¿Cómo organizar los conflictos?

Un tema bastante importante para la rama más tradicional de los juegos de rol es el manejo de los conflictos entre dos participantes. La naturaleza de los conflictos es hoy secundaria, me quiero concentrar en aspectos tales como el manejo del contrincante como un espejo del protagonista, los casos más clásicos, en los que los oponentes, en general personajes no jugadores, tienen las mismas o parecidas estadísticas al protagonista, realizan las mismas acciones, procesos, etc. Un caso prototípico de esto es Burning Wheel, en el que hay una simetría entre ambos participantes de, por ejemplo, una Fight!, simetría reforzada porque tampoco está la leve asimetría de algunos deportes en relación con el que empieza el conflicto.

En el ajedrez, se suele adjudicar una leve ventaja a las blancas, las cuales hacen el primer movimiento en una partida y condicionan un poco al adversario a reaccionar a la apertura que elige el primer jugador. Por tal razón, en un torneo es común jugar varias partidas de ajedrez, para que ambos participantes puedan situarse en el rol de iniciar la partida.

En el tenis, el jugador que hace el saque cuenta con una ventaja marcada. Al cambiar de game (juego), el saque rota al otro jugador, pero lo que define un cambio en la tendencia es ganar cuando el saque lo tiene el otro, lograr el break. Esto puede marcar una ventaja que, de mantenerse o profundizarse, dará la victoria. 

Los juegos de rol se pueden beneficiar de esta asimetría que rota cíclicamente: si todos los turnos o intercambios tienen las mismas condiciones, aquel con estadísticas o estrategia superiores ganará. Si la asimetría rota, alternando el participante con la ventaja, esto fuerza a todos a combatir en condiciones levemente desfavorables y a esforzarse por quebrar este ritmo.

En algunos shonen, el combate se estructura de esta forma, con uno u otro combatiente ganando la ventaja, hasta que algún evento permite romper la racha ganadora y pasarla al otro bando. Es una forma intuitiva de organizar un conflicto, incluso narrativamente.

Ejemplos? Muchos juegos con sistema de turnos organizados por iniciativa tienen alguna versión de esto, en d&d está implícito que el turno propio es para generar efectos positivos antes que para sufrir condiciones o perder recursos, y durante el turno de otro mis defensas suelen ser pasivas, sin tirar dados (en algunas ediciones al menos, en 4ta por ejemplo). Sin embargo, la tirada de iniciativa hace muy estático el ordenamiento de los participantes. Marvel Heroic Roleplaying mejora esta configuración, durante tu turno infligís efectos con una tirada, pero en ocasiones el defensor puede gastar fate points para hacerte daño por ejemplo durante tu propio turno (algo que curiosamente algunos jugadores experimentados recomendaban modificar con reglas caseras). El reparto de la iniciativa es un pasamanos a voluntad, lo que lo vuelve otro componente estratégico porque quien sea el último podría hacer que su propia facción inicie la siguiente ronda. 

Los juegos powered by the apocalypse no deberían entrar en este texto como ejemplos, pero me interesa el caso del pvp (jugador contra jugador) en ellos, ya que siempre fue un tema peliagudo y difícil de adjudicar para el que dirige. Esto porque el move implica que la autoridad para influir sobre la tirada, al menos mecánicamente, está del lado de un único jugador en simultáneo (no pueden tirar dos personas dos movimientos a la vez, y resolverlos). Esto se presta también al concepto de marea, hay que dejar que el otro inicie la acción para luego poder hacerlo yo. Esto puede no funcionar con todos los grupos y, al contrario de otros juegos que mecanizan mucho el conflicto, se apoya exclusivamente en el contrato social del grupo. 

Sin embargo, se pueden explorar otras formas de llevar conflictos que no dependan tanto de una actitud propicia de los participantes y que exploten mucho más el concepto de manejar la ventaja como una marea. 

El animismo y Disco Elysium

Desproporcionadamente desde que empecé a jugar al Disco Elysium, me sorprendió lo de la corbata que te habla. La cacofonía de voces internas del personaje me hicieron por contraste pensar en la uniformidad psicológica en los juegos de rol. 1 jugador 1 personaje, tal configuración tiende a garantizar una cierta uniformidad en las identidades y en ocasiones la ausencia de conflictos internos, a menos que una mecánica puntual los estimule. Burning Wheel utilizó las creencias + instintos + rasgos, junto con un gm que fuerza crisis en los personajes a partir de exponerlos a situaciones que ponen las creencias en conflicto.

