Man Bytes Blog

Send In The Clowns

By Corvus | December 2, 2009

Don’t you love farce?
My fault I fear.
I thought that you’d want what I want.
Sorry, my dear.

I started Man Bytes Blog in March of 2005. It has served me well as a platform for my exploration of my passions and has been instrumental in my professional development. More importantly, the community I have developed through my writing here consists of a countless number of people I’m proud to consider friends.

Over the past year, however, my relationship with Man Bytes Blog has become complicated and burdened by its history. I have increasingly found myself tired at the thought of updating it, of repeating the same messages about story and play over and over. My approach to writing here has become more formal and dense, making updating more of a chore than a delight. Coinciding with this fatigue has been the development of the HoneyComb Engine–my math-light and world-agnostic RPG system–and the launching of the (very) rough draft of the initial storyteller handbook online. Now I’m deeply embroiled in a substantial rewrite and redesign, based upon feedback about the inscrutability of the original text.

And next year isn’t going to get any better, schedule-wise. Three follow up handbooks are in the works, plus localizations of the original. There are LifeWheel manufacturing issues to look into and a HoneyComb-Engine-based LARP event to plan for October. Plus, I’ll be taking an AS3 class this winter and hope to finally put together enough information that I feel comfortable releasing some gamelettes based on my theories. And while I’m doing all that, I still need to be seeking out contract work so I can help keep the lights on in the Zakelro Manse.

So I’m lowering the curtain on Man Bytes Blog. It’s been an extraordinary experience, but one I can no longer sustain.

The existing content will all remain available here. I’ve offered the BoRT to another site and I hope we can work out a transfer. I’d hate to see it go away entirely, but I expect any transfer to a new site will change it considerably (and quite possibly for the better).

But while Man Bytes Blog is retiring, I’m not going anywhere! I’ll still be arguing with people about game design on Twitter and Google Wave (feel free to contact me if you want to swap Wave-contact info). I will still be contributing to projects like Well Played 1.0 (in fact, I’m working on a Fable 2 essay for Well Played 2.0).

AND in January if 2010 I’m planning on starting a new blog, with a new name and a new look, right here at http://corvus.zakelro.com. I’m going to return to a rougher format of writing, sharing the crudest snippets of thoughts, and letting my rough edges more obviously show. I’m going to return to the more exploratory nature of my early writing, and share more of my design work as well. I won’t be returning to the same one-post-per-day dictum of the first years of MBB, but I’m going to aim for two posts a week, Tuesday and Friday, even if they’re just sketches.

So have a great December, and a safe Zombie Yule, and I’ll see you again in January.

But where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns.
Don’t bother, they’re here.

| 10 Comments »

Nov ‘09 Blogs of the Round Table #bort1109 Updated 12-01

By Corvus | November 30, 2009

The structure of the Round Table is changing dramatically, at least for a time. After a trial run of three months or so, we’ll assess how things are going and retool if we need to. But for now–welcome to the new Blogs of the Round Table!

The Blogs of the Round Table is an open-contribution collection of essays based around a central literary design challenge. Each month a book is assigned and contributors are asked to design a game that reflects the core themes of the book. The challenge is not to merely design a game based on the plot of the book, but to imagine if the author had been a game designer. What sort of game would they produce to communicate their thoughts? Submissions are not limited to video games and may include board games, card games, ARGs, etc. But any video game designs should be intended for real-world systems–no hyper-intelligent AI or full-sensory systems please.

Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley is considered by many to be the first science fiction novel. That makes it the perfect title for our first month of the Literary Design Challenge BoRT. Many attempts to translate Frankenstein to other formats have fixated on the science of bringing the monster to life, but the book itself doesn’t focus on this aspect at all. Instead, it examines what it means to produce life and the impact that has on those who comes are directly and indirectly involved with the process.

Frankenstein is in the public domain and freely available on Project Gutenberg. And if your public library doesn’t have several copies that you can request, I’d be very surprised.

The process of participating in the BoRT has changed a bit, so read the following carefully!

You are welcome, encouraged even, to submit multiple posts to the BoRT. As a possible suggestion–you might write an initial post that examines the themes of the book you’d like to explore, a second about the central mechanic you’re thinking of using, and a third on the design itself. These posts do not need to be lengthy, highly-polished entries but can serve as more of a public design notebook. Please don’t feel you must submit multiple entries–it’s simply an official option now.

