Well, Bloody Stupid Johnson did say Bring it on (ok no, he didn't say that exactly but anyway):

Basically, I could really use some help with my a game I’m co-authoring, from a GM’s perspective. The beta rules are here. Obviously they’re not set in stone; I’m constantly revising them.

The game is pretty much playable now: the ‘acts’ are clearly defined, the dice system is more or less fixed, although we might continue to tinker with the stat/dice conversion ratio a bit, and I’ve set it all down in the document, including detailed GM’s notes; however, and here’s my problem, in order for it to played by folks other than me and my writing partner- who obviously know the game backwards by now and could write scenarios with our eyes shut- how to  write and run scenarios from scratch needs to be absolutely clear (or, at least, I suppose, 95% or so: what game is ever much clearer than that?).

So, I’d be really grateful if peeps could cast an eye over the document and see if they think they could write and run a scenario using it.

Many thanks, and looking forward to your comments.
Leo
 
P.S. A lot of people have so far played and enjoyed Sci-Fi Beta Kappa. Some of their comments can be found here

Hmm...well its weird. If funny. Sort of still trying to grok the system...so a higher pool generates more 1-2s ("damage?" so a higher stat is worse than a low stat? And superabilities almost mostly just make characters screw up more entertainingly?
The stat/dice conversion chart goes backwards, with more skill points lowering the dice to roll - wondering if it'd be less clunky using some kind of fixed subtraction rate (-1 die per 3 skill points or somesuch).
Or, have a fixed dice pool and say that each X skill points lowers/soaks the damage result by 1.


Also, sorry but I have to critique one of your jokes.

QuoteHuge, muscly, eight foot tall, a proud warrior type. Can often be seen pumping iron in the gym. Hang on, did I say iron? Sorry, I meant titanium. Spends a lot of his time trying to cop off with Princess N’Zala (the coolest Zarkonian female on campus) and boring everyone stupid with endlesss stories about ‘when he worked in his father’s bar on Zarkon’.

Titanian is harder than iron, but not heavier than it (IIRC). You want something like lead, gold or osmium...although that kind of isn't as funny. Sorry.

Thanks for that. Have a few things to do today, will reply in detail tomorrow .

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;537923Hmm...well its weird. If funny. Sort of still trying to grok the system...so a higher pool generates more 1-2s ("damage?" so a higher stat is worse than a low stat? And superabilities almost mostly just make characters screw up more entertainingly?
The stat/dice conversion chart goes backwards, with more skill points lowering the dice to roll - wondering if it'd be less clunky using some kind of fixed subtraction rate (-1 die per 3 skill points or somesuch).
Or, have a fixed dice pool and say that each X skill points lowers/soaks the damage result by 1.

Yes it is weird. But it does make perfect sense if I explain the thinking that led up to it...

I was playing in a game of Victoriana (GMd by my co-writer), and because it was in both our minds he suggested a dice pool with 8-10s success and 10s exploding etc. and I agreed. However, I looked at the game over the next few days and I just couldn't get the effect I wanted, no matter how hard I tried. I made calculation after calculation until the pages of workings on my desk began to multiply. Then I had a brainwave. I suddenly realised that SFBK is in a sense the opposite of Victoriana. In the former, the default activity is not doing very much, just sitting in the Folly drinking tea and reading the papers. Then you hear reports of something untoward happening and go out to investigate. You think someone looks a bit sus and so you roll for perception. So you are trying to succeed.

In SFBK the default activity is riotous and possibly illegal behaviour, a la Animal House, Porky’s, American Pie etc. The additional action is the Dean trying to close down Alien House, and so whereas in Victoriana the non-default activity is the PCs trying to succeed, in SFBK it’s the converse, the PCs trying not to be brought down, trying not to fail. So instead of rolling for 'Do we succeed or not?', they roll for 'Does the Dean catch us out or not?' But then I had another brainwave: instead of just having the aliens going ‘I want to steal a car’, rolling for larceny, and seeing how many ‘failures’ they roll, why not just let them do whatever they want, and then see at the end of the game whether the Dean has found them out or not? Cue the Epilogue, which I must admit I’m quite proud of. Obviously there are similar mechanics in other games but I think the one in SFBK is extremely fitting, given the theme, and adds a nice element of tension to the game. The main problem for GMs who are not me or Dan however is, as with any system that’s quite radical, the ‘Huh?’ factor, plus it looks complex. Actually, it really isn’t as complex as it looks, and in any case the ‘Huh?’ response is I think largely caused by the following:

