[Sign In Stranger] party game version

[David Berg]

Toward the end of Thanksnerding (gaming & turkey day in NYC), I pulled out the S.I.S. quickstart rules, grabbed 5 other people, and ran a 2-hr version of the game.

I started with having everyone taking turns reading the brief backstory aloud, but people didn't really invest in that.  This clued me in and informed some later decisions.

When I handed out paper scraps for contributions of Nouns, Adjectives and Verbs, I asked everyone what they were in the mood for -- absurdist humor, or something more serious.  The absurdist humor fans were the loudest, so I said, "Okay, contribute words with that in mind."  I actually somewhat ignored my own advice, instead trying to create words that wouldn't lend to any one obvious usage or interpretation. 

Aside:
There seem to be two ways to do this -- use vague words like "absorb" or use words that are so specific they can't possibly apply literally.

At one point I pulled "hot dog cart", and that was great, because it forced me to describe this weird object with all these different parts.  I described a small sliding panel that emitted steam when opened (thinking of the place where the hot dogs sit), and someone else ran with it and described a tentacle pulling my character's arm through it into the Mouth of God.

Continuing:
Then we did planet creation, and, just like with the random words, some people went full-bore for silliness and others didn't.  I think that, when asked to come up with alien races, things that I think would be impressive or mysterious jump to my mind before things that would make me laugh.  So I threw in "look like angels, with glowing light obscuring their features" for my Primary Species Alluring Trait.

Then it was time to make characters, and I agreed with Terry (the only other peson there who'd played S.I.S. before) that we should streamline it for speed.  I focused on "occupation" as being most important, as the source of "how your character operates and contributes as distinct from other characters".  So I described some main categories (medicine, anthropology, zoology, botany, geology) and instructed folks to pick those.  Terry suggested one item each, which was a good call.  So now we had names, jobs, and items.

I said it was time to pick a planet, and asked folks if they wanted to do this in chracter.  I was expecting, "No, just describe them all to us so we can pick one and get playing."  Nope.  People huddled closer together, grabbed the nearest planet sheet, and we proceeded to take turns giving "pitches" for each planet.  I think that added a lot to the interest in each world.  Neat.

We eventually picked a subtarranean world where my angel-beings needed "dog envelopers". 

Concocting the color table, I didn't offer any words of guidance, and I wasn't happy with the list we got.  The individual contributions were great (flavorful stuff like "firefly blue", "radiator grey", etc.), but they didn't add up to anything at all.  The first time I played S.I.S. we had a fairly coherent theme to our colors, which I liked.  Ah well.

I remembered something about a mission for Earth, and fumbled around for a sec before Terry said, "Let's just find out what the hell 'dog enveloping' is and see if we can do it."  Which was perfect.

I kicked off by describing how our ship approached the planet's exterior and started looking for a place to land.  I stumbled for a sec, then Terry chimed in that the key was to ask a question of another player to keep the game moving.  Not sure how I forgot that...  Anyway, I asked Liz where we might go to find a landing spot, she drew a Noun, and we were off.

A few times in play, people posed some questions that didn't work well, like, "It's coming toward your character!  What do you do?"  People also offered some responses that simply continued the narration without answering the question they'd been asked.  The latter was easy for Terry and I to correct, and everyone took quickly to that.  The art of asking good questions was slower and more difficult to develop.  I think people were focused more on "do I ask 'how" and make them draw a Verb, or 'what' and make them draw a Noun" than on where we were in our characters' mission.  This resulted in some series of odd experiences that didn't go anywhere, despite my occasional reminders of, "Where are they going to house us?  What will they feed us?  Are they going to instruct us in what they want done with these green, tentacled things, or will we just keep chasing them around?" 

Eventually one player just had the ground fall out from under us and take us to our dwelling.  A bunch of bugs poured into my characters' ears, piquing my curiosity about what would happen as a result, but the next few questions quickly steered us off in another direction.  Not a big deal.

In all, the session was oddly similar to the first one I'd played in tone.  Despite people's best efforts to contribute lunatic words, planets, and colors, we all bought in hardcore to the "we are completely ignorant and clueless in a fully unfamiliar environment" thing, which rendered a lot of the silly events less purely silly.  When my chracter's maimed/blessed arm began picking up signals and turned him into a radio, it didn't elicit the same reaction it would have in Loony Tunes.  Sure, there was laughter, but there was also palpable curiosity and a background buzz of powerless dread.

Fun times.

