Draft Cover

GenCon!

I realize we just got back in the gear of things, but my posting on Secret Wars will unfortunately be disrupted by attending GenCon over the next week (Tuesday to Tuesday, approximately). I’m sure I will be buzzing with new info and ideas upon my return, but I’m not sure if I’ll have the time or energy to conduct any real design work while I’m there, aside from playtesting Giger Counter and Avatar.

If you are a Secret Wars reader who I’ve not met, please feel free to come find me at GenCon! I will be manning the Games-on-Demand table for much of the time and also will be running Joshua BishopRoby’s Full Light Full Steam as part of Indie Games Explosion. I will also be working to promote the Indie Passport program, since I helped Fred Hicks organize it, and generally hanging with the alt-roleplaying crowd. We are nice and friendly!

In any case, see you on the flipside.

How to Use Seeds

Until now, I haven’t given you anything concrete and procedural you can do with seeds. (See the main document for a brief intro about seeds.) Don’t mistake that as “I haven’t given you anything,” though, because the other stuff is important too. But here’s some thoughts on the purpose of seeds and ways to make them more useful for you.

Seeds are around to serve as a combined brainstorm-in-a-bottle, communication device, record-keeping tool, and setting-bible for your game.

So, a seed record has a number of lines to write things on it. On the big top line, write down the initial concept of the seed. Keep the seed records close at hand, and as you incorporate them, write down the ways in which you used them. A seed doesn’t have to correspond to exactly one thing in the fiction, and the ways you use it don’t have to be completely direct; maybe “a man crowned with lightning” inspires you to include “a knight with armour made of ice”, so then write that down on the seed.

Similarly, when you need to make some element—when you have to add a character to a scene, or set a scene in a new environment, or just embroider an existing element with some more detail, when you create an essence or a picece-of-god—glance over the seeds and see where you can incorporate one or more of them.

If you do this diligently, then your stock of seeds will slowly become a kind of setting bible. Seething bibles are neat!

That doesn’t really explain how seeds are a communication tool, though. So, like, here it is: If someone makes something you think is pretty cool, then you can make it a seed. Maybe you think the ice knight was keen, and so you say, hm, seed that, and later you build it up into a whole brotherhood of ice knights. That’s a specific, ritual message to the creator, “I am intrigued by this particular idea and wish to see it again.”

If you’ve got a seed that’s lain unused for a long time, then you should point it out; after you point it out, if no one starts using it then, you can file it away for a few sessions. Maybe the game’s going in a direction that that seed doesn’t fit in at the moment, or maybe it’s just not very exciting to anyone. Don’t discard it or disbar anyone from using it, but just take stock every so often and see if you can reduce clutter on the table by setting aside the seeds that are less active.

Expert at Making Bad Movies

Finally played zombie survival horror with the latest version of Giger Counter. It went really well, overall. I’m getting a firmer handle on what the mechanical pacing should be like, at least for a group of 5-6 players. However, I’m beginning to worry, because, so far, we’ve only made really BAD movies.

Playtest #1: Storm Windows, a late night tv movie about a high school caught in a major storm while a slasher was on the loose.

Playtest #2: Queen of the Swarm, SciFi channel movie about a government-sponsored group sent to investigate the alien infiltration of a secret research facility.

Playtest #3: Til Undeath Do Us Part, hordes of zombies assault a wedding party trapped on a private island.

I enjoy the occasional bad horror movie as much as the next guy, but I was kinda writing Giger Counter to create GOOD survival horror movies in the vein of Alien(s), Scream, and classic zombie flicks. I’m not sure if it’s the current rules that are keeping that from happening, if the players (who have mostly been new to the system each time) don’t have enough of a handle on things to pull that off the first time, or if we just need to collectively decide we are going to make a really good movie and not play it for cheesy laughs.

One thing that I think would help would be spending more time on the brainstorming that leads up to picking an overall premise. That’s one thing that makes Primetime Adventures work so well and may be the key ingredient missing here.

Grandmother Darkness

We were tethered to the Earth, until Grandmother Darkness came back from her journey. No one know where she went and she will not say, but she brought back something: a canoe that sails across the sky.

