What Went Wrong With Maria Vendelez

Ok, the second session of play with Maria just kind of fell flat. It wasn't enjoyable, and I wasn't able to really engage. We got caught up in a beuracratic mess that didn't really accomplish anything. And when we got to the next adventure, it didn't seem to be any better. The system isn't really generating good adventures for Maria.

What Did We Hope Maria Would be Doing?

Why isn't Maria's set of adventures living up to what we hoped? I actually intended for this to be a pivotal part of the game: the interaction at headquarters between Centrum, Infinity, and PRC forces. So what was I imagining maria doing?

• I wanted a big picture view of the war. In fact, I wanted to direct the war in ways like choosing when its time to launch the all out attack, and in devising strategies. I wanted to decide to steal entire factories, recruit junkrats from japan to help with hacking, decide whether to risk sticking any satellites in space and how to best put boots on the ground. I wanted to fight a war, not just battles, and I wanted to be creative about it.
• I imagined intrigue where both sides try to pull crap on each other to gain an advantage, and where both sides make honest overtures of peace and friendship. Every person, be they on your side or not, would be a potential friend and a potential danger.
• Plots should be much longer than those of folks on the ground. Treason should effect long running relationships, not short ones. Foiling a plot by someone shouldn't end in their dismissal, but in long running tensions, increased resources, and political ammunition.

What does that Mean for the Game?

Maria should spend a lot of 'adventures' deciding what needs to happen in other parts of the game. She should be free to sit down and pour over successes, struggles, and failures of the other threads.
Maria needs hard numbers for the war. We have hard numbers for other parts of this game, so we need stats for morale back home, tension between opposing forces, resources coming in, and so forth.
Maria needs a supporting cast. A strong supporting cast. People to oppose plans, suggest ideas, and participate in cloak and dagger. She will spend a lot of time talking, not fighting, and her cast should be fairly static.

Action in Maria's sphere shouldn't be forced. It should flow naturally out of actions by the other groups, and occasionally by serious, high profile threats. Which means mechanism for introducing intrigue is needed. The intrigue should always be high stakes -- Stakes that effect the grand situation between Infinity, Centrum, Homeline Governments, and steel.

I'm not entirely sure that Maria is the right character. So far she's come off as a paper-pusher, not a general. Making her story line work do what I want may do a good deal of damage to the character. So I'm going to need to create a new character that will do what I want: someone with a lot of organizational power -- they'll be reporting to their equals in other organizations and higher ups who are off world and possibly civilians.

So I'm going to do a lot of world building, and quite soon: We'll need a true leader of the infinity effort. We'll need a way to keep track of the political situation, and we'll need to pull out actual numbers for what's going through Ceasefire.