[S/lay W/Me] The Lion, the Wretch, and the Woman

[Tim C Koppang]

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Mostly clarifications.

... Generally, the monster exists to prevent the protagonist from obtaining his goal.  The lover will help the protagonist, but really just wants him to stay with her forever.  In an interesting twist, the monster and the lover can be the same person.

Actually, the only thing mandated about the monster is that it will kill you unless you make that not happen, and the only thing mandated about the lover is that he or she is willing to accept your embrace. Exactly what they want and any long-term goals they apply are up to the person who makes them up.

Ron had some secret prep as well that involved defining the lover and the monster, and assigning a numerical value to both.

The monster value sets the number of scenes that that player can have. It's a pace-setter but can be pre-empted by another mechanic. The Lover's value is known to the other player and denotes the maximum number of extra dice he or she can get from including the Lover in consequential ways.

There are also some ways to categorize the two. In this case, the god-lion was fast (in how it kills you), up-front (in how it attacked), civil, and singular; the lover was wanton, knowledgeable, open-hearted, and forbidden (being undead).

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These dice are what build tension during the game.  By endgame, it's whoever has the highest total that achieves his goal.  For example, Ron had a higher total in our game, and so Typin did not achieve his goal of obtaining the Orb of Marstat.

Two things to clarify. First, if your total isn't high enough, then the goal may be bought to be successful. In other words, all "losing" means is that getting the goal isn't free.

Second, if the other player hasn't reached the monster value yet (which is apparent from the fact that you have a turn at all), and you don't like the odds the dice are showing currently, then you can topple my stack, forcing me to re-roll and ending the dice sequence. In fact, Tim did do this, and although my re-roll wasn't as high as my previous total, it was still higher than his. (Tim was hammered by his first roll, a goal die and a lover die, coming up snake-eyes, too.)

Regarding the list at the end, I should stress that play continues in Goes after the dice mechanic is concluded and the list items are chosen. You don't write an epilogue with the last phase of play; you keep playing with those components as known features to include.

Since I had two dice that were better than Ron's lowest die, I was able to purchase a single decent outcome for Typin.  I chose to allow Typin to live.  If I hadn't done this, then Typin would have died.

To be clear, he would have been grievously and nigh-permanently wounded, and only died if he failed at his goal. So Tim could have bought the goal to be successful, and Typin would have been horribly wounded but alive.

Finally, I had to decide how Typin would treat the lover.  Obviously, Typin chose to leave the lover to a grim fate.  But that was a choice that the rules forced me to make.  I could not simply leave the question open for another time.

"Obviously?" I would not have been surprised to see him drag himself back to her mausoleum and go into the darkness with her. She did love him. You did say that it's because Typin couldn't believe anyone would accept his destroyed countenance, which makes good sense and I'm not criticizing it - but it wasn't obvious, it was your authorial choice.

Or to put it most clearly: if you'd bought the goal's success, then Typin would have been terribly wounded ... but he'd have the orb and (as you defined it) possibly become beautiful (there are rules for what you get when you get the goal, among other things). And then he might have chosen to remain with Ramizah or to bring her along with him for the next adventure.

It was definitely up to you to choose as you did, and you chose to keep him wretched and miserable. No wonder the poor bastard hates the gods.

Another clarification: the lover may be at risk from the monster depending on the events of play. If so, then saving her requires buying it too. But in our case, it so happened that the god-lion didn't threaten her specifically, so she wasn't at risk.

Yet another clarification: it is perfectly legal to rebuff and dismiss the lover character, and you still get his or her dice for doing that. The game is built for you to play your hero exactly as you choose.

Question for Ron:  Did we handle dialogue properly?  It seems like dialogue falls outside of the standard "Go" because it hands narrative power back to the other player when it's not really his turn.  Is that intended?  Does it matter?  Does the primary player have veto power over dialogue?

The rules treat this as a dial, titled "Playing tight and playing loose." Playing too tight is a problem for this game, because the speaking person must be able to narrate reactions, immediate effects, and long-term consequences of the events being described - otherwise they won't move anything forward except by a single-shot instant. But exactly how loose is left up to the pair of people playing. Quite loose means you'd play the monster and lover and anyone else pretty extensively on your Go, and I'd do the same for Typin on mine. For instance, you could have related a (rather, the) history of the orb by playing Ramizah, instead of me doing it. You'd have received a goal die for that too!

