[Six Bullets for Vengeance] Spodley Grange playtest

[andrew_kenrick]

Saturday afternoon at Spodley Grange I got to run a playtest of Six Bullets for Vengeance, my game of bloodshed and vengeance, I think for the 5th time. Each time it's been with a subtly different set of rules and a different group of players, and this outing would be for the first time since I made the changes that arose from the Conception playtest.

Setup

There were 4 of us playing – myself, Malcolm, James and Janos. Everyone except Malcolm had played before, although only me and James had played with anything approaching the current version of the rules.

We brainstormed ideas for the setting and quickly decided to play it straight – ie as a Western. We wanted a subtly different feel though, and after brushing aside the idea of a Western set in Mexico, Malcolm suggested we go for a Pale Rider feel with a cold Western.

We set it in the mountains of Nebraska during winter, Malcolm suggesting a town swathed in snow with characters wearing thick overcoats buttoned up to the neck against the cold and hats pulled down over their ears.

We talked about what sort of settings and scenes we wanted to see and James suggested we go for quite a strong visual feel and have each chapter and antagonist confined to a single locale in town – the saloon, the hardware store, the church and so on.

After we'd settled on the setting, we threw about some ideas for characters. Malcolm opted to play the protagonist, James Pilgrim, a doctor.

We then discussed antagonists and I made it clear I wanted to avoid clichés with characters, so no corrupt sheriffs or the like. We decided instead to go for a town run by the mining company, with us all playing various characters associated with the company.

I was Thomas Deacon, the company boss, Janos was Bill Bishop, the corrupt union official, and James was Douglas Priest, the general store owner.

Because there were only 4 of us, and I wasn't sure how long the game would take, we decided to play one antagonist each to start with, possibly increasing this to two towards the end. After the game Malcolm pointed out that 3-4 players was really the ideal number for the game, with 2-3 of the players taking on a couple of antagonists each, which was so obvious I'd managed to miss it.

After playing around with Everlasting Empire in the morning it became obvious that I needed a bit more structure in the setup, perhaps with some questions to get the juices flowing and give everybody a strong premise to begin the game with.

[andrew_kenrick]

Epilogue

The epilogue is one of only two scenes that the protagonist gets to setup and narrate, and is best thought of as the final scene of a movie. In past games it has showed the death of the final villain, but in this one it didn't.

Malcolm narrated the closing credits: "James Pilgrim returned east and opened up a successful practice in New England."

He then described the town in silence, with everybody huddled behind closed doors, and a small column of smoke rising from the mine entrance up on the mountainside. Pilgrim then appeared, walking purposefully through town with a rifle in one hand and a doctor's bag in the other. He places it by the dead tree in the centre of town (which we added to the revelation map) and continues walking.

Chapter 5

The protagonist gets to choose the order he'll fight the antagonists in, and logic dictated that the final antagonist would be the company boss, Thomas Deacon.

At the start of the chapter I grabbed 2 dice per player to use to create scene attributes and npcs, handing 3 to James and 2 to Jan and investing the remaining dice into the attributes "old mine equipment" and "darkened tunnels." I also had my own dice to use for creating attributes for Deacon.

I began outside the mine, with Deacon telling one of his men, Mason (who James played) to stay outside the mine, and ordering the other to follow him into the mines. James had Mason hide behind a boulder ready to spring an ambush when Pilgrim showed up.

Having reached a natural pause, narration then passed to Malcolm to describe what Pilgrim did. This would be the pattern followed throughout most of the game – the antagonist would set the scene, describe what his character was doing and who else was there before turning to the protagonist to react to the situation.

I'm not sure if this is a problem, or simply the way the game proceeds. Malcolm explained the concept of different types of authority (as he does here) and how this needed to be made clear in the game text.

So Pilgrim climbs up the mountain path and Mason springs his trap, dislodging a boulder to crash down onto him, the first conflict of the game as well as the first problem. Both James and Malcolm set stakes, which in themselves posed a problem. After all, Mason couldn't actually be successful and kill Pilgrim with his ambush, so instead they settled for the stakes "does the ambush alert Deacon or not?"

We rolled, Mason won and the boulder crashed down the mountainside, its echoes reverberating around the town and causing the townsfolk to flee indoors. Deep inside the mine Deacon heard the sound of the boulder but ordered his minion to "keep digging."