Pero lo que me sorprendió de Disco Elysium es que la propia mente del personaje lo inunda de datos contradictorios, lo que le da una dimensión psicológica, una complejidad a la vida interna del protagonista que rara vez se ve en juegos de pc o de rol de mesa.

Esto no tiene nada que ver con el animismo, me van a decir. Probablemente no, pero me agrada la noción de que no te relacionás con la espada como un +2 a cortar personas, sino con el espíritu de la espada, con una voz que te dice que rebanes a tus enemigos, conquistes un feudo y tengas vasallos. ¿Es real esa voz, es parte de la fantasía de ese mundo? No importa.

También me gustaría romper la idea de que hay una identidad fundamental por fuera de nuestras configuraciones accidentales. Las características, creencias, instintos,  todo eso colabora a fijar una identidad que luego, en juego, es tan estática como un personaje mal escrito. Y a veces los gms tienen que esforzarse mucho para que un juego engendre crisis, dado que los jugadores llegan con una idea estática, un personaje ya perfecto o bien un trayecto de crecimiento pensado de antemano, lo que es asesino para una buena campaña.

Evidentemente necesitamos herramientas para facilitar generar una crisis que sea tan externa como interna al personaje, y creo que en el Disco Elysium hay algo que explorar.

Y ya estuve explorando un poco, pero antes de contarles al respecto quiero avanzar un poco más en este juego. El nombre que estoy explorando, "El susurro de las cosas", y lo demás tendrá que esperar. 

¿Cómo hacer un juego queer?

En Twitter, alguien preguntó lo siguiente, lo que me dejó pensando:

¿Cómo hacer que un juego sea queer? Varias veces me encontré con juegos que intentan introducir este contenido declarativamente, a partir de una declaración de intenciones, opciones explícitas a la hora de construir un personaje, incluso como reglas. Como ejemplos, tenemos la inclusión de opciones no binarias en Apocalypse World para la creación de personajes, el apartado "Raza, Género y el hecho de ser diferente" en Sombras Urbanas, o el apartado "Sex" en D&D 5ta edición:

Siempre encontré estos intentos de incluir diversidad en los juegos bastante blandos, porque se presentan como una opción que rara vez cambia el contenido de fondo de lo que se juega, y mi entendimiento sobre ser queer implica una dinámica relacional y de poder antes que un componente meramente identitario.

¿Existiría lo queer sin un patriarcado cisgenérico reforzado desde la edad temprana o en instituciones y espacios de socialización, sin un poder como oposición? Puede existir lo queer en una relación de neutralidad con la estructura social, sin la tensión que implica no ser asimilado, resistir, versus adaptarse para subsistir (o alguna combinación de ambas)?
Mi respuesta es que no. Y si bien el prospecto de querer jugar un personaje, por ejemplo, gay, en un juego de fantasía, y que nada más cambie, puede ser reconfortante (después de todo, a veces queremos jugar fantasía escapista), la posibilidad de tener personajes lgbtiqa+ en un juego no debería ser contenido opcional y estético, de color, sino un elemento estructural que cambie la dinámica de juego.

Mi propuesta es que un juego es queer cuando los personajes enfrentan presiones de invisibilización, pérdida de agencia, violencia, asimilación, por parte de estructuras sociales. En un juego queer, posicionarse en relación al poder se vuelve un elemento central, y al cruzar esto con el género y la sexualidad, el posicionamiento se encarna en y tiene consecuencias sobre el propio cuerpo e identidad, en lugar de ser un hecho político panfletario. Descentrarse, construirse en los márgenes, tiene consecuencias reales sobre los individuos, a veces incluso puede costarles la vida, o arrastrarles a situaciones de difícil salida. Fuera del poder, el espacio se lo hace cada une a partir de lo que puede defender, los acuerdos se construyen caso a caso, los aprendizajes surgen de las propias experiencias, ya que la tradición se hace a un lado. Tal nivel de libertad debería sentirse peligroso, hasta cierto punto.

¿Hay juegos que ya realicen esto? Monsterhearts combina la sexualidad adolescente en formación, con moves como "turn someone on", con la naturaleza monstruosa de los personajes, la cual es simultáneamente un poder sobrehumano y un secreto peligroso que debe ser conservado. Aún así, un jugador puede jugar una campaña entera con un personaje heterosexual, y fuera de la metáfora de esconder una naturaleza monstruosa, podría jugar una suerte de calco de cualquier serie de monstruos adolescentes del momento, las cuales no tienen en mi opinión ningún contenido transgresor. En Monsterhearts la tensión pasa más bien por el cuerpo adolescente y la progresiva maduración del personaje, hasta obtener mejores herramientas para resolver situaciones conflictivas.

