Introducing the Ludoverse Lab: The Pool by James V. West

I’m excited to introduce the inaugural “broadcast” of the Ludoverse Lab.

The core purpose of this project is to experiment with innovative role-playing games with an eye towards education. Beneath that general goal are nested a constellation of exciting possibilities:

• I hope this series contributes to the general conversation about gamification and game-based learning in the classroom.
• I’m openly inviting other educators—regardless of prior experience—to join in either as participants or as observer-commentators.
• I’d like to hone my own skills as a “role-playing gamer” and a teacher through these experiments, and I hope those who join me are similarly sharpened. I would argue that much of the rpg skill set is transferable to teaching.
• I want to analyze game systems and actual play from multiple perspectives.
• Finally, I want this experience to be fun and generally enriching for all involved.

A few comments about this opening experiment in the Ludoverse Lab.

We are playing James V. West’s The Pool, which came out in 2001. Though many today are unfamiliar with the title, one would be hard-pressed to find a game that has exerted more influence with such a short set of rules.

And the influence continues. It is now so deeply ingrained in the DNA of today’s role-playing games that I suspect some designers use its ideas without even realizing the progeny. Just last week, I was introduced to Alien: The Role-Playing Game, and the impact of The Pool was there, though unstated.  In under four pages, West managed to crystallize a number of key ideas about character-based narratives, conflict resolution, player-facing authority, intentional dialogue at the table . . . . I could go on, but so much of what I would say has been more masterfully handled by Ron Edwards in his essay “Understanding The Pool.” I highly recommend that you go there for a deep dive into the game from both a historical and an analytical perspective. You can also look at an earlier piece I wrote for Ludoverse last year.

The Pool does not define a setting or a genre, so, as a GM, it is critical to focus the players by providing them with a skeleton setting. Appropriately enough, I opted for a fictitious modern-day educational institution, which I named Palmer Eldritch High School (credits to Philip K Dick) set in the Appalachian foothills of western Virginia. I provided these additional details to let the tone sink in:

• Mascot: The Luna Moths
• Motto: “Dreaming of tomorrow.”
• School Colors: Blood Orange and Reddish Green (the latter being one of the so-called “impossible colors”)

Our players consisted of a university philosophy professor, a high school government teacher, and an undergraduate student interested in education and psychology. So I had a good mix of disciplines and levels of education represented.

I won’t bog you down with details of the game play itself. The video has been edited, and I’m impressed by the tightness and creativity that the group brought to the table. I invite you to watch it by clicking this link.

I did introduce a few twists to the rules, some of which are derived from the so-called anti-Pool variants. Here’s a summary of the changes which I provided to the group in advance:

1. Character creation. Before the first session, write a 50-word character sketch, following the rules of The Pool. The 50 words should detail your characters' talents, profession, quirks, weaknesses, skills, personality traits, special objects, a signature item, relationships, etc.—anything you imagine as being important or interesting to play with in the game. This sketch provides the traits for the player's character sheet, and the 50 word limit is firm--so you have to be efficient!

Give your character a name and a “kicker” or goal. These are for free--they don’t count towards the 50-word limit. The kicker or goal should be something that sets your character in motion: It should be something specific and concrete. Examples of kickers: Your character enters the parking lot and finds that her new car has been sabotaged (tires slashed, sugar water in the gas tank, etc.). Or your character hopes to gain a college scholarship by leading the basketball team to the district championship.

2. Traits and Bonuses. Follow the rules of The Pool. In brief, you pull traits from your character sketch. You may list a trait with no bonus attached (leaving it available for later advancement). You start with 15 points. To assign a Bonus, spend dice from your starting Pool. The cost is the Bonus times itself. Thus, a +2 would cost 4 dice and a +3 would cost 9 dice and so on. It is very important to leave some dice in your Pool--at least 3 or 4.

3. Casting the Dice. Follow the rules of The Pool with these important modifications:
On a successful roll (i.e. at least one of your dice came up a “1”), you LOSE any dice you gambled from your pool, but you GAIN a Monologue of Victory! Rolling multiple 1s will add to the impact of your success.

On a loss (i.e you rolled no 1s) you get your gambled pool dice back, and you get a choice. You may either ADD an additional die to your pool or you may GAIN a Monologue of Defeat [Note: The Monologue of Defeat must stay true to the fact that you failed your dice roll.]
Other players may contribute dice from their pools to your effort if they can explain how their character is contributing to the action in the fiction. The total number of pool dice gambled cannot exceed 9.

4. Success and Failure. These follow the basic rules of The Pool save the reversal regarding the loss and gain of pool dice (see above). Note the stipulation that multiple 1s magnify the degree of success. Note also that the GM may interpret a failure as a short term success but accompanied by nasty side effects. For example, you fail your roll to climb over the fence. The GM might allow your character to make it over, but notes that your character lands hard on the other side and thinks they might have sprained their ankle. Oh . . . and there’s a guard dog that heard them when they crashed to the ground.

5. Continuing the Story. These follow the rules of The Pool, but you may deduct any previous points invested in a trait to raise that trait. In other words, a +3 costs 9 points. But if that trait is currently at a +2, you have already spent 4 points to get the trait to that level. So now it will only cost you 5 additional points to raise it to a +3. Note also the rule that you may add or increase bonuses to traits at any point.

6. At Death’s Door. Should circumstances require it, we will follow the rules of The Pool.

There are many instructive elements of our game that deserve particular note:

After sending them the skeleton setting, I gave the players the 50-word character sketch as a pre-game homework assignment, and this included the requirement providing me with a “kicker” or goal. Some might prefer to accomplish these tasks through a conversation at the table, but my mind likes to chew over what the players are signalling me in advance of the opening session. I’m better able to weave their kickers and traits into the opening scenes when I have the time to reflect. The value of this strategy is apparent in the scenes we work through.

