[Mob Justice] Our Last Playtest

[spikexan]

Mob Justice
1.5 The Big Lie

Okay, I have to tell a little tale.

In 2005, I attended GenCon for the first time thanks to a game publisher that needed someone to run their demo games.  As I wandered through the expo for the first time, I realized the standard games weren't really appealing to me.  I've played a lot of games and needed something different.  The Forge, however, did appeal to me.  I picked up games like Primetime Adventures, Breaking the Ice, and A/State. 

Between GenCon 2005 and 2006, my friend got our gaming group involved in playtesting Mob Justice, the newest addition to Contested Grounds' line-up.  The idea of an America where Prohibition never ended appealed to me.  Impressively, the game went through design, playtesting, and production during

that year because I picked up the "rough draft" GenCon edition that following year.  I was deeply impressed with the speed and quality a game can come into being.[/i]

Some members of our group didn't initially love the "shared narrative" concepts many of the independent games have opened doors to, but we did appreciate the chance to work on something fresh.

Below are the actual play highlights from our last Episode of Mob Justice (before its release) along with some commentary from our group.  I'm trying to make the format suitable for the forum and apologize if I have not.  In the write-up, I pose a few questions.  I hope some of you who have played this game can share your thoughts on it.



How It Went Down
Prep

There were five "full" playtest sessions, not counting a session devoted to rules explanation and some test skirmishes and another session (or two) devoted to character creation.  Throughout the five games, eight of us–Mike, Mic, Matt, Alan, Scotty, Holly, Sean, and myself–took various roles.  For example, my friend Alan is a terrific Rules Lawyer.  We generally try to curb that behavior, but for playtests we let it flourish.  Finally, Mike and I took turns as the Boss (I handled 1.1, 1.3, and 1.5). 

Over the course of the first four Episodes, one major story arch was developed.  Our game of Mob Justice centered around two brothers, Samuel and Daniel Isenberg.  These brothers were tied into the Los Angeles political scene.  Samuel was a good man, an idealist.  His brother Daniel appeared to follow in Samuel's footsteps, but actually delved heavily in various illegal activities.  One of these activities gave Daniel the wrong kind of attention and, in a panic, he framed his brother for it.  This framework brought the characters together, particularly rallying around a trio of player characters while widening around the entire group of eight.  By framework, I mean one of the characters assassinated Samuel Isenberg, creating a catalyst for Daniel Isenberg to use the city's resources to squelch his competition while appearing to act out of justice.
Isenberg experienced failure after failure, most painfully in arenas of his choosing against people he considered "lesser."  The Cast wanted to end him, but he continued to get away.  After Isenberg's last assault on a brothel/speakeasy owned by Holly's character, the Cast decided to take the right to his doorstep.

The Story

One thing I noticed when playing Mob Justice was that it appeared to work best with a Boss and three players.  Our most inspired games (three of the five) came from this dynamic.  Have any of you experimented with the size of your gaming groups for this game?  What did you find?  For that matter, do any of you experiment with the size of your gaming groups for any of your games?  I attempt to do this with every playtest or regular session I take part in.

For the final session, I brought the majority of the group in to wrap up the game.  Our cast looked like this:

Tullio Costa, a man in the making (Mike)
Jocelyn Cadenza, a madame and club owner (Holly)
Tomasso Lorenza, an undercover cop (Matt)
Gino "Big Gene" Vanzetti, a bootlegger (Alan)
Salvatore Messina, a mess (Scotty)
Anthony Morelli, a bootlegger (Mic)

Besides Daniel Isenberg, only one character should be mentioned: August September, a hitman.  In fact, his assignment was responsible for igniting the powder keg.  When I played in a game instead of running it, this is the character I used.

The initial scene centered around the trio–August, Tullio, and Jocelyn–who took part in each of the five games.  The three of them worried about what to do with their captives.  August made suggestions, but Tullio basically let the group know he wasn't taking orders anymore, especially from a madame and hitman.  Neither Jocelyn nor August felt the urge to argue.  Once Tullio felt his point was cemented, he went ahead and followed August's suggestion.



Meanwhile, Tomasso, an undercover cop, has been sold out by his "friends" on the force.  Isenberg catches him in his apartment where they murder his girlfriend and promise to do worse to his wife.  Tomasso agrees to help put down Samuel Isenberg's assassin.



