Ben and Tony, Stay Away: Blood Simple Play by Post kickers and bangs

[Judd]

I exchanged some e-mails with Tony and talked about play by post role-playing and he really did try to talk me out of it but still, we are and the game is started.  Tony and Ben signed up.

I was itching to take Blood Simple out for a spin and I've been reading Dashiell Hammett.  So, here we are.

Here's the thread where we set it up.

Tony's Kicker:
The dame showed up on his doorstep a beautiful mess, just like the old days.  But this time there was no counting how many bullet holes were in her or how long they would take in ending her life.


Ben's Kicker:
Yesterday he came back from the bar to find her crying on his doorstep, scratched up and with huge shiner.

"Glen," she said, "you gotta help me. You're the only one that can help me."

Bangs for Tony:
 - The D.A. calls him in and says they have some rat in protective custody who heard Joey Randucci bragging about this torch singer who couldn't keep her trap shut, so he had the Ice Man pay her a visit.

 - Eddie asks Tony's PC to talk to a loan shark and get him to stop leaning on him quite so hard.

 - Leo's ex-wife is engaged to his demon, a dirty cop

 
Bangs for Ben:
 - Enters his apartment to find his brother's supplier, reading his novel, asking where his money is.

 - Archie calls, saying he needs a new gritty story, something with blood fresh off of the streets or else he's with-holding payment on past stories just as the landlady begins asking for past due rent

 - Grace is pregnant (eh...), these are right up or down there with Grace is a Sorcerer and Grace is a Demon.  I'm not sure how I feel about any of 'em.  We'll see how the kicker plays out.

My first pass over bangs is always a little dry.  Thanks to the positively glacial pace that play by post games move, I'm sure I'll have time to think it over for a while yet.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Judd,

The first listed Bang for Tony, about the information from the D.A., seems to me like a mere "go here do this" signal. If you want to introduce the Ice Man, why not have him pay Tony's character a visit too? Maybe the dame was followed or spotted on her way to the doorstep in question. If you do this, you can keep the D.A. information in there too, just as a prelude.

My point is to have the Ice Man be a door, not a destination. "Build up to the fight with the Ice Man" is one way to play, "introduce the Ice Man and see what happens" is another.

The key to the latter working is for you to drop everything, during prep right now, and take a hard look at the dame, and the "old days." Who is she? What were those days like? What does her return (not her current danger, her return) offer the character, that he thought he'd left behind?

And whatever that is, the Ice Man offers it too ... not just a fight, you see.

Also, looking at that Kicker Tony gave you, what I'm not seeing in your Bangs is some clear content for it - that the dame might die, right here and right now. That seems like the first Bang, chronologically speaking - when she says a few things, then tries to say more and produces only a gout of blood, her body collapses like a string-cut marionette, and her eyes gaze upwards.

I think you can probably take the principles illustrated in those two points and apply them to Ben's material as well.

Looks fun! Don't let these guys push you around!

Best, Ron

[Judd]

Oh, the bangs inherent in Tony's kicker are really clear to me.  Absolutely.  I didn't even write them down because that initial seemed so obvious to me.

Good call on the D.A. bang.  There are always bangs among my first flurry that get thrown away and that is obviously among those.

More to come.

Thanks.

[Judd]

Y'know, the pace of this play by post stuff is so continental drift, that I doubt I will use the bandolier of bangs format but just kind of go by the seat of my pants, which still leaves days between posts and reading the subtext of the players to see what direction they are nudging things in, rather than the usual tabletop formula of character sheet flags, body language and vibe intuition.

It is an odd medium.