[Grey Ranks] Playtest over Skype

[Travis Farber]

Recently we did a playtest for Grey Ranks over Skype.  Originally, we were going to play another game, but we ended up playing Grey Ranks instead.  I'll try to give some other play notes a little bit later.  Until then, let me thank Nick for this write up. 

Grey Ranks AP

Trav
Character:   Aleksander Leska, son of a dead professor
Pseudonym:  Mar
Sex:  Male
Age:  17
Born in:  Ochota
Started on:  D2
Reputations:  Obsessed to Loyal, Talkative to Articulate
Things I Hold Dear:  My City - Library in Ochota

Kit
Character:  Jeremi Zielwicz, gangly farm boy
Pseudonym:  Zodiak
Sex:  Male
Age:  15
Born in:  The Kampinos forest, Greater Warsaw
Started on:  D4
Reputations:  Ugly to Attractive, Foolish to Clever
Things I Hold Dear:  My First Love - 13 year old cousin, Teresa

Anna
Character:  Irena something-or-other, dirt-poor from large family
Pseudonym:  Bronka
Sex:  Female
Age:  16
Born in:  Old Town/City Center
Started on:  ?
Reputations:  Dull to Captivating, Weak to Strong
Things I Hold Dear:  My Faith – My local priest

Nick
Character:  Zofia Hlasko
Pseudonym:  Nena
Sex:  Female
Age:  15
Born in:  Zoliborz
Started on:  D2
Reputations:  Immature to Experienced, Careless to Careful
Things I Hold Dear:  My Family – little brother Jakob

Other Teens -- Teresa, Zodiak's cousin, 13; Slawek, 17, Bronka's brother (Selfish); Stefan, 16, the kid always picked last (Inept); Tomasch, Bronka's little brother, sickly and sore-ridden

Chapter One

Mission: Retrieve a list of collaborators from the Germans and bring it to the Home Army, then nail up the fake German newspapers with a Schwein-hund (pig-dog) drawn on them to the doors of the collaborators.

Nena is heading out to meet up with the crew when she is confronted in front of the door by her father. He is well-off, knows of her involvement in the Grey Ranks, and is a collaborator.  Nena chiefly has joined GR to spite him.  "If you go out that door tonight, don't come back!" he screams at her.  "Better to live in the streets than under the roof of a collaborator!" she yells back.  "I'm glad your mother isn't alive to see this!" he yells as she ducks around him and out the door.  Standing outside, hugging herself, she hears her little brother Jakob crying, which sets her to weeping as she walks off.

Zodiak is walking into town to meet with the crew when he passes by an SS-controlled farm.  It is the farm where his beautiful 13 y/o cousin Teresa is employed.  She staggers out of the barn carrying two heavy buckets. Just then an SS officer steps out of the farm house--Zodiak picks up a rock and hurls it at the SS man. It hits him in the head, and he gives chase, cursing in German.  Zodiak runs and hides nearby, while the German returns and kicks Teresa in frustration.

Bronka is going out, and she is stopped by her mother, who is hobbled by some easily-cured-but-somewhat-costly ailment.  "Where are you going?  I need you to work, so that we can eat.  Just look at how thin Tomasch is getting!  You can't spend all your time running errands for the Home Army while we starve!"  Bronka replies that there are more important things afoot, and why can't one of her lazy older brothers provide food? Mother says that Bronka is the responsible one, that's why.  Bronka hurls a few choice words back at her and leaves.

The crew is hiding up in a hayloft at the SS-controlled farm's barn, having snagged the list but been pursued into the barn.  Someone dropped the list as we climbed the ladder, and we can see it below as the Germans search the lower level for us.  Mar (mission leader) orders us to retrieve the list and escape while he distracts the Germans.  He leaps down from the hayloft and knocks over a German officer, then takes off running out the door.  We retrieve the list and successfully get it to Home Army.  The Chapter ends with a shot of a hand nailing up one of the Pig-Dog newspapers to a collaborator's door.  The imaginary camera pans out to reveal that this is Nena's house, then pans out further to reveal that Nena herself is the one nailing the paper to her father's door.

Chapter Two

Mission: Secure a package that a collaborator is bringing to the Germans and deliver it to Home Army agents by a certain wall in the Ghetto.

Nena's Mission Scene: d8, Personal Failure

Nena lies in wait with Stefan in a shadowed doorway near the drop-off point for the package.  A car pulls up and is forced to stop because of the traffic.  Agitated, the driver parks his car and gets out to make the drop on foot, the package carried under his arm.  Nena plans to jump out as he passes and grab the package from him, but as he gets closer she sees the collaborator is her father.  Knowing he will suspect something if he sees her, she turns her back to her father, grabs Stefan and kisses him in the doorway.  Nena's father passes by without a glance, and without her doing anything to stop him.

Nena's Personal Scene: d4

After her father passes by, Nena pulls back roughly from Stefan.  He is dazed from the kiss and has a dopy grin on his face.  He maintains a hold on her hand and tries to kiss it.  Enter the conflict: if Nena wins, she pulls her hand away and slaps Stefan, berating him for losing sight of the mission; if she fails, she pities Stefan and lets him kiss her hand, leading him on.  Nick rolled a 3, so Nena succeeds and slaps Stefan across the face. He withdraws with a wounded expression on his face, and they leave for the rendezvous point.

