Driftwood Indie Game Night: InSpectres

[Jake Norwood]

First off, it was Clinton's review that got me to buy the game. It just reeked of fun from the sounds of it.

The game was very easy to start (chargen was a snap) and the players got into the idea immedieately. We started with hire-on interviews (except for the boss-lady, who got an interview with NightWatch about their new Chicago based franchise of "ABC Ghost Control."

ABC Ghost control is located in a former car-and-body shop in Cook country, Chicago. It is funded through a govt. grant on the research of paranormal stuff, as the CEO is a psycologist named Ingrid Schumacher.

Her accomplices are Eric, a former car mechanic and Bears fan, and Ralph Peterson, an ex-plumber going through his mid-life crisis. We started them out with a 7-die franchise.

The game was a blast. We ran a 10-die mission with a ton of twists and turns. The players got waaaay into the confessionals, although they didn't run things exactly the way they were intended to run. As GM I struggled with letting them have so much control over the story, and had to pull myself back from a lot of more traditional techniques about 3 times. Overall I think I'm getting it. I did my best to keep the pace up and to give them stuff to run with. The session ended up being on the stupid side of silly, although I think as we're all more comfy with the way it works things will begin to "grow up" a little, and we can do more and cooler stuff.

We'll be playing again I'm sure. It seems like a good system for either beer-and-pretzels play, or more dedicated campaigns.

Jake

[Jared A. Sorensen]

The session ended up being on the stupid side of silly, although I think as we're all more comfy with the way it works things will begin to "grow up" a little, and we can do more and cooler stuff.

I've noticed this is often the case. MOST of the games I've run have been really silly (the exception being the quick game I ran for Paul Czege and Gordon Landis).

I'm curious -- does the typical "GM=God" paradigm exist to help alleviate silliness? Or is it the Ghostbuster-inspired setting that causes the game to become silly? I'm asking because I don't see InSpectres as needing any silliness whatsoever to be successful (the overall tone of the game should be ironic and dry more than anything else). Has anyone done any alt.InSpectres games (like In-Speckers, UnSpeakable or something of their own design that mitigates the silly)?

We'll be playing again I'm sure. It seems like a good system for either beer-and-pretzels play, or more dedicated campaigns.

...me reaching for various implements of mayhem...

- J

[Jake Norwood]

I'm curious -- does the typical "GM=God" paradigm exist to help alleviate silliness? Or is it the Ghostbuster-inspired setting that causes the game to become silly? I'm asking because I don't see InSpectres as needing any silliness whatsoever to be successful (the overall tone of the game should be ironic and dry more than anything else). Has anyone done any alt.InSpectres games (like In-Speckers, UnSpeakable or something of their own design that mitigates the silly)?

This is a good question. I think that the free-form authorship of InSpectres is what makes it silly...the Ghostbusters feel just really really helps. I could imagin having a "serious" game with this much co-authorship in a situation where everyone agreed to some baseline rules and wanted that kind of a game, and if everyone was willing to put aside their spur-of-the-moment silliness for something more meaningful. The problem is that it's just too easy--with the confessional and the huge amount of PC/GM powersharing--to screw stuff up and be dumb. The real issue, perhaps, is the chaos involved. It's part of the fun, but also prevents it from "growing up." A more traditional GM can create "order" and can set a mood without having to wrestle with his players for it. What's more is that in InSpectres, the GM has, IMO, significantly less power than any one player...I wanted an NPC to run confessionals with! Very few of my "ideas" ever went anywhere, while instead the whole game was me trying to "keep up." Sure it was fun, but orderly or serious it wasn't.

I probably used more words than I needed to to say that, but oh well.

Jake

[hardcoremoose]

J-

I gotta' say, I think a good deal of the silliness comes from your presentation of the setting.  

I ran several NightWatch games, and while they were indeed kind of silly, they weren't obnoxiusly so (not in the way Appalachia Now! always is).  Indeed, the first adventure I ever ran ended on a fairly serious note, as the NightWatch crew discovered and exposed a woman who had pushed her elderly mother down a flight of stairs at her apartment complex, killing her, the reason being that she was fed up with having to care for the crotchety old woman.  It was a good session.

We ran into a bout of the sillies while playing OctaNe as well.  Now OctaNe is definitely meant to be one step to the side of goofy, but my intent was for the game to be a bit darker and more grindhouse than it ended up being.  Paul and I decided that it was partially because of the presentation of the mechanics.  At the time, the text for rolling a 3 or 4 included the words "narrate something comical that happens to your character" (or something very close to that), and the net effect was that everyone was going for comedy.  The moral of the story: Presentation is very, very important.

That said, I'm pleased as punch that NightWatch got a mention in Jake's game.  Very cool.

- Scott

[Jared A. Sorensen]

J-
At the time, the text for rolling a 3 or 4 included the words "narrate something comical that happens to your character" (or something very close to that), and the net effect was that everyone was going for comedy.  The moral of the story: Presentation is very, very important.

I do NOT think InSpectres games should be unfunny. Having the game be funny is kinda a requirement. I'm just wondering why many of the games seem to be out of control "funny" (more Mel Brooks than Bill Murray).

As for octaNe, the die rolling rule has been changed -- it's now a case of who gets control and how much (total or partial, favoring the GM or the Player).

[Valamir]

I also happen to think that to a large extent silly is supported for initial play because as something very new and very different its a lot easier to fall back on silly than serious.  If players aren't really sure how the game is going to work or whether they might screw it up, there is less at risk by being silly and screwing up than laying their soul bare and screwing up.

Once this pattern is in place, I think it becomes difficult to break out of it even for those who've played alot.  I expect it has to be a concious decision by the players in advance to "run one with more drama and less goof"

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

One thing I've noticed with my play of InSpectres is that every group asks to keep playing. They like their characters, they're worried about the franchise, and they want to try the mechanics again (possibly in terms of nailing another player as thoroughly as they got nailed).

Although I'm pretty much in the mid-range of the silliness scale, based on the examples so far, I agree with Ralph that some thought/discussion to toss in substantive content is necessary. I'm optimistic that it would work, though, because as I said above, the players do seem to care about their work.

I also think that to a great extent, InSpectres play really is more of a group creation than a GM-to-players creation, and therefore the GM has to give up a lot of that thematic control that he or she traditionally enjoys. I use the word "enjoys" very literally - for years, I GM'd because it was the only way I was going to be able to enjoy playing, and a big part of that was because I had thematic input (and players tended not to, back then).

Now, however, we see a game like InSpectres, and the GM goes, "Where's my thematic input? Hey!" I guess my advice to Jake is this: be a player next time ...

Best,
Ron

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Now, however, we see a game like InSpectres, and the GM goes, "Where's my thematic input? Hey!" I guess my advice to Jake is this: be a player next time ...

Oh yeah - getting back to Jake:

I agree with Ron and will add, "Try playing without a GM..."

The chief benefit of being the GM is that you don't ever have to roll to make stuff happen (players can only do this once during the game...and only while in Confessional mode) and you can throw Stress dice at the players whenever ya want.

[Jake Norwood]

I've thought about running it w/o a GM, but who then describes the rolls of 123, and who decides on Stress ratings, etc?

Jake

[Jared A. Sorensen]

GM-less:
Hmmm...pick another player. That person is your "GM" when it comes to 1,2,3. For Stress, whoever introduces the stressor determines its rating.