The Thing as a Fight: Crafts as a Party

Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and welded by Perth to the shank, the steel soon pointed the end of the iron; and as the blacksmith was about giving the barbs their final heat, prior to tempering them, he cried to Ahab to place the water-cask near.
"No, no – no water for that; I want it of the true death-temper. Ahoy, there! Tashtego, Queequeg, Daggoo! What say ye, pagans! Will ye give me as much blood as will cover this barb?" holding it high up. A cluster of dark nods replied, Yes. Three punctures were made in the heathen flesh, and the White Whale’s barbs were then tempered.
"Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!" deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured the baptismal blood. 

As a kid this scene from Moby Dick always spoke to me.  The blood, the curses - the hate.  In magical traditions & tango there's a concept of intention a sensibility that guides you from the essential core of the self.  It's not something you can fake or pretend to have - it's something that projects from out of your self.  Ahab's got all kinds of intention, and he binds the rest of the crew to his mad purpose.

There's another influence from my youth that speaks in the same tone of voice.




The team gathering together to create something as a solution to the immanent crisis is an interesting trope to work with.  Building it into the system to create a Game-Within-The Game then becomes an interesting challenge.

Based upon my deconstruction of the basic Game-Within-The Game  I'd like to create a mechanical system that allows everyone to participate in a kind of building-montage.  In order to create a bounded scene with full-participation we need to look at the requisite features of a proper encounter.

It must have a clear boundary - something analogous to Initiative.

It must have an implicit objective - something similar to the win & loss conditions of a melee

It must have opportunities - a chance for each player to participate using their distinct abilities

It must have a time frame - a sequence of phases in which each player can interact with the task.

In the Moby Dick passage Perth is creating the harpoon's head but Ahab filibusters & insists on making it participatory for more of the crew.  In the A-Team example everyone is busy constructing a different component of the battle-jitney and even those bringing little to the task at hand are able to contribute in some way.

So we want to establish a system that is recognizable from its inception as a Crafting-Game with its own internal framework & opportunities for player agency to be respected.

Initiative is highly focused & a crafting game needs for a similar mechanic.  In the Game of the North we can consider Initiative not merely as the order of combat - but use the first definition of initiative & reflect the individual's desire to initiate action.  Do the PCs spontaneously begin creating something?  Does one lead the project?  There's no reason we can't repurpose the initiative score encompass the larger meaning - saying that the character's innate drive & alacrity sets the terms of their participation.  So one system for creating a Game that encompasses the crafting montage would be to simply call an initiative roll - giving everyone participating a place in the order of things, allowing them to put the thing together.

If we use the Moby Dick passage as a template - Perth has taken the initiative while Ahab follows & is in turn followed by Queequeg et.al.  Then Perth finishes & then Ahab offers his diabolical benediction.  There's no necessary order to the creation - rather its designed after the initiation.

So let's consider the path here - One person is committing the muscle & the skill - creating the object itself.  Another person is affecting this initial plan by devising a complicated ritual surrounding it.  The three pagan participants are offering their blood to the project & the mastermind of the enterprise consecrates (or desecrates) the whole project. This is interesting in relation to basic framework which demands the inclusion of an objective - but I'm not exactly certain what to make of it mechanically. 

Compare to action economy in The Game of the North & in other games. 

In Game of the North – players have a movement capacity – they can move a number of spaces or meters equal to their Movement statistic.  All players can move – so we want to carry over this mechanic – say that players can range as far as they need to to make the thing.  The distance they travel then sets the timetable for the rounds & turns structure that the system prefers.  If they must travel around the world to get the things - the project may be a months or years long process.  This in turn sets the parameters of what can be used to make the object.  Say that the PCs have an afternoon to rig their van into an ersatz tank.  This limits the scope & means the PCs may only be able to deal with the materials they have on hand.  

Start with the basic elements -

Move- everyone can do it if not prevented & they have unlimited choices.  Giving everyone a universal capacity for movement makes time the abstraction & the amount of movement required sets the abstracted time.  I need to run all over the city to make this = hours or days of construction. I need to run all over the territory = days or weeks & etc… We look at the distances traveled to gather materials to set the time frame.

Turns – establishing a series of turns that don’t coincide with the time-scale of the combat – everyone has a chance to participate in the making.  Actions on your turn:

-          Make a Stat check

-          Supply materials

-          Use a piece of equipment

We want for players to have options here & for each player to be able to participate - even in a small way.  So bloodletting by making a CON check or carrying the ammo crate by making a STR check.  This type of action can be easily included but not intensely planned out.   

