[the Infected] Corporate Whores!

[Darcy Burgess]

Social Set-up
This past Wednesday (July 18, 2007), I had the opportunity to run the ashcan version of The Infected for a mixed group - the players included a long-time gaming buddy (Glenn W), two new-ish gaming pals (Lee O and Luke H), and a regular memeber of Lee & Luke's group who Glenn and I didn't know (Tim S).

Due to some scheduling (and geographic) hiccups, we started very late and only had about 3 hours to power through the entirety of play.  This included a quick explanation of the game's nature ("survival horror where the protags can become the monsters"), hitting a few of the system highlights (dice mechanics, infected dice, and NPC cards - all other mechanics were brought up as we hit them), and diving right in to the discussion phase of play.


Genre
Tim mentioned that he really liked the whole Shaun of the Dead inspiration, and was eager to play in that mode.  Having just played the Roach a couple of weeks ago, I wasn't really ready for such a madcap setting, and I mentioned this to the group.  Luke is apparently a "bad horror movie" junkie, and spat out a list of influences as long as my arm that he'd like to see in play (at the time I thought that I didn't know any of them, although I realized afterwards that I'd been wanting to see Slither - I'd just forgotten about it.)  At the brainstorming stage, Lee and Glenn were pretty silent.

In passing, I mentioned that it might be fun to play in a "totally buttoned-down corporate america" setting.  Tim immediately whooped and blurted out "Like Shaun of the Dead meets the Office!"  Everyone else was also pretty happy with that idea, so we moved forward.


Film Style
We settled on an overexposed look - probably low-budget indie, since the cinematographer is either a conceited Artiste or just plain old incompetent.


First Mistake
I realized that the rules say to deal out the Motivation cards before discussing anything, but I did them here.  I don't think that this broke the game in any way, shape or form.  I also took the opportunity to stress the rules about "when you take tokens off the cards" (some discussion about that over here in Fox River).  I phrased the rule like this: "If you say your character does something that moves them towards their goal, you take a token off the card.  If you don't, you're cheating!"  This was important, because I think it set our game up as different from other AP reports I've read (or gleaned inferences about).

Although the cards were still face-down at this point, this is what everyone got:
Tim: Wealth
Glenn: Power
Lee: Love
Luke: Truth


Characters
In keeping with our tight schedule, brainstorming this phase was really quick.  However, what the players came up with was great.  It worked really well (I don't remember character names, so I won't bother):

Tim: new middle-management guy, constantly on the schmooze, looking to get ahead
Glenn: tight-ass HR executive
Lee: the ubiquitous temp that everyone sees around, but no one knows (either personally, or in terms of "what does she do here?")
Luke: totally lazy slacker IT guy, who likes his job 'cuz it's easy, man!

My memory is a little foggy on exactly when, but we also decided what this company did somewhere around here.  I can't remember whether Glenn's character grew out of the Company, or vice versa.  Regardless, "StormCorp" specialized in providing management and administrative services to other companies.  It was at this point that I realized that Tim's earlier "Shaun meets the Office" idea was going to stick.  I wasn't thrilled with that route, but the players seemed happy, and it was getting them thinking.  With tongues planted firmly in cheeks, we moved on...


the Infection
During my pre-session prep, I decided to try out Eric's suggestion that the details of the Infection (physical changes, vector, source) could & should be a GM-held secret to be revealed in play.  I polled the players for ideas, but warned them that these ideas would likely only act as inspiration for what I came up with.  I took some quick notes, and came up with:

Physical: semi-spectral apparitions, soul-sucking powers, super-strength

Vector: something ubiquitous around the office (this was sketchy, and based on a player request for "reading the infected memo")  This was not firm in my head, and ended up morphing dramatically during play.  It ended up being "being near an Infected in a tense situation" - a completely meta-game criteria, rather than an in-game-reality thing.

