Ready, Fire, Aim!

Seiyuu is currently in pieces. I’ve ripped out the old conflict resolution system (yes, the “bingo” system), and I’m looking at retooling most of the individual components of the game, to make sure they do what I want them to do and integrate properly with one another. I made a decent number of notes going into GenCon, but I haven’t allowed myself to work through them yet. I expect that to change a little bit once I get through some reading I’ve currently got on my plate – in the next week or two. The playtest at GenCon was a mess, but a mess that’s convinced me I’m slowly but surely moving in the right direction.

Once that’s happened, I think Lenny and I will start a very limited playtest – possibly just the two of us, possibly one or two others who can commit to a regular Skype call and have the expertise and interest required. No, please don’t ask me – it’s way too early for that, and I promise there will come a time for open, external playtest where anyone who wants to will be able to test. The idea behind such a playtest is to create a stable core of elements (participants, a show, and the necessary support structures) in order to test and retest the various resolution systems and endgame mechanics, until at least all of the pieces are there. Getting them to all working together is the step after that.

I really think the game is going in the direction that I want it to, but it’s a slow process. Slow for two reasons: first, I haven’t been devoting a lot of active effort to it, and second, because I find I’m still learning a lot about designing and game theory as I go. I incorporate each new revelation as it comes to me, but that’s a lot of two-steps-forward-and-one-step-back progress.

I’m hoping to write a “State of the Game” post about once a month, just as a progress report on the design.

For some time now, I’ve really wanted to design a logo for Seiyuu, something I could use as an icon for journal entries, if nothing else. I considered just finding a suitable font and putting together something simple, but yesterday, I took a different approach.

First, I played association games between what the game was about and what the title implied – things that have to do with being a seiyuu. Then I tried to represent what that meant with a simple image. I had a little sketch of a voice actor’s head in front of a microphone, with the word “Seiyuu” traveling between the mic and a picture of a face on a screen (the character being dubbed). Although I liked that, I just don’t have the art skills to realize that vision, and I’m not in a position to pay anyone for such a drawing right now.

But that lead me to consider incorporating some of this imagery into the actual lettering of the word “seiyuu.” Bingo! The “i” becomes a microphone stand, with the “dot” being the actual mic itself, and the “y” becomes a voice actor with arms outstretched, performing into the mic. I have the roughest of rough sketches in front of me now, but no real way to scan it and post it, which is probably good – I can try to mock up something more professional before I post anything. I think I’ll make the figure chibi/super-deformed, with anime hair (wild hairstyle and odd color like blue) and upside-down u’s for eyes (that anime style indicating eyes squeezed shut with a smile). The rest of the lettering would be rounded and three-dimensional – puffed up but not fat – in a bright color (probably red), like the Japanese characters for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya title.

If anyone would like to take a crack at this before I maul this with my limited artistic skills, let me know!

“Every successful job is just the completion of many smaller, simpler tasks.”
-Gunslinger Girl, Episode 2, “Astronomical Observation - Orion”

Last night was the first “developer call” for Seiyuu, and I think it went well. More of the details are here. I think the highlight of the call was getting an “ooo!” out of Lenny when I described the major mechanical method for handling tropes in the game. But before I can really get to that, I need to get some basics out of the way, like a mission statement, a complete breakdown of all the game’s concepts, and a board-game-like breakdown of the procedure of play. Time to get cracking…

Watching: Death Note (DVD 5)
Rewatching: Slayers (Season 1)

A few folks have asked me to post about this technique, which I initially only saw as a personal one for playtesting Seiyuu. Now I suspect that a little adaptation might make it work in a lot of other contexts.

When setting up for Seiyuu playtests, I realized I needed to be able to establish common ground with my participants and do so quickly. Playtesting involves a lot of explaining things up-front (rules, expectations, etc.) and answering a lot of questions, so establishing common ground is a must. Seiyuu is all about anime, so a likely way of explaining something might be “Are you familiar with anime X?” and if the answer is yes, then drawing some example or analogy from anime X. If not…I could spend precious minutes describing the necessary underpinings of anime X in order to make my point, possibly spoiling someone on the show, or pick my brain for another example from another show, until I find a common point of reference.

