[Tragedy] Sisters in Hollywood

So i got to run a two-player game of my Tragedy game last night, with Anthony Damiani, whom I met in the #rpgnet channel after putting out an appeal for playtesters.

We started out my discussing what setting we'd like to see. Anthony pretty quickly jumped in withh a hollywood setting. Now, I wrote the game mostly with things liek Shakesperean tragedy and Les Miserables in mind, so this was a bit of a left turn, but I went ahead with it.

Anthony ahd gone for the idea because he alreayd had a pretty strogn character arc in mind - small town girl in the big city, wants to be a star. He picked Causes (Causes are things that a character cares about, and essentially constiute the games only stats) of Money, Fame and finding Love. I was a little reluctant to allo Findong Love - I want love in the game to be a more interpersonal intetraction then this approach makes it -b ut as it turned out this worked out ok. Fishinging around for mroe of a personal life for the character, Anthony suggested a sister, and that's where I came in.

I made the sister, taking Causes of "Adrianna, My Daughter", "My sister", "Dignity" and "Honesty." Anthony ummed and ahhed a bit over a final selection, but went with "Artistice Respect" to round out his character. SO we just needed names. I went with Shannon, and he with Claire, and I proposed Jacobson for a surname. The stage was set for the story of whther Claire Jacobson would make it in Hollywood, and whether her sister would survive with her family and her self-image intact.

So, it was Claire's turn first. Anthony elected immediately to try and boost Fame, and so said he was sacrificing two dice from Respect, one from Love and one from Shannon (my character), to put them into Fame and Money. This calls for a Sacrifice scene, in which the other players push the sacrificing player to demonstrate, to their satisfaction, the Sacxrifice they are making. I proposed a sleazy film director, Seymour:

Note: Meserach is me, Thomas Lawrence; ADamiani is Anthony. Frequently I shift to the name of the cahracter I'm portray, but not always: Anthony stuck with the same username and just let it work through context. Jst so we're clear, there are only ever two players.


<Meserach> Ok, so the movie wasn't going to win an Oscar. "Bikini Babes form Mars II" wasn't going to win a money-off coupon at 
  Starbucks. But, it was a real job, in Hollywood.
<ADamiani> "And it's a sequel, so you just KNOW it's gonna be big!"
<Meserach> The director's name was Seymour, and as Claire came on set, he was leering at her.
<Seymour> "Hey, sugar. It's Claire, right? You're playing Tatiana?"
<ADamiani> "Right, Amazon-Queen of Mars, that's me!" 
<ADamiani> Clair does the 'Martian Salute'
<Seymour> "Hehe, that's great babe, you'll be special. Now listen: me and the writer have been talking about Scene twelve, you know?"
<Seymour> "And we really want the scene to sizzle, you know what I'm saying?"
<ADamiani> "Right. I was really excited about that one, Mr. Drake. All that dialogue is so, you know, Shakesperean, and stuff!"
<Seymour> "Yeah, the words are hot, right. But I'm talking about the visual." He leers at you again, from above mirrored sunglasses.
<ADamiani> "Er... So, you're talking special effects?"
* Seymour laughs
<Seymour> "They're certainly special, babe. But it's all natural, right?"
<ADamiani> "Er..." Claire blushes because, um, what the hell do you SAY to something like that?
<ADamiani> [Perhaps] ".... you decided to go with th gold bikini, afterall?"
<Seymour> "Listen: there'll be a bonus in it for you. Things get hot, clothes come off, capiche?" He leans back "You'll be great babe. You'll 
  be a star."
<ADamiani> "Gee, Mr. Drake... I dunno... I'd hate to do something gratuitous... I mean... if it was required for the role...."
<Seymour> Shannon is watching you from the sidleines. She's come to see your big day. She waves.
<ADamiani> Claire squirms a little and gives shannon a little wave, not leaving Seymore to talk about it.
<Seymour> "Oh, honey, no, it won't be gratuitous. Mark's doing the lighting, it'll be super hot. Just sign here."
<ADamiani> "Well... I mean, as long as it's, you know, artistic." ("Oh, hi, Shannon, be with you in just a sec...")
<Seymour> "Baby, you are art. How can it fail? Now sign."
* ADamiani scribble, scribble, scribbles
<Seymour> "Beautiful. You're going to be HUGE, honey." And he reaches round to pat you on the ass.
<ADamiani> Claire scampers off, giving Seymore a dirty look
<Seymour> Shannon looks horrified, from the sidelines, and marches up to talk to you.
<ADamiani> "Hey. Um. Didn't know you'd be coming."
<Seymour> Seymour isn't having it. "Hey, no family on shoot, get her out of here! I don't want family hanging aorund doing a topless 
  shoot, it'll put me right off."
* Seymour waves to a security guard.
<Seymour> Shannon just looks at you.
<ADamiani> "Hey! Come on. Seymore, Shannon's cool."
<Seymour> "Maybe so, but baby, you are hot. Get her out! Scene twelve from the top. I mean, top-less. Heh-he."

i also had Shannon show up to watch her shoot, only to see all this sleaziness; hence the sacrifice of a die from her Sahnnon cause. I felt the overall sleaziness probably helped for nixing the Love die too.

