Future Project.

This is jumping the gun slightly, but I am starting to feel as though the project I am doing at present (Preposterous!) Is a stepping stone that I am about ready to jump past. While I need to ensure the project is completed before moving on I need to start thinking about what the work I have done here means to me.

Well, I remember why I started Preposterous, I was thinking about mid-core games, the concept of a game that sits between casual and hardcore games as a perfect middle ground. Through research, I found that the idea of a 'new market' being mid-core games to be folly, or at least not up to the hype the industry had for it at present. I then returned to the source of my own game interests, which was storytelling above all else; I still feel that the main reason I pursue games in any capacity is because I truly love the interactive storytelling elements that I find in games. I wanted to find out what was the best type of game to encapsulate the interactive storytelling experience, because I truly believe that storytelling in games is all-important (to me).

From that I looked into the patterns of storytelling throughout history, trying to find a system or possibly a pattern; what I found was that all stories throughout history share huge correlations, and the story structures of human beings does not change all that much from story to story. From further research I found that storytelling was an integral part of humanity and people always wanted to hear stories and even tell them. So if it is that integral to us, then surely we must enjoy it right?

As a small test I devised a card game, the idea of which would be that it made it easy and fun to tell stories to one another. The problems with creating such a game were numerous, mostly because if you put a mechanic or system to storytelling the system has a tendency to fall apart. However, the core mechanics of storytelling stuck, and giving people constraints and random inspiration made it easier to tell stories to one another. One interesting thing I still want to test with my card game is audience possibility - I have a theory that since it doesn't involve any kind of story that the card game isn't limited to the traditional card game playing crowd, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. But I digress, the Preposterous card game is only there to prove that people enjoy telling each other stories, it is a fun activity that is gravely absent in role playing games specifically.

So I suppose - depending on how well Preposterous does - the next step would be to create a game that allows the players to easily tell stories to one another, in-depth and enjoyable role-playing storytelling games without any sort of development systems or numerical challenges. I want to bring role-playing back to where I think it should have gone, and make it about telling the story of a character, creating an experience between a group of players that is fun, immerse and above all about the story.

So that would be my next move, taking what I have learnt about storytelling as a game and creating a game that makes it as easy as possible for people. There are not many games to my knowledge that have done this (Fiasco might be one of only two games) which, again is good and bad - Bad, because it means it might not be possible or popular and good, because it means my work will not be a derivative. If there is anything I have learnt it is that people need boundaries to be creative, so I will have to create boundaries of some kind to make storytelling accessible. I will also need to find out if progression systems can work without destroying the role-player's empathy, the tendency at present being that once it starts being about stats players stop thinking of their characters as people. There are many problems but I look forward to this eagerly, the idea of creating a role-playing system that makes players care about the stories of their characters is exactly the kind of game that I want to play!

Possible name for the system - Novel.
Pros - On target with what I want to accomplish
Cons - Confusing slightly...

Taking Stock

I believe that I have become far too focused on the creation of my Preposterous card game in this design blog, I mean my focus in research is actually in storytelling, something I believe to be a lot of fun but is overlooked by the medium of games that can best express it - Tabletop & analog games.

So, to list some of my findings thus far - the problem I have found is that if you want to tell a story with a group of people you run into Ego. Everybody telling the story has to have a personal stake in the story, so they create a character for themselves, that character is their Protagonist; that character cannot fail or the player will loose interest in the story. This results in any two players falling into any form of competition to fall apart, neither one will allow the other to 'win' and get the better of their character and with no impartial systems or 'rules' they cannot progress. Hence the use of rules based around random chance in role-playing games, a chance based system is impartial and undeniable.

However, while this solved one problem it raised another.

Dominant strategy (or strategy in any form) emerged. The players of the game were presented with a system of rules, which, while it solved the problem of competition and resolution it focused the players on mastering a system and feeling dominant over everything else in the game; by adding quantifiable problems players lost sight of the storytelling and focused on strength based progression and mastery of a system.

This 'gamer logic' proceeded to shape tabletop role-playing in a big way, in fact to this day there are not many games in existence that do not focus the players on mastering some sort of system. Is that really role-playing? To me role-playing is putting yourself into the position of a character, putting on somebody else's shoes and playing out that character's story to it's humble conclusion.

I suppose that is where I separate from the rest of the audience a little bit, for a lot of people the game is about power fantasy, they want to be and feel like a mythical bad ass who is never wrong and could take on the world. Meaning that mastering that 'system', beating up all the bad guys and being stronger than the other players is where they derive enjoyment. My guess is that this is power fantasy at it's best, but there must be more to role playing than the power fantasy right?

The Playtesting Perils

What I have discovered through multiple play-testing of this game is that at current the game has some large problems. What I have found is that players have a lot of problems when it comes to being critical of other peoples storytelling abilities, beyond the obvious (I.E when people's stories stop making sense) players did not like telling people their stories were no good. I also found that the game had no real ending point and giving different cards effects complicated the game and detracted from what the game is about.