So I was talking to Jon about what to post and then I though about a setting for Earth & Sky, and I mentioned Victoriana, and he’s like, what? And I’m like, yeah, anime-style. And then somehow, this came out, and it’s not Victorian at all. Whoops. Or anime-style, for that matter. But I think it’s something neat. I’m going to try and do this Last Days of Old Macau-style, encapsulating everything I can in game-mechanical concepts.

The quick lowdown: The culture we’re talking about here is fragmented across the stars, but it has some customs that all the branches inherit from Earth; these are those. I want to get across some like faux Native American colour here, in the naming customs in particular. Naming the self-culture Us is part of that too; I’m imagining here a thing where some fictitious Plains nation becomes an imperial power and comes into control of America prior to the European invasion, and retains its identity and status while it picks up technology and customs from the Europeans.

Note that none of these rules are unbreakable or even unbendable. Every Earth & Sky character must, as a core part of her identity, break at least one. They should also be, from the players’ point of view, sex objects. That means only that, when you create a character, you must include in that character some aspect that stirs your blood. Create someone desirable, or someone lovable, or someone you could use.

Boys Have Names, Girls Have Families

The naming customs of Us are strict. An adult may call himself whatever he wishes, within these rules: A name has one or two descriptive words, plus, for a man, a name from a sacred text, or for a woman, a family epithet. Family epithets are name elements used only by women, heritable from either grandmother. They are words that specifically denote femaleness: Lady, Mother, Woman, Maiden, Girl, Witch, Queen, Concubine. That’s not an exhaustive list, but there aren’t really very many of these. Feminine names are known, but they are seldom used.

The epithet Grandmother is no longer in use by anyone except Grandmother Darkness, who brought the first sky canoe, and the Black Bird Women, her cult, women who feel a mysterious calling and paddle out into the night and return robed in black, blind and with feathers in their hair, with a sky canoe of their own. There are five “families” of Black Bird Women: Crow Grandmother, Raven Grandmother, Fruitbat Grandmother, Swan Grandmother, and Vulture Grandmother. Apart from the head of each family, all the Black Bird Women add an additional descriptive word to their name.

The naming custom reflects the attitude Us have toward aid; men are expected to be very independent and self-reliant, whereas women have fairly free access to the support of their community and others. There are women who professionally give advice, &c., but it would be absolutely unheard of for a man to consult one.

Boys Go Out, Girls Stay Home

It’s been hundreds of years since any of Us have had to diligently tend a fire, but it’s still expected that boys will go out into the world and girls stay at their mother’s side until they are grown, and then they will settle in a new place. To this day, girls’ schools are local affairs with classes conducted by teachers resident in the community, while boys’ schools are typically large boarding schools or even caravans that run a yearly circuit around the communities they serve.

It’s expected that men, therefore, are adaptable and well-roundedly capable, but their inability to settle makes it difficult for them to achieve the deep mastery of a specialised field that is considered the province of women.

Boys Do Things, Girls Know Things

Whenever there’s a task that needs doing or action that needs springing into, ask a man to do it. When there’s a question that needs asking or answering, ask a woman about it. That’s how people among Us get things done.

Boys Must Cover Their Flesh, Girls May Wear What They Please

Male flesh causes unseemly and unnatural urges in all people who see it, so men must wear long pants and shirts with cuffs that cover their hands, leaving just their fingers exposed.

Monster Mash

Wow, two weeks is a long time to go without brain-dumping game thoughts. Here’s a bunch of things that I’ve been thinking about for Giger Counter, my survival horror game.

Playtest Condition List

• Trapped: Can’t leave current Location as long as this Condition is active.
• Fleeing/Chased: Can’t spend more than one scene in the same Location as long as this Condition is active.
• Alone: Can’t be in a scene with any non-Monster/Traitor characters as long as this Condition is active.
• Unprepared: Can’t use any Tools as long as this Condition is active.
• Lost: Is in an unmarked Location that is not on any card, so it is impossible to move into or out of without changing the “Lost” Condition to something else.
• Presumed Dead: Can’t be in any scenes at all while this Condition is active, though the character’s “corpse” can be. While you are Presumed Dead, feel free to assist in playing Monsters.
• Freaking Out: Can’t use any of your Background or Dark Secret/Hidden Talent dice while you’re in this Condition.
• Infected/Compromised: Once you take this Condition, every character that’s in a scene with you should roll a die during the scene. If they get a 5-6, they also gain this Condition, in addition to any other Conditions gained during the scene. You cannot change this Condition until you have given it to at least one other character.
• Traitor: Reveal your Dark Secret. From now on, you must actively seek to harm, delay, or otherwise impair the progress of non-Monster/Traitor characters. You can still fight other Traitors and Monsters and they may decide to fight you. You can only gain this Condition if all the Monster’s traits have been revealed and you can’t change it once you have it.

