By Aaron T. Huss
The following transcribed interview took place on Thursday August 4, 2011 at Gen Con Indy 2011. We are speaking to George Strayton about his upcoming role-playing game The Secret Fire (formerly known as Legends & Labyrinths). Additional information can be found at George Strayton’s website http://legendsandlabyrinths.com/.
The individual speaking is noted by the prefix RPC for Roleplayers Chronicle (Aaron T. Huss) or GS for George Strayton.
RPC: If you can start by giving me your description of the game [The Secret Fire].
GS: It’s a fantasy role-playing game, as with all fantasy role-playing games [The Secret Fire] came out of what Gary Gygax started in ’74. [Thus] you have a elf, dwarf, human, halfling… the usual smattering of Tolkien-type races. In that way, it’s a standard fantasy role-playing game, but the main differences are probably three: number one and most importantly, there are mechanics in the game that encourage role-playing. If you role-play your character, you’re going to get points that you can use. You don’t just have one trait, you have a trait for each of your ability scores. [For example] intellect, you could be a moron or you could be brilliant; those are two ends of the spectrum. In most games…, if you’re a moron… it’s the worst thing in the world, but in [The Secret Fire] it’s fantastic. Every time you act like a moron in the game you get points… and the rest of the party may say “stop doing that”, [the role-playing] becomes very involved with all the character and their various traits. Those are the physical traits tied to your ability scores… called descriptors.
You have traits, of which there are three, and they are based on the alignment system: good, neutral, and evil. But [alignment] is on a spectrum, so it’s a line where you start wherever you want to start, good and evil at each end with neutral in the middle. You have a trait associated with each one, good might be self-sacrificing and evil might be greedy, neutral would be follower or alcoholic. Whenever you [role-play] your trait, you get a small number of points because that’s what you do [referring to alignment]. If you perform an evil trait [against your alignment] you get a lot of points because it’s against your nature, but you tick one mark [on the alignment spectrum] towards evil. If you take a lot of evil actions to get a lot of points, suddenly you’re an evil [aligned] character.
RPC: So it changes your alignment.
GS: It changes your alignment and you might have to go on a quest to redeem yourself [and] get back to the side of good. It definitely creates more of a story, but it’s not a storytelling game. It’s the fun of role-playing [and] improving your character, just enough to do different things and not do the same things over and over, but not so much that it overwhelms you.
Secondly, those points I was mentioning are used for a variety of things.
RPC: [You’re referring to] energy points.
GS: Yes energy points, those are used to do a variety of different things: knocking somebody down, shoving them backwards, throwing them across the room, that kind of [actions]. Stunts and maneuvers…, for battle, as well as for spellcasters regaining a spell you already cast or swapping out a spell with the memorization system. [For example] you do a spell and roll damage and don’t like that damage, you can re-roll your damage.
Lastly there is a category called exploration which is [for instance] you can ransack a room, which normally takes ten minutes…, in one minute. [However] it’s taxing and takes a lot of energy out of [your character] and you spend energy points to do it. The only caveats to the whole [energy points] system is that you have to have the points, although you can go above your starting points. If you start with ten points, you can start role-playing and gain more points to use later. What I find is that people generally spend their points and then work to gain them back [through] constant role-playing and constant use of [maneuvers] with different special effects. But, you have to be able to explain, in a realistic way, how [your character] is conscience of [the maneuver they’re performing]. [For example] blinding somebody. If you want to blind somebody, you call the Master Creator, (DM or GM, but we call them the MC)… and have to explain how you carry a bag of sand, [as stated] on your character sheet, and throw sand in the [adversaries] eyes.
RPC: You’re [basically] justifying your [characters] actions.
GS: And it has to be realistic. As the [MC] I could say “No, that isn’t possible.” You have to convince the MC and the group as a whole that [the maneuver] is a possible [action] to perform. [This role-playing activity] gets people to think outside of their character sheet, because they’re constantly thinking “What’s in the room and what can I use?”. Not just looking at their abilities, but what’s inside of the room. [For example] is there a chandelier? Can I cut the chandelier and have it fall on [the enemy]? People will spend a lot more time on imagining [the action].
RPC: [This style of role-playing] seems a bit more cinematic.
GS: Yes, which makes sense as my true career is screenwriting… I try to take all my screenwriting [experience] and apply them to role-playing.
There is a section on designing scenarios which [utilizes] a mood cues approach. If you want to create a mood, it consists of a series of emotions… that last for only a few seconds at a time. To create a mood like horror, you have to create a series of emotions, and those are done by cues. You try to [recreate] things [the PCs] hear, the things they see through sensory perceptions. [The Secret Fire] gives a methodology that [displays]… the different cues. Eventually I’ll expand on that with whole… tables of cues and not just enough for you [use].
