| Last Updated 10/07/2006 |
This is a fairly freeform system I designed to run one-off games at conventions such as Buckets of Dice or KapCon. It is also good for pickup games and impromptu games.
Games tend toward the comedic and wacky. See a writeup of a playtest which cranked wackyness up towards 11 here, and some comments from a player on another session here (towards the end).*
*Another fairly intensive 2-hr session started with zombies and passed through raising a Catholic knight from the dead, Nazgul intoxicated on Holy Water, the Holy Chainsaw of Antinoch, and a hunt for Blackbeard's (PC) treasure which traversed Hell (off camera), Jamaica, the #42 bus (driven by either Baron Samedei or Charon and with such stops on the timetable as River Styx, Hollywood, Chernoybl), Monkey Island research facility and Clarice the incredibly gay super-computer.
A Narrative (capital N) is a game session from beginning to end. A Narrative consists of a number of scenes, which in turn may be broken down into one or more clips. These in turn are made up of narrations (small n) by the players.
A Narrative starts with a short evocative piece of prose describing a bit of the setting or action. For example:
“The howls and screams from outside grow louder, as does the beating on the walls. The makeshift barricades shudder under impacts on the doors and shutters. In the center of the hall the remaining locals huddle staring at the small group of strangers, some accusingly, some fearfully and some with desperate hope.”
This establishes a few basic building blocks – in this case something trying to get into a barricaded hall, some locals, and some non-locals presumably the PCs.
One player, designated the “Director”, starts the first scene off by asking further questions of the other players about the situation, one question per player. Example questions might be: What sort of building is the room in? What sort of people are the locals? What is outside? What is trying to get in? How close is it to succeeding? What purpose brought the PCs here?
The players answer in turn, each adding some details to the immediate setting. Once the first round of questions has been answered each player then briefly describes their main character, creating them to fit in with the established details and also having the opportunity to add further definition.
The Director then picks a player to make the first narration. A narration is a short description of events, usually but not always from the perspective of the individual player’s character. Players are also free to narrate from the perspective of an NPC, especially if their main character is not presently involved. Narrations should last between one and five minutes then pass to another player – this may be done at the Director’s indication or by the use of a token (see Tokens). The Director may also narrate at any time but does so entirely from the viewpoint of NPCs. The Director may also ask a new question as a seed for a narration at any time.
During a narration a player is free to introduce new material, NPCs, plots and events and modify existing ones as they wish, with the following exceptions:
The Director has the final say on whether a particular creation or definition is allowed.
Situations are resolved in terms of “clips”. One clip might be a gunfight, or a negotiation, or a race. Usually the PCs will have an immediate goal and there will be an obvious challenge between them and that goal, introduced by the Director or by a player. Everyone should have a chance at making at least one narration during a clip.
A series of clips makes up a scene. A scene might cover escaping from a building through the sewers, or a royal ball. Some scenes may only be one clip long, and what might be a complete scene under some circumstances may only be a clip under others.
Each new scene begins with the Director asking questions of the players about the new situation. For example if the characters have been unsuccessful in an escape, captured and bought before the King in chains then there would be questions would be about the chamber in which they were being presented to him and who else was present.
The Narrative ends when the players chose, as new scenes may continually be created. Any amount of game time may pass between scenes.
Each player starts with two tokens.
You can gain tokens by:
You can spend tokens to:
Where the success of a narrated action (often a clip) could be in doubt each player involved (including the Director) turns over the top card of their deck. Each suit represents a potential outcome; Spades – failed badly, Clubs – barely or partially failed, Diamonds – just or partially succeeded, Hearts – succeeded well. The face value of the card has no meaning. Cards can be averaged over a group or compared directly, depending on the requirements of the situation. The person deemed most appropriate by the Director then narrates an outcome to match.
Example: The players are trying to hurry the last few uninfected survivors of a zombie plague aboard a waiting zepplin, when the shambling horde catches up with them. One player opens fire with a heavy machine gun, knowing the zombies won’t be stopped but hoping to slow them down enough by impact for everyone to get on board. The player draws and narrates to:
It is quite possible for all parties to have successes/failures as the outcome of a draw. In the case where there are an even number of cards drawn and they all cancel out, the Director may draw another card to act as a tiebreaker or a neutral outcome can be narrated. Once a deck is exhausted it is shuffled and reused.
A player may spend a token to declare that the card they drew is of a different suit (see Tokens).
Only the Director’s deck contains Jokers, of which there are two. When the Director draws a Joker he gives every player a token and then draws another card in its place.
These are based on having run a number of Ace scenarios, and comments from players.
To date Ace has been run with between 3 and 9 players. 9 is a bit unwieldy, especially if one or two players aren't very 'group orientated'.
Maximum duration seems to be about 2 1/2 hours, after which everyone starts running out of steam. At this point it's usually up to the director to guide the story to a satisfactory conclusion.
Quiet players can easily be sidelined, especially in larger games. The tokens system is intended to allow these players to break in, but often it is up to the Director to make sure that the focus switches to them on a regular basis.
Tokens get used to claim the focus more frequently in games with a greater number of players - at the same time players don't manage to accumulate 5-10 tokens.
While not explicitly stated in (this version of) the rules, it would seem valid for players to pool tokens to bring about a 5 or 10 token event.
The 4-step card system can easily be replaced with any other simple randomiser - rolling a d6 for a 3 or 6 step system for example.
© me in perpetuity unless someone gives me a whole lot of money for the rights, any resemblance to other systems while likely is purely coincidental, free for non-profit use and abuse as long as I'm given credit somewhere along the line :D