Because I’ve as it were separated out the system from the role-playing, the logical next step is to both increase the role-playing even further and intensify the flavour, and in order to do that the system needs to able to at the same time create that flavour, and cope with whatever the players throw at it. Secondly, I wanted the players, in order to feel free to do what they wanted, not to be intimidated by the system, which effectively means to hardly notice it’s there. As there’s more and freer role-playing, consequently there’s more system. But the players need interact with it only minimally. The analogy I usually use is of that a car, where the engine is purring away under the, uh, hood, leaving the occupants to drive it wherever and however they like without having to think about it.

But of course you’re thinking, Yeah ok, I kind of grok all that, great for the players to feel free to role-play without having to worry about the system, but, uh, isn’t it a nightmare for the GM? Yes, it might seem that way, but as I say the system really isn’t as complex as it looks. The distribution of points in chargen follows fairly standard lines, the House Points are pretty much the bennies that players are used to from SW and- 'Yes, yes, yes, but what about this stat/dice conversion table. What’s that all about?’ Ok, right, yes, we could have gone for a dice pool minus x per skill point, or x- stat, or whatever. Here’s my thinking (and please forgive me if my tone sounds patronising: I know you’re intelligent and can understand complex systems, but I also know that it’s incumbent upon me as the designer of an apparently bizarre system to try to communicate why I feel it has to be the way it is). Let’s go back to your earlier comments:

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;537923Sort of still trying to grok the system...so a higher pool generates more 1-2s ("damage?" so a higher stat is worse than a low stat?

Sort of. The higher the stat the greater the ability and so the less chance of damage (leaving evidence behind, being seen etc.), thus in a dice pool where you’re looking for damage rather than success, a higher stat should roll a smaller pool (less chance of damage mechanically). So a higher stat is actually better than a lower stat. But still, why a conversion table?
1)   To make it thematic- the ‘backwardsness’ expresses the inversion of stat and dice pool.
2)   I experimented with 20-stat, 16-stat etc., but I found that, with likely stats of from 5-14 they would result in pools of, respectively,  6-15 and 2-11. So 16-stat is definitely out; 20-stat is better, but still, I felt, produces too wide a spread of dice pools, plus 15 is too high a pool, even with d6s (we originally had d12s, but I accepted that that was too quirky when d6s would work equally). Remember, with games like Victoriana and WOD etc., in most turns you typically roll between 5 and 10 dice. One player even said he felt 14 dice was overwhelming.
3)   Tables are a good of way of presenting dice calulations to players quickly and easily. We now have the table on the character sheets (we didn’t before, but even then players were able to memorise it quickly, better than me and Dan in fact).

Someone on another forum suggested a system of spending generation points to reduce a dice pool from a static base, commenting that ‘It just cuts out the step of a player saying "I have an ability of x, how many dice is that?"’ To which my response is ‘So does my system’. What’s more, all that calculating doesn’t have to be done either at chargen or during the game, because I’ve already done it.

Obviously, the rules will be in beta for a while so everything’s theoretically up for grabs. The thing I’d like to know most though is whether or not it’s possible for someone who isn’t either me or Dan to write and run their own scenario, however I’m beginning to suspect that the only way of answering that question is for someone to actually try and do so. So far two of our playtesters have expressed an interest, and there’ll be many more playtests between now and the likely publication date of December this year, so we’ll see.

Finally,

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;537923And superabilities almost mostly just make characters screw up more entertainingly?

