Franky

Names changed to protect the guilty and innocent alike.

I tell this series of incidents for two reasons: like with everything else I put on this blog I have a feeling I should, and because I think it a good instruction on human nature in general, from the incidents themselves to the fact that I still chuckle about these things, more than ten years later. I’ve never once claimed to be a good person and I’m certainly not about to start now. The last caveat is this a selection of the misdeeds of Franky, who was easily the least likeable person I’ve run acrost. He wasn’t the most evil… but understand that I am heavily editing the most irritating person I’ve ever met, and am deliberately underselling just how noxious this dude was.

I first met Franky in my household’s common room. I disliked him on sight more than I usually disliked people at that age… which is saying something. I was startled. I have a high degree of passive hatred for each and every living thing that God slowly has slowly purged from my being: to dislike someone personally was unexpected. I couldn’t put my finger on it though. I just had a feeling, a presentiment. Knowing such feelings could be nonsense I pushed it down.

That feeling? It was right.

You see, Franky decided he liked our household, specifically because of all the video game equipment. So he stayed. In the common room. He didn’t eat much, which was odd because of his bulk. If he slept we didn’t know of it, and I went to bed at 4 am on an early night. And he didn’t shower. 

Franky was not blessed with good body odor.

We had to ban him from our common room, because it turned out his stink didn’t clean out easily. No seriously, that’s a thing.

That said nothing about his personality. Franky was that peculiar blend of hopelessly arrogant and stupid; more than once my jaw would drop in shock at the absolute garbage that came out of his mouth. Everyone else tried to be polite. I did not see a point in such polite cruelty. I’d call him a fool, what he said idiocy, and ask how many times his mother dropped him on his head when he was a child, because nobody could be this stupid naturally.

And then one day it reached my ears he had told my girlfriend to, and I quote, to “Shut the fuck up and get back in the kitchen “. My girlfriend took one look at my face and begged me not to do anything. 

I was already out the door.

I found him in our common room with our household leader, who I respected a great deal. I told him to leave. Anyone who said such things to ladies deserved to have their ribs broken, if not worse.  I was so angry my vision was starting to cloud over crimson. My friend told me calmly he would not leave. I had to control myself and that was all there to it. Franky was utterly terrified and hadn’t spoken since I came in breathing murder.

“Did you tell Angela to shut the fuck up and get in the kitchen because she was disagreeing with you over something? And her friend Crystal?”

“I don’t remember?” I took a step toward him and grabbed something. I don’t remember what. Felt nice and heavy though.

My friend got up and put himself between me and Franky. “Nathan, DON'T. Please. I’m asking you not to do this.”

I shot him a look and turned to Franky again. Whatever was in my hand landed on the ground. “You don’t remember? You either did it or you didn’t.”

He cowered. “It sounds like something I’d say.”

I gestured at my friend. He has always been a better man than I’ll ever be. “He’s here. So I won’t do what I’d dearly like to. But I ever hear you doing that to anyone, ever again, I’ll break those stupid glasses and shove them down your throat. Men as stupid and vile as you rob us of oxygen!”

And I stormed out.

As I said, I’ve never once claimed to be a good man.

Franky found a new group of people to annoy, and my life became remarkably more pleasant. And then one day he decided he liked my brother-in-law Marty. I love Marty like you wouldn’t believe… but Marty suffered fools less than I did. Marty, however, has always burned cold where I burn hot. So he waited, like a spider waits for the fly. It was a bit menacing, honestly. I could tell Marty didn’t dislike Franky, he hated him. Franky had a way of sticking his foot on his mouth…. and then refusing to apologize, doubling down in ways you wouldn’t believe no matter the oath I took.

Marty waited.

One day I came into Marty’s room to find Franky in tears. He was sobbing uncontrollably. “NOBODY LIKES ME! You all hate me!”

Marty shrugged noncommittally. “We’ll, you’ve not exactly made it easy to like you.” 

“But I’m trying!!!”

That was a mistake. 

“Are you?” asked Marty, perfectly level. And, right before my eyes, Marty broke down every character flaw Franky had and how to fix it. He talked awhile.

“But I can’t do any of that!” wailed Franky. “I’m too pathetic for that!”

“Your words, not mine,” said Marty with a shrug.

And that carried on for weeks, with various people. He tried it with me and I told him I’d seen the act enough, thank you. Many people had tried to give good advice, and it had all been rejected. I wasn’t going to play along.

When he tried to wheedle something out of me anyways I got up to break his legs, breathing threats of an agonizing time in the hospital if he didn’t leave immediately.

Franky left in a hurry.

Towards the end of the year we had a huge Smash Bros tournament. Marty is a genius at Smash. He easily climbed into the semifinals, where he came face to face with another player who was almost as skilled but much luckier, Brandon. Five lives, medium items, Final Destination was the stage.

It was a twenty minute match.

I’ve never seen someone sweat buckets at a video game before. Both of them did. But Marty won by the skin of his teeth.

It was the best Smash Bros match I’ve seen in my life. Marty went on to win the tournament.

As we left, Franky ran up to Brandon. “Hahahahha you choked! Marty’s been your bitch for months but when it mattered? YOU CHOKED!!!”

I sighed. “Franky, shut the fuck up. Brandon lost well. I wish I could lose like he did. Please shut up or I’ll hurt you.”

Franky skipped away laughing. “You won’t touch me! You’re too nice! You choked too!”

I was holding the Wii. I handed it to Marty with a “Hold this please.”

And I charged. Silently. After the fat skipping Franky.

He turned around to find my fist whistling toward his glasses. He turned pale, comically so.

My fist stopped an eighth of an inch from his face. 

He whimpered. 

“You’re right, I’m a good person. This is me showing mercy. I want you to take your fat ass up into your room. I don’t want to hear you, see you, or smell you for the rest of the evening. Given how you perpetually smell like ass I suggest a shower. Now get moving before I decide you shouldn't walk.”

“Y-yes sir.”

“DID I TELL YOU YOU COULD SPEAK, YOU DUMB FUCK???” I screamed.