Just to re-iterate it - mostly for myself - the reason I created Preposterous was to make a game that made it easier to create stories and tell them to your friends, anything that does not work towards that is missing what the game is actually about.

The main problem preposterous had was balance, the game was always either heavily favoured on the side of players questioning stories or it was heavily in favour of the storyteller. I believe I have solved this in the newest iteration of the game's mechanics: I have removed the part of the game which relied on players deciding a player's storytelling was not good enough; it was obvious that players did not enjoy the idea of openly down-talking each others storytelling abilities. The new system includes a 'duel' system, where the aim is speed and the ability to weave more things into the players story on the fly. I have also re-introduced the ability to take stories off players as the game progresses, which should remove the problem that occurred when all players acquired points as fast as one another.

I will be play-testing these new rules within the next two weeks and creating a new iteration based on feedback, I will then find out if the original rule set is still preferred by anybody to make sure what I am doing is actually imrpoving on the game. For now here is the current Preposterous rules:

Preposterous Rules  (3-6 Duel-style play)

• Firstly, all players choose a character card, they place it face up in front of them so that other players can see. The cards are double sided; the players choose their gender by which face is visible. 
• Players then shuffle and draw one virtue and vice card, they place them either side of their character card; this denotes the characters reputation.
• Once all players have done that they are encouraged to ‘introduce themselves’ by giving their characters a name and a slight amount of history. This is not a required step, but it can be fun to establish things at this stage which you can recall later on.
• After this stage the first player draws a story card and places it in front of them. They then read out the title of said story and draw a number of proof cards in relation to how many questions are asked in the story setup. 
• The player then has 30 seconds to think, after that they must tell a Preposterous story using the proof cards they have to justify the events of their story. As a rule, each question on the story card must be answered, with a proof card attached to the events that answer said question. The player may not make a mistake in the telling; it must make sense and reference all elements of the character’s reputation (virtue, vice, title etc.). If the other players unanimously agree the story has a serious hole in it (by shouting Preposterous!), the player waffles or rambles or takes more than 30 seconds to prepare the story it is discarded and the turn order moves on.
• Once a story has been told, the players all draw a card from the proof pile and the storyteller hands out question cards to the players (one to each player). The players then must ask questions of the player’s stories in an attempt to disprove or poke holes in the story; they ask a question of a piece of proof offered up by the player and use the proof they have to back up their query. If the others players deem the question unsuitable it is discarded.
• The defending player must then defend their story against the allegations, they do this without any proof cards, the players then decide together which was the weakest argument the player made by means of a vote (the storyteller is involved in this vote), the player who asked that question may not duel the player for the story!
• If the players agree that a player gave plausible or strong arguments for all questions equally, then they can allow the storyteller to pick which player they shall duel with.
• The two players must then duel for the story! They take it in turns to flip cards from the proof deck and use them as talking points for their argument. Each time a player flips a card they have 5 seconds to think before they must make their argument, they must stay on topic, remembering to argue about the story and the story alone. The first player to fall off topic, take longer than 5 seconds to answer or slip up in their argument loses. The impartial character with the highest Social standing* may also at any point declare a winner based upon the quality of the arguments presented. 
• Once a winner has been determined that player takes the story card and places it face-up below their character, they must then take one of the original proof cards they played and place it above the story card, leaving the number value of the story card visible. This story element is then treated as part of the character’s reputation, meaning it must be referenced in every single story they tell from now on!
• *The social standing of the characters is based on their character cards, with the mayor at the top and the crook at the bottom. In 3 player games the player not involved in the duel is automatically the person with the highest social standing. 
• A player may at any time decide to challenge another player to a duel in lieu of creating another story. That player must offer up one of their stories, the player they challenge may accept, meaning they offer up a story of their own and begin the duel as normal; the winner takes ownership of both stories. If the other player does not accept the duel they turn their character card sideways, the player who announced the duel may then tell a story as normal. 
• At the end of the game all player with their character cards still facing forward (meaning they never backed down from a duel) get an extra point, for their true bravery. 
• The game ends when the last story card has been drawn, or any player is in the lead by 10 points at the end of a round. The last story told in the pile of story cards is a group story, meaning all players treat it as if they are the storyteller to an extent. Each player draws one of the proof cards (starting with the person on the lowest points), and answer one of the questions as if the entire group were at said event.
• Once the story has been told the players all attempt to re-tell the other elements of the stories, questioning another part of the story as normal; the game then follows the duel mechanic in an elimination style, eventually leaving one player with the final story. The final story value is also doubled!

 

 

Brightened up Test Printing

Brightened up Cards, still unfinished, strictly for test printing.

As you can see I have brightened up the card artwork a tad, now I have to see weather or not it looks any better when printed off. Once I have the formula down it shouldn't take too long to get all the cards ready to go, it will be time consuming but not too bad. I do need to press on with this if I want to get the game ready by January however; I will be hammering out some rule issues with more play testing and then finishing off the artwork post-processing.