Rounds – The whole project can be considered as a Round

-          Use a skill check to plan the construction

-          Use an ability like magic or tinkering

In a combat encounter the round encompasses everyone's turns - so the round here must be all the turns of the characters involved - certain actions should require the complete round - these are the main activities in the creation-game, the guiding activities.  

Objectives – So there's a basic objective-  build something.  But in a fight there's an opposing side with an opposing objective.  Here the Players are just rolling dice & narrating - which is amusing, sure, but it falls short of being a Game.  This is another area where I've got competing notions of how to execute this.  First, I'm thinking of Hit Points - HP is best when used abstractly - in my opinion to indicate the vitality & willingness to fight of an opponent - rather than the actual integrity of their corporeal form.  So it's an abstract quantity that sets a goal that the team of players must whittle down to zero in order to win.  It's almost dirty, when you put it that way, but it's also true.  It seems that this is a portable mechanic - something that could be used in this crafting game.  Perhaps there's a secret value - held by the Referee who considers the item's ultimate value in say - Silver Pieces.  Each action could add to this value & when the value is reached the thing is created. 

That's not a terrible way to go - it has the virtue of including the unfortunate anti-climax all players know about.  How many times have you stood, poised to unleash your best & most useful move only to have the player whose turn strikes before yours end the battle.  You're left with nothing to do as the game crosses out of initiative.  So Imagine the harpoon being made before Ahab even speaks up, in the example from Moby Dick.  I like the potential for this in any given system - surprises & disorientation focus attention.  

But what about opposition.  In the Combat Game the players can be hurt, can be killed themselves by an opposing side.  What about here - what's the opposition?  So here, maybe the Referee can oppose with a series of approximate NPCs.  Have you ever heard of the Person From Porlock?  Having your efforts to create things spoiled by random intrusions is something every creator knows about - why should PCs be denied the pleasure of thwarted dreams?  

So - If we consider the crafting game as a series of activities aiming at completing a task - we can look at the things that oppose or hinder that as effective counterattacks.  In the combat-parodying system above the idea then is to include these on separate turns.  This would mean that hindering events would need to be treated as NPCs or environmental effects.  This is...  Actually Fine.  Perfect in fact - but an idea that needs more development prior to presenting (I work through ideas here, I work through concepts with the intention of figuring out how I'd like to create a game - so this is me having an epiphany).  

Simplified:  

On initiative turn 20 - The environment intervenes.  Rain?  Hurricane?  Power outages?  Earthquakes?  These are things that should be randomly decided & then resisted through Saving Throws.  Failures increase the final cost of the thing.

On initiative turn 10 - NPC interventions.  People come around to pester you about your insurance situation, neighborhood kids come to watch & ask too many questions.  A wandering monster appears on site & attacks...  This is something that needs to be beaten through a Social test or a combat encounter (although - probably you shouldn't beat up some neighborhood kids for being curious).  Failing means that the thing is set back - maybe considerably.  Maybe the NPC intervention is a robber who steals what's already been made, for example.

On initiative turn 5 - Moment of Truth - Here's where the project enters its proving phase.  It's all well and good to bolt armor to your custom van - but what if it's too heavy & it pops all the tires?  What if your blood-soaked harpoon deforms under stress?   This should be worked out as a single check made by the initiating player.  Let them devise their response to the proving of the work & then have them make the check - aided or assisted by the other players as they're able, of course.  A failure here sets the project back considerably - but doesn't thwart it utterly - work can resume, but it's almost a back-to-the-drawing-board scenario.  

What's left then is to quantify the respective values.  How much does a skill check remove from the target value?  How much does a failed NPC interaction deduct from the Player's accumulated points?  How many of these abstract points need to be accumulated in order to create the object in question?  

Finally - how does creating the object affect play going forward?  What good does making the battle-jitney do you?  Does it allow you to defeat a specific encounter without a combat?  That's not a terrible conclusion to come to.  Does it allow for a single, ruthless, magical attack upon a single, ruthless, magical enemy?  From here - at the end of this effort to work through the ideas - I think that the effectiveness of the thing being made should be built into the initiative declared when creating the thing.  So - when Ahab plans that the harpoon be a cursed weapon of Moby Dick slaying - that is where the desired effect is being declared & the value of the object must be adjudicated by the Ref.  When B.A. starts customizing the van to allow a bloodless defeat of the impending mook-wave - that sets the target.  

