Medicinal Soap

[John Kim]

So I played Soap for the first time a few weeks ago, with my friends Bill, Russell, and Liz.  

We decided on a show about a teaching hospital, where the PCs were all the staff -- mostly to pick fun at academia.  Setup and character creation took kind of a while compared to the "five minutes" referred to in the book (I'd guess around an hour).  Thinking up and writing down the goals and secrets for the PCs as well as all the other steps took a while.  While there were some rules questions in startup, the majority of time was spent working out Secret/Goal/Relationships/etc.  

We went around for a while taking our turns.  The plot (such as it was) turned out to be very silly.  The characters were:

Dr. Lexi Byzantine (Russell):  I lost his character sheet, but he was an abrasive doctor who specialized in pediatric cosmetic surgery.  His goal was to get his assistant Dr. Marcel to stay his assistant forever (don't remember exact wording) -- i.e. a parody of the professor from hell.  His secret had something to do with false nationality -- I don't remember it and it never came up in-game.  

Dr. Cherry Marcelle (Liz):  Based on the Dilettante, a wealthy young heiress who owns Marcelle Towers but enjoys being respected as a doctor.  An assistant to Dr. Byzantine.  Traits Rich, Vain, Cunning, Spoiled, and Pleasure-Loving.
Goal: marry a doctor who will make a great accessory for her lifestyle and make her seem more respectable as a researcher.  
Secret: accidentally strangled the cabana boy during a kinky sex orgy at her private nightclub while on designer drugs, and bribed the police to get out of it.
Relationships: Friendly to Dr. Harrison.  Unfriendly to Dr. Fatherfigure.

Dr. Daniel Fatherfigure (Bill): "Head of Psych. Dept.  Wise, kindly, giving, stern when necessary, fair.  Treats disfigu...  less than perfect children of the rich and famous."
Goal: Help Dr. Harrison succeed
Secret: Never graduated from college, a kind professor at impressive med school faked records for him.
Relationships: Friendly to nephew Dr. Harrison; Unfriendly to rival Dr. Byzantine  

Dr. Gary Harrison (John): "He is tall, handsome, with a winning smile, and vain.  He is the nephew of Daniel Father-Figure.  However, he is sadly lacking in brains (He's dumb!)"
Goal: To receive a standing ovation.  
Secret: Gary is actually his mousy ex-wife Sherry, who killed him and had plastic surgery to secretly replace him in revenge.
Relationships: Friendly to Dr. Marcel, Unfriendly to Dr. Byzantine.

Play lasted maybe two to two and a half hours from the start.  It was established that there was a pre-teen beauty pageant girl who had had an accident involving a toaster, who needed an emergency operation for a show next week.  Dr. Harrison talked with the family, while Dr. Byzantine and Dr. Marcel performed the operation.  We were a bit tired at this point and decided to call it.  I ended the game by having Dr. Marcel's previously-unknown husband (clad in biker gear, of course) suddenly show up.  

At the end, most of the secrets were not revealed nor had anyone attempted to kill a PC.  Russell and Bill both had revealed extremely little of their secrets -- no one was even close to their's.  Liz had revealed a fair bit of hers, but basically we only knew that she had bribed the police to cover up some crime, not what the crime was.  I had revealed a little of mine, but the other players only knew that I wasn't who I seemed, and had no clue who I really was.  

Observations

It seemed to me that this group was mostly cooperative.  In Soap, this meant that for several full rounds we just kept collecting tokens and never spending them.  In other words, our instinct was to let in people's input -- even when bad things happening to our characters.  At some point I moved into deliberately trying to thwart other players' desires to try out some bidding.  I had Dr. Marcel miss the call for the operation one turn, and in a later turn I had her make a mistake when conducting it (saying "Oops.").  Still, it was extremely difficult to make things stick, because any effects could more or less be undone by the next scene.  For example, I narrated a mistake made in the operation, but later Russell or Liz narrated that the operation was successful despite the mistake.  

We all had fun, I think, and found it an interesting creative exercise, but the system wasn't a big hit, I would say.  This was prior to our MLWM game, which went over better.