Yes. In a recent playtest, the guy playing Kraag rolled a shedload of DPS and so, even though he was able to heft several large barrels of beer, on one of the barrels the tap broke off as he was getting it into the car. His response? He decided to drink the beer then and there, consuming it in one go, after which he belched loudly, melting the upholstery and causing eveyybody else in the car to shrink back at the horrible fumes of Zarkonian beery breath. Then, when they arrived back on campus, he couldn't wait to get to the toilet so just pissed on the car (which was the Dean's car, btw, that the party had 'borrowed'), causing all the paintwork to bubble and fizz.

Now, Kraag’s titanium-pumping:

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;537923Also, sorry but I have to critique one of your jokes.
Titanian is harder than iron, but not heavier than it (IIRC). You want something like lead, gold or osmium...although that kind of isn't as funny. Sorry.

Yeah, somebody pointed that out to me a few weeks ago, and yes, osmium isn’t as funny, so I have the choice of being more amusing but less accurate, or more accurate but less amusing. I know Shakespeare would have said 'Fuck it, titanium sounds better, who cares if it’s actually heavier or not.' I’m not quite so cavalier with facts but agree with the principle of poetic licence so, er, let me ponder that one.

Anyway, I’ve taken up a lot of your time with this. Thanks for your patience, and  I’ll… Bloody hell, he’s fallen asleep. Oh well, I’ll catch up with him later…

Just looked at this post again and I see that it suffers from wall of text syndrome. This is something I'm rather prone too. Apologies for it, I'll try to keep future answers as concise and text-light as possible .

NP.
 

QuoteBecause I’ve as it were separated out the system from the role-playing, the logical next step is to both increase the role-playing even further and intensify the flavour, and in order to do that the system needs to able to at the same time create that flavour, and cope with whatever the players throw at it. Secondly, I wanted the players, in order to feel free to do what they wanted, not to be intimidated by the system, which effectively means to hardly notice it’s there. As there’s more and freer role-playing, consequently there’s more system. But the players need interact with it only minimally. The analogy I usually use is of that a car, where the engine is purring away under the, uh, hood, leaving the occupants to drive it wherever and however they like without having to think about it.

I do agree having a system be unobtrusive is a good thing and it manages that reasonably. I do like the epilogue system in that respect too (the PCs get to the end and its like "oh...you caught me for that?")
 

QuoteSort of. The higher the stat the greater the ability and so the less chance of damage (leaving evidence behind, being seen etc.), thus in a dice pool where you’re looking for damage rather than success, a higher stat should roll a smaller pool (less chance of damage mechanically). So a higher stat is actually better than a lower stat. But still, why a conversion table?

Aha ha ha! OK I get it now. I skimmed the rules only very quickly the first time you posted, sorry, and so I completely failed to grasp the stat/dice conversion thing.
The "Stat/dice" conversion table is labelled stat/dice, but in the row headers you have the item "skill points" and "dice total".
I'm mostly used to systems where a "stat" is completely different and perhaps rolled differently to a "skill".
As such I'd somehow assumed that the stat numbers (Super-Strength and etc) were rolled directly and that skills were something else...that I'd just missed due to speed reading it. I can see now that there's no skills per se and that you use the skill conversion table for stat rolls.
So, sorry about that. Oops.
 
Now that I'm reading it properly (with big numbers going down...instead of more super-strength leaving a huge trail of wreckage in its wake as I'd thought...) I'm wondering if there's a conflict in the game's goals. As a humour game, it may be that the PCs screwing up and leaving more evidence is the funnier outcome, although that moves them all closer to being imprisoned...
 
Random thought would be that in at least one plots of this type (e.g. the Mars University episode of Futurama) I remember it being not so much about hiding the evidence, as the Dean being obliged under a technicality to let them off. I imagine that would probably involve drastic changes to the game, though.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;538705The "Stat/dice" conversion table is labelled stat/dice, but in the row headers you have the item "skill points" and "dice total".
I'm mostly used to systems where a "stat" is completely different and perhaps rolled differently to a "skill".
So, sorry about that. Oops.

No, my bad. I entirely see the confusion, and I've now re-titled it 'skill points/dice pool conversion'. Thanks, this is exactly what beta testing is all about.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;538705I'm wondering if there's a conflict in the game's goals. As a humour game, it may be that the PCs screwing up and leaving more evidence is the funnier outcome.

