« HoneyComb Engine: The Kiai-Megill Variant | Home | HoneyComb Engine Revs Up »
Once & Future HoneyComb Demos
By Corvus | September 13, 2009
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 »
September 13th, 2009 at 9:51 am
I just filled in the world detail for the last demo scenario. It’s amazing to me how often a skein’s suggestions dovetail–particularly when they’ve got prior associations. It goes a long way towards strengthening my assertion that the gaming experience is far more powerful when you allow all the storytellers to influence the tale.
September 13th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Hey Corvus, I missed your Honeycomb demo last year in the CA lounge, but if you’re running another few sessions, let me know. I’d be glad to experience a scenario.
September 13th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Skein is a great word. I’m really looking forward to the day I get to try running this system!
September 13th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
I hope these scenarios will be freely available to new storyteller primes who acquire the rulebook and are looking to train and ready their own Skeins. They all sound fantastic.
September 13th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
I will work to ensure that even if they’re not ready for by Friday’s rough draft release, they will be shortly thereafter.