Also deserving of study are the moments of victory and failure that occur throughout the session.

With my variant, when a player achieves success on a roll, they get a Monologue of Victory. You will see the players initially surprised by the narrative power that this gives them, but once they wrap their head around the concept, it sparks tremendous creativity and enthusiasm. They realize that they can, within reasonable limits, dictate where the fiction goes, and they obviously are jazzed that they were able to throw something back at me, the GM, which I would run with.

The moments of failure are also instructive. The players hesitated to use my “Monologue of Defeat” variant in favor of adding a die to their pool. But even so, the failures resulted in some creative and unpredictable swerves in the narrative. As a GM (and as a teacher), it is important to view failures as opportunities to move things forward in creative and exciting ways. This doesn’t mean treating failures as though they are successes. But it does mean considering failures as swerves that might lead the story into new, unplanned paths. In retrospect, sometimes these trails can lead to some of the most memorable and fulfilling moments of the session.

One notable highlight is how the players are quickly leaning into their traits and abilities. This perhaps is not surprising given the fact that all of these elements derive from the character sketches that they players wrote. Designers, GMs, and players should take note of the psychological investment (and improved game play) that this type of character creation element generates.

The video ends with some of our reflections on how The Pool might be put to use in the classroom. I’ll have more to say about this in a later post, and I invite anyone interested to offer their thoughts.

The group was enthusiastic about this inaugural experiment, so we will be moving on to a second session with the game. So expect a second installment of the Ludoverse Lab as we take another dive into The Pool.

And if you want to join in on an upcoming lab, drop me a note. I’m looking forward to taking others on the ride.

Teaching Role-Playing Games, Part 1: The Justification

I’ve taken the plunge and have started teaching a unit on tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) as part of my AP English Language and Composition class. My initial plan was to do my trial run at the end of the year following the AP exams in May. But due to some shifts in the college counselling calendar, I had to do some reshuffling in my class.

The end result is that my TTRPG unit is now a fully legit unit being taught in the heart of the course. This alteration in my plans is completely fortuitous. It means that the TTRPG is being treated as a fully fledged, artful medium in its own right . . . which is exactly how it should be.

This post and those that follow will give you an overview of my approach, and I’ll provide some updates detailing the actual play experiences of my students.

At the start, shout outs go to a number of designers who are helping in ways large and small. Ron Edwards has been instrumental in shaping my own thoughts about this medium, and some one-on-one consulting sessions have provided some key guidance. Ron has a background as an educator, so he’s ideally suited to help bridge the teacher / game designer divide.

Thanks are also in order for Emily Care Boss, Ben Robbins, Avery Alder, Jared Sorenson, Ron Edwards (again!), Clinton Nixon, Matthew Finch, Joe Williams, Kathleen Williams, and James V. West who have been generous (unwitting or not) in sharing their creations with my students. In the case of games under copyright restrictions, I asked the designers for specific permission to share the rules with my students through a secured server. Other designers have already made their rules available either through Creative Commons licensing or through “pay what you want” offerings. So I’ve been able to give my students this opportunity with the good conscience that I am operating securely within good copyright practice.

The question for today’s post:

Why are you doing this and how do you justify taking up weeks of class (and an AP course, no less!) to play tabletop role-playing games?

In the grand scheme, TTRPGs hit on a number of key educational objectives, and they do so in ways that are uniquely powerful and effective.

• They spark what I would call active creativity, as both players and game masters (GMs) must work hard together to bring a story into being. When you are reading a story or a novel, one is sparked to understand the narrative that has been stitched together by the author, and such literature requires considerable imaginative work. But with TTRPGs, the fiction doesn’t even exist without the committed involvement of players and GMs to bring it into being.
• They involve collaboration and communication. The driving engine of TTRPGs is a complex, nuanced conversation taking place around the table. The medium requires engagement all around, and it demands that the participants carefully listen and respond in order to propel the story further.
• It involves critical thinking of a high order. Each play session worth its salt requires the players to work through problems, puzzles, and dilemmas of various sorts. And in most cases, there are multiple possible solutions. The open-ended nature of the games, encourages players to be inventive and to consider outside-the-box solutions that are both effective and unique.

Even with these flags in place, however, there is the issue of curriculum and content to face. To put this as a question, How do TTRPGs even belong in an English class, which should be devoted to literature and written texts?

To move towards an answer, I started my unit by having the students read “Introduction: Ergodic Literature” by Espen Aarseth. That was a challenging piece for my students to chew on, but I was able to make headway by continually grounding the discussion in specific texts. The basic argument is that there is a type of literature—not a genre per se, but a kind of modality—that requires efforts which go beyond the direct understanding or reading of a text. This is what he means by ergodic literature.

A workbook would be one easily grasped example of an ergodic text: To “read” a math workbook (or at least to do so correctly) you are not simply going scan the pages with your eyes and flip pages from front to back. No—you are going to have out a pencil and start writing in the book or perhaps on a separate sheet of paper. Moreover, I might see you flipping about the book, perhaps to compare your answers to an answer key in another section of the book. Or maybe you are going to flip between a problem you are working out on one page and a relevant explanation that appeared a few pages earlier.

I made a point in class that you can often tell if someone was dealing with an ergodic text by simply watching them. Someone reading a novel—even a challenging one—would likely read the book in a linear fashion. You’d see their eyes moving left to right, top to bottom, and then flipping a page, and this process would repeat until the book was finished. With an ergodic text, however, you would probably see the person working in a different fashion—flipping pages, moving backwards and forwards, perhaps writing or doing other forms of manipulation, etc. In other words, there would be additional activities involved that moved beyond the cerebral effort to understand the text.

