Sanctum: The Fallout / Ends and Means

Time for the long-overdue blog post!

Here’s the stuff I’ve been considering in light of recent playtests.

The Simplification Experiment

We made the change this game to have narrators simply number their Ends and Means from one up, and to give everyone a single Plot Point. I liked the one major difference in play I observed: people sharing Plot Points among one another. When Trevor, Aleira and Moira were working to save Sergei’s life, they pooled their Plot to ensure that the first Foil — Aleira, with no Means — could Steal the Scene from me.

I liked that because it reinforces the collaborative style of this game (as opposed to a competitive style). And I like that I got there by simplifying the pre-game prep.

Continuing along this path will involve making all costs in Potential cheaper; giving one Potential for attendance; numbering down from your Weight Limit instead of numbering up from one; offering the ability to spend Potential at game start for bonus Plot Points (at 2:1 or 3:1); and other changes to balance the new economy.

Scenarios

Perhaps it’s too expensive; perhaps the option isn’t visible enough; perhaps the benefit isn’t compelling enough — but in four games, nobody has purchased a Scenario yet. That gives me pause. I had pictured a different behavior.

It could be for entirely positive reasons. I designed Scenarios to address common game dysfunctions, after all: you buy one when you’re bored, or when your personal plots aren’t being addressed, or when the Stagehands are too wrapped up in their own stuff. If our game isn’t having any of those problems, well then — naturally nobody avails of their solution!

Cues

I’m disappointed with Cues so far. They’re not doing what I want. I want them to a) help entangle people’s stories in unexpected ways, and b) provide an independent-of-Stagehands measure for the important things you’ve done in the game. It doesn’t look to me like that’s happening.

I learned an interesting lesson when I accidentally stepped on a Cue Collette had put up; I never even considered that when I’m stirring the pot as a Stagehand, I should take care to avoid fulfilling Cues. Those are obviously meant for players to claim; Collette was disappointed when I took the plot in a direction that curtailed that, stepping in as the Librarian to “answer” for the bludgeoning of her “slave boy.”

Tonya provided some heartfelt criticism around b). She feels like Moira is fulfilling her Ends, but she has no way to claim the mechanical awards for doing that, without engaging the Cue system — which has for her, thus far, been irrelevant. She’s done a whole lot of hardcore roleplaying, chasing her goals hard, never even going near the Cue Board. I wish I had a way to reward her for it, but I’m unwilling to step in with a declaration of “Look, I’m a Stagehand!” and bestow blessing.

I want Cues to measure progress toward your goals. I want Stagehands to have nothing to do with that measurement. I want the system to either resist collusion between players, or not be broken by it. How to do that? Design is hard!

Ends and Means in the setting of Sanctum got off to a dynamite start. There were so many fun moments that I almost don’t trust it! Surely E&M and Sanctum have more problems than came to light in the four hours of fun we experienced.

Here are those few moments that stand out to me in retrospect as details to watch:

1) Sara and I have very different styles of Stagehanding.

I like to resolve conflicts through the use of Ends and Means: one person gets what they want, and one doesn’t. I go about it gently, making sure everyone’s stake is clear, following the procedure carefully.

Sara, on the other hand, prefers to Bribe players into Compromise. She’s downright aggressive, in fact, always going for the hard sell. “Make this bargian! C’mon! It’ll be cool, c’mon!!!”

It makes for a crazy dichotomy. Sara uses a hard sell to reach a compromise, making everyone happy. I use a soft sell to see conflict through to its bitter end, winner and loser. And both styles are by-the-book.

QUESTION TO SARA: Sara, is this because you’re more comfortable with Bribes and Compromise than with the rest of the system? Do you intentionally try to avoid the rest of it?

2) The first big conflict. Setting good stakes.

Early in the game there was a big Mexican Standoff scene: my 1931 Soviet captain holding a gun to Sara’s 2007 Mafiosa, her thugs holding guns to me, the 1917 American infantryman holding a rifle on them, non-combatants in the line of fire: good stuff.

We’ve got some learning curve yet as far as good stakes-setting goes. The first time around, I was hearing stakes like “I scare the thugs into backing off,” and “I seduce this thug away from you.” In one-on-one conflict, that sort of thing can work (prosaically), but in this case I told everyone to stop and ask themselves WHY they were taking these specific actions. This resulted in much better Stakes, like “We get the information,” and “I protect the captain.”

