jhkimrpg (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} jhkimrpg) wrote,@ 2007-01-18 16:37:00 |
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Esoterrorists Play Report
So as part of the EndGame Oakland mini-con, I played in a scenario for Robin Laws' recent game, The Essoterrorists, as game-mastered by Brian Williams. The event description was:
The short form is that we created characters in around an hour, then played through an in-depth investigative scenario in the remaining 3 hours of the slot. While we had learned about an incidental mundane case of corruption, we did not get any real information on the supernatural mystery we were trying to unravel. As we packed up for lunch, the GM Brian briefly explained to us the backstory to the mystery. In retrospect, I believe that the scenario wasn't designed to be completed in 3 hours of play with newbies. However, at the time, we were convinced that we had thoroughly failed and were planning our jail time rather than feeling that we just didn't have enough time.
I have a major caveat here that I do not own the Esoterrorist rules. So below I will talk solely about how we played the game in the event, which may or may not be how the rules are written. Anyone who owns the rules may correct me. I won't include spoilers for the scenario, but I do want to comment on the mechanics as we played them and on how the scenario went.
Character creation went pretty well. Brian explained the concepts. Character creation consisted of two pools of points: 24 points among the 38 investigative skills and 60 points among the 13 general skills. We understood that it was important to have between the PCs at least one point in each of the investigative skills. Therefore, we came up with character concepts which roughly spanned the full range of 38 investigative skills. Eric decided on a professor of literature, Paul picked an Irish ex-policeman who was now a Catholic priest, and I made an anarchist hacker. After that, we ran through each of the investigative skills, saying each one aloud, and then one or more of us would say that we could take a point in it.
As we played it, there were three key mechanics. The first was that while we were either looking around or interacting with an NPC, we could declare what investigative skill we were using. Certain skills would result in certain "free" clues (i.e. declaring that we were using Interrogation in talking to a particular NPC would get us certain information).
The second was that we could spend points from the pool of our investigative skills to get extra information beyond the "free" clues. For example, if using Interrogation, we could spend 1 point from Interrogation and get extra information out of the subject. In principle, we thought the GM should make clear if there was extra information to be had.
The third was that for regular, non-investigative tests -- we spent points out of our skills to add to a 1d6 roll. As we played it, this pool refreshed at the end of each scene. So, for example, if I had a 10 in Infiltration, that meant I could add +10 to one roll in a scene, or +5 to two rolls in a scene, etc. However, I'm not sure if this was completely correct.
Free Clues
The free clues basically worked. However, as we played it, I think all three players were a bit confused by the effect on play of explicitly naming skills. To us, all of the NPCs we talked to seemed extremely hostile at first, which made us think that we had little chance to break them. For example, one NPC seemed to immediately stonewall us, so we tried to distract him and instead break into his computer. However, when we picked the correct skill to use (in this case Interrogation), he spilled everything. The information we got from the computer was only a minor subset of what the NPC confessed.
This completely tripped us up two more times. We came in with an idea of how we were going to approach the NPC, and we got the information only by trial-and-error of different skills. Simply put, this did not flow well with speaking in-character. Perhaps we were missing some advice in the book about how to mix in-character dialogue and this procedure, but it was tricky.
This may be influenced by scenario design. I think the NPCs were defined by a single defined skill which should be used on them to get the information. That doesn't lend itself to terribly believable characters. Just allowing multiple skills to work would be an improvement.
Paid Clues
During the scenario, there was a crucial aspect to the initial scene that we only learned much later upon spending an Occult Studies point. I think this was not intended to be a core clue -- but it completely changed our view of what was going on. In retrospect, I think that we weren't per se sidetracked from what was intended. However, at the time it felt extremely frustrating because we only belatedly got information about evidence we had seen from the start.
I originally reported on what I had heard of the GUMSHOE system as Cthulhu News in October -- noting this as a core mechanic. At the time, I said I was wary but interested. However, based on this I have to concur with Brian Gleichman's assessment in his second comment. When spending for investigation, you don't know what you'll get for the point(s) you spend, which makes the decision arbitrary as far as game play.
This doesn't make them inherently bad, but they should be minor rather than revelatory. If they're important to how the plot goes, then the adventure can be messed with by arbitrary patterns of spending. The Occult Studies clue in question should have been given from the start, in my opinion. Personally, I would in retrospect prefer to roll on extra clues rather than choose them. Obviously, I can choose to roll for whether I spend or not -- but my expectation was that I should be choosing somehow.