That's a good point, but don't worry, they defo screw up. Don't tell anyone, but the system is kind of weighted so that they do .  In films like American Pie and Porky's etc. the slackers usually kind of win, but my concept for SFBK is that the aliens are over-confident and ever so slightly crap, so in that respect it's nearer to games like Teenagers From Outer Space and Orbit (but not too near I hope! I've envisaged a Galactic gameworld but haven't budgeted for Galactic lawsuits). Thus, Kraag thinks 'I can lift several twenty-litre cans of B'Aarf lager, no problem', except that he doesn't think to keep the tap clear of the car door, hence breaking it. Likewise Drunzi walks over to the car assuming he can just waltz into it but then he's like 'Hang on, what's this weird locking mechanism?'

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;538705Random thought would be that in at least one plot of this type (e.g. the Mars University episode of Futurama) I remember it being not so much about hiding the evidence, as the Dean being obliged under a technicality to let them off. I imagine that would probably involve drastic changes to the game, though.

Eh? Wha? Sci-Fi Beta Kappa based on the Mars University episode of Futurama? Oh no, no siree, no, no way jose. Absolutely not. I did not watch that episode last September and then immediately e-mail my gaming and now writing buddy and outline an idea for a game based on the film Animal House. No sir, I did not. Hang on though, Mars University was based on Animal House, wasn't it? Fine, Matt Groening, you deal with National Lampoon's lawyers.

But yeah, if GMs wanted to they could ditch the Epilogue and just have totally sandbox play. We're already experimenting with the idea of a more freeform scenario (see Toga! Toga! Toga!: The Hangover, described on p18 in the doc, where I've included a parole hearing Epilogue but it doesn't have to be there).

Alright. I'm giving it my initial read through. Here are my concerns so far.

1) Calling the bad stuff "damage" seems dissonant to what could happen. In Hearts & Souls2E I use "Fallout", for this game it could be something similar. Fallout/Demerits/Warnings something going back to the Greek System (or the British house system for certain schools). Get to many in the total house and wham--kicked out.


2) I don't like fixed races for this. Get a system for randomly (or quickly) generating an alien. Specific alien races works well for serious RPG's, but for humor value having things no one else has seen before might be fun.


3) Humor. I'm not a huge fan of humor games, primarily because expecting humor from a mechanical system is nigh impossible. It takes a lot of factors to be funny. None of which can be made mechanically. Or we'd already replaced comedians with robots. Find a way to encourage players to let go and have fun, and not worry about being funny but letting it flow from what happens. Hijinks is fine but needs more to play off of in the game.

I'm not sure of how to do 3. Frankly, I've never seen a humorous games work, ever. Humor in serious games? Sure. Games intended to be funny (Toon, Paranoia) never. Not once. Usually what is intended to be funny comes out being dull and forced.

Hi Silverlion. Thanks for your comments.

Quote from: Silverlion;538868Alright. I'm giving it my initial read through. Here are my concerns so far.

1) Calling the bad stuff "damage" seems dissonant to what could happen. In Hearts & Souls2E I use "Fallout", for this game it could be something similar. Fallout/Demerits/Warnings something going back to the Greek System (or the British house system for certain schools). Get to many in the total house and wham--kicked out.

Damage is just a shorthand, and a recognised term in RPGs and so easy to accept. I admit that Fallout sounds good, I might use that. Another person suggested demerits, which as you say would fit in with the educational theme. We considered a simple ‘get too many and bye-bye’, but then I came up with the idea of the Epilogue, which is I think a good one, because it adds another element of randomness: even if they’ve incurred a lot of minus (damage, fallout or whatever) they might still get away with it. Think about a serial burglar, who has finally been arrested, and is now in court. The prosecution can present all the evidence, but a lot of it will inevitably be circumstantial, and a clever defence counsel can exploit this fact, meaning that even if the Police (read the Dean) know he’s guilty, he still might get acquitted (i.e. the GM might roll a low number of EPs on the damage dice).  

Quote from: Silverlion;5388682) I don't like fixed races for this. Get a system for randomly (or quickly) generating an alien. Specific alien races works well for serious RPG's, but for humor value having things no one else has seen before might be fun.

