Nilo
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Re: Complications and Climactic Trouble

Sun 29 Jan 2017, 10:16

I think 2 and 3 are great examples of you succeed but....

In 1 it's a failure and the complication doesn't apply. It's already complicated to fail, so the player's choice when she pushed doesn't matter anymore.

But I think it's a good failure, as it makes the Kid act, pushing the story forward.


There is no difference in failing with or without pushing.
If you succeed with a complication you succeed in what you do, but with some kind of complication that could but mustn't lead to new trouble.
If you fail, you fail at what you doing. Which doesn't have to mean that you get a condition. It could, if the Gamemaster said so when you rolled the dice.

These rules are meant to be interpreted, at every roll, by the Gamemaster and the players. It's not chess-rules, because it's not that kind of game. You mentioned Mouse Guard earlier. Luke Crane wrote (if I interpret him right) the original Burning Wheel so that the rules would shield the players from him as a GM. These rules aren't built on competition between players and GM. They are meant to help you create a great story, where the Kids often but not always win. If you play as a competition. It will be less fun.
 
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Karbonara
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Re: Complications and Climactic Trouble

Sun 29 Jan 2017, 11:02

In 1 it's a failure and the complication doesn't apply. It's already complicated to fail, so the player's choice when she pushed doesn't matter anymore.

There is no difference in failing with or without pushing.
....
These rules are meant to be interpreted, at every roll, by the Gamemaster and the players. It's not chess-rules, because it's not that kind of game.
Rules says you take the condition from pushing if you so choose, so if I in the end fail – there is a difference.
I can come out of it with a condition+failure outcome, or no condition+failure outcome.

That, to me, is an inconsistency.

Regarding rules. MG's structure actually promote collaborative storytelling, as I think TFTL does as well.
However, the key to narrative rules is to be clear and through clarity give freedom.
A clean engine warrants more narrative.

I realize you are not interested in adding clarity to this, and I will simply have to live with an inconsistency where I will have to make my own adjustment for my players.

I just think it is sad, with such a clean rules set, to not but the extra effort into making it clear, especially when it feels like it's so close to being really well-balanced as a whole.
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Karbonara
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Re: Complications and Climactic Trouble

Sun 29 Jan 2017, 11:15

I will keep playtesting though (next session is in an hour), and since it's all recorded, there is a chance to hear the game being played without any game maker in the group – which could be interesting.
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Spelutvecklare, skribent, och Fria Ligan hang-around. (Det bara blev så.)
 
Nilo
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Re: Complications and Climactic Trouble

Sun 29 Jan 2017, 12:07

I think I am being really clear.

If you take condition when you push you will get the condition even if you fail.

If you take complication you don't get a condition but if you succeed you don't get the best result.

It's a gamble.

What is not clear to you?
 
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Karbonara
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Re: Complications and Climactic Trouble

Sun 29 Jan 2017, 12:40

That's what I was looking for.
That is also what's not clear in the rules.

If you get that in there, it works.
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Nilo
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Re: Complications and Climactic Trouble

Sun 29 Jan 2017, 12:46

That's what I was looking for.
That is also what's not clear in the rules.

If you get that in there, it works.
Great! I will see if we can make the text clearer. The system is built to ask a question to the player: "is this a situation where you will take high or low risk?" I want the player to evaluate the situation, how important is it that this gets just right, is there room for second bests?

Hope you will have a good game today! :)
 
Nilo
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Re: Complications and Climactic Trouble

Sun 29 Jan 2017, 14:11

And thanks for a good discussion and great input! We'll see how the game turns out :)
 
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Karbonara
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Re: Complications and Climactic Trouble

Mon 30 Jan 2017, 00:19

I believe it's turning out really well.
All my players have really enjoyed that it takes them to new roleplaying spaces, and I feel that GM'ing it also is a nice change from other games.

I like that I hardly ever use the rulebook during sessions (granted, by using a rules summary sheet).
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cdipierro
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Re: Complications and Climactic Trouble

Mon 30 Jan 2017, 20:15

I just had my first run of the game last week and thought complications were really smooth. I didn't see anything in the rules about not getting a complication on a failure. The way I ran it was like a Despair from the Edge of the Empire game system. Basically a Complication is something outside of - but related to - the stakes of the original Trouble. Whether you fail or succeed to fight the bully, if you earned a complication from pushing or from failing the check the situation gets more interesting. The classmate you wanted to talk walks off while you're brawling, a parent or teacher notices the fight and grounds the kid or puts them in detention. Something that adds another hurdle for the kids to get around.

My most memorable example was the Kids trying to listen into a police officer's radio. They failed their Tinker roll to tune their Walkie Talkie to the right radio band, pushed for a complication, and succeeded. So they listened in to the conversation, but the officer heard the feedback got out of the car and noticed them. So we got a chase scene of them biking away while the officer tried to catch delinquents who were supposed to be in school.
 
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Karbonara
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Re: Complications and Climactic Trouble

Tue 31 Jan 2017, 01:40

I didn't see anything in the rules about not getting a complication on a failure.
It actually only mentions that you get a complication on a success, but yes, I tried it your way as well - adding spice to the situation.

The problem comes out of constant Complications. Most scenes require a push. If you compare getting a -1 on all future rolls vs one complication now, my players started picking complications.

Even though, at first glance, that leads to fun situations - you'll actually get that out of failures as well (since they don't have to, or even should, be hard failures) therefore advancing the story.

But constantly stringing complications will essentially string scenes that never quite end and I just noticed that aspects or segments of the mystery kept happening (kept locking the players to the previous scene) instead of segwaying onto the next act or step.

Complication narrative can be achieved with failure, while the beauty of conditions is that they WILL create interim Everyday life scenes of relations and companionship. They get to initiate the breaks and can then act as a counter to a hectic mystery scene (or scenes).
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Spelutvecklare, skribent, och Fria Ligan hang-around. (Det bara blev så.)

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