Source: Luke joked about "a perfect storm" - the impossible combo of this kind of monitor radiation combined with such-and-such a mould in the HVAC system added to the lead in the pipes...etc.  I didn't end up keeping the idea (although that's where the company got its name).  I settled on some sort of super-secret black project that the company had undertaken, that had gone horribly wrong.  I didn't know what the project was, but at this point, I didn't care either.  (Just what sort of black project does a purely beaureaucratic firm undertake, anyway?  Stay tuned!)


Reel One
Although I had an idea for an opening scene frame (the company Christmas party), I kept it in reserve.  I explained that the scene-framing duties were shared among everyone, and mentioned that the game text was silent on how it was distributed.  I suggested that given our time constraints, the duties should go to "the first person who comes up with a neat idea".

As it turns out, that person was Tim.  Scene one took place around the water cooler, and by the end of that scene, Tim was the only one who hadn't revealed their character motivation and goal.  This is important, because later on, we discovered that Tim hadn't quite understood the "when you move a token" rule.  He had been "cheating" in Scene One, to his own frustration.  Here's how that played out:

He framed himself and Jamieson (NPC, executive assistant to some important dude) at the cooler.  He then launched into a spiel where he was trying to put Jamieson in his back pocket (which was part of his master plan for a promotion, and eventually cash).  What Tim didn't do was flip his motivation card and move a token off of it.  I took that as a sign that we were opening with some leisurely free-play - let's establish character and get the juices flowing.  I played Jamieson as a self-absorbed alpha-male type, who basically stonewalled Tim left, right and centre - he was way more interested in hitting on chicks than even listening to another guy!  Later on, Tim mentioned that my portrayal of Jamieson had really pissed him off -- he felt like I was playing favourites (not letting him pursue his goal).  That's when we revisited the whole token moving rule and Tim realized that if he'd done that, then I would have known that this interaction was something other than free-play.

Somewhere in here, Lee framed herself into the scene without any prompting.  She was after Jamieson for romantic reasons, and this was funny.

Luke and Glenn seemed a little lost for something to do, so I borrowed a technique from Jason Morningstar.

Me: to Luke and Glenn Which of you is bringing the bad news?
Glenn: What bad news?
Me: shaking head, looking stern Which of you is bringing the bad news?
Luke: Me!
Me: Cool. to Glenn What's the bad news?
Glenn: Umm...the company's openening a call centre in Anchorage (Alaska), and they're going to transfer a team up there to run it.
All: Cool!

By the end of the scene, all the other protags had been to the water cooler, and we'd had the following conflicts:

Could Lee get Jamieson to notice her undying love for him?  (No, he gave her his lunch order instead.  And he stuck her with the tab!)
Could Glenn get the peons to fear him, since he was deciding who shipped out to the great white north?  (Hell yes!  They even scuttled off to do his bidding!)
Could Luke circumvent the whole "who's getting transferred" thing by claiming that the servers were down? (Fuck no!  I don't care why the servers are down, get them back up!  We've got lives to ruin!)

What's important to note here is that Tim was the only player who didn't get a conflict, and that everyone else (who played the token rule) not only got conflicts, but all of their conflicts were around a player motivation (Luke opposed Glenn, so he didn't happen to get a conflict of his own).

Data point: we found that once that initial scene was going, the game played very easily -- there was next-to-no paralysis in terms of "oh god, what's the next scene going to be about?"  Ideas flowed pretty freely.  However, I also have to admit that I did a great deal of the scene framing.  If we'd been able to assume a more leisurely pace, I'd like to think that I could have kept quiet more often.

By the end of Reel One, all protags had revealed their goals (Tim was looking to get rich, Luke was getting all Mulder on the company, Lee was trying to find love, and Glenn was trying to take over the place), the infection had been revealed, and the mystery surrounding the "black project" had been revealed.

Oh, and Matrix-esque Agents of the Federal Agency of Such-and-Such (exact quote) had locked the building down and were seizing everything that they could get their hands on.

If I'm not mistaken, Jamieson also took 2 in the chest in a running gun fight between some Agents and Carl from Physical Resources (who was the first NPC to manifest the infection).  It was tons of fun to play this schmoozy bastard who wouldn't acknowledge his sucking chest wound.  Yay!