To get around this problem, I created my anime list. I’ve posted this list on this blog before, but there’s also a link on the sidebar (under “Files”) to an Excel spreadsheet version. This spreadsheet as the same list, broken into printer-friendly pages and marked with a series of five boxes in front of each title.

When I sit down to playtest Seiyuu, one of the first things I do is use this spreadsheet. I’ll have it printed out for the occasion, and I’ll record each participant’s name in the box on the upper right of the first page. This links each player by name to a specific number. I tell each player what number they are and hand out pages of the spreadsheet. I will hand out a page to each player, with the instructions that they mark the box corresponding to their number in front of each anime title they’ve seen (or are familiar enough with that they feel comfortable discussing characters, setting, or situations). When someone finishes with a page, they pass it to the next person, until everyone has completed every page. This usually takes several minutes, but it’s worth it for the following reasons:

1) I now have common points of reference with everyone at the table. My list is extensive enough that it almost always means that there’s at least one title that everyone at the table has seen. In the case of less than perfect commonality, it still lets me tailor examples to a specific participant, by consulting their entries on the list. Even if everyone hasn’t seen anime X, if player Y has, I can answer player Y’s question with an example from anime X.

2) By examining the shorter list of anime that everyone (or most everyone) is familiar with, I can begin to see what genres and tropes are most likely to work with this particular group. We tend to watch what we like. So if the table is familiar with Akira, Cowboy Bebop, and Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex, then maybe science fiction should be one of the genres for our show.

3) I can better recommend anime to others. This makes for good pre- or post-game chatter, rather than as an aid to playtesting, but it’s always fun, and it can help to establish better bonds between me and the participants.

Here’s how I think I’d adapt this technique to other games and situations:

1) If you’re trying to decide on a game or a premise, make a list for yourself of influential media (your personal top tens) or media you’ve been experiencing recently (what you’ve been reading/hearing/viewing). Pass that list around and see who else is familiar with or enthusiastic about entries on your list. I think this could be used for choosing a game (if you’ve all been watching westerns lately, maybe Dogs in the Vineyard or Dust Devils would be appropriate) or for defining the premise in a more generic game (if you’ve all been watching BSG and the new Doctor Who, maybe emo gut-punching time travel would make for a good Primetime Adventures premise).

2) One you’ve settled on a game, have everyone bring in one thing they’d like to see influence the game – a book, a CD, a movie. Pass them around, loan them out, watch them during those weeks when the whole group can’t make it.

I know this technique works for me, at least for playtesting Seiyuu. I suspect it would work well in a broader context, but I’d love to read feedback about how this or something like it has or hasn’t worked for you.

 …and I’ve just realized I’m not doing this with my Reign game. Must fix that.

Originally, the subtitle for Seiyuu was “a generic anime game,” until Ben Lehman pointed out to me that the word “generic” could do nothing but harm, since it was laden with bad connotations. After that, it’s had the nice simple subtitle of “a game about anime.” I’ve been happy with that for over a year now.

After today’s satori about the nature of RPGs, I amended the subtitle by changing one word and adding another. The subtitle is “a game of anime imagination.” And that makes me even happier.

I know there are a good number of people interested in Seiyuu.

I know that a lot of you will be at GenCon this year.

I intend on having a fully playable version ready by then.

What I need is a commitment from you to playtest the game at GenCon. Right now, the only requirements is that you like anime. I appreciate any and all support of the game, but these initial playtests will require at least some appreciation of anime. If you’re not really a fan of anime but you want to help me with design problems, stay tuned – I’ll need plenty of help after GenCon!