The other key concept employed by Aarseth is the cybertext. Cybertexts do not necessarily involve computers, but they do involve some type of machine function as a component of their operation. A great example of a non-digital cybertext would be the I Ching, where one employs some type of random number generation as a component of consulting the text. One goes to the I Ching with a question, and then starts to flip coins or to manipulate yarrow sticks in order to come up with the appropriate section of the text to read. Today, one can use a computer to generate the number, but in all cases, there is some type of random-number-generating machine involved.

Another great example of a cybertext is Raymond Queneau’s 100,000 Billion Poems. Queneau writes 10 sonnets, but he does so in such a way that the lines are interchangeable. For example, you can put the first line of the third sonnet together with the second line of the eighth sonnet and then put those lines together with the third line of the first sonnet, and so on. If you want to see how this all looks and operates in hard copy form, go to this youtube video. If you work out the math, you will discover that Queneau’s 10 sonnets end up generating one hundred thousand billion sonnets! This is a poem generating machine that is practically inexhaustible—at least it is inexhaustible for human readers.

Another key aspect of cybertexts is that they involve feedback loops. The reader of a cybertext is also an operator who provides key inputs for the “machine” to process. The machine, in turn provides an output, which the reader must then process. And, in many cases, this reader will take this information and use it to construct a new input which is subsequently fed into the machine.

The argument, then, is this: One productive way of viewing TTRPGs is to see them as examples of ergodic fiction. Moreover, in most cases, they are works that involve cybertextual elements.

Let me break this down and clarify.

The term ergodic is being borrowed from the fields of math and physics, but when Aarseth appropriates the word he is mainly interested in the word because of its Greek roots. Ergon means “work” and “hodos” means path. Thinking about a TTRPG as a “work path” is both appropriate and evocative.

To begin, I like the idea that these are games where a vital part of the fun and importance lies in the work or effort being invested by the players and GM. If someone at the table becomes passive, the game (along with the fiction and the experience) immediately suffers as a result. This is not simply a theoretical idea: When a player disengages with a TTRPG, the effect is immediately palpable at the table.

And TTRPGs provide the players with paths and crossroads to traverse. The trailheads of some of those paths might be given in advance, but it is up to the people around the table to continue with the exploration and at points to blaze their own trails. Aasarth usefully talks about the idea of the labyrinth in terms of ergodic texts and appropriately differentiates between linear labyrinths (such as the meditative paths that one sometimes finds on the floors of gothic churches) and mazes, where the paths fork and which might allow for multiple solutions.

The cybertextual nature of TTRPGs is almost too obvious to need comment. In a typical game of this sort, players are involved in a complex network of feedback loops that connect players with each other and (if there is one) with the GM. Moreover, the games frequently involve additional feedback loops that involve inputs and outputs involving the rulebook, dice rolls, chart consultations, etc.

On the day following our discussion of “Introduction: Ergodic Literature,” I had my students read Ron Edwards’ “System Does Matter.” This led to a discussion about the different types of game objectives, with the useful terms gamist, simulationist, and narrativist being key.  And I also had them consider how a game’s mechanics and system components are crucial in determining whether or not the game is going to be successful in achieving its goal.

Here again, I used concrete examples to aid in the discussion . . . but I was immediately struck by how the students (high school juniors) were often completely unfamiliar with analog games of almost any stripe. I initially started by using chess and backgammon as two games that are communicating very different messages, and that the mechanics are vital to what they are trying to accomplish. Random polling showed that only about half of my students had played chess (though over three quarters had at least an inkling of how the game worked and what it was about), and almost none knew about the game of backgammon! So after my first period, I substituted Monopoly for the backgammon example.

With this discussion of games, I had the students think about how the games’ win conditions, core meaning, and mechanics were intimately connected. Monopoly is a game about rapacious real estate development: You win by building your property empire and bankrupting your opponents. And, while there are some decisions to be made, a large component of the game involves chance through the use of dice. For the most part, in Monopoly, if you are lucky and you follow the urges of greed acquisitiveness, you are going to do fine.

Chess, by contrast, is a game of battle tactics where, apart from the initial assigning of black and white sides, chance plays no role. The world of Chess is gained through strategic positioning and keen wit.

The class has almost no TTRPG experience. I teach 4 sections of the course, and in some of those sections, no student has played a TTRPG, while in others, one or two have a flitting experience with Dungeons & Dragons. Nonetheless, I was able to use “System Does Matter” to introduce them to some basic TTRPG components (character statistics, resolution mechanics, etc.) and to show how, as with chess and monopoly, those systems will reinforce the goals that the games are trying to achieve and the stories they are trying to tell.

That should give you a basic sense of how I got the ship launched. Next time, I will move into the core of the unit which will involve the students dividing into groups, each of which will the play a selected TTRPG over the course of a week in my course.

I feel like I’m heading into largely uncharted waters with this unit. I’m not sure how many high schools teach the TTRPG as an important medium in its own right. So I’m keen for resources and reactions to this endeavor. Should you have any comments or suggestions, please share them.

Legendary Lives With Heartstrings Attached

Many of the ideas that I’ve developed here are drawn from the post-game conversations of the Legendary Lives actual play group. So Ron, Rod, and Ross deserve much credit. These reflections would not be nearly as insightful or plentiful without their contributions.

I’ve spent my Tuesday afternoons during the summer playing Legendary Lives, a fantasy roleplaying game developed in the early 90s. The game lives on at the Haunted Attic website and you can pick up a hard copy at Lulu. Legendary Lives was identified as a fantasy heartbreaker in Ron Edwards’ famous essay. It fits the categorization, but ironically, it is an outlier in that group . . . which makes it the most heartbreaking of the bunch. 

