[Nicotine Girls] If you want it hard enough, and you try hard enough - and?

[Ron Edwards]

i]Fast Times at Ridgemont High is a funny movie? Or at least that scene where Stacy has sex for the first time?) But Julie was thinking more in terms of a character whose name I've forgotten from Freaks & GeeksFreaks & Geeks

[Ron Edwards]

Oh, clever, that's right, forget the link: Nicotine Girls.

Best, Ron

[jburneko]

Ron,

It's exciting to see Nicotine Girls play because it's one of those games I look at periodically and say, "I really want to play this" and then don't.  The game "spoke" to me the first time I saw it.

I'm a little curious about your interpretation of the rules.  Perhaps this is what you clarified with Paul.  The text uses the word "session", not "story" with regard to Hope.  So if you make it through a "session" without failing when you use your Hope it goes up by one.  Doesn't it follow then that if your story lasts more than a single session that Hope could conceivably increase by the number of sessions you chose to play? (I'm not imagining an 18 session Nicotine Girl mega-campaign but two to four doesn't seem to be out of the realm of possibility).

A fairly hefty part of your interpretation of the thematic dynamics of the game relies on the fact that the +1 applies to the story as a whole rather than per "session" as the text states.

Jesse

[jrs]

Jesse,

You are correct in that if the game is played over multiple sessions, Hope can go up. In the game we played, the story was only going to be one session so there was little opportunity for increasing hope other than the add one to Hope if no Hope contest failed.

It is an interesting game dynamic. Fear can fluctuate wildly during a session, but not Hope which is either ruled out as an option after its first failure or go up slowly  over extended play.

Julie

[jrs]

Which reminds me ... we did have a rule question for Paul.

At one point during the game, Ron's character's Fear dropped to zero. Solely through successful use of the Hope motivation in conflicts. Is there any game effect other than the inability to use Fear as a motivation in a conflict? (In afterthought, as GM, this would have been a prime opportunity to inflict violence on the character.)

Julie

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jesse,

That's a good point, and I totally confounded session/story in my thinking when I wrote the post. It's true that my +1 and only +1, ever, was over-stated. I don't think it diminishes my analysis too much though.

Basically Maura and I were damned lucky not to lose Hope, and I think the main cause for that was that we Smoked whenever we could and followed the advice. Sooner or later, that wasn't going to happen, and even with that mechanical boost, the dice can really nail you in a system like this in the most pointed, must-have-been-planning-it way. I know it happens with The Pool all the time (i.e. the one roll out of many, ouch!!), and that's with d6's.

What I'm saying is that even with several sessions - and like you, I think 2-4 is a good number for this game - a +1 per session is very likely not going to happen.

I'm also thinking (and this really makes me want to play it again!) that the in-fiction events will become increasingly tense, as a combination of opportunities opening up and constraints boxing in. Especially once added Fear gets involved, as it had only begun to in our game. If what I'm thinking tends to happen, then the whole dynamic of Hope vs. Fear will shift a little. I'd like to see what play toward the end of, say, the second session will be like. I wonder whether I'll use Hope more than I mathematically "should" in tems of risk, because I'll not want my girl's life and life-decisions to be ruled by Fear.

Best, Ron

[Paul Czege]

Hey Julie,

I'm not sure there should be a game effect for that. I certainly didn't have one in mind when I designed the game back in 2002. Thematically, Fear is what makes a character tenacious on behalf of her own needs. But the difficulties a player adds to his character's life from the chart don't go away when Fear hits zero. I don't think the game should say the character's tenacity or behaviors or personality should be changed if Fear hits zero, any more than a low Humanity takes behavioral or personality options off the table in Sorcerer.

But y'know, if I were running the game and a player zeroed out Fear and asked for his character to have an experience of living in the moment, a moment of peaceful happiness, without anxiety, I'd be glad to see it. I think that would be a fine interpretation of what might happen when a character zeroes out Fear.

Paul

[Ron Edwards]

That's interesting. By contrast, after we played, Maura mentioned that she found the idea of a nicotine girl without Fear to be disturbing ... acting in a dream-world, convinced that dreams will make her reality, and destined for an encounter with Fear of the worst sort (from the Fear list) quite soon.

Best, Ron

[Evlyn]

I also wanted to play this game for a long time. But each time I tried to, I could only find one player to play. Since the importance of the smoking scene, we dropped the idea. Maybe we could try to frame each other scenes. But I wonder what kind of dynamic it will create since you will be giving advice in the smoking scenes for the scene that you will be framing.

Nicotine Girls is not a wind-up toy. You can win every conflict and you know what, that only means a tiny increase in your chances, and that's all the bennies you get. Starting Hope is far more important.

I dint see it at first, but creating a character with a score of Hope of 1 is kind of aiming for a ending where your girl don't get her dream. It is like pre selecting your endgame or epilogue. If you do so, is it a way of telling what kind of game experience you are wishing for? (well in a one or two session game)    

[greyorm]

Full disclosure: I mentioned this to Ron privately, and he asked me to post about it. I hesitantly am.

Basically, his AP of Nicotine Girls made me cry.