Tonya also commented that it was confusing to Direct that many stakes. I think I need to communicate a clearer procedure for this — not a rigid structure, but a guide to help when it gets complicated.

3) Sara’s gaffe with the penthouse raid.

At one point, Sara’s supporting cast character (Vespa, the Mafiosa) was in conversation with a protagonist (Darius, the 2007 film-maker, played by Klaus). Tonya and Sarah B. came up to inform Sara that their protagonists
were going to search Vespa’s penthouse.

Sara made a gaffe at this point, in my opinion. She abandoned Klaus mid-conversation to go run a side-scene for Tonya and Sarah B. I don’t think that’s appropriate Stagehand etiquette. Here are the possible alternatives:

a) Sara sees no immediate conflict. “Go ahead,” she says. “Don’t do anything remarkable. I’ll check in with you when I’m done.”

b) Sara sees potential for a minor conflict. “You’ll have to wait until I’m done with this scene.” The situation at hand with Klaus gets first priority.

c) Sara thinks that this situation could have a major impact: it will require a good deal of her devoted attention. “That’s a Scenario,” she says. If Tonya and Sarah B. can purchase her time with 10 Potential, she’ll make a graceful exit from the scene with Klaus and go to give them a Scenario.

In general, I think a Stagehand should avoid getting deeply involved in any situation: we should always be able to extricate ourselves with a minimum of effort. The situation at hand, however, always takes precedence over the
next one in the queue. The only exception is Scenarios, where Narrators pay their hard-earned Potential for our time.

4) “Extortion.”

Sara came up with a Stagehanding strategy I had not foreseen. Some players would approach her to inform her of some action they were taking. She’d tell them, “Ah, but on the way, you get attacked by thugs! Unless you pay
me two Plot Points!”

I’m not sure how I feel like that. It seems a lot like an abuse of power. But is it? All the players have to do is say, forget it; then get into a conflict with her thugs, choosing high Ends and Means; and now all of a sudden, Sara has to pay all *them* Plot Points if she wants to be obstructive.

I guess maybe the thing I don’t like is that the players may not realize how much power they really have in this situation. Sara’s demeanor as an extortionist echoes certain abusive-GM archetypes I’ve encountered, when really the system prevents her from having too much of a bite.

5) Conflict can happen with a protagonist who isn’t fictionally present.

This came up three times:

Once, when Aleira (Kat’s medieval harem girl) wanted to disarm a thug via her feminine wiles, it was a conflict with Vespa (Sara’s supporting character) — who was across the room.

Again, when Moira and Joy (Tonya and Sarah B.’s protagonists) wanted to raid Vespa’s penthouse, it could have been a conflict with Vespa, who would have been elsewhere in the city.

Later, Moira (Tonya’s medieval baker) was trying to seduce Cpt. Petrokov (my 1931 Soviet policeman supporting character). But Aliera had already been attempting the same earlier that evening. I suggested a conflict between Moira and Aliera (who was elsewhere at the time) to determine Petrokov’s affections.

I think this is worth mentioning in the book — it’s a useful technique. But I’ll need to urge players to take care not to interrupt others’ scenes to make it happen.

6) Investing in your own failure.

Note to players: when you lose a conflict, embrace it! Fail like you mean it! You have control enough to make it dramatically appropriate: don’t throw away that chance.

At one point, I defeated Father Alphonso (Lawrence’s conquistador priest) in his attempt to kindle faith in Petrokov. When we began to act out the result, I needed him to give me an opening to distrust him. He didn’t realize that I needed that, not until I prompted him.

Hopefully I’ll have more chances to fail in front of players, showing them how to really ham up their own defeats. I did it once, portraying a minor thug seduced by Aleira. She wanted him to give up his gun — and it was a fun moment, playing out how he gave her the weapon so she’d be able to protect herself!

7) Establishing hand signals.

I can think of two hand signals we need, to cut down on intrusive patter:

a) a “Where are you?” signal, to ask whether a group of players have established themselves in some other fictional location than is obvious;

b) a “See me when you’re done” signal, to get the attention of someone in a scene without interrupting.

Downtime activities.

I can’t dodge this bullet forever.

I don’t want to do extra paperwork between games. But in a LARP, where significant time can pass between Acts, players instinctively look for a way to communicate what their protagonists do during that interim time.

Maybe the key is to see that downtimes only need to be communicated, not approved by a Stagehand. It’s just an extension of the player’s usual narrative powers.