In three of the four “fantasy heartbreaker” categories outlined by Edwards, Legendary Lives doesn’t quite fit. It DOES demonstrate some critical perspective on game design (though sometimes that perspective is not sharply focused). It DOES contain some knowledge of actual fantasy (especially folk tales and mythology). And it DOES have some innovative mechanics (more on that below). 

So it’s truly, deeply heartbreaking that it didn’t have the ability to be a commercial success. Edwards’ fourth criteria fits like a gauntlet. Go to the gallery at Haunted Attic for some tidbits about the jagged economic and promotional road the game travelled down. Let me add one more side irony here: Edwards’ essays on fantasy heartbreakers have been widely misunderstood, debated, and attacked, but his arguments and his deep love for these games have helped save them from lapsing forever into obscurity.

So let me bear my heart on my sleeve and share some love for this game.

Mechanical Magnificence

Legendary Lives, for the most part, uses a single, elegant D100 percentile roll to resolve challenges and conflicts. This system, with small adjustments, applies to combat, magic, skills, attribute checks, and so forth. The game is “semi-diceless,” and is possibly the first RPG to put virtually all rolls in the hands of the players.

Moreover, despite the fact that there is basically a single mechanical engine for the game, it has great flexibility and nuance. When you roll, it is seldom a simple pass/fail result, but the outcome can take one of 10 different shades from Catastrophic to Awesome. It takes little time to understand the basic principle and that makes the mechanic quick to use. But the system also allows for some fine-grained interpretation of results.

Character Chemistry

There’s a direct, engaging, and multi-faceted character creation system, which gives you abilities, skills, family background, character type, race, lifeline (background), religion, etc. During our game, this was all done by rolling dice and consulting random tables (though you can choose many of the details if you wish to according to the rules).  At the end, we looked at what we had and wrote up brief.character histories. This was a quick process which resulted in rich, dynamic characters all around.

Writing and Design Clarity

In an age where some games look nice but are written poorly, it is nice to have a game like Legendary Lives. The writing is strong, clear, and on the mark. Careful attention was paid to the editing of the explanations, and it’s also clear that the skill list, the description of resolutions, and the explanations of play were carefully worked through after extensive iterations and play testing. This is one solidly built game system.

Foe Folio and Skills: This Is Not a Hack and Slash World

In Legendary Lives, there can be monsters, but the operative term it uses is FOES, and the rules emphasize that most of them are smart and open to non-violent interaction. When looking through the foe list, you are struck by the way that many encounters can involve more nuance than a straight frontal assault. I’d also note that most of the skills are not aiming at violence or combat. Yes, there can be blood, but Legendary Lives invites a variety of approaches to dealing with the Foes, and it points out that some “Foes” could in fact be friends. (Foe is really just the name for a GM-controlled character, so perhaps not always the most apposite term.)

I could go on, but to make this short: This is a great game at its core. If someone said they were interested in fantasy rpg design, I’d highly recommend that they read this book. And if someone was in the mood to play a “new” rpg that would not disappoint, I would send them to Legendary Lives in a heartbeat.

If you need a full-color coffee table book for your rpg, this one won’t work, but if you are interested in some brilliant, smart play at the table, this is a book that will keep you coming back for more. Not only is the game fun, but it produces story lines that are complex, deep, and satisfying.

So now to some quibbles and ideas for improvements:

Character Races

There is quite a mix here. 26 of them! The term “race” is antiquated, especially when you consider the humans in the bunch. Hill Folks, Easterlings, Corsairs, Bush People, Gypsies, Nomads, etc.--these all count as different races. Today, a different term such as kindred or nationality would be better.

There are stereotypes aplenty, which become especially jarring with those human “races.” Hill Folk seems to be people from rural Appalachia, Nomads are Arabs, etc., and some of the descriptions could be more sensitive. The suggested names give you a sense of this. For example, it suggests names like Mu Tan and Chi for Easterling characters, and Hill Folk get names like Daisy and Clementine.

Revising the race section to update it might be difficult. But there is much that I like about the races as they are written.

Each race has a special ability that have rich possibilities in play. Bush People, for example, have Animal Vision which allow them to see through the senses of a target animal.

I love some of the more bizarre races. I’m currently playing a Wolfling, which is a shape-changer that can take wolf form. And I’d love to take an Entomolian for a spin: These are giant human-sized insects who have a hive mind . . . and they are a designated character race!

My heart also loves the number of races: The variety gives the game a special flavor.

But there are down sides. In particular, if you have a party comprised of vastly different races, then it’s challenging to find the common ground that would give them a reason to work together. And the world of Legendary Lives doesn’t entirely hang together. You look at the map and it’s almost like a theme park with all these different lands you can visit, each of which will have its own cartoonish group of characters. The close of the book discusses the history of the Seelie court, but the game then seems to be unclear about exactly how much it wants to invest in the setting.

Deepening the Story

Despite the superficially cartoon-like elements, we have steadily carved out a curiously compelling story about broken people coming to grips with their tragic pasts and their fractured families. When I reread Legendary Lives, my sense is that the game is sitting at a crossroads in terms of how the GM should manage the game in order to allow the character stories to develop and unfold.

At points, the rules say things like “An adventure is a story, told by the referee, in which the players participate” (3).

But then in other places, it says things like, “During the play, you’ll have to create encounters on the fly, allowing your plot to change as needed. The best events will twist the plot in a new and unexpected direction” (176).

One of the key strengths of Legendary Lives is that it is opening the door to a truly open-ended form of play that is more heavily driven by the characters’ choices and the outcomes of the skill and attribute checks (and those checks come fast and furious!). My sense is that the writers of the game (Joe and Kathleen Williams) were making their way to a new approach and a new way of running a roleplaying game, but that the current style (i.e. the style of the 1990s fantasy rpg) was creating interference. So the door is opening, but it never gets fully pushed inward.

