[Cat] Meredith's Big Night Out

[Caesar_X]

One of my gaming goals for 2007 is to expose more non-gamers to Story Gaming in an attempt to understand more about what excites them from a gaming perspective.  So if you are looking for an AP that deals strictly with the game rules, this isn't it.

After getting my copy of John Wick's 'Cat' in the mail, I set up a game with several friends of my fiancé (Rachel) and I.  We asked specifically for it to be "girls-only" as I had never gamed with more than one or two women at the table and was curious about the different table dynamic.  Over email or phone, just about everyone asked if they could bring a significant other, but I asked that we do a separate game (hopefully 1001 Nights) later for couples .  No one really knew what the game was all about, but they were all very interested in the thought of a "cat game".  One girl brought a bottle of wine with a cat on it, and another wore her cool cat sweater.

Last night my super-cool fiancé was busy filling the kitchen with all sorts of snacks and appetizers and drinks for the guests.  We had three players RSVP'd, not including Rachel.  One of them had rented one of those Share Cars as she lives in the city, and got herself lost since she never drives!  While we were waiting for the late arrival, one of the girls who didn't RSVP showed up with her husband in tow.  And while we were stuck in an awkward social position, it would have been rude to exclude him at this point.

We were supposed to start a 7:00, but due to the delayed guest we didn't really get started until 8:00.  And halfway through the session the couple announced that they had to leave for a concert at 9:30.  So we really only got character generation, a quick overview of the rules, and a few scenes done.  But between all of the wine and good chocolate, I had a focused group!

I started by explained a little bit about the background and how cats had won this contest that was held every 1000 years and that they had to keep an eye on the humans and protect them from Boggins and other bad things.  Then I had them create their own cats.  They came up with three names: their "real" name that humans knew them by; their "buddy" name that other cats called them; and their "secret" name that they had to keep secret from the bad guys.  I went around the table so they could exchange their real and buddy names, but kept the secret names a mystery.

Next they took their cat traits and made one of them Best, three others Strong and the other two Good.  There was confusion here as they had figured that the progression would go 1-2-3 rather than 1-3-2 so they wondered whether "Strong" was really better than "Good"?  One observation here is that none of the players really seemed interested in the cats fighting.  They grimaced at terms such as Claws and Fangs that are used in the rules.  And all six of the players choose either Face, Legs or Tail as their Best trait.  They quickly grasped that the cats had nine lives, but didn't like the thought of Scars from losing dangerous conflicts.  As I explained the game mechanics, one of the women saw the bowl of six-sided dice in the middle of the table and said, "So is this like D&D for girls?" <Grin>

I wanted to link the cats together more, so I borrowed a page from Best Friends/1001 Nights.  I had them all turn over their cat sheet and write down why they were jealous of the cats to their left and right.  I used these jealousies as their starting Reputations, and they came up with some pretty funny ones for each other.

Now the actual adventure started.  I told the story of a woman in her 20s who moved to the big city and lived in a little apartment with the cats who were in her neighborhood.  She had a decent job, but was a little lonely.  Someone broke in and said, "if she's got six cats, she must not be getting laid much!"  This beginning of the story was one of the best parts of the game as they started asking questions like, "what's her name?" and "where does she live?"  So I asked them to fill in the blanks and once the floodgates opened, man did I get a lot of information!

Her name was Meredith and she lived in an in-law Studio apartment in the Outer Sunset district of SF.  It had a dripping faucet, rattan furniture (for the cats to sharpen their claws on) and lots of cat condos.  She tried to make it homey, but it was a bit dreary.  There were white linoleum floors in the kitchen, a tiny backyard with an herb garden that was accessed via the fire escape.  Lots of windows in the apartment; and a goldfish bowl that they all coveted.  I'm sure I missed a lot of info about Meredith's place.

They set Meredith up to be a bit of a tragic figure, but they still wanted to keep an eye on her best interests.  I told them that she finally had a date and they were horrified to think that she would bring the guy back to her place.  But I said that they were meeting at a café nearby.  Meredith came home with a brand new dress that was too expensive for her salary, and as she tried it on in front of the mirror one of the cats noticed that it had a big rip in the back that Meredith didn't see.

As Meredith blissfully took the dress off and hopped in the shower before her big date, all six cats huddled to see what could be done.  They weren't yet thinking in terms of "cats can do anything", so one suggested hurling on the dress so Meredith would have to wear something else.  Others had more practical solutions like finding a jacket that would hide the rip.  No one seemed to be interested in trying to fix the rip in that short amount of time, although the cat with the Best Tail (which is used for magic) wanted to magically fix the dress, and was disappointed to learn that magic can't do everything.

So as Meredith dried herself off, the cats hatched their plan.  Meredith got into the dress again and Go-Go Kitty used her Legs to kick the mirror a bit so Meredith would see the big rip.  Laura got a Style bonus for rolling more evens than she needed, and she hammed it up as the cat did her thing.

