DexCon Debriefing

So, Elizabeth and I went to DexCon this weekend and had a lot of fun. Here’s the rundown:

We played Russ’s game Contract Work, which is a lot of fun. It’s about contract killing. He has some concerns about the mathematical rough edges it has, and sure, it’s not done yet, but it’s going to be a really good thing when it is. It’s pointing at a really cool new thing, structurally, and he runs it really well. What I’m most excited about, though, is that it’s not just good for its thing, but also, the formula he’s got in it is obviously also the formula for heist movies and ‘catacomb plunderer’ action film.

It’s Complicated went really well both times we ran it. One session turned out to be an 80s drunken college kids movie about being trapped in a morgue freezer on a dare, and the other was a reality show about failed or just inconsequential celebrities. Who knew that IC was a game that’s good for reality shows? We hadn’t predicted it, but Shael and Ellen and Bret twigged to that immediately and it was super great. I haven’t laughed so hard in ages.

Mist-Robed Gate went really well too. I had fun running it, and it seemed like Lilith enjoyed watching. I gotta figure out how to insert new players in the middle of an already-running game. Thanks to all my players!

It was great seeing my tribe and hanging out. We had some pretty serious crowd anxiety, and like Elizabeth and I both sort of flipped out about that. But it was nice. I got to see some of Jenn’s new art! I got to see new Annalise books! We talked about games with Bret and Shael and Ivy and Jere and Bob! There was a flowchart! Rob showed us the proofs of Misspent Youth! Gingerbread smells good. Oh shit I have to send formalwear email.

P.S. Also my car exploded but now it is okay and thank you everyone who came to our aid in dealing with that. You are all lifesavers. Gummi lifesavers.

Mist-Robed Gate Preorders

Update: Preorders are now closed.

I’m very happy to announce that the first fledgeling has left the nest. Mist-Robed Gate is finished and going out to the printer soon, and now you can preorder it.

It’s going to be gorgeous. Jonathan’s doing layout for me, and I did some art, and have you seen the cover oh be still my heart I love it so much. The graphic above is a promo bookmark, which you can get inside of a copy of Elizabeth’s “It’s Complicated,” or with a preordered copy of this game.

Preorders cost $24, with $5 shipping, national or international. I should have them before or right after GenCon. You can click this link to order one.

Along with the rules of the game, you’ll find lots of support material in the book. There’s an extensive filmography (by my friend Evan, a film student and all-round excellent dude; he worked his butt off on it), a chapter about tea, and a chapter about snacks to serve during the game—which ones you should buy and which you can make, and simple recipes for those—so you know everything you need to throw a Mist-Robed Gate dinner party. And the LARP rules too, if you’re into that kind of thing.

This is a game for enthusiasts, and the more you know about the genre, the more fun you’ll have with it. But, you don’t have to be familiar with the genre to play Mist-Robed Gate (Meg Baker wasn’t), and it plays well with large groups, so the more the merrier! Go nuts, play it with all your friends at once.

If you have any questions, go ahead and ask me in this post or go make some noise at the crosspost on Story-Games.

Would You Play?

So, there was some noise going on at Game Chef about “Would you play this game?”

To which I say, well, that’s not a super great question, now is it?

There’re a couple of reasons for that, but the first and foremost one is, Nobody wants to play every game. Like, in my case, I basically don’t want to play games unless I can imagine stuff that never happens in real life, and also I generally don’t like to have an uncertain grip on the fiction. If something’s within my rights to affect, then usually I want free rein to affect it however I choose.

Whereas, maybe you prefer games where anything can be wrested out of your grasp, in the appropriate conjunction of circumstances, or maybe you like games that are really close to the ground, and if things happen in them that can’t happen for real, it takes you out. Okay. That’s fine.

But what that means is that there are some games that I’ll play that you won’t play, or vice versa, because of facts about ourselves.

The early history of storygaming effectively masked this phenomenon by being dominated by games like The Pool, Shadows, etc., in which strong genre or color reinforcement was absent. This makes it possible for many groups to play The Pool, and one group can play “Magic Swords,” another group can play “Furry Noir,” and a third group can play “Domestic Abuse Dance Theatre,” while all still nominally playing the same game. I’m going to call these games “colourless.” Even apparently coloured games from this era, like Trollbabe, have strong Internet traditions of being hacked shallowly to play with different colour (in Trollbabe, one usually just changes the names of some things), in part because they don’t systematically resist this treatment. Try doing the same thing to a more strongly coloured game like Polaris or carry and you’ll find it’s not as easy!