Franky ran like hell.

My household was not happy with me. I was called a bully, cruel, no better than a thug. That last accusation came from Matthias, who always took issue with my impatience with nonsense. I wasn’t sorry and I made sure they knew it.

A few weeks later Matthias came into my room. He started small talk. Matthias never did that. “What do you want?” I interrupted. “You clearly want something.”

Matthias turned red. “It’s… it’s Franky. He’s been in the common room three days. It stinks in there. He’s been picking fights.”

I didn’t even bother to take the high road. “And what do you want from me, oh gentle and good natured Matthias?” I asked with as much scorn as I could.

“I don’t care how you do it. Please get him out, At least so we can air the common room out.”

I grabbed my study stuff and opened the door to a wall of solid STINK. I wrinkled my nose. Franky didn’t even look up from Paper Mario. I sat down, trying to decide how I was going to get this human parasite out of my common room.

“Whatcha studying?” asked Franky.

“Oh, Logic. I’m not very good at it,” I admitted with a bit of a chuckle.

“Wait, what’s your major? What the hell are YOU doing taking logic?”

“Oh, um, philosophy.”

“You are NOT what I think of when I think of philosophy. Why are you taking that?”

“Oh, um, well, to be a priest.” My cheeks flushed a bit.

Franky laughed until he had to wipe his ugly pudgy face.

I turned beet red. “And what in the fuck is your problem?” I asked in a quiet voice.

“Nothing! Just… you’d either be the best priest ever or you’d just scare everyone shitless and they’d be good out of fear!” 

And the motherfucker kept laughing. 

And laughing.

There was not one bit of malice in his laugh. He couldn't stop.

He saved his game.

Got up.

And left.

He left the door open. The room started to smell better at once.

I just sat. I tried not to think about what just happened. I failed.

A few minutes later Matthias came in. “Holy shit that was fast! Where’s the body?”

“I… I didn’t touch him.”

He stared at me. “Uh huh. How many bruises you leave?”

“I promise you, I didn’t touch him!”

“Then what did you do???”

“I just talked with him. And he left. I told him I wanted to be a priest and he left.”

Matthias went and knocked on Franky’s door.

And Franky answered it, puzzled.

The Trajectory of Crescendo Testing

After closing out the first arc with David, I’m more sure than I’ve ever been that Crescendo isn’t just a great or unique game, but of its total uniqueness. I’ve never seen a design push so hard to knock the status quo away, or refuse to compromise the core experience. It’s a game faithful to its source material in a way I’ve honestly never seen in any game before. But Crescendo has a ways to go yet. With further clarity comes a responsibility to see that clarity through.

Crescendo has proven to me, over and over again, that it is truly a game of spiritual and psychological development. All of the stories that have come out of using the rules and procedures of Crescendo have been deeply intensive expositions on the characters’ outlook. From Sorin’s admittance of his inability to choose the truly right course, to Judah’s betrayal of his former mentor Caleb so that the ideals Caleb taught him would survive, to Yoshiko throwing herself between a mob and her family so that her insecurities about being a burden could be assuaged, Crescendo has put the evolution of character first in a way no other game I’ve seen ever has. By making these emotions killable and fragile, Crescendo forces the question “How does your character feel about that?” into a context that’s not just gameable, but fun. Most of this has played out in what’s called a Melody scene, where the “main” plot of the story is addressed. Melody scenes are intense and dark, filled with failure and hope in varying measures. They hinge upon a rolling mechanic called a Save, which is the most chaotic mechanic I’ve ever seen in a game. And because of the Save Melody scenes are always unpredictable and dangerous.

There’s other scene types however, and they could use some work: Interludes, Harmony, and Fantasia scenes.

Interludes are scenes that don’t address the main plot but yet are important to the characters: journeys, dreams, and visions are examples of Interludes scenes. You bump into the worlds, inner and outer, and have to deal with how they challenge you. The issue, however, isn’t with these scenes, but with the Save mechanic; the Save is so random that it’s only fun in small spurts… which is a problem if you go by the idea of a universal resolution mechanic. And I normally would have, given my storygamer roots.

I care much more about the quality of Crescendo than any stupid RPG camp.

Before we get started, however, a note. There’s a counter in the game called the Black Swan Counter (CBS, if you can’t figure out why I switched it say CBS out loud. Yes I think it’s funny. Too bad if you disagree!). The CBS acts as a measurement of resistance the gods have towards your character (difficulty) and how soon a sudden twist, called a Black Swan, is likely to happen. The CBS goes up and down during the game, showing the ebb and flow of the gods’ favor.

Also keep in mind: I deliberately design mechanical ecosystems. If a mechanic does not push on at least two different mechanics I do not bother designing it. This makes my designs dynamic and sometimes intense, as one story event can lead to multiple reactions at once.

So there goes a universal mechanic! Fortunately Crescendo is rich in untapped mechanical resources: Stones and Resilience Points. It wouldn’t take much to snap new mechanics onto Stones and RP. 

Interludes are meant to be important, but not chaotic. They’re not the moments of great change. So I figure why not just make a static difficulty class system, which can be beaten by adding your stat and skill, making up the difference with Stones, which you earn after every Melody scene? You do get what looks like a lot of them, sometimes twenty plus… although my playtesters know that’s actually not a lot. At all. So, this is actually a huge deal. But if failures help lower the CBS, thus making future rolls easier, then failing isn’t so bad, is it? Failures are better for narrative than successes by and large, after all, and if a player gives a failure willingly isn’t that best?

The Harmony is where I really feel the siren call to overdesign. I have a really clever idea I want to implement… and I know I shouldn’t. What I have already works and it works damn well. This is one of those times I just need to bite my tongue and do what works for the design already, and possibly port that idea to something else. The game works because the Harmony is so open and free form. I am going to hold course. And not try to be overly clever.

Fantasia scenes may be the trickiest to playtest; they’re amalgamations of all the previous scenes. Ruins and journeys, where differing scenes are part of a larger experience, are examples of fantasias. I just came up with these kinda scenes only recently, so a lot of the design here will be a bit more exploratory. 