Dream Askew introduce la "Sociedad intacta" como elemento de la ambientación a administrar por un jugador, la noción más que interesante de que la apocalipsis no llegó de igual manera a todas partes, y que porciones de la vieja sociedad todavía existen, mantienen cierto poder, y presión sobre los márgenes. Uno de los impulsos de la sociedad intacta es la ortodoxia, lo que puede canalizar en parte lo que anteriormente escribí sobre la relación entre los márgenes y el poder.

Como un ejemplo diferente, quisiera hablar de Sagas of the Icelanders. Ya sé qué van a pensar, "Joaquín, siempre hablás de los mismos 3 juegos!" Pero bueno, ya estoy vieja y las ganas de leer juegos nuevos no aparecen. Volviendo, en este juego los movimientos codifican las expectativas de género y etáreas para cada poblador de Islandia en el 900, y el juego presenta una circunstancia quasi-histórica curiosa en la que los pobladores carecían de un poder centralizado y estricto, porque recién se habían establecido. Sin embargo, habían traído consigo muchas costumbres y tradiciones en torno a cómo organizarse socialmente. En el anterior contexto, un personaje que sigue su rol social tiene a su disposición movimientos, herramientas confiables. Sin embargo, estas herramientas encasillan al personaje y lo condicionan muchísimo, de tal forma que tarde o temprano deberá salirse de ese molde. Cuando esto sucede, activa un movimiento llamado "tentar al destino", el cual le entrega poder (bonds) a los dioses sobre el personaje (en algún sentido, pierde agencia). Más allá de la injerencia divina (a través del GM), este juego representa la tensión entre los mandatos y la necesaria búsqueda por romper dichos moldes por parte del jugador.

Por último, y como nota adicional, considero que hay otro elemento necesario para que un juego sea queer y que rara vez ha sido explorado. Tal elemento es la otredad en relación al propio cuerpo e identidad. Cuando crecemos con mandatos externos sobre lo correcto o deseable y descubrimos algo que no concuerda con eso en nuestro sentir, dicho descubrimiento se puede sentir como una pérdida de control: es darnos cuenta de que no estamos al mando de nuestro deseo. La respuesta a esto puede variar, y en parte ahí está la tensión entre ruptura y asimilación, pero muchos juegos con contenido lgbtiqa+ han enfatizado tanto en devolver la autonomía al jugador para decidir sobre su identidad y cuerpo, identidad y deseo, que esta naturaleza caótica interior se diluye o pierde por completo. Acá, de vuelta, Monsterhearts dio grandes pasos con el darkest self y la posibilidad de ser atraíde por alguien no elegido, pero me gustaría una exploración más agresiva en esta dirección.

¡Hasta la próxima!

The Shadow of Yesterday Actual Play: introduction

5 weeks ago, I started a campaign of the Shadow of Yesterday, a mythical indie tabletop rpg from their first era, in 2005, back when the Forge was still a thing. It was in that forum that this game, the Shadow of Yesterday, grew to become a community development, thanks to its author's, Clinton R. Nixon, strict adherence to Creative Commons license. This culture of freely sharing his work extended to the game's setting philosophy: instead of a set cannon, the community contributed to the setting's development with new cultures or alternative takes on existing ones, which made this game a refreshing addition to a scene often filled with cannon set in stone.

First, a brief introduction to the game. The Shadow of Yesterday is a fantasy game with an existing setting, unlike, for example, Burning Wheel, another game from a similar time which I find somewhat similar. In this game, the world's recovering from an apocalypses, from the skyfire (a meteorite) that befell the land aprox a century ago, shattering the lands, the social structures, the empire and the memory of the past. The world is only now recovering from this event, people start to travel, commerce slowly resurfaces and new social structures try to coalesce. It's a fantasy setting without the rigidity of most fantasy settings, where heroes can place their footprint into the new world, if they're brave enough.

Another interesting element of the setting is its focus on cultures: each culture has its own style, ideology, methods for organizing themselves and solving problems, all of that expressed in "crunch", in their own selection of skills, secrets (like d&d feats), and keys (like BW keys). There's more focus on cultures than on races, but they do exist, albeit with an interesting twist: elves and goblins are unique transformations of humans. A person can turn into a goblin or into an elf, and back into a human, under certain conditions, so elves and goblins don't have a culture of their own, but rather partake in the culture they're part of.