If you are interested, please comment on this post or send an email to seiyuu dot rpg at gmail dot com. I’ll make a list of all the names and try to coordinate some solid playtest times and locations for GenCon, either at the Games on Demand area (during con hours) or at the Embassy Suites (after con hours).

Thanks in advance!

Anyone who knows me well knows I can be…verbose. It should come as no surprise that I’ve traditionally found this questionnaire difficult, as I want to explain every nook and cranny of my design idea.

Screw that. Here are my answers. 

1) What is your game about?

Anime. Slight unpacking: experiencing your own anime show.

2) How is your game about that?

Conventions. Participants choose elements (genres, characters, and tropes) appropriate for an anime. They then play through a number of episodes, which have a central issue to be resolved at the end of the show. Along the way, the players try to resolve their characters’ own personal issues. If this sounds like PTA, it is – with a bit more crunch.

3) How does your game reward or encourage that behavior?

Incentive. Bringing in your character’s facets and the show’s features gives players valuable resources, but subjects them to input from other players. This allows them to win conflicts, but they still have to choose between further the aims of their character or the current plot facing them. Also, players can even get resources by playing a supporting character in scenes where their main character isn’t active.

+1) How do you make that fun?

Choices. There’s a lot of creative constraint during series and character creation, to help focus players. During play, they choose what scenes they want, how to approach conflicts, what is advanced by their successes, and how their characters change, with a little input from others.

Feel free to question or deconstruct. 

OK, OK, I promise to post about premise soon, but I’m thinking it may change it’s name to “central issue.” Here’s the reason:

I’ve been thinking about the premises of shows, in terms of their taglines or quick descriptions. A really good example of this is Gunslinger Girl: “The girl has a mechanical body. However, she is still an adolescent child.” What if this were usable in the game, in the same sort of way character facets will be – with each sentence on one side of the same index card. Tagging “The girl has a mechanical body” emphasizes their cybernetic modifications – speed, strength, resistance to injury – while “However, she is still an adolescent child” would be about the emotional difficulties of the characters’ situation – teen girls trying to deal with their new lives as brainwashed assassins with limited lifespans…and still be teen girls.

Another: the original Ghost in the Shell movie’s “It found a voice…now it needs a body.”

This leaves “central issue” as the overarching question of the show, to be answered at the end of the story, and I hope to get to that post this weekend.

This has been rolling around in my head for a couple of weeks, so I want to get it down.

Color is a bit of information about a character or the setting. If it is immediately important or relevant, it is not color. Color on its own is good – it adds verisimilitude to the world - but color can also become foreshadowing.

In Seiyuu, color costs nothing to add. A player writes it down and states how it manifests in the scene. (Pointed out by a character is usually best.) It cannot change a character, a situation, or the setting in any meaningful way, and it cannot become foreshadowing in that scene. At any point after that scene, color may become foreshadowing by explaining a later outcome or event. At that point, it is worth 1 point of budget to the player who turns it into foreshadowing.

Examples:

In Appleseed 2: Ex Machina, the two main characters are shown to wear the same kind of analog wristwatch. These watches are color introduced in that scene. One of the other characters states that the ticking of the analog watches will give them away to the enemy. This might have become foreshadowing, if the watches were used to explain why the characters were detected by the enemy. Instead, the watches are used as metaphor for the connection between the two characters: when one of them is seriously injured, the audience only sees the broken watch face, not the injured character.

Later in the movie, a new piece of personal technology is introduced in a conversation between characters. This might just be a bit of color for the world, but later in the film, this new technology becomes integral to the plot. At the point that bit of color becomes an explanation for events, it has become foreshadowing.

There’s been a good bit of discussion lately, in a variety of fora, about the whys and hows of publishing your own role-playing game. I won’t list a bunch of links here. If you’ve heard about it, you’ve probably already read them; if not, a bit of Googling should do the trick.

I’ve been thinking about it myself: how it relates to my situation, and why I’m working on the game I am.

Why We Write

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