Rather than submit each individual post to me as you write it, please use the following tag on all your posts for the month’s BoRT: bort1109. When you’ve written your first post, submit the URI for the tag to me via email or the contact form here on the blog. On Wordpress blogs, the tag URI typically looks like this:
http://my.blog.com/tag/bort1109
or this:
http://my.blog.com/?tag=bort1109
Blogspot blogs tag URIs look like this:
http://myblog.blogspot.com/search/label/bort1109.

I will continue to tag individual contributions on Delicious and share them in Google Reader. I encourage participants with Twitter accounts to announce their posts on there with the hashtag #bort1109, as I will no longer tweet individual contributions on Twitter myself.

Sometime before the end of the month, I will be asking a two or three contributors to join me in a podcast to discuss the book and their approaches to the challenge. My goal is to publish the podcast before the month is over, so further contributions can be made based upon the content of the podcast.

Please, please, engage with other contributors throughout the month. One of the primary goals of the BoRT is to foster community and I believe that all of our ideas are strengthened when we engage with one another, supporting and challenging each others’ assumptions about what constitutes good design, asking questions about the role of games in our lives, etc. So please comment on other contributor’s posts when you have the time. I understand that it can be challenging to find the time to comment on individual BoRT entries and I’ve been bad about visiting sites myself. But we can use other mediums for our inter-post chatter as well–we can use and follow the twitter hashtag #bort1109, join the conversation in the IRC channel #GBConfab on Quakenet.org, or visit the BoRT1109 Public Wave (consider the wave to be an experimental option at this point).

So that’s the new BoRT format! Let me know what you think of it in the comments. I’ll be announcing December’s book mid-November. I have several possibilities in mind for December and January, but if this format is successful, we will implement a book-suggestion and poll feature for future months.

[UPDATE]

This month’s contributors are Bergsonian Critique, Alishowkati, and Mind’s Eye, and Ellen Wilde.

Tagged:Blogs of the Round Table, bort1109. | 5 Comments »

Life Flashes By

By Corvus | November 12, 2009

This is my birthday month–in just over a week I’ll be 42. I am young enough to eagerly anticipate the unexpected twists on the journey of my upcoming year, but old enough to wonder why the last year’s journey seems to have gone so quickly.

My partner, Rachel, and I have an agreement that we don’t buy each other obligatory presents on prescribed holidays. If we do commemorate a birthday by spending money, that money must take a back seat to the time and/or effort that the gift represents. This can be time spent together, time spent with others, the effort of creating the gift, or the effort made possible by the gift. For example, I gave Rachel an embroidery class for herself and a dear friend this year.

So as my birthday rapidly approaches, we got to talking about what she could do for me. And then Deirdra Kiai inadvertently suggested the best idea for a present.

Deirdra Kiai is a developer at Hothead Studios. But on the side, she designs the only dialog-focused video games that I actually enjoy playing. If you haven’t played any of her games, I recommend you make it a priority to do so. My particular favorites are Chivalry is Not Dead and Pigeons in the Park. Most of her recent projects have been quite small of scope and I’ve been eager to see her take on something larger again.

Fortunately for me, she’s evidently been eager to do the same.

Deirdra recently announced that she was fundraising money for her next game, Life Flashes By via Kickstarter. She’s raising a modest $1,000 and contributors can donate as little as $5 towards that goal. Rachel timed it so that our contribution tipped Deirdra over that critical 50% hurdle that many financing campaigns struggle to reach.

Now, I don’t know how much money you spend on video games in a year. This has actually been a heavy year for me, with three planned AAA purchases and a myriad of iPhone games that I’ve picked up for less than $5 apiece. I’m sure I’ll enjoy the AAA titles I’m acquiring, but I don’t enjoy the idea that my individual dollars-spent are having very little impact on corporate strategy when they’re compared to the millions of dollars spent by people buying the games the major advertising campaigns told them to buy.

For example–I don’t enjoy the fact that my purchase of Brutal Legend went more to funding EA’s drive to escalate their profits than it did to ensuring Double Fine gets to publish another game. I have little doubt that EA’s renewal of their, “any game that isn’t a very high profit contributor and high unit seller will be eliminated from this point going forward,” policy is the writing on the wall for future involvement with studios like Double Fine, which historically has had difficulty keeping publishers.

