[Six Bullets for Vengeance] first playtest

[andrew_kenrick]

I ran my first session of Six Bullets for Vengeance tonight, and all in all I think it worked very well. My regular group games online, so I have the luxury of having an actual transcript from play, which I've posted to my playtest wiki.

Starting out

The game has little to no setup, so once we had agreed on the genre (a Western), the setting (a typical Western town) and who was playing who (Nimrod played the Stranger, the protagonist, whilst the rest of us played the bad guys. I got the chief villain, the Sheriff), we got right to it.

The game

The first scene went smoothly enough. I set the scene, setting it as a simple shootout in the main street of the town of Sandstorm. The Sheriff and the Stranger exchanged some banter, and then we shot each other. Before we rolled, I defined myself a new characteristic (Lightning Draw - 2dice). The dice mechanic worked nicely, although at this stage of the game it wasn't really put to the test. No surprises, the Stranger won, and as is appropriate, got to narrate his final act of vengeance.

The second scene started with a bit of a crisis. Olly, playing the devout Mr Dusk, began to narrate the scene (slowly), but Rob got a little impatient and interjected with a secondary character. We toyed with dicing to resolve the out of game conflict, but eventually decided that the scene setting should have an amnesty on it until it was over. This agreed upon, the scene rolled out quite nicely, although we handled narration fast and loose - this worked fine for us, but I do wonder whether who can narrate what and when needs to be tightened up a little. Also it wasn't always clear when dice should be rolled - eventually we settled on only rolling when someone disagreed with the narration, or when two main characters acted against one another.

The scene was set with Mr Dusk arriving at the church, looking for the Stranger, and beating up a boy who wouldn't tell him what he wanted to know, before the Stranger interceded with a thrown collection plate. The scene took a bit longer to play out than the first one, but we took advantage of the more leisurely pace to build tension, as well playing with the out of sequence narrative. Nimrod took the opportunity to interject a bit of foreshadowing into the scene for the final scene, and I introduced a secondary character (who Olly then killed) who we thought had potential as a friend and ally for the Stranger later in the game.

Towards the end of the scene we had a conflict where Dusk tried to scare off a horse on which the Stranger had tied Dusk's friend, Mr Task, whilst the Stranger tried to shoot Task. We argued a little about whether Vengeance dice should be applicable, Nimrod arguing that it was in an attempt to get information about his goals. We agreed it should be more directly tied to Vengeance than that.

Dusk's final conflict with the Stranger had gotten to the point where the outcome was pretty clear already - Dusk was lying on the floor all beaten up, with the Stranger towering over him, so it all it fell to who would narrate his end. The result was a tie, with 1 success apiece, which meant the others got to break the tie one way or the other. Nimrod narrated the end of Mr Dusk and got the Stranger positioned and ready for his final act of vengeance, in the preceding scene.

At this point Janos called it a night as it was getting late, so we decided that the next scene would be the last scene. No continuity was harmed, although we did have to drop a few vengeance dice to account for this (and the fact that the Stranger had started off with too many in the first place).

The third scene turned into the final scene (barring the prologue), and Rob narrated us the tale of Walter 14, framing a scene set in the local saloon the night before the final showdown. We started with some light hearted drunken rivalry between Walter and Honcho (a secondary character who had managed to appear in every scene so far at least once).

Then the Stranger appeared on the scene, threatening Honcho and meeting the Sheriff. By this time we had a fair bit of continuity to bear in mind, and certain things we'd referenced in previous scenes that had to take place in this one or in the prologue. This didn't prove to be too confusing (although having the transcripts to hand helped), and everybody seemed to enjoy foreshadowing or introducing cameos of characters who appeared earlier. We had to all sit back at one point and work out what the Sheriff should say to the Stranger to prompt the revelation ("But the sheriff said ...!") that happened in the previous scene, but the game was loose enough that this wasn't a problem. In fact, in places it was quite satisfying to see the pieces click together.

The Stranger met up with Walt during a poker game, which nearly escalated into violence as recognition dawned on Walt. During the conflict that emerged, we saw a mechanism that had cropped up towards the end of the previous scene. That is, a conflict that never comes down to dice. ie. One side narrates their take on the conflict (in this case, the Stranger gets his gun out first and tells Walter to sit down) and the other side aquiesces and goes with the flow. I hadn't expected that, and assumed players would always want to weigh in to a conflict - evidently not.

