[Kim & Marshall] Revision and playtesting (split)

[Hans Chung-Otterson]

We played, last Sunday. The game is now called "Kim & Marshall", and here's the draft, along with the sheets you need to play the game (Pressure 1, Pressure 2, Kim, Marshall, and Marshall's Cards).

It worked! By and large. My instinct is to write a really long post detailing the game, but when I've done those in the past they don't seem very helpful or to garner much feedback.

In the game, there are 3 or 4 players: Kim, Marshall, and one or two Pressure players, who set scenes and apply pressure to the relationship. Kim and Marshall are newly married, and Marshall is a newly-minted superstar rapper.

Basically what happened is that Kim and Marshall were framed into scenes where they had to deal with some sort of pressure on their relationship. The only tools they have to deal with this are broken ones: Kim can Appeal to the things that drive Marshall, like his love for her, to force him to do what she wants. Marshall, on the other hand, can simply control the fiction from outside of it--erasing something that was said and putting new words in Kim's mouth, or erasing an entire scene, etc.

In the game this worked really well, though there were some funky bits. There was a chilling scene where Kim and a friend were discussing her relationship over coffee. The Pressure was "infamy". The friend was concerned for Kim's safety, as she'd seen so much bad press about Marshall--how he was violent, a drug addict, etc. Kim said things were fine, but eventually let slip that Marshall had hit her, once. Immediately Marshall's player (not in the scene), spent a resource and forced her to say something different. What came out was a defense of Marshall. Confession erased.

Jackson Tegu, one of the playtesters, brought up an interesting design focusing lens, that I hadn't considered with this much clarity before. He mentioned that this is probably not the type of game that people are going to find and study to learn how to play. It is also probably not the type of game that someone will play over and over again in rapid succession. It is probably the type of game that someone will pitch in a laid-back convention scenario, and everyone will be learning it together. As such, it has too many mechanics. There's a mechanic where Kim can bring back things that have been revised out of the fiction, and has to roll a die and see what happens, but that never came up in our game. And it feels like fat. Too fiddly.

There are a few things like that, and I'll be giving the game a hard look in the coming weeks and producing a revised playtest draft. The text also needs some clarity about what exactly "revised out of the fiction" means, as it's a nebulous and confusing concept as it is right now.

In any case, though: a success so far! I really poured a lot of myself into this one, and I'm very happy that it does what I wanted it to do, broadly. I was ready to toss this concept in the trash after the first try didn't work, and I decided to give it one more shot. I'm glad I did, and I'm very thankful for all the feedback and support I've gotten so far for this weirdo concept. I'm ready to keep working.

Oh, and Ron: good call on not requiring technical proficiency. There's no longer any rapping procedure in the game, but we had a scene that called for a rap battle, and it worked really well with folks relying on the tools they had: description of the general message of the rap with some rhymed phrases thrown in here or there.

I'd be happy to answer any questions about our particular fiction and how the game created that.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Hans,

There's a lot to ask about, but the first response is definitely a big Yay! I still get a rush when I try it for the first time, or see someone try it, and it actually flies.

I'm interested in the fiction, but not as a blow-by-blow per game mechanic. I'm interested in whether they split up, whether they reconciled the tension among the conflicting issues ... basically the outcome of the relationship in this instance of play. Also, how long did it take in real time?

I agree with Jackson entirely; I'm considering many of the same issues regarding It Was a Mutual Decision as I wrote about recently. In fact, I suggest checking that game out if you've never seen it. There are some definite parallels, most especially at the largest level, that play is often opportunistic with most players never having seen it before.

My first impression at your description of Marshall's player revising Kim's dialogue was a bit horrified (not at the game design, but the basic content), but then I re-considered. If I'm reading you right, that player just handed Kim's player a golden opportunity in the long run: disparity between her experience and her narrative of it. At the least, this is plain old dramatic tension, which is great; at the most, it's a great opportunity for Kim eventually to realize (or at least for an audience to realize, if not her) that she may have habits of speech to cover up the pain, but her actions are still her own.

That's pending my understanding of the rule, which as you describe it, might be a lot more broad than just modifying speech. Can the Marshall player change Kim's actions?

Oh wait, you provided the text and stuff. I'll check it out.

Best, Ron

[Hans Chung-Otterson]

I'm interested in the fiction, but not as a blow-by-blow per game mechanic. I'm interested in whether they split up, whether they reconciled the tension among the conflicting issues ... basically the outcome of the relationship in this instance of play. Also, how long did it take in real time?

They did not reconcile. Either Kim or Marshall can end the game at any time, just by declaring it. The Pressure players can do the same if they both agree. There was a funny thing going on where all the folks I played with assumed ticking the "End It" box meant the game AND the relationship were over. So there was no definitive moment where they broke up, but when we as the Pressure players ended the game it felt to us that the relationship had ended--maybe not here, in this moment, but in some essential sense it was dead.

Jackson again had an insightful comment, saying that Kim and Marshall staying together is not a happy ending, given the fiction we had (Marshall cheated in front of their daughter, clearly he had abused Kim at some point, etc.). I had written the game assuming that there could be good outcome for the characters (per your comment of "Slim Shady might be right", which I read as not predetermining the moral outcomes of the game), but now that seems less and less likely. It feels like a tragedy. To have a good outcome, the players would have to essentially ignore the mechanics and not play the game.