But I know that the money Rachel contributed to Deirdra’s game will have exactly the sort of impact on the industry that I’d like my dollars to have. It will encourage independent development. It will encourage developers who want their work to reflect themselves. It will encourage developers who choose to forge direct and respectful relationships with their audience. It will encourage direct-to-consumer distribution models. It will encourage sites like Kickstarter, who build invaluable support structures for the individual developer.

We paid a AAA price tag for Life Flashes By and if we could have justified it in our budget, I wouldn’t have minded spending more. So next year’s game budget is going to specifically set aside dollars for indie projects like Deirdra’s. Think what a transformative effect we could have on the future of games if we all reserved the cost of even a single AAA video game purchase and spent that money on 5-10 different indie titles instead. Not only would we be helping send a message to the monolithic risk-adverse publishers, but we’d be getting exponentially more gameplay than we would otherwise.

Deirdra’s project has 69 days to go and only $490 to raise. If she doesn’t reach her goal, then those of us who have pledged don’t get charged and our efforts to help change the face of the industry will be for naught. So here’s my challenge to you–to everyone who wishes they could effect the way games are designed, to everyone who wishes games had more meaning, to everyone who believes games are art, to everyone who is tired of paying $60 for derivative gameplay, to everyone who feels like a powerless cog in a consumer machine–help me put our money where our mouths are. Seek out projects like Life Flashes By and Today I Die Again and give them your financial support.

If every single person who subscribes to my RSS feed, follows me on Twitter or Friendfeed, or is my friend on Facebook would rush out and contribute $5 to Life Flashes By, Deirdra would reach (exceed) her goal within the hour. In fact, even if I did the math and ruled out all the duplicate people between the lists, I suspect she’d reach her goal within minutes. So don’t let Rachel and my efforts go to waste. Don’t let EA define what a video game ought to be. Don’t let talent like Deirdra’s go unnoticed. Pledge your support and ask your friends to do the same. Together, you and I and the indie developers, can make an enormous difference in the world of video games.

Make a difference now while you can because I can assure you that the longer you’re here, the more quickly Life Flashes By.

(and if Deirdra’s project is already fully funded when you get to it, there are other worthy projects out there as well)

Tagged:deirdra kiai, indie-games, kickstarter, life flashes by. | 6 Comments »

Table Top RPG Perspectives

By Corvus | November 2, 2009

With the discussion of camera perspectives in video games (and how 1st and 3d person cameras affect “presence”) popping back up on Twitter over the weekend, I got to thinking about perspective in table-top RPGs.

In RPGs, the Storyteller Prime/GM traditionally sets the stage in 3rd person:

The ninja clambers up the drain pipe and disappears over the edge of the roof.

While the storytellers/players (re)set the stage in 1st:

I follow and try not to lose sight of her.

This evolved for obvious reasons–the Storyteller typically plays as a single character while the Prime is responsible for the script, the supporting cast, the stage, sets, and all of the props. But as the HoneyComb Engine allows–encourages, even–primes to share control of the scene and script, I’ve begun to wonder if this traditional approach of using differing perspectives enforces the more traditional division of control.

Is the use of 1st person perspective a limitation? It certainly encourages Storytellers to view the scene from within it, rather than from above, or outside, of it. This arguably acts as a tool of disempowerment that reinforces traditional, centralized, control in a single authority. An authority which has the greater perspective, or greater distance from the action.

Or is 1st person perspective necessary to the experience? If storytellers also used 3rd person to set the stage, would it remove the reason they enjoy role playing? Is the sense of presence dependent upon the the use of 1st person perspective? I’m not entirely convinced that is is, as I certainly feel very present in the world and story while using the more removed 3rd person perspective (it should be noted that I tend to prefer 3rd person video game RPGs, as I feel more connected to the character/world/story when there’s a character on-screen with whom I can empathize).

I suspect the answer depends on the storyteller and the dynamic of the skein. I can’t imagine my Hopeful storytellers stepping back and using a third person perspective during play. They enjoy being these kids exploring a world that’s becoming increasingly complicated by their discovery of complex adult behaviors. But I can easily imagine other storytellers I’ve gamed with in the past using the third person perspective and feeling quite present.

I think, perhaps, a little experimentation is in order. I’ll be starting a couple of small groups, both IRL and online over the next month and I think it might be interesting to change approaches between stories and talk about how it affects the experience.

