The Current Iteration of Sine Non Qua
Lately, I’ve been working on the Scattershot presents: Advanced Mechanics, ‘Naked’ Playtest Edition for Scattershot as a relentless drive towards getting playtesting started. Gnome Stew recently mentioned some of my seminal work on game (and character) design.
Excerpt: Advanced Mechanics, ‘Naked’ Playtest Edition
Solitaire Play
Solitaire play is when you play apart from your group. You can make only changes and decisions about the stuff you ‘own’ (and within reason), usually your persona. Dice are rarely used; when they are it is only to create extra detail. You could even roll up a whole persona, if you wish.
Persona
Basically, you play your persona through a series of integrated, hypothetical situations involving the other players, overseen by the gamemaster (in his milieu). The point of view of your persona is the context you play from. The circumstances and relationships to other persona, props and the milieu are what frames your hypothetical thinking. Your persona will also interact with the background and props implicitly (using Scattershot’s mechanics to augment the results).
The most basic way to make a persona is to idealize it’s sine qua non. From wherever you derive your inspiration, try to think of the most basic and necessary components of this persona. Focus on those aspects that would significantly alter the persona if you took them away; the rest is all detail. The K.I.S.S. principle in Scattershot is ‘Keep It Simple and Share’.
An easy mnemonic for sine qua non is ‘3 up / 3 down’. This means you should write down the first three things you want people to think of about your persona and then write down the last three things you want them to forget. When you have time, share these with the other people in the game before you write everything up. You’ll find that people will enjoy helping make your persona better and it prevents them from accidentally writing up something too similar; it also helps keep the persona fitting in the milieu too (even if the milieu must change for it).
How to Create a Persona Write-Up
The best thing to start a persona with is a simple description. Use any creative outlet you like (drawings, photos, prose, lists, et cetera) and make a simple illustration on the top of your persona write-up. Keep your sine qua non in mind, but try to make it more fluid and intriguing.
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August 12th, 2008 at 11:57 am
[...] Here’s something that is important for the whole group to pay attention to: Character Roles. The best description of the problem I have read came from Fang Langford when he was working through his description of Scattershot a few years ago. At the time he called it Sine Qua Non, Latin for “without which not”. [The current version is here.] [...]