Ok, so conflict one worked ok, but now that the ambush was sprung there was another conflict brewing. If you recall the previous playtest, we adopted a more gritty, close-up, blow-by blow conflict mechanism, which almost worked like rounds. It worked, just about, although I did feel at the time that we were struggling against the system somewhat. It didn't work this time round.

Malcolm and James set stakes once again, but yet again Mason couldn't kill Pilgrim with his shovel, so instead Pilgrim tried to persuade Mason to stand aside and go back into town. The conflict was whether he would have to shoot Mason or not to get into the mine.

Now this was a more juicy conflict with a much more interesting scope. It wasn't about the inevitable, which was that Pilgrim would get past Mason and into the mines, but instead about how complicated it would be, what sacrifices Pilgrim would have to make. They rolled again, this time tying, which was a grey area of the rules. We decided it made sense that the protagonist should win ties, so Pilgrim talked Mason down and he returned to town.

This is where we took a time out. It became obvious that stake setting was very important, and couldn't concern the inevitabilities of the game (which is that the protagonist survives til the end, he dispatches each of the villains and so forth) but instead had to concern complications, sacrifices, whether the protagonist had to get his hands dirty along the way. Considering up til now stake setting has a single line in the text, I think this needs expanding into a whole chapter.

The other issue Malcolm brought up was that, because dice are a commodity in the game, spent on dice rolls and traits and gained as rewards for winning conflicts and doing cool stuff, he was being forced to waste dice on dispatching a single mook. This led to the very real possibility that by the time he reached the real villain, Deacon, he'd have used up all his dice and we'd all be forced to fudge things his way. The quick fix was to say that minions only ever take a single conflict to deal with, one way or another. We came up with a much bigger patch later in the playtest, but for now this seemed to make things right.

I resumed narration. Deep in the mines, surrounded by chundering equipment and with his man digging a deep pit was Deacon. Narration handed back to Malcolm, who asked to spend his revelation token (earnt for taking part in conflicts and spent to add stuff to the revelation map) to find a big crate of dynamite. This was just part of the narration, not a revelation, so Malcolm got it for free, describing Pilgrim emptying out one of the tubes and hurling it at Deacon. Deacon did the heroic thing and hurled his henchman at it whilst he dove the other way. No conflict here, it just happened.

The next conflict saw Pilgrim take out the minion and told Deacon that he was here to exact his revenge for the townsfolk, and that he had evidence that Deacon was the reason  women and children were dying – revelation token. We talked for a bit, scaring Janos who was sitting between us as we shot vengeful glares at one another, before Deacon laid out Pilgrim with a pickaxe handle, leaving unconscious whilst he finished digging. I narrated that I found a big chest and Malcolm spent another token – the chest was empty.

Whilst Deacon railed and screamed, Pilgrim had got up and had his rifle aimed at Deacon. Final conflict. Not whether Pilgrim killed Deacon or not, but whether Deacon died with dignity or not. He failed, and his end would be very undignified indeed. Pilgrim tied Deacon to the chundering, whirring machinery, tied a tourniquet round his arm and withdrew a huge syringe from his bag.

At this time James interjected, spending the revelation token he'd picked up earlier, declaring that "the machine has been killing the townspeople." Both myself and Malcolm visibly recoiled at the idea – it jarred with my view of the game and Malcolm clearly had other ideas. But James had spent a token and his addition was valid, unless Malcolm disputed it with his last remaining token. We debated it for a bit, but both outcomes felt wrong – James' revelation clearly didn't fit with Malcolm's idea, but Malcolm didn't want to throw out a player contribution.

Instead we tabled the revelation and discussed it, with both James and Malcolm outlining what they were thinking. This should have been the way we handled it in the first place, as it led to a far more interesting outcome. Deacon's mine was mining silver, using all the townsfolk to do so. The machine was washing the silver, producing mercury as a by-product that was poisoning the townsfolk. In a way, the machine was killing the townspeople.

