[One Can Have Her] Ratting in black and white

[Ron Edwards]

At last, I have time to post about playing One Can Have Her. The group included me, Tim K, Tim A, and Chris. Jonas (and Peter), I apologize for the lateness, and for not participating in the other threads, which I hope to get to during the course of the next few days.

The basics

The black-and-white description rules were rather fun and satisfying to us. At one point, a powerful film studio magnate flushed with anger, and someone said something like "His face reddens," and I think it was Chris who swiftly revised it to a black-and-white version of the same phrasing. All of us grunted and nodded in that way which indicates that we all enjoyed his attention to the point.

Our story was a hell of a lot of fun! We only had one round of ratting, because the cards dictated the end of the story at that point. Here are the characters:

Guy Brody, a depressed cop, played by Tim K. He had committed arson against his wife, burning up her apartment and in fact trying to kill her. He seeks forgiveness (and Tim K pointed out that this did not necessarily mean from the wife or for this particular act). His enemy is Kasper Luck, a crusading district attorney; he knows the Femme Fatale from a nearby nightclub.

Grant Mitchell, a hardboiled journalist, played by Chris. He is blackmailing a famous singer/actress who is a closeted lesbian. He wants to be rich. His enemy is "Uncle" Joe Noble, the head of a film studio; he knows the Femme Fatale because he dates her mother.

Joe Bancroft, an aggressive gangster, played by Tim A. He had stolen a shipment of stolen booze from his crime-boss father. He seeks success in his profession. His enemy is Whit Hadley, his father's sinister hit-man; he knows the Femme Fatale from work.

How should I summarize this ... well, all three characters were pretty grubby people. The emergent story reminded me a lot of fiction by Jim Thompson, the king of gritty, horrid, disturbing pulp short stories and novels.

Grant played a good game of turning his blackmail from the actress to his enemy (the girlfriend being Noble's wife), and he also tried to sleep with the Femme Fatale and her mother on the same vacation trip. It all went badly for him eventually, though, and upon being ratted on to his enemies, he went to prison.

Joe instigated a gang war over the stolen booze and basically ignored the Femme Fatale although she was peripherally involved in his scenes. We had quite a good time with Whit Hadley as the enemy, simply because he didn't have to do much in order to be a source of tension or even terror. No matter what, Whit always seemed to be around. Joe was ratted on by both other players and was simultaneously shot both by Whit and by the police.

Guy went through a series of painfully-humiliating encounters with his wife, the DA, and various other cops. He tried to fink and scam his way out of his problems without much success, but as it turned out, no one ratted on him and he ended up with the Femme Fatale. This didn't quite work, causally, as she had not been central to any of his scenes, so we played it more-or-less as the character

Concerns

1. The procedures of play, as written, require extensive guessing by the group. They need a full, richer re-write - utterly procedural, in the sense of "do this, do that, and do this other thing next."

Here's what we ended up doing, because we guessed. I don't know if it's what you intended, Jonas. In a given scene or situation, a conflict will emerge. It's usually pretty clear who is the aggressor, so that's easy; that person states the goal. Then the GM must play in opposition to the stated goal.

Then, the rest of the players each have a choice. (a) They can jump into the conflict right now, stating themselves to be additional opposition in some way; they will participate just as the GM and aggressor do in terms of card play, specifically that the cards they play are discarded without replacement. (b) The players who choose not to do this still have a chance to participate, after the formal opponents have all shown their cards, using the cross-playing rules. These people play more flexibly as they can choose whoever to support with each exchange of cards, and they get to re-draw to replace their cards, but the rules are more restrictive on their play-choices and they can only act upon the cards played by the formal opponents.

This sequence and set of options led to some interesting things during play. For instance, the aggressor might beat some of his opposition, but not others. The narration rules do a good job of permitting this to occur in the fiction. But we also chose to interpret the rules such that the aggressor (and helpers, if any) must beat all opposition in order to get his goal.

2. All of us were disappointed that the Femme Fatale (Mona Smith) played such a small role in the story. It wasn't disastrous - she did end up being more of a unifying feature and symbol to the hypothetical audience to our story, rather than a key actor in it, which is legitimate in its way. But we also wanted her to be more concrete, and to some extent, to become more of her own character.

All of that might have been due to me dropping the ball as GM. I don't know whether that's the case. I put her into the scenes, and played her fairly neutrally because I wanted to keep from driving the plot with her needs and decisions rather than the protagonists'.

(As a side note, at one point, we decided not to describe her physically, and I found that very enjoyable.)