In our game, we weren't that loose. You tended not to speak for my characters, nor I for yours. Also, I kept a careful eye on whose Go it was. When I spoke for either the monster or the lover, I made sure that it was my Go, and that your dice had been accounted for. I didn't actually provide dialogue for either during your actual Go aside from table-talk style suggestions. If you take the fairly strict my-turn-your-turn sequence of Mars Colony at one end of a spectrum, and the unstructured "start with the Reader's action and then just talk about it" method for scenes in Sweet Agatha at the other, then our S/Lay w/Me lay a little past the center on the Mars Colony side ... but only just past.

Best, Ron

[Tim C Koppang]

Sheesh, that's a lot of clarifications.  You know, it's tough to balance rules summary with actual play descriptions.

A quick couple of comments:

When I said, "obviously," I only meant that, in the context of my post, I had already described Typin's choice.  During the game, the choice was anything but obvious.  It was one of those decisions that I had to sweat because I knew that it was a serious one.  I had contemplated rescuing Ramizah, but that just seemed too good for Typin.

One of the features of the game that differs from just about every other game of this sort is that there isn't any formal scene-framing. Goes are composed only of what happens next, and any speaker is free to shift location, time, and personnel as needed. So scenes get framed and ended, but player turns and speaking-privileges are not structured by them.

You know, I was thinking about this exact issue this morning as I was getting ready for work.  As opposed to so many games out there now that stress aggressive scene framing, you decided to go with moment to moment narration.  I've read the rules through twice, and I just realized this.  Yeah, ok, someone could shift locations, etc.  But has anyone ever done this in play in a dramatic scene-framing sort of way?  I know we didn't.  I think the short form of the game really lends itself well to a limited setting.

[Tim C Koppang]

exactly how loose is left up to the pair of people playing. Quite loose means you'd play the monster and lover and anyone else pretty extensively on your Go, and I'd do the same for Typin on mine.

Ok, that makes sense.  I think I was a bit confused during play because we didn't explicitly define where we were setting this dial.  I wasn't always sure just how much authority I had on my Go.  Dialog was the most noticeable time when this came up because I didn't want to put words in "your" characters' mouths.  I also think we changed the tight/loose dial mid-game a few times.  I can remember examples when we were trading dialog back and forth very quickly as if we were taking very short Goes.  On the other hand, most of the game was, as you described, sort of mid-range.

If you take the fairly strict my-turn-your-turn sequence of Mars Colony at one end of a spectrum, and the unstructured "start with the Reader's action and then just talk about it" method for scenes in Sweet Agatha at the other, then our S/Lay w/Me lay a little past the center on the Mars Colony side ... but only just past.

Going off topic a bit, I had forgotten how free-form Sweet Agatha was.  It worked so well, and yet I still hold onto some sort of fear that, without structure, one player will dominate the narration (in a bad way).

[Ron Edwards]

Regarding new scenes, we haven't yet, but we will. One of my goals for the game is that after people get good at it, they can 'graduate' from the one-location encounter-type stories and relax it out into more of a saga. In a previous playtest, the other player and I had two distinct locations which had distinct feels and roles in the story.

As an example, upon grasping the orb, you might have transported Typin to (or resurrected around him) this part of the city before Marstat's mis-use of the orb. Or perhaps have him travel across the city. Or perhaps have him lie with Ramizah for twenty years in the darkness of her mausoleum.

Another aspect of this which I hope to develop through play is bringing in lots more characters and playing them quite solidly. Given some scene-changing (as you can see, consequential ones), and given more of a cast with a range of interests and active goals, it should work pretty well.

Also, if I (the monster player) do not add monster actions, then I don't get a die, and the clock is temporarily stopped. I've seen that happen a few times already, when that player becomes more interested in the lover and other aspects of the situation, and likes the idea of giving the monster a rest for a while. The range for these dice is four to six. I think six dice plus these techniques could easily generate a novella.

I can certainly see that "It's snowing. A werewolf chases a buxom girl down the road. OK, I get a die, your Go." type scenarios will be most common at first, but there's more there if people want it.