At some point people had to leave, and we wanted a decent stopping point.  I threw out "we find out what the job entails", and people agreed.  Since I had an idea in mind, the current narrator directed her last question to me, and I described how, upon finishing our current task, our hosts told us that they wanted this task repeated for each and every one of the green dog-like things.  The end.

After play, everyone said they had fun, and a few folks separately expressed that they thought this could be turned into a fun party game.

[Paul T]

Thanks, Dave!

I was there, and I had a good time. Even though I lost. Dave, on the other hand, I'm pretty sure, was the winner.

I agree that reading the background was not particularly useful for our purposes. I think it can be skipped pretty safely--in our case, I doubt more than half the players even listened as it was being read.

One slight correction: there were actually seven people playing! And a few people hanging out and listening in. We definitely played in more of a "party game" mode than an "RPG" mode. We sat around on a couch, a bench, and a handful of chairs, some people sitting on the floor, etc, with scraps of paper spread out on the carpet in the middle.

Boy, those words sure got us in trouble now and then, although some worked in weird and unexpected ways:

For instance, the "hot dog cart" was extremely apropos, since, in fact, it housed food for dogs.

My experience of the game was definitely more a silly "Mad Libs" style goofy party experience, complete with awkward or weiiiiiird words (someone wrote "am" for a verb), subtle and not-so-subtle sexual imagery (ahem), and weirdness galore.

The end result, for me, was like some kind of weird psychedelic cartoon, with a hint of "Rocky Horror Picture Show" thrown in there. The colour scheme definitely contributed to that, as well, as everything was tinted in bright, heavy, dramatic hues ("bloodwine red", "glittery blue", etc).

It's worth noting that we didn't really play the game as written, at least not as far as I understand it. We just used the word draw and round-robin narration to tell a wacky and surprising story together. It was exactly what we all needed and wanted, I think, so it worked really well. We didn't use the questions or scenes format, or any of the resolution mechanics except for the word draw.

It was a blast, and I may play it again (using the same rules) as a party game!

In the meantime, it's also whetted my appetite to play the game as written sometime, with compelling characters, interesting themes, and so forth.

Thanks for the writeup! Definitely a good time, it was.

Best,


Paul

[David Berg]

Huh.  Maybe turning disorientation into awe & anxiety isn't the norm, it's just something I do in my own head.  That's certainly plausible; the "explore, discover & learn" angle is a big part of what grabs me about the game.

[Paul T]

Oh, yeah, not disagreeing with you there! I like that aspect, too.

I'm guessing more than anything when I say that the overall effect was a little too silly for most of us to take it seriously--I think the wacky humour outweighed the feelings of discovery and anxiety that you describe.

But I see the potential there, which is why I'd really like to play the game in the spirit it's intended sometime!

[Emily Care]

What a neat adaptation! Did the round-robin questions work well to get everyone involved? Did people have an mostly-easy or hard time coming up with answers?

I'll be working on this more in the coming months.  This helps give me some more important data points.  I think this game could work well for a hilarious silly time--but there is always that eerie background feeling you talk about, David.  Since there is interest, I'll have to do some more playtests in NYC soon.

all the best,
Emily

[David Berg]

Did the round-robin questions work well to get everyone involved?

They did.  The funny thing is, it wasn't "go clockwise", or in any way structured.  It was, "once you've formed a question, pick the player you want to answer your question".  This resulted in things like:

Abby: After we hand out the rock-like things to the dog-like things, we look to the angel-like things to see if they approve.  What is their reaction . . . (dramatic pause as everyone waits to see who Abby picks) . . . ERIC?!

Eric: Alright!  I'm gonna draw a Noun, Verb, AND Adjective for this one!

People seemed to more or less aim for equal opportunity in picking respondents.

Did people have an mostly-easy or hard time coming up with answers?

The spirit of the moment seemed to be that keeping things moving trumped providing the most awesome response you could.  Accordingly, people tended to respond quickly, and I could see a lot of wheels turning and ideas forming mid-sentence.  I didn't see a single "crap, I can't think of anything" facial expression all night, or even an after-the-fact "sorry, guys, that was lame".

I think the curiosity factor and the large amount of imaginary content added per real time kept a fun flow going throughout.  Not sure how long we could have sustained that, but it wasn't hard for the 100 or so minutes we got in.

Ps,
-David

[Paul T]

Hey, Emily!

I'm glad you saw this thread--we had a fun time, and you deserve to know about that.

I really like what you've done in SiS, the Color Game, and your other projects: cross-seminating techniques like color charts, mad libs, and word associaition with RPG procedures. Lots of fun ground to explore!