Malcolm backtracked a little, narrating that Pilgrim filled his syringe with pure mercury and injected it into Deacon's arm. He then emptied out the bullets from his rifle, from Deacon's pistol, from his henchman's sidearm, tossing them all down the pit so that Deacon knew there would be no escape from a slow and painful death. As Pilgrim left Deacon dying, screaming and blubbing and crying in pain and madness, he dynamited the entrance of the mine, leaving a pall of smoke behind him as he returned to town.

Which is of course where the epilogue began.

Questions and comments

Revelation tokens look to work, controlling the flow of revelations and rewarding people for taking part in conflicts, but I'm still not entirely sure whether there should be a mechanism for disputing them. On the one hand, I think there should be a way to counter a less-than-satisfactory revelation. But on the other hand, doesn't that devalue one player's contribution over the other. Do you think either are valid concerns?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Andrew,

Actually, my concern is different from those questions.

With all the narration and setup and agreements and contracts in the beginning, it seems to me as if the whole point of your original inspiration is lost. As I remember, we start with "bang! bang! bang!" and one man dies. We don't know why. We don't know where, except for maybe a bit of descriptive narration during play. With every scene, more and more is created, more and more is known, until by the the final scene played (the first one chronologically), what gets played makes perfect sense and practically has to go that way given what is to come. The fun lies in actually generating the story through play.

(For people who are interested, please see the section "going over the edge" in Chapter 7 of Sorcerer. You'll see why I've been specially supportive of Six Bullets.)

What you're describing here is that we agree on so many things and pre-set so much (who the villain is? Geez!) that basically we're just playing a script, with the minor gimmick of going backwards. It sounds incredibly boring.

Best, Ron

[andrew_kenrick]

Hi Ron - thanks for the reply, although I don't think you need to have concerns.

I think the problem lies with my actual play write up than with the game itself. The game remains true to its original inspiration. It's still very much a blank page game, and almost everything is revealed as the game progresses until, as you say, it all makes perfect sense by the time you hit the prologue, right at the end.

I've toyed with varying degrees of setup for the game, but the current setup is minimal at best. The group picks a genre, and then bounces around a few ideas for the sort of setting, buildings and people who might appear in it, just so everyone is on the same page and you don't get robots when you were expecting a western. Then you decide who is the protagonist - everyone else are the antagonists. Finally you can pick names and a brief concept, if you want, or you can let that emerge during play. The protagonist then sets the scene for the epilogue, which is the final scene of the game in which the final villain dies.

The rest of the setting and characters, not to mention the situation, is determined during play. This is definitely where the fun lies, and I'd hate to see that removed. Is even this too much setup?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Andrew,

The rest of the setting and characters, not to mention the situation, is determined during play. This is definitely where the fun lies, and I'd hate to see that removed.

We're in agreement on this one. I'm lobbying for less setup, not more. What you're calling minimal, I'm calling too much.

For instance, why not choose who's the protagonist after that initial (in real-time) scene is played? Why not let the setting occur as a steady addition of details per scene? As long as the rule says "respect what's been narrated," then you won't get some crazy shit like hopping from the Civil War back to the Gold Rush or anything like that.

Or to get a little more extreme, perhaps the process of determining protagonism is itself part of play? That's what I'd really like to see, but if it's too open/free, I can see being cautious about it. The stuff in the previous paragraph, though, deserves a second look though.

As for not getting robots, it needs no rules-step. That's something that can be settled instantly as part of the entire framework of the game, as a starting rule, period. "This is a classic western with no fantasy elements." Non-negotiable. People will drift it if they want, which is no big deal. What is a big deal is that putting it up for negotiation, which you have now, is tantamount to saying, "Hey, if you want robots, you can have them." I think you'd do better to leave all that to Drift.

Best, Ron

[Graham W]

Andrew, actually, Ron's got a point.

Six Bullets is one of the few games that would work very well with no set-up. You could choose a protagonist player at random - no character generation, even for the protagonist - and he narrates the final murder ("Bang!"). Then go backwards from there.

As I remember, Six Bullets has the possibility of that happening. It'd be interesting to actually hardwire it into the game: to make it a matter of pride that everything is established during the game, as with Reel Adventures. That would fit well with the "Memento" idea: at the start, you know nothing, just what's happening in front of you.

(Having said that, I'm mindful that your decision to do a Western worked quite well for you. So perhaps, if people really want something particular, they could say so. But I like the idea that it starts from nothing.)