How about you? Does your skein already use the third person perspective? If so, what system do you use? Do you use minis for combat? How experienced are your storytellers? Do you consider yourself heavy role players, or do you focus mostly on system and combat?

Tagged:Honeycomb Engine, perspective, rpg. | 2 Comments »

Oct ‘09 Blogs of the Round Table – UPDATED 11-01

By Corvus | October 31, 2009

Blogs of the Round Table

October ‘09
Designer DenouementsHow can the denouement be incorporated into gameplay? In literary forms, it is most often the events that take place after the plot’s climax that form your lasting opinion of the story. A well constructed denouement acts almost as a payoff, where protagonists and antagonists alike realize and adjust to the consequences of their actions. Serial media often ignored the denouement in favor of the cliffhanger, in order to entice viewers to return. Television has further diluted the denouement by turning it into a quick resolution that tidily fits into the time after the final commercial break.

But the denouement is most neglected in video games where it is often relegated to a short congratulatory cut scene, or at most–a slide show of consequences. This month’s topic challenges you to explore how the denouement can be expressed as gameplay.

If you would like to link to this month’s Round Table, please do not link to this post! Instead, please link to this month’s entry on the Round Table page at: http://corvus.zakelro.com/round-table/#1009.

As always, check out the FAQ to find out how to submit your post to the Round Table and if you have questions, don’t hesitate to contact me. Please don’t submit your posts in the comments, but email links to me (if you already have my address) or use the contact form linked above.

If you would like to be alerted to new Round Table entries without revisiting the site, feel free to follow me on Twitter, my shared feeds on Google Reader, or the Delicious Round Table tag. If you’re a Round Table contributor and Facebook user, I encourage you to add your blog to the NetworkedBlogs application. While you’re there, be sure to become a fan of Man Bytes Blog, friend me, and invite me to become a fan of your blog too.

Oct. 12 – Aim for the Head: After the Climax. Jason launches our topic with a brief look at a possible approach.

Oct. 14 – Mind’s Eye: This is the end… my only friend, the end. Josh gives us examples of denouements that aren’t and hints at an idea for one that is.

Oct. 15 – Emily Short: Blogs of the Round Table: Denouement. Emily talks about what makes the denouement work and provides examples from IF.

Oct. 15 – …duck, duck, DIE!!!: Blogs of the Round Table: DenouementCody explores the difficulties of denouement in various genres of video games.

Oct. 19 – Indigo Static: To end or not to end. Diego presents a game design that uses different sets of verbs to make the denouement meaningful.

Oct. 19 – Worldmaker: The Ending Has Not Yet Been Written. Max asks whether games really need a denouement in the first place.

Oct. 20 – The Select Button: Playing the Denouement. Brian takes a look at why more games don’t allow you to play the denouement.

Oct. 21 – The Autumnal City: Interactive Denouement. Travis puts on his dancing shoes and designs an IF denouement.

Oct. 21 – Deirdra Kiai Productions: Once Upon a Time, The End. Deirdra explores her own use, or lack thereof, of denouement in her projects.

Oct. 23 – Mile Zero: What Sharp Teeth. Thomas leads us down The Path’s denouement.

Oct. 31 – Breadth-First (Game)Play: Gameplay as Denouement. Yana joins us with a discussion on flow and the denouement.

update

Oct. 31 – Discount Thoughts: Denouement of the rings. As the title suggests, Sparky talks about LotR games and how they fail to provide the same experience as the source text.

Oct. 31 – Jamey Stevenson: Destination Disappointment. Jamey shares several examples of how games deal with endings.

Oct. 31 – The Game Critique: Denouement: The Gameplay Slowdown. Eric also shares examples of games that extend their gameplay beyond the climactic boss battle.

The BoRT is dead! Long live the BoRT! Stay tuned tomorrow for the unveiling of a new BoRT structure.

Tagged:Blogs of the Round Table. | 3 Comments »

Sept ‘09 Blogs of the Round Table – UPDATE 10-02

By Corvus | October 2, 2009

Blogs of the Round Table After a long hiatus, we’re back ! As always, the BoRT is open to anyone who wishes to participate. To ease us all back into the BoRT habit again, we’re going with a very open topic this month. I hope you have fun playing with it.