This means that during downtimes, of course, nobody can initiate or resolve a meaningful conflict — but that’s what actual play is for anyway, isn’t it?

The link between Weight and Effectiveness.

The decisions you make at the beginning of the game, assigning Weights to your Ends and Means, have a decisive effect for the rest of the game. But is that effect graspable? Does anyone “get” it? I’ll have to check later, once a few
more games are under our belts; but I have a fear that it’s just not intuitive enough, that it feels too disconnected and random.

Ready, Set…Game!

So, the players hit the floor running, each one determined to call dibs on thier own personal piece of Sanctum.   Adam slips into the role of “The Communist” aka, Cpt. Sergei Petrokov, while I go peek out in the halls to watch the trainwreck that is surely unfolding…or is it?   The players waste no time on bumping into each other and the results are amusing to watch.  Tiffiny’s character, “Gilda Watson” is a social-climbing gold-digger from the 1920’s assumes that she must be hallucinating as she voices her thoughts out loud, wondering just what was in her drinks last night.  Chris, who is playing “Ricky Fortunado”, (The Bum), just assumes he is still drunk as well…And then there are the painfully sober, and faithfully religious who aren’t handling the shock quite so well.

It’s fourty Minutes since game start and no one has wondered into “Coffman Union” yet to interact with Adam’s SC…and no one has tried to kidnap me either, whether it be for questions or for confusion.   I’m tempted to see just how long we could let the game run itself, but throw on my suit jacket and tie instead, walking right into the fray as my SC “Vice-Dealer” Vesper Lauphel.   It takes another twenty minutes before someone makes use of me as a Stage-Hand, and that is for a brief question about whether or not there there is a supply store of some sort.

Observation: The play-testers needed so little of us, that we spent the majorty of time playing the Supporting Cast  (SC) …literally.   We play out our supporting cast characters no differently than if we were another player, with the exception that we can be subjected to Major Stakes in a conflict without being asked if we accept.

Concern: It’s going -Too- smoothly.   I’m with Adam in wondering if this is a fluke or if it’s really that well-oiled.   I’m sure we will find out after a few more games, but I can’t help being optimistic.

Stage-Hand Versus Stagehand - Vesper Lauphel versus Cpt. Sergei Petrokov

I knew Vesper was going to be a different sort of bastard than Sergei, and it -was- my intention to make Vesper one of those “Love to Hate” Persona’s, and with luck, a nessisary evil.   She’s  Vice-Dealer, which means she’s used to having a market; or in this case, she’s creating one by trying to get a monopoly on everything.   So, naturally, I expected some opposition.

What I wasn’t expecting was for Adam’s SC to be pitted directly against my own SC so often.   The players wasted no time in chosing sides and so they started using Sergei as a way to oppose Vesper.

This happened not just once, but three times.

Observations: I love the fact that players have started to form sides and act on intentions.  They are putting alot of planning and internal dialogue into what they are doing and it’s really adding a theatric charge to the entire game.  The Ends and Means system is working very well with Sanctum, and I’m satisifed with the overall effects. 

Concerns: I worry about protagonists becoming too dependent upon SC.  Stage-Hands play these to promote role-play and to introduce friction, plot, and dialogue that assist in keeping the game fluid and interesting, but there seems to be an awful lot of focus on our SC.    So it’s creating some question in my mind as to why.

Is this because players are used to situations in which Storytellers control the game through NPC’s?

Is it because we are just interesting SC and people want to interact with us for that reason?

Do the players really understand that we are playing on the same rules as them?   If they believe us to be ‘powerful’, do they realize that they have the ability to do the same things, or promote the same sort of roleplay?

I’m a little worried that our players are used to being re-active rather than pro-active.   Some of this worry has been disproven already by the sheer amount of incentive that some players have taken in making thier own mark on Sanctum, but I’m watching for the long-term as well.   It bears alot of watching, and if it is there; I’m going to have to focus on why it’s happening and what can be done to reduce it.

Sanctum Versus The Players : I finally get use as a Stage-Hand.

Finally….Over an HOUR into the game, someone finally comes to me for Stage-Hand related things.   There is a small group of protagonists who have secured the top of the clock-tower and made it into a sort of fortified refuge and watch-tower.   They have a telescope, (provided by someone’s means) and they want me to tell them what they see, and that they are trying to see over the city and see how big the city is.  Can they do it?  How big is it?  How far can they see?

