[1001 Nights] Lots of interesting play from very little preparation

[fjj]

I presented and played 1001 Nights at a game convent i Århus, Denmark, this Easter (home page in Danish: www.fastaval.dk).

We were a group of people doing indie game sessions. In one session, I presented 1001 Nights. My initial sales pitch for the game didn't came through compared with e.g. Contenders and My Life With Master, but I got a few extras and ran a game.

Three players, none of which I knew beforehand. All fairly young, say like 15-20 (I'm 32). I asked if they had game mastered before, as the scene framing and scene resolution can be a challenge if not. One of them had none, the other two had little.

I explained the basic concept and started out with a round the table association on 1001 Nights (sultan, flying carpet, djinn, cinnamon, camel, etc.), to get people started on the theme.

I talked about courtiers and we created our four courtiers: A water boy, the astrologer, the master cook and the executioner (me - I did "cheat" and came up with the idea of the executioner prior to the game). I've prepared some cheat sheets with courtiers, names, envies etc. from the game and from www.random-generator.com.

We set up the envies and – inspired by Dogs – I introduced a few family ties to make sure that not everybody would be happy to have all the others ambitions fulfilled. The water boy wanted to make out with the daughter of the master cook. The executioner wanted to marry the water boy's mother. The astrologer wanted the secret command word to the hidden library from the century old prisoner in the dungeon, guarded by the executioner. The cook wanted to create a new recipe that would be appraised by the Sultan.

Next I described the story rules with the gems.

I started out the court level story and told the first story: The Rich Widow and the Returning Seaman. I had deliberately tried not to prepare a story in advance, so everything was a spur of the moment. However, bidding in for issues to be addressed worked very well to form the story. The other quickly grasped the mechanism. The story ended with me having won 8 gems and the other between 3 and 5 each. Nobody intercepted ambition dice first time around. Two of us put some in safety and the rest in ambition, the other two split more evenly. All of us surprisingly failed our safety rolls, leading each to be reprimanded by the sultan, returning unexpectedly from a journey catching the court by surprise. Two of us got a good start on our ambition. Resolving the court scenes between stories worked well.

The water boy told the next story. This was the story of the peasant boy who went to the royal castle to court the princess. Again, lots of gems were dealt out. Resolving court scenes included also sabotaging each others ambitions. However, the water boy won his ambition anyway.

With only two stories told and about an hour of play, we decided to keep the game going. The water boy player now developed a new courtier: the prisoner in the dungeon, continuing the court story.

After the next story (the story about when the stars disappeared from the Heaven, told by the astrologer), the cook won his freedom and the executioner won his ambition. For the fourth player to have a go at telling a story, we put him up for letting the cook tell a story on the day he left the palace. This was the story about the apprentice cook who tested a recipe and shrank to three inches tall.

Total play time was around two and a half hours plus a break or two.

We all had a good time, came up with varied stories and interesting court scenes. It was difficult to clearly exploit the contrast between the court relations and the stories. But getting the story flow both in the framing court story and in the stories was pleasantly easy.

The mechanics with story gems works very well: It is very easy to explain and understand; it supports the interaction and collaboration between the players nicely; and it is not too intrusive into the story flow (which is a common disadvantage of other indie games for the first few sessions until you learn the game). The youngest player had a bit confusion from time to time on taking a story gem and rolling the die at the point of resolution of an issue.

The stories seem to have a tendency to avoid the most interesting confrontations with no mechanic to drive the story towards maximum conflict. This is a familiar flaw also occurring from time to time in the traditional Danish style, consensus style, with the game master as the arbiter, often seeking harmony and compromises, not disharmony and tension. Tension and conflict must be brought into the game deliberately by the players, where natural group dynamics favours harmony and compromises, especially when you have a group of people that does not know each other well.

The game does seem a bit broke with regard to how easy it is to win your ambition – at least if you want everybody to tell a story before the game is over. Especially with two "free ones" for safety. Adjusting the levels to 3 – 7 – 9 as Meg suggested in another thread, may not be enough. I double checked the rules; I think we did everything by the book.

However, I am likely to set up the game again, especially I like that there is very little preparation and a very simple but effective mechanic to drive out rather satisfying stories.

[MatrixGamer]

So this game is like Baron Munchausen (that game from the 90's).

It sounds interesting.

When it comes to conflicts it may help to have zero sum gain goals. The goals told in you example could all have happened. No one would have lost. But if you want to marry my mother and I need her to remain a grieving widdow (aka Hamlet) then sparks will fly.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press = Engle Matrix Games

[Meguey]

I like the twist of building in family connections - that adds to the people in court nicely. Sounds like you had some good stories.

[fjj]

Haven't tried or read Baron Munchausen, so I can't compare. However, compared with a story game like Once Upon A Time, there is more focus in 1001 Nights. The framing story is especially nice - you both get the traditional 1 player = 1 character with straight chronology and some inter player competition, but also the more free associating collaborative story telling.

Meg, how about a modification that you can get at most one success from an ambition or freedom roll. And a required number of successes equals to the number of players present for ambition, a bit more for freedom. This is guaranteed to give a longer game.

Regarding conflicting motives, we clearly agreed that the water boy did not want his mother to marry the ill reputed executioner (who was also a foreigner). I just didn't got that into the write up.

[lumpley]

In both 1001 Nights and Baron Munchausen, you go around the circle each taking a turn to tell a story.

In Baron Munchausen, you and your character tell a story about one of your character's own exploits, and the other players (via their characters) listen and sometimes kibitz, but don't take any more active part.

In 1001 Nights, you and your character GM a story, and the other players (via their characters) roleplay the characters in it. For instance, you might have your character say "I'm going to tell the story of the Sultana and her three daughters. You [pointing] play the Sultana, a bitter person; you [pointing] play the vain, ruthless oldest sister; you [pointing] play the weak, cruel middle sister; and you [pointing] play the clever, beautiful youngest sister."

Personally I find Baron Munchausen daunting, and 1001 Nights super easy to play.

[Nev the Deranged]

So, 1000 Nights is more like, say, Man of La Mancha (the novel/play/movie, there is no game that I know of). Except everybody gets a turn to lead.