You can see this in the adventures that they published (and are available at Haunted Attic). On the one hand, they are more bare bones than what you might imagine to be a traditional scenario or module, but at the same time, they sometimes have elements of pre-plotting in evidence. Our group noted that this type of thing may be a result of the fact that the game made appearances at convention. So some of this conflict between old and new may be a result of the fact that some of the rules are written with a one-shot in mind, while others are thinking of more long term play.

Another sign of this interference problem: The game has you roll up 5 different lifelines, which give you glimpses of your character’s back story. But the rules are largely silent about what to do with these lifelines apart from the various mechanical and resource benefits they afford. Similarly, the game asks you to write out character goals and says you MIGHT write up a character story, but it doesn’t give the GM any advice about what to do with these elements.

Here’s what I’d suggest (and what we’ve largely done in our own game): If you are the GM, go through a character generation session. At the close, tell the players to send you a character story (perhaps giving a strict word limit to avoid anyone from gushing) along with a list of character goals. Make these two things mandatory, and tell them to send them to you at least a few days before the next game session.  Make sure that there are some small connections and overlaps between characters. Maybe have pairs of characters think of one goal that they share. The GM should then use those character stories and goals to help design the first adventure or opening encounters on the following week.

This aspect of the game really needs more fleshing out than my brief suggestion here. But if this were accomplished--that is, if there was a more completely articulated procedure for working from the goals and lifelines into the initial adventure--the game would shift into an even higher gear. In our game Ross has accomplished much of what I’m suggesting here, but much of that is a result of his own instincts as a GM as opposed to specific guidance from the game.

Miscellaneous Quibbles and Questions

I like the flexibility of the magic system and the way it is tied into the core mechanic. But, as Ron has pointed out, the power of miracles is such that some of the spells seem less special. All characters can ask for a certain number of miracles each session, and many of these miracles cover the same territory as dedicated spells. We haven’t explored spells much in our game, so I can’t really give anything approaching a good evaluation. This, however, is our initial impression.

Sincerity is an odd “skill.” I understand why the game would feel a need to include it, but Sincerity is nested under Charm alongside Bargain, Entertain, Interrogate, and Preach. Charm and Cunning are different attributes, but so many of the Charm attributes suggest careful attention to appearance, so it’s not entirely logical that Sincerity would be part of that grouping. 

Intuition and Fate (especially Intuition) are also curious skills. In many cases where an Intuition roll is used, I would instead simply decide as a GM whether or not to give information to the player. Fate is more complicated, but it’s description in the rule book could use some added explanation.

Final Consideration

The real heartbreaker is that many people who would enjoy and be enriched by this game have not experienced it. It has a trove of rich surprises waiting inside, and if you lean into the character lifelines and goals, some poignant and exciting stories will unfurl. I have dreams of a revised Legendary Lives: My optimistic heart believes that, if someone troubled to update the game and to add some GM advice, we would end up with a game creating new legends.

Empathic Gaming

It's been a while since my last blog post, but the reason is largely because I've been busy reading and playing games. Which means I am building up good material for further reflection and game designs. Below is a lengthy response I put together for an interview posted at Adept Play. I'd encourage you to head over there to see the original exchange between Ron Edwards and Simon Pettersson. There will be further commentary and insights there.

Here's my post:

I was all set to write a post on Legendary Lives, and then got sucked into the conversation (or seminar) with Simon Pettersson, and it put some hot ideas on the front burner. So I promise a reflection on Legendary Lives, but let me provide some thoughts and questions here . . . and then I’ll get back to what has transpired in Smith City.

Some immediate context first. In June, I ran a four-game series of My Life With Master with The Gauntlet (an online rpg community). This was my first time playing the game. And in a couple weeks, I’m going to be working through Emily Care Boss’s “Romance Trilogy” with The Gauntlet. Bret Gillan notes that Cold Soldier is inspired by Boss’s Breaking the Ice, Czege’s game, and Ron’s S/Lay w/Me. So many of the topics in this discussion are directly touching on issues of concern for me.

Scary Gaming

One of the reasons why I’m taking on the Romance Trilogy is because so many of the ideas and principles of the games scare me. I suspect that this is a reason why many other prospective players would avoid these games immediately upon hearing the elevator pitch.

Ask me to play a violent Wolfling on the edge of a mental breakdown who is set loose on a band of weapons smugglers? No problem.

Want me to play a game close to home--one where my own unvarnished experiences, desires, hopes and fears are potentially on display? I’m not so sure about that. While the rules don’t require this type of “close to home” intimacy, Boss regularly mentions and encourages it in her games.

Breaking the Ice (the first game of the trilogy) is a two-player game where a pair of characters work through three initial dates. It’s designed to deal with the awkwardness, sparks, setbacks, miscommunications, and building attractions involved at the start of a romance. During the initial character generation, Boss asks you to chat with your fellow player to find out about your commonalities and differences. You then take one of these differences and then use it as one of the core attributes of your characters . . . except you switch it with the other player. So, if you are young playing with someone a couple decades older than you, you might play the older person starting up a romance with someone significantly younger. The game can obviously get quite personal . . . just as Cold Soldier can with its requirement that the GM order the soldier to do things that the GM finds personally repellent. 

The last game of the trilogy, Under My Skin, turns up the heat even more. It is initially written as a LARP (Live-Action RolePlaying game), and the players take on the roles of friends, couples, and acquaintances who discover new loves and attractions and who then have to decide on how they will react. Even if they return to their previous partner, they will be changed by the experience. 

Scary stuff. These are games with a high potential for bleed (a spillover between character and player). And I could see things turning out very badly--badly on a deep, emotional level--for some players who come to the games with the wrong approach, expectations, or mindset.