Reel Two
Reel two had all of the best scenes in the game.  From the opener (Lee having her lunch "date" with Jamieson, who was bleeding out in the hallway), to the "engine" scene (two Smiths interrogating Luke and Glenn, the assumption being that they're separated.  Only by the end of the scene do we discover that they're actually in adjoining cubicles and are totally hearing everything the other is saying!), there was the revelation scene where we discover that the black project is in fact that StormCorp made a deal with Azmodeus Caine for "one thousand units of employee control software" (souls!).  Oh!  There was the madcap race to the infernal server room (in sub-basement 13!), and tons of other hijinx.

The whole "black project" thing really shone during Reel Two, and by the end of the reel all NPCs but Jamieson were either Infected or Monsterized.

Oh, and Luke sacrificed the company shaman to the infernal Server to gain access to the Black Op files  (Sorry 'bout that Harry!)


Reel Three
Reel three was cut short by my real-life cinderella hour.  However, something had become patently obvious to everyone: even though all of the players had been pushing very hard at their character goals, it wasn't likely that any of them would achieve them -- they had no infected dice, and with all of the NPCs (save Jamieson) infected or monsterized, I could turn traitor on them as I saw fit (and being the mean sonafabitch that I am, I would).  The PCs need infected dice -- without them, they lean more heavily on the NPCs, which in turn leads to a bit of a death spiral (albeit a fun one!).


Observations

• I don't know if its kosher to have NPCs "monster out" in the fiction before they've taken Harm (or even get named on a card for that matter), but that's what happened with Carl in Reel One.  He was totally just "some guy", and then he just went apeshit.  It was cool.
  
• Risking NPCs to get your way is excellent!  Several times players chose not to get Desperate or Crazed because they didn't want to risk the NPCs -- sometimes it was purely strategic, and other times, it was because they really really liked them, and didn't want to see them infected!  This dynamic is awesome.
  
• Defying all probabilities, I only rolled a single one on any of my infected dice (and then Lee got desperate, and I lost it!).  Even though we didn't finish Reel Three, I burned up a total of 13 infected dice over the game, and I rerolled enough due to D&C that a good 20-26 infected dice hit the table overall.  Obviously, my mottled orange d6s hate me.  However, this pointed out two really important facts:
  1) even if the protags don't get infected, the game is still tons of fun -- it's just that they're all going to live!
  2) if you don't get infected, holy shit, you burn through NPCs like crazy.  AND you still fail a lot.
  
• It was a wonderful coincidence that Jamieson (the most despicable NPC) was completely untouched by the infection by game's end -- and equally awesome that it meant he had total plot immunity.  Need someone to shoot?  Jamieson!  Zombie mistress needs to bludgeon a protag with a handy object?  Jamieson!  I need a convenient McGuffin for the players to chase?  Zombie horde steals Jamieson!
  
• I really think that the rules for Desperate and Crazed are too restrictive -- the text should be altered to allow groups to author their own criteria for escalating.  In our game, we kept on trying to be "Sneaky and Backstabby" - it just suited our setting more that "Desperate and Crazed".  I think that the reroll criteria should be the Infected's version of Sorcerer's descriptors.
  
• We were pushing insanely hard to finish the game within the time allowed.  If we'd had a full four hours, we could have done it...just.  However, nearly getting there involved a lot of me steamrollering over the players just to keep things moving.  I think that the pacing tool (4/7/10 dice with spend rates of 1/2/3) needs to be accelerated, or drop the conceit that the game is playable in "a convention slot" -- where I live, most cons run 4 hour slots.  It's an awefully tight fit.
  
• This is a related point to my pacing concerns.  Given the goal of a "tight" game, the GM will tend to play infected dice as quickly as possible.  This translates to 4 conflicts per Reel (1/1/1/1 in R1, 2/2/2/1 in R2, 3/3/3/1 or 3/3/2/2 in R3).  I suggest ditching the 4/7/10 pool bit and just assign 1, 2 or 3 infected dice to each conflict based solely on the current reel number.  Obviously, this leaves the gaping hole of "how do you end the reel?"
  