The game took between three and four hours, probably not as long as four. We played longish, slow-burning scenes (which the game wants; it tells the Pressure players to let things play out).

My first impression at your description of Marshall's player revising Kim's dialogue was a bit horrified (not at the game design, but the basic content), but then I re-considered. If I'm reading you right, that player just handed Kim's player a golden opportunity in the long run: disparity between her experience and her narrative of it. At the least, this is plain old dramatic tension, which is great; at the most, it's a great opportunity for Kim eventually to realize (or at least for an audience to realize, if not her) that she may have habits of speech to cover up the pain, but her actions are still her own.

The rule as it is written right now is that Marshall can revise (or make the other player revise, for a lesser cost to him) one or two sentences that the player has said. So he can revise actions as well. I see your point, though. There's a danger that Kim's player will become more and more disconnected as they feel less and less control over the character. There is also a mechanic in the game for Kim attempting to re-establish, once and for all, things that Marshall has revised out of the fiction. As I said before I think that needs some re-tooling, but I do think Kim being able to do that in some capacity is necessary to the game. I wanted Kim's player to feel frustrated so that she would come back and try to really pin the truth down on Marshall--"No, you did hit me." Whether letting Marshall control Kim's actions is going too far is something I'm still foggy on.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Hans,

If you can stand yet more advice - and stop me if your Ron-input meter is maxed - then I'd suggest not revising much, if anything, until you can play this version some more. The reasons I'm suggesting this come from your post.

First, I see Jackson's point, but the crucial part for me is that he rightly tagged that particular group's fiction at that particular time as a key factor. It's true that if you have one main character go over the moral event horizon, then there's not much else to do with the story than simply finish it out. And that's not a bad thing either. But my point is that if the game does not dictate that this must happen, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't, then the more-or-less unsalvageable quality of the relationship isn't dictated either. I think your statement "To have a good outcome, the players would have to essentially ignore the mechanics and not play the game," works for this time, but doesn't necessarily apply to the game as well as it applies to this instance of play. This session's events are one way the story can go, as the game is currently written, and I think the current version deserves some more times around the track to see some of the other ways it can go.

Second, I don't think the Marshall player's editorial privileges are necessarily broken or player-disempowering, at least not without a few more tries at the rules past the learning curve. The idea of Kim struggling to achieve more in her life while being apparently sabotaged by her own inability to act fully in her best interest seems like a good one to me, with the net effect being that the Kim player gets to act completely as Kim's advocate, letting the Marshall player contribute her self-stopping or inhibited habits.

Best, Ron

[Hans Chung-Otterson]

I think that's good advice, Ron. There are a few small things that I definitely want to tweak before playing it again (the cost of one of Marshall's revision powers, probably nixing one of his confusing powers that doesn't seem to have much use), but other than that, I like your assessment of the situation. I will play it a few more times. I like the idea that the relationship doesn't have to go into the territory of the utterly unredeemable, and I want to see if that can happen.

[Hans Chung-Otterson]

I played this again today, with Orion Canning and Ben Lehman. Orion played the Pressure, Ben played Marshall, and I played Kim.

Again, it worked. Still surprised.

We didn't have a happy-go-lucky relationship, but we also "Ended It" when we realized the relationship, as messed up as it was (and not without its weird moments of sweetness), was not going to end. It seems that choosing to End It is more and more becoming a thing we do when we realize there's been a shift one way or the other--either the relationship is clearly going to end, or it's not, and once we figure that out through play the game is over. We don't need to see the long tail of how it shakes out.

Ben also commented that, during the setup, when he realized all of Marshall's powers and that everything important on Kim's character sheet was related to Marshall, that it seemed sexist to him (please correct me, Ben, if you're around and I've misquoted you; I'm going on tired con-day memory here).

However, he said, in play it definitely wasn't--in fact, all of Marshall's powers really made Kim into our protagonist, as we watch her weather the silencing and abuse. That was not something I had actually considered before.

We had some interesting use of Kim's Appeal powers as well, but as that has changed from the draft that's up here I'll refrain from discussing it until I post the new draft.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Hans,

Great to see it coming together. Was there any rapping this time? That's the part that seems the most unlikely to me upon reading which I'd also anticipate to be entirely unpredictable based on merely reading. (I wish there were a better way to say this; it's an important concept regarding game design and game text writing.)

My impression from the very first version you posted was that play would be all about Kim as the protagonist. Whether that's intrinsic to the design, to the subject, or to the audience, I have no idea.

Best, Ron

[Hans Chung-Otterson]

Ron,

No rapping this time. As part of the set-up, Marshall's player crosses off certain actions that will give him points during the game, and "Rap" is one of those he can cross off. Ben, playing Marshall, crossed off rap.

The thing is, by "Rap" I don't mean the player has to rap. I just mean he has to narrate it, or describe it or whatever. I think that's unclear. We did have a scene at a concert where Ben did just that, though. He just didn't get any points for it.

As for Kim-as-protagonist, I think I'm happy leaving it as-is and letting people decide in play. She'll probably often end up that way, for the reasons Ben stated, but I'm not sure if I need to call it out like that. I want people to orient themselves toward the relationship, and not toward pre-deciding who we're caring about.