September ‘09
Isn’t That Spatial? Every video game has certain benefits and constraints in the way it represents space. Interaction fiction, arcade titles, 2D side-scrollers, isometric RPGs, and first person shooters all have advantages and disadvantages to how they deal with space–some technical in nature, some design-based. This month’s topic invites you to explore the ways games have represented the spatial nature of their storyworlds and what this does for the audience experience. Is it possible to ignore the constancy of spatial relationships in a graphical game? What would such a game look like? Are there ways of representing spatial relationships that we haven’t explored? Do you have ideas for games that could intentionally twist the player’s perception of space, or do you want to write about a game that already has?

Participants:

Sept. 4 – The Artful Gamer: Games We Can Dwell Within – What is Interactive Space?. Chris writes about space, perception and exploration.

Sept. 9 – international hobo: 2D or Not 2D. Chris gets his rant on and balances the depth of his argument on the Z-axis.

Sept. 13 – And Thus Spoke Pi: The Sight and the Fury. Johnny posits that there’s only one game that presents itself well.

Sept. 14 – Write the Game: Isn’t That Spatial?. Keira advocates for simplicity.

Sept. 14 – ProjectPerko: Space. Craig explores, or perhaps even modifies, space.

Sept. 16 – Indigo Static: Isn’t that Vignette Spatial? Diego shares a myriad of game ideas that play with the concept of space.

Sept. 17 – Total Disorder: Here’s a Concept! 3D Arcade Classics. Ted re-envisions classic 2d games in 3d.

Sept. 21 – Mind’s Eye: Poignant pixels and the 5th dimension of storytelling. Josh takes the conversation and moves it along a new dimension.

Sept 26 – Big Apple, 3 AM: The Music Form Synesthaesia of Audiosurf. Michel touches on how Audiosurf connects music and space.

Sept. 28 – Juxtapixel: Through the Looking Glass. Diogo examines how perspective helps define spacial awareness.

Sept. 28 – Worldmaker: Spatio-Temporal Navigation. Max talks about the interconnectivity of time and space in game design.

Sept. 29 – Tiny Subversions: Spelunky’s Procedural Space. Darius discusses… well, Spelunky’s procedural space.

Sept. 30 – Rough Edges: The Cathedral of Your Relationship With Your Mom. Alex explores the idea of defining space with relationships.

Sept. 30 – The Game Critique: What Do Spatial Relationships Mean to Us. Eric examines what we’ve learned about game space.

Sept. 30 – Post Emo Existentiell Gaming: Battlefield 1943 versus Crash Commando: Two Perspectives on Spatiality . Kylie compares the perspectives of two games with similar dynamics, but different perspectives.

Sept. 30 – Life is a playground: 1D – for when 2D isn’t simple enough.. Behrooz explores the possibilities inherent in very simple spaces.

Update

Sept 30. – Peanut Butter and Bacon: Shadowplay in Virtual Cities. Jonathan talks about procedural urban landscape and exploration.

Tagged:Blogs of the Round Table. | 8 Comments »

HoneyComb Engine Revs Up

By Corvus | October 1, 2009

It’s been pretty quiet around Man Bytes Blog this summer. This has mostly been due to a very full schedule and that isn’t likely to let up any time soon.

The BIG news is that Zakelro Story Studio has launched the HoneyComb Engine site at honeycombengine.com. At the moment, the site is a bit disjointed and contains pretty much just the rough draft of the HoneyComb Engine Handbook and forums for feedback on said rough draft.

Wait a moment. Let me say that another way.

The HoneyComb Engine has gone public! Yes it’s just a rough draft, but it’s out there. After a long journey of revisions, testing, feedback, and more revisions, the HoneyComb Engine is available for public viewing.

I’m still a bit nervous about that. Also in a bit of awe.

A little over six years ago I decided that I wanted my RPG system to go public. My intent was to refine the system to the point where it could be a foundation for compelling video games. Today–well, yesterday–after so many preparatory steps. I took the first big step towards making that goal a reality.

And I have so many more steps in the active planning stage already–from integrating the system into the HoneyComb site itself, to publishing multiple variants, to writing a storyworld construction handbook, to localization the system for other languages, to providing high-quality LifeWheels, to working with a studio to create middleware, to… to…

Okay. First I have to get the site in better order and start the editing process on the current handbook, which we plan on having available in time for the holidays. But I’m very encouraged by the level of interest thus far. I’ve even been interviewed already by Narrative Designer’s Network and Edge Online in advance of the release. I hope the actuality lives up to people’s expectations.

