Story gaming

[stubby]

Despite all logic and common sense, I am always trying to think of ways to work mechanics from story gaming into BrikWars, like the Bennies and the Heroic Feats and WISG rolls. (And the Kanon stuff too, although that hasn't been as successful.)

I think it would be cool if the game mechanics rewarded players for trying just as hard to make each other look awesome as trying to defeat each others' forces. (Best case is the death scene where you make your opponent look super cool even as you're executing him.)

For example, off the top of my head: what if, when a Hero described his Stupendous Feat, you had the option to just take a Benny instead of rolling to oppose it? Saves time rolling against Feats that aren't worth the trouble of opposing, and encourages players not to waste time with Feats that aren't worth giving opponents a free Benny over.

I know nobody else here cares about story games systems, but I wonder if anybody else has funny ideas along these lines. Are there good mechanical ways to encourage players to allow or even assist enemies to be awesome, even while fighting to crush all their hopes and dreams without mercy or remorse?

[Quantumsurfer]

I know nobody else here cares about story games systems

Surprisingly untrue.

I think folks around here are almost always trying to ram as much cool story stuff as possible into games, even if they are putting on their cool guy shades and pretending not to care. As to systems specifically, there are a fair few of us who try to create thematic mechanics. Much of the stuff I put up on the forums, for example, is a collaborative effort which embodies the attitude you describe. I have archived reams of notes and PMs from players and hosts all trying to work together or with me to create more awesome story content. It's just more fun. But all the house rules and bent mechanics we come up with are specific and, of course, you want broader stuff that can apply easily to all games, yeah?

Right now, I can only say that I like everything you've put in so far in this regard. And I dig the Benny for Feat idea a lot. I sometimes forget to even oppose my opponent because (when they have cool sounding feats...and they usually do) I actively want them to succeed. Dropping the roll speeds the game along and inspires more awesome rather than less. And you also make a really good point about encouragement. It's what you have Bennies doing anyway, helping players to tailor make their experience to one another. I'll definitely give this some thought.

[Steel_Valkyrie]

Yeah. Everyone's canon is like their child, and most of the people love having it added onto. Most of the people on the forum don't play to win, they play to have fun. if you try to do the opposite, it kinda goes against the game. The benny-for-a-feat idea Sounds pretty good, if the feat's pretty ossum. But I guess what it all comes down to is how serious the players are.

[stubby]

I know nobody else here cares about story games systems

Surprisingly untrue.

Well, I guess I should have capitalized. I know lots of people care about story in their BrikWars games. But I'm talking about the mechanics of the Story Games genre, that kind of explosion of indie games in the tradition of Vincent Baker and the old Forge forums, which I guess is sort of continued over on story-games.com (but maybe not really). Best explanation I've found is over here: http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/ ... game#40949

In general...
A Storygame is a game where the mechanics are mostly about driving the narrative, rather than resolution of actions.

A primary example of a storygame is Fiasco - in fiasco, you don't resolve actions - you resolve scenes. Either a positive or a negative outcome, but it's a rsolution to the scene and the scene's dilema, not to a specific action.

Less clear but still generally storygames include Dogs In The Vinyard, John Wick's Houses of the Blooded and Blood and Honor.

See also games like Shock: Human Contact, Primetime Adventures, The Quiet Year, Universalis, etc.

In old Forge terminology, Story Games are games with "Narrativist" mechanics and focus, while miniatures wargames normally have "Simulationist" mechanics and focus.

[Quantumsurfer]

Gotcha. I was thinking along similar lines when I was working on the BWRPG. Own a couple of card games with a similar style.

[stubby]

Which is not to say that you have to be familiar with any of those games to have good ideas for how to reward BrikWars players for pursuing the creation of awesomeness as much as victory. They're just a great trove of really interesting and original ideas to look into, especially for people whose only experience of tabletop gaming are the standard variations on running characters through dungeony adventures or crashing miniature armies into each other.

[Steel_Valkyrie]

It's why I like Brikwars, having experience with Warhammer and D&D. It's not as serious and can have more story-driven content. I think the real problem is biased teams, not a DM, making the calls for bonuses, though.

[Keldoclock]

I know nobody else here cares about story games systems,

I guess you don't know then! Burning Wheel is the tits and has been since like 2008.

[L-Man]

Nobody cares about story-driven games? Seriously?
Brikwars is the only wargame I have stumbled upon that doesn't take the whole win/lose stuff seriously. Hell, even these half-assed joke systems like ToyMallet 40c don't have Heroes using Feats just to create some more nonsense and chaos and/or make themselves look cool. The only exception from this is Risus (which I am a huge fan of), but that's an RPG, not a wargame.