Skill Pools
For the non-investigative tests we had to decide how much to spend on a roll from our pool for the scene. My answer to this depended critically on what constituted a scene break, which was never fully clear to me. For about half my rolls, I dumped the whole pool since it seemed like the scene was short.
I didn't have a big problem with this within the context of the scenario, but it seemed odd for my character's ability to vary so much within a scene. i.e. I might dump all my points in an important Infiltration roll and succeed, and after that other characters do any further Infiltration until the next scene.
Then again, this might have been an issue with interpreting the mechanics.
Scenario Design
After the mini-con, I saw online a flowchart of this adventure in particular. Within the flowchart, each of the scene was shown as having only one way to the next scene. There were eight scenes which were marked as core scenes which followed one after the other, and only two optional scenes off of the mainline flow. Both of them were purely sidetracks -- i.e. they just directed you back to the next scene of the sequence. In our run, we had gotten through 5 of the 8 scenes, it seemed. Each scene indicated a particular skill which was to be used to move to the next scene.
This strikes me as an very narrow linear flow. Compare to, say, the clue tree from the Millenium's End sample adventure "The Thanatos Factor". That has 18 scenes, but they have many interconnections and there are a variety of paths through them.
Questions
So basically I was not left with a good impression, nor were Eric or Paul as I got them. However, there wasn't a distinct single problem. Looking it over, it seems to me like the linear path is the biggest issue. In particular, it doesn't seem to encourage creative thought in different approaches -- like distracting the witness to search his computer records instead. Instead, we were encouraged to follow the prescribed path.
Some of this might just be to say that we weren't the target players for the system and scenario. However, I think there could be some lessons here for future games implementing the basic GUMSHOE system and/or scenarios for that system. The system certainly allows multiple paths and multiple ways to get from one scene to another. The trick is avoiding making it seem like multiple choice guessing.
So as part of the EndGame Oakland mini-con, I played in a scenario for Robin Laws' recent game, The Essoterrorists, as game-mastered by Brian Williams. The event description was:
The Essoterrorists are a world-wide conspiracy of cultists dedicated to undermining objective reality. By weakening the barriers of rational thought, making the world seem more senseless and insane, the Essoterrorists work to rend the fabric of shared consensus in order to let the monsters in. Their ultimate ends are shrouded in mystery, but there exists a counter-conspiracy dedicated to preventing the from turning daily life into an unremitting horror nightmare. You are members of this counter-conspiracy, elite, highly-trained investigators standing firm, protecting the rest of the world from terror and insanity. You are the thin line, and only you can find and stop the Essoterrorists.We had three players: Eric Todd, Paul Tevis, and myself.
The short form is that we created characters in around an hour, then played through an in-depth investigative scenario in the remaining 3 hours of the slot. While we had learned about an incidental mundane case of corruption, we did not get any real information on the supernatural mystery we were trying to unravel. As we packed up for lunch, the GM Brian briefly explained to us the backstory to the mystery. In retrospect, I believe that the scenario wasn't designed to be completed in 3 hours of play with newbies. However, at the time, we were convinced that we had thoroughly failed and were planning our jail time rather than feeling that we just didn't have enough time.
I have a major caveat here that I do not own the Esoterrorist rules. So below I will talk solely about how we played the game in the event, which may or may not be how the rules are written. Anyone who owns the rules may correct me. I won't include spoilers for the scenario, but I do want to comment on the mechanics as we played them and on how the scenario went.
Character creation went pretty well. Brian explained the concepts. Character creation consisted of two pools of points: 24 points among the 38 investigative skills and 60 points among the 13 general skills. We understood that it was important to have between the PCs at least one point in each of the investigative skills. Therefore, we came up with character concepts which roughly spanned the full range of 38 investigative skills. Eric decided on a professor of literature, Paul picked an Irish ex-policeman who was now a Catholic priest, and I made an anarchist hacker. After that, we ran through each of the investigative skills, saying each one aloud, and then one or more of us would say that we could take a point in it.
As we played it, there were three key mechanics. The first was that while we were either looking around or interacting with an NPC, we could declare what investigative skill we were using. Certain skills would result in certain "free" clues (i.e. declaring that we were using Interrogation in talking to a particular NPC would get us certain information).
