[Mob Justice] Gencon 15 minute demos

[iain]

Gencon Demos - Actual Play Post

So Gencon was a blast, and I ran a huge numbers of a demo titled ‘Betrayal at the Cold Cut Speakeasy’. The demos purpose was to show how the skirmish system worked and how decisions in the game to protect yourself can lead to you betraying your loyalties. Normally an actual play post would include player’s names and a blow by blow account of a session. Instead I will go through the setup and the various solutions people came up with and then have a bit of a look at it what I might change,.

The Intro
Each demo would start the same way: I would introduce myself, give them some background on the game, tell them the structure of the demo and then take them through the character sheet.

Character Sheet
Their were 4 characters for the demo, though the majority of the time I was running for 2-3 players. Each character sheet was a reduced version of the full one, with one loyalty, to the Boss, one code, Stature, Reputation and a couple of skills. The whole demo will be available to download soon from the CGS website.

Once the character sheets were explained I would get into the setup.

Skirmish Setup
The players were told that their characters had all worked together before about 3 months beforehand, on a job in New York for their current Boss Fratelli, during which the Boss’ Nephew was killed. The character’s have had no come back, no repercussions, but have been split up into different Mafia cells in Chicago. They haven’t seen each other again, until tonight. Tonight they have been sent to the Cold Cut Speakeasy to get protection money from the owner Mr.Chan who has been a bit behind on his payments of late.

Michael and Paul, the two heavies in the scenario, are shaking the money out of Mr.Chan, whilst Frank and Joe are the two shooters keeping an eye on the door to insure few disturbances. As they are just getting the cash out of Mr.Chan, lieutenant Tatalia walks through the door with 4 of his goons who span out behind him. Tatalia is known as a hard man in the Mafia, who likes the dirty side of the Mafia work. He smiles at the characters, rubs his hands together and says ‘Evening boys, this is for New York’ as they pull guns and start shooting.

The players are being whacked for the muck up on the New York job.

The Skirmish itself
Since I only had 15 minutes to get everything over I just went straight into explaining how stakes and the skirmish worked.

I declared my stake as ‘These guys are going to shoot you and try and kill you’. I would then explain how story chips can be used to oppose my narration and get each player to declare their stake in turn round the table, before dealing them all a hand of cards, face up, from which to draw their 5 cards. I would then throw my chip in, drawing my own hand which would remain face down, and also raising, explaining that I was investing more in the skirmish and that the guys were really blasting away. Normally you can change your stake, but I didn’t get into that in the demo. Each player then had the choice to fold or see, and I explained the possible outcomes of either choice. I would then call when it gto back round to me and we would do physical fallout and social fallout as most would have betrayed their loyalty to their Boss.

The Solutions
So different players handled the situation in different ways and these were the plays I saw at Gencon. Hopefully if other people run it they may see different ways out.

It was them boss
Only saw this one once and it didn’t come off. One character points at the others and shouts, ‘They killed the boss’ nephew, it was nothing to do with me’ or something similar. Their stake becomes ‘Persuade Tatalia that I should not be killed’. Entertaining as the other player’s look at the one doing the betrayal like they just stepped in something nasty. I would allow this solution if the player won. All the other players tend to just fire away or duck for cover.

The Flying Chinaman
The skirmish goes down as normal except that Paul or Michael chucks poor Mr.Chan at Tatalia normally. The chinaman hit every time as well, meaning the skirmish usually ended up with a bunch of dead mobsters and a crushed lieutenant trying to push off a comatose chinaman.

Mr. Chan – Human shield
The most common part of the skirmishes I ran, was Mr. Chan getting peppered with shots. Only one person ever tried to protect Mr. Chan, which led me to thinking I should maybe fold him into one of the player’s codes a little more tightly.

Persuading Tatalia
Only one person tried to reason with Tatalia, and unfortunately failed, but I can see this being a solution if all the player’s tried it at once. Probably done over the barrel of a gun though considering these guys have already started shooting.

These formed part of the skirmishes I witnessed, but their may be others I haven’t thought of, or seen. You could for instance barge your way out the door into the speakeasy or some such thing, but that might involve another map, which the demo does not provide.

Things I might change
I am thinking of including another loyalty the players can bring in to give them an extra card as well as maybe a second more social demo that might involve networks and the like to show how they work. Any thoughts, especially from those involved in my demos, would be greatly appreciated.

I used this demo to run a 2 hour long game for some people at the embassy suites, and I will post that game up as soon as I have time.

All the best
Iain

[Malcolm Craig]

I am thinking of including another loyalty the players can bring in to give them an extra card as well as maybe a second more social demo that might involve networks and the like to show how they work. Any thoughts, especially from those involved in my demos, would be greatly appreciated.

That's something that would be good to see, although the current demo is really solid and gives a good feel for the important parts of the game. Even though it concentrates on a combat situation, for me that wasn't a bad thing: you're getting whacked, hell this is like a Mafia film! And at the end of it, you find out that what has happened in play affects your characters ties to others (the Boss and so on). All cool stuff and well illustrated in the demo that I took part in.

Given the constraints of a 15 minute slot, I'm not sure there would be any way to incorporate a more social element into the existing demo (not that I'm saying you are in any way suggesting this). However, would a demo that concentrates more on the social side give as much feel for the Mafia?noir genre elements as the w/hacked/showdown/fallout nature of the current demo?

Cheers
Malcolm

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Iain,

I think I played in your very first demo on Thursday morning. For the first couple of minutes, I was getting nervous - it seemed like any typical Shadowrun or GURPS demo, in which we'd figure out who shot whom, and so on. Great, I thought. A shoot-'em-up demo. This is going to be a long four days.

But then the reward system kicked in. Loyalty? But wait! Chips mean what? What happens with betrayals? And so on. At the end of the demo, I was just getting excited enough about what to do with my points and other game feature that I wanted to keep playing and find out how the game worked further. It was a great introduction after all.

One moderator point: try not to use the slang term "chinaman" again, in a post. If we were talking face to face, I think I'd be able to tell whether you were using it in a Hollywood or other referential way, but in print, it's equally interpretable as a slur. No further discussion on this, please, from anyone. I've made my point and that's that.

Best, Ron

[iain]

Glad the demo got you interested in the game Ron, I remember talking to you afterwards and you being really enthused at how the loyalties worked in the demo. Point about 'Chinaman' taken on board and understood. Fair point. At the moment the demo is really nice and tight so I think the only thing to add is to maybe another loyalty that players can use in play.
Cheers
Iain