• A technique that I found worked really well was to narrate in really aweful stuff happening in the background.  As the paramedics are trying to save Jamieson in the lobby, we see bodies splatting on the pavement outside, etc.  This was funny, but it was aweful-funny.  Everyone riffed on that vibe, and we were constantly shaking our heads at how depraved some of our creations were.  Cool!
  
  Cheers,
  Darcy

[Tim Sellmer]

Hey all!

Darcy, you sure have a knack for writing a review!  Glad you enjoyed the game, and I'm more thrilled that you were able to gather as much data as you did! 

You're right about my frustration at misinterpreting the rules concerning the flipping over of the motivation cards.  Oh well.

I found the game to be fast-paced, with a lot of focus on creative framing; the mechanics were light enough to stay out of the way, with enough structure to allow sensible interaction.  This session was a post-modern satire, almost Buffy-esque, and really hit the spot with the group.

The time issue was the biggest impediment to us all; while it put pressure on us to perform, it also marked a boundry that we could not pass.  It also occurs to me that the flow of the game could not be maintained over a second session the same way.

Since this was my first experience with The Infected, I'd want to try it in a more horror vein, and less on the satirical comedy.  Or not.

TiM!

[Darcy Burgess]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for taking the time to stop by.

I think you really hit the nail on the head -- the time constraint was an enormous influence on how the game played out.  I'd argue that the second biggest influence on the feel of the game was my extraordinary bad luck at rolling 1's.

And yet, in spite of both of these problems (and they were problems!), the game held up well.  In fact, it's one of the better games I've played recently.

Cheers,
Darcy

[Eric Provost]

Thanks for the excellent feedback, Darcy and Tim.  I'm really very happy that you both had fun with it. 

Your observations are rockin' my next update, Darcy.  I scribbled out notes on at least three or four different bits I plan on fiddling with in the third patch document.  You and the rest of the Infected ashcanners can probably expect from me by the end of the week or so.  So, if I don't address a particular concern of yours here, keep an eye out for it in the upcoming patch.

Or swat me with a newspaper and rub my nose in it.  Either way works well.

One thing from your post that I've been looking at very closely is the issue of not rolling any 1s.  I've got this nifty little dice-roll probability program that can quickly tell me the odds of all sorts of different rolls.  It tells me that there's about a 2.2% chance of rolling no ones at all (in the final round of a conflict) over the full course of a game.  It further informs me that, having used 13 infected dice, you had about a 9.4% chance of rolling no ones in the final round of any conflict.

At first I was shocked at how high those numbers were.  I expected them to be much smaller.  I was nearly ready to go ahead and mess with the numbers again.  But then I started thinking about it and plugging more numbers into the cruncher.  And I've come to the conclusion that the statistical hole your session fell into is probably an acceptable one.  A cool one even.

I've also noticed that dice seem to hate either the GM or the players in any given session.  I mean, statistically there are plenty enough rolls so that everything should even out.  But it's so common for one side or the other to feel totally screwed.  At Nerdly I GM'd a two PC session where the players were walking all over me.  By the end of the second reel one player had two tokens left on his Motivation and the other player had none.  NONE.

So, I dunno what's up with that.  Cursed dice, I suppose.

Since your list of observations really covers pretty much everything I was going to ask you, I'm really just left with this;

What do you think are the top issues that I need to address in the next ashcan patch?

-Eric

[Darcy Burgess]

Hi Eric,

Here's "the big three" as  I see them:

1. Getting better pacing control.  I'm still advocating ditching the idea of an infected pool in favour of a flat "infected allowance" per conflict.  To solve the issue of "when does a reel end", I'd suggest tying those moments to specific meta-game states: first NPC to monsterize, first NPC to reach +1/+3, etc.  If you tie reels to NPCs, then the players have an incentive to get some early drama (read: tearing an NPC down) going to protect their other resources.