I am about to tell them, ‘Sure, you look out and you see about two miles to five worth of city to any side of you.” when I stop myself, realizing this is the perfect chance to use the Opposition Brief, even if I don’t have to.   Using the opposition ends of Keep them ignorant and my opposition means of enviroment, I then declare my stake of it being too foggy to see to the edge of the city. The players involved choose the stake of “I’m able to see how big the city is.”

They win the stake, and I choose to not steal the scene.   I do however win narration.  I describe how they look over the city with the telescope and they see that on the edge of the city, which is a few miles to any side of the clocktower, there is a desert.  There doesn’t seem to be a determined end to the desert.

The small group of players have just won thier first ‘conflict’ against the actual world.

observation: There was palpable excitement when the players won thier stake, and although I didn’t to create a conflict against them, doing so really seemed to add flavor to what they were doing.  It seemed the players appreciated earning the answer instead of just being given it outright.

conerns: Adam seemed to have a concern with the scenerio, and asked me to validate why it needed to be done in the first place.  What was the benifit of them winning or losing the stake, and did the conflict matter?   

I admit that don’t share the concern, but I understand the logic of questioning the decision.  It’s important to know WHY it matters, and so this is the explanation I gave.

While I could have just given them the information without a conflict, this was the first time that either one of us used the oppposition brief that I am aware of that wasn’t via a supporting character.   The opposition brief exists because it’s a rather powerful tool used to drive story, plot and to offer a counter-balance to the weight of what players are doing.   So, by introducing opposition without actually using a SC, We are using the opposition brief to create situations that further the actual story, regardless of the outcome of the conflict.

So, a question for Adam: Does this explanation make sense?   Did you intend for the opposition brief to work this way, or was it to just help create Supporting Cast?   I have the belief that players like to feel as if they can make a difference, and that conflict doesn’t have to be  just when players disagree with Cast to Cast outcomes, but when a Stage-Hand makes use of a possible conflict, I think it gives the players the chance to feel they achieved something, or have something to achieve.

Inventing Extortion

After the watch-tower scene, it occurred to me that just because we don’t have to be involved, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be.   I realize that this is exactly the sort of thing that drives me CRAZY in other L.A.R.P.s, and that it might grate on Adam if I did it, I decided to do it anyways.   Don’t get me wrong, things were really great as so far as the game, but I was interested in seeing what affect Stage-Hand induced conflict would have.  (Besides, It was bound to happen eventually, even if not this game, so why not?)   Ironically, it was the players themselves that set my mind rolling to the idea of ‘extortion’ and it was Adam who named it.  I still have reservations of whether or not it is really extortion, or a glorified bribe. 

I had in mind that in normal ‘LARPs’, the Story-teller usually wastes an hour of your time to see if you can get something that should be pretty simple done.   For example, They can turn getting some groceries into some epic ordeal in which you get attacked by fifty bad guys and instead of just saying “you get there, or you don’t”, you have to do some long-winded scenerio that ends up taking two hours…just so you can go to the city.  With Ends and Means, you can introduce the same conflicts but without wasting all that time…

So, when a small group of players wanted to get some supplies, I informed them that one of some of Vesper’s thugs was going to try and stop them.   They got prepared to throw stakes, and I decided if I could take the shortening one step further.  I told them that if the group could pay me off with two plot points total, (not per person), then they wouldn’t enter into a conflict with the thugs.   They could have chosen to conflict, and certainly the advantage was with them, but they instead chose to take the automatic win and pay me off.

The result?  They got a conflict to add to thier story and got another reason to form an opinion about what happened without actually having to enter a real conflict.

Exploring this idea a bit more, I’m going to have to say that I think the general concern about this is the usual frustration that normally comes with opposition given by the ST’s in a MET style Game and how much time it can consume, sometimes without even given you any sort of answer.  Mostly, because there are times when all someone really wants sometimes is the answer to thier question.  “Can I do this?   Yes, I understand that the building is dangerous, I just want to know if I can do it!” and then spending hours figuring out if you can do that one thing when it might not even be something that important to the character.

So who’s to fault?  If those running the game didn’t give any sort of opposition, then there would be no conflicts, there wouldn’t be alot of tension, and I don’t think there’d be the thrill of achieving something that comes when there’s the chance you could fail; And it isn’t that the players don’t want this conflict, because many times they do.