At this point we all took a little time out to discuss what we think really happened, bringing in the various snippets we've planted over the course of the session. In truth this should have waited til the prologue itself, but we were impatient! We settled on a vague story, although it would ultimately be in Nimrod's hands, as the protagonist.

Then we jumped back to Rob's scene, and conflict over the game of poker, which packed quite a dramatic punch as a fight exploded out of nowhere. Two conflicts follow in quick succession - the first, as Walter 14 throws his knives and the Stranger tries to dodge, ends up with Walter 14 winning. But because no vdice were rolled, death doesn't have to occur. The second conflict is the Stranger returning fire, winning, and blowing Walter away. Although we assume there is more fighting, and conflict with the deputy and Task, who are also present, the scene isn't about them, so we cut away.

Finally we have the prologue/epilogue. In a normal game we'd pause here to discuss what really happened, and draw together the threads from the rest of the session, but we'd got a bit ahead of ourselves and discussed it already, so we just cut to the scene setting. We had a bit of an end game problem, as we couldn't quite decide how the prologue should proceed, the reasons why the characters were all there and what happens. I put this down to it being 3am at the time we got this far, but it's something to watch out for next time. Due to the late hour we ended up with Nimrod narrating the whole thing, but I see this as an atypical way in which the end game would take place.

Points of discussion arising from the playtest:

Narrative rights - I'm wondering if the guidelines/rules about who gets to narrate what and when need to be tightened up somewhat.

In game and out of game conflicts - currently they use the same mechanic, based off the character's attributes. I like the simplicity of this, but I'm not quite sure if it will handle out of game conflicts as well.

Vengeance dice - it's clear that I need more examples/guidelines about when to use them, and when not to use them, as a canny player can argue a case for using them in any situation, which is not how they're intended to be used. I want to keep their use flexible yet focused. As an aside, VD (Vengeance Dice) just has to be the worst acronym ever. We settled on vdice in the end. VD indeed ...

People not having anything to do - I did worry at times that players whose antagonists werent the focus of the scene didnt have anything to do, but with hindsight I've dismissed this. In the second scene, where 2 players took no part, I played 2 of the secondary characters myself, as well as a brief cameo from the Sheriff, my primary character. So the opportunities were there, they just chose not to take them.

[andrew_kenrick]

I've just been re-reading my playtest post and making notes for tweaks to the manuscript and I have a question that I wanted a bit of input on.

The biggest issue we had - or rather, that we suspect other groups might have - is the control of narration. At the moment this is fairly free flowing, and anybody can interject at any time, with a dice roll based on the characters' attributes if people disagree. Do you think this is a little too loose? Is there a better way to demarcate control over the narrative, and to say when and how this changes?

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Two of my games have very different narration rules, and I'll describe them so you can see that any organization of narration is good, as long as it makes sense with the rest of the game.

In Sorcerer, there is no rule for narrating outcomes. Anyone can narrate anything, and as long as the dice results are followed (success/failure, degree), and as long as the narration makes everyone else nod their heads, then that's it.

However, that's part 2 of a 2-part story. Because, in Sorcerer, there is a pre-roll phase in which everyone arrives at what they want characters to be attempting to do, with no ordering and nothing happening. No one rolls until everyone is satisfied with what they want. "Oh, if you're going to do that, then I'm going to be doing this instead" is common. Then everyone rolls at once.

Therefore there's never any dispute about narrating in Sorcerer, because the actions in question are totally fixed, the order of outcomes (and certain "abort" options) is determined by the dice, and the outcomes of each conflict are similarly crystal clear.

In Trollbabe, in most cases, players narrate their characters' failed outcomes, and GMs narrate the characters' successful outcomes. The dice and certain choices along the way make it very clear how much harm is going to occur to each character (trollbabe, trollbabe's friends, trollbabes' foes). It's a lot more structured than Sorcerer, proceeding in a series of steps of increasing possible harm - so narrating the failures means the player really has to take responsibility for bad stuff that the dice say has to happen. Also, nearly all rolls in this game are very consequential, so it's good to let players choose the atmosphere of a failure (funny, unlucky, desperate, et cetera).

