[Contenders/Umlaut] Rocking out

[Joe J Prince]

Rich Stokes has done a mighty fine metal based setting for Contenders as part of the setting design challenge (more info in the endeavor forum).
So I got to play Umlaut this weekend!
Happily the game did not disappoint.

We had quite a few friends over so I thought Umlaut would be a good choice as the couples could pair up and both play members of the same band. This didn't quite work in play, mostly because girls are crap.

We had:
Dan & Gemma playing Jason Rockmeir and Tord Mulvic of classic metal band "Rawkus Simian". Rawkus Simian had been around since the 70s, released 14 albums but never really made it big before. They began with 8 Material and little else. Best Song: Generation Wank

Matt (who sensibly forbids his bird to roleplay - clever man)  chose to play a student thrash band "The Never Ending Story" His lead singer was the rocktabulus Bob Patterson aka Bobby Boyd. The Never Ending Story (TNES) were all about power, and the movie of the same name. Best Song: The Nothing

Grant & Nic opted for Harold Howitzer and Helga Hellhammer of  the death metal "Gooch of Doom" with more umlauts than you can shake a hairy stick at.  Best Song: Fuck Fuck Fuck Till The Ear is Bleeding

Yours truly let Marie choose the band name so we got lumbered with "Ox Black Starr" a technically skilled glam band. I was playing Eddie Go-Starr the lead guitarist and Rie was Noirette Flash on the vocals. Best Song: Black-Starr Fist Implosion.

After being generally annoying and misbehaving to slow down play,  Rie finally went off with Gem and Nic to do girly things like talk about weddings and we could get back to the serious business of metal.

Highlights:
The intense rivalry between TNES and Rawkus Simian. TNES ripped off Simian Mucus for their song The Nothing but launched an intensive fanzine hate campaign (via brawl scenes)  to get the kids thinking The Nothing was better. This culminated in a one song MTV showdown between the two groups in which TNES pulled every dirty showboating trick they  could and got the Simians booed off stage!

Ox Black Starr locked themselves in a wilderness cabin with only liquor, hard drugs and a tape of The Wizard of Oz for company. Go Starr took to wearing a lion costume with a sequined jacket and platform boots.

After recruiting Blitzkrieg Boris, The Gooch went looking for Ox BS, the showdown proved inconclusive but did cost the life of the unnamed Gooch vocalist - only his right hand grasping his mic was ever found...

The game played out well,  at the end of the night two of the bands had a fanbase of 9 though we were all staring down a hope to ego deficit ( 4 points in the Gooch's case).

+++Food for Thought+++

The Character sheets are pretty pants in the current format. They could do with scene summaries.

Connections are slightly problematic. Only three band members were named during play and a couple of times Connection Threats were announced, but then retracted as there were no members to threaten (and no-one wanted an early endgame). Dan and Matt both named their entire bands early on (without connection scenes) and then referred to the members by name which I felt added something. I reckon at least 3 band members should be named at the start of play.

Adding song and album titles was loads of fun (Dan wrote up all 14 Rawkus Simian albums, from Void Octagon to Choice of the Nuclear Fire Brigade). There should be somewhere on the sheet for this, perhaps linked to material.

Gig Scenes did work but occasionally felt a little strange. We worked it by cutting between the two acts. It would be nice if more than two bands could be on the bill though.

Showboating. Unlike Dirty Tactics in Contenders, there's no fanbase loss for Showboating (even if a band gets booed off for it) perhaps there should be.

Flair points. All my other games have a flair point mechanism, whereby a player can be rewarded for doing cool stuff. Contenders doesn't have this and I've never missed it - but for Umlaut it would have worked well, one of the other players even asked about it after some spectacular RP on my part...

Cheers Rich, it's a great twist on Contenders. Raawk on!

[Caesar_X]

Wow, this is like Guitar Hero: the RPG.  Can you tell us more about how the gigs worked?

Rock on!
Chris B.

[Emily Care]

Hi Joe,

Sounds like a neat spin on Contenders. I'm looking forward to getting to play the regular deal sometime.

