Bidding screenwriters

I think I’ve convinced myself that the “poison” version of the temple is the way to go.  I think the symmetry with the map phase is a compelling argument in its favor.  In both phases you’re bidding damage but this can be offset by preparation.  The details of the auctions and the stakes of the auction change so it still feels like there’s a transition, but it still feels like it’s the same game.

I think there’s also a good thematic justification for this.  Let’s say that the game’s premise is that we are screenwriters trying to promote our own character such that in the editing room that character will emerge as the protagonist.(*).  The punitive temple didn’t make much sense — who is it that is punishing our characters?  I like the poison temple better — we, the screenwriters, are punishing our own characters, creating interesting drama by being willing to subject our favorite to a greater level of struggle.

This calls for caution, though.  Upon hearing that we players are screenwriters, playtesters generate a ton of suggestions about how to introduce screenwriting theming and conventions and concepts.  So this theme may create expectations in people that the game doesn’t fully deliver on — i.e. in some ways you’re the character and in some ways the writer and we have to be careful about this.  But I think at least most of the systems are justifiable:

- Adventure cards represent gear and traits you’re investing your character with to enable them to succeed.  That one is easy.

- Encounters are scenes we’re writing together to show how our characters acquire knowledge about the temple.  Also easy.  Except...

- ...it makes sense that info about the temple (the peril cards) is hidden from the characters, but why is it hidden from us?  I guess my hand-wave at this is that the film is already in production when we’re hired to work on it, and so the props department is already at work building sets for the temple.  Getting a sneak peak at those tells us about what kinds of things we should be writing into our characters (i.e. cards we should get) to prepare for that.  That doesn’t completely answer why we have to do encounters to see the temple phase sets, but I guess it will have to do.

As previously posted, though, there’s an open question as to what winning represents.  In v14 it was “furthest back on the time track”, which worked but had weird thematic implications.  With the temple track, “furthest along the track without dying” seems ok enough.  Except, if we’re rival screenwriters, is it possible that there are other ways to win?  For example, sometimes a scenery-chewing villain or a character’s heroic sacrifice or redemption arc end up being the thing you remember most about a movie, and sometimes the best or most famous actor or actress is cast in one of those supporting roles.  Surely if you could choose between being the writer who created Vader or the one who created Luke you’d choose the former.

The way I want to have a whack at this is to have the spaces of the temple track numbered such that at game’s end, the space you’re on gives your score, unless you die before the end, in which case your score is zero.  Except, if you die due to hubris, or accumulated injuries, or after purging a lot of hubris, you can claim the corresponding scoring card, and if no one exceeds that score on the track you win.  So if no other players progress too far into the temple, the editor doesn’t have much to work with and cuts things in such a way that your compelling but doomed villain or heroic sidekick gets the most favorable treatment in the final edit.

We must be careful here not to encourage players to deliberately spike their hubris or injuries just to try to win in this alternate way.  The best way to win is still to move along the track.  But death should always be a possibility and if your character dies, it might be fun to nevertheless be able to win the game, if all the other players did was just hang back and not accomplish very much.




(*) Another possible premise is that whichever of us emerges with the strongest character arc will have the best actor/actress cast as our chracter.  I think it has to be one or the other of these but it probably doesn’t matter much which.