Horror RPG Feedback

As I mentioned before, I recently ran a playtest of our Horror! rpg, and I wanted to go through the feedback I got from the players and then talk a bit about what I'm going to do with it. Hopefully my previous post about the basics of the system will help a reader follow along, but this is also just a chance for me to put my thoughts out there (and maybe get some discussion if there are interested readers).

I'm focusing on negative and critical feedback here. The vast majority of what I heard was "this game is awesome!", but the critical stuff is what will be most helpful going forward, as anyone could expect.

Notes from looking at the character sheets

One thing I was sure to do was save the character sheets, and to look at what parts the players used most, what they wrote on them as notes to themselves, that kind of thing.

Overall, the character sheets, though basic, were used the way I intended. The Traits section wasn't used very much or very well detailed out, but that I connect with the fact that we're not so clear on it either. One player drew arrows between the descriptions of Adrenaline and Virtue connecting them to Feats and Influences, respectively. So these need to be closer together (and there need to be headings on the character sheet for each section that coincide with the headings on a book). I also notice that when a lot of Traits are chosen in one category, people run out of space to write quickly.

My notes as GM

I also took notes for my own use. The first thing I did was flip over my typed up scenario notes and sketch out a mini character sheet for each of the players on the back. I realized I'd need to know their Attributes, and also added their characer names and archetypes with player names at the bottom.

Under each of these mini character sheets, I also listed NPCs connected to each character - just name and a couple of words were all I needed. At the bottom of this while page (which was what I most often looked at during the game as I recall) I wrote "needs to be a reward for awesome!" There were cool things that one player expeciall did that didn't really fit under Adrenaline or Virtue. Maybe a random card dealt to them? But I'd like there to be some kind of reward, and what we have didn't quite fit.

I made a note to myself that every card on the countdown should represent about 15 minutes of game-time. The way it turned out, by the way, was about 150% of that estimate, and this might be a normal thing - we'll have to find out with more playtests.

Player feedback during character creation

One player used a Feat to resist things like intimidation, since it made sense to them...and it sort of made sense to me, since Adrenaline would help you resist being bullied. So maybe Feats should be broader than just physical...

There was confusion about the main attribute for each archetype, and I'm ok with dropping it, or just having it as a suggestion. Everyone expected it to have an in-game effect, and when it didn't, it seemed like a wasted idea.

Player feedback during the game

The players reacted strongly every time a card was taken away from the Countdown. I think I should draw more attention to the event, though, and the phrase I saw to help escalate things, since a couple of times it was actually missed, and a player said "Wait, we lost a card when I wasn't looking!" I want it to be a "gulp" moment, not a "huh" moment.

One player had the cool idea to give their own character a level of Fear in exchange for some kind of temporary benefit. This came up when a player was frightened and sickened and wanted their character to be frightened as well. Wow! I want to reward that kind of thinking! So maybe an Adrenaline when you give yourself a level of Fear and a Virtue when you give yourself a level of Pain. Actually...nice.

Player feedback at the end debriefing

Organized by the questions that I asked:

Were you ever scared? Anxious? Nervous? When?

FUCK YES! Player creepiness helped, th GM's vivid descriptions of creepy things, and when there was no solution or no way out in a tight situation

Were you entertained?

Yes!

What was the coolest thing a player did?

One player had his character throw down his gun when he finally found one. Another player was totally nonplussed by most of the horrors going on around her (this creeped me out a bit as well). Lastly, players physically role-played some of their characers' actions - and this is something else I want to reward somehow.

What do you wish your character could have done?

It was hard for some to figure out how to use the Traits in-game. I hope this won't be the case when we work them out more clearly in the future.

Where were you most bored or disinterested?

Some people got caught up in cross-talk, and missed details. They didn't like something that is my personal style, which is getting one scene running along via player interaction and then turning to another scene to engage the other players. The vote seemed like the players in this game would prefer a clearer situation where if the group splits (and in a horror game they should) and some of the players become the audience, and then the focus returns to them. That way, no one misses anything.

What was your favorite aspect of the system?

Everyone loved the Countdown mechanic and the cards for character creation. They also liked the open-ended definition for Traits and having physical cards on the table and in their hands representing their Adrenaline and Virtue.

What on your character did you never use?

Feats, Contacts and NPCs that they were connected to in character creation (my fault, honestly), and Hopes - which guided the players' idea of their character and how to play them, but didn't come directly into the game system-wise.

Anything else?

Some of the players said that this game needs a good GM to go well, that it relies too much on improvisation and wouldn't be possible to run from a module. (This led to the challenge I took on that I'll sketch out in a future post)

The players also felt there wasn't enough use of Virtue - the idea came up to have rules written in small print on the character sheet, which really helped when I ran Mouse Guard (thanks Luke Crane for creating a game that can almost fit on two pages!) so I think it is definitely worth a try.

Lastly, the players wanted it to be clear whether they would be basically collaborative or basically antagonistic. It wasn't clear at the beginning, and it led to some confusion with some players assume they should be suspicious of the others and other players trying to work together to get out alive. This might need to be something that is laid o ut clearly at the beginning of the session, since Horror! can definitely handle PvP.

