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Since we’re still open, I’d like to share a gif I found somewhere else. It reminds me of Carcinogennifer and Ssskidwish.
@Donald_Petersen, is there any resemblance there?
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I… er, was told… (ahem) that cameras were strictly forbidden in that room.
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Hey there, sailor. Just in?
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(and nearly 2 years later, yikes!)
To open, I’ll say I’d always intended that Redoubtable Downtown Space Abbey was to be an ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ premise and it quickly turned into ‘everything including the kitchen sink, and several other kitchen sinks in the kitchen sink’ premise. By turn 3 I realize that I’d bitten off way more than I could chew.
And it nearly broke me. I found myself skidding across the finish line completely wrung out and my spouse asking me to never do this again for my own sake. I’d burned out so hard that I couldn’t even muster the mere keyboarding required to respond to all this delicious feedback.
So yes, I learned a great deal as well - about my capacity, about the process, and how to let less be more.
Redoubtable Downtown Space Abbey was always meant to feel a little chaotic to the players. I wanted to try and capture that feeling of The World Suddenly Changing that I imagine was being felt in late 19th century UK. All the old norms weren’t quite working they way that they had in the past and that the future was uncertain, and era in which doing the right thing might not pay off in the way that one expected.
The balance was to have player intent map on to plot outcome just enough to feel like there was some control over one’s destiny - whether that player had shot themselves in the foot in terms of income in turn one (our distinguished Beau Brummell) or managed a string of lucky bets (our dear departed < pleasing hum >) - all paths should feel equally engaged in the final outcome instead of hamstrung by an (intentionally) opaque set of rules and mechanics.
As a GM in these frames, I feel my constraints are always:
- some players just get hot dice
- the time each player can commit changes from week to week
- ideally, no one should feel punished too harshly for playing “imperfectly”
- and this time in particular: a game predicated on social interaction has to somehow magically happen within 100h period for all players in the game. Difficult for five players, preposterous for 12, unimaginable for 20, and impossible to scale beyond that.
And yet GM hints left with the best of intentions (“aim for a well rounded character”) can be poorly framed, misinterpreted, and misleading. How then to set a stage in which a player with no good understanding how to optimize play still have a rewarding experience while still allowing the space for various decisions to Have Consequences?
Phew, well that is the fundamental challenge right there.
The instinct to optimize exists. The effort to obfuscate the minmaxing always runs the risk of ending up on the opposite side of the spectrum. To wit: “Did any of the choices I made mean anything at all?”
Plenty of material was left on the table in terms of potential plot. The murders, the sentient sandfish, the alley gangs, etc. When I set the stage, I have a handful of plot arcs and ideas that I sprinkle into the plot - but I also make room for players to toss in their own ingredients and then try to build on the things that players seem most interested in interacting with (or: ideas that will help bring the game in to land in the desired time frame). For example: New Prussia was entirely an offhand player embellishment that became a major plot point! (And also had the practical function of pointing us toward a clear denouement.)
I still struggle with how much to expose to players in terms of actively directing plot vs letting forum interactions drive that evolution behind the scenes. On one end of the spectrum: a group Choose Your Own Adventure exercise, on the other end: a set of calculations that are entirely invisible to the players. For better or for worse, I’ve aimed for the invisible end of the spectrum.
The downside is that many potential stories die on the vine within the gamespace. I can only hope that the unexplored stories continue to fire imaginations after all is done.
As a final note, I’ve consistently heard across several games that that obfuscating the risk/reward calculations seems to be the preferred option. Without a ‘mathematical optimum’, it lets players sit with their characters to decide what the character would choose to do. I think this is a net win.
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I’m inclined to agree. If Badass games were just, y’know, games, with clear win conditions and optimum choices and character builds, they wouldn’t be nearly as fun, IMHO. I don’t want to give away my overall goals in the next Badass game, but historically I have never actually played to win, as such. I mean, survival is a good outcome, but so is going out in a blaze of glory, as long as I’ve had enough time to leave a (skid)mark. “Tie the curtains to the sheets! Let 'em know you’ve been there!” to paraphrase George Carlin. More than once I’ve had to choose between a character move that might directly advantage my character (even at the expense of other players who decided to trust me) and a more self-sacrificing move that may or may not have been 100% strictly in character. And I always resolved those dilemmas by asking myself which choice would make for a more entertaining story, and I’ve never regretted any of those choices, even though it usually resulted in fried Space Lizard guts floating around the firmament.
If it becomes a numbers game because the mechanics are too… well, mechanical, then I find it less interesting, and fortunately most Badass games have leaned toward making the numbers mostly honest (very occasionally fungible in the direction of a Good Show, at least in the one I helped run) but also mostly obscured, which freed us from the tiresome minmaxing and rules-lawyering that a more “competitive” game might engender.
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Badass for me is verbal Calvinball, and I like it that way.
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