Ron's critique of why it isn't played because of how it would make higher-class Americans feel is, indeed, dead-on (all of it: contemptuous and exploitative, regarded as less-than-human, petit-bourgeois mythology of hope/work, systematically powerless, etc).

The game is depressing...because it's true. And not "depressing" in that made-for-television-movie-after-school-special way, because it is not just "a story" sad; it's fucking depressing in the same way "Schindler's List" is depressing.

[C. Edwards]

Thanks for that disclosure, Raven. I've been hesitating to post myself.

Reading Ron's post gives me a big black queezy sucking rock in the pit of my stomache. I knew those girls, and a dozen others like them. I still keep in touch with a couple of them. Some of them ended up doing okay, and some not so much. Most of them were single teenage mothers.

I think Nicotine Girls is a game that deserves to be played, but for me it just hits too close to home to do so.

[Callan S.]

What's the importance of playing it, in relation to people who are in this cultural/resource situation? Atleast from my looking over it again, to me it's fingering the wound and...it seems to stop there? I get that other artistic mediums can raise awareness and sympathy - but atleast to me I think you'd have to be atleast somewhat sympathetic and aware to play this to begin with?

[greyorm]

What's the importance of playing it, in relation to people who are in this cultural/resource situation? Atleast from my looking over it again, to me it's fingering the wound and...it seems to stop there? I get that other artistic mediums can raise awareness and sympathy - but atleast to me I think you'd have to be atleast somewhat sympathetic and aware to play this to begin with?

Because having to play characters you care about--that is, people, whom you can't help making being a person yourself--who are in that situation puts nails in the idea the lower class is lazy, dirty, stupid...dehumanized untouchables basically lower than animals. (And lest anyone chuckle or roll their eyes, I am not kidding about or overstating that perception in any way. I am deadly serious.)

This is more than just "fingering the wound" because there's a difference between having an intellectual understanding of all these issues, which you can easily push out of sight like you can with most things in your head, and having a personal, emotional connection to it that doesn't go away so easily, and which a game that highlights the humanity of untouchables can provide in part, forcing one to understand and empathize. (ie: if you spend your time thinking about the feelings and struggles of even a fictional construct in that situation, it's much more helpful and motivating than if you understand and accept only that the poor have struggles.)

[Evlyn]

I don't know, I think those stories don't necessary need to be seen only as depressing or as the fingering of a wound. Opportunities are maybe absent or missed, but still, people are living through those situations and manage to swim in those waters, they still have significant moments and experiences. Their life don't have to be felt as stories about some kind of victimization. Not fulfilling one's dream can be seen as a tragedy, but it don't need to be perceived as a constant state of being. Maybe even that Hope and the epilogue about fulfilling one's dream or not impose on those stories some unnecessary values or morale. I don't know, since those stories are also close to me, maybe I want to see them as ordinary stories that have their own inner value without needing of being morale or about sensibilisation. Maybe I also want to see them as not constantly sad or tragic even if they are about lack of opportunities (or missed ones).

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Chris, one of my thoughts about this thread is that if we cannot utilize role-playing for the feelings and emergent stories for issues of this kind, then the medium itself is unsuitable for Narrativism. Emulating Hollywood is one thing; doing this is another. I happen to think that no fiction-creating medium is inherently limited in content, so I'm optimistic. Or to put it less abstractly, that "big black queezy sucking rock" is your signal to do it. If you were a filmmaker or a novelist, that'd be the case without controversy. And I'm guessing you know what to call such a creative person who shrinks away from the signal and remains with making only pablum, or even workmanlike quite-good stuff that happens not to be the BBQS rock.

(Side point: assuming the existence of a medium which is not capable of such content, the other, non-Narrativist things to do with it are not inferior or stupid. I'm talking in the context of the desire for fiction, and to create it, in the same or greater range of literature, theater, and film.)

Callan, I'm glad you posted that question. As I see it, there is no specific goal involved beyond that of what I called the cold grasping hand. If it's cold and grasping enough, then the person who feels it must re-evaluate his or her behavior. What will they do after that? I don't know. I definitely don't have a specific recommendation. What I want is to be around people, to live in a community including people, who've experienced that. Whatever actions or attitudes I'd be seeing and dealing with, I prefer those - including ones I might not like - to what I see and deal with now. I guess I'm saying ... to me, it doesn't "stop there" in terms of having played. Now that I think about it, or rather, as you've prompted me to think about it, if we're talking about having merely read it, yes, I agree with you. Maybe that's where Chris' stomach is at, actually. It's definitely in tune with Raven's point, because his post is about play.

Evlyn, one of the things I want to stress about the epilogues is that Maura and I weren't thinking in terms of constructing "the moral of the story," but rather thinking in terms of what the fiction so far made nigh-inevitable, as we saw it. I think that such endings do create (facilitate?) themes, which are themselves "the moral of the story" in simplistic terms, but I also think making them as I describe generates honesty and insight rather than imposing a false lesson. The best thing about the honesty and insight that I'm talking about is that it can prompt disturbance, not merely confirmation, of one's currently-held values. I think that's related to Callan's question in a positive way - if coming up with the point of the story in an external, overlaid, imposed way were to be done, then yes - the only possible result would be ... it's hard to find a word ... trivial.

Best, Ron