We could try it like that, next time we meet, if you like.

Graham

[andrew_kenrick]

We're in agreement on this one. I'm lobbying for less setup, not more. What you're calling minimal, I'm calling too much.

So would you say that the ideal setup is to literally sit down and start playing?

I can see that working some of the time, but I worry that if things like genre and setting are left to emerge in play, they'll either wind up being chosen by whoever shouts the loudest or speaks up first in game, or it'll end up muddled as everyone throws their ideas into the pot.

At least with everyone saying upfront "I fancy a classic western" or "shall we try something set in feudal Japan" you get that out of the way and everyone is at least clear on the same page to start with.

For instance, why not choose who's the protagonist after that initial (in real-time) scene is played?

Or to get a little more extreme, perhaps the process of determining protagonism is itself part of play? That's what I'd really like to see, but if it's too open/free, I can see being cautious about it.

The very first draft had protagonism determined during play. Two players stepped forward and one of them framed the epilogue. Details were narrated, a conflict was set and dice were rolled. Whoever won the conflict killed the other and ipso facto must have been the protagonist. Then we rolled it back as normal. To be honest it all felt a bit quirky, a bit too random. It's an idea that might be worth a second look, although nowadays the protag and the antag are handled by subtly different rules.

As for not getting robots, it needs no rules-step. That's something that can be settled instantly as part of the entire framework of the game, as a starting rule, period. "This is a classic western with no fantasy elements." Non-negotiable.

But isn't any sort of starting rule back to the original question of no-setup? How is sitting down and stating "this is a western with no fantasy elements" any different from picking the genre upfront? Or do you mean hardwire that rule into the text itself?

People will drift it if they want, which is no big deal. What is a big deal is that putting it up for negotiation, which you have now, is tantamount to saying, "Hey, if you want robots, you can have them." I think you'd do better to leave all that to Drift.

I'm not sure I understand this, so please correct me if I'm misinterpreting you. So by making it explicit that the game is a straight-revenge movie (be it a western or a samurai or a 60s gangster setting) and letting players respond and react to that is less likely to cause problems than saying "it can be what you want it to be, so long as you decide it now"?

[andrew_kenrick]

As I remember, Six Bullets has the possibility of that happening. It'd be interesting to actually hardwire it into the game: to make it a matter of pride that everything is established during the game, as with Reel Adventures. That would fit well with the "Memento" idea: at the start, you know nothing, just what's happening in front of you.

My only concern here is that this would turn from the group deciding on the setting to one player deciding the setting - whichever player gets to narrate first. Is that a valid concern, or am I worrying needlessly?

(Having said that, I'm mindful that your decision to do a Western worked quite well for you. So perhaps, if people really want something particular, they could say so. But I like the idea that it starts from nothing.)

We could try it like that, next time we meet, if you like.

It did, and it's worked well in the past too. But I'm always keen to try out every possibility, so next time I play I'll make a point of going in completely blind!

[Ron Edwards]

Andrew, Andrew ...

You're not distinguishing between "genre and setting" and specific setting and specific spin on genre.

I'm saying, fix the basic genre & setting at the outset: "classic western," for all games, ever, of Six Bullets. I am not saying sit down and free-form from a foundation of absolutely nothing. So your talk of "completely blind" is also misplaced. You seem fixated on a dichotomous choice between (a) an empty basin and (b) a basin with two babies, bathwater, rubber ducky, and jacuzzi jets. I am saying, do start with the baby and bathwater (last bullet! classic western!) and nothing else.

Yes, lots will be added during play. Nevada vs. Missouri? Corrupt ranching magnate vs. attacking Indians? Beautiful snobby eastern lady vs. beautiful hot-tempered Mexican dancer? X vs. Y? A vs. B? All of this can be accumulated and settled very easily as play progresses. You must trust your vision of how cool the fun part of Six Bullets is and quit getting distracted by imagining how "average players" will disrupt it.

And yes, whoever narrates X (say, Utah) first makes Y (Arizona, Wyoming, California, et cetera) go away. So what? The next time you play, someone else gets that particular privilege. Consensus is over-rated.

