Dear Gregor,

so – 3:16 seems to be a new indie hotness. Wearily of the elsewhere-mentioned shiny factor, I bought the PDF at RPGNow: Ten dollars don't hurt you right?

In fact, I read the game twice, and I've written a review (in german). It's quite harsh when it comes to stressing the game's theme, which is overdone IMHO and turns me off to a degree.

So, here's my gist: Yes, the game is a cool blend of all the war issues and SF movies you mention; and it gives people an easy, slightly tactical game to contrast the character development/presentation scenes against. But the "Theme" and the "Focus" of the game; namely: The guys who don't know what the war is about take all the shit is splattered over the game without need or room for exploration of the whole thing. In that regard, you could have just written: "War sucks. Especially for the point men."

Now, I admint I might be a bit oversensitive. But I'm somehow missing the indie ideal of experiencing through play what the game really is about by making your very own choices – in other, possibly misconstrued words, there is no fruitful void in the game.

Or is there? Please let me know!

It may not have a "fruitful void," but it does have flame-guns and TPK Bombs . . .

John,

I can only be thankful at this particular failure of yours.

This new "Play the game you'll see why it works" coyness makes about as much sense to me as withholding gas milage from prospective buyers on the floor of an auto dealership.

Yes, yes... play experience cannot be fully appreciated without actually playing. I get that. I've said it myself for years. But if there's a blunt fact, like the one you just stated... Well, team, let's just say it.

Sorry about the thread detour.... but I'm so happy you just came out and said something that now makes me very curious about the game and will probably generate a sale. (Whereas before, without information, there would not have been a sale!)

CK

Ben is giving it away now.

3:16 is in not a war game, since there is no war going on. It has the trappings of a war game, sure. And the trappings are cool and come with fun toys to play with. It's a game about soldiers, certainly, but not war.

Some powerful people decided that indiscriminate murder was the right answer to a hypothetical problem. Those powerful people -- who make the big picture decisions about what humanity should be up to in the cosmos -- they're not far-away NPCs that are outside the scope of play. Quite the opposite, in fact. Those positions of power and authority are sitting right there for the taking and will be the roles of the PCs in no time at all.

In Poison'd, Vincent puts it this way:
"If your pirate becomes so foul and ruthless a sinner that you no longer want to play him, he leaves play. The second time any player's pirate leaves play, this is the game's final session, no choice to make."

In 3:16, Gregor gives you The Device.

In another thread on DitV, people are talking about their Dogs going back to the home temple and having a few choice words with the Elders of the faith. It is oh so telling that few groups ever think to do that. All I could think of was the Brigadier's standing order in 3:16. And, of course, every PC's final Weakness.

I have more to say about standing orders, player buy-in, and military satire, but those will have to wait a bit.

That was actually my only complaint about 3:16's text. Not that all this stuff doesn't exist but that Gregor was so...coy (good word) about it.

I'm generally not a fan of the be sketchy and see if people figure it out for themselves school of education....but then I never liked puzzles either.

I didn't think the text was coy about this at all. I mean right in the introduction it says:

Their whole mission was to fight, and defeat, everything in the Universe that they could find. Alien civilizations, intelligences and life of any kind were to be wiped out to protect the future safety of the people home on Terra. Threats were to be neutralized at their source.

To me this (plus other things scattered throughout the book) said pretty clearly that there wasn't any real "war." There isn't any true threat to Terran civilization, but just to be damn sure they are going to wipe out all other life in the universe.

When I played 3:16 for the first time I ended up really liking my character. He was a tough, wiry sergeant who refused to leave men behind. Seth made the comment during game play, "He's a good sergeant. He will die a sergeant."

He got promoted to lieutenant at the end of the session.

Part of me really doesn't want him to move up the ranks because that will be way too painful to watch him go through. Which rather seems to be the point. And yet I'm still hoping to play again...

Yeah, that would be good. I'm not the best GM, so any advice on how to get to those kinds of themes is helpful to me.

I've now played in two planets and run in two planets. What I'm loving about it is the sense of dual pressures -- of those with rank to increase it to get access to Cool Shit, and Troopers to stay where they are because there's no benefit to becoming a Corporal. So, you get those career go-getters & folks content to stay a grunt (or want to promote the easy way), and see what happens when they collide. That's what I'm finding interesting. The fact that you eventually could become the Brigadier (with everything that entails -- the standing orders and The Device) is awesome for all the reasons already listed.

What I'm not a big fan of, though, is how the rolls between encounters doesn't seem to do anything -- unless I'm missing something, there's no mechanical bennie or penalty for making/failing a non-encounter roll, and it makes it feel just a touch flat for me. All the things you might want to do -- set up an ambush, first-aid someone, etc. -- are color narration things with no mechanical impacts. I'm tempted to test a house rule in something where if you succeed on NFA roll in between encounters, you get either a +1 to your NFA roll for Dominance or +1 to your first combat round. (Maybe with the reverse if you fail.) I don't know if this'll result in something a bit more of what I'm looking for, but that's what testing is about. To be clear, this isn't a slight on the game, just my sensibilities -- I like it when the narrative feeds back into the mechanics and vice versa, as that enhances the tangibility of success & failure for me.

