Pasión de las Pasiones – Page 2 – Powered by the Apocalypse G+ Archives

Been having more Con-Crash/Crud than I expected… Those play-reports will be coming in soon.

That said… I have heard through the grapeline that a couple of people (including Magpie Games’s Brendan Conway and Kevin Petker) have gotten their hands on ashcans! So more news coming soon hopefully!!!

Bienvenidos, mi amores a Pasión de las Pasiones…

With another Metatopia come and gone, there’s a whole bunch of new data from playtesting! Thank you to all of the playtesters, designers chatterers, and people enthusiastic about this little game! There is no joy like having someone come up and declare in a dramatic voice, “I heard you’re the telenovela guy… I want to be in your game.” Thank you one and all.

I had 5 playtests and in the style of telenovelas, I’m thinking I’ll try to release them over the next week!

I know that at Metatopia there were a lot of questions about the ashcan, availability of play materials, and future plans for Pasión! I’m going to have that information together as quickly as I can!

Now that I’ve really ripped the heart out of Pasión de las Pasiones and replaced it with a new better heart, I’m also going to be trying to work out more playtests. I’m not sure the best way to figure them out yet, but if you are interested DEFINITELY get in touch with me!

Additionally, if you were in one of my playtests and want to send more thoughts, ideas, or critiques my way, hit me up!

Omg, Why is it that I only found out about this game being at metatopia from the sign up sheet?

Omg, Why is it that I only found out about this game being at metatopia from the sign up sheet? AND HOW COME I CAN’T GET INTO ANY OF THE GAMES?! T__T POR QUE?!

I know a few people that would love to try this game.

Yeah. This game seems perfect to play with my wife, she loves see novelas. Can I read the playbooks somewhere?

In this episode of Pasión de las Pasiones…

El Vividor: Guillermo Hernandez (Taylor LaBresh)

El Gemelo: Gustavo Hernancez (SJ)

La Pirata: Ezmerelda (Cole)

Los Hernandez Twins (Guillermo and Gustavo) are the sons of a successful lawyer, but Guillermo has gotten himself involved with a troubling element, a pirate (Ezmerelda) with incredible grace, finesse, and possibly an eye for Guillermo. Gustavo catches Guillermo and Ezmerelda in the act as they rob a jewel encrusted pin from a museum. Ashamed by his brother’s actions, he leaves them to it, not knowing that Ezmerelda tranquilized Guillermo and left him on the museum roof.

Gustavo returns home and speaks with his father asking for advice, Senor Hernandez tells him he must confront his brother. Sidelong glances are exchanged with Maria, the Hernandez’s maid, who used to date Guillermo and had a trist with Gustavo that made her resent the Hernandez family.

At the Club, Ezmerelda and Gustavo meet where it is revealed that Ezmerelda somehow didn’t have the pin (though she had other parts of the haul which she exchanged for a briefcase of money). Guillermo sees Gustavo and Ezmerelda talking and clearly intends to approach them.

At the quinceañera of Los Hernandez’s sister Alejandra, Ezmerelda and Guillermo discuss the loss of the pin and the need to find it to get fully paid. Gustavo talks with Maria, expressing his love and kissing her before she sends him to confront his brother, but after the kiss he finds that Ezmerelda and Guillermo have disappeared.

Guillermo finds the pin that apparently Maria had stolen from him (explained Next Time On?). He opens up to Gustavo, telling him that Diego, an enormous loan shark with a big scar and more muscles than anyone needs, needs to receive the pin or he will be killed. Gustavo agrees to give the pin to Diego who is also at the quinceañera (presumably to find Guillermo.

Not knowing this, Ezmerelda speaks with Diego and sends him after Gustavo so that she and Guillermo can continue to plot and get paid. Diego goes after Gustavo and corners him in a hallway of the estate. Gustavo hands over the pin, which Diego immediately recognizes as fake and crushes, killing Gustavo and throwing him from the mansion (his body isn’t found and he’ll return in later episodes with an eyepatch instead of his signature glasses).

