The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Story Engine - Universal Rules - v2
$12.00	102 pages	Hubris Games 1999
http://www.hubris-games.com
Review by Colin D. Speirs

As its subtitle suggests, the Story Engine, aims to be a generic ruleset to suit all types of campaign settings via a universal set of core rules into which can be "plugged in" any specific rules for particular settings or genres. In addition the rules seek to emphasise "story telling" as opposed to "traditional" forms of role-playing.

In this trade sized paper back you get the "light version of the rules" (Story Bones, also downloadable from their web site), the rules themselves a "plug in" for a campaign setting ("Maelstrom". Available separately and not to be confused with the British RPG of the same name), a pair of stories and a pair of scenarios.

The Rules
Notes on Running a campaign
Maelstrom
The Fiction
The Scenarios
Presentation and support

The main method of introducing the story based mechanism is in the terminology. Campaigns and Adventures are "Stories", the mechanics are "props and sets" and points in time (the main temple chamber of Anubis, the bar room where the mood is ugly, the deadly water trap of Dr, Fu Manchu) are "scenes". To the players the first sight they get of this is in creating their characters they use words rather than numbers to describe rather than specify their character. Each character has, in addition to the standard name, race and gender,

Descriptors Words that describe the character, used instead of statistics or attributes. These can be included in a description of an action in gameplay
These have to be connected to four groupings or "Aspects"

Mind Intelligence, Social ability; Mental abilities

Matter Strength, Dexterity; Physical abilities

Spirit Piety, Inner Strength; Temperament

Chaos Luck, Hunches; Intuitive abilities

Quirks A character flaw

Trait Affinities (or Traits) Skills. Basically. Bought in Levels (weak, mild or strong), e.g. one level of fencing for a French Guard facing Zorro means he is a weak fencer, or three levels acrobatics for Zorro himself means he is a strong acrobat.

Prime Affinity A skill or ability that the character is especially good at. Each character should have an affinity for their home culture but the may have Gifts which are superhuman, occult, magical or just plain amazing abilities. For example, in a horror game the Prime Affinity of a character might be that she is a werewolf.

Story Points Used for developing the character

When creating a character either a standard set of three descriptors, one flaw, three points of affinities and one story point are used OR you can build the character from 25 Story points. The details of Traits and Prime Affinities will usually be specific to the "story" that the "Narrator" and the Players are telling. The designers envisage that their system is "relative" so that strong in one system is strong in another, though one might be a Barbarian Hero and the other a 70 foot tall battle robot. The problem with this is that the game world presented is one that allows genre hopping, so that doesn't always make sense. Example of character generation

Ian is playing in a 1920s pulp-action style game and wants to play a daredevil pilot fresh from the air circus. Using the standard rule he gives his character (Dave "Skyjockey" Einarson) the following

Descriptors
Great head for heights - Mind
Whipcord lean and muscled - Matter
Fast reactions - Matter

Quirk Overly trusting (some might say, gullible)

Trait Affinities He has a mild ability to fly an aeroplane and has a weak ability to slug it out with his fists

Prime Affinity The "Narrator" has listed some Gifts suitable for a Pulp Game so as well as having a Prime Affinity in American Culture but also that "Skyjockey" has the "Quick Healing" Gift so suitable for a two fisted hero.

Story Points And of course he has one of these

Although as far as possible you are encouraged to role play without recourse to dice (what the game calls "Open Scenes") there are, of course, times when the nature of the task or test indicates that the dice are in order ("Rolled Scenes"). The system is a version of the now familiar "Dice Pool".

Any takes that has to be rolled has a task number, you have a number of dice and you try and roll as many odd numbers on those dice as possible, hoping to equal or exceed the task number. The task should be judged to be in one of the Aspects used for grouping Descriptors. To adjust your chance to succeed you can "burn" a descriptor, that is use it in your description of what action you are taking. The number of dice is
  1 die (The Basic Die)
  + 1 die for each Descriptor in the appropriate aspect
  + 1 die for each "Burned Descriptor"
  + any extra dice that the Narrator feels is appropriate.