Emotional Modulation (or Controlling the Bleed)

Here’s a provisional principle: For games with an empathic content, there needs to be a set of mechanisms and procedures in place that will allow players to modulate and manage the personal identifications they have staked. The higher the empathic content, the more important these mechanisms and procedures become. (Is there a term that describes the way that these mechanisms and procedures serve to manage the empathic content?)

For Breaking the Ice, the Switch requirement, is, from the start, one such device: You are, by definition, required to play a character who is, in at least one significant way, very different from yourself. So your character is clearly not you.

The mundane elements of the character sheet, dice rolls, and outcome evaluations are also key. If I’m starting to get uncomfortable with the amount of bleed in Breaking the Ice, I can focus more of my attention on these mechanics to settle me. The card mechanics of Cold Soldier seem to have a similar effect: If I’m slipping into an emotional valley which I’m not wanting to enter, I can think of the game in terms of the poker hand I’m trying to build

Setting can also be used to good effect. In My Life with Master, I suggested that we could place the game in the current day, but the players unanimously and vigorously vetoed that idea because they were afraid of the game cutting too deeply into the heart. This is one reason why Czege’s default 19th-century eastern European setting works well. 

I’m developing a four-player version of Breaking the Ice (which I’m calling Hacking the Ice), and in this one, I’ll have two players controlling a single character. One player will be responsible for the rational/practical dimension of the character, and the other will address the emotional/passionate side. Aside from opening the game to more players, the added focus will help to modulate bleed effects. In my hack, you won’t be your character: At most, you will only be half of your character.

To LARP . . . or Not?

Under My Skin adds additional challenges for me. I don’t know that I’d be equipped to play the game in its default LARP form, especially if it were played close to home. Boss writes, “In Under My Skin, players can choose Core Issues for the characters that relate to their own experiences. This is (relatively) safe space to explore what might be very risky to do in one’s own life.” 

That phrasing with the parenthetical “relatively” has me quaking in my shoes.

The fact that I want to play the game online, however, already defuses some of that fear. The kinetic and intimate nature of face-to-face LARPing along with its tendency to avoid some of the mechanics of ttrpgs, increases the possibility of bleed effects. VARPing (Video-Augmented RolePlaying) provides some technological distancing which for me is useful.

In The Romance Trilogy, Boss includes a variant of Under My Skin titled “Ere Camlann” which sets the game in the days of King Arthur. Players take on the roles of people like Lancelot, Guenevere, Morgaen, and Mordred. And I’m going to add some light tabletop roleplaying elements to the game for an added measure The literary-historical setting and the dice roll mechanic will give me some added ways to modulate the empathic bonds.

It is clear that the extent of empathy and bleed effects are variable in a game. I’ve been in games where some players have been impacted on a deeply personal level while other players are simply appreciating the fiction as a separate entity. This variability might in part be a result of how the players are (or are not) using the modulation tools that the game affords them. If one player wants to experience a more emotional or empathic game, they can direct their mind away from the mechanics and procedures that could tone down that dimension. Whereas another player might leverage those elements precisely in order to keep themselves in a zone where they are more comfortable. 

These game elements are analogous to the formal and aesthetic features of literary texts. Shakespeare’s sonnets, for example, touch on topics and emotions that cut deep, but there is a reason why we read him as opposed to listening to a heartfelt emotive rant on Youtube. Much of that has to do with the poetic qualities of Shakespeare’s work, which we can use to modulate and control the emotional content he is expressing.

Guaranteed Story?

There are so many other topics to address. I’m especially keen on the discussion of whether one should design a game that guarantees a good story. But that discussion actually touches on some of my thoughts concerning Legendary Lives, so I’ll plan to develop those thoughts in a separate posting.

Get Behind Me, Satan: “Demons are Social Media Junkies,” The Final Sessions

My maiden run of Sorcerer came to an end late Monday night. This was Session 8 of the mini-campaign, which means we actually ran it for nine intense sessions if you include our session zero.

Here are links to the final sessions:

Session 7

The Finale

All of us were grateful that we made it. The three players were invested in the game, but hectic and shifting schedules being what they are, we were having difficulty maintaining our initial Saturday morning times, and we were scrambling to keep the group together and to get in one final session to conclude the game. That desire obviously put some added pressure on me as the GM, as I wanted to give the group a chance to get some issues resolved without forcing a narrative upon them.

How did the group fare in the finale?

By the end of the evening, our naive sorcerer (Dylan) was sufficiently unsettled by his demon’s (Korybantos) increasingly violent tendencies to attempt a banishment. The first attempt failed But after another sorcerer (Chuck) knocked down Dylan’s demon with a volley from his M-16 (growing up a military brat has its advantages), the entire group got into the effort and sent Korybantos packing. Dylan--who had decided that he wasn’t cut out for being a sorcerer--succeeded in his humanity gain check.

Meanwhile, the gun-wielding Chuck lost some humanity: He prided himself as a fighter, but actually shooting a person (or a demon passing as a person) was something different for him, and he was deeply unsettled by the encounter despite his rugged, stoic mindset.

Our third sorcerer (Shawn) faced a humanity check from a different source. In this case, it was the result of a successful use of Taint directed at a burned-out husk of an NPC sorcerer who was clinging onto the last thin thread of her humanity. When Shawn witnessed the humanity loss caused by the Taint, he was reminded of a similar effect that he had observed previously when he saw his demon Hop from one person to another. Shawn managed to pass the humanity check, but there was a heavy price to be paid. Awakened to the awesome and disturbing power of sorcery, he acknowledged the demonic abililites at his command and, with a burdened soul, took ownership of his identity as a sorcerer.