Bronka's Mission Scene: d6, Personal Success

Bronka ends up following Nena's father on foot to an ordinary-looking building.  He is buzzed inside, and the door closes before Bronka can catch up.  She hangs around outside and hears him speaking German but cannot hear any reply.  Finally, she hears him hang up a telephone and walk back towards the door.  Bronka then musses herself up to look like a poor beggar (no real stretch) and acts as if she were about to knock on the door.  When Nena's father comes out, Bronka starts babbling and asking for money.  Though the open doorway, she can see a lobby phonebooth with the package poking out near the floor.  Nena's father pulls out the smallest coin he can find and tosses it to Bronka, getting away from her as fast as he can.  Before the door to the building slams shut, Bronka wedges the coin in the doorjamb, slips inside and snags the package.

Mar's Personal Scene:

This scene focused on a building that the Germans had taken over, in a flashback.  The scene starts with Germans moving into the building that they are now using for a headquarters.  Aleksander is walking down the street with his professor father when he sees them moving in.  In a childlike fashion he races over to the Germans, knocking boxes out of their hands.  Father grabs Aleksander and tries to calm him down.  Conflict time: if the roll is a success, Father calms him and the situation down, while if the roll is a failure the Germans end up beating him down.  The roll is a success.  With tears in his eyes Aleksander cries at his father, "This isn't their house, this is Janek's house! What happened to Janek?"  His father just hugs him and says to calm down.  As they walk away, Mar looks back to see the main German officer, Hauptmann Otto Becker, putting away the Luger that he had been about to draw.  Becker memorizes Aleksander's face.

Zodiak's Mission Scene: d4, Collective Success

At the rendezvous point in the Ghetto, the crew is waiting for their Home Army contacts to show up and collect the package.  While they are waiting, they hear a patrol of German soldiers coming up the street towards them.  While Nena and Bronka argue and insult each other, Zodiak picks up some rocks and throws them to distract the soldiers and buy more time for the Home Army contacts to arrive.

Mar's Mission Scene:

The dice have been rolled and we have determined success for the mission.  Once again the scene starts with Mar having to calm an argument between Nina and Bronka.  After Zodiak bought the Home Army some time to get there, the crew sees the Germans coming back after us as we are racing towards the wall. Mar hands the package off to Bronka and says "Don't look behind you just get this package to the wall!"  He then turns back and gets the Germans to chase him, making sure that he is in between any of the soldiers and Bronka.  She gets the package to the Home Army, and the crew escapes into the night. 

Zodiak's Personal Scene: d8

Back at the SS-controlled farm, Teresa is drawing water from the river.  Jeremi approaches her, and she remonstrates him for throwing rocks at the Germans (how he loves rock throwing!).  She lifts her shirt to show him her bruises from being beaten by the SS officer.  He seeks her forgiveness.  Conflict: if Jeremi succeeds, Teresa refuses to forgive him; if he loses, his uncle comes along and takes Teresa away before she can make any sort of comment whatsoever.  (d6, rolled a 2, chose success.)  Jeremi learns a little bit about love and selfishness.

Bronka's Personal Scene:

Irena stops off before going home and uses the coin she got from Nena's father to buy a bit of old fruit.  Upon entering the house, Irena's mother begins berating her for being out so late.  Irena produces the bit of fruit, but her mother calls it garbage and throws it on the floor.  Don't remember what the stakes of the conflict were, but it was a success, and Irena picks the fruit up from the floor and uses it to feed Tomasch.  I think she called her mother something pretty heinous, too, but I can't remember what it was.

[Jason Morningstar]

Good stuff, Travis - how does it play over Skype?  How are you guys handling the visuals, particularly the grid?

I noticed that 75% of your things held dear are represented by actual people - that's hardcore.  Do you plan on playing a full game?  It sounds tense already.  I love the scene where Nena's outing her own father as a collaborator.  Harsh. 

[Travis Farber]

We do plan on playing a full game, I expect it to get really tense coming up.  Hopefully we'll have it completed before Gencon. 

For the grid, I scanned a copy of it and forwarded it to the group over skype, seemed to work pretty well with each of us keeping track of it ourselves. 

As for the game play itself, I've never played any other game over skype so I don't have a lot to compare it to.  The structure of game seemed to help people from jumping on each others toes.  The most challenging part was to explain how the game worked since I was the only one who had read it.  Luckily, Nick seemed to catch on pretty quickly so I ran a mission scene and he ran his personal scene early on to demonstrate to everyone just how it worked. 

The one thing that will be interesting is that we are going to be adding a 5th player into the next session.  I think the plan right now is to run him through the first two chapters by himself working him into the story.  Any thoughts as to how to handle adding someone mid game?

[Jason Morningstar]

Adding somebody shouldn't be a problem - use the rules for a short game to "fast forward" that character's reputations and so forth, so they are roughly equivalent to the rest of you.  Let me know how that goes. 

I think the sweet spot for the game is the second session, where you go from "pretty easy" to "pretty damn hard" in terms of overall difficulty, and get to set up the difficult choices you'll make in the third session that will define who your guy is and what he stands for.