Unless I'm missing something, in which case please don't be coy.

John,

Fuck yes. Thanks for pointing that out. There is a lot of awesome in that book, takes a bit to digest it all. And in thinking about it, the converse is probably shitty -- life is hard enough on the group.

I just finished running a space station orbiting a gas planet (yes, think Bespin & Cloud City) where the PCs were up against Corrupt Troopers (AA 8, Armour). Fuck, that was rough. (Also, being Corrupt Troopers, someone suggested that they could possible hear & talk over the Trooper's comm system. So I totally had the CT's rickroll them.) That was fucking rough, and they could have used this.

That is one thing I see in something that's as complex as 3:16 -- learning more rules as you go. When we played the first two planets, there were questions as to whether you could bother rolling FA if you would kill 0. We said no, then learned afterwards that we could have. I see a slightly length learning process as you see how different exceptions interact & dealing with flawed interpretations (an occasional pitfall of lean text).

FWIW, I've read through the book once, and it seems to me that it's written there, crystal clear, that there is no war, that the terran force is really jumping on unsuspecting civilizations out of a paranoid drive, and that all this is completely meaningless. Also, remember that one of the main purposes of the terran expedition is to root out from Terra the misfits that cannot live in its "perfect society" (Read the Brigadier orders). The misfits, the deranged... or simply those driven insane from living indefinitely in a world so "perfect" that there are no more stimuli. This and more (actually, I notice now how much that short text can communicate!).

Will all of this come up in play? Will GMs and players "get" it and play by it? Maybe, and maybe not.

Some will start blasting away aliens, and slowly develop a deeper understanding. Some will just enjoy acting like a silly parody of a war movie (Starship Troopers, the movie. It's completely not casual, IMO). It will certainly not "ruin" the game either way.

As John noted: very few groups of dogs ever think about going back to Bridal Falls and give a good shake to those elders. Does it detract from the game? I don't think so. It's just nice that there IS that added layer of depth for those that will seek it.

I guess (not having played yet) that what John's talking about is that the Captain is no longer one of the grunts being told what to do - he actually hands out and defines the missions. So it probably makes for a different (more grim?) player dynamic.

Gregor,

thanks for the insight. I'll definitely give the game a try, as it does push some of my gamer heart buttons. I'll let you know how it went!

Hey Bailywolf, If that's what works for you then you should put that stuff in. In fact, I think that over time higher ranking PCs might start angling for "shore leave" and so on, while even higher ranking NPCs might be trying to frame PCs for insubordination and giving them death missions. As it says in the GM advice, I really feel that at the start of the campaign "it's about the missions" and later on "it's not about the missions" -- see page 3x16 48.

For other groups, I'm sure they'll be equally happy blasting bugs relentlessly and the group might reinforce that (in their game) the fighting is entirely justified. It's a different preference.

In my experience the first two missions are where people first learn the rules and then tactics. From mission three onwards they start to find their characters and role-play far more. The scenes between encounters become more important to the fiction at this point, and Between Missions stuff starts to be focused on (other than just a place to get better weapons or rank).

Looking forward to hearing about your play, Harald. I hope it goes well.

Posted By: BailywolfI'd need conspiracy episodes, where troopers are tapped to run black-bag operations for corrupt commanders...

This is what I did at GenCon, and it turned out great. I even had a player decide to play a creepy "analyst" attached to a squad, before he knew the session was going to be about black-ops stuff at all (that would be Mr. Cypher in the example above). So fun.

Hmmmm... I can imagine a hypothetical situation in which a character hardly kills any aliens and still works his or her way up the ladder. It would be difficult, but not impossible.

Posted By: John Harper

Posted By: BailywolfI'd need conspiracy episodes, where troopers are tapped to run black-bag operations for corrupt commanders...

This is what I did at GenCon, and it turned out great. I even had a player decide to play a creepy "analyst" attached to a squad, before he knew the session was going to be about black-ops stuff at all (that would be Mr. Cypher in the example above). So fun.

Wish I could have gotten in on that action- sounds fucking sweet.


I sort of want to crib shit from Starcraft and the first Riddick movie now, and do stuff with psi-ops and alien traitors and going undercover in a merc company and crap like that. Use the 'Terran War Against the Cosmos' as the backdrop to a dirty espionage and black bag game.

-B

It's written right on the character sheet, isn't it?

Weakness #5 "hatred for home".

I think if an instance of the game lacks depth it's because the group doesn't push hard to make interesting weaknesses and strengths. There is a big (intentional) gulf between the fighty mechanics and the fiction. Hutton doesn't demand you work the big theme into the fiction, but he drags you there in the end kicking and screaming either way. Weakness #5.

Posted By: Christopher Kubasik
Here's a link to an essay in L.A. Times a friend of mine wrote back in 1997 when the movie came out.

Too bad he missed the point too.

Yes, John. You've made you cred as a scholar of literature clear. Tell us: What is the point?