Every time a humanity roll came up in our session, the players knew that something of consequence had occurred, and those moments were dripping with dramatic and narrative import.

In terms of the kickers, Shawn and Dylan both achieved closure on theirs. Chuck’s kicker would have taken another session or two fully to resolve, but there was good development in that direction underway, and the player was satisfied with the story that unfolded. He was also pleased with the climactic confrontation with Korybantos and the key role Chuck played in knocking the demon down.

To be sure, a number of key narrative elements remained unexplored or undiscovered. For example, the characters never got to the bottom of the mysterious Stewart Barfield, an entertainment mogul who never appeared in the flesh, but who seemed to be involved in some malevolent enterprises on the dark web. Likewise, they never found out who was behind the threatening photos that featured members of Chuck’s household being stalked. The players commented on some of those loose strings, but they didn’t see this as a weakness of the game or of our play: They realized that it was up to them to deal with the bangs and strands as they deemed fit. If they left some of those elements to pursue on another day--and maybe simply decided not to pursue others--that was acceptable. Sorcerer is NOT a game filled with plot tokens that the characters must collect.

I was worried about the slowburn pacing and whether the players would keep up the engagement level. It turned out my fears were unfounded, and the more deliberate speed resulted in an experience that was complex, nuanced and deeply satisfying. The characters started the game on separate paths, as they were slow to realize the sorcerous identity of the others. This led to some delicious dramatic irony, and my players revelled in the way that Lore rolls to pick up on telltales almost always failed, which then gave the ironies even more tension and potency. Once the characters did recognize each other, there were some wonderful roleplay scenes where I was able to take a back seat and enjoy the interaction and dialogue of the characters. My group was made up of members of The Gauntlet, an online gaming community. But I deliberately ran the game off calendar so that we wouldn’t be forced into the standard four-session run. In the debriefing, all the players commented that the longer time frame and the fact that we weren’t forced into a predetermined number of sessions yielded a far more satisfying experience.

We typically had a week between sessions, but for the last one, two weeks had elapsed. This also created some concern for me. Back in the halcyon days of my youth, my gaming group would play on Friday nights, but the members talked to each other during the week, so we had no problem keeping the fire of interest burning strong between sessions. Despite being mostly incommunicado during the week, my Sorcerer group stayed strong, and one player in particular commented on the importance of breathing space between sessions. Yes, we did require some time to review facts and events from previous sessions, but it turns out that my players kept Sorcerer on their minds during the week, and they consistently re-entered the game with intense interest and thoughts that had been brewing.

We were all impressed by the way that the game accommodated very different types of characters, and how the demon-character relationships were also diverse. In the case of Shawn, for example, it wasn’t clear who was the master in the demon-human relationship. However, in the case of Chuck, there was a more symbiotic relationship that had developed. Chuck’s demon had a need to witness scenes of violence, and Chuck’s cover as a bouncer put him in a perfect position to keep his demon happy. Meanwhile, Dylan made choices that worked against his demon’s need, and this resulted in a transformation of that relationship that became increasingly menacing and disturbing for Dylan. This rich variety was aided by the fact that the characters initially were pursuing separate storylines that only gradually became woven together

There’s so much more to discuss. It took us awhile to get a handle of the dice roll mechanics and to understand the meaning of the core attributes. The Sorcerer system allows a great amount of flexibility. Humanity, for example, is the key attribute of the game, but its meaning is left up to the GM and players to define. Beyond that, each character will have a slightly different relationship to Humanity, and the way that Humanity can play into the mechanics and resolution of specific conflicts within the game can vary. This richness is also one of the features that makes the games so challenging. Demon abilities seem like spells, but there is great leeway in terms of how they can be imagined and implemented, and the possibility of linking abilities together means that they will look very different depending on who is using them. That all sounds great, but it means that everyone at the table must work hard to determine whether or not they are making a reasonable interpretation of the abilities, and they must be creative in how they implement the rules.

What’s in store for the future?

I have a few ideas.

• A solo Sorcerer adventure for training purposes would be an interesting and useful endeavor. Certainly, such a scenario would have to leave out some crucial aspects of the game that involve a conversation at the table. But such an adventure could take beginning players and GMs through a character and demon creation process and then lead them to varied conflicts to demonstrate how to think through the dice roll mechanics.
• I recently received a copy of The Skyrealms of Jorune by Andrew Leker, and my initial reaction is that the setting would lend itself to a reskin using the rules of Sorcerer (with some ideas taken from Sorcerer and Sword. I might propose this as a project to my high school gaming group. If that project has legs, I’ll keep you updated.
• I’d love to take another crack at a straight Sorcerer game. My “Demons are Social Media Junkies” ideas has potential for further development, and I’d love to run that concept with some implementation of social media into the game play. Maybe, for example, we set up a twitter or Facebook account and make periodic posts in between sessions.
• Finally I wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to lead or play in another campaign of Sorcerer centered around a new set of anchoring statements.

Demons are Social Media Junkies, Sessions 4 and 5

I am again cross-posting this actual play report over at Adept Play I'd encourage you to check in over there if you are interested in possible further discussion or commentary.

I continue to play Sorcerer with three players from The Gauntlet, an online roleplaying game community. We are now through five sessions (plus a session zero) of our “Demons are Social Media Junkies” campaign. For reference, here are the links for the most recent gatherings:

Session 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr0-SgxHV8s
Session 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2T1buuVAgY

I’d like to focus this actual play report on two topics:

• The flexible nature of the Demon Abilities, using Hint as a specific example.
• Players grappling with the idea that the GM wants them to do something (when the GM is in fact simply offering opportunities for the players to do with as they wish).

