[Dirty Secrets] MKRPG second playtest

[Neil the Wimp]

Dirty Secrets is Seth Ben-Ezra's game of detective fiction, in the mould of Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer.  Read Seth's notes and some other playtests, including the MKRPG first playtest.

We played Dirty Secrets last Tuesday at my local RPG club.  The game went well and people seemed keen to play it again.  At the end is a set of questions and observations that came out in play. 

All the players had role-played a lot before (some mainly trad games, some with more hippy story-game experience).  All had at least a passing familarity with the detective genre.  I didn't take an active part in the game; instead, I took the role of rules guru and general facilitator.  As with the first playtest we did, this was because there were five other players (the maximum the game allows for.

Characters
(Name, sex, age, ethnicity, social class, legal status.  Note the slightly flippant attributes in places, a reaction to the novelty of the game and the freeform nature of character generation).

(The Investigator is the only 'PC'.  Other characters are played by the rotating GM and other players on an ad-hoc basis)

Investigator: Charles Fenton, male, 29, Scottish, down on his luck ex-aristocrat (poor), 'helps old ladies across the road' (and starting up his own private investigation business)

Victim: Marcus Steele, male, 57, Malaysian, successful business exectutive, civilian

Suspect: Suzanne D'Artangon, female, 33, hispanic, poor (unemployed), with diplomatic immunity

Stuart Douglas, male, 24, Scottish, street bum, ex-con

Julie Vernen, female, 36, Irish, upper middle class, FBI agent (in the UK!)

Initial Crime: Murder.  Brought to Charles's attention by Stuart.

Scenes and Events
Prologue
Stuart found Charles at a soup kitchen in a rough part of Milton Keynes.  They knew each other previously.  Stuart described how he saw a man and a woman arguing near an abandoned retail unit in Winterhill.  The woman then clubbed the man over the head with a cricket bat and dragged the limp body into a car, with French diplomatic number plates.   The car drove off.  The police didn't want to get involved, but Stuart thought that something was wrong and wanted Charles to investigate.

Scene 1: Investigation
In the car park where the attack took place.  Charles saw a man in a suit vigourously sweeping the ground.  Charles wanted to know what the man was doing, he didn't want to tell, and a conflict ensued.  The Authority lost, lost three dice and suffered 1 Violence.  He was thrown to the ground and revealed that he was driving the car the previous night, and Suzanne was his girlfriend.

The sweeping man was Michael Rodriguez, who became a Character (male, 31, Hispanic/French, Security from French Embassy, French citizen)

Scene 1a:
Charles did some background research on the diplomatic car and people involved.  He found the identities of Suzanne, Marcus, and that they were having a relationship.  As there were no other Characters around, we didn't do this as a scene and quickly skipped over it.

Scene 2: Revelation
Further investigation into Marcus's business revealed a business connection between Marcus and Suzanne.  It turned out that Marcus was paying Suzanne to smuggle unlaundered money via the French diplomatic bag.

Scene 3: Investigation
Charles tracked Suzanne down to a hotel bar, flashing some cash around (this was out of character for her, as Charles knew she was very poor).   Michael was already there and everyone saw each other.  Michael suggested that Suzanne try to find out what Charles was doing.  The Investigator won the conflict but elected to take the 1 Violence himself.  While Suzanne was flirting with Charles, Michael rabbit-punched him.  As he was lying on the floor, Michael said that they had to get rid of Charles 'before he finds the body'.

Scene 4: Violence
Charles, Suzanne, and Michael were all ejected from the hotel for fighting.  Outside, Michael piles into Charles and Charles is slightly injured.  When Julie turns up (undercover as security in the hotel), Michael and Suzanne flee.

Scene 5: Investigation
Charles and Julie have a non-committal conversation.  No conflict and the scene us quickly over.

Scene 6: Investigation
Charles staked out the hotel overnight.  At about 6.00am, Michael, Suzanne, and Julie leave in a car together.  Charles follows, is seen, and a car chase ensues as the Characters try to loose Charles before he discovers that they're going to Cranfield airport (a small, private airstrip near Milton Keynes).  Charles loses, suffering 2 Violence.  The cars collide near the airport, writing off Charles's car and immobilising the other.  Marcus's body fell out of the boot of Michael's car.  Michael, Suzanne, and Julie run to the airport.  Charles, with his broken nose and lacerated face, examines Marcus's body and finds the evidence of Marcus's blackmail of Suzanne to participate in the money laundering (our second Crime defined and resolved).