Many other recent games mess with narration in one fashion or another, but the granddaddy is The Pool, which you should really check out some time, if you haven't. Again, it's not that there's any one perfect way. But it's clear that a game benefits when everyone understands how it works, for this game, and also when the organization of narration suits many other features of the game's design.

Best, Ron

[iain]

Hi Andrew
I haven't had a chance to playtest your game yet but I have had a read through and have a couple of thoughts you might like to consider.

Firstly I think the game needs a little more setup. I have only recently got into revenge films but the ones I have seen are fantastic and so this game has a lot of potential. However, bar memento, they all give you some idea from the beginning of why the main protagonist is out for vengeance. Your game does not. Since the first scene is the last narrative scene this seems like a mjor oversight. Why does the main protagonist give a damn? Why is he out for vengeance? This is fundamental and even in memento, which feels like a big influence on the game, I may be wrong, the reason for vengeance is got to very quickly.

I would reverse the order of your game and change the mechanic slightly. Start off the main protagonist as a normal guy living his life when the reason for vengeance happens to him in the first scene. Then as the game progresses, instead of someone changing their vengeance into 'normal life' skills, he loses his normal life skills as vengeance consumes him. I think this would be much more poetic as when he gets to the final scene, all he has left is his thirst for vengeance, he is incapable of anything else. Have you seen 'Oldboy'? If not I would advise you to do so as this to me sums up the kind of game you want.

Hope this help
Iain

[Matt Wilson]

The biggest issue we had - or rather, that we suspect other groups might have - is the control of narration. At the moment this is fairly free flowing, and anybody can interject at any time, with a dice roll based on the characters' attributes if people disagree. Do you think this is a little too loose? Is there a better way to demarcate control over the narrative, and to say when and how this changes?

Hi Andrew. Your game sounds kinda cool. I'm about to go into web blackout for nine hours (because I work for fascists), but here's a couple thoughts:

That approach you describe sounds a little like Universalis. Have you played it? Might be worth tracking down some AP threads of that game, as well as checking out the forum, to see if people's experiences with that game match your vision of your own. No sense reinventing the wheel, y'know?

Vincent's new game, whose name eludes me, has some interesting guidelines on when a conflict occurs.

From what I've seen, it can be the case in play that when anything is disputable between anyone, a game needs some constraints to make that manageable.

[andrew_kenrick]

Hi guys - thanks for the useful comments. I'll address each in turn.

Ron> Thanks for explaining those two mechanisms, and also for pointing me towards the Pool. I think your post highlights for me that it's not a case of how narration is controlled, so long as it is controlled in some respect.

I've addressed the question of narrative control in the rules now and tightened this area up, so that it broadly works that a conflict is declared, all participants narrate their actions as well as stating the outcome they hope to achieve, then dice are rolled.

Iain> I agree that the game may require a little more setup, especially with regard to the players discussing broadly what sort of story aspects they'd like to see in the game. But I'm afraid that I disagree with regard to the narrative sequence, which I see as integral to the gameplay as the theme of revenge. The first thing you need to wrap your head around when playing the game (as we found in the playtest), is that the climax for the story isn't the final act of revenge, but where it all started. That final gunfight is merely the starting off point for our game.

In essence it's not about how he exacts his revenge, but why. The story becomes a mystery of sorts, to the players if not the characters, as we piece together the events leading up to the final revenge like a jigsaw puzzle. It may not have come across in the playtest report, but it was very exciting and fulfilling to fill in the gaps as we went along, to tie it all together. There were many times when we went "aah! so that's what that meant!" as a particular event suddenly gained meaning and context.

Sure, there's no reason why people can't leap straight into the first scene and go "you killed my mother for jilting you at the altar all those years ago! Prepare to die!" But I feel that would beat the point, take away some of the mystery and suspense.

Matt> I have indeed played Universalis, but I must confess I've never read the rules. So I know how it plays and what happens in play, but not necessarily why. I think the way it handles narrative conflict is very relevant, so I'll bear that in mind.

Is Vincent's new game Spione? I look forward to seeing how that handles conflict!

