FGJ Games

Agora playtest, and reworking a narration/mechanical interface

June 19th, 2009

I’m quite interested in this game Agora, because in part it emulates the fiction of stuff like Alpha Centauri, and hell that was part of why I was trying to hack on Governor for so long. Some SGB folks played it, and it hasn’t gone so well. Some of the issues: – mechanics: relatively heavy, unclear “tutorial”/Descent instructions, not entertaining at the mechanical level – lack of fictional buy-in for the “genre” of the game (especially problematic because this game requires you to create TONS of ad hoc fictional material and care about it) – lack of attachment between the mechanics and fiction

Let me talk about the third issue. When I played my Descent phase, I did feel a strong fictional attachment. I think this is half because of my excessive buy-in for the fiction, but also because I injected my own procedure into things (which my well be playing it wrong, or it may have been filling in the gaps). I’m curious if that extra (implicit?) procedure makes a difference. Or perhaps, it was only my reading into things that kept things interesting.

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Resources and Ideals are defined by a die-size and a number of dice. There is some relationship between this representation and fiction, but sometimes it’s weak.

Example from play: I create a resource, Council of Eden (2d4). It’s potent (smaller dice are better) but it’s fragile (only two dice, and smaller dice are more likely to get used up). This reflects what I imagined for a Council: an elite circle with influence but living at the very edge of their power being swept away. (However, going from 2d4 to 3d4 doesn’t feel really strong at all, and I must admit 2d4 to 2d6 is similarly a marginal change, which means the fictional change is minor.) [1]

One option during your turn is to reroll your Resources pool (possibly adding a new resource to the mix). A consequence of this is that you may damage some of your resources as a result. This should mean that in rerolling my Resources pool, I have to describe how I’m deploying/reallocating my advantages in order to get closer to my goal, but it has to be in a way that compromises my resources, and if damage occurs, I have to reflect that damage on the resoucces that are damaged. I’ll reroll/add to my Resources in pursuit of a win, but also because I want to see if I have to bear the consequences of a risk I take (and that is because I want to see if I’ll have to learn to run my society without that resource).

Example from play: I called upon my Council of Eden to address a growing famine. My narration was a little lame (“they give a speech”) but really, they needed to do something that actually puts their power at stake. Perhaps have an in person appearance in the city center to hand out supplies. In the resulting roll results in burnout, and clearly I should describe how the food never gets hear, the rioters storm the barricades, and the Council needs an emergency evacuation, painting them as cowards before the entire City. Their influence has been damaged.

While that reroll was part of the process of securing victory, part of it is that I wanted to see if, fictionally, the Council of Eden was able to be part of the solution in this new world, or if they’d find themselves up against the wall. Is my story one where the Council reigns from the shadows and grows their new colony, or one where the old guard was rendered obsolete by a new order? (On one level, I was probably shooting for the latter, but clearly that hasn’t yet happened.)

One option – either during your turn or in reaction to another player trying to complete a goal – is to reroll your ideals dice, possibly invoking another Ideal. Here there are consequences again: you may have to reprioritize your Ideals, or possibly alter them. The kind of narration that could work is describing a counter-maneuver that risks (or more explicitly, contravenes) your stated ideals.

In play, my narrations here were weak, but to use this as a guideline: “Send in our cyborg guard; they can never conquer our enhanced might!” could be a challenge to my “we must upgrade ourselves to become invincible” ideal; perhaps, even if my blocking maneuever is successful, our cyborg traits were rendered useless, forcing me to question that ideal. (However, you can see that it’s a harder to come up with examples like these.) [2]

One option during your turn is to place your dice, claiming a goal. I didn’t see a clear thing to narrate, and I notice that there aren’t real consequences for trying to place. It either completes a victory, sets up a future victory, or is blocked by your foe. You could do some narration, but here more than other places it seems to lack consequence. [3]

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[1] Idea: maybe instead of adjustable numbers/die-steps, there should be a few discrete mixes of die-size and quantity that reflect a certain kind of resource. 2d4 sounds right for depicting “Powerful group that’s at risk of being swept away”, and 4d8 is good for “Big block of resource, you can rely on them and they’re not going away any time soon”.

[2] Idea: a reroll of Ideals could be a West-Wing-style talking heads scene, as the demogogue debates the nature of their Ideals with some NPCs/lieutenants in the course of plotting a countermaneuver. Narrations that may work: – “This plasma cannon represents the work of our best engineers. If it is compromised, it is a compromise of our entire science program.” (So, this stakes your ideal on whether the other player will ultimately succeed.” – “I know what our constitution says, Senator, but if we do not override the union veto, then there will be no constitution left to protect.” (So, showing stress/weakening of an Ideal.) – “Understand this: the Trade Union understands coercion but it does not understand the nature of subversion. I have already sent spies within the ranks of their PsyTroopers. No soldier can turn down a chance at survival.” (So, I’m presenting my pro-survival ideals as a prediction of why their forces will fall from within. I’m either right or wrong.)

Still, not everyone loves that talking heads stuff, and it requires coming up with a mini-scene, on the fly, which is non-trivial.

[3] So, what should happen to the “Place” action? On one hand, you could start the turn with an overwhelming set of dice and say “I take it”; you narrate how your various maneuvers have succeeded (“Within hours, my engineers carve through the bedrock…”), and quickly move on.

Or, it has to be a gambit of some kind: you take a single action that will either provide a decisive advantage or a major setback in this conflict. This is also easy enough to narrate: I describe the setup for the gambit, you roll to counter, and either we describe it going all wrong, or I narrate a flawless victory as above.

The “gambit” approach is common, but I actually think it might not be appropriate. The players have already injected their fiction with their positioning rolls, and it’s hard to come up with context-less fiction for multiple placement moves, in my opinion. If the mechanics were changed, I imagine something like this: – I take my turn, positioning dice and describing how I pursue the Goal. I have an adequately strong showing (a “straight” or something) on my side. I say: “Advantage”, basically saying that I have the other player in “Check”. Whatever I’ve just done has just put my side near victory. (If we use the Council of Eden example above, perhaps the Council is tarnished, but the emergency rations are in fact airdropped a day later.) – The other player takes their turn. By the end of their turn, they must get out of the “check” I’ve put them in. Perhaps they can reposition the Ideals pool in a way to neutralize my Resource pool, or they can basically fold and describe my awesome crushing win.

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