then the next scene narrated by that band must be a split scene? My Life with Master does something similar with "the horror revealed" when certain stats exceed a certain amount.
Andrew, Thanks for that,
Submitted by Rich Stokes on Thu, 17/05/2007 - 16:01.
Andrew,
Thanks for that, some excellent stuff. I'll post some thoughts on some of it.
>Face Melters
The only face melters I remember were the ones I played with my electric tubas after Graham's split scene forced me to. I think face melters are a valid tactic if you have a high technique, but ballads are generally a safer bet as you're more likely to "hit."
Completely agree, the styles still need to be balanced.
Currently, the optimal way to win gigs is to:
Open with Showboating, possibly in conjunction with an Egotism.
Hopefully score one or more Glory with this.
Play ballads for the rest of the gig since it prevents your opponent from scoring.
That's pretty poo.
>Stakes
I think we immediately jumped in with stakes because we'd been playing with them all weekend. I think as written worked well - you set the general premise as to what you're doing as you narrate the scene, but what happens beyond the mechanical effect is in the hands of the player who drew the highest card. I think it opens up more possibilities.
I'm glad you feel that way.
>Publicity Stunts
I think these absolutely fit the theme of the game, but wouldn't they work just as well as a work scene? Would it help if you redefine work scenes as band-based activities that don't involve the stage, such as publicity stunts, record signings and album launches, as well as the menial stuff that comes with being shit.
The thing is though, that Scott wanted to raise his Fanbase with the publicity stunt. So a Publicity Stunt is not quite the same as a work scene, because Work Scenes raise Cash. It's very similar though.
>Naming band members
Actually I named all 5, but only ever used 2 in the narration. On the one hand it'd be nice to be able to pull off a White Stripes and just have a guitarist and a drummer, but at the same time each of the 5 band members provides a bonus so you'd have to work out some way of distributing that out without it being obscene.
Hmmm, that's interesting.
>Gigs
Gigs should be the optimal way of earning money - they're the centrepiece for the game after all. I'd hate work scenes to be an easy route. But maybe work scenes should be easier or give a bit more cash?
You know, the reason I was thinking like this is as follows:
a) Everyone knows most bands don't earn fucking anything for playing gigs.
b) In early drafts, it was WAY too easy to earn money in gigs. People just didn't do anything else after the first couple of scenes because win or lose, a gig paid out quite a lot. That's been toned down quite a bit and I think it's better balanced.
c) On the other hand, I think the level of income from the shorter gigs you get in this version give a pretty balanced amount of money.
d) But work scenes still have a (sometimes pretty high) chance of producing Ego. e) So people are reluctant to play them, because the rewards for playing a gig and winning are too tempting.
This desire to make Work Scenes more appealing needs to be balanced with the fact that:
a) Gigs are fucking awesome.
b) I don't need a second fact.
So, yeah, maybe gigs need to be as appealing as they are.
I think one reason I want to balance this better is because Work Scenes should be a good way for high Ego bands to catch up. Maybe I ought to just look at that more...
>Supporting roles during gig scenes
I think this could work well, possibly throwing in some "behind the scenes action." How about the possibility of support bands too? So a band who haven't played for a while could be used as a support act to join in the narrative and give a boost to one side or another?
I am very reluctant to add the extra bands into gigs directly, but yeah, the players really ought to be involved in some way. And not just shuffling the cards.
>Ego/split scenes
How about if ego goes over a certain level (5?) and is twice as high as hope, then the next scene narrated by that band must be a split scene? My Life with Master does something similar with "the horror revealed" when certain stats exceed a certain amount.
I've been thinking about this since the game. I was thinking something along those lines, but less well formed.
Cheers for that, very helpful
I don't have my notes and
Submitted by Graham W on Thu, 17/05/2007 - 17:06.
I don't have my notes and can't remember exactly, was it you causing a split scene with Andrew which made the second-gig-in-a-row thing happen?
You're right, I'd forgotten that.
The question of "Why did you target Andrew?" arises.
Well...um...I wanted the Romanian Symphony Orchestra. I thought that given Andrew had had the supreme arrogance* to have an orchestra as a single member, someone should steal them.
Interesting stuff on Egotism above. For me, Egotism is when the band start bottling each other halfway through a song, and the whole thing is such a trainwreck that everyone watches. But I see your point about showboating and I like Malcolm's take, too.
Graham
* Love you really, Kenrick
Splits and Stunts
Submitted by Scott Dorward on Thu, 17/05/2007 - 18:59.
Rich said:
I'm currently thinking that it'd be very much like a Band member Scene. You spend some Cash and draw that many cards. Person to your left draws cards equal to your current Fanbase. If you win, you gain a point of Fanbase. If you lose, you gain a point of Ego. Draw and you gain both. Does that feel about right?
That's pretty well exactly what I was after. Being able to gain fanbase by doing the stupid shit that bands do sounds cool and highly appropriate.
Andrew said:
How about if ego goes over a certain level (5?) and is twice as high as hope, then the next scene narrated by that band must be a split scene? My Life with Master does something similar with "the horror revealed" when certain stats exceed a certain amount.
That sounds really neat. I wasn't quite sure how split worked when we played; I thought I understood, but when I tried one (with Malcom, I think) nothing much happened apart from another gig scene. It seemed like as long as the opposing band followed the rules of the gig, there was no chance of a split. Was this right? If so, it seemed a lot less satisfying than being able to drive a wedge through an ego-crazed band.
Also, I think you should get bonuses to split any band where one of the members is an orchestra. Violinists are such prima donnas.