We had quite a few friends over so I thought Umlaut would be a good choice as the couples could pair up and both play members of the same band. This didn't quite work in play, mostly because girls are crap.

Should I call you out for offense here, or am I missing the sarcasm markers?


best,
Emily

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

My suspicion is that the internet medium is not conveying the intention of the phrase. There may also be a difference in English/American nuance, in that saying "X is crap" can mean "I didn't handle X well." (I run into problems with this all the time; Californian humor is full of these reversals and no one from other states seems to get it, although some Englishers and some Germans do.)

Or it's possible that these players, in this case, were no help at all and indeed did poorly. In which case using their general category to describe the problem woudn't actually explain anything, and in addition would be unfair.

So Joe - enlighten us fully. Using no humor at all, please re-write the sentence so we (who you must imagine as very dull and literal folks, because the 'net turns all sentences into dull and literal things) can understand exactly what you mean. Please don't explain the original phrasing so we "get it," nor do you have to placate or apologize to make anyone feel better. Just start over and say your real point in a basic, simple-minded way.

Everyone, please suspend judgment and whatever you do, do not post in some frenzy of protective reaction. Just wait for Joe. The present goal is to clear up a possible confusion, and that is all.

Also, to be clear, for Em & all: in my mind as moderator, "offense" isn't the issue, but "abuse" is. Clarification on this matter is available on request in the Site Discussion forum, if anyone is interested.

Best, Ron

[Joe J Prince]

Sorry it was just a flippant remark meant to be a gag. I forgot the smiley
I blame the dark gods of Metal.

I'll try and explain the situation better, but it may take more than one sentence. A nice side effect of the Umlaut mechanics is that you can have several players teaming up in the same band, however we did not get to fully test this during play because my better half (who showed everyone a very embarrassing photo of my unfortunate hair style on the specific proviso that she would play the game. A deal which she offered without any prompting. ) proceeded to sabotage the game instead of just saying "I don't want to play". Eventually I told her she didn't have to play and she happily went off with Gem & Nic to chat instead. I think the other girls would have happily played or not, but opted for a chat in the other room instead which was totally fine.

So relating things to actual play I reckon it was a social contract issue highlighting the need for an awareness of the other players' unspoken desires regarding the game!  But the moral is we were able to have a great game still once people had been honest about their play preferences and no-one minded either way.

So no, girls are not crap, my hair was crap and boys are idiots. Boys meaning me and idiot meaning not properly reading post through for silly statements likely to cause offence on the toneless internet, where comedic hyperbole is difficult to convey.

Phew. Sorry for not posting earlier I've been chatting to Rich Stokes about Umlaut on the Collective Endeavour boards. It's shaping up to be a really cool game.

Cheers
Joe

[Emily Care]

Awesome. Thanks, Joe. Thought it must be something like that. Screwy social contract stuff can ruin a really fun time so easily.

Looking forward to hearing more. : )

best,
Em

[Rich Stokes]

Wow, this is like Guitar Hero: the RPG.  Can you tell us more about how the gigs worked?

Hey all, I'm a bit crap myself when it comes to checking this forum.

Chris, Gigs work pretty much exactly the same way (mechanically) as fights in Contenders.  The main differences are that instead of two guy punching each other, you have two bands vying for the audience's affections.  The bands play one at a time, but the resolution is simultaneous just like in Contenders.  It's actually the crowd comparing and contrasting two bands that they've seen that night, how did the opening numbers compare, what was the finale like, who played better and who was loudest.

You play a number of Songs rather than rounds.

Instead of the fighting tactics you get in Contenders, everything is renamed.  So a aggressive song is a Face Melter rather than Puncher's Choice.  There are a few mechanical tweaks, but generally things play out like they do in Contenders.

And it's very much influenced by Guitar Hero, Bad News, Spinal Tap and Metalocalypse.  I just don't see how you can take a game about Metal too seriously.  It's a fun and slightly silly kind of music (which I love very much) but this game is meant as an affectionate semi parody.