[Six Bullets for Vengeance] very first thoughts

[andrew_kenrick]

"A man rides into town, a shooter at his hip. In it are six bullets, one for each of his enemies. Six bullets for vengeance."

Insomnia has struck and with it the idea for a game. In order to get me some sleep and avoid being a zombie all tomorrow, I'm here to excorcise my game from my mind and go back to bed.

I've been toying with playing around with the idea of using some different narrative tricks within a game recently, such as flashbacks and such like, and this came to a head tonight with the idea of starting the story right at the end, and working your way back to the beginning. I started with a simple enough concept - starting the game with a duel to the death, and then playing out scenes as flashbacks to see how the protagonists ended up where they end up. Then I widened the concept up, as follows.

The game begins with a shoot out, with 2 of the characters facing off against each other. All that is defined about each is their name. One lives, one dies, the final bullet shot. The survivor becomes the protagonist, the hero of the piece, whilst the dead man his final enemy.

Then we step back, framing a scene in turn, and one by one the various antagonists are defined (and killed), and each time a bit more of the plot and the characters are defined. Each scene concludes with a bullet (metaphorical or actual) being spent and a foe dying, although only the first scene is an actual shoot out.

The final scene in the game (or the first scene, chronologically speaking) is where the final revelation is made - what has driven the hero to this act of vengeance?

At this stage I have little more than that narrative concept, so no mechanics or conflict resolution or whatever beyond what I've touched on above. I like the idea of each player playing one of the villains, and one the hero, and I've got some vague ideas about something clever involving a pool of "bullets" in the form of dice.

Does it work as a concept? Can a story told in reverse work as a game without all the facts being set down upfront? And where do I go next?

[Ron Edwards]

It works perfectly as a concept. There's no reason that future-constraint cannot work just as well as past-constraint when formulating the content of a particular scene.

It does strike me that dictating who the good guy is and who the bad guy is based on the final outcome is quite limiting. It might be more useful to leave such judgments up to the content of the flashbacks.

As for your next step, write out what you think the players should do, in order (the real-life order), on a piece of notebook paper. Don't bother to try to dress it up with all kinds of presentational detail - don't "write the game." Instead, just get all the rules down, even if one or two of them are highly speculative and even if more than a few of them seem a little off or not-quite-right. What you need is the full skeleton of play, and only then, once you've got it, to go back and mess with the details of the joints and the muscle that makes them move.

Best, Ron

[andrew_kenrick]

Thanks Ron - my usual approach to design is to try and write things down properly first time round, with the usual end result that nothing gets finished.

My reasoning that determining who the hero of the piece is depending on who lives and who dies in the first scene, was that in the movies the good guy usually gets his man. Therefore working backwards from that concept, because he has killed his man and had his final vengeance, he must be the hero. Of course it might be a better idea for this to have already been mutually agreed upon by the players, but that was my jumping off point.

[Ron Edwards]

Keep the good-guy/bad-guy if you really want to. I understand your reasoning, but I'd support your approach not because of the movies' content, which is debatable, but because it provides some useful structure for the story to be developed. Therefore I don't think we should debate the movies, but rather recall that this is your game, not mine, and so your preference stands.

I'll look forward to the first round of rules. You seem very well positioned to move this straight onto a page, and then straight into playtesting.

Best, Ron

[Callan S.]

Hi Andrew,

If the goodguy is the one who survives the first shootout, what happens if he dies in the next shootout/firing of a bullet? Does it change him to a badguy?

I've got this wacked idea in my head that probably wont be of much use, but much like a sports competition where teams play off against each other to see who's in the semi final, then the finals, you could have characters fighting off and dieing - the stakes - who is 'right'. That way you get atleast one character who survives all the way from the start, right until the end. Which one, who knows?

I kind of get the vibe from your game that it'd be interesting for the players to examine right and wrong, as they identify with a surviving character as good, only to see him shot and thus bad. It'd raise some 'But really, was he?'. Provocative!

[andrew_kenrick]

Keep the good-guy/bad-guy if you really want to. I understand your reasoning, but I'd support your approach not because of the movies' content, which is debatable, but because it provides some useful structure for the story to be developed.

