Devils and Details
Gamers seem obsessed with details. They ask a general question, you give a general answer. They ask a more specific question, you give a more specific answer. Then, their questions start getting really small. Like fit in your pocket small. Here’s an example.
Question: The ven seem to have very particular rules on matters of emotion. Why is that?
Answer: Because the ven know themselves. They know they’re emotional creatures, so they come up with rules to guard against those emotions.
Follow-Up Question: If there are all these rules, and they have so many obvious loopholes, why don’t the rules get broken all the time?
Answer: They do get broken all the time. That’s the point. Rules are broken which leads to consequenes which leads to good story.
Follow-follow-up Question: Is the cultural assumption that they’ll get away with it, like a speed limit, or is it more of a personal thing?
Answer: GAAHHHHHH!!! WHY DOES ANYBODY DO ANYTHING!!!??!?!?!?!?
Don’t get caught up in the details. After all, wagers allow you to invent the details, remember?
Like I said above, there are a lot of ways to abuse the rules in just about any roleplaying game. This one is no exception. The difference is, I didn’t spend a whole lot of time coming up with new rules to cover my ass.
See, I don’t believe “good game design” is about fixing holes. Instead, good game design focuses on making the game fun to play, making sure every element of the game gives the players another tool.
Why do you think the Law is so vague? The rules for Revenge? The economy just doesn’t work?
Huge gaping holes. Ven culture is full of them. Questions that aren’t easy to answer. Nor should they be easy to answer. No clean cut yes or no. No clean cut right or wrong. No clean cut good or evil.
Our own culture is a great example. Take nearly any important issue in modern society. Show me the clear cut answer. Abortion. Immigration law. Taxes. Economy. The death penalty. Gay marriage. Okay, that one’s pretty straight-forward, it’s just that the people on the other side of the debate are ignorant and don’t understand the real issues.
See how easy that is? How easy it is to make the issue simple and one-sided. But, frankly, it isn’t. It isn’t simple, clean-cut, or easy. It’s hard. Messy. Ugly. And people are willing to fight for it. Each side convinced they are the Good Guys and those who oppose them are the True Heart of Evil.
Now, excuse me for a moment. I have to take what appears to be a tangential break, but in the end, this will all come back together. I promise.
I have a lot of historical recreationist friends. You know, the ones who study the Civil War or the Rennaisance or Ancient Rome and write huge papers on the subject, create authentic costumes, build elaborate structures. All that kind of stuff. It’s impressive. Their knowledge is extensive and they’re a lot of fun to talk to.
But don’t ever watch Rome with them. All they do is complain about how everything is wrong. Same thing with Dune fans. Watching the movie or the mini-series. All they do is complain how everything is wrong.
And in some cases, my friends are right. Inaccuracies, anachronisms. These things happen for a lot of reasons. But sometimes, they happen because my friends and the person doing the research on the show rely on different authorities.
I hear that capes are wrong. Well, maybe there were different styles of cape. After all, there are different cuts of t-shirts, right? There isn’t just one single style of blue jeans or slacks or even khaki pants. Why should there be only one style of toga? Sure, we’ve only found one style or toga—or perhaps even two—but that doesn’t mean there was only one style of toga in all of Ancient Rome. Right?
The point of that little sidewinder diatribe is this. We know next to nothing about the ven. We have no maps, no illustrations, very few written documents. What I’ve cobbled together here is only a smidgeon of what we do know. There’s still more to be discovered. Universities have documents that have yet to be translated. (Like I’ll ever get my hands on those.) And, honestly, I’ve made some stuff up.
I know, I know. It’s an incredible confession, but it’s true. I’ve made some stuff up. Now, before you ask, no, I’m not telling. Besides, unless you’re a scholar, you won’t know the difference between the facts, theories and the fiction.
I guess what I’m trying to say here is that there really is no canon. No real authority. This is a game, a game of make believe. So, make believe. Add details.
I have my own ideas about the ven, but they really shouldn’t influence you anymore than you want. How do the ven react to a situation? How does anybody react to a situation? As each of us would, in our own way.
The ven are not carbon copies of each other. Each is an individual. Everyone responds as they would, given the circumstances, their own personality, their own experiences.
Make believe. Make the world. Make the ven.
Narrative Control
In most games, narrative control ends at the tip of your own character’s nose. You don’t have any authority, you don’t have any narrative control, beyond your own character. Each player has narrative control over his own character and the GM has authority over the rest of the world.
In Houses, that’s not true. Every player has a degree of narrative control, a certain amount of authorial authority. In other words, everybody gets a moment as game master.
If an NPC asks you a question about your background, you have the authority to say just about anything you want. Anything you say creates background for your character, but also creates facts about Shanri. If you talk about a dog you had as a child, that dog exist—and may still exist. If you talk about your father, any detail you say exercises narrative control. Talk about your uncle, your mother’s castle, your older brother’s assassination. You’ve become the GM. You’ve become the author of the world.
Usually, in most roleplaying games, your degree of control ends there. You can’t say anything true about another character because each player has final authority over his own character. In this game, that isn’t necessarily true.
In this game, if you want final authorial control over your own character, you have to spend points. You have to be open to the idea that other people’s ideas about your own character may be just as valid as your own. Now, you have to trust me on this. I find that pretty difficult to swallow myself. I’m a control addict. Clinging to the concept that I’m the only person who gets to say what’s what about my own character. But, when I thought about it from a different perspective, things began to change.
I asked myself, “What if my character was just an NPC? Would I feel the same way?” I had to think about that a lot. I had to think about the way I treated my own NPCs.
NPCs are a staple of my own gaming style. NPCs are how I get players to care about a story. Players love my NPCs and hate my NPCs. But nobody cares about a game because the ranged attack mechanic is cool. They care about a game because they care about their characters and the best way to get players to care about their characters is to give them other characters to interact with.
I know, this sounds like it belongs in the GM section, and it does to a certain degree, but in this game—in this game—I’m trusting you, the players, to be the GM for a little while. Even if it’s just for a moment. And I’m also advocating the concept that every player is the GM to a certain degree. And that means every character in the game—even player characters—are NPCs. You have narrative control. And you have to be willing to use it. You also have to be willing to use it responsibly.
Before the game begins, the players should get together and talk about how much authorial control they want. Should wagers be able to affect PCs? To what degree? Find a comfort zone, a place where all the players are willing to say “Yes.” If you don’t feel comfortable with what’s being said, be sure to say so. I’m assuming you’re playing with your friends. You shouldn’t feel awkward about speaking up and saying, “You know, I don’t think I’ll have fun with that.”
But this little philosophy—that all characters are NPCs and free to edit—can be very challenging at first. It’s not the most conventional way of handling narrative control, but give it a try. Start small and get more daring as you go. If it doesn’t work out for you, change how much authority players get with wagers. There is no rule that says you can’t. In fact, this whole section is a rule that says you can.
PS: When I said players really love and hate my NPCs, I wasn’t exaggerating. In fact, one particular NPC is so hated by the LA group I used to play in, my buddy Rob Telmar wanted to fire him into the Sun. Unfortunately, Rob never got that chance. So, to make up for it, that particular NPC makes a cameo appearance in this game, just so Rob can get another shot at shooting him into the Sun.
Have fun Rob.