Playtesting from here on out will focus on the scenes not directly connected to the plot: the Interludes, Harmony, and Fantasia. Trying to replicate the feel of long fantasy and mythology is the goal, which is a subtly challenging affair. While the eradication of a universal resolution mechanic hurts Crescendo’s accessibility, previously existing mechanics are given new life and will hopefully help cement these mechanics into the players’ minds all the more. I never wanted Crescendo to feel like a one trick pony, but to have the kind of systemic depth that would reward years of play. And these mechanics may aid that aim. 

Book of the Long Sun: Second Read

 

Book of the Long Sun is a difficult read. It’s about 1400 pages of world building, character work, theodicy, broken hearts, and a vision of paganism and Christianity that is impossible to undersell in its subtlety. Part three of four seems to be the culprit for most quitters, as it meanders in a way many find intolerable. I can’t blame them. 

But the quitters  miss out on the earnest honesty of part four, and that’s sad, because it’s there that Wolfe finally gets to the point. And it ain't a comfortable one: the good guys are the ones who forgive. Eventually you have to come face to face with the absolute absurdity of whatever it is you're doing and how pointless it can actually get: children leave you, your goals in life can be totally invalidated by whatever is going on in the world, and you're not the person you thought you were, not now or ever. All the characters in part four meet this looming absurdity. The good ones let go of what once meant so much to them, because doing good is more important than anything they thought was going on. The bad ones hold on to what they think is absurd, even if it would destroy them and others around them. Good grieves. Evil gets even. And thus good wins.

Out of all of the Wolfe's works this is the book I find myself still struggling with the most. To call Book of the Long Sun dense would be an understatement most criminal. If not for the fact that all of the denseness is packed around a plot that’s entertaining I’d just drop it. The issue, of course, is that when I ask myself what I'd have dropped the answer comes up a blank. Everything in here seems logical, and I'd not cut it. That being said, Book of the Long Sun is significantly better on a reread. With an idea of where it’s all going it’s easier to take in the massive plot and character work, not to mention just having a sense that the book isn’t going to drop the ball goes a really long way. Out of all the Wolfe I’ve read Book of the Long Sun is the one I’d recommend the least for an initial read; it’s probably going to take me a dozen reads to wrap my  head around this monster. I look forward to it, because this reread was really rewarding, but this isn’t the one I think folks should cut their teeth on.

Some say that Long Sun is only a distant sequel to New and Urth. I fail to see why; this is a very direct thematic sequel.  All of the themes from New Sun, from the transmigration of souls to the nature of lies and truth to the necessity of pain and so much more are still here. They’re just not being filtered through a degenerate society and one person trying desperately to not be like the rest of the pack. I will repeat it: this is a direct thematic sequel. The same stuff in New and Urth of the New Sun is being talked about here and has been advanced, like in a true sequel. It just so happens to be all the thematic work of the first two books.

Also of note to me was that anyone who got anything done in the story was not wholly "themselves". Patera Silk, Chenille, Mayteras Marble and Mint, Auk, they were useless to others and themselves until they met an entity beyond themselves. All the above characters meet with the gods and have to contend with them. And after that? They're able to move. Not before. I do not think that an accident, and I do not think that unrealistic. Even the mighty Pas himself had to bring someone else into his soul in order to change. The comparison to the cyborg chems, who take parts from their dead compatriots to upgrade themselves, is very clear. And more than a little disconcerting. 

On a personal note I find Silk to be the most challenging of Wolfe's protagonists. While he is definitely not an everyman there is a vulnerability to him that's reminiscent of the archetype. Silk is consistently finding out that there is more to him than he imagined, in the most uncomfortable ways possible: the man of peace and theology is a fantastic thief, fighter, and liar. And unfortunately all the things that he discovers about himself are really important... until they're not. The story would be so much less if being an awful person would solve everything. It doesn't. Silk has to figure it out. And  because of Silk's refusal to sell his soul more than he has to, the character is compelling.

I dunno, folks, this is a tough one. If you’re willing to dig into Book of the Long Sun and give it your time it’s an amazing book. Wolfe epitomizes the juggling of many plates. He’s doing some stuff here I found truly revolutionary. But you have to be willing to really dig. If you are I think you’ll find gold. If not you’ll have problems. 

And I don’t think you can get more fair than that.

Black Rain

 

It was the day after my best friend Dylan had gone missing for the third time that month. His girlfriend Marie called me in tears. As I walked into choir my head practically rattled with her sobs. I’d done what I could to comfort her, but Dylan’s parents divorce had destroyed much of what I recognized as my friend. He’d probably gone back to that gang he’d been talking about. I hoped he was alive. My own parents were practically finished off and I-

My knee gave out. 

The world swam in perfect synchronization with the bounce of my head on the ground.

I called my mom in a panic. My knee had given out once more on the way to the principal’s office. “It’s back!” I screamed. I was seven again, with my knee blowing up like a balloon. I trembled. I wanted my momma. 

My mom assured me it was gone. I screamed over the phone about my leg. People outside the door stopped and stared as the seven year old in me came back and took the wheel. 

We took a test. 

On a one to ten I scored an eleven for a relapse in Lyme’s Disease. When I first had it I was bedridden for four months, as it had dragged Bell’s Palsy along with it. For a kid who was jumping off high dives at two it was devastating. My self confidence never really recovered. One day I was walking and the next I was not. No one could tell me it couldn’t happen again.

Oh, if it had only just been that.

Because this time I began having hallucinations and lost bits of time. Lanes on the road would change and I’d find myself driving into suddenly appearing oncoming traffic. I’d be walking and shadows would flit in my periphery and I’d hear whispers… only for there to be nothing when I turned to face whatever it was. Sometimes I’d feel my body vibrating in time with the world, which all of a sudden was vibrating too! I’d reach out, grab a leaf off a tree, and feel the life fade out of it as the rest of everything hummed.

How I envied that leaf its death.

I did that a lot.

