Carl Klutzke ([info]sirvalence) wrote,
@ 2006-11-05 21:00:00
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Adventure Builder
I've been enjoying Wolfgang Baur's Adventure Builder column on WotC's web site. He has some good ideas. I find they don't help much with StoryCards though. AD&D is so simulationist: present a model for the players to interact with, and maybe they'll get to parts of it and maybe they won't. StoryCards is just the opposite: things are only created for the players to encounter, and what they don't encounter doesn't exist. Still, he has some interesting ideas, so interesting that I was tempted to participate in the open design project he has on LJ: and yet, since I doubt I'll ever play AD&D again, I know I'd never use what he created.

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[info]the_monkey_king
2006-11-09 03:22 am UTC (link)
So forgive my ignorance, what are StoryCards?

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[info]sirvalence
2006-11-09 12:00 pm UTC (link)
StoryCards is a roleplaying game that I'm designing. I wouldn't have expected you to have heard of it. :)

From the introduction: "StoryCards is a roleplaying game that can be played from start to end in four hours, with no prior preparation. It uses a special deck of cards to inspire creativity, enabling you to create richly detailed characters and adventures in less than an hour, for any setting you can imagine. And it uses minimalistic, common-sense rules to keep the adventure moving quickly."

In Forge terms, it's heavily narrativist rather than gamist: one of the most important rules is "What will make the best story?"

I've run a StoryCards event at GenCon for the past two years, and ran one at Protospiel this year as well, and I've been very happy with how much people enjoyed it. I'm trying to make it available for purchase in time for GenCon next year: the biggest obstacles are to get the decks printed, and to stop being perfectionistic about finishing the manual.

Thanks for asking! I've been enjoying your articles on WotC's website. I don't mean to dismiss your adventure designs at all--quite the contrary!--they're just based on a different roleplaying paradigm.

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[info]the_monkey_king
2006-11-09 03:39 pm UTC (link)
Cool! It sounds like I'll have to pick one up when it's done. Maybe like a more focussed version of Everway or Jeepform.

I think a little critique is always healthy. The articles for WotC were, given their intended audience, pretty heavily pushed toward minis and tactical combat. Although I did sneak in one about roleplaying as well.

My adventure designs are usually driven by location and character rather than tactics, but that's just a reflection of the games I run. I tend to plot out story arcs rather than stats, and I consider minis a distraction from the game.

Which brings me back to my questions: does StoryCards follow a three or five-act story structure? How many players does it accomodate? And does it have a default setting?

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[info]sirvalence
2006-11-09 08:31 pm UTC (link)
It's actually more like a _less_ focussed version of Everway (I don't know Jeepform), since it's not setting-specific. The players as a group start out by deciding upon the mood and genre of the adventure (perhaps by using the random genre determination table) in order to create a brief concept statement for the adventure environment, including what the players' mission is as a group (so they have a pretext for interacting). The players then create characters while the gamemaster designs the adventure: everybody uses the cards to generate ideas. The goal is to start playing within an hour of having decided to play, without any previous preparation, and in playtesting that's been met pretty consistently. (The system doesn't preclude using pregenerated characters and adventures, of course.)

The adventures always follow a three-act structure, because part of the cost of character powers and weaknesses is the number of acts in which they come into play.

My friend Scotto has actually run the GenCon games, and he runs them with eight players. I think he's insane: I never want to GM any system for more than six. The guidelines for GMing combat are actually extracted from another friend's homebrew system that I've seen work okay for up to 20 players, and StoryCards has much lighter rules than that system did. So I'd say it accomodates however many players you think you can stand.

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