On the rules: the 3 stats, vigor, instinct and reason, are pools instead of fixed stats, and they help ability rolls or trigger secrets, which is a nice way of dealing with the distinction between stats and skills. Abilities are fixed, and are added to the result of a dice roll (using fudge/fate dice) to get the result. The 3 pools are replenished using recovery scenes that always involve an interaction with another character.

A secret is everything that changes some of the basic rules in a singular context. It's fairly similar to d&d 3.x's feats, and most of them are activated by spending pool points. This is where the crunch differs the most from culture to culture.

Keys are the main means towards gaining experience, but they come with an interesting twist: if you act against your key in a dramatic fashion, you can cancel it and gain lots of experience points, on the condition you never again buy the same key. It's an interesting design choice that rewards your character if they change under pressure.

Enough about the rules. There is a core tenet that informs the design philosophy of the game: "no gods, no monsters, only people." It's fairly simple, but it's consequences are vast: first, there's no metaplot, no bigger game played by gods, where player characters are merely pawns. There are also no monsters, no creatures doomed to be essentially evil or antagonistic. Everybody has reason to act the way they do, communication's always possible, which means every conflict is political at its core, and there is no gratuitous violence. It's easy to see how this tenet puts this game simultaneously at odds with D&D, and 90's gaming style full of metaplots and campaign arcs the players can never influence.

Back to the campaign. We're not using any of Nixon's editions of the game, nor the Spanish translation (which is really good), but instead 2008's edition by Eero Tuovinen, who split the game in 2: Solar System for a generic presentation of the rules, in theory adaptable to any genre or setting, plus The World of Near, a book containing the setting, but also all crunch associated with it. By the way, both games are pay what you want here!

Eero's edition is simply amazing. Seldom have I found so much content, so many explorations on crunch variants in a single book, so many cultures, magic subsystems, coverage for different venues of conflict, etc. It's almost too much, which, sadly, makes the book a bit hard to digest, but an amazing read if you're willing to invest in it, or merely fishing for ideas. The layout isn't particularly inspiring, again, but if you get past this barrier you'll be rewarded.

So, why this big intro? I want to reflect on my experiences GMing this game, mainly how does it feel different or similar when compared to newer story games. I figured a small introduction was needed prior to my post on the first session. I'll try not to bore you writing about rules, and insted will gradually mention them every actual play. Next time I'll write a brief introduction about the game and a few notes about first session, so see you soon!

PS: if you understand Spanish, you can watch the first 2 sessions on twitch or youtube! First session here, then second.

Speed, perception and social strata

In Aeon Flux's 2nd season, 1st episode, Utopia or Deuteranopia, Trevor Goodchild serves as the president after the former representative, Clavius', mysterious disappearance. Turns out, Trevor is guilty for this, and keeps Clavius in a sort of parallel dimension, barely visible from outside, accessible only when wearing a garment that allows the body to vibrate at the same frequency Clavius does. 

A few experiences driving and the memory of this episode helped a few ideas condense into this article about speed and perception, which, I hope, isn't too abstract.

Relative speed and perception

When your body moves at a certain speed, your perception is conditioned by such speed and direction of movement.

When you're driving your car, let's say at 80 km/h, and another car moves at 90 km/h, same or similar direction, it's movement will be perceived as it slowly distancing from you, as an equivalent object in speed. Somebody walking at 10 km/h, on the other hand, will be perceived, almost, as a stationary object. Greater contrast will be perceived if the difference in speed is even greater.

Other than suddenly crashing your car into some pedestrian, your chances of interacting one with each other are faint and brief, unless the driver slows down, stops the car, or either invites the other guy in. In that case, both of them would be moving at the same speed, towards the same direction, which would allow them to have a longer conversation than a few shouted words.

The above principle is similar to the one from Aeon Flux's episode: a body's speed, or vibration frequency in the first case, puts it in contact with other bodies having a similar movement.

Relative speed, perception and level design

A property deducted from what's already been exposed is that the same scenario may in fact contain many superposed planes, all of them geographically similar, but accessible one at a time, and only to bodies moving in the right speed or frequency. No body can access 2 planes at the same time, unless it's got 2 speeds, which for now would be impossible, but more on that later.

But enough abstraction for now, let's take this metaphor to games and level design. First, there are already games, like Zelda Oracle of Ages, which reuse maps, but allow Link to travel back and forth in time, letting him explore the same areas in the past and present. 