Sleep brought no relief. I’d wake up feeling more tired the next day, with spiky and sharp toothed abominations clawing their way into my befuddled brain. I’d sleep twelve, thirteen hours and felt like I’d not slept a wink.

Did I mention that Dylan was in the middle of his own personal meltdown? Turns out when you stick up for both sides of a divorce you learn all the dirty laundry. And was there dirty laundry or what! He’d show up at odd hours, tell me some new bloodcurdling thing, and then vanish. It took everything to focus on him, through the vibrating world and the things always moving around me, whispering things I could hear if I just listened a little harder- 

Right, Dylan was busy telling me he was the only lawful child of four siblings.

I’d shake my head, wince, and then try to help him fit that in his skull.

Oh, and Marie was pretty much worn out. So I’d drag my carcass (some days I’d need help getting out) of bed, go over, and just sit. And zone out as the whispering things would ask me for just one more moment. Just one more explanation about the micro expressions of my family and friends I’d always tried to ignore.

I’d go to bed and find myself attacked, as well as various strangers, one particular little girl always amongst them, screaming for help. And all I could do was fail them. Several of these dreams ended with me being decapitated, and then spending the next day finding the whispering was louder. Like, a lot louder. Almost audible, schizophrenic like. 

I wish I could say I was dramatizing this, but believe when I say I’ve watered it down.

Nothing has ever gone back to “normal” after that last year of highschool. I’ll sometimes see things darker than the shadows they move about in, but not in my periphery.

And not at night.

My family met up recently,  and no one with children could sleep. They’d complain of creepy dreams where they were trying to avoid… something. They’d swap the tales in mild amusement and bewilderment. I dreamed too. But not of being chased, but of fighting tooth and nail, appreciating comments about how much stronger I was than the normal fare, and long philosophical conversations with people who weren’t people, who were trying to explain their predations. I’d laugh, exhausted, and wake up, cross myself, and lay awake, more tired than I went to bed. I’d go to bed with the cross and scripture, and wake up feeling like I’d been in a brawl.

I didn’t hold out too long with that. One of the evenings  I almost collapsed. Years of a war I barely understood crashed in. I wanted desperately to be done. I missed the person I was before the war began, when I was seventeen, when the world, awful as it was, was not something out of an HP Lovecraft tale. When I could just sit in silence.

And then, for only the second time in my life, something soft and quiet stole into my mind, like a mother checking in on her child. At its presence I stilled. I didn’t have to work to hear it. This was only some of what it told me.

“Your seemingly eternal darkness is brighter than most souls at high noon… 

At the end of the ocean of horrors is rest. Fight on. I have always been with you. When your body breaks I break reality to keep you going. When your body should have died from heartbreak (and when aren’t you close to total heartbreak?) I call on Time to rejuvenate you. So close to death, physical and spiritual, you laugh and throw yourself in where others would shrivel and die.

Someday your allotted time will be up, and when it is those you have fought for will carry you home. And then you will sleep. Oh, those you have fought for will hold your broken form and give you the fruits of their labors. And your broken and beaten soul will be carried Home, to rest…”

My knees gave out from the sudden relief. I sobbed like a child. My shoulders tingled from the touch of something I couldn’t see. I leaned into the warm air. And I felt like the child I’d never been. A little spark, one which I’m not sure I’ve felt before, shines in the dark. I didn’t light it.

But that’s one more corner of my soul the nightmares can’t go. It is enough for now.

Crescendo: The Second First Book

So I decided, just now, that the narrative unit formerly known as arcs will henceforth be known as books. That’s much more thematic.

On with it!

After nineteen or twenty sessions David and I finished Sorin’s first book of What Remains. Sorin began as a common woodsman, an inheritor of the old ways of Facator, The Creator. The magical fruit trees that were thought to give the earth its life had begun to die… and the soil with it. The crops began to fail, forests to shrink. Sorin heard tell of Duke Rafael giving audience to the evil Cult of Zodie, who claimed to have a solution the blight. So Sorin set out to stop the cult. It all looked so simple! The dark god Zodie was known for his hatred of humanity. Open and shut, right?

Nope.

What happened instead was almost twenty sessions of wandering, heartbreak, mysticism, and theodicy, ending in Sorin’s admittance of his weakness and the lack of clarity he could find in anything but his own weakness. The story felt akin to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, albeit with space stations and lightning guns. And the truth turned out to be much more complicated than expected. Turns out the magical trees were an invasive alien  species, and had been draining the soil of its soil. The ancients slowed down the killing of the planet by releasing a specialized herbicide in a blue crowd from orbital satellites… until recently, when the herbicide ran out. Sorin was gifted the last sample of herbicide by seeming chance, thanks to an act of kindness. He retired to the city Turn Mort, which had recently rediscovered the secrets of rocketry and orbital flight, to wait out the winter.

Folks, out of the twenty or so sessions only about seven of them dealt with the above mentioned plot. In fact there would be six session stretches where the plot never came up! Sorin would be healing up, getting money for his travels, singing songs to cheer himself and others up, intertown warfare, angels, spacefaring elves, roving bands of satyrs… and just so much more. The story was alive with the unexpected. No prep was needed; our job was to roll the dice and hang on for dear life. I didn’t think about our campaign much between sessions. The story practically rolled itself into existence. 

The previous first book I’d ran had been a lot of fun, with some strong character development… but had come off as too much of an adventure story. There’s nothing wrong with pulps (The Truth Found in Death will be one!) but that’s not what Crescendo is. The first book needed to bring in questions of whether the character should be a hero at all. Imperfections had to be abundantly clear, along with a general feeling of helplessness. The rest of the books could do the big plot stuff and be fine; the first book needed to have suffering. So I doubled down on the inherently unfair math; characters may succeed someday, but it ain’t gonna be happening much in those first twenty sessions! To compensate I made a mechanic that allowed players to define their own failure and make the next roll easier, provided they invoked one of their character’s Traits and made the failure their fault. It was an instant success! Turns out people really like taking control of unfair situations and role playing at the same time, who knew?