I have three players whose characters know each other, but are unaware of their identities as sorcerers. For sessions 4 and 5, I used a heavily modified version of the “Training Scenario” in Sorcerer. The characters were each invited to a classy party at the mansion of a reclusive, behind-the-scenes executive producer named Richard Barfield. Barfield is known for brokering deals between entertainment companies, but he is mysteriously absent from his own party.

Taking a Hint and Running with It

Shawn is an Apprentice Sorcerer who has bound a Possessor Demon named Aaron. Aaron’s need is to influence people to believe and to act in irrational ways. When choosing abilities for his demon, Shawn selected Hint, with the idea that this ability could be used to implant suggestions (or hints) in the minds of others. Being relatively new to the game, I had not fully drilled into this ability, so didn’t know enough to warn the player away from this choice. I’m wondering if my ignorance about Hint was actually fortuitous--either that or I was just being daft..

At the big party, Shawn was looking for an opportunity to satisfy his demon’s need, and the issue of using Hint came up. So we read the book, and it was dawning on us that the original intent of Hint was to have it serve as a type of divination: The target would typically be the sorcerer or another player character, and it would be used so that a character could get some truthful information from the GM.

But Shawn wanted to do something very different with the ability. He spied a young celebrity couple which had recently reconciled after a period of conflict. The relationship had been in the tabloids. He would walk up to the couple and engage one of them in a conversation. Meanwhile, the demonic Aaron would set to work and use Hint on the other half. But he would use the ability to implant a false idea--namely that Shawn and his interlocutor were engaged in heavy flirting with the intention of making the other partner insanely jealous.

We rolled Aaron’s Power vs. his target’s Will, and Aaron succeeded, so we interpreted this to mean that some hallucination would be involved, and that this hallucination would reinforce the idea of heavy flirtation. The target succeeded in the second roll [and also a subsequent Taint was ineffective]. But since the target’s Will had been overcome by the demon’s Power in the first roll, I ruled that the Hint had some impact, and that the target was overcome by jealousy, creating an embarrassing public scene caught on Aaron’s smartphone camera.

This sequence raises a more general point about other Demon Abilities (and, even more generally, about how other games conceive of spells and other supernatural influences). I like the fact that Sorcerer demands work from the player and the GM to define the details of most of the demon abilities in actual play situations. This is especially the case when abilities get used in tandem, but even when used individually, there are delicious possibilities available.

I’m sure some would take issue with the way Hint got used in this case, but I would point out that the usage did not violate the strict stipulation against mind control: The target was already susceptible to the suggestion that his partner might cheat on him, and the Hint was used as a communicative ability to implant an idea that would amplify those pre-existing doubts. One issue is whether the demon using Hint in this way could also use it in the more normal prescribed manner: I’m tempted to say “no” since these two types of Hints are so different in intent and operation.

What Would the GM Have Me Do?

All the characters came to the big party at the Barfield mansion under different pretexts. One was serving as security; another was there to provide entertainment; and a third was there as a young minor celebrity. The players knew that the party might offer opportunities for the characters to recognize each other as sorcerers, and I allowed them to observe events that put them into the orbits of other characters. In some cases, those orbits were quite close. Chuck saved Dylan from the clutches of two demon thugs, but neither of them were fully aware of the demonic identities of those thugs or of the sorcerous identities of each other. They did note the sharpened teeth of the thugs, but they assumed that maybe that was just some strange practice or oddball cosmetic choice. And Shawn (a somewhat naive member of a new age cult) was able to see Dylan’s demon running off to help after a rather vicious bludgeoning assault of a party guest . . . but Shawn wasn’t understanding the import of all this (though, of course, the player of Shawn was).

At one point, Shawn’s player asked me if I wanted his character to do something or to move in order to be part of a dramatic scene in progress and thus to force some type of revelation. I was adamant in insisting that I really didn’t need his character to take any specific course of action and that he should play the character as he saw fit. So Shawn stayed at the soiree, mostly taking note (with wide eyes) of a sequence of puzzling events swirling around him.

The characters are now in the process of leaving the party, and the air is laced with dramatic irony. The characters are still in the dark about what exactly was going on . . . and they still do not realize the identity of the others as sorcerers. So the flood waters continue to rise, and the suspense for the players is mounting! At the end of the session, the players were excited about what was in store. After some high action scenes, they are looking forward to some “hanging out” time where the characters will begin (perhaps) to piece some things together. That will potentially lead to some humanity-shattering revelations. But this is still only potential.

When it comes to aesthetics, I’m a fan of the slow burn build-up, so this gradual development is my jam. During the session, Shawn’s player (who was asking if I wanted or needed Shawn to act in a prescribed manner) was perhaps thinking of other games (or GM styles) which involve shunting characters down prescribed narrative paths.

My answer to the question “What would the GM have me do” is “As you (and your character) wish.” Many of us were thinking that the play session would involve major revelations and that sorcerer characters would pick up on the demonic powers swirling around them.

That didn’t happen.

The end result was an action-packed session ending with plenty of future developments waiting in the wings. The conclusion of session five wasn’t planned, and it’s all the more exciting and satisfying because it wasn’t forced. As a GM for Sorcerer I see my role as one of constantly reviewing and revising the character diagram, and using that to create situations filled with potential for the characters. The operative word is potential. It’s ultimately the players who must make the decisions to activate those fireworks.

I was worried that the players would be disappointed with the session as I worked through the mechanics and tried to figure out (partly on the fly) the Hint move. The fact that there was an almost palpable deferral of major revelations was also weighing on me.

But my concerns were not justified: During the debrief of session five, all three players were excited about where the next session would lead, and they quite enjoyed the fact that their characters were brushing up against each other yet not making the connections. [Side note: The same may not hold true of the character’s demons: I will be making some rolls to determine how that side of the equation works out.]