Of course, there are no mechanics that would reward the player for good role-playing directly, but that's not a problem. For example, around a week ago, me and my neighbour played a small game (~10 figs on each side). Both of us had a Hero Unit, and we agreed that once every 3 turns, a Hero could use a completely free Feat to modify a world around him, introducing a small terrain feature, a non-combat unit, or providing (mostly cosmetic) changes to already existing units.
Examples:
The meth wizard decided that the battle is a bit boring, so he called upon a striptizer.
In response, his rebellious Apprentince summoned a rain of poop to scare away the striptizer and interrupt the show.
Then the meth wizard said in a powerful voice: "My student, I must confess to you. You are... my... daughter!"
Apprentince (in a girly voice) "NOOOOO".

And so on.

[Quantumsurfer]

Ok, I have a couple of ideas.

Dynamic Objectives -- I know, but hear me out. So, in For Great Justice, I have a series of Static Objectives set out for each player. This works out ok only because I have an entire scoring schema to support it. I have one player who is really only interested in the first of his three objectives. I get the impression he would do the others if he can and he's got nothing left to do but they are very, very low on the priority list. Which is actually totally fine because of the reasons (I think) that he's so focused on the primary objective. First, it's what the characters in his army would want more than anything, from a story standpoint. And second, perhaps more importantly, it's what he wants to experience as a player while playing those characters. This is made even more important given that FGJ is a campaign series and so the actions and objectives in this game might very well affect the next and the players are invested enough to be thinking that far ahead. So the end result is that he's created a fun narrative for himself (and some or all of the other players) in place of simply checking off items on a to do list.

So that got me thinking: what if players set their own objectives? Each player would get to choose a special objective based on the cliche/theme of their Hero/Army, in addition to whatever their armies were trying to do normally, and if both players agreed on the objectives, they'd be added to the game and would provide a reward when completed. Like, a peach hating army might decide their special objective is to wipe the opposing peach army's Mediks off the face of the earth so that when the buggers go down, they stay down. Or a vain Hero might decide the opposing player's mech would look better with him sitting in it and resolves to kill the pilot and steal it, rather than destroy it outright. I'm thinking the reward would be twofold. One immediate in-game gain and one gain after the game. The obvious option would be to reward a Benny on completion of objective. I think the reward would need to be worth having but not be super major so it doesn't derail the game. What if it were "1 Effect Die?" So in the instance of the peach haters, when all the peach Mediks are dead, they gain the ability to once per turn reroll one damage die. In the instance of the Mech, when the hero succeeds in stealing it, as long as he's riding around in it, it has 1 higher armor or damage die or moves +1d6 faster or something. As for the out of game reward, this would only matter when you're running campaigns and using the Kanon System. So, in that, you have the winner of the game presenting a "what happens next" story that the loser then gets to modify in some regard. What if these Dynamic Objectives modified the flow of that narrative structure? Each player who completed an objective gets another narrative node. So if the winner didn't complete his but the loser did, the winner would say, "After the battle," the loser would counter with "But also," and then add "Furthermore..." They could mix this up if they both won. The winner would present something, the loser would counter, the winner would modify the counter or present something new, and the loser would modify or counter based on what seems appropriate.

You could do more objectives, but I feel like this might get confusing. Maybe implement a Kanon Points system for campaigns? Like, everyone gets a point for playing and each objective you complete grants a point, then you spend these points to tell bits of the overall story together. As an aside, I wonder if there shouldn't just be a section describing campaigns. RPGs do this often, setting aside a section to make linked adventures seem more special. Sometimes, they present rules in those sections to support the longer running format. Which is pretty much what your Kanon rules are.


