[Doloris] State of the Game

Doloris, as the blurb goes, is set in the year 2100, when Cyberpunk Catholics are forced to fight Rosicrucian oppression. The game asks players to choose whether to help others in this world or help themselves in the next. Overall, Doloris is a game about faith, free will, and consequences.

Mechanically, Doloris is a traditional GM + players game about traveling around a labyrinth, which represents a both a personal spiritual journey and the external tensions of the story. Movement on the labyrinth dictates success or failure in both a single action and the entire story. In general, choosing to succeed in the short term hurts you in the long term. A story ends when the center of the labyrinth is reached. The players are driven towards the center, and the conclusion of the story by a system controled Adversary. The Adversary also triggers in game events which the GM must introduce.

The Game Chef draft is available on the current drafts page.

Overall, I’m very happy with how Doloris turned out. I love the setting, though most of it currently exists in my head rather than on the page. I love the labyrinth mechanic: both the physical labyrinth and the stations, which guide the game master and the story. I think I’ve done a good job explaining the rules, which, with the various ways to move around the labyrinth, was remarkably hard to pull off

My main goal at the moment is to collate the excellent feedback I got during and after Game Chef, and figure out what I need to do to take the game to the next level.

Here are some open questions:

• The physical labyrinth, complete with counters and string, is a potential disaster in purely physical terms. Every time someone hits the table the state of the game may go poof. I fear for houses with toddlers or cats. One solution is a bigger board, and heavy counters. Another is a foam board with pins instead of counters. The last solution I can think of is abandoning the string and using a labyrinth made up of discrete spaces, which would be written on in play.
• Depending on the solution to the problem of the physicality of the labyrinth, there maybe a cost issue. A wooden cribbage type board would be awesome, but would cost a lot.
• Several reviewers commented that the in game events triggered by the Adversary reaching various stations of the cross were too restrictive. They worried that this would limit replayablity and limit the GM’s ability to tell an interesting story in general. I like the stations for the guidance they provide and for the way that they keep escalating the tension of the story. But I don’t want them to be a straight jacket. Actual play is probably needed to fix this.
• One reviewer (Darcy) thought the game suffered for its detailed setting. While my gut instinct is to expand the setting, Darcy wants me to contract it. She (?) argues that focusing the rules on the characters will properly focus play on the characters, and on the central conflicts of the game (selfishness vs. selflessness and what “good” means). I feel like the strong setting allows for meaningful conflicts about risking the self to save the other. Cause the other needs to be defined to be meaningful. I need to think deeply on this.
• There is no idea that you need to sin harder or more to trigger a mechanical sin in the game. That may lead to problems where the game gets repetitive. The game might never force the players to explore their sins or to explore new sins. This could be solved with some GM guidence, but it could also be solved with some mechanic where players write the sins they commit on the back of their held sin cards. Or with something even more clever.

And here are some revisions I need to make in the next draft:

• The movement of the Adversary, and hence the triggering of stations, is currently arbitrarily tied to time. Every hour the Adversary advances. A much better idea is that the Adversary advances every time the players directly confront the Rosecrucians. (done)
• I need to write a bit about how to let players succeed without solving the premise of the current story. Every solution creates a problem, yada yada yada. (done)
• I need to prevent gaming the system by entering into meangless conflicts so you can move closer to the center. (done)
• I need to include a blurb about how adding and removing sins is a meaningful way of advancing your character, even if you don’t get XP. (done)
• Confession needs a rewrite to get rid of key phrases and tie it in more firmly to the purpose of the game. (done)
• I need to greatly expand the bit about possible stories. This also includes more information on how to use the various branches of the big R. The Rosecrucians should stand in for every bureaucracy that ever was bureaucratic. Stories should be premised on the big company dumping chemicals into the river, the big government investigating “voter fraud” among minorities, or the big tychoon building a freeway through the slums so he can get to his country club quicker. (done)
• I need to flesh out the setting. Badly.
• In the same vein, I should have a bit about how GMs can come up with their own stories by using the Rosecrucian branches. The list of Rosecrucian organizations should help the GM come up with interesting conflicts by asking questions like “How would the Plutonian Order fuck with the PCs?”

Well, I clearly have my work cut out for me on my next draft! In the spirit of Game Chef, I’m going to shoot for a new draft by this time next week.