[Drill] Fedayeen

[Brendan]

Or drill, warmup, kata, whatever.  This is inspired by (and crossposted from) John Harper's Game Sketch No. 2 thread at Story Games.

Fedayeen

What you need to play: Four or more players and a stool.

Players place a stool in the middle of the floor and stand around it in a tight circle, right shoulder in, left shoulder out. They close their eyes and wait. When any player feels it's time, he or she will recite one line of the following, starting with the first:

"Eyes to shadow
Knife to cloud
Moon to iron
Face to God."

It's okay for two or more players to say a line simultaneously; it's better to try and synchronize as you speak than to hesitate.

When the last line is spoken, someone will put his or her right hand down, audibly, on the stool. Other players will place their hands down on top of the first hand and then each other, each with an audible (but gentle) clap.

When there have been as many claps as there are players, the last player to place his or her hand will speak a sentence. This sentence must state what the Fedayeen and the Infidel were doing (eg "The Fedayeen was sleeping, and the Infidel was riding"). At the end of the sentence, the player removes his or her hand from the stool.

Subsequent sentences must begin with either a "But" or an "And," and follow with "the Fedayeen" or "the Infidel," describing the way in which the Fedayeen hunted for the Infidel. Again, after speaking, the player removes his or her hand.

The last player's sentence must begin "I am the Infidel, and this is how I died..."

When the last sentence is spoken, repeat the recitation of the verse, as before. When it is finished, the players open their eyes.

Goals of this microgame:  forcing players to listen to each other instead of using visual cues; requiring progress toward arc resolution; and inducing player investment, by requiring both verbal input and physical contact.

[SPDuke]

This sounds fun. I'm a little confused about the "and. . ." or "but. . ." thing. Does the player say one for both the Infidel and the Fedayeen?

[Brendan]

It's a two-by-two matrix of choices:  you can say "And the Fedayeen..." or "But the Fedayeen..." or "And the Infidel..." or "But the Infidel..."  I imagined "and" sentences being used when a player spoke about the same character as the previous player (continuation) and "but" sentences being used to switch characters, but I don't think there needs to be a rule as such.

Almost all the story gaming I get to do is online, which makes this difficult to playtest; I'd be very interested to hear if anyone else tried it.