I don't have too much to add that Dave hasn't already covered--he's pretty much spot-on.

On the awkwardness issue:

I think the mood of the game was a very lively, intense one. There was no awkwardness because everyone was pretty much on all the time--kind of like at a party where everyone is trying to impress each other, outdo each other, or make each other laugh. The individual contributions were brief but usually very strong and very colourful. I think everyone pretty much immediately knew what to say as soon as they picked up the words.

The only difficulty I remember was not in asnwering questions but in asking them. I think a few people ended their narration without asking a question, which led to a bit of: "Hey! What next?" "Uh, ask a question already!" "Oh, right."

I think some people were also unsure how to formulate their questions, and waffled between asking a "why" question versus a "what" question, etc.

I know I wondered a couple of times before asking a question whether it was answerable by a noun, a verb, or an adjective. I ended up just going for it, though, which worked out fine, so maybe it's not an issue, but I don't think I was the only one for whom that worry crossed the cortex.

Emily, is that kind of how you intend the game to be played? More round-robin narration, less the "there's an [X] in front of you, what do you do?" typical roleplaying? Or is that only for the Investigation scenes?

Also, I wonder if there's a good way to guarantee a nice colour table? We had a lot of weird colour stuff going that didn't mesh well with me--either because colours were too clashing or because they were too similar.

And I agree about that subtle sense of dread that underlies everything... a nice way to get a creepy, truly ALIEN vibe. Note, though, that it's a very consensual thing, which is interesting--there wouldn't be any dread if we weren't all contributing to it by asking difficult questions ("How are we supposed to rest in here?").

Cheers,


Paul

[Emily Care]

Thanks, David and Paul.  I'm really glad it worked out and was fun for your group. Having the dynamic be quick and "go with what comes to mind" seems spot on for a fun one-shot/party version of the game. 

The only difficulty I remember was not in answering questions but in asking them. I think a few people ended their narration without asking a question, which led to a bit of: "Hey! What next?" "Uh, ask a question already!" "Oh, right."

In the usual game, the players pick long-term investigation Questions (like "What can humans eat here?") which may escalate over time into Troubles. Each Investigation scene centers around a question or trouble.  In between, if you encounter new things you pull a noun the first time, and then adjectives or verbs for later encounters depending on what the critter/thing/person is doing. That might make the question asking flow a little more easily. 

I think some people were also unsure how to formulate their questions, and waffled between asking a "why" question versus a "what" question, etc.

Oh!  That puts things into perspective. When the characters are walking around observing the world, the players get to ask all the descriptive "what" questions their hearts desire. "What does our shelter look like?" "What kinds of plant-like things do we see here?" "What does this taste like?"  "Where" is good, ("where does our poop go?" "where does the light come from?").  "Who" questions are good if they lead back to "what"s. Frex, "who do I work for and what do they look like?"

The "Why"s and "how"s are answered through the Investigations. That's when you put something on the line. What gets answered by the random word descriptions is what the characters see and experience. "Why"s and "how"s get at deeper aspect of the world by their very nature. Good "what"s wouldn't be things like "what can I eat?" That's too big, it would be one of the over-arching questions that would get answered over time. Instead you'd ask, "what do these blue frondy things taste like?" Then you pull the cards, and maybe the other person get to say that they taste yummy, like pine-mango-spaghetti, or maybe the cards tell you it's an unpleasant situation and instead they say it wakes up and starts clinging to your face.

For a longer term game, the trick seems to be not answering everything all at once, but at the same time keeping the discovery and development proceeding apace so you feel you are making progress. 

Also, I wonder if there's a good way to guarantee a nice colour table? We had a lot of weird colour stuff going that didn't mesh well with me--either because colours were too clashing or because they were too similar.

I think of the environment type of the planet as a unifying factor.  For the underground world I played in at Big Apple Con with you and Terry, David, I remember we had lots of earth tones: browns and blacks and rust reds, along with some unusual flashes thrown in, like a neon pink that ended up being the color of both our cage and some work platforms where we were shown how to sort pet-things by murdering(?) some of them.  In another game, it was an artificial satellite, so we had lots of metallic hues: silver, gunmetal grey, brass, antique copper, along with, I think, deep greens and blues that were mimicking natural world colors and translucent glass or plastic colors. 

I think, also, that we might have unconsciously vetted colors a bit too, when they were suggested. So if someone suggested one too similar to an already existing color, we suggested alternatives or asked for a refinement.