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[Business Solutions] Playtest Observations/Feedback

Jason MorningstarJason Morningstar
edited November 2007 in Audience
This is a companion thread to the Business Solutions playtest. Please use it to comment on any aspect of the playtest, provide feedback, ask questions, challenge assumptions, or to trash talk particularly heinous technicians. Whisper me if you want to participate and would like to read a draft.

Comments

  • Jason MorningstarJason Morningstar
    OK first question - I need a better name for "Funny". All three are funny. Maybe "Ridiculous"?
  • Darcy BurgessDarcy Burgess
    How about Keystone?

    Slap-happy?

    Farcical?
  • Jason MorningstarJason Morningstar
    Farce might work, thanks.
  • Per FischerPer Fischer
    Screwball?

    Per
  • Darcy BurgessDarcy Burgess
    Ooh! I like that.
  • Jason MorningstarJason Morningstar
    edited November 2007
    Second question - I'm open to suggestions for stronger roles, attitudes, and needs. Even pointing out weak ones is helpful, or ones that step on each other, like "Lonely" and "Troubled". Also ways to make them gender neutral ("Family Guy" is tough)

    Since these are the fuel that makes the game go, they need to be perfect.
  • Darcy BurgessDarcy Burgess
    Funny
    • [li]There's a touch of overlap between Nerd & Genius. It's not too bad, though.[/li][li]I think that the Attitudes are great[/li]
    Melodramatic
    The only one that jumps out at me as potentially problematic is "mysterious". Of the six attitudes, it's the only one that lends itself to passive play. However, it's so fundamental to melodrama, that I'd be hard pressed to think of a substitute.

    I'm going to hold back on slice-of-life, because I don't want to talk about something that we're doing right now. I'd suggest that we let it come out in play?

    Cheers,
    Darcy
  • Jason MorningstarJason Morningstar
    Absolutely. Nerd and Genius used to be Nerd and Dork, which was ... not that great. You had to be either a Nerd or a Dork to understand the difference.

    Totally agreeing on Mysterious. Hmm. Paranoid is also reactive. Would it help if I violated my own grammatical rule and swapped "mysterious" for "...with a terrible secret"? I gave up looking for a single word prefix that communicates that.

    The goal is to get six terms that all inter-operate seamlessly and intuitively to completely define a character. Right now on all the lists there are combinations that don't ring true, or would be really hard to play. Patronizing noob is an odd one, for example, but maybe that's a fun challenge.

    Thanks, Darcy.
  • Simon CSimon C
    Posted By: Jason MorningstarPatronizing noob
    I've worked with this person - the boss's daughter. SO ANNOYING.
  • Jason MorningstarJason Morningstar
    Hey, if you hadn't noticed, there's a little "subscribe" option at the bottom of the left-hand navigation menu. Very handy.
  • Kuma
    edited November 2007
    I like "Farce" for Humorous. The game lends itself to both the French sex-comedy kind of romp and the misunderstanding-based farce like Fawlty Towers.
  • Jason MorningstarJason Morningstar
    I'll have to think about it some. Originally that was the only playstyle option, so that's what I've played, and it tends more toward black corporate humor appealingly leavened with genuine pathos.
  • Darcy BurgessDarcy Burgess
    Jason;

    Although I'm totally cool with how we're sort of choosing stuff in an ad hoc fashion, it might be worthwhile thinking about a more formalized drafting process for Needs and whatnot.

    Sort of like they do in sports: A then B then C then C again then B then A, etc.

    D
  • Jason MorningstarJason Morningstar
    edited November 2007
    I was wondering whether that needs to be formalized. Somebody always gets shafted if you just go in strict order.

    For the playtest let's just stumble through, since it's all asynchronous anyway.
  • Jason MorningstarJason Morningstar
    In earlier drafts troublemakers were created like this:

    Monday-Wednesday, client proposes attitude or role. Tech in trouble then proposes the other half of the troublemaker and declares who it is. Thursday-Saturday the troublemaker is the same, but the relationship changes, obviously.

    CLIENT: I think I want Authority Figure.
    TECH IN TROUBLE: Yeah ... how about a Needy one? It's Nelson's college room-mate, who is now a cop, who considers nelson free tech support for life.

    This tended to de-couple troublemaker from client in many cases, and allowed for some fun during creation. Thoughts?
  • Kuma
    Jason -

    Would you consider putting a link to the rules in the first post of this (or another) thread? I keep wanting to refer back to them.
  • Jason MorningstarJason Morningstar
    Sure, I can do that tomorrow AM.
  • Darcy BurgessDarcy Burgess
    Man, I wish Vanilla allowed signatures. I'd so have the rules and the wiki in mine. I hate bookmarking across the 5 different PCs I log in from throughout the day...
  • Jason MorningstarJason Morningstar
    edited November 2007
    game text

    username and password are ... the name of the game.
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