Ok. It was just a good hook to hang the idea on late last night, and seemed as good as any way to explain my reasoning. Movies won't come into the finished piece, except as a touchstone for the genre.

If the goodguy is the one who survives the first shootout, what happens if he dies in the next shootout/firing of a bullet? Does it change him to a badguy?

Well he can't! Because the game plays out in reverse, if a character appears in one scene, it must follow that he has survived all of the following scenes, as they occur earlier in the chronology. I guess I'll have to come up with some sort of mechanic to ensure this is so.

I kind of get the vibe from your game that it'd be interesting for the players to examine right and wrong, as they identify with a surviving character as good, only to see him shot and thus bad. It'd raise some 'But really, was he?'. Provocative!

I'm starting to get that vibe too. I certainly don't want it to be black and white. I'm thinking at the moment that in the first scene both characters seem bad, morals start as greys, but as we proceed through the scenes (and therefore go further into the past of the story), perhaps the distinctions become clearer, becoming black and white.

Anyway, I'm going to go and try putting some rules in place now, and a basic framework of play. I'll post again shortly.

[andrew_kenrick]

So I've had a thought about how a game of Six Bullets would play out, what the players do and so forth. I've also toyed with mechanics, but I think that's a subject for another thread, so I'll keep details to a minimum.

The game is set up for seven players - one hero, six villains. The villains also play secondary characters too as required. The game works fine with less - or more - players, with players taking on the roles of multiple villains, or the total number of villains being reduced so that it's Four Bullets for Vengeance instead.

Game prep and character generation amounts to little more than naming each of the characters. Two of the players step up to start the game, chosen either randomly or by mutual assent.

There are two sequences/chronologies to the game - theNarrative Sequence, that is the order that the game itself is played in; and the Chronological Sequence, which is the order that, if this were real, events would happen in. The two sequences run in opposite direction, so the first scene of the game is also the first in the Narrative Sequence, but the last in the Chronological Sequence. None of this matters, but everything will be described in terms of Narrative Sequence.

The first two players describe the briefest of scenes - a dusty street, high noon, the bell tolling etc. Perhaps a speech is made. Guns fire and both players dice off. One character dies - he becomes the villain. The other character lives - he is the hero. At this stage there is nothing to distinguish them.

The second scene is then framed by the next player around the table. There are two villains in this scene, and one hero. A rather more substantial scene is played out. It ends with one of the villains being shot (obviously not the one who dies in the first scene).

The third scene is then framed by the next player around the table, three villains, one of the villains dies at the end of the scene and so on until each villain has died in turn. As each scene progresses, we learn a little more about each of the villains, and the hero, making the morals and ethics a little more crystallised. I'm skimping on details here, of course - each scene contains roleplay, narration, drama and so forth, as well as dice rolling.

The final scene is then framed by whichever player has yet to frame a scene - either the hero or the final villain. This scene is the prologue to the entire game, with the hero encountering the villains - perhaps for the first time - and being wronged, before vowing to exact his revenge.

So that's the framework for the game, and how the game should run. Do you foresee any problems with it? Is it too constrained?

[MPOSullivan]

Six Bullets sounds like alot of fun.  It's got the western thing going on (which is where my mind goes immediately when i tihnk of six bullets), though the game could also make for some fun modern takes on the western storytelling devices in a Kill Bill sort of way.  I find it to be an interresting story-framing device, especially as each player can create a substantially different scene from the one before.  A shootout can peel back to a doctor's office to a casino to a chance meeting between two lovers in a park. 

Just a few niggling things I want to point out.  Might not be problems, but then again...

The game is obviously about protagonization (sp? or even, does that word make sense?).  As the game moves along more players' characters are introduced into the narrative but it would seem to me that the story framing as it stands currently states quite matter-of-factly that the first villain to die in Narrative Sequence would be the lead villain.  It would make sense, considering the genre that you're aiming at emulating and given that the ellimination of the lead villain earlier in the order of things would make the hero's quest for vengance feel somewhat weak.  As a player of one of the villainous characters I may feel de-antagonized.  I don't get that shot at being alone on camera in the same way that the hero and lead villain do. 

