gamestorming

Claire: Okay, everybody, I have an idea for a game.

Elle: Nice.

Sasha: Woohoo!

Ariel: What is it?

Akane: I agree with all girlfriends.

Hettie: Are you sure, Akane? I haven't expressed an opinion yet.

Akane: Yes, the opinion of Hettie is always agreeable!

Ariel: What. Is. It.

Claire: Now, don't laugh ... it's called "Romantic Orgasmic Magical Porn." Or ROMP for short.

Elle: Who would laugh about that?

Hettie: I like the way you ran your tongue across your teeth there, Elle.

Elle: Reflex.

Sasha: Well, I'm ready to play already!

Ariel: No you're not, we don't even know the rules yet!

Sasha: It sounds to me like a learn as you go kind of game.

Claire: Well, that's the problem. I haven't figured out any rules yet. That's why I need you guys' help.

Hettie: You don't seem to have invited our most experienced gamer, though. Where's MSG?

Claire: He was tired.

Ariel: Well, wake him up!

Claire: Meaning, someone tired him out.

Ariel: Oh. Sorry.

Claire: It's fine. He knows so much about games that I think he might not be that much help in figuring out a wild new idea for rules I had.

Akane: Wild + New = Rules of Intrigue!

Elle: Well don't keep us in suspense, Claire. What's this idea?

Claire: You don't ever roll for whether your character succeeds or fails. You just pick.

Elle: Hmm ... and why would anyone ever pick failure?

Claire: To be entertaining! Sometimes failing creates the most fun in RPGs.

Ariel: That's true!

Hettie: My tendency to roll badly forces me to both agree and disagree. We've definitely had some highly amusing failures in our games, but it gets more than a little wearying if one just keeps missing with the dice.

Akane: !!!

Hettie: Yes?

Akane: This means Claire has solved the problem of Hettie!

Hettie: How so?

Akane: Her rule of selecting means there's never endlessly rolls of poor quality to defeat our attempts.

Ariel: I don't know ... I feel like I'd have an awfully hard time deciding to fail at something.

Elle: There's an easy fix for that. Sometimes the other players decide for you.

Claire: Oh, I like that! I knew it was a good idea to ask for help like this.

Sasha: So there's no rolling at all? I kind of like rolling.

Ariel: Because the dice like you! You always roll well!

Sasha: I don't feel like that's true.

Ariel: Well, roll a die right now and we'll see if it's true.

Sasha: I roll a 15.

Ariel: I roll a 5! See?

Elle: Ariel, dear, Sash rolled a d20 and you rolled a d6.

Ariel: I was trying to make a point.

Sasha: By cheating!

Hettie: If MSG were here, we could resolve this by asking him the odds of rolling a 15 on a d20 versus rolling a 5 on a d6.

Elle: I feel like the math says 15 is better, but the Internet has better math skills than I do, so let's just look it up.

Ariel: Pleasepleaseplease show I'm right, Internet!

Elle: Ah, here we are. A 15 on a d20 is in the top 30% of rolls, and a 5 on a d6 is in the top 33.3%.

Ariel: Does that mean I win because my number is bigger? Or does it mean my roll is better because my number is bigger, so I'm wrong and I lose?

Hettie: When the odds of something are lower, that means it's harder to do, so it sounds to me like Sasha made the superior roll.

Sasha: Dammit. Okay, this time I roll an 11.

Ariel: I roll a 4.

Elle: Tie. Those are both in the top 50% of rolls for the dice.

Sasha: Okay, this time --

Akane: Wait! I don't mean rudeness, but are we progressing in our help of Claire's rules?

Hettie: I'm going to say that's definitively not the case.

Ariel: Good! So far the dice say I'm basically right!

Sasha: This isn't over.

Claire: How about this ... you both win, because Sash overall rolled better in those two roll-offs, meaning Aers is right about her rolling well. But it was also kind of fun for everybody watching and figuring out the odds, so Sash was right that rolling is a big part of enjoying RPGs. So I think we need to keep the idea of using dice for something, even if it's not success versus failure.

Hettie: What about degree of success? Or of failure?

Sasha: I like it! Our Mothership game was chock full of fun critical successes and critical fails.

Ariel: You're just saying that because you rolled so many critical successes.

Sasha: No I didn't.

Elle: Let's not go down that road again.

Claire: So, whenever you attempt a task in this game, the gamemaster asks if you succeed or fail, there's a possibility someone else steps in and decides for you, and then you roll to see how well you succeed or how terribly you fail.

Ariel: We need ability scores to do something in there, don't we?

Sasha: Your ability scores could modify your chances of extra success or extra failure.

Akane: Hmm ... motivation for sometimes failing is, the more successes in a row, the lower chances of success being a spectacle.

Hettie: Exceptional thinking, Akane.

Claire: I'm starting to see this. If you succeed at something, you roll a die and add your ability modifier, then subtract however many successes you've had in a row. The higher the result is, the more successful you are. If you fail, you do the same thing, and the lower the result is, the worse your failure is.

Akane: But ... if you fail, successes in a row equals zero?

Claire: Dang. That's a good point.

Hettie: Suppose instead of simply using number of successes in a row, we track a value called "Streak." Your Streak number goes up whenever your number of successes in a row is greater than its current value. It goes down whenever you get a failure.

Elle: Okay. So, I pick three successes in a row, that makes my Streak 3. For that third success, I roll a die, add my ability modifier, and subtract 3 to see how good the success is. Then if I choose to fail for the fourth thing I try, my Streak becomes 2.

Ariel: OOH! But if someone else makes you fail, it doesn't break your Streak!

Elle: That's outright devilish, Aers. I'm very proud of you.

Ariel: Thanks!

Akane: Question: what kinds of things are we attempting to do when we choose our succeedings or failings?

Sasha: Sexy things, it sounds like to me, based on the game being called ROMP.

Ariel: And having "porn" in the long version of the title.

Akane: Mm. It's a good topic for a game then, I think.

Claire: I figure once we get the basics of the rules down, we should be able to use them for lots of different types of stories ... naughty fantasy or sci-fi stories, or naughty spy stories ... just about anything naughty. Maybe even not-so-naughty things if the rules turn out to be really adaptable.

Ariel: I like this game so far!

Sasha: Me too!

Claire: All right, I think I'm going to write all this down and try to figure out what dice to roll and how to scale the success and failure table. Thanks, everybody!

Hettie: Thanks for asking us. I can't wait to play.

Akane: Exciting!

Elle: Just say the word if you need more help.

Ariel: ("That's what she said!")

Akane: Haha!

Sasha: This is going to be good, I can tell.