RPC: These are [similar to] adventure seeds?
GS: More than that. Once you design your dungeon, you fill it with a whole group of monsters and treasures, or its empty. No matter what’s in the room, you add these mood cues… as the last thing you do. [For example] horror, you might add that there are brown splatters everywhere (all over the walls and ceiling), and as [the characters] start walking across the room, they start crunching on things. What [the PCs] see below them are thousands of dead tarantulas upside down and you’re walking on their rigor mortis bodies… By having a lot of [mood cues] in the room, [players] may start getting “creeped out”, one of the emotions associated with horror.
RPC: You are basically painting the scene through the description of these mood cues.
GS: Exactly! You are trying to create a genre, and over time you are going to hit all these different types of cues that affect different types of people. Hopefully everybody at the table will start feeling “creeped out”, but you want to mix [the mood cues] in at an iconic moment. [For example] a horror movie will always have a comic moment to relieve the tension, so you throw one of those [mood cues] in every now and then. [Mood cues] can be used to create an adventure.
But what if you’re players go off the map? There are tables that [allow them] to go off the map. For instance, [the PCs] enter a room and see a bunch of bones sitting there and think “that’s interesting” and start thinking about using the room.
RPC: [Players] think about how to use a room [and are less focused on] what spells do I have or what weapons do I have.
GS: Exactly! While it doesn’t eliminate the need for a character sheet, you still have a character sheet, it says “there you have [that item]”. I’ve noticed [while] playing testing [The Secret Fire] for the past six months… that [players] stop using their character sheets and start talking to each other. We make “tents” [an in-game mechanic from the character sheet] that have your traits on them, but you can have a secret trait [marked with] a question mark so [players] know there’s something secret about [your PC], but it has your traits listed so everyone knows something about everyone else.
For example, [a group of players] needed to interrogate somebody and the holy-woman, these are clerics that we call a holy-woman, and she was good… and wouldn’t permit interrogations. [The players] knew she had a neutral trait of being an alcoholic, like Friar Tuck in Prince of Thieves. [The players stated] in the next chamber was a room filled with casks of wine. She decides to [enter that room] and since she chose to follow her trait, I gave her [energy] points. But, she could refuse, and since she resisted I could give her [energy] points. [Traits] are not a constant… and are meant to be flavorful. [Players] are very quick to figure out how to get more [energy] points.
RPC: This [role-playing style] is more “play your character” instead of “player your character sheet”. I play a regular fourth edition game and [we spend more time] figuring out what’s on our character sheet than [just playing] the character, [considering] what is reasonable. Although the mechanics don’t really support that.
GS: Yes, and the third [item] from the [original question] is that [game-play] is very fast because [players] aren’t looking [at their character sheet] to determine [their next action]. Once [the PCs] are in the room, [the players] think of what’s in that room and what they want to do. The [character] sheet we have… those are guidelines, not an exhaustive list. I say it all over the book, “Let your imagination run wild.” [The Secret Fire] is all about ruling not the rules… When I run a game, I ask what your favorite edition is and get all [types] of answers… [but at the end], they all know the rules… by [simply] using their imagination and I [as the MC] will tell you [the player] if you can do it or not. [The Secret Fire has] some guidelines to start and get a sense of what [these imaginative ideas] are. [The guidelines] are meant to give you a basis and you get to run wild with the whole thing.
Here we started to tangent away from the basis of this The Secret Fire interview. I will not transcribe this part of the discussion as it did not pertain directly to the subject matter at hand. For interesting information and background about The Secret Fire, read George Strayton’s blog for great quotes and testimonials.
GS: … [Speaking in reference to examples about game-play, trait use, and energy points] We’ll eventually have a paladin type character called crusader. Everything has a name, but instead of class it’s calling. The crusader will be good-aligned, [possibly] self-sacrificing as his good trait and greedy as his evil trait (to use as an example). He finds a sword, he knows is magical, that can be used to do a lot of good but he also knows there are other people in the party who are going to want it, and they haven’t noticed it yet. [As the MC] I tell the player “I’ll give you five energy points if you agree to keep the sword.” [The player] can negotiate and say no…, and I say “I’ll give you eight energy points.” The player is thinking about this and I say “I’ll give you ten energy points.” [The player says] “I’ll do it.” and steels the sword. There’s this natural energy in life to do something different, something taboo… Not to encourage that behavior [as the crusader now] ticks toward evil. There’s a negative aspect to this but [also an] adrenaline rush and you gain energy points.
