Thursday, May 11, 2006
FilliN' Up: Situation Creation for OctaNe
[This is by no means an offical anything for OctaNe.]
So, you and yer buds wanna play a game of OctaNe, right? Well, yer gonna need some Rock'N'Roll. So, you guys all figger out what Rock'N'Roll song y'all like - it's gonna kinda be the basis of yer game, so make it a good one (hint: anything by Johnny Cash or Elvis is a rockin' default). So, y'alls siddown with a piece o paper and a pen, and y'all listen to this Rock'N'Roll song. Pay attention! and write down this stuff: the mood of the song; the style or genre of the song; individual words that stand out; lyrical phrases that stand out; what the song makes you think and feel. No talkin'!
Now, when the songs over (just listen the once), go through what y'alls wrote. The GM is gonna make a master list out of all yer lists. He'll go through each thing - for mood and style, yer all gonna agree on one thing. Everyone will say what they wrote, and y'all need to see which one you can agree on. The mood will be the mood of yer game - upbeat, trippy, grim, wutever. The style will be a broad thing that covers the stuff, the color of the game - country & western will have lots of cowboys and pickups, surf rock will have...surfing, space rock will have aliens and robots, and so on.
For the other stuff, the GM will add each entry to the master list, with the number of times it was on a list in descending order next to it. That doesn't make sense, so here's an example: if y'all have 4 people, and y'all each write "Cowboy", the GM will put "Cowboy 4 3 2 1" on his paper. If y'all have "Prison" on two lists, thats "Prison 2 1" and so on. The numbers are the number of uses each entry will get for the game.
So, when y'all are done, you'll have a list with the mood and style of yer game, and a number of words and phrase with numbers next to 'em.
Now, when you make yer characters for OctaNe, you can use any of the entries on the sheet as Skills, Gear or Description entries. If y'all do, the GM crosses off the highest number next to the entry, reducing it's uses by one. Y'all don't need to use the entries if you don't wanna.
In the game, all these things count as "call-ons." A player can use a call-on to give himself an extra dice for any roll. Make sure y'all know which dice is the call-on dice. Whoever narrates the roll has to incorporate the call-on into the result. So, if I use "Fulsom Prison" as a call-on, and I get to narrate, I might say how my characters experience in Folsom gave him a particular skill, or that he knows the drifter cuz they were in Folsom together, or wutever. The GM can use a call-on to incorporate that thing into his narration, and remove a dice from a players roll before you resolve a conflict roll.
[I need to reread OctaNe one more time, cuz I want to do something with whether the call-on dice rolls higher or lower than its uses remaining, but I dunno what will be good. Will update when I figure it out.]
So, you and yer buds wanna play a game of OctaNe, right? Well, yer gonna need some Rock'N'Roll. So, you guys all figger out what Rock'N'Roll song y'all like - it's gonna kinda be the basis of yer game, so make it a good one (hint: anything by Johnny Cash or Elvis is a rockin' default). So, y'alls siddown with a piece o paper and a pen, and y'all listen to this Rock'N'Roll song. Pay attention! and write down this stuff: the mood of the song; the style or genre of the song; individual words that stand out; lyrical phrases that stand out; what the song makes you think and feel. No talkin'!
Now, when the songs over (just listen the once), go through what y'alls wrote. The GM is gonna make a master list out of all yer lists. He'll go through each thing - for mood and style, yer all gonna agree on one thing. Everyone will say what they wrote, and y'all need to see which one you can agree on. The mood will be the mood of yer game - upbeat, trippy, grim, wutever. The style will be a broad thing that covers the stuff, the color of the game - country & western will have lots of cowboys and pickups, surf rock will have...surfing, space rock will have aliens and robots, and so on.
For the other stuff, the GM will add each entry to the master list, with the number of times it was on a list in descending order next to it. That doesn't make sense, so here's an example: if y'all have 4 people, and y'all each write "Cowboy", the GM will put "Cowboy 4 3 2 1" on his paper. If y'all have "Prison" on two lists, thats "Prison 2 1" and so on. The numbers are the number of uses each entry will get for the game.
So, when y'all are done, you'll have a list with the mood and style of yer game, and a number of words and phrase with numbers next to 'em.
Now, when you make yer characters for OctaNe, you can use any of the entries on the sheet as Skills, Gear or Description entries. If y'all do, the GM crosses off the highest number next to the entry, reducing it's uses by one. Y'all don't need to use the entries if you don't wanna.
In the game, all these things count as "call-ons." A player can use a call-on to give himself an extra dice for any roll. Make sure y'all know which dice is the call-on dice. Whoever narrates the roll has to incorporate the call-on into the result. So, if I use "Fulsom Prison" as a call-on, and I get to narrate, I might say how my characters experience in Folsom gave him a particular skill, or that he knows the drifter cuz they were in Folsom together, or wutever. The GM can use a call-on to incorporate that thing into his narration, and remove a dice from a players roll before you resolve a conflict roll.
[I need to reread OctaNe one more time, cuz I want to do something with whether the call-on dice rolls higher or lower than its uses remaining, but I dunno what will be good. Will update when I figure it out.]
// posted by Nathan P. @ 5/11/2006 01:33:00 PM 