Fuck feudal Japan in the ear. Fuck 60s revenge flick in the ear. Fuck anything else in the ear. Learn the 100% valid lesson from Paul Czege that My Life with Master is set in a central European mountain village in the early 19th century, period. Will people Drift it elsewhere and elsewhen for fun? Sure they will. But they won't do it well unless you make the game work perfectly and clearly for fun play in the setting/context in which you present it.

The urge to "try it in space! with cat-women!" is a player urge. For many games, it is a terrible, awful, rotten, and game-destroying thing to mistake that for a design urge. (Unless your goal is to generate a system with customized applications as the entire and focused point, as in Universalis - but that is a totally different thing and does not apply to Six Bullets.)

Now, by the way, if you want the basic setting of the game's presentation to be feudal Japan or 60s revenge flick, then fuck the classic western in the ear. See what I mean? Pick the right setting and context that speaks to you and absolutely exemplifies the fun thing about play that inspired you in the first place. Present that and do it right for that. "You can do it with anything! It's universal!" is not a feature. It's an opening for madness and distraction. There's a reason I no longer respond to threads in the Adept Press column which breathlessly present yet another "hey! you could do it with big worms and spice!" idea.

Best, Ron

[andrew_kenrick]

Andrew, Andrew ...

You're not distinguishing between "genre and setting" and specific setting and specific spin on genre.

You're quite right there, and I was missing your point after all. There is an absolute difference between sitting down and saying "this is a classic Western" to saying "this is a classic Western, but set in winter, and with no evil sherrifs." Those are the details that should emerge over the course of the game, naturally.

Fuck feudal Japan in the ear. Fuck 60s revenge flick in the ear. Fuck anything else in the ear. Learn the 100% valid lesson from Paul Czege that My Life with Master is set in a central European mountain village in the early 19th century, period. Will people Drift it elsewhere and elsewhen for fun? Sure they will. But they won't do it well unless you make the game work perfectly and clearly for fun play in the setting/context in which you present it.

Here's where I'm struggling! People keep saying "i don't like westerns" or "why do i need another western" and all my design impulses are screaming "LOOK! Samurai! Gangsters! Not just Westerns!" and I'm trying desperately not to throw it all into the pot. Is it enough to say "it's a game about revenge set in the West" and leave it to them to get over the hurdle and discover its really about the revenge part, not the West part?

[Ron Edwards]

Well, it's really not about what they say, is it?

Do you want it to be a western? My impression from previous threads is yes. If I'm right, then do it as a western, and when "people" (who I think are probably a very few persons in reality) say "why a western," say "because I want it to be, go write your own fucking game."

Look at it this way: did the RPG world really need another horror game? I mean, I can count western-RPGs with just over one hand's worth of fingers, but to count horror-RPGs, I'd need a roomful of friends and we'd need to include our feet. Did the RPG world really need another horror game?

The answer is, no, it didn't need yet another Call of Cthulhu or Vampire rip-off. But it sure as fuck needed Dead of Night.

So yeah, the RPG world needs Six Bullets. "Another" western is a red herring. Maybe what you need is different people to be listening to.

Best, Ron

[andrew_kenrick]

What I want is a game about revenge, that just happens to be set in the West. Is that me dancing around the question of whether its a Western, or is it a useful distinction?

And thanks for the kick up the butt - design the game I want to design, not the game other people want me to design.

[Ron Edwards]

It means you want it set in the West. Trust your vision and quit waffling.

Best, Ron

[GreatWolf]

It means you want it set in the West. Trust your vision and quit waffling.

I'm going to use my one "me too" post for the year on this.

Actually, I dealt with this at one point during Dirty Secrets design.  The game's setting is "your town, last week".  That's it.  Now, at one point, I was going to talk about how that was the default setting and how you could change it to something else if you want....  Ralph talked me out of it, using Ron's logic.  People will hack your game.  That's fine.  But, stick to your vision of the game, and let them worry about hacking it.

So yeah.  Your vision is a Western.  So do a Western, without apologies.

[andrew_kenrick]

People will hack your game.  That's fine.  But, stick to your vision of the game, and let them worry about hacking it.

Quoted for truth. Thanks Seth. I think the message here is "people will hack your game regardless, but by trying to hack it for them you might make it so messy they won't bother at all."