[Black Widows] Ronnies feedback

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Clinton Nixon's Black Widows is a lot like Best Friends, in that it starts with a burst of inspiration, then sputters, and stops. It has great basics: the Bond girls' revenge, played out in a series of over-the-top Bond-esque missions. I can see this best as a freewheeling custom card game.

The primary weakness of this entry is that it fails to address the basic relationship issue between the Widows and Gunn. To repeat: I'd love to play this game, if the basic conflict concerned the continuing sexual interaction of Gunn and the Widows. And I'd also suggest taking the satire very, very far, to the point where you don't even have "the Widow's Revenge" as an option during play. Satire works best through extremes: if you want to play up the fact that Gunn (Bond as an icon) is a grossly sexist, even horrific entity, then you'll make that point best by having his vileness succeed, not by "redeeming" the Widows by having them beat him up or whatever.

All resolution seems to be about kicking goons' asses. Clearly, the real failure/loss arrives when Gunn seduces your character again, leaving her to say "Damn! He didn't love me after all - again! - and now I've failed to stop him - again! Goddammit!"

Scott Knipe suggested to me that such a failure should set up the Widow for more effectiveness later, which I think is a good idea. So at the moment, in a confrontation with Gunn, the Widow might even capitulate, bagging this particular mission, to bank on better chances of success against the bastard next time.

Which leads to the next point, which is that the reward system needs to step upwards into scenarios' structure, rather than having anything to do with "increasing scores" or anything so traditional.

Speaking of those scores. I see no reason for assigning points to attributes. It seems perfectly reaonable to say all Widows are maxed out on Violence, Attraction, Intelligence, and Technology, and that the values you use during play are those which show up on the cards in your draw. Lots and lots more freewheeling that way, too.

If you did that, then the only necessary modification to existing mechanics would be to say Goons must beat a Widow by twice her score. Much easier.

I'm a little puzzled about a couple of things.

1. Let's see, loss = can't play trump suit, and you can't play high card, right? H'm, maybe I'm not as confused as I thought.

2. I don't see why hating Gunn works against the Widow - seems to me that her attraction to him is what should work against her.

3. I don't understand what's meant by "running out of cards" - in most of the rules, I'm totally unclear about stuff like turns, hands, decks, and re-draws.

More seriously, the current "oh however" description of scene framing makes little sense - if a King is played, then Gunn is somehow automatically present? What if Gunn is defined as being in the scene, and no King shows up? Just as a for-instance. I'm seeing absolutely nothing in the mechanics except for a bunch of disconnected fight scenes, which usually means the overall scenario and its outcome is pure GM dictation.

I think you can see what's up with all these points, and of course they echo the very points made at the end of the text. The game needs one more level of larger framework regarding Spyder's plots, how Gunn is destined to stop them (and he will stop them! unless a Widow stops him), and how the Widows get set into the mix. You already have a wonderful mechanism for setting such stuff up - playing cards - so I think there's a lot of potential in it.

Best,
Ron

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Thanks for the feedback, Ron! I was aware I totally left out the most important part of the game: how to play it. Writing that is so much harder than writing mechanics.

On your mechanics questions:

- The thought behind "Why I hate Cobalt Gunn" helping Gunn (and hurting the Widow) is that the players define what Gunn can do through this mechanic. Maybe that's wrong-headed.

- Um, the King - it's just an untrumpable card that means that the resolution is about Gunn's side. There's never going to be a scene without either (a) Gunn or (b) Gunn's government/goons/whatever - his side.

- Re-draws and running out of cards is poorly written. I can picture it, and have played it through, but it needs to be re-written.

I'm seeing absolutely nothing in the mechanics except for a bunch of disconnected fight scenes, which usually means the overall scenario and its outcome is pure GM dictation.

Hey, isn't that most RPGs? Seriously, you're right.

The most interesting thing about your critique is at the top, where you say that the game might work best if Gunn always wins. I didn't really see this game as a satire, but more of an adventure game with sexy protagonists, but I can see where you get the satire element, and maybe I did that just naturally, as I was making fun of James Bond.

I totally don't see his as vile, but more emotionally stupid: of course he loves Natasha, and Clarisse, and Sveta, and Ingrid. He's doesn't conquer to conquer, but is convinced  that he can't stop loving women.

An idea to use with the untrumpable cards:

- King played by Gunn means he wins, wins, wins. Probably, he seduces the character. Gunn player narrates.
- King played by Widow means Gunn wins. Widow player narrates, and can join up with Gunn willingly.
- Queen played by Gunn means he relents because of his weakness and her strength. He falls for her again. Gunn player narrates.
- Queen played by Widow means he relents. Widow player narrates. She enacts her womanly charms.

What I want out of play here is a game where:
- The Widows can win, but Gunn always lives to see another day.
- It doesn't suck at all if the Widows lose. Most often, that may be the case.
- The Widows infight. They should fall for Gunn and join up with him and get left and fight over him.
- Sexy action is the biggest part of the game.

I think I might have to drop that top one, but I honestly don't know how to write a game where it's known you can't succeed. What's the goal then?

[Adam Dray]

I think I might have to drop that top one, but I honestly don't know how to write a game where it's known you can't succeed. What's the goal then?

You could give the women other personal goals.
You could give the women more to lose.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Actually, Clinton, I agree with you - that part about "always lose" is over-stated. What I'm driving at is that there's always a chance for the Widow, although she knows full well she shouldn't, to go "Ohhhh, Cobalt," and fall into his arms yet again.

I can't wait for the rewrite. I know you've been working on standard-deck game mechanics for a while, and this game just begs to be a fun staple-bound booklet with very cool illustrations.

Best,
Ron

[Gregor Hutton]

I would love for the accompanying art to be in the style of Playing Cards featuring James Bond-esque characters, or like Solitaire's Tarot Cards from Live and Let Die.

I think this was my favourite one from the competition. I just liked the whole vibe of playing these characters like Bambi and Thumper or Xena Onatopp.