In some cases you have "Auto Odds, that is a certain number of dice that are guaranteed to count towards your success, but you roll them anyway just in case you roll a "1". If you roll a "1" then you can roll that die again to see if you get another success to add to your total.

Success is measured relative to how many odds you got compared to the target number or the number gained by your opposition in a bid session. The more you get then the more spectacular you did, and the example given in the book suggests that a minimal success might leave some part of the task left undone and to be the subject of a further test.

The game reemphasises its intention to be used as a "story telling" game when it suggests other systems that might be used for skill resolution. Whilst it suggests the ultra rules heavy GURPS and Hero/Fuzion systems it is obviously more well disposed to the Theatrix, Storyboard and Amber systems. It also suggests Baron Munchausen as a way to resolve conflict but with all due respect to James Wallis I can't see that some how.

The Story Engine includes methods for character advancement, being awarded "Story points" which can be used to improve your Descriptors, Affinities etc. These points are awarded for such things as succeeding in your quest, contributing to the "story" and can also be spend during the game to add details to the story that suit your character.

Example

In a spy story, the narrator explains "Agent X05 hands over to you at the end of the alleyway, the prime target turns right and X05 turns left. You follow as he walks further into the housing estate into the shadow of the high flats. The mass of the buildings is causing your radio to break up but your problems are compounded as you see your target get into a parked car and drive off.
Martin (playing Agent X22 of British Security)
"Spending a story point I hail a cab coming just around the corner. I get in and say 'Follow that car'. Luckily for X22, the taxi driver is of a romantic disposition, and joins in the chase".

All in all I think this system is a nice one for new role-players, but only if they have an experienced Narrator/G.M. who is happy with the story approach to role-playing. If you are playing with a group who want to unwind with a monster hack (no matter the setting) or who like an intricate system then they aren't going to like this. If you're looking for a system to play a fast moving narrative game, two-fisted pulp tales, or space opera stories like Star Wars then this would work very well.

The Narrator would also have to be prepared to work very hard to make this work with any setting that contains magic, super-science or super-powers. The Narrator will have to make up a methodology and a relative value of scales to make everything coherent so, like the D6 system book, in and of itself it is very limited, but what it does it does well. It claims that it's scaling will work right across the genres but I think this is untrue. Consider a Dragon, Strong, "Extremely Strong" in the Fantasy Genre. Against the little starship at the beginning of "Star Wars" a "middle strength" vessel at best, then the Dragon would be outclassed. Although that example is a touch unlikely, it does show the problem with saying "Strong in one genre is strong in another".

I think that it is, however, a nice read to pick up for G.M.ing hints and thoughts. The section that details the rewards for games also looks at props and settings from the advantage they might give characters but the relative values detailed are also worth incorporating into part of the thinking for GMs.

Running a Campaign

The next section is an advice set for G.M.'s, sorry, narrators, one bit of "wisdom" is that the term Gamemaster is "ominous", if there is one flaw going through the Story Engine it is that it is too self-conscious about rejecting the "baggage" of the mainstream of role-playing. Some people might find the discussion of some story elements such as "What is a plot line", "Suspense", "foreshadowing", "Symbolism", and involving the players in the story-telling process as "old hat" but too many, uninvolved in the "story telling movement" or who appreciate a distilled reminder then this section is of interest.

Example - "So what is a plot"

So what is a plot? A Plot is a cohesive through-line that guides the story. Unlike novels and films, story games are interactive and need to adjust to the new elements the players bring to it. Plots are only frameworks, and need to be flexible enough to allow a lot of meandering or even a whole new story to evolve.
In the Faerie tale, the hero has to defeat dragon to rescue the Princess. He can't rescue her until he defeats the dragon. If he plans to marry her, he probably needs to win her heart. And the princess isn't just going to wait around to be rescued - she might defeat the dragon herself and ditch the hero in favour of her favourite scoundrel.