Thanks for sticking with me up to this point and I can’t wait to see how things develop over the next year!

Tagged:Honeycomb Engine. | 3 Comments »

Once & Future HoneyComb Demos

By Corvus | September 13, 2009

PAX Session As I may have mentioned, I like to challenge myself when demoing the HoneyComb Engine. This works best with three storytellers, each of whom provide me with a major detail about the world they’re going to enter. Traditionally, I have one storyteller provide me with a genre, one with an era, and one with some major world detail with global impact (a technology that did or didn’t happen, a political situation, an ecological or economic event, etc). The three come up with the ideas individually and it’s up to me to cobble them together into a coherent whole. This has resulted in some fun sessions:

Genre: Political Intrigue/Romance (i.e. Romeo & Juliet)
Era: Ancient Egypt
World Detail: Information has become so integrated into culture that it’s impossible to lie

A cruel emperor who uses alien technology to ensure everyone has to tell the truth. With no ability to keep secrets, any revolt against his reign is doomed to failure. But now he’s fallen in love with a young woman and was so afraid of revealing his own weaknesses that he’s ordered her killed. She, meanwhile, is working with uninfected foreign agents to destroy the alien technology.

Genre: 2D Sidescrolling platformer (i.e. Super Mario Brothers).
Era: 1920’s New York
World Detail: Religious Insurrection Against Corporate Controlled Monarchy

A group of immigrants rushed to rescue an engineer who could dismantle a new communications technology that was responsible for severe mutations among the lower classes.

Genre: Crime Comedy
Era: 1980s Disneyland (how perfect was that pairing?!)
World Detail: Technology that allows communication with the dead

Two cops and an FBI agent investigate a group of Satanic hair-metal freaks that have turned a theme park into a nightmare of raised spirits in an attempt to appease a dark god.

Genre: Homeric Epic
Era: Azuchi-Momoyama Period, Japan
World Detail: The rapture has already happened and a lot of pissed-off true believers have been left behind.

A priest, a spy, and a samurai conspire to assassinate the Japanese emperor. This is actually the only session that didn’t run to completion, with the protagonists all dying in their first encounter. I consider this a complete failure on my part–I was exhausted and I think I interpreted the themes too seriously to make for a good demo session anyway.

I love taking this approach to showing off (yeah, not merely “showing off the game,” but good old fashioned “showing off”), but they generally require longer sessions to pull off well. There has to be a certain amount of exposition and the storytellers usually want to take their time and explore the storyworld they helped create. So when I sat down for the first demo at PAX this year, I realized I needed a different approach.

I wanted a scenario with a bit of story behind it–something that would be relatively familiar to people with diverse backgrounds, but allow them to layer it with their own interpretation. I also didn’t want it to be a combat-only scenario, while not ruling out a bit of combat if that’s the direction the storytellers wanted to play things. In order to demonstrate movements rates and positioning ideas for conflict, I have a 10×10 hexboard, so a scenario that is limited to a simple space would also work best.

So I created the following scenario:

Thieves in Training
In Victorian London a group of ragtag urchins are under the tutelage of Fagin, the ringleader of a gang of notorious pickpockets and thieves. Today’s challenge is to liberate a hip flask, pocket watch, and wallet from Fagin before he is able to walk from one end of a long alley to the other.

This proved to be quite successful and lead to a a variety of approaches to the problem. The first group quickly became quite rough and manhandled Fagin, who pulled out a cudgel and tried to beat them into submission. Another group took a more farcical approach, and Fagin ended up scrambling to pull up his pants as they removed the items one by one.

Then, of course, I also ran the Kiai-Megill Varient, a very different sort of demo.