It struck me at this point that there needed to be more structure aoround how this works. I wan there to be a strong sense of "table standard" when it comes to the Sacrifices - the other players need to in some way say that what the player is giving up is sufficient given the magnitude of the Sacrifice in mechanical terms. There also needs to be the opprotunity, once the players are satisfied the sacrifice is sufficient, for the player to refuse it if the narrative direction is too nasty for them. I want to retain that element of free will.

Anyhow, so Claire did her topless bit. The dice were set.

At this point the other players can intercede by aiding the other player, sending them some of their own die. By aiding, you get to roll the die first then choose where it should best go, so you can save people from unfortunate results or do just enough to push somebody over to get a consolation. However, I didn't aid at this time, and it turned out that we never used the mecahic. Anthony is was right to tell me that there wasn't a good incentive to do so when you;'re always losing your own dice, even if you can, by the mechanics, apply themnm a little more effectively to others than you can to yourself.

So Anthony rolled Calire's dice, achieving Consolation in her Money and Fame Causes. Anthony promptly narrated:


<ADamiani> Narration: "As it turned out, Bikini Babes From Mars became kind of a cult hit, and broke 100M at the box office. Not that I 
  got to see a lot of it, but it was enough for a small condo in palm beach, enough that I could be pretty sure I had a future here in 
  Hollywood. I was definitely NOT going back to that miserable little small town again."
<ADamiani> Narration: "The coolest thing? I actually had fans. Not like I got swarmed when I went to the supermarket, but people 
  actually wanted ME to sign autographs and movie posters."
<ADamiani> "... and the occasional topless picture."

The alternation between narrating "to audience" and illustrating things less directly with scenes was somehting we maintained throughout the game. I like it. It's very much like a play in this regard.

However, Claire also LOST dice (owing to a roll of 1) in Fame, Love, and Money! Cue the dickweed boyfriend:


<Josh> It had been a lovely date, all told, and one thing had led to another... and it had to be said, you'd had fun. That morning you woke 
  up with a twinge of regret, maybe, but hey, hopefully he'd call you back.
<Josh> Josh wasn't there, though, that morning. Neither were your car keys.
<ADamiani> ....
<ADamiani> "What the fuck?"
<Josh> Of course, that wasn't what really hurt. What really hurt were the headlines the following day.
<Josh> "My Hot Night of Passion with B-Movie Lust Slave" was one of the better ones. The asshole.
<ADamiani> "I am. SUING. His ass."
<ADamiani> At least for the car. Not a lot she can do about the headlines.

I was pleased here how the dice results led naturaslly into the creation of ascne which covered all the elements in one. It wouldn't always be so easy to create good misfortunes that fit the dice, but this was cool.

So, now it was Shannon's turn. I decided, going for a kind of "my 'lil sister is going to have everything I never had" arc, to sacrifice a Dignity and an Honesty to put two dice into my "Claire" cause. So, the idea here is that I try and schmooze my way into a Hollywood party to see my sister..


<SevenFeetOfGoon> So, it's a hot Hollywood party.
<SevenFeetOfGoon> "I'm sorry, ma'am" he rumbles, like he's not sorry at all, "Your name isn't on the guest list."
<Shannon> "Listen, it's my sister in there, she'd totally want me in."
<SevenFeetOfGoon> "Your sister didn't write the guest list."
<SevenFeetOfGoon> "Hello, Mr. Afflek, Mr. Damon. Pleasure to see you" He admits the celebrities that breeze past you
<Shannon> "Aw, geez, mister, c'mon. You saw Bikini Babes from Mars II, right? Totally my sister."
<SevenFeetOfGoon> "Calrie  Jacobson? Yeah? Nice rack. Good for you. Still don't get in without an in-vi-tation."
* Shannon looks aroun, and then leans up to whisper in his ear,
<Shannon> "If you think hers was nice... well, let me in and I'll let you judge."
<SevenFeetOfGoon> That seems to do the trick.
<SevenFeetOfGoon> He lets you through, and then clips the velvet rope, disappearing inside with you
* Shannon reflected this probably wasn't the best idea, but hey, it was a party, right? A quick peek... well, she'd done the same on a night 
  out with the girls before, after one two many tequilas..."
<Shannon> "Ok then...", she said, "wanna see?"
<SevenFeetOfGoon> Gramatically, it would be one TOO many. Perhaps it was two too many?
<SevenFeetOfGoon> He glowers. "Impress me."
<Shannon> "Here?" Shannon looks around. There's a lot of people in the club, and no-one was paying special attention, but...
<SevenFeetOfGoon> He'll pull you off to a niiice secluded area, getting someone else to cover the door
<Shannon> "Well, OK then..."
<Shannon> I was funny, but something that had seemed a laugh on tequila with the girls was a lot less fun here, in this room, with this 
  one guy staring harshly at her, sober...
<Shannon> But she did it anyway.

