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Fantasy World

A new take on a classic idea, Fantasy World is roleplaying Powered by the Apocalypse for the 2020s. · By Alessandro Piroddi

Feedback on "End of Session"

A topic by Alex Leone created Jul 17, 2021 Views: 54 Replies: 4
Viewing posts 1 to 2
(4 edits)

I like the contents of this move, but, like “Journey,” following it is confusing. At the very least, I would need a cheat sheet to understand what I’m supposed to do. Ideally, it would be clear all on its own.

Here are some specific things I think would make this move clearer:

  1. “each Player goes through all the steps and substeps”: remove “and substeps”. There isn’t really anything labeled a “substep,” just options within each step.

  2. I’m not sure that I like the “Grow Up” mechanic. The only way that it’s different from “marking future growth after marking 5 growth” is that you can be anywhere on the growth track and still get a future growth. Basically, “Growing Up” means “get a variable amount of Growth.” It incentivizes resolving your Issue and mastering your Doubt when you have very little Growth (no matter how much Future Growth you have), which seems like a really weird, complicated thing to consider at all. I’d much rather have the Grow Up options simply give you something like 3 Growth. Come to think of it, without the Grow Up mechanic as written, I’m not sure what the point of Future Growth is at all. Perhaps it could also be simplified and each character could just have Growth. It doesn’t seem like the complexity of Grow Up and Future Growth buys us anything interesting.

  3. I’d change “Step 1) Considering your PC’s Issue…” and “Step 2) Considering your PC’s Doubt…” to “Consider” in both cases, to match Step 3. “Consider” is an active verb (and an imperative!), so stronger and clearer in this case.

  4. In Step 4: Remove the sentence “You can do this only once per session.” This is unnecessary: the trigger of the move ensures that this only happens once per session, at the end of the session. This sentence implies that you can do Step 4 at other times in the game, which I don’t think is correct.

  5. “Skip” is unintuitive. I understand why it’s there, mechanically, it just feels awkward to go through those options in order and then skip, like, one or two options usually when I hit a Skip. In practice, when I read the options below each step, I’m skimming them, not taking order into account.
    For the steps that include “Skip,” options, I’d change up the step text kind of like this (in step 1, for example):

Step 1) Consider your PC’s Issue…
If you took action to meaningfully address it, say how and mark growth. Otherwise, if you feel it’s resolved, explain how, then Renew it and mark 3 growth. Otherwise, if you want to abandon it say why, then Renew it and mark 3 growth. Otherwise, if you want to reword or slightly revise it, say why and how, and do so freely.

If I’ve fundamentally misunderstood any part of the move above, let me know so I can correct my understanding! Really, my main feedback is: the move is confusing, hard to follow, and hard to understand. What’s above are just my suggestions for some ways to “fix” it.

Thanks! :)

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

1.  noted :)

2. Future Growth is useful for various things, as a storage of excess Growth. So it's not going away. But I've already reworder text that uses it both in the rules and in this Move, to make it clearer :)

3. fixed :)

4. You can't do this at other times, BUT you might have enough Growth and/or Future Growth to buy yourself multiple Growth options all at once during the same End of Session move... so the text is there to remind Players of the rule explained earlier in the text: you can only get 1 Growth option per session.

5. noted :)
Just know that I need the active Player to:

- first and foremost re-read and re-consider their Issue/Doubt... every session. That's why the first thing to do it so reword/modify it.

- then think about the resolution of it. How do I solve it? Do I feel like I have an idea? Or is it vague? Am I lost? Am I behaving in a way that could lead to it? ...every session.

- same of the idea of abandoning it, which makes more sense after I maybe pondered on the fact that I am not doing much to solve it. Or what I should do doesn't really interest me, or seems too far away in the future, or out of the scope of the Fellowship activities, or whatever.

- then, finally, scan your recent play actions to see if they were meaningful for the Issue/Doubt. This focuses the attention on recent and concrete past events rather than future plans and opportunities. On your real table behaviour and choices, rather than future possibilities and desires.

So it's much more than a checklist. It's a "thought structure". I don't much care if the reader can't see the point of the steps or understand them overall. If they are followed to the letter, one by one, in the correct order... the reader WILL think the correct things at the correct time, and the desired game effect WILL take place.

That said, I'm double checking everything you mention to make the text as easy to follow as possible. Some procedures DO need an "optimization" pass ;-)

(3 edits)

Thank you for all your thoughts, and for double-checking this move! It was quite a doozy to understand. :D

I have further thoughts on your thoughts:

  1. I can’t see any use for Future Growth right now. Why not make Growth have no maximum (or have a higher maximum, say, 10 or 15), and then just let people mark more Growth? Having both Growth and Future Growth is more confusing than just having one stat, so I’ve got to believe there’s something I get from having Future Growth, but I can’t figure it out. What is Future Growth useful for that we can’t get by just increasing the maximum amount of Growth?

  2. I still think the last sentence here is unnecessary and confusing. The sentence before already says:

Spend 5 Growth marks or 1 Future Growth mark to select one new Growth option from the list on your Class sheet.

(Emphasis mine) So, you’re spending Growth marks for one Growth option. It seems clear to me that you can’t spend more Growth marks for two Growth options. But, if you wanted to clarify it more, you could even just change that first sentence to:

No more than once, spend 5 Growth marks or 1 Future Growth mark to select one new Growth option from the list on your Class sheet.

I still think this is less clear than just removing the second sentence, but it’s more clear than the second sentence, in my opinion.

Thanks for the list of things you want the player to think at the end of each session! That’s a helpful look inside your thought process. :)

In that case, one thing that could help clear up the End of Session options, is to make it more clear that the options (and not just the steps) are to be followed in order by giving the options numbers or letters or something, rather than unordered bullet points. Something like:

  1. Step 1
    1.1 Substep 1
    1.2 Substep 2
    1.3 Substep 3

etc.

That said, as a player, it’s not clear to me why the order of the substeps is important, even with your explanation above. And, like I mentioned, the “Skip” action makes it even more unclear to me why the order matters, since it interrupts the very linear flow of the step-to-substep structure you have otherwise set up.

Any thoughts on the above? I feel kind of lost with this move now–it still is confusing to follow, but I don’t have any ideas of how to fix it anymore. Hm.

Developer

After pondered consideration I have removed the Future Growth layer and clarified the move text.
It's not 100% what you suggested, but should be more in the direction you were pointing toward ;-)

Awesome! I look forward to reading it. :)