This got me to thinking about how I can easily demo the robust flexibility of the engine in the future. I’ve decided to pre-create several demos, complete with illustrated hexboards to support each one. This will also make it easier to train other storytellers to run demos should I need the extra hands-on-deck. At the moment, I’m considering the following five options:

Thieves in Training
This scenario, set in a Dickensian London, is open to multiple approaches and uses the basic HoneyComb Engine ruleset, including applying profession bonuses and granting Renown.
Shanghai Showdown
This West-meets-East scenario is an over-the-top, gun-slinging, martial arts, extravaganza that introduces the use of Heroic Body Influences.
Death of the Family
This scenario introduces the Kiai-Megill Varient with an emotionally charged drama in which siblings attempt to uncover each others’ secret shame while protecting their own. This introduces the use of Heroic Spirit Influences for non-magic uses.
The Turquoise Necklace
This scenario is a classic whodunnit in the style of Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie where the guilty party is randomly selected from the NPCs when the session begins. This introduces the use of the Heroic Mind Influences for non-psionic uses.
The Heist
This open-ended scenario features a team of rough-and-tumble thieves in a swords-and-sorcery world as they attempt to steal a valuable artifact during a high-society gala. This introduces the use of Mind and Spirit Heroic Influences for psionic and magic use.

These scenarios are listed in order of complexity, with The Heist likely requiring at least 90 minutes to demonstrate well. I’m hoping to get Thieves in Training down to 20 to 30 minutes with a bit of practice, but I suspect 45 minutes will be the actual sweet spot.

Clearly I’m also going to need some short (10 to 15 minute) scripted presentations if I want to reach people who don’t want to make the time commitment to sit down and play a session.

Another option would be to host a gaming room and assemble a skein (my preferred collective noun for storytellers) who want to sit and play an extended session in public (with drop in opportunities available) all con long, but I don’t think we’ll realistically be able to pull that off over the next year. We’ll see, though–something miraculous might happen and allow us to build our mini-honeycombed empire more quickly than expected.

Stay tuned for the launch of the HoneyComb Engine rough draft on Friday the 18th!

Tagged:Honeycomb Engine. | 5 Comments »

HoneyComb Engine: The Kiai-Megill Variant

By Corvus | September 10, 2009

The Final Prototype

Could you use the HoneyComb Engine to play something like Hills Like White Elephants? [1]

That’s the question that opened up my second playtest of the HoneyComb Engine at PAX last weekend. It was posed by one of the storytellers, Travis Megill, who had never played a traditional pen and paper RPG before this moment. It is, I suspect, the sort of question only someone that has zero experience with RPGs would ask. It is also very much the reason I love gaming with people who have never gamed before.

Deirdra Kiai, who was sitting in the seat next to Travis [2], chimed in to say her intent with the HoneyComb Engine ran exactly along those lines. In fact, Thursday evening Deirdra has asked if the HoneyComb Engine could be used for more romantic stories, such as a Pride & Prejudice (without the zombies) RPG. I had told her then what I told Travis now, “There’s no reason is couldn’t be.”

And then I realized–I had two storytellers sitting at the table with a particular storytelling need right now. And since the whole point of the HoneyComb Engine is to help storytellers create and share storyworlds that meet their own particular needs at the time, I would be horribly remiss if I didn’t demonstrate that in action. Also at the session were Joe Tortuga and Max Battcher, both of whom I believed could handle a bit of experimental improvisation.

So I asked them to give me a second and quickly created the Kiai-Megill Variant (KMV) and a scenario with which to test it.

For the purposes of the test, I outlined a scenario–four adult siblings were gathered together for their father’s funeral. They had not all four been together since their mother’s death in a car accident 18 months prior. An accident which also sent their father into the coma from which he never returned. Each sibling had a shame they were eager to keep hidden and a suspicion about another sibling. Here are the specifics:

Carl, the youngest and a student, was supposed to have been taking his parents’ car in for regular service, but was pocking the money instead.
Carl suspects that Larry never visited his father in the hospital.
Judy, the third child and a waitress, had been borrowing money from her mother for her boyfriend’s drug rehab.
Judy suspects Carl somehow caused the accident that resulted in their parents’ deaths.
Larry, the second child with an undefined job, had the hospital pull the plug on his father.
Larry suspects Ben has been working for the mob.
Ben, the oldest and a lawyer, hadn’t worked for a year.
Ben suspect Judy had been stealing jewelry to pay for her drug habit.

You’ll notice that there are a lot of gaps in this scenario. Had Ben saved up enough money that his period of unemployment didn’t matter? Since he’s ashamed of that fact, it’s unlikely (although still possible). What choices lead up to Larry having the hospital pull the plug? Why hadn’t the siblings spent much time together in the last year? The list of potential plot holes is pretty huge, given how little material I provided. This is intentional and a crucial detail to my approach to participatory storytelling. Leaving gaping holes in the fabric of your narrative allows the other storytellers involved to substantially add their own warp and woof, based upon their perspectives and life experiences. It’s a technique I’ll discuss in more depth here on the blog as I work on the second HoneyComb manual.