Guillermo and Ezmerelda meet back out in the garden and Guillermo pulls out the real pin, which he’d swapped to give to his twin. The two embrace, kiss, and disappear bringing the episode to an end.

hey! So will you running this for Dreamation?

News For Coming Changes

News For Coming Changes

This is super unformated because it’s just grabbed and dropped from an editing session!

Flashback: flashback may be re-written in the future, possibly into more than one move. It isn’t working how I’d like it to and there’s not quite enough reason to do it. In playtest, it slowed the game down more than I’d have liked it to but it’s such an important part of telenovelas that I feel I can’t abandon it.

Flee The Scene: Definitely didn’t work how I intended. I think I’m going to remove this move entirely; now that there is an MC we can give them good instructions on how to shut down scenes.

Recaps

More of them.

Moves

La Abuela

Abuela isn’t working the way I want her to. She’s too much of a behind the pictures and would require a VERY involved player to make her sing.

El Caballero

This is one of the playbooks that I think is running best.

La Doña

She’s fun, but a couple things aren’t quite clicking.

Audience Reaction is kind of tough, but seems to be hitting. I need NUMBERS for this.

I Was Beautiful Once:

I’ll have to figure out how to rework this. Currently it’s purely narrative which possibly doesn’t work.

La Empleada

She works well in the game but doesn’t hit on some of the mechanics.

This is the playbook I’m most nervous about, it’s SO core to telenovelas but it is involved in a lot of the way that masculinity and femininity is portrayed in society. I’m hesitant to include her, but think she’s so important to have. Gotta tread carefully.

Her plot twist doesn’t hit enough at all. I think it /could/ hit all the time, but the player would need to really lean into it.

El Gemelo

El Gemelo seems to be working alright, but interestingly has so far ALWAYS been the twin of La Empleada. I’m not 100% certain why this is, but I’d like to figure out why if I can.

His (or I guess Her given what playtests have shown) Audience Reaction isn’t good enough. It triggers every scene once which is boring and maybe a little bit slow.

Recaps

Currently the recaps cannot both be true, given that players seem to really like the recaps that likely shouldn’t be true so that players can do more than one.

This also essentially functions to connect players, Hook style and make our family-web.

El Jefe

People get El Jefe and have played him perfectly. He almost seems too likeable, gotta bring other characters up to this level.

Marking XP is almost too easy for him.

Plot Twist: Plata o Plomo

Really gotta rework this one, removed the mechanical benefit (a holdover from previous version) but this still needs something better. Doesn’t feel quite brawny enough.

La Pirata

It’s a tempting character that I think people are interested in, but I’ve gotten a LOT of questions as to whether it fits or not. I really think that it fits and I’m going to try to work it out, but this is currently in the lowest tier of playbooks (right alongside La Abuela)

Sin Rostro

Definitely removing ‘never’ from that. I think this actually should have a full move.

El Vividor

People have been having some fun with this one, but I’m worried it’s a little bit unclear what you should be doing. I think the core issue is that the Audience Reaction isn’t quite hitting, though I want to keep that basic feel.

Getting Real

How did I miss that it had no downside on a 7-9? Come on, Brandon

An irritatingly suave goodbye: That is, for me, the core reason I want to play El Vividor.

Plot Twist: Corporate Takeover

This definitely isn’t coming across the way I’d wanted to… Basically my thinking was that you’re playing and El Caballero is all ready to catch you doing something or El Jefe is ready to disown you and then you go, “Oh, I’m sorry… Did you not get the call from the bank? I own this hotel now and you work for me now.” I’ll see if I can figure out how to reword this.

AUDIENCE MOVES

-When you hit a specific level, you take a big risk. Poll the audience for cheers (or explicit boos) If the audience goes along with it, it keeps going up. If NOT we get a twist move from the GM?