Scene 7:
Charles doesn't wait for police and ambulance to arrive and chases after the other Characters.  He catches up with them as they're boarding their private jet.  The struggle on the steps results in 3 Violence, so Julie is flung into the plane's engine and dies.  Suzanne and Michael then confess that Julie was Marcus's murderer: she was a crooked FBI agent and wanted in on his trade.

With both Crimes resolved, we ended the game, and just about on time.

In play, we had conflicts in most Investigation scenes.  A few of them required re-rolls, but results were never Pushed.  No Aliases or Mistkaen Identities came up.

Points Raised

• Players raised the possibility of other demographic descriptions for Characters, such as religion and nationality.  I can't see any reason why they shouldn't be demographics, but including them would lead to there being too many.  Perhaps all characters are described by name and sex, and the group then chooses two or three other demographics to describe characters, with the understanding that these demographics will contribute to the story. This could be done at the same time as the decision is made about whether to include under-18 Characters.


• Initial generation of Characters, again, led to some silliness.  This was mainly my fault as I forgot to get the players to discuss what they were putting down as they did it.  Perhaps the rules should stress that initial character generation should be done collaboratively?


• The suggested times to play a game seem optimistic, especially for people who don't know the game.  We started on a 6x3 grid, but quickly moved to 3x3 as that was all we could finish in the time.  We got through setup and seven scenes in just over 2.5 hours of play.  The timings may be more accurate after people have played a few games and everyone knows the rules, but checking that may be problematic for me.  Anyway, the estimates are most useful for the first few games.


• Things did move more quickly than last time after I suggested that we frame scenes tightly around interaction with Characters and pushed them towards conflict.  This is a piece of text that needs to be prominent in the text.


• Given that, did we do what you intended with Scene 1a?  There was never going to be any conflict in it, so we never promoted it to being an actual Scene


• A question about the Crime Resolution step.  Does it alwasy resolve Crimes?  If, following an Investigation conflict, the Witness cannot make a sliding move and is placed on a random square, and that square is empty, is a Crime resolved?  We played it as 'no', a Crime is only resolved when the Witness lands on a name.  Otherwise a 3x3 game would be over very quickly.  In that case, I think this phase of the game is misleadingly named, as Crimes aren't always resolved.  How about calling it something like 'Repercussions'?


• The explanation of Liar's Dice needs some work, especially for someone like me who hasn't played it before.  It's not very clear, and I think it needs some correction.  You say that a follow-up bid must have one of the numbers larger than the previous bid.  You give the example of five 3s following three 5s, but surely you could follow the five 3s with three 5s again, leading to a cycle.  Is this intended, or am I making a mistake?   We settled on requiring the face to be non-decreasing and the count to always increase if the face stayed constant.  We also ignored Ace Bids as just being too complicated for little if any gain.


• I found the process of who selects what scene type to play next confusing to explain, especially when combined with details of who gets to frame that scene.  Perhaps the Authority should choose first, with a possible Appeal by the Investigator?  Whoever finally chooses the scene type gets Jurisdiction over framing it.  (This was confused somewhat in our game, when the Authority should have framed a scene, but the Investigator had a really good idea and the Authority just let him get on with it.  This meant that some of the other players lost track of who had responsibility for what.)


• Reversing the order of the Investigator Connection table would make more sense, so that larger numbers of players produce larger results.


• In play, there is a lot of stuff on the table: many character cards, crime cards, the grid, the Witness, each player's dice pools, nibbles, and so on.  There's just quite a logistical problem keeping it all organised.  We didn't have enough room to keep everything layed out neatly enough to find things.


• You should perhaps include a piece of advice in the rules that states that Violence scenes are strictly optional, depending on the type of story you're trying to tell.  There was some confusion at the table about the different purposes of the different scene types (exasperated by my not spending a chunk of time at the beginning of the game explaining everything in detail, and violence occuring as side-effects of conflicts).