The reason I’m going of about colourless games is that they’re important to the “would you play this game?” question: By removing colour from the question, they allow the answer to be “yes” for more players, and as a result, they act like social glue. The people that played Furry Noir and the people that played Domestic Abuse Dance Theatre have some common ground to talk about their games, because their system text (distinct from Baker Care Bear Stare system) is the same.

Since “talking about games we play” is the most accessible social glue we have in common (as an Internet community, the standard “hanging out” glues are harder to come by), this creates a social pressure to play the same games as other people even if you don’t share tastes with them.

But that doesn’t change the fact that, even given unlimited time and resources, I wouldn’t play exactly the same games as you, and it’s not personal. I just like some stuff you don’t, and you like some stuff you don’t.

Thats the other issue about “Would you play this game?” too. That is, can I play this game? I don’t mean, “Is it possible in an ideal world?” I mean, “Given my resources of material, friends, and time, and my current social calendar and priorities, would I make this game fit into my life?”

The answer to this question almost always has to be “no.” We just don’t have that much time on our hands.

So, I mean, it’s not a terrible question, but it is ambiguous, and to answer it in a way that’s useful to the person who asked, you’ve got to know which question they’re asking and which you’re answering.

Your Father’s Armor

I made a character sheet for Riley Madison’s cool Mulan game, Your Father’s Armor.

Raise the Red Lantern

So, on the way to Kelly’s Pesach Seder, Josh and Elizabeth and I developed a LARP hack for the Mist-Robed Gate.

It’s easy.

There’re some central facilitator tasks that you’ll need to assign to somebody, and that person probably shouldn’t play a character, but they may be an audience member, which means they participate in the wirework vote and can frame scenes. Whenever you get to the end of a scene, you should come back to see the facilitator, get a recap of what scenes happened while you were away, deliver your own recap, and then see who’s at the top of the ’scene frame’ list. That person gets to frame a scene immediately with whoever’s present, or you can wait a small amount of time for another scene to end, if you need a character that’s somewhere else and it looks like they’ll be done soon.

You don’t have cards for props and sets. Instead, you should play in a place with several distinct rooms, and you have a supply of physical objects that you’re allowed to use as props. When you need a new set, you assign the set to an unused room, and when you need a new prop, you assign it to a physical object. You own props by carrying them on your person, so you need to think a little about this; if you use a real replica sword without a hanger as a sword prop, you’ll need to keep it in your hand, whereas if you use a pocketknife, you can stick it in your pocket.

You don’t use a real knife for the knife. Instead, each set has a colour-coded lantern; when the knife is covered, there are no lanterns. When the knife is uncovered, the facilitator hangs white lanterns in every set. When the knife is drawn, the lanterns are changed to yellow, and when it is bloodied for the first time, they are changed to red. If you don’t have lanterns, you can use flags or scarves or something. To show that you have the knife, make the ’sword finger’ gesture: Extend your second and middle fingers together, and curl up the thumb, ring, and pinkie. Point the sword finger at the person you are passing the knife to. To signal acceptance, kneel and touch the sword finger to the ground. To stab a person, touch them against the throat or collarbone with your sword finger.

When wirework begins, ring a gong to summon all the players so they can watch and vote.

You should dress up so we can see your character’s colour in your outfit.

That’s basically it.

Fledgelings: Playtesting the Epistle and the Gate

Hi, friends! Since we last talked I’ve been very busy. I’ve been fortunate enough to playtest Risalat al-Ghufran and the Mist-Robed Gate twice, and we’ve learned a lot. I’m also really seeing and benefiting from having access to a large pool of strong players. It’s pretty great.

We played Risalat with myself, Elizabeth, and Alexis, and in that playtest we realised that its rules are much heavier than they need to be; after we threw some out the window, it was streamlined and compelling. The rotating cast of characters is thrilling to me; they add a lot of richness and texture, but at the same time, they hold the action down to a human scale. It’s lovely.

We played a second time, Elizabeth, Joshua A.C. Newman, Emily and I, and that went pretty well too. The text needs some serious updating, but we’ve got the flow of play down, and it’s what I want.