Best, Ron

[Gregor Hutton]

Regarding the list at the end, I should stress that play continues in Goes after the dice mechanic is concluded and the list items are chosen. You don't write an epilogue with the last phase of play; you keep playing with those components as known features to include.

I really like this. For games with "outcomes/epilogues" my experience is that sometimes people struggle to say what happens (to their own satisfaction), while others happily grandstand and contribute an over-lengthy epilogue. But by "playing it out" I think there is a great opportunity to encourage a more satisfactory ending out of those people who have trouble "being creative" (I guess by breaking it down into "go"s where they just have to do what they did in earlier play), and it also limits those "who go too far" by making them play through the ending.

I'm really getting the RE Howard feel off this. I think this would be great for doing something like "Red Nails", which is one of my favourites.

[Ron Edwards]

That's where I'm coming from too, Gregor. In fact, in this game, there's no epilogue at all. It's merely playing through the climax with a few established components coming into the mix along the way. It's not that different from finishing a fight in standard play and continuing to play. Especially since, post-climax, the units of narration which involve dice are no longer operative, so the Goes are opened up quite a bit.

Early play (pre-Match, i.e. pre-dice): highly constrained as to what must be established.

Middle play (the Match): considerably less constrained, but when certain elements are brought in, dice are gained and Goes pass to the other player.

Late play (post-Match, dice are over): quite wide open, subject only to established constraints based on the Match outcome.

But all of this is composed of Goes and the general rules for them, which means absolute engagement with the fiction, making it move along (and allowing for "rests" and Color too, I might add). None of it involves negotiating, and as I said above, you can play one another's characters in your Go.

Best, Ron

[Rod Anderson]

Wow, from the sound of it -- I wish this game had been around five years ago.

I'd like to ask a couple of questions: a.) how long, real time, did the described play session take? And b.) Ron, was that Color-First Character Design thing from a while back driving at this?

[Tim C Koppang]

how long, real time, did the described play session take?

I'd say about one hour, hour and a half tops.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Rod!! Please get in touch. I'm re-using your Trollbabe art.

You're going to love this game and the artwork. One thing we haven't talked about in the thread is that people trade roles. The one session with Tim playing Typin and me GMing was a unit of play. Typically, we move on to another unit where I introduce a hero and Tim GMs. The processes for making the adventure are always the same. Once you make a hero, you keep playing him or her until the character's story ends (a couple of ways). But play itself alternates; you play an adventure for your hero, then you GM the other person's hero, then you trade back, and so on.

So how long you play in a given get-together is a function of how many units (adventures) you want to play. I would like to do two or three at a session, personally. It'd be like reading a whole issue of Weird Tales, or a modest REH story collection.

Also, a given unit varies, because the number of Goes which actually include dice are set (for one person anyway), but the number of Goes played can exceed that by quite a bit, theoretically. Still, even the most measured play of S/Lay w/Me is going to be damned fast-paced in real time compared to most ordinary play. I think Tim's estimate is just right, but also that two people who really know the game, and if they are effectively playing a short-story, few-characters scenario (no need to decide on this beforehand, by the way), will probably bust it out in 30-40 minutes without it feeling rushed.

I have not yet playtested the round-robin version which is intended for one more or a couple of more people being involved. Person A would be GMed by person B (to the left), person B would be GMed by person C, and person C would be GMed by person A, for three. Whether this is boring for the "off person" or persons, I am pretty sure not, but again, I haven't tried it yet.

Best, Ron

P.S. Tim really is bonkers about Mars. Lookit what he named the orb.

[Patrice]

Sorry for being intrusive here but from what I'm reading both from this message and Paul's one, I would be passionate about actually playing this game. It feels a bit odd to be reading playtesting examples and not being able to play the same game myself, almost feels like I'm reading a teaser. The twist that gave me so much motivation to play it comes from Paul's message:

I can totally see how it's your idealized play experience from your gaming adolescence, Ron.

Really blows my mind. It's a very interesting and daring twist at design, sent me musing about what my own idealized play experiences (teen or not) would be and how I would render them. And then sent me musing further about what I've felt reading comics and Stormbringer and whatever and sent me musing further about how I would render the surge one specific music track or mood gave me if I would convey it at a game table and sent me musing even further about what powerful tools RPGs are compared to reading, watching movies and playing video games because of impersonation and sent me musing the furthest when I turned around and saw how many unanswered questions this musing had solved.