• Although we didn't have one, there was a suggestion that any Reflection scenes also include a cut scene showing the other Characters continuing with their own agendas.  (Personally, I think it's not a great idea, but several of the players thought it should be there.)


• If there's a disagreement about whether an extra should be a Character, or whether an illegal act should be a Crime, who gets Jurisdiction over that decision?

I think that's it.  An enjoyable game, all told. 

Neil.

[GreatWolf]

Hey, Neil.  Thanks for the playtest!  I'll address your various comments and observations below.

Characters
(Name, sex, age, ethnicity, social class, legal status.  Note the slightly flippant attributes in places, a reaction to the novelty of the game and the freeform nature of character generation).

Huh.  I just went back and looked at my rules, and I realized something important that I need to spell out.  The list of Demographics that I give in the rules shows the only legal options for the game; they aren't just examples.  So, for example, the only options for "Social Class" are "Rich", "Middle Class", and "Poor".

Now, it has occurred to me that non-American players might need to adjust this list to make it appropriate to their countries.  For example, "Federal Agent" means something fairly specific in the United States that probably doesn't have an exact analogue elsewhere.  (I think.)  However, even in this case, these adjustments should be made before the game starts, and the players are still restricted to the items on the list.

Scene 7:
Charles doesn't wait for police and ambulance to arrive and chases after the other Characters.  He catches up with them as they're boarding their private jet.  The struggle on the steps results in 3 Violence, so Julie is flung into the plane's engine and dies.  Suzanne and Michael then confess that Julie was Marcus's murderer: she was a crooked FBI agent and wanted in on his trade.

With both Crimes resolved, we ended the game, and just about on time.

Couple of questions.

When was the murder resolved?

Also, I'm assuming that this was the final sequence where Violence Dice are doubled.  If this is the case, how did you get three Violence in this sequence?

• Players raised the possibility of other demographic descriptions for Characters, such as religion and nationality.  I can't see any reason why they shouldn't be demographics, but including them would lead to there being too many.  Perhaps all characters are described by name and sex, and the group then chooses two or three other demographics to describe characters, with the understanding that these demographics will contribute to the story. This could be done at the same time as the decision is made about whether to include under-18 Characters.

No, the Demographics that I've chosen are almost all for purposes of demonstrating power relationships in society.  So, you have class conflict, race conflict, plus the use and abuse of legal authority.  Different stories tend to focus in on different Demographics as being thematically significant, and that's okay.  Too many Demographics will dilute the effect.

Again, remember that the list of acceptable choices is restricted for each Demographic.  These aren't "merely" descriptors.  In a way, they are the game stats for Dirty Secrets.

• Initial generation of Characters, again, led to some silliness.  This was mainly my fault as I forgot to get the players to discuss what they were putting down as they did it.  Perhaps the rules should stress that initial character generation should be done collaboratively?

Actually, the players shouldn't discuss initial character generation.  They should just "take-and-pass" the cards.  At the same time, initial characters can be Appealed, and players should feel free to do so if they think that a given character is silly. 

• The suggested times to play a game seem optimistic, especially for people who don't know the game.  We started on a 6x3 grid, but quickly moved to 3x3 as that was all we could finish in the time.  We got through setup and seven scenes in just over 2.5 hours of play.  The timings may be more accurate after people have played a few games and everyone knows the rules, but checking that may be problematic for me.  Anyway, the estimates are most useful for the first few games.

Sure.  I may double the playing times for the estimates, but I'll wait until I get some more playtest data to work with.

• Things did move more quickly than last time after I suggested that we frame scenes tightly around interaction with Characters and pushed them towards conflict.  This is a piece of text that needs to be prominent in the text.

Yes, that's an important technique for the game that I definitely need to point up in the rules.

• Given that, did we do what you intended with Scene 1a?  There was never going to be any conflict in it, so we never promoted it to being an actual Scene

Sometimes there is a need to have supplemental actions that don't really rise to the level of an Investigation sequence but are necessary to lead to another Investigation sequence.  That's fine, and you handled it the way that I think my group has handled it in the past.  This is something that I need to spell out more clearly in the rules.