I'm not sure if this is a concern of yours.  I would have a heck of a lot of fun playing a lackey.  I'm not sure what i would suggest as a solution.

Also, just thought about it.  There would be a substantial amount of "loading time" for players as they wait for the scene in which their character is introduced.  A simple solve on this is to allow the waiting players to play supporting cast members in the rest of the scenes.  kid sidekicks, the local sherrif, whomever.  As the game moves along the supporting cast shrinks until, finally, it's just the hero and his enemies and the root of evil. 

I would also suggest discarding the terms hero and villain, even though i just used them a bunch.  Protagonist and Antagonist sounds like it would work better, and for one simple reason.  If i were in a play group of Six Bullets and I were the lead villain, the temptation would be too great for me to just reverse roles in the last scene, making the hero into a no-good bandit and the villains into the Sherrif and his men. 

Like I said before, perhaps these aren't faults as you see them.  I do like the structure you've laid out so far.  Just me picking at the scabs that I see. 

Maybe a way of scene-framing that allows the villains to stand on their own? 

[andrew_kenrick]

Thanks for the comments!

Six Bullets sounds like alot of fun.  It's got the western thing going on (which is where my mind goes immediately when i tihnk of six bullets), though the game could also make for some fun modern takes on the western storytelling devices in a Kill Bill sort of way.  I find it to be an interresting story-framing device, especially as each player can create a substantially different scene from the one before.  A shootout can peel back to a doctor's office to a casino to a chance meeting between two lovers in a park.

The narrative style and themes of Kill Bill combined with that of Memento were where the vibe and idea originally came from. I just went with more of a Western theme to hang the game off as it seemed to fit. Ultimately, it could be any setting - the theme of vengeance is universal, after all.

The game is obviously about protagonization (sp? or even, does that word make sense?).  As the game moves along more players' characters are introduced into the narrative but it would seem to me that the story framing as it stands currently states quite matter-of-factly that the first villain to die in Narrative Sequence would be the lead villain.  It would make sense, considering the genre that you're aiming at emulating and given that the ellimination of the lead villain earlier in the order of things would make the hero's quest for vengance feel somewhat weak.  As a player of one of the villainous characters I may feel de-antagonized.  I don't get that shot at being alone on camera in the same way that the hero and lead villain do.

I think protagonization is a word! And yes, as the narration starts with the last fight, the final showdown with the big baddie, he is indeed the first to die, right there at the start. But equally, he also gets to spend a lot of time in play, as along with the protagonist he'll feature in most of the scenes, thus helping to build up his vileness or whatever.

As for the other villains - I guess it could go either way. I foresee that as each villain gets to frame the scene where he dies, it will become about them. The others might not feature at all, and the focus is definitely on the conflict between villain and hero. To go back to your first comment, just like in Kill Bill, each of the villains get their own "screen time" with the hero, their own showdown.

Also, just thought about it.  There would be a substantial amount of "loading time" for players as they wait for the scene in which their character is introduced.  A simple solve on this is to allow the waiting players to play supporting cast members in the rest of the scenes.  kid sidekicks, the local sherrif, whomever.  As the game moves along the supporting cast shrinks until, finally, it's just the hero and his enemies and the root of evil.

Definitely. I certainly wouldn't intend for anyone to be sitting about doing nothing! They pick up all the secondary roles for the scene whilst the hero and the villains duke it out. I like the thought of the supporting cast shrinking, as the villains grow in numbers to dominate the end of the game/start of the story.

I would also suggest discarding the terms hero and villain, even though i just used them a bunch.  Protagonist and Antagonist sounds like it would work better, and for one simple reason.  If i were in a play group of Six Bullets and I were the lead villain, the temptation would be too great for me to just reverse roles in the last scene, making the hero into a no-good bandit and the villains into the Sherrif and his men.

They were easier to type than protagonist and antagonist! But noted. Actually I quite like the idea of it all being turned on its head at the end of the story, with the protagonist turning out to be the baddie!

Maybe a way of scene-framing that allows the villains to stand on their own?

How so?

Thanks for your comments though! I'm starting to formulate it a bit more now!