Triggers -- While thinking about the broader dynamic objectives, I came across a card game in my closet called Once Upon a Time. It's a storytelling card game where players are dealt cards that have narrative categories and fairytale words and illustrations printed on them. One player begins telling a story and plays the cards in her hand to drive the narrative (mentions the gallant hero, plays the Knight card, and so on). If the player mentions the name or concept printed on another player's card, that player can play their card and hijack the story. This goes on, with players hijacking the story from one another and attempting to steer it in the direction of their ending. First one to play all of their cards and then their ending card finishes the story and wins the game. So this got me thinking about Triggers as Special Abilities. Players would pick out Characters (Heroes, SuperNaturals, maybe Specialist Squads, anyone else important enough to name) and build IF-THEN like statements based around their lore/kanon/cliche/theme, where the "then" serves as a kind of special ability they wouldn't normally be able to perform. If they are triggered, their ability could even interrupt the flow of the other player's turn. A berserker that damages the first person to hit him on a turn, a stalwart defender that gains armor when it isn't his turn, a vampire that builds blood magik as he racks up kills, a ninja that gets a ninja vanish free move once per turn but only if attacked, a wheelman who gets an extra stunt die if he performs his signature move, a squad of skirmishers that gain a higher move rate if all they do in a turn is move and sprint, that kind of thing. I don't know what kind of general balancers you'd need to include to make it work across the board but a generic rule like this might inspire players to flesh out the concepts behind their armies and characters more. Provide thematic abilities themselves without you having to create an exhaustive list of possible choices.

That's all I've got right now.

[stubby]

The only exception from this is Risus (which I am a huge fan of), but that's an RPG, not a wargame.

Yes! Risus and BrikWars have such an odd similar history, but somehow I never heard of it until I ran into the author in Denver while I was still working at Lego Universe. The Risus Cliche system and BrikWars' Heroic Cliches in particular are very similar. (I think his preceded ours by two or three years).

[L-Man]

You could do more objectives, but I feel like this might get confusing. Maybe implement a Kanon Points system for campaigns? Like, everyone gets a point for playing and each objective you complete grants a point, then you spend these points to tell bits of the overall story together. As an aside, I wonder if there shouldn't just be a section describing campaigns. RPGs do this often, setting aside a section to make linked adventures seem more special. Sometimes, they present rules in those sections to support the longer running format. Which is pretty much what your Kanon rules are.

You have some pretty interesting ideas. I like the Kanon Points system, but that's something which should be agreed upon by the players. Not everyone is interested in step-by-step story building, some just want a 2-3 battles linked by a common plot. Although I wonder if we could somehow combine these into something more consistent. For example, a player can spend a Kanon point to present a single "scene" in the storyline, introduce a new friendly (or hostile - whatever your twisted mind likes) NPC for your faction, or give a 1-die bonus to a character for the course of one battle. Maybe even boost Minifigs who have completed their objectives into full-fledged Heroes, with Cliches and all that shit. Or maybe save an important character from dying in battle (you know, plot armor).

Dunno if you know it, but GURPS system does something very similar - if a player has unspent character points (which you use to buy everything in the game - stats, skills, perks, wealth, social status...), he may spend 1 or 2 to tell a little bit of the story, adding a detail which wasn't mentioned by the GM, but is plausible in given circumstances.
For example, a scientist in a military lab which was just attacked by aliens may proclaim "I quickly approach the security console in the corner and check camera footage." because such console is likely to exist in a high-security facility.

[Quantumsurfer]

Yeah, I dig that. Boosting a well-performing fig from regular to hero is something I've already even done with the existing Kanon System. Reminds me of playing Risk as a kid and recording the serial number printed on the bottom of that one 1-unit guy who defends the gateway to Africa against impossible odds.

You know, it's weird, but for all my immersion in RPGs over the past 25 years, I've never once actually gotten to play a game of GURPS. I played a DBZ fan made variant once. And I read the 4th (?) edition book when a friend brought it over for a game we never played. But what you talked about triggered the memory of a superb RPG called …in Spaaace!. Super funny system, 15 page rulebook, fast and fun game. Whole thing uses bidding tokens to control the flow of the story.

[mgb519]

"I know nobody else here cares about story games systems"
Well shit, I guess I might as well drop out of college then.

[stubby]

You know, it's weird, but for all my immersion in RPGs over the past 25 years, I've never once actually gotten to play a game of GURPS.

We were just talking over here about how no one has ever played a game of GURPS, but everyone owned a copy because it was such a great resource for other games that could actually be played.

But what you talked about triggered the memory of a superb RPG called …in Spaaace!. Super funny system, 15 page rulebook, fast and fun game. Whole thing uses bidding tokens to control the flow of the story.

Holy shit, this is fantastic. Everybody go check it out, there's a free PDF download thanks to some kickstarter stretch goal or something.

It also has a good built-in model for setting the craziness level. If you want to incorporate a system like this into BrikWars to pull minor kanon tweaks during the game, everybody starts the game with 1 Token (or kanon equivalent). If you want a game where the plotline veers wildly back and forth, 7. If you want to play it straight, nobody gets any tokens.