It should have been amazing.
A game based on espionage should not make it as difficult as it is in Spycraft for Things to Get Worse. You're spies. If they already knew how bad Things were, why would they send people whose job it is to find stuff out?
Spycraft is a well-made game, if you're into that sort of thing - namely lots of planning, preparation, and a system for everything. It even resolves the classic modern action game problem of gear. How do you have a wealth system that reflects lifestyle? Put another way, how do you stop the first level rich doctor spending all his starting cash on a Blackhawk helicopter with attached minigun while still making it possible to get one of those when it's appropriate?
Spycraft solves this problem quite handily - you have a small amount of gear as personal possessions and fancier stuff you can requisition if the mission's severity warrants it. The problem is when you don't know how severe the mission is until you get there. And what spy mission, I ask you, what spy mission worth a damn goes exactly as planned? Need to get a thing? It's missing, it's not what you thought it was, the person you're supposed to get it from is dead. Need to talk to someone? That someone is not who they appear to be, kidnapped, or dead. This is basic stuff. Regrettably, you have to get that briefcase full of anthrax from that rogue KGB splinter faction with the same Walther PPK and set of lockpicks you were issued when you thought you just had to pick up Mission Control's drycleaning.
Spycraft does allow for requisitioning gear in the middle of a mission, but it still can't exceed the threat level of the mission and, if I remember correctly, is prohibitively difficult and time-consuming. Changing threat level in the middle of a mission only works if players have the time to reequip somewhere and if they don't abuse their privileges by burning up all their ammunition and limited-use items knowing that a reequip was on the way.
Another possible workaround is story-based. If the hook is "Some anthrax is missing. We need you to find the anthrax", then you can get away with one threat level. But you can't phrase all your missions like that. At least, and not have the game stay fun. It's a damn shame that a solidly built game like Spycraft has in-built, systematic opposition to Things Getting Worse. Especially as an espionage game.
Showing posts with label Things Get Worse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Things Get Worse. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Things Get Worse Wednesdays - TGW Versus High Concept
This was supposed to go in the last post, but it got too long and - fine, you caught me. I forgot - I forgot all about it. It was supposed to be in but I didn't remember. Happy?
High concept - a storytelling feature perfectly suited to RPGs - can act against Things Get Worse. High concept is what you get if you ask a student of the geekly arts for a story that's never been seen before. Literary crossovers, supernatural creatures in mundane lines of work, and groups of people with superpowers that don't lend themselves to dressing up and fighting crime - these are some basic 'formulas' for high concept, but as one might suspect, it's hard to nail down. A brief and arbitrary list of examples in fiction would be Chew (heretofore unexplored superpower) The Five Fists of Science (historical figures in fantastic situations - impossible to describe without giving a full plot summary), and everything Tim Schaeffer has ever done.
For lazy or poor writers, or for those too blinded by the power of the concept, high concept can be a crutch, or even a liability. In the drive to show off the concept, stuff like characterization, plotting, and pacing can be left behind. As can Things Get Worse. If you start with a crazy concept, it's hard to get either the build or twist necessary to keep the story punchy. If your concept is good enough, you can sometimes power through, but that shouldn't be something to plan for.
One great example of TGW versus high concept can be seen in My Favourite Thing on the Internet, MS Paint Adventures. This is a webcomic written like a text-based adventure game, where the transitions between panels are written commands to the characters. He has two stories worth talking about: Problem Sleuth (completed) and Homestuck (ongoing). Problem Sleuth leans on its concept pretty hard. Things still Get Worse, but through build, rather than twist. It doesn't subvert your expectations, save your expectations that one person could come up with all this cosmic, world-shattering raw creativity. It stays fully within the domain of its concept - The Adventure Game that Could Never Be.
