[Grey Ranks] Full Playtest, Session Three

[Jason Morningstar]

Last night my group wrapped up the Grey Ranks playtest with session three.  I'm am happy to report that they tore into it like starving hyenas and I saw some astonishingly good stuff going on.  The fates of their unfortunate crew were genuinely moving, and the sacrifices they made were horrific. 

Session three is rough - it's supposed to be rough; the "48 hour Uprising" is closing in on its second month, there's no food or ammo, and the Germans are flogging the Home Army back into Old Town street by street.  We saw huge and important reincorporation of almost all the named NPCs created in the first two sessions, and everyone was driving hard toward their chosen end.  It seemed like everyone had gotten the hang of the extremely aggressive scene framing that really makes the game zazzle - at one point Joel's mission scene for Steve began "OK, we're trapped beneath an abandoned police station, the position has been overrun and there is no way to escape.  They are coming for us.  Steve?"

Another emergent element that was extremely cool to witness was the malleability of time that the game accommodates so easily.  Mike's character Józek got narrated into a scene, heroically helping a crew-mate escape German custody, and in a later scene that was framed as a flashback, he was shot and killed (Józek had visited the derangement corner for a second time in scene seven).  So ... what's up with that?  It hardly matters - he could have been a ghost, an illusion, mistaken identity, wishful thinking, or maybe it really was him.  Mike decided Józek wasn't actually dead, and that he had one last act of atonement for his miserable crimes.  He framed a later scene that got him from "shot in the belly and left for dead" to "rescue my friend!", and he burned all his remaining resources to do it, including the thing he held dear - his friends.  Awesome.

Something else I observed that was genuinely cool was the use of late-game personal scenes that were pre-ordained to failure (players who'd used all their resources and just didn't have the die mojo to succeed) used to fill in gaps in the narrative through flashbacks.  It seemed vary natural and was really fun in play.

Surprisingly, late-game scenes weren't all meat grinders - there was a good amount of success, and the players had shepherded their resources well.

Procedurally, I learned a lot.  The guys were well acquainted with the system and had a ton of great feedback.  Here's what I saw:

I need to simplify the scene requirements based on die size (easily done).  People just ignored the "individual/crew" dichotomy when they had a particularly appropriate failure or success anyway.

I need to talk about resource use strategy in the text a bit, and limit players to using only one of each resource in any one scene (one thing held dear, one of each reputation, the end)

As a tip, I need to suggest that people introduce a load of NPCs early in the game, and to name every one of them.  They will return, and it will be fun.

I need to add a "recap" phase explicitly at the beginning of each session.

I the text, I need to add some stuff about choosing character goals and pushing hard for them, explaining that there is no "correct" choice related to successful outcome.

Chapters 7,8, and 9 went a bit faster than earlier ones (44, 45, and 32 minutes), which is actually good, since there is an epilogue tacked on to the third session. 

Characters, at the end of the game.  Situation elements and notes, session three.  Photos when I get a chance. 

All in all a very successful playtest!

[Valamir]

Another emergent element that was extremely cool to witness was the malleability of time that the game accommodates so easily.  Mike's character Józek got narrated into a scene, heroically helping a crew-mate escape German custody, and in a later scene that was framed as a flashback, he was shot and killed (Józek had visited the derangement corner for a second time in scene seven).  So ... what's up with that?  It hardly matters - he could have been a ghost, an illusion, mistaken identity, wishful thinking, or maybe it really was him.  Mike decided Józek wasn't actually dead, and that he had one last act of atonement for his miserable crimes.  He framed a later scene that got him from "shot in the belly and left for dead" to "rescue my friend!", and he burned all his remaining resources to do it, including the thing he held dear - his friends.  Awesome.

Tell me more.  If I follow you had scenes that take place at different points in time, and wound up with a classic "time paradox" situation.

Yet it seems like not only was that not an issue, that it was a bonus...what was it that made this something "extremely cool to witness" in practice instead of an "oh crap" moment...the game...the players...the situation...the procedures...other.

[Steve Segedy]

There was a bit of an "oh crap" moment, but we quickly realized that the narrative could handle the shift.  Essentially, each mission or personal scene feels a bit subject to perspective- is Josek really dead, or did Wanda and Henryk just think they killed him?  Was it really Josek who stepped in to save Maciek, or was Maciek just hallucinating from the vicious beating he'd taken?  Once it clicked for us that we had flexibility there, it became a lot of fun.

[Jason Morningstar]

...Yet it seems like not only was that not an issue, that it was a bonus...what was it that made this something "extremely cool to witness" in practice instead of an "oh crap" moment...the game...the players...the situation...the procedures...other.

I should note that the playtesters are all good friends of mine and great gamers who really dove into the material.

First of all mechanically there are two sorts of scenes, personal and mission, and every player gets one of each across eight chapters (plus a prologue and epilogue). 

It's expressly encouraged in the rules to interrupt somebody else's scene with a scene of your own, interleaving multiple events that comment on and add depth to one another.  Many of the personal scenes get framed as flashbacks, also encouraged and often easier to narrate than making them concurrent, and so it is natural that causality has the potential to take a beating.

Since the most of the game takes place during savage urban combat, and the player characters are teens who are generally involved in romantic relationships at the same time, the concept of an unreliable narrator isn't so far fetched.  It's also very easy to leave resolution of odd, potentially incongruous circumstances to another player in a later scene.  Mission scenes, for example, are supposed to be chained together to tell a coherent story.  But there's nothing restricting a player from initiating a scene with a late point of attack - even after the mission is over - and letting the others fill in the details.  That ends up being really cool in play. 

