[Discernment] A word from the Scholar Emeritus

[Michael S. Miller]

(Note: I started this write-up before the new guidelines. I hope my Monday-morning-quarterbacking at the bottom will meet the criteria of "a point.")

I also got to play Discernment at Dreamation. The participants were myself, Andrew Morris, Joshua (aka nikola), and a fellow named John whom I greatly respected for giving so much effort to such a non-standard game he had never heard of before. John had planned to be playing TORG during that slot, but the game folded. We had a good game, but it certainly wasn't TORG.

I went over the rules and Andrew Morris was voted to be the subject on the second ballot. Not wanting to run over the 2-hour timeslot, I eliminated Gluttony, Lust, and Envy from the Soul Quality Wheel. I was Alpha Scholar, John was Beta Scholar and Joshua was Gamma Scholar.

As Alpha Scholar, the onus was on me to craft the first Scenario. I decided to test for Wrath vs. Hope, and cast the Subject as a tinker in a fantasy kingdom, returning to his village, only to find it smoldering from orc attack. I cast John as a wounded orc that had been left for dead by his tribe. I cast Joshua as the tinker's ten year old son, who miraculous survived the attack, only to be grabbed by this orc as his father arrives. I said "Curtain" to begin the action.

There was less than a minute of role-playing before the subject said, "I grab one of my big, iron pots and club the orc!" He states his outcome as killing the orc and saving his son. I state mine as killing the son. We bid. The subject bids no coins at all. I describe him missing the orc, striking his son on the head, and killing his last family member.

We submit our Hypothesis to Andrew. He takes three coins, because each of us offered a Hypothesis. He gives us no coins because none of our Hypotheses is correct or approximate. This is a surprisingly useful outcome, because each of us now has three Soul Qualities we can mark off as impossible.

Then the Beta Scholar, John, becomes Lead Scholar. He decides to test for Loyalty v. Ambition. He casts the subject as the second-best brain surgeon in the country. He casts me as his older mentor, the best brain surgeon in the country. He casts Joshua as the anestheologist. We were in the midst of a surgery, the patient is lying there on the table, and I've just ordered 10ccs of something that Andrew knows is risky in doses that high. He asks me if I'm sure. I snap that I taught him everything he knows. Joshua says that the patient is having trouble. I order more medicine. Andrew tries to covertly pinch off the supply.

Maybe 5 minutes of role-plaing before John calls for a bid. Andrew says that his outcome is that the patient will live so my cheif surgeon can keep his position. John says that his outcome is that the patient dies. Again, Andrew bids no coins and the patient flatlines.

We submit our Hypotheses, and again receive no coins for correctness. Again, we can each mark off 3 impossible Soul Qualities. Only 5 Qualities remain possible on my sheet, and I have my suspicions.

However, Joshua is up next as Lead Scholar. He pits Loyalty against Wrath. Andrew is cast as a petty king, who is sworn to a high king. The high king has kept Andrew's son as a pupil-slash-hostage for some time now. Andrew and his queen (me)  and his cousin (John) are arriving to pay their annual tribute to the high king. As they arrive, they are informed by a messenger that their son has been killed in a hunting accident.

There was a bit of confusion because Joshua had wanted to play the high king, but the rules forbid a Lead Scholar from playing a role in his own scenario. He decided that I should play the high king, so I went over the top. The high king blamed the petty king's dead son for being killed by the boar and allowing the beast to gore the high king's horse. Andrew challenged the high king to a duel.

The duel was set and Joshua called for a bid. Andrew's outcome was for his petty king to win the duel and become the new high king, (and, I think, oppress others as he had been oppressed). Joshua's outcome was for the petty king to lose the duel and be forced to grovel for his life, IIRC.

This time, Andrew bid his nickel and a few coins, winning the bid. The petty king won the duel and became the new high king. However, the subject also entered a state of Awareness. We scholars had to describe details of how the subject was held. I believe Joshua described that he was floating in a tank of fluid. I added that there were scenes of orcs, doctors, and duels on monitors just outside the tank, and John added that there were numerous tubes leading into his body.

Now that we had seen a nickel, we knew that the subject's Soul Quality had to be either Wrath, Ambition, or an Approximation thereof. Those are six possibilities, but combined with the Qualities I've already eliminated, I'm pretty sure that it's Wrath. We put in our Hypotheses and Andrew gives us 7 coins back. This means that two of us have Hypothesized correctly, and one has Hypothesized Approximately. This is endgame conditions, so the scholars succeed, Andrew does endgame scoring, and appoints me Scholar Emeritus. hearty congratulations abound.

I did forget to have each of the Scholars determine one fact regarding the subject's fate.

In retrospect, there were a few bumps in the road. I probably shouldn't have cut those three Qualities from the wheel, as the game ran barely more than an hour. I hadn't foreseen how very, very useful getting no coins back after the Hypothesis phase would be. It also seems like a longer game with more Scholars might favor the subject. He could keep bidding nothing, to give us no information about his Quality. Andrew did in the first scenario. (Unless I miss my guess) his Quality was Wrath, so he could have used his nickel or his dime in the first scenario, but chose to deceive us by bidding nothing. He builds up coins for each hypothesis we propose--right or wrong--and could potentially bankrupt us.

One thing that did work rather nicely was the "narrativist GM boot camp" aspect of the game. What I mean is, each scholar must concoct a scenario testing for one quality vs. another. I think it's great practice for building engaging situations to go through the exercise of "Create characters and a situation to test for Lust vs. Charity. GO!"

I greatly enjoyed (finally) playing Discernment. Re-reading it a 16 months after writing it was another story--good God, it is so pretentious! I know it's supposed to be pretentious, but even so... I felt like reaching back through time and shaking myself sometimes. Geez. 8^)

[Andrew Morris]

Mike, you are correct. I bid no coins in the first scenario in order to throw you guys off. I don't have my notes on me, but I think Pride was the subject's soul quality, not Wrath. I could be wrong, though. The game was interesting, and if I'd had a firmer grasp on the rules, I would have played a bit differently, probably by bidding more agressively in the second scenario.

One interesting thing I noticed was that the turn structure, bidding, and other rules made it feel like a logic puzzle. I was always trying to "win" the game, rather address weighty story issues. The meat of the game, to me, was in the bidding, with the narrative aspects being secondary. I don't have enough of a handle on GNS yet to offer a strong statement, but it seemed more Gamist than Narrativist to me.