The second was that we could spend points from the pool of our investigative skills to get extra information beyond the "free" clues. For example, if using Interrogation, we could spend 1 point from Interrogation and get extra information out of the subject. In principle, we thought the GM should make clear if there was extra information to be had.
The third was that for regular, non-investigative tests -- we spent points out of our skills to add to a 1d6 roll. As we played it, this pool refreshed at the end of each scene. So, for example, if I had a 10 in Infiltration, that meant I could add +10 to one roll in a scene, or +5 to two rolls in a scene, etc. However, I'm not sure if this was completely correct.
Free Clues
The free clues basically worked. However, as we played it, I think all three players were a bit confused by the effect on play of explicitly naming skills. To us, all of the NPCs we talked to seemed extremely hostile at first, which made us think that we had little chance to break them. For example, one NPC seemed to immediately stonewall us, so we tried to distract him and instead break into his computer. However, when we picked the correct skill to use (in this case Interrogation), he spilled everything. The information we got from the computer was only a minor subset of what the NPC confessed.
This completely tripped us up two more times. We came in with an idea of how we were going to approach the NPC, and we got the information only by trial-and-error of different skills. Simply put, this did not flow well with speaking in-character. Perhaps we were missing some advice in the book about how to mix in-character dialogue and this procedure, but it was tricky.
This may be influenced by scenario design. I think the NPCs were defined by a single defined skill which should be used on them to get the information. That doesn't lend itself to terribly believable characters. Just allowing multiple skills to work would be an improvement.
Paid Clues
During the scenario, there was a crucial aspect to the initial scene that we only learned much later upon spending an Occult Studies point. I think this was not intended to be a core clue -- but it completely changed our view of what was going on. In retrospect, I think that we weren't per se sidetracked from what was intended. However, at the time it felt extremely frustrating because we only belatedly got information about evidence we had seen from the start.
I originally reported on what I had heard of the GUMSHOE system as Cthulhu News in October -- noting this as a core mechanic. At the time, I said I was wary but interested. However, based on this I have to concur with Brian Gleichman's assessment in his second comment. When spending for investigation, you don't know what you'll get for the point(s) you spend, which makes the decision arbitrary as far as game play.
This doesn't make them inherently bad, but they should be minor rather than revelatory. If they're important to how the plot goes, then the adventure can be messed with by arbitrary patterns of spending. The Occult Studies clue in question should have been given from the start, in my opinion. Personally, I would in retrospect prefer to roll on extra clues rather than choose them. Obviously, I can choose to roll for whether I spend or not -- but my expectation was that I should be choosing somehow.
Skill Pools
For the non-investigative tests we had to decide how much to spend on a roll from our pool for the scene. My answer to this depended critically on what constituted a scene break, which was never fully clear to me. For about half my rolls, I dumped the whole pool since it seemed like the scene was short.
I didn't have a big problem with this within the context of the scenario, but it seemed odd for my character's ability to vary so much within a scene. i.e. I might dump all my points in an important Infiltration roll and succeed, and after that other characters do any further Infiltration until the next scene.
Then again, this might have been an issue with interpreting the mechanics.
Scenario Design
After the mini-con, I saw online a flowchart of this adventure in particular. Within the flowchart, each of the scene was shown as having only one way to the next scene. There were eight scenes which were marked as core scenes which followed one after the other, and only two optional scenes off of the mainline flow. Both of them were purely sidetracks -- i.e. they just directed you back to the next scene of the sequence. In our run, we had gotten through 5 of the 8 scenes, it seemed. Each scene indicated a particular skill which was to be used to move to the next scene.
This strikes me as an very narrow linear flow. Compare to, say, the clue tree from the Millenium's End sample adventure "The Thanatos Factor". That has 18 scenes, but they have many interconnections and there are a variety of paths through them.
Questions
So basically I was not left with a good impression, nor were Eric or Paul as I got them. However, there wasn't a distinct single problem. Looking it over, it seems to me like the linear path is the biggest issue. In particular, it doesn't seem to encourage creative thought in different approaches -- like distracting the witness to search his computer records instead. Instead, we were encouraged to follow the prescribed path.
Some of this might just be to say that we weren't the target players for the system and scenario. However, I think there could be some lessons here for future games implementing the basic GUMSHOE system and/or scenarios for that system. The system certainly allows multiple paths and multiple ways to get from one scene to another. The trick is avoiding making it seem like multiple choice guessing.