At the same time, I would be careful about introducing too much information at such times.  Significant revelations should be reserved for actual sequences.  Appeal should help keep this in check; I'm mentioning it for your own enlightenment and so I'll remember to include it in the manuscript.

• A question about the Crime Resolution step.  Does it alwasy resolve Crimes?  If, following an Investigation conflict, the Witness cannot make a sliding move and is placed on a random square, and that square is empty, is a Crime resolved?  We played it as 'no', a Crime is only resolved when the Witness lands on a name.  Otherwise a 3x3 game would be over very quickly.  In that case, I think this phase of the game is misleadingly named, as Crimes aren't always resolved.  How about calling it something like 'Repercussions'?

You are correct; the Witness must land on a name.  However, this is addressed in the rules (page 31):

If the space is empty, then the player writes down a name in the blank space as normal.  In addition, he may write any name in any blank space on the board.  This is in addition to the bonus name that he gets if he lands on a Suspicion space.

In this way, whenever Resolution is triggered, something happens.  In this way, even if the player rolling for Crime Resolution doesn't get to Resolve a specific Crime, he is able to mold the pacing of the game.

And I'll think about the name change.

• The explanation of Liar's Dice needs some work, especially for someone like me who hasn't played it before.  It's not very clear, and I think it needs some correction.  You say that a follow-up bid must have one of the numbers larger than the previous bid.  You give the example of five 3s following three 5s, but surely you could follow the five 3s with three 5s again, leading to a cycle.  Is this intended, or am I making a mistake?   We settled on requiring the face to be non-decreasing and the count to always increase if the face stayed constant.  We also ignored Ace Bids as just being too complicated for little if any gain.

I grappled with how to explain that, and it needs to be better.  I'll probably check out some other rules for the game to see how they do it.

To answer your question, you may never decrease the number of dice in the bid.  If you increase the number of dice, then you may bid any die face that you want.  If you don't want to increase the number of dice in the bid, then you must increase the die face in the bid.

Also, while you're here, a word on Ace bids.  There are two reasons to consider using an Ace bid. 

First, an Ace bid can be a stall move, especially when the bid has become quite high.  It's sort of like a half-step bid.  (That's not totally true and is a bit of an oversimplification, I admit.)

Second, an Ace bid can be used to avoid Violence.  Remember that Violence Dice set to 1 are never counted for Violence.  As a result, an Ace bid will always produce 0 Violence if called.  So, if you're trying to avoid an violent outcome of a conflict, try an Ace bid.

• I found the process of who selects what scene type to play next confusing to explain, especially when combined with details of who gets to frame that scene.  Perhaps the Authority should choose first, with a possible Appeal by the Investigator?  Whoever finally chooses the scene type gets Jurisdiction over framing it.  (This was confused somewhat in our game, when the Authority should have framed a scene, but the Investigator had a really good idea and the Authority just let him get on with it.  This meant that some of the other players lost track of who had responsibility for what.)

I do need to spell out who gets to do scene framing., by which I mean "setting the scene for a sequence".  Generally, whoever actually proposes the sequence frames, although this isn't a hard-and-fast rule.

This is different than proposing a sequence.  Here's how that works:

1)    Investigator proposes a sequence.
2)   Authority either accepts sequence or proposes a different sequence which must be accepted by the Investigator.

Here are a couple of examples of how this works:

Investigator:  Okay, next Chapter.  Um, I propose an Investigation sequence.  Charles goes to confront Suzanne about her money laundering.

Authority: Okay!  (gains one die back into his die pool for accepting the Investigation sequence) So, we're at the hotel, right?

Investigator:  Yes.  I figure that Charles shows up there and starts giving her trouble.

And so on, into the rest of the scene.

Alternately, this could happen:

Investigator:  Okay, next Chapter.  Um, I propose an Investigation sequence.  Charles goes to confront Suzanne about her money laundering.

Authority:  Nope.  Got a different sequence.  I'm calling for a Violence sequence.  (pays his dice for a Violence sequence)  When Charles shows up at the hotel, Michael attacks him at the front door.

