Initial Playtest of highly revised Dragon World: a success!
Tagline: An Economic Fantasy Game. Or, How Adventures Pay the Rent. (thanks to Davey Cruz for that wording.)
This game needs a new name. Thoughts?
I've got a lot to say about it, and have deleted a couple super long posts.
What worked well: Assets / Bonds / Credit as stats. Creating a network of PC and NPC bonds. Creating a network of communities through the PCs. Pay the Rent move. PCs viewing characters and communities in playbook specific dualities. The deterministic violence moves from Jay Treat.
What needs moderate revising: Some of the specific dualities. The initial bonds. The GM facing material. Player moves should make mention of the dualities much more. The player facing Agenda and Principles, to help push the story. The Bond section, to make it more obvious that you know an NPC, and that the other players do, too.
I'm really fairly pleased with this outcome. Happy to talk about it.
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Well, summarize the game to me again and I can make a go at it. What are the players doing? What do they care about? What's the game about?
ReplyDeleteRobert Bohl
ReplyDeleteWhat are the players doing? Last night, mostly putting down a populous worker's rebellion in a coffee shop owned by the Mage. When played straight, they are going on adventures, paying the rent, and dealing with the fallout from going on adventures.Struggling to find their place in the world.
What do they care about? The economy is geared so they care about three things: their stuff, their personal relationships, and their place in communities. Those're the resources, and how they pay the rent. If they can't pay the rent, bad things happen.
What's the game about? Community, sort of. I mean, its about personal finance but don't tell anyone. Its about ... it's about how economic necessity changes our behaviors. Yeah. Its about a game about having power but still needing to buy bread.
Serf World? I'm trying to think of a word that evokes "you still gotta struggle to survive"
ReplyDeleteThis is cool and if you playtest it over Hangouts I'd love to join in.
ReplyDeleteThe Invisible Hand is the first thing that occurs to me.
ReplyDeleteAaron Griffin
ReplyDelete"Gig World", as adventures are like moon lighting which is like scrabbling together a bunch of gigs to pay the rent. "Rent World", "bourgeoisie & proletariat", "comrades and patrons".
Robert Bohl I'm reading a book now called The Invisible Heart, an economic romance. Given my love of monster hearts, I considered just stealing that title.
ReplyDeleteThat's a pretty rockin' title, William. Steal it.
ReplyDeleteI did read through the manuscript and liked what I saw a lot. I am confident it will not work for City of Brass the way I run it but I could conceive of a higher-powered game that would work nicely under those rules.
Adam Dray Cool.
ReplyDeleteThis is def not geared towards the sort of poverty you want in City of Brass. Changes to starting resources, the pay the rent move, and how you gain resources could do a lot of the poverty. You'd still be pretty powerful people, though -- not first level characters in a tenth level world.
Adam Dray man I stole the hell out of your images for City of Brass.
ReplyDeleteThe game I'm working on has a similar slant - an urban based game that's more about "working for The Man" and being insignificant in the grand scope of things. There's some things I want to enforce that I haven't figured out mechanics for, so Dragon World/Invisible Hearts/whatevs is going to work for inspiration
Aaron Griffin Here's the newest version, too: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1veP6xfxQ-QJIkYuUjQjpPncPjXlNRZ0KjJO2C4DkgJA
ReplyDeleteFeel free to give suggestions / ideas / thoughts / tell me I'm crazy.
Be kind, but don't feel a need to be nice.
Also, Adam Dray ? I'm stoked you liked it.
ReplyDeleteJust some initial comments, but it's more about formatting than the game:
ReplyDelete1. I feel a bit like I'd be flipping back and forth on the playbook a lot. I haven't printed it to see, but i wonder if swapping the L and R on the first page of a playbook (so the "front" of a folded book has the less-volatile things like moves and the tracks at the bottom). I don't know which of assets/bonds/credit change the LEAST in play, but I'd stick that on the back. So then when the book is open in front of you you don't need to flip back and forth in regular play. Sort of spit balling without playing the game.
2. I love the Principles/Agendas right up front on the character sheet.
3. The "Size" line under community home might be redundant - Home (pick one) and then some check boxes next to each might be sufficient?
4. The headings and lists in Bonds/Credit is a bit confusing to me. I can see WHAT you're going for, but just by looking at the sheet, I don't know if I'm free to put names wherever, or what belongs where. Some of the headings (Straights/Androit?) also confuse me. This might be one of those "find JUST the right sentence" things.
5. I fucking LOVE that adventuring is just a roll that's glossed over. It's an amazing twist and reminds me of this article http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/15126/roleplaying-games/game-structures
Aaron Griffin Thanks!
ReplyDelete1. Maybe so! I've often found foldable playbooks to be both really hard to make and hard to print correctly. If I print with binding on long edge instead of short? Then it prints messed up. With these, like the Dungeon World sheets, I consider it two have two sides rather than 4. Agreed, it'll be a lot of turning it from one side to another. The first set of stuff -- look and moves -- changes the least. If I moved the tracks at the bottom of the first page to the credit section, then the first page would change during Advancement and for Assets. That might be good!
2. :-) I mean, I kind of stole that. I'm going to revise these, so that they drive the story more. For the Wizard, instead of "Be enigmatic and fearless", maybe choose 1 of: "Collect Secrets", "Involve yourself in Others plans", and "Put yourself in front of danger". Wording on those needs to be ironed out, but each is much more active.
3. Maybe so. I'm not drawing on a lot of prior art here, so it is probably the oddest.
4. Some need to be renamed, absolutely. Straight / Adroit, I was going for something like "Is this a community of thieves or of straights?", and that's a bit weird.
5. At least partially stolen. This is some combination of moonlighting and the mission moves in The Watch, and simpler than either (finally!).