So with that done I’m pretty certain that the Melody scene (where the actual plot happens) is done, by and large. Tweaks will be needed moving forward, but the Melody fulfills its function: to generate as much pain and chaos as possible, short of sadism. The Melody’s mechanics have been fine-tuned for maximum productive cruelty. This is not an idle boast: there’s not been one playtester who hasn’t gone “What in the…” and then stared off into the distance, at least once, as they’ve tried to fit the monstrosities their characters briefly became  as they fail themselves. And Sorin’s failings were particularly uncomfortable, falling to fits of murderous ruthlessness, in order to cope with the world. These moments were more often than not provoked by Melody scenes. That made the characters vulnerable and, more often than not, sympathetic. A person is frequently confused with their circumstances, and when circumstances change people usually do too. And it is this highly uncomfortable truth that the Melody is designed to bring crashing into view. After a year and a half of testing I can confidently say the Melody does its job.

What does David have to say about it?

My name is David, and I've been playing a duet game of Crescendo with Nathan for several months. This game and setting are entitled What Remains. We just finished our first Arc, which has taken a modest woodsman named Sorin on a tragic journey to save the planet. Crescendo

is an intricate game, and we have played a lot of it -- so I won't try to summarize everything that has happened or cover all the mechanics.

In creating Sorin, I followed the prompts to generate a background without any clear character concept in mind. It just fell together. The picture was complete after I looked at the setting and situation details. Crescendo includes setting generation tools, and the Movements provide the situational material. The player also creates Drives reflecting things in the world that the character feels compelled to act upon. Movements and Drives are a kind of connective tissue between GM and player agendas. With all of this in place, it was a no-brainer to create a woodsman who is motivated to restore the magical fruit trees responsible for sustaining all life on the planet.

Crescendo uses some unique mechanics (in my experience) to facilitate the incorporation of prepared materials in play, and to reuse played material in new ways.

What is known about the Immortals includes many motifs and symbols to incorporate into scenes, implying their interest in mortal affairs. In play, this lends a touch of the supernatural and divine to ordinary conflicts. As we're resolving and narrating things, symbolism works its way into the scene, but it is always left open to interpretation. The Immortals are always watching and have their hands in everything.

Crescendo has a mechanic called "Hitting the Books." As things happen, both players and GM journal certain events. Whenever we need more information, we flip to a random page and random entry in our journals as a source of inspiration. The GM then interprets the results, remixing and reshaping past content into something new. I have enjoyed some of the results from hitting the books regarding the situational changes for particular locales in which the previous events are mixed in with the results of hitting the books. This has been a great driver of big-picture events.

Characters in Crescendo have a set of Drives, which get damaged through play. When exhausted, they present a potential turning point for the character. Drive exhaustion happened to Sorin a few times -- resulting in Crisis Points. During a Crisis Point, the character is called to take drastic action that they will regret forever, and that action automatically succeeds.

In the first instance, Sorin murdered a soldier to prevent being taken back to town to pursue a course of action he felt would be useless. Peace-loving Sorin became a murderer at that moment, which completely changed his trajectory. 

In the second Crisis Point, Sorin killed his ailing master. She had been severely wounded and healed herself using an ingredient (meteorites) previously thought harmful to the planet's environment. For a little more background, a cult was cutting down the existing magic fruit trees and planting these meteorites in the ground. Sorin and his master opposed this plan. However, if the meteorites healed his master, they must not be all bad. As they started to sprout in her body, Sorin deduced that they were transformed and proceeded to harvest them from her, causing her death. We haven't fully addressed this angle in play yet, but it resulted from playing the Crisis Point. It wasn't part of any pre-established lore. Crescendo prompted us to create that lore during play.

As we've developed the lore, using the various mechanics provided by the game, we've gotten more into the struggles of the Immortals. Many of these play themselves out on space stations.  Sorin has traveled from place to place looking for answers while the world has kept turning. We've seen angels intervene in some of the conflicts, and we've also seen abandoned technology become operational again, technology that is essential to saving the planet. We started with a vanilla fantasy, and now we have space stations, space elves, lightning guns, and angels in the mix.

As I write this, we have just finished Sorin's first Arc after around 20 sessions of play. Arcs do not have a set length. During play, we find the Arc by listening for it -- there is a moment when it feels right. When we reached this point, we played out a scene called The Festival, where several mechanical and fictional changes can occur. Superficially the character "levels up." We take stock of what the character did and how their journey changed them. Fictional things get codified into the character sheet. Several things also get rese: in-game currencies, Drives, and Movements. This isn't the only opportunity for characters to improve, but many important things only change and improve at this moment. It also sets the game on a new course (if everybody decides there is one worth charting).

In Sorin's case, he reflected on all the drastic actions and consequences that occurred over his journey to save the planet. His solitary vision implicated and hurt the people he cared about most. There are still unfaced consequences that will eventually catch up with him. His grand realization at this moment is that he must find allies in his cause who understand the stakes. He can't just drag people along. They must be willing participants. He also accepts that one day he will have to pay the toll for the things that he has done -- but not before he has completed what has set out to do. 

Crescendo has changed a lot since we first started. It is being designed as we play it, using fictional material that develops through play. As it is a changing and evolving thing, I haven't tried to internalize all of the mechanics. A large part of my enjoyment of play is discovering the different parts of the system.

For example, the different methods of recovery -- resting in town, divine visions, narrating beautiful things, attending festivals, and composing poetry. We role-play these things, and there are mechanical incentives for engaging these systems. They add to the world and change

the character. I have enjoyed some recovery sessions the most since we're not simply returning to a baseline or exchanging one currency (like spell slots) for another.

I've really enjoyed playing Crescendo on multiple levels. As a game experience, it has gotten me out of the muck of playing on the tiny scale that many fantasy RPGs default to -- zero-to-hero, strict tracking of time and space, and trading blows on a transactional basis to affect

the game world. Crescendo has been unique as a play experience, and I suspect it will influence how I approach play in the future. It has also been very intriguing to play a game as it is being developed. That is, to play and not "play test" it. Lastly, it has also been a pleasure getting to know Nathan.