Jocelyn, being on the best terms with Gino Vanzetti, is coerced into getting him and his friends on board to help shut down Isenberg.  During this scene, we used Mob Justice's Poker mechanic for Skirmish resolution quite heavily, although we didn't focus on the Story Chips.  Our gaming group has several Poker fiends in it, so this worked out truly well.  It was a little trick the game allowed me to pull a few times during our playtest and more often in our regular game.

Once Jocelyn explains what is at stake, her old friend "Big Gene" agrees to help out.  He is both a bootlegger and amateur demolition expert.  He says he knows how to deal with Isenberg's superior numbers and firepower. 



Tullio and August deal with three captives from the previous game.  Tullio, well, Mike can't seem to break the "bad cop" he has captured.  When August goes in, takes advantage of Mob Justice's rules in regards to Extras (or Mooks), and also uses the player-assist rules to make short work of his Ask 'Em Hard draws.  This cop doesn't know much, but he knows where Isenberg can be found.



The gang gathered together at Cadenza's (the brothel/speakeasy) to discuss how they would go through this.  At one point during our playtest, Mike suggested we have a full Italian dinner in our characters' attire.  Although we didn't pull off wardrobe, we did roleplay this scene over dinner.  It caused this scene (and the entire game) to last much longer than I wanted, but the overall effect made it worthwhile.  My days of running games for twelve hours has passed.  I prefer to run four hour games, but dinner made this finale last six hours.

After dinner, the characters went their own ways in order to discuss their own angles (particularly Morelli). 

When Tullio and August emerged from Cadenza's, Tomasso was waiting for them.  One thing I really like about Mob Justice is its damage resolution.  For those who don't know, the winning character in a fight measures the ranks of his poker hand above his defender.  They then apply the weapon's damage.  These ranks plus damage equal the number of cards a player draws.  For each Heart (in a physical damage) the defender takes a wound.  It can make some insane thing happen, but mostly works out.  For example, I've seen 12 cards drawn without a single heart.  It's good for a laugh.

The fight ends with August dead (I'm a cocky player) and Tomasso wounded.  Tullio stands over him while Tomasso all but cries.

"I did it for my family," he pleads.

"Me too," Tullio replies cooly before finishing him.



August's death doesn't deter the others from getting their vengeance on.  Messina and Morelli take barrels of alcohol with tricked-out bottoms of explosives to Isenberg's home.  He's planning on throwing a huge party (he considered August the most likely to kill him).  While they drop off the illicit goods, the others slip in.  The plan holds that the booze runners will leave, circle back, and join in on the fun.

When the two of them leave, Morelli tells Messina that they should just leave the three of them I there to die.  If "Big Gene" is put down, he'll be in a position to take his turf (or Network, Status, and Reputation in game terms).  Messina isn't cool with this and puts up a fight.  Words lead to bullets, which leads to Messina being marked out.  Morelli fires two shots into himself to show that he put up a fight himself.  The story of coming in with gun's blazing already fills his head.  Alan was sweating that Mic's character would make it through the fight.



The final battle between Tullio, Jocelyn, and Gino against Isenberg and his men goes down quite well.  Mob Justice approaches mass combat in a way similar to Savage Worlds.  Extras who take hits in the game are pretty much narrated out.  It's the fight with Bit Players and Leads that can really make things go unexpectedly (not to mention player-versus-player conflicts).   The fight ended with Tullio and Jocelyn standing.  Gino went down putting the big hurt on Isenberg.  Jocelyn tried to convince Tullio to let her "ruin" Isenberg (use your imagination and you're probably still not right), but he said he'd never be able to rise in the city while Isenberg drew breath.

And so Isenberg quit drawing breath.

This was the last game we used these characters.  Out of playtest, out of the question.  Those characters went on to bigger, bolder things.  Morelli went a darker route, which was cool upon cool.  I did warn the players that surviving characters would show up in our regular games as NPCs though, which I will say is a neat little trick to try out on players sometime.

[iain]

The game is going to be out very soon by the way. I unfortunately won't be at Gencon this year but Malcolm Craig will be offering demos of Mob Justice at the Play Collective stall. You can find out more about the game here.

http://www.contestedground.co.uk

All the best

Iain