I already wrote about the first playtest of the Mist-Robed Gate; we put our heads together and set up an action sequence system that resolves some of those issues, and also includes an adjustable pacing dial. We tested that out with a staggeringly large group, and it worked splendidly. Meguey Baker at Fair Game and Jonathan Walton at one thousand one beat me to the blogging punch (Thanks, guys! <3 ), so go see them for a rundown of the action. Thanks to everyone who played!

I’m really happy with the way the game handles larger groups; now we’ve just got to run it a few times with a smaller group, and we’re all set. I’m also thinking about explicitly supporting non-character players in a couple of different ways.

As a parting gift, go see Pingmag’s update on graphic design in China, and this beautiful honey package at the DieLine. It’s pretty sweet.

The Mist-Robed Gate: How it does in action

My dear Elizabeth has posted a great AP of the Mist-Robed Gate at the Forge, which unfortunately is being lame and keeps giving me 503 errors when I attempt to reply, so I’m going to post my aborted response here instead of losing it to the ether. If you were present at the game, or you weren’t but you have some thoughts, I’d love for you to share them with us.

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I’m so glad you enjoyed it! I was very pleased with the way the knife ritual worked in play. I also want to thank everyone for, like, taking a risk and playing in the first playtest of my game; I know those tend to be kinda rough, and you all really contributed to the game in play, and gave me a lot of good stuff to think about.

It’s really great, also, to hear what worked in play, but let’s also talk about what didn’t…I am trying to remember what happened there, and the critiques from the table that I remember most clearly were:

• The meaning of the distinction between viewpoint and non-viewpoint characters is non-obvious.
• We would like a formal option for choosing who shall frame scenes and who may/must be in those scenes. There’s some opportunity for managing spotlight time in here.
• The value of props and sets isn’t very clear; they appear to be simply colour generators, and that is not satisfying. Perhaps there is a way to add mechanical value here.
• There is an issue with pacing of action scenes such as kung fu fights, namely, there is no guidance for this, and no incentive to have kung fu fights.
• Sometimes it seems like the escalation of the knife ritual is premature or excessive; there could be a way to mitigate this.

Are there any major issues I’ve missed? I have some solutions in mind for these, but I’d like to know where the gaps in my observation are, too.

Burning for You

So, at Jiffycon, we did get to play Annalise, which was…well, I have nothing but good to say about this game. It’s rich and textured and I met a new friend and really why am I doing this when Elizabeth has me covered. The Mist-Robed Gate was a lot of fun too, and I learned a lot from the session. I’m diving back into the text now to make revisions based on my brilliant playtesters’ critiques. More on that later.

While at the Mike Doughty concert tonight, I wrote a miniature game, and I thought I’d share:

Carrying a Torch

an autobiographical roleplaying game

So, you remember the first person you really loved? The first person you really hurt or hated? The way it changed you? That’s what this game is about.

Carrying a Torch is a story about how your relationships can have really pervasive, intense effects on your psychology, even long after those relationships have changed or moved on.

To play, you need a group of people who are pretty close, and some writing instruments, a number of smallish moveable markers such as Parcheesi pawns, and character sheets. The character sheets are laid out to support at most six characters, but in principle there’s no reason not to play with more. Each player will have one character; you get to say what that character says and does.

Start by describing a close-knit group of people. Fill out the top part of your character sheet; write down the character’s name and something about him. Then, choose an archetype card for each of the other characters; don’t tell them which archetype you chose. In the bottom half of the archetype card, write the character’s name. This card indicates what that character means to your character; it’s a lens by which he looks at their interactions.

Take a look at an archetype card if you haven’t already; you’ll see that it has a name on top, a meter down the right side, and two halves labelled “Heal me” and “Hurt me.” The meter tells you how good you’re feeling about that character at the moment; it starts in the centre point, at equilibrium. When you interact with this character, if they do the thing in “Heal me,” it makes you feel good, and if they do the other thing, it makes you feel bad. It doesn’t so much matter what else they do. When an archetype card says, “me,” it means you, not the archetype. It represents what you say to the archetype.

So, when they heal you, first nudge the marker on their meter one notch upward. Now, if the marker’s in the top half of the meter, then move the big meter on your character sheet toward the good end as many spaces as the marker is distant from the center, and if it’s in the centre or in the bottom half, only move it one space. That is to say, if you’re in a pattern of healing interactions with that character, then they affect you more, and it has more influence on your holistic well-being.