Thank you David! We met up over Discord and it’s been a genuine pleasure, just all around.

So where does that leave Crescendo at? Well, there’s four types of scenes in Crescendo: the Melody, Interludes, Harmony, and Fantasia. The Melody was the most critical, but those other three need work to get them feeling right, as well as getting a comprehensive ecosystem developed between the four kinds of scenes. But there’s a definite feeling of completing an important step. Crescendo has a long way to go. But I’ve been having such a blast that I don’t mind… except when the crushing weight of just how much I’ve bitten off comes crashing in like a tsunami wave.

Thank God that doesn’t happen too often!

 

Bargain Quest Review

There are very few games I would say a perfect, or close enough to it to where it doesn't matter anymore. I suppose I should say that there are games that I find to be perfect for me, but I can't bring myself to say so. There are games that just hit an ideal so purely and effectively that I can't help but love them with all I've got. 

Oh, is Bargain Quest one of those or what. 

The idea behind Bargain Quest is ingenious:  you are a shop-keeper in a typical Dungeons and Dragons fantasy world. Your town is in peril. The heroes have come. But they need things to go into the dungeon and fight: weapons, armor, knicknacks, that sorta thing. So they come to you. The shopkeeper. And it's up to you. 

But that bottle of snake oil? It can look like a magical ointment and cost a lot more. Maybe, just maybe, you can pawn it off and make a buck. It's just one thing, right? Right? And maybe your hero dies. He can't come back and complain, can he??

Actually that's a bit dark when you put it like that.

At any rate, this is a drafting game: draw four cards. Pick one, pass to the left, keep going until the cards are all out. One of those cards is your display item, which is used to attract customers. It can't be used to actually sell to someone, so you have to be careful what you put in the shop. You then sell as much stuff to your hero as he has money. And you send him out.

And here's where it gets tricky.

Because new heroes will invariably have more money than returning customers. So maybe you want to make them to survive! But there's this freaking deck in the game that you draw, which gives random modifiers to your heroes. Sometimes they're good. Sometimes they're bad. But they come with these awesome adjectives ("Heroic", "Nervous", "Gloomy") that give you just this tiniest bit of an idea of what's going on in the hero's skull. They also make it impossible to predict exactly how things will go down. I mean, you can prep if you know the range. Within reason.

You then get Victory Points for damaging and surviving the creature, as the fame of your shop spreads. And these are not small-fry rewards either: each Victory Point is equal to 10 bucks! Okay, it's not actually dollars, but I'm not sure what the money denomination actually is. It sure isn't gold. Point is, if your adventurer does well you may be able to keep up with your compatriots who decided to throw their dudes under the bus. But that's only a maybe, and that gray area is where the fun of the game is.

Regardless, you get to upgrade your shop and add employees, after seeing what happens to the heroes. You can add more items to the display, add more storage space so you don't have to junk as many cards between rounds. And then you keep doing that until all the monsters are defeated! Hooray! It's a very simple idea. And it's this simplicity that Jonathan Ying owns, all the way through.

Crescendo: Recovery Should Be Interesting

Recovery in RPGs is boring as hell. It’s something you do to get back to the good stuff, a penalty for not rolling well enough. Some games just hand-wave it as much as possible. And most games I’ve played or read ignore long-term consequences entirely.  Get back to the good stuff!

Well Crescendo doesn’t do that at all. Recovery is a core component of gameplay. 

The first question was what I felt qualified to model: not much. I’m not a medical professional. So designing mechanics around the actual physical healing process wasn’t something I felt comfortable doing. And given that Crescendo is a psychological and spiritual fantasy it would have felt wrong anyway. 

The first step was to incentivize healing. Now in Crescendo that’s easy enough: you get tons of XP for getting rid of Conditions! But that’s not enough. The system needs to SCREAM that character weakness isn’t a bad thing. So I made it to where you could use Conditions to make bad things happen in the narrative… and not just get XP for it but tone down the difficulty of the next check. 

But this is a game about character growth and change. You can’t not have mental conditions. That would not make sense. The sound of that may turn off some, but if there is one thing that should have a set of rules to help you manage it respectfully it should be mental conditions. So I then spent time on mental conditions and how to make them fun and respectful. And I think I pulled it off! Most forms of trauma are the result of uncontextualized life events. Your brain doesn’t know what to do with whatever it is, which stresses your body out. Bodies want to get back to normal, so under enough constant pressure IT MAKES THAT STRESS THE DEFAULT. Deviate from the new norm and your body kicks into high gear to get you back to “normal”. 

But what about actual traumas? Y’know, stuff that keeps coming up? That’s simple enough. Just make it a Condition that keeps showing back up. And it gives you additional Conditions whenever it does. And it doesn’t go away permanently until the end of an arc, MAYBE. In the meantime you’ll have it on your character sheet, in PEN. None of this is just mental: your broken ankle could break again, throwing out your other knee or causing any other physical issues. You use the same systems to track these issues. The actual clinical reality ain’t that far off.

So I went and designed my recovery options for mental stuff to be all about recontextualizing: mythology (aka making lore), talking about what happened, and moments of sheer beauty that set a new context altogether.  But I found that physical maladies needed some additional modeling in play. That and there needed to be something to where Traumas could be put into recession. 

So I made a mechanic called Town. You hunker down for a few weeks and get rid of Conditions in batches. Also all Injuries and illnesses can only be healed while in Town. The more Conditions you heal the more XP you get. It costs some money, but the payoff in XP is enormous. But the part that’s truly awesome is that the entire world moves forward RANDOMLY. By hunkering down things will change all over the setting, creating new conflicts while resolving old ones. It only takes a few minutes to do, and gives Town this roulette vibe: are you willing to hunker down, even at the cost of changing everything?

The key to all these mechanics is that they’re actually really relaxing. Crescendo is a crazy game. The dice mechanics push you into really dark places and there needed to be a spot in the game where you could just RELAX. And Recovery does that. You get to just free-form RP, do some lore building, and try to make sense of the craziness. That’s really important in a game as crazy as Crescendo. 