Good.  Good...  Work cut out for me, objectives defined, I must begin making all of my rolls to accomplish the crafting of a rulebook.  

The Thing of the Fight if the Fight is the Thing

Accepting as axiomatic that there are (at least) 10 sorts of scene within The Game, it's worth considering each sort in turn.  But first-  to recap the basic assumption:  The Game is a story we all tell together & its scenes are variously called Encounters.  Different encounters have different parameters - if The Game is to be holistic, entertaining & compelling it must address the different wishes of the players.  Many players come to the game in search of one or another type of encounter that will best please them. 

Experience suggests that the basic sort of encounter that players come to the table in search of is the Combat Encounter.  In many ways older & experienced players may consider the Combat Encounter the most basic sort, possibly even the only sort.  Since The Game descends in no small part from tabletop combat simulations it's natural that this aspect is often the focus of most rules & systems found in the sourcebooks & rules compendiums that we use. 

A careful survey of the experience we have at the table tells a different story though - there are planning phases, explorations, conversations & exposition.  Fights are often a centerpiece thought & it's common to consider the other elements of the game as leading toward a climactic battle. 

So does this formula work because tension builds to conflict & conflict is most easily portrayed by fighting?  Is fighting & the rules surrounding it just more interesting to play out Together.  I have some thoughts but only thoughts, no real thesis as to why the Fight is the Thing - but I also think it's worth deconstructing some aspects of the Fight to see if the systems innate to it are transferable to another style of encounter- to see if you can make a compelling scene that is fun for the whole table to do Together. 

To get to the bottom of this, my thought is to look at The Fight critically to see what parts of it are transferable.  So here's the basic outline of Fighting - at least as it occurs in the Game of the North & its derivations. 

A melee begins when two or more parties decide that violence must prevail.  This is indicated by the rolling of Initiative.  Initiative is the Set Induction which precedes all that follows, it is a boundary line that the melee occurs within.  Having Initiative as a cue for the change of milieu is really a great innovation within the form - it's a well understood, identifiable marker that brings the scene into a different kind of focus.  Where prior to this roll the Players may have described weeks & days over the course of a few minutes of narration, now events take on a diamond focus - seconds are meticulusly described over the course of many minutes, sometimes hours.  This period, bounded by the initiative's beginning & ending is the most clearly delineated of the games-within-The Game by custom & preference. 

In the North & its derived locales Initiative is rolled each round.  If Initiative is the set-induction, the Round & the Turn are elements within the set that achievements are built upon.  It's important to consider that once initiative is rolled - the players & the referee all have very clear objectives.  These objectives may be the coalescing of a long campaign's adventures - or they may be incidental & immediate.  The players may have tracked their rival to his lair, or they may have simple stumbled upon the perennial wandering monster.  In both cases the objective is immediate - defeat the opposing side.  To this end every player chooses their actions & settles upon their course using the turns they are granted within a round. 

So far we have the boundary of the Game-Within-The-Game - Initiative & the objective of the Game-Within-The-Game - to prevail.  Within this framework the players take actions.  The round is a series of turns - both those of the players & those of the referee  & each turn leads toward some kind of resolution.  But how players use their turns is itself an interesting thing to consider.  A Player who portrays a combative character may shoot arrows, strike with a sword or a laser-gun.  Different sorts of players may conjure magical effects that in turn render the battle moot, or change the terms of hte melee so that the objectives are altered.  A Player could put the opposing enemies to sleep & then the focus of the encounter is whether the Players deem it fit to kill the sleeping opponents or to dispose fo them in some less horrible way.  A Player could shift the allegiances of opponents, creating separate fronts within the melee - or they could withdraw from the battle entirely.  Each player contributes on their turn based upon a suite of abilities & the players have varied abilities that can change the mood & mode of the melee. 

We could take this as the framework - The boundary & the focus granted by initiative - the framework & turn-based options presented by Rounds & Turns. The clear objectives that the nature of the encounter create according to its kind establish all the participants' goals.  Finally - everyone is able to participate uniquely. 

Building alternative encounters based upon this core understanding leads down several roads - lets us design different sorts of scenes in which participants set the scene, establish objectives, move forward in turns & contribute according to their own gifts.