[Get Out Get Away Get Wise Get Back Get Even] Ronnies feedback

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Unfortunately, both "suburb" and "hatred" are the weakest elements of Graham Walmsley's Get Out Get Away Get Wise Get Back Get Even - otherwise, it'd be a winner.

Fixing "hatred" is actually more important than just getting a Ronny, though, because it would require fixing what is also the weakest of the stages: Get Wise. In the text, this is presented as a very, very weak example, just a McGuffin. Whereas to make the emergent story actually good, Get Wise really has to be about something.

Fixing "surburb" isn't as crucial to the basic idea and point of play, but if you wanted, you could do it through making the location cards more suburb-specific. Or even better, by clarifying how happy and normal the guy's life is right before play starts.

Play itself looks fantastic, although it's sort of a fast-break crazed version of role-playing. It's based mainly on a constructive re-interpretation of the "antagonist GM" concept, as well as a "say it now or else" model of play-dialogue. Neither of these are usually associated with fun play, so it's great to see them put together and organized into a more positive form.

Is play really supposed to proceed with one character for every single person involved, with all of this going on for all of them at once? That seems cacophonous, or at best, scattered. I do like payback across stories, though, and do like the idea that you might get a minute or two to consider important stuff, like what Getting Wise is about for someone else. So I'd hate to reduce it down to just one protagonist. An interesting dilemma.

As for critique, I think the game needs some "talking rules." How is the group to cope with contradictions, hitches, sudden cries of "no! wait! I thought ...", and so on. It seems to me that the central problem is almost certainly interruption, but I'm not certain that the standard "knock" rule is well-suited to this game either.

I also strongly suggest that the current generic example of play be moved into the Get Away section where it obviously belongs.

I'd really, really like to see this game undergo playtesting and development for publication. I think with a few repairs or points of focus as listed above, it's totally playable and a great mind-flexer.

Best,
Ron

[Ron Edwards]

Whoops, forgot; see also Graham's thread [Get Out ...] A less lame mechanic.

Best,
Ron

[Graham W]

Quick, before this disappears off the bottom of the page.

Unfortunately, both "suburb" and "hatred" are the weakest elements of Graham Walmsley's Get Out Get Away Get Wise Get Back Get Even - otherwise, it'd be a winner.

Yes, it was difficult. The first image that came into my head, when I chose suburb and hatred, was a hate mob outside a house. And then I thought of running from that hate mob. And then it was a natural expansion to make the whole thing into a chase game.

So I had to decide: did I stick with suburb and hatred or did I widen the game? So I widened it.

Is play really supposed to proceed with one character for every single person involved, with all of this going on for all of them at once? That seems cacophonous, or at best, scattered. I do like payback across stories, though, and do like the idea that you might get a minute or two to consider important stuff, like what Getting Wise is about for someone else. So I'd hate to reduce it down to just one protagonist. An interesting dilemma.

I agree, actually. If there's four people playing, you have to keep track of four very similar stories. And do four very similar "Get Wise" seems. Nightmare.

There's an elegant solution, I think: you could just have one chase story and the players take turns in playing the main character. Since the character's fairly generic anyway, there's no problem there. And it means there's an element of cooperation within the whole antagonistic thing.

This gets quite interesting if you combine it with the idea that failing to cross a Final Obstacle leads to capture. Because if one player fails, then the next is left to clean up the mess. Which is quite fun.

All the other criticism is completely valid and stuff I need to go away and think about.

Thanks. Good competition. Liked it.

Graham

[Sydney Freedberg]

Except for that get-wise bit, the examples of play are bloody brilliant.

At the start of the turn, all the Antagonists turn their chairs towards the Hero, as if
interrogating him.

I love this. Physical cues are so bloody crucial to human communication, yet except for Polaris's candle and Scarlet Wake's come-fight-me gestures, I can't think of a roleplaying game that uses them systematically.

to make the emergent story actually good, Get Wise really has to be about something....

Can there be some mechanic for the Hero player to drop clues about what s/he wants the Get Wise to be? Perhaps even a way for the Hero to slide dice back towards a particular Antagonist player who comes up with really good narration as a reward and incentive for more?

[Graham W]

Thanks Sydney.

I love this. Physical cues are so bloody crucial to human communication, yet except for Polaris's candle and Scarlet Wake's come-fight-me gestures, I can't think of a roleplaying game that uses them systematically.

As you can imagine, I wrote this at the time that the "Ritual" thread was going on in RPG Theory.

Getting the "interrogation" tone is important, I think. The idea is that the Hero player will think of things under pressure that he won't usually.

"What do you do? What do you do?"
"I inject him with the syringe!"

That sort of thing.

Can there be some mechanic for the Hero player to drop clues about what s/he wants the Get Wise to be? Perhaps even a way for the Hero to slide dice back towards a particular Antagonist player who comes up with really good narration as a reward and incentive for more?

Yes. Yes, that's important, actually, that the Hero player gets a say in the story. I like the idea that someone can say "Hey, I want to be chased by the Mafia".

The way I'm thinking at the moment is that all the players share the same story and take turns at playing the Hero. (The stories will be so similar anyway that this seems a good move).

So perhaps each of the players gets to say one thing about who's chasing the Hero and why? Perhaps that's the Get Wise scene?

Something like that.

Graham