What comes out of recovery being a core component of the gamr are wide a variety of sessions, where each time feels new. There’s a dynamism to this game that’s hard to explain. But I’ve personally never seen a game naturally go this dark and just a session later feel so peaceful. You’ll never quite know what you’re going to get.

You just know it’ll be good.

I don’t know, that’s what I want from a game night.

Post-Modernism is Pre-Modernism Trying to Off-road in a Prius

 

"Post modernism" is thrown around a lot these days. If I talk to a conservative about modern media in any capacity I will, eventually, hear "post-modern" thrown around like it's the anti-Christ. And it's not hard to see why: progressives embrace the concept like it's nobody else's business. "That's just your opinion, man, there is no objective truth!" is... only a mild exaggeration of the progressive position. So yes, conservatives will fight it. Conservatives, being progressives driving the speed limit, aren't willing to say the quiet parts out loud.

I'm not a conservative.

I'm not a progressive.

I'm a Christian.

So no, I will not fight. Neither will I lie down and die. All the things under heaven and earth are mine, by right of being a child of God. All. Of. Them. 

And post-modernism has another name: reality, the pre-modern worldview. Post-modernism is pre-modern. 

Alright, so let's unpack that a bit. We have to start with definitions. By post-modernism I specially mean the idea that bias is in everything, that it is all a point of view, and that something completely objective is impossible to discern. Most of the best post-modern works value the raw and direct experience of the main character over anything else, including dogmas, scientific laws, all bows before experience. And progressives love to throw that at conservatives. The idea of a person being the first arbitrator of what is true for them appeals to them. At least in theory. All voices matter! they shout with wild aplomb. 

But the trick isn't that progressives own up to this ideology, it's that they're cowards and don't own up to it nearly enough.

You see, there's this funny thing called "history". And, contrary to all progressive attempts to the contrary, the voices of the dead that we have record of are not on their side. Sure, you'll always have dissidents, but the major flow of history does not agree with progressives in the slightest, a fact that forces them to throw around the words "racist", "sexist", "homophobe" or whatever buzzword they have to use to put themselves into their dark littler corners and scream at anything not them. Turns out when you average in all the voices, the prevailing wisdom runs counter to theirs, to a degree that would be shocking if they weren't sitting in that dark little corner screaming, fingers in ears. Either all the voices matter or they don't. If you're going to pick and choose at least be clear that that's what you're doing.

And history is not on the progressive side. At all.

At this, the conservative reading this post will go "Yes, they're on ours!"

No, they're not, simmer down.

The conservative's method is similar to a student caught cheating on a theology exam. Sure, you may have the answers, but you have absolutely no understanding of why the answers exist in the first place and therefore your point of view is absolutely worthless; if anything it's more dangerous than the progressive one! That goes double for rad trad Catholics and uberdox Orthodox, who are the worst copiers of the bunch, making that student who got caught cheating look positively honest in comparison. See, the kid who cheated knew he was doing wrong. He just didn't care! I can't even get that much out of a rad trad or uberdox, by and large. The think they're doing the right thing by bringing the cheat sheet and peaking at it while they think the teacher isn't watching.

Turns out it was an essay test. Yes, that actually happened. It's impossible for me to communicate in print what a sad sack of crap this person was in real life, and the depth of the insult I just threw conservatism's way. Suffice to say that in order to tell you about Franky would derail this blog post so hard that...

Okay, I may do that at some point.

Yes, I do think it's that funny and no I don't claim to be a good person.

Anyways.

Now, to be fair to the conservative, the worldview they are espousing (19th century Enlightenment) has been passed off as the old ways since before Vatican II. And in that "older" context? You reference the abstract statement and go "There! That's the truth!" and you're supposed to move on with your life. Man, as a supposedly solely rational creature, should just be able to do that and move on. I've seen, with mine own two eyes, talks on suffering given by Catholics that are just ragingly wrong... because the answers given in the talk were not given with the proper context in mind. It was just assumed that, by giving out these abstract points of information, the listener would be able to just accept that and integrate it into their lives. And that's simply not true. That's the stupidest thing I've encountered in my life: the idea that context doesn't matter. It does, by the very sources that conservatives claim to follow, with some Desert Fathers going so far as to claim that those who have not experience in an area need to shut their mouth.

So context determines experience and experience is important. So sayeth the sources conservatives took their crib sheet from.

Shit.

We'll start at what's arguably the center of the Christian faith, the Gospels. Now, each of these announcements of victory (which is what Gospel actually means) are made according to the perspectives of that apostle. The writer attempts, to the best of his knowledge and power, to preach the victory of Christ over the world. And these don't line up. Folks have talked about that for years now, as if that was somehow a problem. It wasn't a problem then like how it is today, when we have this stupid idea that somehow the Gospels were meant to adhere this flawless standard of writing.

They weren't.

They were pronouncements of victory, following a series of genre rules totally dead today.

Asking them to stick to the same details is like trying to get siblings to agree upon the details of a Thanksgiving dinner. They'll agree on the broad strokes, but if you think you'll get them totally agree you're stupid. It's the experience of what they remember that matters, and that's why they were written.

But it gets much worse than that, because this appeal to experience over anything else is built right into the pagan mindset too. See, if a Mediterranean person wandered into another area and found they worshipped other gods, he integrated those gods into his pantheon, and if they had similar portfolios? Well, they clearly had different experiences of the same deity, but it was the same deity. Part of Christianity's triumph was to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they had claims to a unique god, one who was not bound to a particular area or experiences, but was above them all. The experience of the Christian God trumped everything else.

