[GoPlay Northwest: Kin] This is everyone's fault but mine!

[Kirk Mitchell]

This is the second playtest I've run of Kin, at GoPlay Northwest. I had seven players, again! It was really fun, and I learned a lot. I mean, a lot. Thanks so much to Micah Olsen, John Aegard, Jake Richmond, Nick Smith, Hans Anderson (the fifth), Wilson Zorn and Kingston Cassidy for showing me how awesome my game could be!

At the beginning of the session, we decided to play Olympians living in 1950s California. We had some awesome characters, like the philandering drunkard patriarch Walter, the manipulative and maniacal matriarch Harriet, the beloved bastard son Carl, the proto-goth daughter Delilah, the son James dating a girl from the Mayan pantheon, the oddball Uncle Dave, Uncle Berry who is pining for his brother's wife, and the hard-working and over-achieving arsehole Paul.

As usual, the players took to the mechanics like ducks to water. Its just so damn natural to dish out pain and intimacy cards, and there's something wonderfully visceral about chucking a playing card at someone. Kingston rightly noted that the text should emphasize this point.

At the very beginning of the session, I framed a scene where everybody was present at the funeral of Carl's mother. There was the usual bickering and fun nastiness, but almost immediately two things became clear: the first being that forcing players to start off with estranged characters who come together in the first scene is restrictive and contrived. Its a good suggestion which works if everyone is stoked on it, but if nobody cares about the funeral of dear old Granny then we should just leave it lie.

Secondly, Issues are really important. When I first framed the scene, I didn't make any mention of Issues and the scene floundered, then sunk. Everybody was intrigued by the initial mean/nice resources, but nobody really found any reason to care. As the scene went on to the end, I watched people's faces. Everybody was going oh my god, this guy doesn't know what he's doing, this game is crap, why the fuck did I sign up to this game? Everyone else is having fun! I could feel the game bombing.

So after the scene ended, I stopped everyone and explained that there are these things called Issues, and everyone should write down something about a character or a relationship that is problematic within the family and that they are interested in. We got some issues like "Will Berry get over Harriet?", "Will Harriet and Walter's marriage dissolve?" and "Will the family break up Jason's relationship with his girlfriend?" When players framed a scene, I made them say "I'm really interested in this Issue, so I'm going to frame a scene where.."

Finally, I explained that Issues are important because you cannot have direct conflicts within regular scenes. Covert attacks and jibes may be made, but whenever characters come into direct conflict, they must both back down. As shaky as the foundations of the family may be, they're still family, and still interested in maintaining at least the appearance of decorum. The only way you can resolve Issues is by  charging them up with Pain and Intimacy, which will inevitably lead to a Threshold Scene and a big emotional blowout with huge consequences.

The difference between how the game played in the next scene was like black and white. It was a complete 180 degree shift in awesome. Towards awesome.

I'll let the other players pitch in with their favourite scenes and moments, but one of the high points for me was when Jake threw out a fistful of black cards at every single player at the table, shouting "This is everyone's fault but mine!" after he crashed the car (to the Greekmobile!) while turning around to shout at Harriet in the back seat. And at the climax, there was a supernatural confrontation between Walter and Harriet, where Harriet revealed that she had transformed all of his ex lovers into animals! Enraged, the menagerie tore the house in two! That made my jaw drop. Holy metaphor batman!

During the end of session discussion, we described Kin as the anti Dogs. Instead of driving issues constantly towards conflict and escalation, you want to let things sit and fester for a while. The game is all about what would happen if the Dogs hadn't arrived. This pleases me.

The game really rewards a character that attracts attention. Being loud, bombastic, controversial, incredibly kind, or even just a bit of a dick will give you a hell of a lot of screen time, and a hell of a lot of resources for upcoming Threshold scenes. This also pleases me.

I'm considering a mechanic where each player writes down a secret. It could be big or small, but a secret. These are all put in a hat, and drawn out at random. This is something that your character knows about the character of the player opposite you, but nobody else does. Every time you reference this secret in play without revealing it, you get to draw another card to your hand. When you finally reveal the secret, you can enact an immediate five scene Consequence.

Finally, the players all suggested a montage scene at the very beginning of the game to introduce the mechanics, introduce the characters and their associated Issues. I have no idea how I'd implement that yet, but I think its a bloody fantastic idea.

I had a lot of fun playing with you all. I hope you guys had as much fun as I did!

Cheers,
- Kirk

(edited to fix formatting at author's request - RE)