That’s what the big meter is, by the way, and notice that I didn’t decide for you which end is the good end, so you’re going to have to make that decision and record it ASAP.

Now, when they hurt you, it works a similar way; nudge their meter down and read it like the heal meter, but reversed; if it’s in the good half, then it only takes you down a notch, but if it’s in the bad half then you can go down several notches.

Now you’ll see that your meter has some big Os on it, at the ±5 and ±10 marks as well as the dotted-O at equilibrium. If an interaction makes you cross just one of the fives, then your character does something big in his life. If it was +5, then it’s a thing that improves your life. If it’s –5, then it’s a decision that’s ultimately bad, but it looks fine for now. The next time someone hurts you, they’ll let you know why it wasn’t such a great idea.

That’s not the only thing that happens! You reset your meter to 0, and the character that caused this turn in your life turns over. You choose a new archetype to represent him, or you choose a different character and a different archetype to occupy that spot in your character sheet.

Finally, you imprint that archetype. Set the turned-over archetype card to the side; now all characters can heal or hurt you in that way, to the tune of their own relationship meters. If they’re a character that doesn’t have an archetype for you, then their meter always reads 0. If you have to decide whether a character’s healing or hurting you because an imprint and their archetype disagree, then follow their archetype.

If an interaction makes you cross two Os, which is to say that it goes from less-than-ten to ten or more, or makes you cross 0 and a 5, then all that stuff above happens, but you imprint asymmetrically. If you were healed, cross out the hurt on that card. If you were hurt, cross out the heal. Only the interaction that remains affects you.

You might run out of archetypes eventually. Maybe you should, like, stop playing.

Another Bird; Eggs in the Nest

I’d like to share Sugarcrane with you. They are a jewelry-design group that makes really striking, masculine accessories with an interesting tinge of the multicultural and the antique, but with a modern edge. I kind of see them as the jewelry makers for Final Fantasy games; there is something of that fusion vibe in their work.

Plus, it’s stuff that I’d really like to wear.

It’s February 29, and a chance to make a 2-29 post only comes every four years, so I thought I’d take it today. I don’t have a lot to talk about, except for my Jiffycon Boston plans; I’m going to play Annalise with Nathan, and if things work out right, I’ll run the Mist-Robed Gate in the afternoon, although there is some whispering in the wind about doing a shot of Snow from Korea instead.

I’m really excited about Annalise. Nathan and I played it recently, as a two-player game, and it really rocks out. Having more people to play with will be super-interesting, too, as I didn’t get to see its secrets mechanics in action.

Whichever game I end up running, I’m a little apprehensive. Snow has shown its chops a couple of times, but it’s in dire need of an update to the text. It’s also got some complicated bits around the edges, that could do with some trimming. On the other side, Gate is really lean and tight, but it might be lean to the point of emaciation; I’m not sure that the rules provide all the content that we need to play it, without myself in attendance. It also hasn’t shown its function in actual play.

I’m leaning toward trying out Gate if I can get some willing persons, but I’ll be bringing Snow to fall back on.

Long Ago, the people were fighting at the end of the world…

a Polaris~Exalted game, by S. Musgrave, S. Sampat, and E. Shoemaker.

BUT HOPE WAS NOT YET LOST, FOR VENDIR HASTLEBROOK STILL HEARD THE CALL OF THE SUN…

The waves parted obligingly for Vendir’s royal canoe. All was still on the oceans of the world today; even the gulls were silent. Only the sound of water splashing on the canoe paddle could be heard. And, in that splash, a footstep, a sandaled foot landing in the back of the canoe. Assassins. Vendir did not take his eyes off of the water, now ruined with the ripples of his would be murderers. he slowly dropped the reed he had been stirring the water with “You should know that this is a private vessel.” Cold knives, still dripping seawater, touch Vendir just below each ear. It runs down to the hollow of his throat. One presses harder, draws blood.

Vendir looked up to the assassin, his eyes much more serious. “You mean to kill me here, I take it? I have a pretty good guess where you’re from.” The waters surrounding the boat begin to stir. A metallic fin surges above the water’s edge in a accelerating cycle about Vendir’s boat. “Are you sure you wouldn’t want to back out now, brothers?”