This is fine, but I'm interested in exploring this metaphor without time-travelling, and I think it can be applied to a whole different topic: how to make class and culture disparity seem real in an urban environment.

So, 2 persons of a different social class, cultures or ethnicities may share an environment, but both actually see and interact with a wholly different world. The same objects and bodies may take up different meanings according to the observer's position in society's gradient: the police, bank, school, the back alley, the highway, all of those things mean something different according to the observer. Each social stratum has blind spots: objects, places and people invisible to it, inaccessible, or insurmountable. At the same time, each stratum's ecosystem allows people sharing a social status to interact with each other, and provides them with opportunities invisible to anybody else.

Changing a body's speed

Cars sometimes have accidents and hit pedestrians, of course, and unexpected encounters between different strata may sometimes happen. This interaction should feel undesired, awkward, asymmetric, and full of misunderstandings: each of the participants is perceiving the other through the distortion of their own speed. True interaction is impossible unless one of the 2 bodies changes its vibration accordingly, but how could that happen?

It's your garments, your look and how you present to the world, overall, what places you in a social stratum. You might change your stratum by being introduced to another one by somebody else. In Oracle of Ages, you travel in time in a particular spot in the map, you can't do that everywhere. In this scenario, you couldn't just change your trappings in the street, or else people would react weirdly: are you one of us, have you been in disguise all this time, why are you naked now? Your current stratum is seen as your identity, so shifting it in plain sight will generate weird reactions.

Another scenario: you might collide with a body and suddenly find out your own speed changed, whether you wanted it or not. An unexpected experience might lead to an uncontrolled change in your stratum and your perception in the world. Such a change might be perceived by yourself and others as an affliction or lucky strike, and you'd find that transitioning back to your former speed is hard or even impossible.

A body in 2 worlds at once

Finally, an edge case I find quite interesting: what if you actually exist in 2 different strata, and are perceived as such by others? There are certain individuals that exist in a curious limbo: they can interact with 2 worlds at once, and are perceived to be neither fully here nor there, but instead as visitors or strangers in both planes.

Again, an example from an actual game: in Trollbabe, by Ron Edwards, player characters impersonate trollbabes, who exist somewhere in the spectrum between a human and a troll. They exist in an unique position that allows them to interact with both species in a non-antagonistic way (in theory, at least), but are shunned by both as strangers in their communities. Something similar happens in Monsterhearts, whose characters inhabit both the life of the schoolkid and the criminal errands of the monster, and this intersection creates trouble for them.

If we borrow these examples, we could characterize adventurers as bodies that get to change their stratum, to explore different planes by virtue of them being "native" to no world, which frankly suits what adventurers are/do in many tabletop roleplaying games.

Conclusion? None today, this article was more of a random brainstorming of ideas/thought about game design. Let me know if you enjoy this posting format! I'm kind of exploring how to keep writing in a comfortable way (that is, not feel it like an obligation), plus practicing a bit my written English, until I wait for some motivation to continue working in some of my other projects.

See you next time!

Some thoughts on outdoor exploration

Last weekend I went camping with a group of friends in the highlands near my city (Sierra de los Difuntos), and this experience inspired some thoughts about, of course, tabletop rpgs, specially about their treatment of outdoor exploration. I'm not by any means a skilled photographer, but I'll supplement my thoughts with a few pics I've taken this weekend.

Outdoor exploration

It's puzzling to me that outdoor exploration struggles when micromanaging movement, time and resources in a way that dungeon exploration sorted out long ago. Probably the answer to that is plain obvious: dungeons contain a structure that lends itself pretty easily to mapping, grid combat, and exploration room by room. It also contains well defined boundaries, which allow for precise level design.

But the outdoors provide a different challenge: designing environments without precise mapping, or how to design "levels" that are, in theory, infinite and uncontained.

When we went trekking, I noticed, first, how much geographical variation there is even in short distances, at least in highlands. Vegetation and insects might change a bit in 20 meters, there are differences in altitude which help creating distinctive landmarks (muddy soil, thick grass, exposed rock, a couple of trees, an abrupt fall, etc.). Rarely outdoors felt like treading on the same stuff for hours.

Regarding that, I feel like mapping, for the GM, doesn't work well for open land. It'd be hellish and also boring to try to map a forest or jungle, so the approach should be different, and I'm reminded of The Shadow of Yesterday, a wonderful 1st generation forgie game by Clinton R. Nixon, which got rewritten and expanded by several authors, one of them Eero Tuovinen. 

