[Business Solutions] Comedy of (Copier) Errors

[Jason Morningstar]

Joel, Lisa, and Jon played Business Solutions yesterday at Mayacon, Andy Kitkowski's house-con devoted to playtesting.  Lisa posts around here as Urbanpagan.  Joel's in my weekly TSoY group.  Jon is a friend of Joel's that I had never met.  None of them had played, read, or even really heard of Business Solutions, but they were all game.  It's strictly a three-player game, so I facilitated. 

They all jumped into the game, and seemed to take real delight in the everyman nature of the characters and conflicts.  The clients were a run-down, soulless consulting firm, "Rinx", a delapidated skating ring, and a lesbian book store.  The characters ran the gamut from Gary Pelt, an unsavory Lead "with a sweating problem" whose Need was lust, to a former jock, a strident environmentalist with a Need to slack off, and the requisite irritating dork Trainee.  The creation of characters, clients, and conflicts was no problem - I only facilitated the first one and they were off to the races, more or less.  I did prod them a few times to drive relationship challenges toward conflicts, so this needs more stern direction in the rules, I think.  The game produced a lot of cringe-worthy moments, and we laughed and laughed. 

One problem that I knew about, that manifested itself, is the fiddly nature of the card handling.  Here's the table mid-game.  There's just a lot of piles and stacks, and it's a little complex for such a light game.  I think I see a way forward, streamlining card handling a bit, but it is an obvious problem.  We also agreed that the game should start with a few free tech support calls, rather than having to wait for player failure to provide these. 

I was really happy with the playtest.  It ran about two hours and fifteen minutes, which is just right.  Here's the finished service call log. 

[Ben Lehman]

What happened?

This game really intruiges me, but I have no idea what the fiction of play looks like at all.

[Jason Morningstar]

Hi Ben,

The game is set up so that two copy repair people (a Lead and a Trainee) visit a client with a photocopier problem.  So there are three roles (Lead, Trainee, Client) that rotate across six scenes, with each player taking each role twice.  For example, Jon created Rinx, and began the first Rinx scene by having the assistant manager, Jared, calling up Business Solutions (roleplaying this call is part of the procedure) and complaining about a "weird glow". 

As Client you select a copier problem (from a list of 18 general ones, like "copies too dark" or "mysteriously hot"; each of these lists has four specific problems like "PCB photogate malfunction" or "toner arm misdalignment" or "something died in there" that the Lead and Trainee have to discover via a challenge).  You also select a relationship (from a tightly defined list of elements that diminishes over the course of the game; Jon chose "Clinging Family Member" and pointed the relationship at Joel, who fleshed it out as his busy-body, manipulative aunt.)

So each scene consists of a photocopier challenge (diagnosing and fixing the problem) and a relationship challenge (dealing with the person on the scene, created by the Client and another player).  There's a fixed amount of currency to devote to these challenges across all scenes, and that amount rises and falls a bit based on success or failure. 

In the Rinx scene, Joel was playing his Lead, an ex-jock named Tom Cougar, and Lisa was playing her Trainee, a lazy-ass environmentalist.  If I recall correctly, Tom Cougar spent the scene dealing with his aunt, who was browbeating him into calling his estranged mom to make her return a dress she had borrowed (Joel failed and had to call).  He left Celia to fix the weird glow, shouting suggestions (and contributing currency) occasionally.  Celia, being lazy, didn't try too hard and they failed. 

After scene six there's an all-hands meeting, an end-game step, where character's scores are talleyed up and somebody is made an assistant manager.  Their first task is to fire the poorest-performing character.