Meredith suddenly saw the rip and broke down crying as she was going to be late for her big date and didn't know what to do.  Boots was by the front door and heard the unmistakable sound of the mean landlord (Stu) coming down the stairs.  Boots looked at the calendar and saw that it was the 3rd of the month.  The cats put two-and-two together and realized that Meredith used some of her rent money to pay for the nice dress and Stu was coming to collect.

At this point I was a little worried about only one person acting in a scene at a time while the other five twiddled their thumbs, so I split up the action a bit.  Boots used her magic to slip through the closed front door so she could try and trip the landlord as he came down the stairs.  Four of the other cats raced into Meredith's closet and made nice rolls as they dragged out jeans, boots, a sweater and a blazer for her to wear.  I gave the person who wasn't involved in the scene a few extra dice to give to characters who she thought needed help.  I wished that there was a mechanic for helping others in this game.  The players who had style dice continued to ham it up as they put the swank outfit together for the hapless Meredith, who saw the light and put on the outfit that was "laying on the floor".

Boots tried to trip Stu but failed and got a Scar in the Face.  The landlord merely stumbled and made it to Meredith's door and started knocking loudly.  The cats knew that Meredith couldn't open the front door, so Bing used some magic and ran around Meredith three times quickly to get her to open the backdoor so they could get out.  Meredith was in a daze from the magic, so the cats all nudged her out the backdoor and on the way to her date.

At that point it was time for some of the people to leave, so we ended the game.    Before leaving they all insisted in shared their secret names, which raised some more laughs.  Overall it sounded like they enjoyed playing the game and were intrigued by the possibilities.  Here are the Cat Sheets from the game:

Name: Rasputin
Buddy Name: Baby Huei
Secret Name: Clambake
Reputations: Jumps really high; mysterious and weird
Coat: Good
Legs: Good
Claws: Strong
Face: Best
Fangs: Strong
Tail: Strong

Name: Tyler
Buddy Name: Spike
Secret Name: Nefarious
Reputations: "Rocks" on napping; gets all the fancy food
Coat: Strong
Legs: Strong
Claws: Good
Face: Best
Fangs: Good
Tail: Strong

Name: Slate
Buddy Name: Go-Go Kitty
Secret Name: Waxy
Reputations: Fresh catnip; glamorous and polished
Coat: Good
Legs: Best
Claws: Good
Face: Strong
Fangs: Strong
Tail: Strong

Name: Kitty
Buddy Name: Bing
Secret Name: Neko
Reputations: Really long tail; lots of style
Coat: Strong
Legs: Good
Claws: Strong
Face: Strong
Fangs: Good
Tail: Best

Name: Palladio
Buddy Name: Trigger
Secret Name: Spencer
Reputations: Takes long naps; gets lots of attention in the neighborhood
Coat: Good
Legs: Best
Claws: Strong
Face: Good
Fangs: Strong
Tail: Strong

Name: Tigger
Buddy Name: Boots
Secret Name: Alec
Reputations: Excellent cleaning skills; clever
Coat: Good
Legs: Strong
Claws: Strong
Face: Strong
Fangs: Good
Tail: Best

Some observations about the game and the session:
1.   I wish there were rules in the game for cats helping each other.  Perhaps an aiding cat could give helping dice to another.
2.   There's a great index in the back of the game book, but no page numbers!
3.   The game rules read very "male" to me with lots of "he" and "him" and seemed to assume that the cats and the players will all be guys.  These players were much more focused on the "cat style" and cleverness, and were not the least bit interested in fighting to get what they wanted.  An interesting aside is that no one stated the gender of their cat and it never came up during play.
4.   It was difficult to challenge the players as they often had a lot of dice to use and I had to justify to the table pretty well to name a Risk as "Hard".  But we were just getting started and I wanted to get them into the rules slowly.
5.   The players weren't shy about letting me know when they didn't agree with something.  Like "why can't I use magic for that?" or "hey, that's Easy for a cat to do."
6.   During the pre-game banter at the table, some of the players assumed that since this was a "game" that there was going to be a "winner".  So it took some explaining that this was more of a storytelling game and that perhaps they might work together to achieve their ends.
7.   When I asked the players to name characters, some tended to bring up people they knew (the lonely friend; the mean landlord), but the others wanted someone who wasn't real which forced the group to be more creative.
8.   The players were mostly tentative at first when asked to describe or narrate.  But once they saw that they had "permission" and wouldn't be criticized or judged, the creative floodgates opened and they came up with way more material than I had expected.
9.   Playing this game with six hardcore players at a con would be tough, but with six non-gamers it was even harder.  I would have much rather had 3-4 players max.  But having said that, the fact that there were six players who didn't necessarily all agree made for some fun "caper-like" moments as they plotted their schemes. 
10.   The first observation here is that a lot of non-gamers don't get together to "play a game".  They get together to hang out with their friends and socialize.  If there's a game involved then that is cool.  Sometimes the game can get in the way and sometimes it can get people more involved.  I find that it gets people more involved when they don't really know each other because they have a reason to interact.  This was a mixed group because everyone knew Rachel and me, but they all hadn't necessarily met each other.
11.   After the guests left, my fiancé said that there seemed to be a lot of storytelling and that she would have preferred something to tie it to like cards or a game board.  I will admit that for a lot of non-gamers, it feels weird to only have a pencil, a cat sheet and a bowl of six-sided dice to rely on.  Perhaps the cards or the game board is part of the social contract that makes it "okay to be playing a game".  I'd be curious what others think of this.