Don't think this perspective didn't carry on past paganism? You're utterly wrong. The Golden Legend, the second most important book in Catholicism I guarantee you don't know about (but should), was a 13th century compilation of saint's stories and sermons. There are incidents in the book that the editor outright says he doesn't know what to do with factually, but that's the story he heard and he's not about to discount it. He simply records it because someone may have actually experienced it. And that's a lot more important than his ideas on the incidents in question. In addition, The Book of the Elders, a compilation of Desert Father stories that finally stopped being edited around the 9th century, employs the same logic, copying out meetings with centaurs and demons and floating mountains with nary a comment on the veracity of the incidents themselves. It ain't because the editors believed the incidents with 100% certainty, but because they knew they couldn't, that the stories were copied down.

Now, while Christian conservatives may have forgotten this whole affair of subjective experience trumping, the modern masters of fantasy didn't. Gene Wolfe, possibly the finest writer of science fiction of the 20th century, was a post-modern master, particularly with works such as Book of the New Sun, where each read-through shows just a bit better how incapable Severian is at telling the truth. The Latro trilogy is literally the recordings of a man with persistent short term memory loss. Each of Wolfe's books are a puzzle of perspective, where characters try to relay what it is they experienced... and fail consistently. And let's not forget that the Silmarillion, Hobbit, and Lord of the Rings are translated in universe artifacts, to the degree to where the names of the hobbits themselves are translations: Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry are actually Maura, Ban, Razar and Kali!

Now, the big difference between pre-modern and the modern progressive, who is at least at the root of the approach, is the refusal to weed out all voices you can find. The problem is that if you do turn the filters off, deny your own ideological lens as hard as you can... a very strange world emerges. One which defies all ideological conventions as we have them today. Ultimately, however, one religion begins to emerge as the one that openly claims supremacy... and it's the one that most progressives are running away from, even if its assumptions about the worth of humans are totally unique to it.

Yes totally.

If you like humans and think they should prosper you ain't goin' to Islam.

I mean, unless you like the idea of women needing to prove they were raped depending upon four Muslim men as witnesses? 

And you sure aren't going to be a true pagan. The bits we have of actual ancient Norse religion were cruel beyond imagination, with human sacrifice being a norm. When Christians came with the idea of a God that cared about the little guy the ancient Norse way was so inferior that we barely have any record of it now. Heck, the same is true of most Western European paganism; whatever Wiccans are doing today, it's not actual paganism.

"But Nathan!" the progressive may protest. "We can start all over! Who needs what came before?"

Look, go and look at all the attempts to do that so far, the most hardcore of the bunch being The French Revolution, with its 10 day weeks, temple prostitutes for reason... and the buckets and bucket and  buckets and buckets of blood. Oh, and then the monarchy returned. Because that's what happens whenever anarchy reigns: monarchy comes back. It's a cycle as old as the hills. 

Dear Progressive... that's the only place where reinvention has led. Ever. There is no utopia. Every attempt to build a new shining city on the hill leads to genocide. And then someone steps up and manages the chaos. Always. Your "better tomorrow" will lead to a dictatorship, and from dictatorship to monarchy. As it always has. As it always will.

If you think you're better than the past not only will you repeat it but you'll one up its atrocities. 

The only way out is  through.

And that means actually owning that yes, indeed, all perspectives matter, even if that winds you back to the conclusion that the ancients really did know what the hell they were talking about, because they actually did what you claim to do. 

And you don't.

Game Design as Alchemy

 

As I continue to go back through Breath of the Wild like an addict that really can quit at any time, I have decided to record the positive outcomes of my perpetual imprisonment. Think of this as my far lighter Gulag Archipelago of captivity. Today we'll be talking about the tight economy of Breath of the Wild and the need for mechanically using every single part of the buffalo. From combat to climbing every single action in Breath of the Wild is a mechanical exchange. This mechanical alchemy is a good thing, and is the center of what makes a game a game: a miniaturization and simplification of the world's processes into something manageable.

We'll start with the most obvious one: base movement, aka walking. This one's pretty simple: you give up time by not doing anything special. If you walk you turn time into distance. It's not the most economical trade-off, which means people don't want to do it.

That's where the game comes in, by the way: trying to figure out how to max out your output.

Anyways.

So you exchange time for distance. The fun comes in trying to cheat that. So you get something with a speed boost and now you have "beaten" the system: you exchange whatever you put in the pot for less time while traveling. An alchemy has occurred. You exchanged something to get something else, and there's a definite feeling that you accomplished something. Breath of the Wild capitalizes on this feeling everywhere in the game.

Yes, that includes combat. And weapon breakage.

So the core of this idea isn't that you get something else with effort, it's that you give up something for a chance of getting something else. You walk in a direction and hope you'll find something worth your time. You swing your weapon, giving up some hardiness, for the chance to kill the monster and farm their remains.  Once again, it's an alchemical exchange: weapon hardiness for materials or time. This keeps the situation changing, and thus requires focus to figure out, and is thusly amusing.

Why do I bring this up?

Because I think this is the heart of a lot of good game design: nothing is wasted. There's no moment when the player feels like their careful attempts to manipulate the system are for nothing. That doesn't mean that players are always succeeding at their intents, only that they affect the game world somehow. If you're using dice "failing forward" is a version of this, as you get your intent, but not how you wanted it: the world dicks you around a bit and you have to work with the new situation you accidentally generated. There's a good reason why "failing forward" should have the failure announced before you roll. Players should feel like they have a good feeling of what's going on. Turn structures also work, in the vein of encounter dice or BDnD's turn orders. You also don't necessarily have to tell someone whether they succeeded or failed,  but I think they should know the likelihood they succeeded or not. Take below, for instance, from the 1e DMG:

Yes I know the image is too large. It's readable now.

I think those odds should be public, or at least findable. Long as the player knows that there are numbers for this sort of thing and trusts the GM to not fudge the rolls then all is well and good. As long as the player knows where his actions might go, all is well and good. What the player did mattered, even if it wasn't what they expected.

It should always feel like player action matters. While mechanical stuff shouldn't be guaranteed, there should always be the feeling that what the player did impacted the game and story, in equal measure. I think that's part of what keeps me coming back to my not addiction: nothing ever feels wasted. The buffalo is always stripped down and there's nothing left.

Ah, crap I need to go play some more.

I mean.

I want to. I can quit anytime I want.