Never sure whether to post here or public. Ah well, here is this also!

Originally shared by Brandon Leon-Gambetta

Audience Reactions for Pasión de las Pasiones

I’m finding Audience Reaction to be one of my favorite parts of the game as well as an important series of question marks and upside down question marks. The good thing about it is that it is intrinsically fun and ties into theme; telenovelas are best watched with people and invoke that feeling of crying out in support or protest of the events on the screen. So many people I’ve talked about regarding this game have told me they love to watch at telenovelas and shout out at it. Clearly this is core.

Here’s where it gets awkward. I love it as a system of fan-mail or bennies (Prime Time Adventures was my first exposure to this, but clearly been in a ton of different games) but I want it to do more than just increase successes. When I was envisioning PdlP originally it was definitely just a one-shot and now I’m looking beyond that. As a one-shot, I liked the idea that Audience Reaction built you towards a single big plot-twist (see Moment of Truth in Masks: A New Generation). I think I still like that, it’s solid, it’s thematic, and it’s cool.

That said, I also now need to start thinking about experience and character growth. Plot Twist may end up being put as an advance but I want to be sure the twists are happening often enough to get that fun payoff.

This further complicates the Audience Reactions for a couple of reasons.

1) They should trigger similarly often. Currently El Gemelo (father gets confused who is whom) is all but guaranteed to get a single Audience Reaction in every scene, but unlikely to get more than one. Meanwhile, El Caballero (make the teenager swoon) played hard for Reactions could be swoon-worthy with every action. Potential Solution? Make it one XP per-scene (see AW/Monsterhearts and highlighted stats). I’m not satisfied with this, as it only switches which playbook benefits. There will never be a scene where El Gemelo’s doesn’t trigger even though I LOVE that reaction.

2) They should be able to be played towards. Big issue with this one currently is La Empleada (envy/admire her beauty). The response needs to be fixed, but anything that the audience is really providing the fiction for doesn’t work. Sure, the player could describe her beauty all the time, really push for that, BUT it’s a level of roleplaying separate from the rest of the playbooks. I’d love for players to talk about that kind of thing because it is very telenovela, but feels a bit unfair that everyone else just says their actions and La Empleada has to talk about flowers matching her eyes.

3) Plot Twists still need to happen often and can’t be stale. I think every session of PdlP should have a big plot twist moment. They are fun, people’s eyes go wide, and one player gets to feel total control. They also create AWESOME ripples (our characters are MARRIED now? Guess next episode is gonna be WILD) and are just good for theme. What I /DON’T/ want is to repeat plot twists. While it’s awesome for your Jean Grey Nova to take FULL universal control in similar ways in Masks, it’s way less cool to have a second mandated wedding in three sessions. That could mean I have to make them more general, but that also doesn’t feel great. This is DEFINITELY a couple of brainstorms away.

So yeah! Those are my thoughts on Audience Reactions for Pasión de las Pasiones! If you have thoughts, advice, tips, questions, whatever, hit me up!

Gathered information about Pasión de las Pasiones

Gathered information about Pasión de las Pasiones

Written Information

+This Page!

+Game Material Coming Soon Hopefully

Podcast Materials

+http://www.stophackandroll.com/2016/06/episode-04-el-pasion-de-stop-hack-roll/ The initial Stop, Hack, & Roll episode where we introduce the game. LOTS of big changes have happened since then.

+http://www.stophackandroll.com/2016/11/episode-13-playtesting-future/ The follow up where we talk about some of the removal of stats and some of the other big changes

+http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/the-gauntlet-podcast/episode-79-five-fires-worlds-in-peril-pasion-de-pasiones The Gauntlet after Jason Cordova playtested Pasión de las Pasiones at Metatopia

If you have other links with information, let me know! I’m hoping to bring the game materials to you soon in some sort of format, but also want to try to be responsible with setting up the game for the future!