The pre-gens are simply there simply for speed in con games, which are sometiomes only three hours long, or for players who are not confident rolling up their own characters. However, the rules allow for the latter. It’s in the doc, but after reading your post I went back and edited it to make it even more explicit.

From the chargen section on p9:
For one-shots and con games of less than four hours’ duration we recommend players use the pre-gens listed below, as character generation doesn’t then encroach on the all- important game time. For longer con games, campaigns, games in a club setting, or games where all or most of the players have played the game before and are familiar with the setting, by all means encourage players to roll up their own character, experiment with other powers, tweak a pre-gen etc.

From the GM’s notes on p17:
We recommend that the pre-gens be used, as with many games, either for one-shots, or with players who are not familiar with the system or each other (e.g. in a con setting) and especially when time is limited. However, players should not feel overly constrained by them, with the replacement of their abilities with others from the list, the re-distribution of points (subject to the overall strictures- see p9), and tweaking and expansion of their personalities and fairly liberal interpretation of their powers explicitly allowed. Also, players can of course roll up their own alien with his or her own abilities. [This is the bit where I've spelled it out. You're right, from the original doc it wasn't entirely clear]  

Quote from: Silverlion;5388683) Humor. I'm not a huge fan of humor games, primarily because expecting humor from a mechanical system is nigh impossible. It takes a lot of factors to be funny. None of which can be made mechanically. Or we'd already replaced comedians with robots. Find a way to encourage players to let go and have fun, and not worry about being funny but letting it flow from what happens. Hi-jinks is fine but needs more to play off in the game.

I'm not sure of how to do 3.

Weeell… I’m fairly confident that we’ve achieved that. It’s something that in the 3:16 thread Gregor Hutton has been said not to have achieved, and I’ll comment on that in a bit (in that thread), but one of the criticisms was that he didn’t put enough care into the mechanics, remarking that they didn’t matter as long as the players got to role-play. I can’t speak to that (because I’m not him, and wasn’t around when he’s supposed to have said that), but I know that without a strong, taut system in place, you won’t get the game you want, whatever it is, whether it’s a narrative or a ‘trad’ game or whatever. System is everything.

Someone else remarked in another thread that a beer & pretzels game (which SFBK isn’t, necessarily, but ok) you shouldn’t have lots of rules, which is kind of the point I think  you’re making when you say that expecting humor from a mechanical system is nigh impossible . I disagree with both assertions, for the reasons that I mentioned in my response to BSJ’s comments. To put it in a nutshell, I think the opposite: to have a workable humorous game the right system is exactly what you need. I’m hesitant about mentioning Fiasco in this forum but here goes: a lot of people say that it’s just improv and doesn’t have a system. No, no, no, no, no, the system is there, it’s just unobtrusive, purring away beneath the surface. Likewise with SFBK. Also, SFBK is not necessarily a comedy game. I agree, calling a game ‘comedy’ is asking for trouble- see this thread, especially from the third post up on p3.

Finally, as I’ve been saying to everyone, these are beta rules, and thus plastic and open to revision/clarification following folks’ comments, which I really appreciate- thanks to everyone who’s commented thus far or who has read through the doc and mulled it over prior to commenting or otherwise. It’s all grist to the beta-testing mill.

Quote from: catty_big;538912Finally, as I've been saying to everyone, these are beta rules, and thus plastic and open to revision/clarification following folks' comments, which I really appreciate- thanks to everyone who's commented thus far or who has read through the doc and mulled it over prior to commenting or otherwise. It's all grist to the beta-testing mill.

I think this is the point. You need to pay attention (and not necessarily argue) with someones criticisms. Its alright not to take them of course, but I'd consider carefully. I didn't say "don't have a system." I just that no system can create humor. I strongly suggest you have a solid, creative, fast system.

I still contend you need random alien stuff. Its often easier to roll up something random, than give a list of pre-made aliens. Since that requires choice, while the former is just taking what you get and  if the system is quick, can take less time that watching dithering players choose.