Investigator:  Huh.  Okay.  Roll for conflict!

Someone could Appeal the Authority's sequence choice, but ,as far as the interaction between Investigator and Authority, that's it.

• Reversing the order of the Investigator Connection table would make more sense, so that larger numbers of players produce larger results.

Well, I prefer the way that it works now, because that way I'm only working with positive modifiers and positive numbers on the table.  If I reversed the order of the table, then I'd have to use negative numbers.

• In play, there is a lot of stuff on the table: many character cards, crime cards, the grid, the Witness, each player's dice pools, nibbles, and so on.  There's just quite a logistical problem keeping it all organised.  We didn't have enough room to keep everything layed out neatly enough to find things.

In the playtest packet (on page 39) there's a chart that's supposed to be used to track Liar's Dice.  In addition, it gives locations to file all the Character Cards.  Did you use this?

That being said, yes, there's a lot of stuff flying around.  I've figured out the best way to organize it, though, and I'll need to include that in the book.  Short version:  Crime Grid goes above the Liar's Dice/Character organizer.  Put Crimes above that, unused Crime cards on the left of the Grid, and unused Character cards on the right of the Grid.  The entire thing should be facing the Investigator.

• You should perhaps include a piece of advice in the rules that states that Violence scenes are strictly optional, depending on the type of story you're trying to tell.  There was some confusion at the table about the different purposes of the different scene types (exasperated by my not spending a chunk of time at the beginning of the game explaining everything in detail, and violence occuring as side-effects of conflicts).

I'm planning on writing an entire section of the book, dedicated to explaining the use of each aspect of the game.  So I'll address this in the manuscript.

• Although we didn't have one, there was a suggestion that any Reflection scenes also include a cut scene showing the other Characters continuing with their own agendas.  (Personally, I think it's not a great idea, but several of the players thought it should be there.)

Nope.  And I have two reasons.

First, something that I need to explain in the manuscript is that this is a "first-person" roleplaying game.  In other words, there are no cut scenes or anything of the kind.  Rather, the audience only gets to see what the investigator gets to see.

Second, the point of a Reflection scene is to turn inward on the investigator.  This is when the investigator does his soul-searching or otherwise reacts personally to the events going on around him.  Cutting away from him at this point would work counter to this.

• If there's a disagreement about whether an extra should be a Character, or whether an illegal act should be a Crime, who gets Jurisdiction over that decision?

There's no Jurisdiction per se.  As noted in the rules, any player can call for an extra to be a Character or an illegal act to be a Crime.  The only way to stop this is by Appeal.

I think that's it.  An enjoyable game, all told. 

Excellent.

And thank you for the playtest!

[ParRathorne]

All in All, I think Neil has summarised the play test quite well and I'd just like to thank him for running the game a you for coming up with the game!

I'll leave Neil to respond to your questions in the above :-)

Cheers
K

[Neil the Wimp]

Huh.  I just went back and looked at my rules, and I realized something important that I need to spell out.  The list of Demographics that I give in the rules shows the only legal options for the game; they aren't just examples.  So, for example, the only options for "Social Class" are "Rich", "Middle Class", and "Poor".

Now, it has occurred to me that non-American players might need to adjust this list to make it appropriate to their countries.  For example, "Federal Agent" means something fairly specific in the United States that probably doesn't have an exact analogue elsewhere.  (I think.)  However, even in this case, these adjustments should be made before the game starts, and the players are still restricted to the items on the list.

OK.  I think the 'demographics as power differentials' needs clearly spelling out: I just wasn't getting that at all. 

I didn't express myself very clearly about the variant demographics.  In the UK, race is much less of an issue than it is in the US (though race and religion are conflated in the current hysteria over home-grown Indian/Pakistani Muslim Islamist terrorist baby-eaters).  Instead, religion and nationality are more significant, especially immigrants from the new EU states (Poland, Romania) and 'bogus asylum seekers' (another tabloid scare story). 

What I was proposing was that the relevant demographics are chosen for each game.  This builds on your observation that only one or two demographics become relevant in each game.  What I propose is that, when the game is set up and decisions are made about minors and the like, the players also select the two or three demographics that will be used in that game.  They can select from as many options as you want to list.  Hopefully, the Demographics chosen will have a significant influence on the game. 