Thanks.

[Ron Edwards]

Thanks to you, Patrice. This kind of dialogue is part of why the Forge is here.

I design from desire. It's the way I do it, somehow. The weird thing is that new desires show up, and often I don't think about their roots, even though years later I say it was so obvious why I had to do that game. And by why, I mean motivationally, reaching back into my early personal history as well as that particular moment.

You mentioned one thing that doesn't "chime" for me, though. For me, the desire is never about impersonation. I play characters I admire, or occasionally loathe - they rivet me. The occasional exceptions I count as simple failures to participate from the ground up. But being them isn't a thing, except insofar as an actor or author will sometimes talk about the character speaking to them or being that character for a time. It's a sensation, not a goal.

For me, where you wrote impersonation, I would write dialogue. I mean, I could read all the fantastic phantasmagoric fiction out there, and as far as lives are concerned, I've managed to put a pretty good dent in the available material (very broadly defined, too; certain world-spanning religious texts definitely count). And I could conceivably write, or try to write, offerings of my own which are exactly what it all "means" to me. I did some of that a while ago.

But I like doing it with others. I want to see what they do with what I do, and I like the medium we (badly) call "role-playing" because of the back-and-forth interaction that the Shared Imagined Space requires. It often turns out not only better than I think I could do myself alone, but most importantly, better and more original than anything I've ever seen except from the very very greats (Fritz Leiber, Frank Frazetta, Ross MacDonald).

As far as I can tell, most shared-author creative methods really blow chunks. Even hierarchical methods such as theater and film have a very low "get it right" rate. Yet here we have something which is reliably good once certain crusty nonsense that accumulated between 1980 and 2000 gets scrubbed away. It's composed of dialogue, and the fiction in question changes and becomes something as you actually do it.

Well, enough ranting and raving. Your post spoke to me except for that one word and I thought it'd be interesting to pursue that. I think the distinction lies at the heart of S/Lay w/Me's functionality, too.

Best, Ron

[Patrice]

But being them isn't a thing, except insofar as an actor or author will sometimes talk about the character speaking to them or being that character for a time. It's a sensation, not a goal.

I've sort of taken a shortcut here, not mentioning the back-and-forth social interaction creating an Imagined Space. Of course, I fully agree with that principle as defining what we call role-playing games. Yet, when I get to think about the power of role-playing games, I realize that providing and sharing this sensation is fundamental in what makes me love playing and designing those games. The distinguishing part is of course about the Shared Imagined Space, not the impersonating sensation, but I would explain it as what enables this sensation. When I play a role-playing game, I'm not interested into being an author or an actor, I like to share and to Explore in a collaborative moment with my friends. Right. But I'm interested into impersonating a lot of things upon this basis : Characters, Setting (if I may say so) because that's what provides me a deeper level of sensation, of shared sensation. So I might say that this sensation is actually a goal for me, and that it takes its roots in the dialogue and sharing that other medias don't allow.

It often turns out not only better than I think I could do myself alone, but most importantly, better and more original than anything I've ever seen except from the very very greats (Fritz Leiber, Frank Frazetta, Ross MacDonald).

Sounds to me that we're talking about the same thing here. It's the way it turns that matters, the real goal or the sensation of it (may I say so ?), not the medium allowing it which is, in our case dialogue, Shared Imagined Space and Exploration. Of course, system matters and al. and the medium's design is very important in turning it one way or another but I'd like to discuss the real aim of the medium. I'm a bit concerned about us taking this medium as the goal whether I would consider it as the tool.

It's maybe not very clear insofar, but it's also very fresh a sudden realization. I'm maybe mistaken about it and would be happy to discuss it further, it's a bit of a mumbling at the moment.

[Ron Edwards]

We're agreeing quite profoundly. You're also helping me think about how to articulate the issue to others.

Best, Ron

[Patrice]

On a side note, getting back to S/lay with Me when I was asking myself the question "what would my idealized play experience be?" this afternoon, taking a few notes in the process, I eventually ended up with a 2-players game. Funny. I wouldn't dare try to guess nor explain why at the moment, though.