The fault lies not with the players or those running the game most times, but in that with many systems, conflict resolution comes at the cost of consuming a generous chunk of time, and reducing the actual roleplay to nothing more than system mechanics that don’t reflect the actual story.  This gets frustrating for the players, and for those running the game for several reasons, but I think the main one comes from the time demand and consumption that doing non-player to player conflict has, not to mention the timesink of players waiting on the already over-taxed Storytellers just so they can reach the point of conflict resolution.

With Ends and Means, you achieve the benifits of conflict without the drawback of compromising huge chunks of time by being able to focus on the roleplay, instead of the mechanical function, - My own style of storytelling focuses on the Story, not mechanics…so this makes Ends and Means uniquely qualified for Sanctum: The Fallout, as a L.A.R.P.  

observations: Most of the players seem thrilled with how quickly conflict is resolved.  Many of them are used to M.E.T. (Minds Eye Theater) and there was an very tangible suprise from some of them when they realized they had won or lost the stake in a matter of moments.   Mechanics decide what the outcome is at the beginning, and how it happens, instead of both.   This adds a fluidity to the game that most players aren’t expecting.   It is that more fluid style of game-play that I want in the game, so I’m rather estatic that it is working as planned.

concerns: I know Adam had some concerns about extortion, and it’s really too soon to tell if the mechanic can be abused.  I think he has some points, but as he pointed out himself; the system is designed in a way that will curb most of the power the stage-hands holds.    The power of plot-points can work for or against the players, just as they can against the stage-hands; and that makes it a rather self-balancing scenerio.

 The Atlas and Census

observations and concerns: Adam’s had a few concerns about these, and they had a very valid foundation.   He worried that players might not want to participate because it required work on thier part.  He also felt it would be more work for the stage-hands.

The first concern so far has been proven wrong; the players overwhelmingly created new places and we had nearly fifty new places/locations for the Atlas.

But the second concern is very, very valid and apparent.   I’ve chosen to want them typed up so they are easier to read, and this is going to create a rather large workload.   If I decide I do not want them typed, there is almost NO work for the stage-hands.   We’ll have to wait a few more games before I decide the best way to fix this work-load issue.   It might fix itself, or I might have to impose that I prefer the entries to be typed out.   It’s too soon to tell.

Monday, January 15th - Preparation.

With the Ends and Means system, the supporting cast (NPCS) are determined by the Ends that players have chosen for themselves.  So, Adam and I got together for dinner and to familiar ourselves with just what kind of world the players have created. (After creating the Opposition Brief, I have to agree with Adam, that Sanctum is a cold, cruel world!….AWESOME

We started by posting each and every Ends that was created by someone on a post-it note; one ends per post-it.  It just so happened that the mini post-its that I had brought with me were mulit-colored.  Adam ended up with blue and I ended up with pink and that’s when Adam had yet another devious idea.  “Let’s sort them by gender” He comments, grinning at me.  I start laughing and agree; sorted by gender it is!   Adam takes the guys, I take the girls and both of us note that there is almost an even ratio of guy and girl in our beta-test.  Once we’re finished, we start sorting them into piles that suggest a theme, clumping similar Ends together until we feel it is about as organized as it is going to get.  At this point, We grab a different colored post-it note and start giving each one a title that might best explain what the mean could be and when we are finished with that, we go about labeling it with the exact opposite as well.   ie: Loved ones : Isolation.   Create something of worth: Destroy things of value.   The first title is what the players are attempting to achieve, the second title is the opposition.

 When we finish, we then write down each of the opposition values on a sheet of paper, which are now “our”  Ends and then we brainstorming for possible Means.  ie, men of violence, disease,  The list is almost a full page long, with two columns when we are finished, and so we start picking from among them.  We want to match the number of Ends pretty closely, but do end up with a few more Means than Ends.  It turns out this is okay for now; we may be creating more as we go, or changing the ones we have.  

 We now have a list of Stage-Hand’s Ends and Means for use in making our supporting cast.

Keeping this list in mind, we begin to make some protagonists of our own, and end up with the following.

Sara - Vice Dealer, Prophet.  -And coming later, The Match-Maker.  (I reserve the right to change these before Friday)

Adam - The Librarian, The Dictator

And so we wrap up the night, Our Opposition Brief complete.

—-Goals before Saturday—-

Type up Character sheets, Census Descriptions and Atlas Descriptions.

Create and Type up Supporting Cast.

Here are some links that may be useful.

Ends and Means - www.grapevinelarp.com/EndsAndMeans