Homestuck by contrast, is constantly taking your expectations and hurling them through brick walls. Aside from the more superficial additions, like characters with personalities, actual dialogue, and shiny Flash animations with music, Homestuck asserts its superiority to Problem Sleuth (which, don't get me wrong, is still amazing) even more by having everything go wrong. It retains a concept at least as high as PS's - a group of children in a world governed by video game logic play a game that can affect the realities of their fellow players. Them going through the game, building each other's houses and levelling up their skills and gear would have been interesting, but the repeated instances of everything going completely off the rails turns it from a neat and well-done little comic to a badass epic.
Comparing GMs to authors is always a dangerous analogy, as players of course have input into how the story of a game session develops. Also, players can tend to be cautious when threats to their beloved PCs might arise. Even so, GMs out there, plan to drop a little something unexpected - a new type of challenge, a shift in objectives, a conflict of interest - before the climax of your adventures. Done right, everyone has a better time.
High concept - a storytelling feature perfectly suited to RPGs - can act against Things Get Worse. High concept is what you get if you ask a student of the geekly arts for a story that's never been seen before. Literary crossovers, supernatural creatures in mundane lines of work, and groups of people with superpowers that don't lend themselves to dressing up and fighting crime - these are some basic 'formulas' for high concept, but as one might suspect, it's hard to nail down. A brief and arbitrary list of examples in fiction would be Chew (heretofore unexplored superpower) The Five Fists of Science (historical figures in fantastic situations - impossible to describe without giving a full plot summary), and everything Tim Schaeffer has ever done.
For lazy or poor writers, or for those too blinded by the power of the concept, high concept can be a crutch, or even a liability. In the drive to show off the concept, stuff like characterization, plotting, and pacing can be left behind. As can Things Get Worse. If you start with a crazy concept, it's hard to get either the build or twist necessary to keep the story punchy. If your concept is good enough, you can sometimes power through, but that shouldn't be something to plan for.
One great example of TGW versus high concept can be seen in My Favourite Thing on the Internet, MS Paint Adventures. This is a webcomic written like a text-based adventure game, where the transitions between panels are written commands to the characters. He has two stories worth talking about: Problem Sleuth (completed) and Homestuck (ongoing). Problem Sleuth leans on its concept pretty hard. Things still Get Worse, but through build, rather than twist. It doesn't subvert your expectations, save your expectations that one person could come up with all this cosmic, world-shattering raw creativity. It stays fully within the domain of its concept - The Adventure Game that Could Never Be.
Homestuck by contrast, is constantly taking your expectations and hurling them through brick walls. Aside from the more superficial additions, like characters with personalities, actual dialogue, and shiny Flash animations with music, Homestuck asserts its superiority to Problem Sleuth (which, don't get me wrong, is still amazing) even more by having everything go wrong. It retains a concept at least as high as PS's - a group of children in a world governed by video game logic play a game that can affect the realities of their fellow players. Them going through the game, building each other's houses and levelling up their skills and gear would have been interesting, but the repeated instances of everything going completely off the rails turns it from a neat and well-done little comic to a badass epic.
Comparing GMs to authors is always a dangerous analogy, as players of course have input into how the story of a game session develops. Also, players can tend to be cautious when threats to their beloved PCs might arise. Even so, GMs out there, plan to drop a little something unexpected - a new type of challenge, a shift in objectives, a conflict of interest - before the climax of your adventures. Done right, everyone has a better time.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Things Get Worse
Okay, I'm already three days behind on the July Vow, and that's assuming you count the post where I made the vow, as well as that one about bricks. I have a whole bunch of stuff to write worked out in my head, so all I have to do is write them out for my literally some of readers.
Today, I talk about Things Getting Worse.
This is a critical part of any story, and the easiest one to forget. Part way along, something happens and the problem set up in the initial hook isn't the most important problem any more. Or it is, but it's only part of the problem. The Sceptre of Oroborous you're after has been stolen from the Tomb of Shattered Nightmares and bugbear tracks lead into the Forest of Misery. The villain you're battling fires a slow-moving missile at your daughter's piano recital. The ambassador you're supposed to escort to a rendezvous with the Duchess of Montellico slipped away, then died. And so did the Duchess.