[Jason Morningstar]

Some photos...

The grid, chapter seven.  Chapter eight.  Chapter nine.
Success!  Failure!
At the table.  During play.

[Bryan Hansel]

Sounds great, Jason.

So, now what's the plan? I assume that you'll update the text and then run it through one more playtest. Is that correct? Also, you stated that your friends gave tons of great feedback, which is very cool. Could you describe a little about that feedback and how you go about encouraging feedback from a playtest session?

[Jason Morningstar]

Something else related to testing occurred to me - I'm not sure if it is specific to this project, but the way information is organized in play is turning out to be huge.  How things are represented on paper, at the table, is really important.  For example, my mock-up of the grid faces a single direction, but is viewed from four sides - so that needs some tweaking.  Every player needs ready access to every other player's character's status, as well as chapter-specific situation information.  There are things that need to be subtly tracked.  The visual design piece has been a puzzle.

[Jason Morningstar]

Sounds great, Jason.

So, now what's the plan? I assume that you'll update the text and then run it through one more playtest. Is that correct? Also, you stated that your friends gave tons of great feedback, which is very cool. Could you describe a little about that feedback and how you go about encouraging feedback from a playtest session?

Hey Bryan,

I'm very confident with the design at this point.  There will be some minor tweaks and some mathematical tests, but probably not another full session.

These guys are my dear friends and we've gamed together for many years, so they know me and my proclivities and weaknesses very well.  They've always been game to try out my stuff.  They also know that they can tell me what they think, which is heartening.  I think everyone came to the third and final session having played some and ruminated on the game, and everybody brought interesting criticisms and ideas with them.  We talked about these over dinner prior to play, and things came up during the game that I noted but discouraged discussion about.  After the game, we hashed this stuff out and I asked for overall feedback and additional comments.  So I didn't have a real plan for getting feedback, but trusted my crew to help out and tell me what they thought. 

As to their specific comments:  Hitting "the wall" of the grid should suck you toward the nearest corner, adding some determinism and danger (currently you pick which way to go, which is sometimes boring).  We all argued about this and I don't know what to do yet.

They offered tons of physical suggestions about in-play materials (see my previous post)

Lots of discussion about the use of reputation dice, whether they should be allowed to be invoked multiple times in one chapter, how to structure them effectively, whether there is an optimal use pattern, etc. 

Stuff like that. 

[andrew_kenrick]

Thanks for posting these playtests Jason - it's fascinating to read through the game in full.

Do you think the increased speed is due to the players increasing familiarity with how things work, or is there some other reason that the later chapters play out quicker?

Are you commenting on the malleability of time in the text? Do you think that the circumstance you describe with Jozek was unique, or could it pop up again in play?

[Jason Morningstar]

Hi Andrew,

I think the speed issue's answer is twofold - there is definitely a bit of familiarity after a couple of sessions, but going into the third session everyone has a very strong idea of what sort of outcome they are angling for, and the odds are long.  So there wasn't as much "free play". 

The whole time thing is, to a large part, group-specific.  I could easily envision a group that was more comfortable with a straightforward, linear narrative, and that would be fine.  I do encourage flashbacks and reincorporation, and honestly it would be hard to avoid them - they are really cool techniques that can add a lot to the game.  They aren't mechanically rewarded for that reason - it's a bit like hand-holding to offer a bonus for something that's fun and quite natural for an engaged player.  There's an example of a flashback interrupting another scene as well - I may tweak that to be more referential.

[GreatWolf]

Yo!  Just a couple of thoughts.

First, in light of our discussion over here about techniques emerging in playtest, I'm thinking that you will want to spell out the importance of reincorporation in the game text, as well as a definition of the term.  I noticed it several times in the playtest draft that I read, and, while I do happen to know what it means, I'm guessing that most people outside the improv theater world don't.  (Honestly, the only reason that I know about it is because of this Daedelus article.)  You'll probably also want a brief discussion about flashbacks and messing with timeflow, as you discuss up-thread.

Second, I'm facing a similar organizational issue with Dirty Secrets.  One of the lightbulb moments in the design was realizing that I can use this organization as a positive feature of play, not merely necessarily administrative mechanics.  So, for example, I'm wanting to draw out the implications of class, race, and political authority in my game.  This is reflected in part by where character cards are filed when not in use.  The board faces the investigator player, and the characters are filed around the board.  Police-type characters are at the top, ex-cons are at the bottom, with "normals" along the sides in order by social class (rich, middle-class, poor).  White characters are on the left, while non-whites are on the right.  As a result, what was originally a chaotic mess now has some order, but more importantly, that order serves to reinforce one of the underlying themes of the game.

So, for Grey Ranks, I don't know if you want to track NPCs on paper or not, but if you did, you might want to file by nationality (German, Polish, other) and allegiance (German-friendly, Polish-friendly).  That gives four broad categories, that might then be associated loosely with the four corners of the Grid (e.g. the martyrdom corner might be where the Polish-friendly Polish NPC cards live).

Or something like that.  Anyways, the point is to extract maximum use from even the administrative details of the game.  If possible, make all of it reinforce your game's thematic structure

[Jason Morningstar]

Yow, thanks for the good ideas, Seth.