2. Including escalation requirements (currently desperate and crazed) as part of group prep.

3a. Change the "You Can't trust the Infected" mechanic into something that can be used once per scene.  This makes it more tactical (and a source of tension!).  If you feel that this strips it of its cojones, then consider upping the die benefit when this happens (best of both columns?  sum of both?).

3b. If your intention with the mechanic was merely to have NPCs who start out as allies and end as foes, with nothing deeper going on at the meta-game level, you need to re-write that whole section so that it doesn't sound like there's something tactical or strategic going on -- there isn't.

Those are definite "patchable" issues as I see them.

As for longer-term stuff, you need to start hammering out a version of the token rule that makes people like Tim get it.  Unfortunately, the easiest way to say it is that it happens during the Intent phase of IIEE -- but not everyone gets that jargon.

Cheers,
Darcy

[Darcy Burgess]

Hi Eric,

Something slipped my mind, but it wasn't based on my test-run:

4. Solve the "Abrupt ending" problem that Joe talked about over in Fox River.

Cheers,
Darcy

[Darcy Burgess]

Hi Eric,

Here's another one, and it should be an easy one too.

5. Clarify who specifically gets to narrate when the players, acting as a group, win a conflict.

Cheers,
Darcy

[Lee-Anne O'Reilly]

I had tons of fun playing this one, and I'd sure like to have another go -- with an earlier start, a grittier feel, and maybe an infected dice or two. I have a feeling that I pre-loaded the tone of the game by mentioning Shaun in an organising email. I think I would have been more amenable to going darker if we'd started earlier in the evening, though.

I think Darcy covered most of the system stuff, but Eric might be interested in:

- Darcy had to remind us to cross off NPC dice almost every time. Seriously, I don't know if it got done when he didn't remind us.

- At one point, my character and Glenn's had conflicts that were linked to each other, but not directly opposed, and there was some dithering over how to resolve that. Darcy decided to do mine first, and use the outcome to determine on which side of Glenn's conflict my character would fall. And then I think we kind of smooshed the two back together to narrate how it worked out? I thought the solution worked really well, at any rate.

- Throughout, I was fuzzy about how much authority the PC players had with respect to introducing and narrating elements related to the infection itself, in particular when it came to the NPCs.

- I thought the limited NPC thing totally rocked. There was this constant tension around making characters significant to the fiction and then limiting their presence in the fiction in order to shepherd the resource. (And, yes, Darcy, because we liked them. Poor Gary from Accounting.)

[Darcy Burgess]

Hi Eric,

Looks like I'll be running the Infected again next week for my regular crew.  I do have one actual rules question (as opposed to concrete feedback) in anticipation of that event:

Can a player accumulate more than 3 infected dice?

Cheers,
Darcy

[Eric Provost]

Darcy,

Good question.  I was about to say "Yeah, they can totally have more than three dice.", but it occurrs to me that it could be a problem.  Meaning, if one player is already at 3 or more infected dice then players could avoid any consequences to future infection by piling the dice up on the already-monster'd character.  That would suck.

So, no.  Once a player has 3 infected dice and their character has become a monster, future infected dice have to go to another player.

-Eric

[Darcy Burgess]

Hi Eric,

I've poured over the third Infected Patch, and I have something that I'd like to add to my query regarding Carl from Physical resources (the first Observation in my original AP).

Essentially, I want to expound on my AP.

Scene: The mail room.  I believe that Glenn and Lee were the PCs (although it may have been Luke?  I'm foggy)

Regardless, they're talking to Carl the mail guy (hereafter known as Carl from Physical resources) and they're trying to track down the shipping papers for some server parts.  Carl's being all unhelpful and work-to-rule-ey.  One of the players asks if it's cool that Carl has an assistant that (strictly in free-play mode) tries to help the PCs -- a happy-go-lucky guy who just wants to help.  I say "sure", and let the player free-play that NPC.