They might not agree with it, but it at least gives you something to think about. But, as I said earlier, I'm not convinced that the thoughts are limited to "Story Tellers", I think a lot of older RPGers might think they've been doing these sorts of things for years

Maelstrom In a bow to this new-fangled technological age the "Maelstrom" chapter is not "the Maelstrom setting for the Story Engine", it is. in a nod to those wee bits of software your browser keeps trying to download without asking you, the "Maelstrom plug-in".

This isn't a full description of this world, just enough to allow you to play in it with the system, there are other product from Hubris describe "Maelstrom" more fully. This world is a Science fantasy one, where magical and scientific power stems from tapping into the chaotic power of the storm either directly or indirectly. Characters can be born into one of the cultures of the world or can appear, in the rags of heir clothing and with only dim memories of their former lives. These memories can be saved as "kael", a mysterious force that manifests itself as an ability to quickly adapt to any culture the newcomer finds themselves in, or as the power source behind certain devices. It isn't one World, it is many realms and realities, all connected by the chaos of the "Maelstrom"

This is a collection of worlds of magic and wonder, electricity and airships. However, although many things can only be accomplished by Magic, in Maelstrom the Scientists can reduce the magician's various manipulations of chaos to a simple device, so that the blasting powder of a previous generation of mages, "Naturalists" becomes the gunpowder of today. For purposes of the story, the "Maelstrom" can throw people around the place amongst the different realities that surround the Maelstrom. In some cases the science of the reality you came from might cease to work as you become attuned to the reality of the world you are now in.

"Maelstrom" is obviously the chance that Hubris has to show how the system can be adapted to a world, one with distinct magic and skills. It shows first of all just how much work is involved, this cannot be bought out of the store and used to game your world, it has to be well thought out. One potential use might be the "genre-hopping" game going from Fantasy one moment to Hollywood Pirates the next, well although much of the actual system detail can be fudged by the Narrator thinking on his/her feet. A simpler world might have been better as an example, as this is a complex world that will take a good G.M. (sorry, NArrator) to get a handle on. Some of the skills and spells will take judgement on the interpretation but most can be handles by assigning different levels of difficulty as per the main system. No particular culture of the Maelstrom world is described in detail, but then again, Maelstrom is another product.

There are two short stories. One a ghost story, the other set in the Maelstrom world. The Maelstrom story is more useful, containing some cultural information, e.g. a race of crustaceans, the institution of slavery and those that oppose it, the fact that Ravens are sentient and the three types of ship that exist, Air, Sky and Sea. Boxouts explain the text of the story to give details, for example an Airship is a dirigible lighter than air craft whilst a skyship seems to be be some kind of Maglev using the strong magnetic currents of the world. The Ghost story is OK, no novel twists but could be used as the basis of a mini-campaign.

Scenarios
Both of these are set in the Maelstrom World, one is a murder-mystery set aboard an Airship, the other is less a scenario and more the set up for a set of scenarios, involving ancient mysteries and modern politics. The Aurship murders is a nice, traditional closed world murder, with enough information to run it and some plot threads to continue a campaign if you want and some floorplans of the Ship itself, the second is less deatiled, but it is less a scenario, and more an elongated adventure seed, with some potential. Both of theseare adequate adventures but the second takes some planning and extrapolation by the Narrator.

Presentation and Support
The book is nicely presented considering it has been printed by a Laser Printer. It has taken advantage of Lightning Print (who produce High Quality black and white laser prints with a colour cover) and the print is clear. Some of the illustrations suffer a little in the grey-scaling but not by much. The text is clear and well spaced and the language isn't too difficult to fathom, though a little "arty" in places.

The web site, as well as advertising new products also has some giveaways for Story Engine, (Character Sheets, "plug-ins" etc) and Maelstrom (sample chapters of their magazine, ), fiction, help, maps and errata. They also invite their public to contribute house rules, adventures etc. Actually a useful site and the company seem interested in "after sales service"

All in All - 8/10

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

The Story Engine V2