What You Do On Your Turn

1. Change your characters Conditions to other Conditions, if you like.
1A. Describe a mini-scene explaining how those Conditions change.

2. Pick the characters and location for a scene that you will frame. Try to avoid framing scenes that include your own character until all the Monsters’ traits have been revealed.

3. Set the scene, describing the Location and characters (including their current Conditions) in lurid detail, using shot-framing if you like.

4. Give the characters a few minutes to explore the scene, describing anything they encounter.

5. Create a conflict, assuming the characters don’t find one on their own. The conflict can be of 4 different types:
– impair their progress towards their goals (the passage is blocked! the car breaks down!)
– there is strange new information that must be deciphered (wait, why is it dark? where’d everybody else go? what do these symbols mean? what’s that smell?)
– they are suddenly attacked by Monster or Traitor characters!
– an inter-character dispute arises between them from their exploration of the scene

6. Describe and resolve the conflict, possibly earning characters some Conditions and/or discovering new information about the Monster(s).
6A. Have a mini-scene where the new Conditions or Monster information is explained.

Honestly, I’m not sure about the placing of the “a” mini-scenes. I want them to fit organically into the pacing of the game, but I’m not sure how. If suddenly you are Trapped, it’d be good to explain how you came to be Trapped. We’ll try this for now and see how it works.

My House is a Very Very Fine House

We are both settled in a little bit more now, so we are resuming updates. LET THE BATTLE BE REJOINED!

New Digs

Both Shreyas and I have been moving residences this past week. Before that, I was at a week-long conference for work. Thankfully, the bulk of that is behind us and we will soon be fighting the Secret Wars once more.

We’ve missed you too.

The Ancient Varnams

Varnam is a sanctum—the holiest holy of a temple, the emotional centre of a dance, the ritual climax of a story.

In the stories of the seed, all the great arts—dance, music, story, song, and battle—have old varnams passed down from forgotten ages. Almost like living people, they have names and histories, and different kinds of strength and weakness. To possess a great varnam is to have a powerful and unpredictable ally.

I imagine the varnams appearing in play as a character reaches out in desperate effort during a struggle; there is as a thunderclap, and then the world is stilled and silenced by the beauty of this ancient treasure. The four gracious varnams are expressive, undeniable outcries, their power wrapped around a core of pain or crisis, and the savage varnam is the opposite, an exquisite killing whirlpool anchored by its performer’s unshakable peace. In the varnam’s wake there is astonishment, exhaustion, awe, and all manner of deference; it takes something from all of us.

How’s this work in the system? As yet I don’t know, although I do know that a varnam has a name and a purpose—The Rain Walking Back, proof against storms, Pearl-Dropping Fingers, which sows the seeds of war, Scent of Pine & Fire, which makes one pleasing to the eye and ear and nose, River Fortress Rising, a defence against monsters, and others. They may have a subsystem of their own, because they don’t have an obvious implementation to me just now.

Maybe they make an argument become still! The user spends all his stars of war, and in a scene, anyone can spend as many stars as remain there to remove just one. That way, you only ever use it as an extreme last resort, because it means that you’re exhausted and have seriously delayed getting what you want out of the argument too.

I think I’ll actually make a list of the varnams and what you need to do to get them, eventually. This is a part of the game, like the heroic traditions, that I don’t want to leave to chance. Or, like, to players.

(for those of you that can read IPA, that’s pronounced ʋɝɳʌm as far as I can tell.)

Sharing the Plague

There are, coincidentally, a whole bunch of people working on survival horror games, all of which are tangentially related to Vincent’s work on Dogs in the Vineyard and Afraid. I am going to list them here for personal reference and to remember to read them all carefully before playtesting Giger Counter again.

- Vincent Baker, Afraid
- Ashi, A Quick Survival Horror Dogs Hack
- Carl Rigney, Zombies in the Vineyard
- Eric Provost, The Infected