If there's a rules/structural problem with the Femme Fatale, it's that each character already had a lot going on. The NPCs implicit in the character's crime and in the enemy were more than enough to work with. Perhaps I should have made sure that Mona offered a way out to each character in some way, specifically in terms of his personal goal. Actually, when I play again, that's exactly what I'll do as GM. I do think that the rules should be very clear about this - that the GM should do that, otherwise incurring the risk that the title and climax of the game will not really apply very well.

3. As a group, we strongly recommend that the names, crimes, goals, and so on should all be chosen strictly from the lists provided by the rules, without exception. New lists can be made, but we really advise against making up alternative entries as a personal option during character creation.

4. Chris insisted, at first, that there was no point to the ratting rules because you'd always rat ... and it's interesting, when I teach the Prisoner's Dilemma to students, they often also claim the same thing. But the Dilemma is very different when you're in it, as opposed to just thinking about it. As with my students after they actually try the exercise, Chris did not sing that same song after we'd actually applied the rules. I take this to indicate that the ratting rules are very, very good as written, and that people might be warned not to pay attention to any reactions or claims about them prior to play.

It's really good, Jonas. It's coming along very well. I want to put a little emphasis on point #1, though, because the procedural rules really need to be beefed up. I also think you might be falling into a common trap of writing game rules, which is getting distracted by possible exceptions and explaining them in detail instead of first focusing on the non-exceptional procedures from beginning to end.

Best, Ron

edited to fix some formatting

[Jonas Ferry]

Hello Ron and the rest of the group,

Thank you all for the playtest and the report. I'm getting married this weekend and then I'll go on vacation for a week. Because of this I only have time for a quick reply.

I have a couple of questions and comments, if you'd like to talk some more about the test.

1) I would like to know the first and last names of all participants so I can include you in the playtest credits in the game. You can reply here or by email.

2) You say the cards dictated you only had one round of ratting. Did you draw a random card to see if it was red or black? The game master is supposed to control the number of rounds by choosing a red or a black card. The card is hidden from the players while they rat, and revealed afterwards.

3) When Tim K's Guy wasn't ratted on it meant that Guy reached his life goal and that Tim could control the fate of Mona Smith in his epilogue. Guy didn't have to end up with Mona, so Tim could decide whatever he wanted for her. Normally that's for the game master to do, but now Tim could decide if she lived or died, or if she ended up with one of the characters or not.

4) I haven't decided yet if I want to include only two-participant conflicts or if I want three or more participants in the same conflict. Three-person conflicts haven't been used once in my own playtests, only conflicts between player-game master or player-player. If I keep cross-playing, and I were a bit surprised when I googled that term, the only way to influence other conflicts the game will be simpler. Do you think I would lose something by removing three-or-more-part conflicts, or will it make the game easier to use?

I agree that the femme fatale should, or at least could, represent a way out for the characters. I liked how you had the same discussion I always have on whether or not to always rat, and that you enjoyed playing in black and white. When Peter finishes his OmniCon report you'll see that that game ended the same way as yours: the character least involved in the femme fatale was the one who wasn't ratted on. I find that interesting.

- Jonas

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jonas!

The participants were me (Ron Edwards), Tim Koppang, Tim Alexander, and Chris Weil.

Regarding the number of rounds, I did draw a random card to see whether it was red or black. It showed the color which is supposed to stop the game (can't remember which one as I type here, but that was the color).

However, this sentence in your post confuses me:

The game master is supposed to control the number of rounds by choosing a red or a black card.

Wait a minute. Just a sentence before that you said "draw a random card," which is also consistent with the textual rules we used, but now, here, you are saying that the GM chooses a card, and thus chooses whether the game will continue into a new round. How can that be?

Perhaps this is merely a language issue. In English, "to choose" indicates knowledge over the options and cannot carry the meaning of drawing a random card. Do you mean that the GM actually chooses? Or that he simply draws a card without knowing what it is and proceeds by the rules from there? I hope the second one is correct.

3) When Tim K's Guy wasn't ratted on it meant that Guy reached his life goal and that Tim could control the fate of Mona Smith in his epilogue. Guy didn't have to end up with Mona, so Tim could decide whatever he wanted for her. Normally that's for the game master to do, but now Tim could decide if she lived or died, or if she ended up with one of the characters or not.

That's right. That's how we played and that's what happened. Tim wasn't comfortable with having the Femme Fatale be entirely absent from Guy's epilogue, and neither was anyone else. So he narrated a satisfying if rather peripheral ending which included her.

4) I haven't decided yet if I want to include only two-participant conflicts or if I want three or more participants in the same conflict. Three-person conflicts haven't been used once in my own playtests, only conflicts between player-game master or player-player. If I keep cross-playing, and I were a bit surprised when I googled that term, the only way to influence other conflicts the game will be simpler. Do you think I would lose something by removing three-or-more-part conflicts, or will it make the game easier to use?

