When the Forge spawned the "Indie Game Revolution", I was very sceptical. I took my line pretty far - I called out
steve_hix over his award of "Best GM" at KapCon for his break-out Indie game, "The Lucky Joneses", a game about dysfunctional families that was finally released last year as
Bad Family. I argued that the GM in Indie games had a much lower
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The Horror Track has never been central or even important in any EPOCH scenario I've facilitated - it is usually a curiosity, and most often only looked at by the players in the final tension phase. A Hollow Victory is a fairly typical ending in horror movies which are not based around escape - accordingly in scenarios which do not feature a strong lock box component, obtaining a Total Victory is usually only achieved by a deeper engagement with the story (which also reflects a majority of horror movies where the protagonists initially survive the horror then place themselves at further risk in order to explore/rescue/stop the source of the horror).
A correction about Road Trip. It is not necessary to investigate the story of the brothers to secure a total victory - let me quote for the relevant section of the text:
From the Horror Track:
"To achieve Total Victory the characters must destroy all of the Beasts - including characters who have been infected."
In fact, the Horror Track was designed to allow the characters bypass this story entirely: Knowledge of the Beasts and their vulnerability = 6 points, Notifying the Authorities = 4 points, Killing all the Beasts = 8 points leaving either obtaining ranged weapons (2 points) or a source of silver (3 points) to allow for a total victory.
Let's check the facilitation notes:
"Michael and Jake and their rivalry leading to the split between the bikers is a background element only. If the characters choose to explore this further, seek out the bikers as allies, or unravel Michael’s fate, then it should
move into the foreground. However, the characters are under no compulsion to learn any of these details. They may simply ignore the bikers altogether and leave the area."
Then finally:
The Beasts also have a ‘movie-science’ explanation as outlined in The Nature of the Beast. This has been added for two reasons; first if the characters are scientists or researchers (or think to consult some) they should be able to determine an explanation for the manifestation of the Beasts (perhaps explained as the basis for the legend of the
werewolf). Secondly, this analysis should reveal that by simply taking a Vitamin D supplement the extreme dysmorphic effects of the genetic mutation can be permanently suppressed. Deducing this should prompt the
award of a genius card worth 8 points, as it effectively removes the need to exterminate all of the Beasts. This should mean that even infected surviving characters can have a happy ending."
FWIW this was the ending that the surviving Kapcon Road Trip characters secured.
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I think this can definitely cut the other way too. Ivan's main critique of Death on the Streets was that he found the NPCs flat and unengaging. He wanted to see more of their internal psychology, and to understand how the story looked from their point of view. He complained partcularly that I'd used story functions instead of names to discuss them in every spot. All of these problems were deliberate design decisions on my part to prevent the NPCs from becoming the focus, and I did everything I could within the EPOCH framework to make the story about the player characters instead. The idea that we shouldn't care one iota about any NPC thought or experience that doesn't have a clear expression inside the fiction, and so that's all I provided. The NPCs exist and take actions purely to assist with telling the story of the PCs. I don't want to claim it's the perfect expression of a player-facing scenario; clearly, it's still got an over-arching narrative that I'm imposing arbitrarily on a group of PCs. What I want to say is that I maximised how player-facing it was within the genre limitations.
I also don't want to say here that one design paradigm is better or worse than the other. What I'm arguing is that scenario designers build in these complex NPC stories without really recognizing what they're doing. I am perfectly fine with non-player-facing scenarios, which includes a decent chunk of what I myself have written and think is good. For example, No Choice Pal is entirely non-player-facing, but it's gotten great reviews from those who've read it, and it plays very well at the table. My GM advice in that scenario is all about trying to get the PCs to engage with the NPC stories that are the central focus of the game, and I acknowledge that the specific PCs provided are pretty much interchangeable with any character with roughly the right skill set for Vampire malarky.
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