When was the murder resolved?

Also, I'm assuming that this was the final sequence where Violence Dice are doubled.  If this is the case, how did you get three Violence in this sequence?

The murder was resolved at the end of Scene 7.  We didn't do the 'endgame' scene for three reasons.

First, we were getting short of time.  If we'd done another scene, we wouldn't have had any time to discuss feedback.  Second, it seemed right for the other Characters to simply fold at that point.  Third (and this is embarrassing to recount), I kind of forgot about the special endgame scenes.

Actually, that second point is one that needs quite a lot of attention, I think.  On reflection, one of the things that I think is missing from the game is grabbiness of the Characters.  The generation of the characters gives them descriptions, but no motivations or goals.  I find that, when I'm generating NPCs, identifying their goals is the key thing to giving them life.  This is also what I find to be the most important part of generating a Dogs town: what do the characters want, and what do they want from the PCs? 

The problem with Dirty Secrets, as written, is that the Characters don't get any goals allocated to them, so playing them as driven, active participants is difficult.  In play, many of the Characters simply react to the Investigator.

I think that something that needs to be done is to ensure that each Character has a goal or two that they can pursue.  It'll make interactions with the Investigator more interesting and conflicts more pointed.  I don't know how to do this, though, given the unknown nature of the relationships and crimes before they're encountered.  Would it be possible to create a goal for each Character when the character is first described?  Also, a job for after every scene would be to revise these goals in the light of the new facts revealed in that scene. 

I think is this the most important point to consider for any revisions to the manuscript. 

• A question about the Crime Resolution step.  Does it always resolve Crimes?  If, following an Investigation conflict, the Witness cannot make a sliding move and is placed on a random square, and that square is empty, is a Crime resolved?  We played it as 'no', a Crime is only resolved when the Witness lands on a name.  Otherwise a 3x3 game would be over very quickly.  In that case, I think this phase of the game is misleadingly named, as Crimes aren't always resolved.  How about calling it something like 'Repercussions'?

In this way, whenever Resolution is triggered, something happens.  In this way, even if the player rolling for Crime Resolution doesn't get to Resolve a specific Crime, he is able to mold the pacing of the game.

Yes, I understand the text.  However, the name is confusing: the 'Crime Resolution' step doesn't always (indeed, mostly doesn't) resolve a crime.  I'd restructure the text so that the 'Scene' sections only cover what happens in the scene then feed into the Repercussions section.  Repercussions can then deal with the movement of the Witness, rolling a new location if it can't do a sliding move, and finally Crime Resolution if the Witness really can't be moved. 

On the subject of restructuring the text, I'd move the explanation of Liar's Dice out of the description of Investigation scenes and into its own section. 

Your revised explanation of Liar's Dice is much clearer.  To paraphrase, to check I understand it: the only constraint is that the count (number of dice bid) is non-decreasing. Yes?

• Reversing the order of the Investigator Connection table would make more sense, so that larger numbers of players produce larger results.

Well, I prefer the way that it works now, because that way I'm only working with positive modifiers and positive numbers on the table.  If I reversed the order of the table, then I'd have to use negative numbers.

Have the table like this:

Initial contact with the Investigator is:

1-2: the Victim
3-4: the Suspect
5-6: Additional Character 1
7-8: Additional Character 2

DMs: +1 for 4 players, +2 for 5 players. 

Is that clear?  No negative numbers either.

The comment about the logistics of the game and all the cards was simply that you need a big table to play the game!  Certainly larger than many RPGs, where players can keep their own character sheets on their laps. 

That's it.  Thanks for the responses to my comments.  I hope my clarifications really are clarifictions. 

Keep up the good work!  I'm really looking forward to the game coming out. 

Neil.

[Neil the Wimp]

All in All, I think Neil has summarised the play test quite well and I'd just like to thank him for running the game a you for coming up with the game!

Kevin,

Welcome to the Forge! 

If there's anything you want to say about how the game went on Tuesday, feel free to make your comments here.

Neil.