I think these are all great ideas, although I am a bit worried about the suitability of a number of games to this format. We need to have games and/or GM’s for this that can generate enough of these ‘microdecisions’ to keep the game flow interesting and varied enough, but on the other hand not too much so the storyboard does not get overwhelmed.

I also like the little pictures in the text (especially the way the dice are drawn :) ).

Well done!

November 10, 2004 3:44 PM - Posted by Robartes

As I was rereading the document, I noticed many typos and wrong grammar! Sorry for that!

BTW, the drawing of the table (including the dice) is just cut-and-pasted from the clip-art colelction included with FrameMaker (my Adobe text processing tool of choice).

November 10, 2004 5:54 PM - Posted by Phil Dutre

I like the story board idea. However, unlike the fighting fantasy novels are there will be a number of interacting decision making bodies on the table rather than just one player character. After a few decision points there will be a large number of alternative possibilities to script. In Discworld terms Time’s trousers will have an infinite number of legs. To that end I would suggest a restriction to those decisions in the story board, or limiting the participants to one side along the lines of Once Upon a Time in the West, or design a game to run for say 5 decisions restricting the possibilities. That way the game would not take too long - say an hour/hour and a half tops and could be repeated during the day. Previous games might be displayed using a laptop/digicam setup mounted on the story board, or simply printed out and pinned up as part of the presentation to the public.

The alternative would be to work on an inherent military probability model, in which case the players will be asked to put forward their ideas and the umpire must then assign an index number to success and out line the consequences of failure, much as in the example you use. Story boarding would not be possible. One could then perhaps use the cards as Heroic actions with the player having to describe why his unit should cheat disaster ” realising that the only way to the treeline was to across 40 metres of open ground Feldwebel Plebb seized Schmidt the diminutive MG gunner by the webbing, slung him across his back shouting “you keep their heads down and I’ll run for both of us!!” ” or some such rubbish. Cheers Graham

November 11, 2004 10:31 AM - Posted by Graham K

I think it to be a great idea since most people want to enjoy a convention by browsing at tradestands, watching games, talk to people, browse at tradestands, watch games etc. Therefor a very flexible system like this (not unlike the old GW fantasy adventure booklets) would be perfect for conventioneers. One question, though: why is the GM comfortably seated in the picture? Is it because his name is Phil?…

Rudi

November 11, 2004 2:34 PM - Posted by Rudi Geudens