RPC: There’s motivation to do something that coincides [with their alignment] or something completely outside of [their alignment].
GS: Exactly! The idea is that I wanted [the players] writing three-dimensional characters. That was the impetus for doing [this style of game design]. It was cinematic and a lot of it came out of my experience as a game designer…, taking all that knowledge and coupling it with the cinematic knowledge that I learned from [screen]writing. In my case writing a bunch of fantasy movies and TV shows was a natural coupling and worked out well.
RPC: I noticed, while looking through the book, that Basic Dungeons & Dragons influence, what you refer to as a “natural progression of”. I also noticed there was influence from other games. One that is recognizable to me is [The Secret Fire’s] wound and stamina [tracking] which is a lot like the 12° System from Rogue Games [in reference to Shadow, Sword & Spell].
GS: Oh, I’ve never played that, but my influence came [because] I co-wrote the second edition of Star Wars, using the d6 version when I worked for West End Games where we had wound levels. That’s where the influence came from… I really like the d6 system, it’s very simple, and one of the things I really like is the wounds system. I never really grasped in D&D where if you have one hundred hit-points or one hit-point, they’re basically the same. You can do the same amount of damage; there’s no difference.
RPC: One thing I never cared for in D&D is that the higher you get [in level], everything [you attempt to do] gets that much harder. You’re not really progressing to a state of “getting better”.
GS: The idea was, for the wound levels, there are suffering consequences as you [lose wounds], but they’re not all negative. The idea is you’re mad because you… want to fight. When you get into a fight adrenaline starts flowing. You’ve gotten hit enough and [the bonuses] stay there as everything is cumulative, you keep that plus one. But then you start getting penalties… but I didn’t want everything to be a [modifier] so they have different effects. One effect is that you’re getting so wild that your critical success and critical failure values change from one number [on the dice roll] to five [numbers on the dice roll]. You’re going crazy and might take a while shot and cut the [enemy’s] head off or you might take a wild shot and hit your friend. That, to me, is more interesting than “you’re at minus three to hit”. To me that’s more boring and it’s [simply] more numbers to pay attention to.
One of our design principals was to cut down on math at the table, to crunch the numbers down [to smaller sizes]… There’s very few [modifiers] to add up. And everything stacks so you never have to figure out “does this [modifier] go with this, do these [modifiers] stack?” Instead of trying to add things together and figure out what adds, I just state everything adds together, everything stacks.
RPC: That makes [tracking modifiers] a lot simpler…
GS: and faster…
RPC: You don’t have to think “I can’t use that [modifier] because I have this [modifier] over here.” Those two [modifiers] don’t stack or [simply] this one doesn’t stack with that one.
GS: … adding [and deciphering modifiers] takes you out of the game. Another of our design principals was immersion. There will always be math… and it’s fun to roll dice!
RPC: And it’s a lot more fun than flipping through your character sheet. “What can I use next [to improve my modifiers]?”
GS: The idea is, you still get to roll dice, but you get to decide what you’re going to do. You may think it would be difficult to be creative and figure out “is that possible.” But, honestly, it’s so easy [to figure out what’s possible] because we’ve lived in the real world. [For example] can I climb up the side of this building? I’m not trained to do that and I’m not a rock-climber, so for me it would be very difficult. But for a rock-climber, it might just be hard. I try to make everything based on words [not just mechanics and rules].
RPC: A perfect example was in a game session I had. We had a dwarf with a low athletics and acrobatics skill and he had to roll to climb a ladder. Because he had to get up [the ladder] in a rush, but he failed and didn’t climb the ladder. [I though] “Are you serious?”
GS: There’s a section [of the book] under skills where I mention this. Much of the game is automatic successes and failures. It’s only where we don’t know the outcome when you need to roll; you can climb the ladder.
RPC: You don’t need a mechanic that states “No I’m sorry, you’re roll wasn’t high enough so you can’t climb the ladder.”
GS: I try to make a lot of automatic successes and failures. For example, you try to bribe a guard. [In other games] it could be a whole skill challenge. In [The Secret Fire], I give the guy a hundred gold pieces and he says “Thank you sir have a great day.” Unless I’ve decided this is one of the elite guards…, he’s just going to let you through. So no rolling, that’s auto[matic] success.
RPC: In a lot of [other] games when you do [that given example], you’ll get a plus five.
GS: Exactly, and then you roll. Oh but you roll a one so you failed. And then you have to figure out a reason why [the PC] failed. Let’s try to stay in the real world and have real interactions where I play the guard… If you try to lie to me, I’ll think to myself, as the MC, “[the guard] is of average intelligence, do I think he’s going to buy this?” If I know the answer I just [proceed]. If I don’t know, this is the point where we’ll make, what I call, a skill test. Otherwise, for the most part, it’s auto[matic] success or failure.