In improv theatre, they call this 'raising the stakes', as the central problem of the story has its importance to the characters increase. Junior High Language Arts class calls it the 'rising action'. For RPGin', I like to call it Things Get Worse, as the problems the GM poses to the players start to mount up (speaking strictly in the traditional, semi-adversarial RPG model here - if players give themselves problems - whether for the sake of dramatic tension or Cool Points, good on them). The twist adds tension, danger, drama, or ideally all three.
So why wouldn't a GM do this? There are a couple of reasons why a twist is easy to leave out in RPG plots. First, an adventure structure and a story structure aren't exactly the same. The end of an adventure might be right when Things Get Worse, and the story arc gets wrapped up one or more adventures down the line. Also, it used to be that 'threat of serious physical harm to the main characters' was sufficient Worseness to create tension. In most games out there, action is a given. No one thinks that recovering the Sceptre of Oroborous is not going to involve exterminating a small village of snakemen. You need something else, something plot- or character-driven to get the tension and excitement a proper Things Get Worse needs.
Things Get Worse is about messing with expectations. For that reason exactly, you can't as a GM do it every time. Or, at least not the same way every time. If every authority figure and quest-giver turns on the players once they bring back the Jewell of Mak Guef'n, it'll stop being a surprise and start being a bore. Not every Things Get Worse should aim to be a Usual Suspects-style mindscrew; just punch up the tension in the second act somehow.
In future posts, I'm going to write about stock plots, and how Things can Get Worse in them. I'll also review some games that as-written have features that encourage or discourage plotting like this. Probably on Wednesdays, as to have Things Get Worse Wednesdays. Weak alliteration's still cool, right?
Today, I talk about Things Getting Worse.
This is a critical part of any story, and the easiest one to forget. Part way along, something happens and the problem set up in the initial hook isn't the most important problem any more. Or it is, but it's only part of the problem. The Sceptre of Oroborous you're after has been stolen from the Tomb of Shattered Nightmares and bugbear tracks lead into the Forest of Misery. The villain you're battling fires a slow-moving missile at your daughter's piano recital. The ambassador you're supposed to escort to a rendezvous with the Duchess of Montellico slipped away, then died. And so did the Duchess.
In improv theatre, they call this 'raising the stakes', as the central problem of the story has its importance to the characters increase. Junior High Language Arts class calls it the 'rising action'. For RPGin', I like to call it Things Get Worse, as the problems the GM poses to the players start to mount up (speaking strictly in the traditional, semi-adversarial RPG model here - if players give themselves problems - whether for the sake of dramatic tension or Cool Points, good on them). The twist adds tension, danger, drama, or ideally all three.
So why wouldn't a GM do this? There are a couple of reasons why a twist is easy to leave out in RPG plots. First, an adventure structure and a story structure aren't exactly the same. The end of an adventure might be right when Things Get Worse, and the story arc gets wrapped up one or more adventures down the line. Also, it used to be that 'threat of serious physical harm to the main characters' was sufficient Worseness to create tension. In most games out there, action is a given. No one thinks that recovering the Sceptre of Oroborous is not going to involve exterminating a small village of snakemen. You need something else, something plot- or character-driven to get the tension and excitement a proper Things Get Worse needs.
Things Get Worse is about messing with expectations. For that reason exactly, you can't as a GM do it every time. Or, at least not the same way every time. If every authority figure and quest-giver turns on the players once they bring back the Jewell of Mak Guef'n, it'll stop being a surprise and start being a bore. Not every Things Get Worse should aim to be a Usual Suspects-style mindscrew; just punch up the tension in the second act somehow.
In future posts, I'm going to write about stock plots, and how Things can Get Worse in them. I'll also review some games that as-written have features that encourage or discourage plotting like this. Probably on Wednesdays, as to have Things Get Worse Wednesdays. Weak alliteration's still cool, right?
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