Here is my advice, which I suggest trying in more playtests. It may not be the best option, but that's the only way to tell.

I suggest using the structure I describe in my post. Once the conflict and the aggressor's goal has been established, then the other players must choose whether to jump in as additional opponents, or whether they will stay out of the conflict for now (before the cards are shown). If they stay out, then every time new cards are shown, they may "cross-play" (I used your term from the rules) as the rules describe. But if they decided to participate from the very beginning, then they may not cross-play.

Also, if they decided to participate from the very beginning, they cannot be on the side of the fellow play - they must play opposition as if they were additional GMs.

I look forward to playing again. I know that the four of us were at least willing to play further rounds if the card dictated, but also that we thought it was fun and satisfying even though the game only lasted one round. I'll also try to play the Femme Fatale as a more explicit opportunity for each character to achieve his goal.

Best, Ron

[Emily Care]

Glad to hear this is going forward, Jonas. I'm looking forward to getting to play One Can Have Her.

3. As a group, we strongly recommend that the names, crimes, goals, and so on should all be chosen strictly from the lists provided by the rules, without exception. New lists can be made, but we really advise against making up alternative entries as a personal option during character creation.

I second this, sight unseen, based on some experiences I've had recently with a pirate game Vincent is working on. When you have a game based on a clearly defined genre, working with limited lists helps give play a sharp focus. And its remarkable how different games will be when using the same elements based on the interpretations given by different players.

The Femme Fatale is a gm-run character, I take it. How does she function? Is she the Eponymous character? What are the mechanical rules associated with her? Are there other npc's who have similar roles?

Thanks for the great playtest account, Ron.

best,
Emily

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Em,

The Femme Fatale is made up sketchily but collectively at the outset of play, in part due to the ways the characters know her (chosen independently). So I as GM knew that Mona worked in some way associated with bootlegging, frequented a nightclub, and had a mother who was carrying on a romance with a shady reporter. I chose her name (from a list) and played her as an NPC.

As I said in the account, rules for playing the Femme Fatale are too vague. They're heavy on atmosphere and too light on practicality.

The win conditions of the game include that player also narrating the fate of the Femme Fatale, which in many cases concerns that particular character ending up with her romantically, hence the name and hence yes, the eponymous reference. However, as I said, it's a little tricky to get the Femme Fatale shoehorned into all the other stuff going on with the characters, especially the Goals.

I'm actually very reluctant to suggest any enforced feature of the design like "the Femme Fatale must be romantically involved with each character" or anything else so rigid. The game benefits from its variety of on-the-spot options, and from the possibility that the Femme Fatale can be practically anyone. Her "fatality" is more of a projection by the characters than an actual personal quality, which I think is important to preserve in the design. She might end up being the big villain or the big victim or who knows, even the heroine of the whole thing, through play itself.

Best, Ron

[Jonas Ferry]

Hello Ron,

It has taken me a long while to get back to this thread, but your suggestions were still useful. In the beginning of July I got married and then I worked, but I took some time off recently to finish the game. Yes, One Can Have Her is now available for sale as a 56-page illustrated black and white PDF from the One Can Have Her web page.

I added text to describe the things your group had to guess. The game master is supposed to choose, as in look at the cards and select, a red or black card. This is not so much to avoid the "gamus interruptus" you mention in the original Ronnies feedback thread, but the opposite. I don't want chance to tell us we have to keep playing when we don't want to, especially not if we want to wrap up the story in one evening. So the game master chooses a red or black card, but the players don't know which until they have ratted. They may suspect, but they don't know. Since the game master doesn't know which player characters have ratted or not, he or she can't choose to end the game in a certain way either.

I have to mention that I was interviewed by the game magazine the Escapist on One Can Have Her. Check out the article Girlfriend, Rat by Russ Pitts. The Forge gets a mention as well.

Thanks for the support, Ron! I hope you like the finished game.

- Jonas

[Peter Nordstrand]

Jonas,

I am kind of curious. Why do you think Ron was so adamant about randomly determine the number of rounds rather than  having the GM choose?


Cheers and good luck with the game,

/Peter

[Jonas Ferry]

Hello Peter,

As you know the game used to have a randomized number of rounds. This made it less usable as a convention game, and made it harder to plan how long a regular game would be. But you don't want to know what I think, but what I think Ron thinks.

I didn't read Ron as being adamant, only that he hoped the game would have a randomized length. One reason for that could be to remove the social burden from the game master to determine the length of the game. Another reason could be to prevent players from interpreting signs from the game master that indicate the length of the game. Players who know the game master may have an easier time guessing when the game master thinks the game should stop.

But I don't know Ron's exact reasons, as I didn't ask for any clarifications on that part of his post. I hope this answered your question.

- Jonas