RPC: The one thing you’re promoting, heavily, is interactive role-playing. I think the only drawback to that would be [players] who aren’t very good at interactive role-playing, but you do have some mechanics to back it up.
GS: The interesting thing is, I’ve had people like that at the gaming table. You can typically divide people into [two groups]: role-players and crunch players. What I’ve found is… at every single table I run into players of both types and role-players get [the type of game-play] right away, but they don’t get the energy points [mechanics] right away. They eventually see the crunch guys using energy points and tie [energy points] into their role-playing… The guys who are not role-playing guys see all these great things they can do crunch-wise and they want to use these [energy points], but they run out of points. And there’s only one way to get them, by role-playing. So they start looking at their character and [play their character’s traits]. Then by the end of four hours, everyone is the same.
… I try to end the edition wars by creating a game for everyone to play… to bring everyone together… I hate to see gamers against gamers… [The Secret Fire attempts to keep games cooperative and interactive instead of pinning players and GMs against each other].
Once again we started to tangent away from the basis of The Secret Fire interview and spoke about game mechanics, products, and other ideas not related to The Secret Fire. I will not transcribe this part of the discussion as it did not pertain directly to the subject matter at hand.
GS: One question I’ve asked myself is “Why did I do it [design The Secret Fire]?” [Development had started and was left behind to work on other things]. After playtesting fourth edition, I decided to look at [The Secret Fire] again, and in the last six months or so I decided I would put it out at Gen Con. Someone called me and asked to do a lecture about screenwriting at Gen Con and I figured, that was a sign… So I’ve spent that last six months annoying my managers because I wasn’t screenwriting.
RPC: Such is the life of moonlighting…
GS: So it’s hot off the presses, that was yesterday [Wednesday August 3, 2011]. This was such a relief because I did it! I got it out there! I would love for people to read it and see what I mean, to see what my influence was. I would love for people to try it just once and if you don’t like it… I don’t want people to go to [The Secret Fire] and leave everything else.
RPC: I don’t think anyone wants to replace anyone’s game. In the indie publishing market, you can’t really replace but rather augment or simply add another source.
GS: Give another option and hopefully bring [players] back together, who have been splintered. If that happens with even one group, that’s me as a success. I’ve been running the game for the last year or so with my group, who were the alpha testers, and I still run [other games along with The Secret Fire]. We see two ends of the spectrum along with [The Secret Fire] and can see what works with this and what works with that.
RPC: If I can speak to that. Being that I’ve seen almost everything that gets released [through Roleplayers Chronicle], I see a lot of games that try to come to a center-point where it’s not all crunch, it’s not all old school, and it’s not all storytelling. There’s a lot of [products and systems] coming out that are in the middle, bringing [players] back to that center-point without worrying so much about whose edition is better, whose dice mechanics are better, and instead immerse you with something that is partially familiar here and partially familiar there [referring to game design].
GS: Exactly! I’ve taken great pains to say “Look, I’m not part of the OSR [old school renaissance]…” You’re not playing first edition so it’s not old school renaissance to me.
RPC: From what I’ve seen, OSR is trying to mimic OD&D, BD&D, and AD&D instead of this natural progression… You have OSR, you have fourth edition, and you have Pathfinder, and you have a lot of space in-between where people are starting to come together [game designers and players].
GS: I think that’s a great thing to have for all of them and I think the middle was missing. One thing I wanted to do so passionately is fill in the middle so everyone can play and have fun. The objective for playing games is to have fun… That, for me, is one of the great things about playing games. Especially D&D, you don’t [walk away losing]. With RPGs… there’s another session. You haven’t failed, but you haven’t succeeded yet.
… Way in the back, in one of the appendices, it says “The adventure continues”. Go out into the real world and do good deeds… [The appendix] has a huge list of [good deeds] to better the world… If you do these things, you accrue points in the real world just by doing these things. When you bring them to the next game session… that translates to a percentage that becomes the amount of bonus XP you get that session… I’m trying to make real life a game and get you to do things you don’t normally do… This gives you an incentive.
RPC: One last thing. I noticed [The Secret Fire] is in [digest] format, eight and a half by five and a half, and at three hundred plus pages. My question is, was there a reason for that?
GS: An homage to Gary Gygax. The original little brown books are this size… The printed book is [$19.99] and the PDF is [$9.99]. There will eventually be an eBook.
Thanks again to George Strayton for taking some time to speak about The Secret Fire and give us all an inside look at what he’s designed.
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