At this point in time, I was already developing my "infernal deal" idea, and when Carl's assistant said "what about this pile of paper waybills", I had one of those awesome moments of internal monologue: "Of course!  The infernal deal isn't handled through the normal channels, there's no digital record, it's this dirty gritty paper trail, and this poor sucker just stumbled onto them."

That's when I had Carl flip out -- he grabs his assistant by the head and starts bashing his brains out on the desk.

• Now, what's significant here is that Carl was not yet named, and that everyone at the table (I think that I can say this safely) assumed that Carl was going batshit goofy because he was infected.
• Next data point: Carl did eventually get named.  Naturally, since we weren't cheating, he didn't have any Harm yet.
• Most important: this did not break or even bend gameplay: I simply explained that being "Infected" and "Monster" was a mechanical state, rather than a fictional one.
• However, I think that everyone was running under the assumption that it was totally kosher to do this (act like you're infected without taking harm), but that it wasn't cool to be infected without behaving appropriately.

In my estimation, this technique can comfortably co-exist with your flashback and scooby-doo conflict solutions.  What do you think?

Cheers,
Darcy

[Eric Provost]

I think you're absoloutely right.  Except that 'infected' and 'monster' are both a mechanical state and a fictional one.  Do you think it would have made a difference in your decision if the symptoms that Carl exhibited were more graphic and monsterous?  What if Carl sprouted horns and started spitting acid instead of beating the crap out of his assistant?  That is; What if what Card did made it perfectly clear that he was a monster and not just a crazy bastard?

What would you have done if Carl had clearly turned into a monster in the first reel, and then someone wanted to name him in the second reel?

[Darcy Burgess]

Hi Eric,

You're absolutely right.  "Infected" is both a fictional and a mechanical term.  That's exactly what I meant (you just said it better).

And as far as your hypothetical question, I would have just let it be -- all is good!  There's nothing -- absolutely nothing -- preventing a character (including a PC) from exhibiting the most extreme symptoms of the infection while remaining mechanically untouched by it.  NPCs have 2 hit points, and PCs have 3 -- that's all there is to it.  What colour we choose to introduce is strictly up to us.

However, there are limits on it:

1) the 'sniff test' -- it's got to get past the collective approval process at the table.  This is most often intuitive.

2) big ol' caveat: mechanically monstrous (& infected) characters must exhibit fictional symptoms, otherwise you're cheating.

Yeah?

Cheers,
Darcy

[Eric Provost]

Darcy,

I think we're on the same page here.  Everything you've said rings true to me.  I only see one potential issue with naming an already-monster or already-infected character.  If Chad is already eating human brains before the first time you get to use him in a conflict then there's probably going to be less keeping you from risking him than if he were still completely human.

It's a minor issue, to be sure.  But I think the solution to that issue is in the possibility of curing Chad.  I'd kinda left out the whole subject of curing someone of the infection, mostly because I wasn't sure how it might fit into the rules.  But now I can see that curing a not-named, or not-infected, or not-monsterous character is certainly a possiblity using the current rules set.

What do you think?

-Eric

[Darcy Burgess]

Hi Eric,

I think that setting "cure Chad" as stakes in a conflict is fine.  (Given the caveat that Chad doesn't appear on an NPC card).

This is cool, because to do so, you'll have to consume other resources (NPCs).  This may or may not (depending on PC motivations) advance the protags' goals -- which is good on both fronts:

1. If curing Chad is in-line with a given Protag's goals, awesome!  This alleviates some of the "improv brain-drain" inherent in games like this.
2. If curing Chad isn't in-line with Protag goals, doubly awesome!  In this case, I can only assume that we're even considering curing Chad because we as players like the dirty monster.  This sets up nice tension between protag goals and player goals.  Coolness.
3. The best of both worlds -- if curing Chad is in-line with some Protags' goals and not with others, you get all of the benefits of 1. and 2., with the added bonus of inter-protag tension.  Rock.

All of this being cool has to be predicated on the following:

1. Curing Chad does not mean that the Protags have found THE cure.
2. The only way for protags to escape the infection is to have fewer than 3 infected dice by game end.

Cheers,
Darcy