Anthony commented this was further than he'd intended to go with this particular scene, and again, he was probably right. I tried to bring in the Honesty bit by going in for a little self-delusion. In nay case, I got my consoaltion scene with Claire:


<Shannon> And after that, he let me in. And it was a wild, crazy night. I met celebrities. I danced with Claire, I was snapped by paparazzi. 
  We had so much fun together, and we made up afte rthe topless thing. It had kind of shocked me at the time, but as it turned out, who 
  was I to judge? We had so much fun together. And afterward, well, Claire totally promised me a job...."
<ADamiani> Claire: "I'm not a B-movie Lust slave, am I?"
<Shannon> "Aw, honey, of course not. You're my baby sister, is what you are. And you were great in that movie."
<Shannon> "All you need, you know, is better press management?"
<ADamiani> "exACtly. I mean, it was artistic."
* Shannon is quite drunk by this point.
<ADamiani> "BUt... Shannon, I don't know if you've noticed, but..." Claire is sloshed, too
<Shannon> "What, sis, what?"
<ADamiani> "Hollywood is full of slimeballs!"
<ADamiani> she gestures with her daquri
<Shannon> "Hey, you trust ME, right? I won't hurt you."
<ADamiani> "People who wanna screw you, and take your money, and then screw you." "Yeah. I need summone. Sommone I can trus. 
  Why can't I find somebody like YOU to be my manager?"
* Shannon pauses, her thoughts moving at the speed of drink.
<Shannon> "I could TOTALLY be your manager!" she say, at last.
<ADamiani> "What?"
<ADamiani> "Hey!"
<ADamiani> "I've got a great idea!"
<ADamiani> "Why don't YOU be my manager?"
<Shannon> "Eeeeeeeeeee!"
* Shannon does an excited dance.

My dice sucked BAD, though. I lost dice everywhere: one from Adriann, my daughter, two from "Calire", one more from Dignity and worst of all, lost BOTH my remaining Honesty dice, plunging me into Tragedy. So, the Tragedy scene would have to show me suffering a terrible fate with regard to my Honesty.

This is a lot fo misfortune to deal with at once, and I don't thinkw e sucessfully narrated all of it in. I may need to think of a mean of reducing the amount of misfortune that occurs in the earlier stages to prevent too much of this kind of thing - stuff gets lost. As it was,m the scene contianed the loss of Dignity and the loss of the Adrianna die, but kinda missed that significant loss of Claire dice. This also probably ties in to my overall doubts about how relationships operate as causes, which came to more of a head later.

What we ended up going with was the following scene. With a Tragedy scene, my rule is (and I expressed this during the game) that you shoudld keep going until it makes you a little teary or a little sick to the stomach. So here's poor Shannon losing every last vestige of what made her an honest person:

(NOTE: only the stuff in speec marks is actually being SAID. Other stuff is narration or internal monologue.)


<ADamiani> Adrianna:
<ADamiani> "Mommy, where were you last night?"
* Shannon is nursing a headache. And a black eye.
<Shannon> "Adrianna? Oh... hey, baby.
<Shannon> "I was... I wasn't anywhere, honey.
<ADamiani> "You weren't there to tuck me in."
<Shannon> "I.. had a headache, babe. It was a long day at work."
<ADamiani> "What happened to your face?"
<Shannon> "I.. I fell, ok?"
<Shannon> "You shouldn't ask so many questions!
<ADamiani> "When ronny miller got into a fight with bobby Thomas, his eye got all big and blue, too. Like a plum."
<Shannon> "There wasn't a fight, Adrianna." Keep telling yourself that.
<ADamiani> "Our teacher says we always have to tell what happened if we get bruised."
<ADamiani> "Huh?"
<Shannon> "Your teacher doesn't always know what's best!"
<Shannon> "Right now, mommy needs you to be quiet about this, ok? No-one is to know that I... fell."
<ADamiani> "Mommy, where did you fall?"
<Shannon> "IT DOESN'T MATTER! JUST BE QUIET!"
<ADamiani> WAAAAAH!
<Shannon> She cried, of course she did.
<Shannon> But once we'd both calmed down, I knew what I had to do.
<Shannon> I covered the eye up with foundation and concealer, and I went in to see her.
<Shannon> "Adrianna?"
<ADamiani> *sniff*
<Shannon> "Adrianna, I'm sorry I shouted at you, baby."
<Shannon> "But there's something you have to understand."
<Shannon> "Something bad happened to mommy, ok? But moomy has an important job now, and she can't be attracting attention. So 
  soemtimes, you have to keep these things quiet."
<ADamiani> "You mean, like, not say the truth?"
<Shannon> "Honey, we're just making the world a little sweeter. People don't always need to know the truth."
<Shannon> "Just keepp some things to yourslef, and you'll amke the world a little sweeter."
<Shannon> "Isn't that better?"
<Shannon> Isn't it?
<ADamiani> She seems to consider this for a long while.
<ADamiani> "Okay, mommy."

I was actually really happy with this. The context makes it seem more of a dignity Tragedy, but sticking with the system and focusing on the Honesty and pushing that until it felt sad enough produced a scene that was in an odd way more horrible than a mere relationship abuse scene woulda been. Anthony said it best: "Would be a nice way to botch the honesty virtue, raising a liar."

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