“The killing of kings is an amateur sport. We are only here to watch you while our brethren salt your fields, flood your armouries, poison your granaries, and otherwise kill everyone you care about.” A curl of smoke rises from the shore, edged with an ominous alchemical purple.

“There’s no time to waste then.” And in a moment, the metallic fin underneath the water reveals itself, a huge sword who’s blade is rigged to its handle with an extending chain, jumps out of the water by itself, blowing straight through one assassin and into Vendir’s hand, from where he cleaves another.

BUT ONLY IF one entire village is already lost.

BUT ONLY IF Vendir is able to swim to shore before anymore major damage.

AND THAT WAS HOW IT HAPPENED, SO IT WAS.

BUT HOPE WAS NOT YET LOST, FOR ANEMONE PEARL-EATER STILL FELT THE WARMTH OF THE SUN…sitting on a small spy vessel, another clan-member eagerly presenting her with an oyster so that she might provide the clan with insight into this tumultuous battle, her brother Sindbad watching the grey-purple smokes rise up from the shore. Languidly, Anemone runs a single finger along the contours of the mother-of-pearl shell, its creamy sheen glowing slickly brilliant in the light. “Only one village shall fall today, but it will feel like ten.” Her eyes flickered to her brother. “The coast will be thick with purple fog in a fortnight.” The shell seems to vibrate in her hand, almost as if in pleasure. It opens up, and reveals a quite strangely large pearl that is black as midnight, and sparkles with a forboding radiance. Her eyes go wide. “Black pearls mean black hearts. Dark desires.”

Sindbad presses the oyster closed. “One doesn’t need to consult the sea to see that.” He doesn’t release her hand.

Anemone smirks a bit. “Dark desires are ever present, aren’t they?”

Sindbad licks his lips. “Oh yes. Have you -seen- that delicious prince of the land people? He will make a delightful cabin boy.”

The purple smoke on the shore seems to dissipate. The attending clan member runs to the side of the boat to spy on it with the attached spy-glass, searching for the sight of his confidant on the shore village, but he’s nowhere to be found.

Anemone raises a brow. “He is quite lovely, though not half as lovely as you, dear brother. It would be nice to keep him.”

“You are lovelier still, my pearl.”

“Miss Anemone! Somethings gone wrong! I smell a foul trap! Please, the pearl.”

Anemone daintily pries open the oyster and drops the pearl into Sindbad’s palm. “Do you mind?” She asks, parting her lips. The attending clan member pulls on his hair as he watches the couple take their leisurely time, but holds his tongue until Sindbad feeds her the pearl. The seer’s eyes roll back in her head, and her brows knit in concentration.

“One of our assassins.. he is in love with a girl from the prince’s kingdom. He sabotaged our efforts. He has a scar below his left eye.” As Anemone eats the pearl, she is jolted by the visions of what she sees. Her marauding clan, snickering as they tear through the lands of Hastlebrook. Giant machines in the shape of men shooting out the fires of hell from their arms to burn them to cinders. Herself in the Arms of Vendir, licking his naked chest. Herself kneeling above the bloody, motionless body of her brother Sindbad, dropping the weapon that battered him. The visions stagger her into a seizure on the floor of the boat.

BUT ONLY IF Sindbad opens his eyes at the end of the vision.

AND FURTHERMORE, As Sindbad opens his eyes, he sees his sister covered head to toe in red blood, her eyes the emotionless holes of a remorseless slaughterer. (Betrayal of the People)

AND FURTHERMORE, As the camera zooms out, Vendir is revealed, blue and dead, Anemone’s hair twisted around his neck. (Betrayal of the Sun.)

AND FURTHERMORE, Anemone feels that it is impossible to struggle against this fate, and views it with inevitability and lust at her conquest of Vendir. She gets experience and the Aspect, Fate: “Conquest of Vendir”. (Forbidden Love.)

AND THAT WAS HOW IT HAPPENED.

The attendant Clan member grabs Sindbad as her sister shakes on the floor “Fughadabout her!! They need us on the shore! Get in the water!”

Sindbad pushes him aside long enough to hold Anemone still just for a split second and plant a kiss on her lips; then he steps out onto the waves, gliding over them like shifting sand, drawing his red-veined salt crystal sword. At the kiss, Anemone slumps into slumber.

AND SO IT WAS, BUT THAT ALL HAPPENED LONG AGO, AND NOW THERE ARE NONE WHO REMEMBER IT.