In The World of Near, Eero's book, there's a chapter devoted to Knotwork, the art of traversing the jungle. In this subsystem, some travelers remember knots, relevant landmarks that have a spirit associated with them. Skilled travelers may travel to a known knot after a simple roll, or if they know a path between knots, do not need to roll at all. In this game, there's no map, only a graph containing knots and roads between them. New knots may be created by a special skill, too.

I noticed that this subsystem matched quite well my experience outdoors: friends who knew paths, knew how to reach particular landmarks, and that would be stuff like a waterfall, or a small zone with trees casting shadow, ideal for lunch, or some caves where clandestine parties sometimes take place.

Subjective distance

So, we where walking towards this waterfall and pool where we'd be able to bathe, which was needed, because the day was so hot. We reached a little forest and started descending an increasingly abrupt, downwards path, but the waterfall was dry. So the guide would tell us to go further downward, because the pool would be there, but the path would get harder and harder. Eventually we stopped, took a break, ate a bit, chatted, and decided to return to the camp base before the sunset.

This bit made me think about subjective distances in the outdoors. Landmarks in a game don't need to be always equally distant, like for example 1.5 kms. The pool you sought might be dry this time of the year, or only exist further down the hill. The common path towards the ruins of a gazebo might be swampy, and force you to take a long detour and reach it by night.

In this new model, you travel by bits of time, or turns, by rolling dice and checking against a skill or table. Sometimes, you'll reach destination after a single roll, sometimes it'll take more time. You decide after a roll, whether you want to keep pushing, or go back.

The role of the guide

Another thing I've noticed, specially in tight paths, is that the role of the guide is key to the success of the expedition, but for different reasons than I thought. First, the guide's responsible for picking the path all of the expeditioners will go through, which means that their trekking skill is secondary to their ability to evaluate and pick the simplest path for everyone to follow, a path even the least skilled of us can go through. I used to dismiss the rigidity of games like Mouse Guard or Goblinville, where one character's always strongly leading a situation or roll, but now I can see how it is necessary for the outdoors exploration.

Another thing I noticed is the role of fear in an expedition. As a feature of my personality, I tend to overestimate danger, complain a lot, be overly cautious, and this strengthened in a context where the act of walking is by itself an adventure. Fear can be both a blessing and a curse, depending on the situation. Sometimes, it lets you avoid or detect risky situations just in time. Other times, it prevents you from engaging in an activity due to an incorrect gauge of its risk. It can be paralyzing, too, preventing you from acting decisively when you need to, or from reacting fast. At times, I noticed I got grumpy or slightly fearful only because I was hungry/thirsty. I could imagine a game where the main meter is not health nor hunger, but Fear (I think The Warren does this already). With enough fear, everything looks dangerous and unsurmountable, and you become a nuisance to your fellow expeditioners. Hunger, sleep deprivation, etc., only contribute to Fear, dull your senses and make it harder for you to properly perceive your current situation.

Group dynamics

The previous ramble leads me to group dynamics during moments like these. What happens when an individual is plagued by fear or a similar sentiment, and starts dragging down the group's mood? Do you share with everybody how you feel, potentially annoying them, or do you keep it to yourself and start slowly withdrawing from the group? 

There's some tactic game to be played around the group chatter, as they undertake a stressful journey. In such a game, a player might have to choose between sharing their PC's dark feelings and dragging morale down, or keeping that to themselves. What's the danger there? As you stay silent during a journey, people start forgetting about you. Welp, where's Jason? And then everybody realizes they haven't seen him for a while. It'd make for an interesting horror experience.

There's also an interesting tension between the act of leading and the act of criticizing. At some point, if you're willing to question the leader's choices, you've gotta be willing to take up their position and propose your own solutions. This truth's even applicable in other fields: politics, business management, at work, etc.

What to do when you don't lead

How do we make the game interesting for those who don't lead an expedition? I noticed that, often, those who didn't lead had some spare attention to do something else, for example taking photos, thinking about deep stuff, chatting, gathering flowers, providing advice to the leader, whatever. There are some light activities to partake in, which might make it interesting to be a follower sometimes, to the point of allowing a nice leading rotation to ensure everybody wants to take that position and cede it too. This often happened during the trip too: when cooking and when trekking, different people would take the lead, for example. Goblinville, again, provides this in a somewhat mechanical way, but it is a useful starting point to further develop.

That's it for today. I'm probably using this experience as inspiration for the rpglatam jam, which will be an origin game for Vampires & Claymores, but you'll know more about that in the following weeks. Until next time!