Any other comments or observations?  Have any of you played with non-gamers recently?

[Callan S.]

Hi,

Bit confused about the social configuration here -  girls only night? I don't know your real name and your internet handle seems male - your female?

[komradebob]

11.   After the guests left, my fiancé said that there seemed to be a lot of storytelling and that she would have preferred something to tie it to like cards or a game board.  I will admit that for a lot of non-gamers, it feels weird to only have a pencil, a cat sheet and a bowl of six-sided dice to rely on.  Perhaps the cards or the game board is part of the social contract that makes it "okay to be playing a game".  I'd be curious what others think of this.

I suspect you'll already know my  answer to this bit, Chris .

I think props of all kinds are helpful to new folks playing rpgs. Cards or boards are good because they're familiar as "game" elements. I think LARPs are a good entry point, too, because people understand the concept of moving around and pretending to be someone else ( either from childhood play or from things like inprov/acting).

I don't think it was all accident nor wholly the minis/wargaming roots of rpgs that led early designers to include things like maps and props in their games.

I also don't think it's an accident that folks who've picked up rpgs as a long term hobby often tend to drop those physical elements.

People try to define what rpgs are. To me it's pretty simple: Rpgs are things that give permission/an excuse to Play Pretend with other people after the age of 10.

[Caesar_X]

Callan, my name is Chris and I'm a guy.  I guess my comment was a bit confusing there:)

Robert, I think you are right about the "props".  But I'm confused by your comment about LARPs being a good entry point when they don't have any visible props that non-gamers would be used to.  Why would moving around and acting be any different than sitting at a table and acting?  Care to elaborate?

Chris B.

[komradebob]

Reposted from the related Story-games thread:

I think LARPS, even without props, are a good entry point for new players because they're closer to things they already know. In the case of LARPs, space to move around effectively becomes the important prop. In a ttrpg, the table is just something to sit at and roll dice on, lean on to write. In a LARP, it''s the Big Boss' table at the local Speakeasy, the living room is the hoity-toity gal's mansion, the deck is the yacht and the basement is the mad scientist's lab.

On top of that, even non-gamers do roleplay under the right circumstances. Watch what happens at an adult Halloween or Mardi Gras party. People will begin to act in-character, spontaneously creating vignettes as their characters. Sure, they'll drop in and out of character (unlike log-time hobbyists), but the basics are there.

I guess I'm saying that the tabletop, sans board or cards, are something that long term hobbyists can evolve to appreciating, but may actually be a little constraining and unfamiliar to new folks.

BTW, doesn't John Wick talk about playing Cat with kids and moving around the house to describe where the action is taking place, making it an almost LARP kind of thing ( or similar to The Nighttime Animmals Save the World where the players use the physical surroundings as inspiration for the story events)? Maybe it wasn't John, but someone else?

[Caesar_X]

On top of that, even non-gamers do roleplay under the right circumstances.

I would agree there, but the big difference here is that you are asking adults to sit down together and roleplay within a given set on constraints (i.e. character sheet, following the rules, rolling dice, etc.)  I think some things really helped me, such as the subject matter (it's a game about cats!) and my obvious excitement about the game and the geek cred that I have with them since they know I make games for a living.  If someone had bought the game "cold" and suggested running it with friends instead of say Poker or Settlers of Catan or Apples to Apples, it might have been a much harder sell.

Perhaps a game that was heavier on the board/card game elements and much lighter (at least initially) on the storytelling elements would make a better crossover game.  But that's only conjecture on my part.

On the positive side, several people have already emailed to say that they really enjoyed trying a new game experience and liked the in-game banter.

[komradebob]

Perhaps a game that was heavier on the board/card game elements and much lighter (at least initially) on the storytelling elements would make a better crossover game.  But that's only conjecture on my part.

I think that there's a really fine line involved no matter what. Any introduction almost certainly needs a touch-stone of familiarity of some kind.

I think sometimes designers are a bit afraid to tell, outright, new purchasers what to do. Which, in the sense that a new rpg design is most likely going to end up in the hands of long-term hobbyists rather than total newbs, may be a valid concern.

Do you think that if you'd taken a bit more designer type control that it would have ben easier or harder to introduce these folks?
By that, I mean things like:

More pre-game situation building, perhaps with pregens and even a bit of character roleplay advice?

Some kind of basic situation background handout.

Maybe a story "track" to show forward progress?

An end-game condition?

I realize that none of that stuff is built-in in Cat, btw. I also realize that your players seem to have really jumped in and got going. I'm thinking more of a general start-up procedure.

It sounds like your playes really took to the game, which is awesome-gives me warm-fuzzies ( which I suppose is appropriate in this case)

On the positive side, several people have already emailed to say that they really enjoyed trying a new game experience and liked the in-game banter.