The Basics of Our Horror RPG

Before I start talking about this thing, I need to give the basics of the system, which is pretty easy to do. The system has no dice. You just compare the number representing your character's salient ability to the number assigned to how difficult the thing you're trying to do is, and if you're over, you win. If you're under, you lose. If you tie, then there is either a stalemate, or you both win and lose, whichever is more interesting.

You start by choosing your Archetype and your Subtype. The archetypes are taken from our thinking about horror as a genre - what kinds of people get caught up in a horror story? we came up with the Innocent, the Foolhardy, the Jaded and the Victim. Your archetype is important because it determines how many Hopes and Scars you start off with, as well as how much Virtue and Adrenaline one starting Virtue per Hope that you have, one starting Adrenaline per Scar you have. Hopes are things you Hope for, Scars are bad things that happened to you that still hurt you.

There are four subtypes under each archetype, and each subtype has one once-a-session ability that only they can use. This ability will hurt a PC in some way but benefit your character or your player agenda in some way. They are all different, and are still in rough form, but that's the idea behind them.

There are four Attributes in this game - Might, Precision, Appeal and Conviction. Might helps you pass physical tests; Precision helps you pass technical tests; Appeal helps you pass social tests; Conviction helps you pass psychological tests. Physical tests are usually about avoiding or inflicting Pain. Technical tests are about overcoming obstacles in the fiction. Social tests are about getting NPCs (and PCs if you go PvP) to do what you want. Conviction is about resisting social influences from others and about resisting Fear.

Fear and Pain are what destroy your character. If you accumulate 4 of either, you go for a side talk with the GM and your character is subsumed by the horror, whatever it happens to be - or possibly just insane or dead.

Adrenaline, mentioned above, helps you resist your own Fear and Pain (which impose penalties). Virtue lets one character remove another character's Fear or Pain - nothing else in the game does that. You get Adrenaline for kicking ass and Virtue for putting yourself in danger on behalf of others and that kind of thing.

Lastly, there are Traits. You have six kinds of traits, and they modify your Attributes in a test, usually by +1. Feats are physical abilities that you have, ways you can push your body to do amazing things. Influences are social abilities you have, as well as friends or allies or contacts you have that you want to be part of the game. Items are things you have with you when the game starts - they are a contract with the GM, because if it isn't on your character sheet, there is no guarantee that you'll be able to use it in the game. Knowledges are areas of expertise. Once per scene, you can ask the GM a question in your area of experties (if in the game you have the opportunity to sit and reflect, do a little research, use a lab, etc.) and the GM has to give you an honest answer. Mysteries are the wild card Traits in the game that we are still working out - things like ESP or telekinesis, knowledge of alien abductions and conspiracy theories, or occult abilities. Mysteries are very versatile, but when you call upon one, you risk increasing your own Fear. Last are Skills, which are just like skills in every other rpg.

Each Trait functions differently, but they're all pretty simple. They either let you do something, let you introduce something into the game, or give you about a +1 on specific kinds of tests. That's about it.

What drives this all is the Countdown. The Countdown is represented by some cards on the table (right now) and it functions to keep the pressure on the PCs. As cards are taken away from the center, they know that death and disaster is looming closer, but they don't necessarily know why. The Countdown can represent anything - time until the full moon, how much air is left to breathe, cultists completing a ritual to summon a dread deity, how many campers the slasher goes through before he gets to the PCs - anything. It is the screws that you put to the player's thumbs. The only ways to buy time are 1. take a risk once you've figured out what the Countdown represents or 2. do something awful to someone else - push another camper in front of the slasher, suffocate someone so they don't breathe your air anymore, kill one of the cultists in cold blood, etc.

That's the basics. Now some analysis.

Dual Posting: A New Discipline; A New Escape

I recently posted a new discipline I'm taking on - I'm going to try to write one poem per day in the next couple of months or so, totaling 60 poems in all. Then I'll reflect on the experience and decide if it is something I want to do long-term.

Fair warning, I cannot guarantee any kind of quality if I'm writing one a day. Frankly, most of them are likely to suck. But if you want to follow along, I'm posting them all here, and might dual post some of them on this blog as well. I don't post about it often, but creative writing, prose and poetry, are both big escapes for me, and always have been, so it might be a nice little change from so much game design talk.

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled game design talk.

Horror!: Fantastic Playtest

I am so happy and giddy right now. I just finished a playtest of Horror! including character creation and then about a two-hour scenario sketched out ahead of time and then improvised. I went in with a premise but not knowing what kinds of characters the players would create.

Character creation went really well - a little slow in parts, but I didn't print enough rules handouts for the group, and that didn't help at all. I want to write a post in a few days about what went well, and some feedback I got in the character creation department.

The session also went well. They were actually frightened, disgusted, and felt despair. Hooray! That is exactly what this game is shooting for, and it delivered.

The big challenges now:

Integrating the feedback (which was wonderful and very helpful) on character creation, the game system, and how I the GM applied the game system. I'll sketch this out in the next post.