Hi all

It's been borne in upon me very forcefully recently that people really hate the clipart I've grabbed off the internet while waiting for my illustrator's cool artwork. So, apologies for that. I'll try to sort some higher quality filler pieces; in the meantime, you might be interested to see examples of Jenny's work. Here's her website. I'm also experimenting with a different typeface, having been told by various folks that they find Arial rather boring and not consistent with the game's funky theme. So see how y'all like this one .

There's also now a page on RPGGeek, where I hope to start posting stuff soon, and where I'm encouraging other folks to do so if they've played SFBK or have any questions or comments about it.

Cheers
Leo

P.S. Have been a bit busy recently with the above and other, more mundane things but hope to be back posting away in the forums soon

AP report on tonight's game:

So, another awesome game under our belts. For tonight's game, as it was with people from my club, I decided to experiment with totally sandboxing it- no Epilogue, no dice-rolling, just roleplaying. Two of the players asked to roll up their own characters, which I'd had misgivings about as I knew that breaking new ground in that way would be a serious stress test for the game. But then I thought Yeah, go on, let's try it and see what happens.

One guy played an Or'od (the teleporter) but decided that he had taken the shape of the first elegant-looking lifeform he came across when arriving on Terra, which turned out to be an aspidistra. He reckoned that if you pick a lifeform to begin with you can then teleport into other examples of that lifeform, so he spent most of the game jumping in and out of cacti, rhododendrons and spider plants etc. This 'botaniportation' worked a treat, the highlight for me being a food fight he managed to cause in the staff room, by reaching slyly with his tendrils (that was when he was in a spider plant), hoicking sugar lumps and coffee cups and chucking them around. Then, finally, he whacked the Dean (who had entered the staff room to investigate) on the back of the head with a well-aimed sugar cube as he teleported away from the scene. Oh and just before that, when he was in a rhododendron bush outside the staff room, the Dean's dog (which was being walked by a college servant) urinated on him.

We had a character who had been sent to Terra by mistake, as he was being transported to the lunatic colony on Planet Bedlam. He thought he was Harkness Tennesse Mayflower Buttercup Phillips, Viscount of Lincolnshire (don't worry Nick, half the House of Lords are similarly deluded), whose core quality was puppetry, which he employed to good effect on various college officials, although on one occasion he used it to try to bags himself better accommodation, but rolled a high number of demerits ( which is what we call the fallout from a bad dice roll), and ended up rooming with an equally potty Terran who thinks he's a Roman Emperor. Hang on, Roman Emperor eh? Can we use him in the toga party? [Thinks......]

Finally, Dan, my co-writer, played a Zarkonian, but not the Zarkonian pre-gen, Kraag, who, along with all the other pre-gens is now an NPC. He is playing Grahh, a character that, like Kraag, is a super strength guy. Now Kraag is always trying to hook up with Princess N'Zala, the coolest Zarkonian female on campus, so Grahh thought he'd try to impress her himself with his heavy lifting ability. Unfortunately he rolled four demerits, which I added to the four from a previous scene that I'd been wondering what to do with. Well of course, I couldn't resist. I had him lifting dumbbells in the canteen, in front of loads of other students, including Princess N'Zala and Kraag, who just happened to be sitting nearby. N'Zala was unimpressed by this display and turned to Kraag- who had been trying it on without success practically since he'd arrived on campus- and said sweetly 'You're the only guy for me Kraag; come to my room later.' Now to put you in the picture, just imagine how Worf from Star Trek, or G'Kaar from Babylon 5 would have taken that kind of humiliation. Exactly! So the stage is now set for a no doubt bitter rivalry between the two.
 
It was an absolutely cracking game, and all my fears about player-genned characters proved totally unfounded, in fact they made the game even more hilariously awesome, if that's possible. And I think having the new PCs meet the existing ones (who are now, as I said, NPCs) worked very well indeed, especially in the first scene as they acted as foils for the new characters.

So, all in all, absolutely phenomenal sauce! I can't wait to see what kind of mischief the PCs get up to next week. But they should be warned: I'm going to start doing skill checks (and totting up the demerits) next time so they need to watch their step, and try not to get Alien House closed down.