[Dirty Secrets] Reggie’s Bad Day

[GreatWolf]

See, guys!  I used the right name!

The last couple of Fridays, I was able to playtest Dirty Secrets with my regular gaming group.  Last session was particularly memorable, and Ralph demanded that I write it up.  I agreed with him, so here goes!

We actually played the first session of Dirty Secrets<Setup

Dirty Secrets<Actual Play, Part 1<Rules Excursus<is weighted towards sexual and familial relationships?  Why do you ask?

This system got a solid test in our next outing.

Actual Play, Part 2

So, last Friday, we gathered again to play.  Gabrielle was with us this time, so we slid her in as another player.  This was mechanically effective, although Gabrielle said that she never really felt like she got a grip on the Characters.  So, that experiment had mixed results.

There were several moments of awesome in this session, though, that need to be reported.

The first was the use of the new Research rules.  After being questioned by the police about the murder, Keith decided that Reggie would poke around at the Crime Scene after the cops were gone.  He chose to include Mike Washington (the murder victim) in the Research.  So the other character and the nature of the relationship were created randomly.

The other character:  Reginald Hastings, II.

The relationship: romantic/sexual

This provoked an extensive out-of-game conversation about the rules, but we were okay with it for our<Post-Game thoughts

[Valamir]

The game is tres cool.  It has elements of alot of different games in.  There's a Universalis like feel in that whatever ideas you MIGHT have as a player as to who committed the crime and why it happened remain totally open to revision until its officially nailed down.  There's a Polaris like feel in the Investigator / Heart role while another player in rotation is selected to be the opposition / Mistaken.  There's a PTA like feel in that there is a lot of kibbitzing about what happens next with a good deal of focus on the genre and a limited number of characters to focus on.

Two hurdles I've noticed (not necessarily bad...just hurdles).
1) the game takes an AWFUL lot of player creative spark to drive it.  There are a few hooks to hang your narration on: The Crime Resolution and new Research rules that provide a "here's what it is, now figure out how it got that way" hook, the group quasi-random character creation provides an eccentric cast of characters (especially if you have players like Crystal and myself trying to be purposefully eccentric) that gives a little material to work with, and the character card layout is something of an unspoken master stroke.

See you have your crime grid in the middle, and along the top you put all of your cops and government types and along the bottom you put all your criminal types.  Then along the right side you put all the white people with the rich people up top near the cops and the poor people down near the bottom with the criminals, and then on the left you got your non whites in the same order.  So you got white and rich in the upper right, white and poor in the lower right, non-white and rich in the upper left, and non white and poor in the lower left.  Even without rules...just having the character cards sitting there laid out like that...provides some story meat.  The new research rules that take characters at random from this arrangement and then creates a relationship that the investigator "discovers" is dynamite.

BUT:  it definitely takes ALOT of player energy to make it work.  Much more than I've experienced with any of the above mentioned games.  There was definitely a point in both games we played (even with a group of story game die-hards) that we hit the wall and said, that's all for today. 

Perhaps some greater guidance in how to assemble the next scene would help mitigate that.  I'm not familiar enough with the genre but perhaps there are certain "standard" genre scenes that could be assembled into an optional "idea aid" deck of cards..."now there's a scene where the Investigator confronts the original victim about coming clean"...that sort of thing.  This could serve as a "browse and be inspired" deck or a "draw one and see where it goes" deck.


2) The Crime Grid is total coolness.  But there does seem to be an opportunity for a crime to linger out there well after from a story perspective it would seem sensible to resolve it.  This isn't totally a bad thing.  Given the genre there are always twists and turns, so glomming on to the first "sensible & plausible" resolution isn't ideal.  But currently the crime absolutely cannot resolve until a certain combination of mechanics align allowing it to happen.

One of those mechanics is moving the positioning marker on the grid to a non-blank space.  If moved to a blank space (required if possible) the crime does not resolve but another suspect gets added to the grid.  If a non-blank space is moved to the perpetrator is established randomly...unless the random determination results in a non-blank space.  Since there is no direct tie between these mechanisms and the narrative you have the Investigator more or less falling through the crime as opposed to actually "solving" it.  This is great because its one of the big differentiating factors between the "hard boiled detective" genre and  the "mystery" genre.  There is no "sleuthing" going on per se...just a unraveling cover-up / conspiracy with the detective often cluelessly tugging on threads.

But, I can see the potential for crimes on the grid to outlast their entertainment value while waiting for all the mechanics to align and give the players permission to resolve it.

Couple of thoughts here...perhaps tied into the Challenge Mechanic, there could be an option where a player could move the grid marker freely to a non-blank space even when there are blank spaces available.  This would give the players (unanimously if tied to Challenge) the potential to accelerate resolution if it seems appropriate (with still the opportunity fo the "game" to "say no" if the random perpetrator was blank.

Also, I'll reiterate the suggestion have something happen if the random perpetrator comes up blank...something should happen.  I like the idea of the Investigator "proving" (aka becoming satisfied) that one of the characters is absolutely not guilty of this particular crime, but there are a number of possibilities...such as making a Research Check where one of the elements is automatically the perpetrator and left blank until known, and one of the elements is left open to be decided by the Investigator when the crime resolves, and the third element is determined know and associated with the crime.

[GreatWolf]

The idea of an inspiration generator makes sense.  Heh, maybe even a few verbs and then draw a Character card.  "Watch", "Confront", "Talk to" and then draw.  Bears some consideration.

Also, I'm adding special spaces to the Crime Grids.  In particular, the one that is most applicable here is "Suspicion".  Land on a Suspicion space, and fill in any space on the Grid in addition to your regular name placement.  I figure that this will allow the players to shape the developing Grid to force Resolution.  Between that and pushing conflicts, I think that the players tend to have enough tools already to force Crime Resolution.  Often during play I find myself checking out the Grid to figure out what it would take to trigger Resolution.  In general, I've found that players tend to cooperate to push things towards Resolution, once they learn to read the Grid.

That being said, it's much easier to shape a small Grid than a big one.  Our 3 x 6 Grid is pretty easy to block off, while the 6 x 6 Grid in the other playtest is harder to mold.

Finally, I agree that something should happen when a blank is rolled for Crime Resolution.  Resolution shouldn't just be a dead end.  I've decided that I don't like ruling out characters, but something should happen.  Probably at that point we should have some sort of game accelerator.  It could even be as simple as allowing the player to write down a name somewhere on the Grid to accelerate future Resolution.  Right now, that seems the most elegant, and it feeds directly back into pushing further Crime Resolutions, which is a good thing.  I'll roll it around and think about it.