Writing into the game what I do, what another GM might do - particularly my friend Arnold's challenge - how to make a scenario like this into a module, when so much of it hinged on improvisation? I think that the Horror! system works specifically well at doing just that, but now I have to prove it. So at least one post will posit this idea of a meta-module for horror games using our system. We'll see if it works...

Mouse Guard Rules!

I just finished running a session of Mouse Guard for Free RPG day at my Friendly Local Game Store, and it was one of the most fun times I've ever had running a game. Mouse Guard is clearly the culmination of all of that work Luke Crane put into Burning Wheel and Burning Empires, and it surpasses both in every way in my opinion (well, not in complexity, but in every other way).

The Scenario and Actual Play Impressions
The scenario was pretty simple. The players polished off their Guards by writing Beliefs, Goals and Instincts, and filling in a single Wise that I gave each of them but left blank. (One chose Weasel-wise which was hugely helpful later). It was winter, and the four Guards were called out of R&R to find out what happened to a pair of Guards who were sent west from Sprucetuck with important messages some time ago. They never returned, and the worst is assumed.

After getting into a scrape with an owl and learning some details, they arrive at a small new settlement near the eaves of the Darkheather. There they get into a social conflict with the head mouse of the settlement, who wants them to stay with them all winter and protect them from weasels. The Guard, however, knows that a terrible winter storm has been predicted by the sciencemice of Sprucetuck, and they have to convince the settlers to return east with them and winter in Sprucetuck - or they'll likely freeze to death.

The PCs win, but with a big compromise - the settlers want proof that the local weasels are dead before they'll move. The PC Guardmice set up an ambush for the weasels and completely own them. By Action 2, the weasels are dead. Nice job!

The last conflict is between the Guardmice, who are leading the settlers through the snow, and the onrush of the first part of the predicted winter storm. So I, the GM, get to play as winter and try to freeze them all to death. That was a lot of fun.

One of the most fun parts of the game, for me, was when the players would shoo me away from the table so they could strategize and then call me back when they were ready. I really love player empowerment.

As winter, I win with a major compromise, so I killed one Guard and a third of the settlers, but the rest arrived in Sprucetuck Hungry and Thirsty and Sick.

Every one of us had a great time for almost 100% of the session, which with RPGs is largely unheard-of. Well done, Luke. Well done.

From the GM's Point of View
This five-hour scenario for four new players took me all of three or four hours to prepare last night - usually the best ratio I get is one-to-one for games that require prep, and if you were willing to leaf through the book more and were more familiar with the rules, I bet you could do with a lot less. This is my first time running, remember.

Comparing it to my first time running Burning Wheel, this was 1000x easier to learn, prepare for, and teach to new players. I didn't have to change anything about the game to run it the first time. We took about the 30 minutes I predicted to explain the character sheets, basic rules and conflict sheets, and then we dove right in.

I had a lot of fun in the argument conflict playing the leader of these settlers trying to wheedle and coerce the Guard into staying to protect them, and I had a lot of fun playing winter and figuring out what a "Maneuver" action was when you are playing a season. But I loved the image of winter as a character in the story actively trying to kill the mice - that is very dramatic, and made me think of the blizzard on Caradhras in the Fellowship of the Ring. I've never seen a system that replicates that kind of experience, and it is probably the thing I am most greenly jealous of as a game designer. Again, well done.

"4th Edition Burning Wheel" Wins
I give this game a 5 out of 5 in every category I can think of. It is hands-down one of the best systems I have ever played. My only consolation is that it took Luke Crane four tries to get to this point with the Burning Wheel system.

It is cold comfort...but a hot, hot, hot game.

Turning Game Experiences Into Game Design

As a religious functionary, manufacturing experiences is one of the things I'm supposed to be good at. That's sort of what's behind sacraments, for example, or any kind of ritual really. They are guided processes intended to evoke a particular quality of experience in the participants.

That's also what game design is, though don't worry, I'm not going to get into some kind of wankery about how gaming is ritual (though I guess it sometimes is, in small parts).

I've been thinking and struggling a lot looking at how to better design games so that they evoke predictalbe experiences in the players. The specific concern here is my write-up of Heroes of Karia Vitalus. The game was a heavily-modded version of BESM - so modded, in fact, that all of the cool things about the system had nothing to do with BESM. It occurred to us that 1. our experience playing Karia was amazing and 2. it amounted to its own game system by the end of the storyline.

Rather than just releasing a hack of BESM, I wanted to come up with a system for Karia that was its own animal, cutting out the vestiges of BESM that were still in the system and replacing them with some other set of ubiquitous dice mechanices or whatever.

The problem I'm running into is that I shy away from what feels like 'over-designing' the game, since I'm the kind of guy who likes to mod. On the other hand, the experience we had was amazing and what is fueling this attempt is my desire to propagate this experience to others.

What are some good examples of games that produce similar experiences in everyone who plays them? Mortal Coil comes to mind, in my opinion, as does Dogs in the Vineyard. Anything else? Ever found a game you thought was over-designed? Way under-designed?