The system itself, in all modesty, didn’t require much changing. Each Influence on the Lifewheel incorporates a mental or spiritual attribute, so they all have applicable uses to dialog-driven storyplay. What I did change right off the bat was the definition of Ego, what usually correlates to hit points. In the KMV, Ego is associated with the secret shame each character harbors and as they are forced to reveal it, their Ego is reduced. This is quite in keeping with the way Ego is normally treated, excepting KMV characters don’t pass out when their Ego is eventually depleted. Characters with more Ego, give up their secrets in small ways during the course of play. Characters with very little Ego tend to blurt out their shame when provoked. We called will “curiosity” during play, but I’ve since decided that it’s not necessary to change the terms for either Ego or Will–just the means by which Ego is lost.

After creating an NPC-free storyworld and modifying the core mechanic on the fly, I needed some time to stand and drool a bit. My brain was racing to simulate problems we’d run into during play and I didn’t have a lot of focus/energy left to get the four storytellers moving. So Rachel jumped in and acted as storyteller prime for the session. She helped the storytellers set the scene and got the ball rolling. She was awesome and I can’t wait to see her run more sessions. Max, having just run a more-traditional session with me, decided to bow out and once I was done staring moon-eyed at the wall, I stepped into his role.

We used the conflict timing mechanic to help regulate the flow of conversation. It was a bit clumsy at first, but as we got the hang of it, I felt it flowed better and better until conversation was happening quite smoothly, but leaving some time to think ahead. The big change we needed to make is in how successful conversational gambits were handled. Normally when you succeed at an action, you get to describe the action and the effect of the action on the other character. This works fine in combat scenarios, but not so much in conversation. So we declared that if you had a successful conversation move, the target had to respond appropriately on their next available opportunity. This allowed each storyteller to maintain character integrity based upon the unexpressed choices they’d made for them.

Now, we were doing this at a public table in the hallway where people could stop and watch us (and they did). None of us had gamed together before and none of us had gamed a session quite like this. Plus, we were busy assimilating new rules (even those of us well familiar with the HoneyComb Engine). Plus, we were stepping into brand new characters in a scenario that required the storytellers to feel safe in order to express the sort of emotional issues that might come up.

In other words–we had the perfect recipe for a complete disaster.

But the disaster never came. In fact, from my perspective, it seemed that we all became emotionally involved in these characters. Had we more time, we might have even been overtly emotional in our defense of them. From a system perspective, we even started using the Heroic Influences and Joe managed to divert a successful attempt to uncover his secret onto another storyteller–providing more nuance to the mechanics as we played. Some of the storytellers decided that revealing their shame willingly was a stronger narrative choice than keeping it hidden and cooperated fully with their accusers. This led to a short discussion about the goals of a HoneyComb Engine storytelling experience–namely to create a rich and rewarding storyworld that everyone could enjoy and that contributing successfully to the narrative overall made for a more rewarding storyplay experience than selfishly pursuing your own goals or agenda.

I feel that the HoneyComb Engine tests overall were a great success, but this session in particular showed me that what I’ve created really can be easily (and quickly) adapted to suit a wide variety of storyplay styles. In fact, I have a scenario plan for future gameplay demos that will highlight the variety of approaches to the system. If the people tempting me to attend PAX East get their way, you may get to see them in action there (and purchase a copy of the manual of course).

In the meantime, I’m interested in hearing the thoughts of Travis, Deirdra, Joe, Max, Randy, and anyone else who played over the weekend. We wrapped up each session pretty quickly and went our separate ways (oh, the challenges of cons), so I didn’t get a full post mortem with anyone at the time. How about it, storytellers? Have some thoughts you’d be willing to share in the comments or via trackbacks?

[1] For those of you who aren’t instantly familiar with this surprisingly sensitive work from Ernest Hemingway, it’s a conversation between two people that holds surprising depth and difficult emotional content. [return]

[2] Are you jealous of me yet? Well, keep reading. There’s nothing like getting creative people with a variety of backgrounds together for a game. [return]

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