Comments on: Emergent Narrative and Frenemy Detectives

By: Matthew Fister

Matthew Fister — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:14:26 +0000

When I played it was pretty informal. You kind of want to do it secretly though since how backstabby you are should be kept a surprise.

By: MrK

MrK — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:42:04 +0000

Do people take turns to pick a card for their personal deck? Or is it more of an informal free-for-all? It also seems each card has a cost against some deck-building fund, which makes sense.

By: Matthew Fister

Matthew Fister — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:11:08 +0000

The deck building is pretty straightforward. I made a ton of different cards, but each type of card has a certain power level. Skills usually are +1 to some skill. Allies are a total +3 but cost 1. Backgrounds are either +3 or have some other effect and cost 0. Items are more crazy. You MUST have so many of each card.

You don’t really build the mystery deck. You just draw 30 random cards. I didn’t make more than 30 cards for it, so you just use the whole thing. I need to make more mystery cards.

By: MrK

MrK — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:07:33 +0000

I don’t play many of these games, but how does the deck building phase work? Is it like Sealed Deck tournaments in Magic: The Gathering?

Is the mystery deck building a group activity?

By: Matthew Fister

Matthew Fister — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:07:34 +0000

The villain could be anywhere in the deck at first. If you lose to a villain the villain card goes to the bottom of the deck.

To foster the emergent narrative I just made cards that were fairly simple elements of a mystery story. The magic happens just by going through cards sequentially.

By: MrK

MrK — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:05:37 +0000

sounds interesting. A bit of a minor question, but the villain could be anywhere in the deck?
Also, I haven’t listened to the audio yet, but is there anything you did in the design to foster emergent narrative?