[Gregor Hutton]

Being a fan of revenge fiction my two cents is that I like your idea of running the story backwards, as it were. And I think you should plough that furrow for all it's worth.

A key point in game terms is that nothing is true in the shared fiction until it's established in the narrative. In fact in these kinds of films/books I often see "facts" twisted and turned as layers are laid upon each other.

I think it needs some work but I like the concept.

[Warren]

Spione is Ron's new project; I think Matt was referring to "Art, Grace & Guts" by Vincent, which you can find here, here and here.

And yeah, this sounds like a nifty game -- backwards and all.

[andrew_kenrick]

A key point in game terms is that nothing is true in the shared fiction until it's established in the narrative. In fact in these kinds of films/books I often see "facts" twisted and turned as layers are laid upon each other.

So in game terms, players may discuss where they see the game going and what they think is happening, but until it is actually narrated, it remains untrue?

Now one of the 'problems' we experienced during game play was keeping track of what was true, what had been established about the events and so on. In fact, by virtue of not discussing things up front, I nearly backed us into a corner right from the offset by having the chief villain spout some vitriol at the hero about why he did what he did. Then we conveniently forgot about this until right at the end when we played through the prologue, and discovered that we'd actually taken things in a different direction.

But, coming back to your point - even this hasn't been established in the narrative. After all, it could have just been a lie spouted by the villain to provoke the hero, or justify his actions before his death. I see the game playing out with a patchwork of lies and half-truths and implied events, and beneath all that the truth of what has happened, which is only really seen at the end of the game.

[Gregor Hutton]

Yeah, until we all agree it in the narrative then it's not a "fact". Even then a lot of the narrative "facts" might be viewpoints, opinions and "how they appeared to be".

An example off the top of my head might be that the villain spouts off about how the hero wants him dead because he killed his girl. "Sure" says the hero and kills the villain.

We find out in the next scene (i.e. earlier in game) that this is "true". The villain did kill his girl.

Then it turns out that she was the villain's own daughter.

Then further back we find out, while all that was true, the real reason he wanted vengeance was that the villain killed the hero's father many years ago -- and the villain did not know that the hero was the son. The hero got to know the girl just to find the villain.

That changes how we see the "later" fiction. Did the hero still feel nothing for the villain's daughter, like he claimed at the start? She was just a tool to find the villain and draw him out? Didn't the hero cause the girl's death by bringing her into this to satisfy his own sense for revenge? Maybe he had no remorse? Or maybe a lot? Maybe the original reason was lost somewhere along the way? Or maybe deep inside the original reason for revenge was what kept him going through it all?

And what if there is a final scene where we see the villain and the hero's father many years before switching identities? Then the hero's father deciding that he has to kill the villain to protect the secret, and thus set all the rest in motion.

[MPOSullivan]

I'd suggest just having a simple "fact sheet" laying around during gameplay.  Any time a player introduces something into the narrative that is, without a doubt, a fact of the story, you just jot it down on the fact sheet.  Brennan Taylor's Mortal Coil uses a similar item with its Theme Document. 

So let's say that in the second scene of the game Our hero, Jeb, gets into a conversation with Mr. Frost, the second villain.

"You shouldn'ta done what you did, Frost," says Jeb, his eyes a red sparkle like burning coals.

Mr. Frost looks past the revolver heald at his head.  "We had ta.  After what you done we couldn't just let you walk away.  What we did to the farm--"

"The farm ain't what i'm talking about," Jeb spits out through gritted teeth.

So, we've established that the villains did something to a farm.  Not necessarily Jeb's farm, but a farm.  So Mr. Frost's player jots down on the Fact Sheet "We did something bad to a farm".  Then Jeb's player writes next to it "That ain't why I'm Vengeful."  Players may also want to note down that Jeb may have made some kind of sleight toward Mr. Frost or his people and that's why the did the villainous things they did. 

Keep it loose and don't write down any more than what is actually said in the game.  This can help players stay out of the corner when they're doing their painting.  Also, as a player my own self I'd probably chose an interesting fact or two and make it my point to turn them on their heads.

[andrew_kenrick]

Now that's a very good idea. I made a note after the last game to make sure we make more notes next time, but I never considered formalising the whole process. Thanks!