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

[Ron Edwards]

Tim and I continued our game. He'll play Typin again in the next round; this time I did my first adventure, choosing the "escaped apprentice, defiant and scorned, armed with the weapon I invented." My visual description: harsh-looking boy, stolen guild over-tunic, left hand concealed. I chose the Crystal Court, whose queen remains unknown, with the Goal to be appointed to a high court post "worthy of me" there.

I was experimenting with possible Goal ranges here; the rules were written with the default idea that a given adventurer is going somewhere in order to get something and then to leave, and I wanted to see if a Goal which included staying was logically functional with the rest of the rules. I didn't give my character a name, which I regret and will do when his turn comes around again.

Tim went to town with the setting, making the Crystal Court cloistered, subterranean, exotic, and mannered to the point of clockwork. My adventurer entered by stowing away in one of the rare caravans from the surface and he was not shy about making an impact as quickly as possible. Tim introduced the Lover with a neat application of the "unknown queen" idea - there were six identical beautiful women acting in concert, in fact in unison, as queen.  Sometimes they even merged into a single body, and sometimes it was clear that different personalities were dominant at different times, and could even hop bodies when separate! The queen's name was Naseen, but at least one of the various personae of the six women was the Monster, and quite likely a demon external to whatever weirdness underlay the sextuplets in the first place. "Unknown queen" indeed!

My adventurer was very up-front, ignoring the rituals of the Court and instantly befriending the queen, and as it happened, transforming his simple if arrogant ambition to become the Crystal Court's military minister into a desperate desire to win the real Naseen's heart. This was probably the first time in play that I found my character absolutely smitten by a Lover fairly early in the story.

As the various events unfolded, one powerful element which emerged was the weapon in my character's starting phrase. I found myself unable to define it before play, which is why I specified the concealed left hand, and when the demon-Naseen stabbed my adventurer, I went ahead and strongly implied that he was indeed mortally-wounded ... but that the device, which apparently he's holding against his chest under the guild tunic, hums, and he arose with immense power, dissolving a portion of the crystal halls and passages.

Basically, what I established and then worked with, was that the device traded around life and death. When ten guards charged him with pikes, five of them were struck dead and the other five stopped short, suddenly feeling weird and extra healthy, because I'd just granted them extra lifespans equal to the life I'd ripped from the others. We had a lot of fun with this because the issue for the Monster was how to kill it without having to kill Naseen along with it. I should specify that which dies (or both or neither) is chosen rather than mechanically specifically determined, but for some reason, that makes the logistics of the SIS up until the end of the Match all the more subject to the need for plausibility. People don't just wait for the end of the Match and then pick what they want; they go to great pains during the Match to make the powerful choices later more plausible (and I don't mean the preferred option within a choice, I mean the choice itself).

I got lots of dice because it was easy to fold the Lover and the Goal and fighting the Monster into the same Goes, and I also enjoyed great rolls. My Good Dice and total got the Goal, saved the people, suffered no lasting harm, killed the Monster ... but Naseen had to die. Or rather, that's how I chose from the possible available combinations. It sort of came down to (i) whether I wanted the Crystal Court people to be killed vs. her being killed, as well as (ii) whether I wanted the Monster to be killed. The subtleties of our SIS played a role too, as I did get the Goal (high office/post) ... but if the Court were destroyed, or if the queen died, or if the Monster lived, then it would be a matter of "getting what I want but not being very happy." And it had to be one of those after all. So in terms of the choices about the Lover, he abandoned her to a grim fate.

I really like this character and look forwarding to naming him and seeing what he'll do next.

Best, Ron

[Tim C Koppang]

Ron does a nice job summarizing the story.  I was especially taken with the "crystal" part of the Crystal Court.  It served as the jumping off point for the entire setting, the lover, and the monster.

For example, I really enjoyed all of the "multi-faceted" imagery that we brought into the fiction.  For example, when the lover switched personalities, she leaned up against one of the quartz walls within the cavern.  Ron's character (did you give him a name?) saw the lover's reflection as a six-way refraction.  She then transformed into the demon version of herself and stabbed the main character.

Ron's addition about the ten guards suddenly "combining" (at least in terms of life-force) into five was another riff on the same imagery.  I think at this point, both Ron and I are finding our rhythm so that the game feels much more collaborative as opposed to simply additive.

As far as the dice went, I got hosed.  I think my first roll was a 1, which set up the possibility for a lot of "Good Dice" for Ron.  He then started hammering away, and ended up with 7 dice to my 4.  There were a couple of Goes where I didn't even roll any dice (it just didn't make sense in terms of the story).  I'm just glad that I set the monster value at 4.  But this brings up a question that I've been wondering about...

Ron, the text doesn't get into why you might set the lover die at 1 instead of 2, or the monster die at 4 instead of 5 or 6.

For those of you following along, the person playing the monster/lover, sets the monster value at 4, 5, or 6.  He then sets the lover value at 1 or 2.  The lover value is the maximum number of dice that the player may accumulate for bringing the lover into the story during Goes.  There is no limit on the number of dice the player may gain through working towards the Goal.  The monster value is the maximum number of dice that the person playing the monster may accumulate before the match ends.

In my situation, I was glad I set the monster at 4, because it allowed me to end the match sooner before you were able to gain any more Good Dice.  If I had set it at 6, the system would have basically handed you two additional Good Dice (assuming your rolled anything but a 1).  I realize that I shouldn't be thinking about this competitively, but then that raises the question of why you made these values adjustable in the first place.  What should I be thinking about when I set the lover and monster values at the beginning of the round?

I'm also mindful of the fact that the player can end the match early by toppling the other's stack of dice.  But if the monster/lover player gets into a tight spot, he has to suck it up and watch the hero walk all over the monster, etc.  Don't get me wrong, I like this aspect of the game.  But setting the monster value high can certainly exacerbate a bad run of luck in these situations.  Or at least it would have in our game.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Tim,

There are several related design points involved to answer your questions, all of which I'm happy to say are being validated across all the various players and playtests so far.

1. The number of Lover dice varies because the Monster/Lover is setting the mechanical impact of the Lover. I even considered briefly allowing for no Lover dice being an option, but decided that he or she should always mechanically matter. Basically, if you are the Monster/Lover player, and for whatever imaginable reason, you want the Lover to be maximally mechanically relevant, then set it at 2, or if for whatever reason, you want the Lover to be minimally mechanically relevant, then set it at 1. It helps this player get a "feel" for how he or she wants to play the characters relative to one another. The difference is mathematically real. But actually, this whole point is merely a set-up for point #2, which concerns the other player.

2. For the adventurer player, what I'm after is an interesting tension between the SIS and the dice. Simplistically, the less-dice Lover should be less important to this player, right? But the fact that in most cases the Lover is still in the picture after his or her dice have been "used up," and the fact that the content of those Goes in which those dice were gained occurred early in the story (and that content isn't just grunting "hello," as you know; the adventurer had to promise or very strongly indicate one of those listed things) ... those two facts make the simplistic "dice = important" idea vanish in favor of a much more interesting commitment to the SIS itself as the Match draws to a close.

The one vs. two dice puts a little variety into the nature of this tension from adventure to adventure, so they aren't all mechanically the same.

Monster 4, Lover 1; Monster 5, Lover 1; Monster 6, Lover 1; Monster 4, Lover 2; Monster 5, Lover 2; Monster 6, Lover 2 -- each of these represents a unique fraction of Lover over Monster, and I wanted a wide range, as it happens six possibilties.

3. The number of Monster dice varies (and is fixed per adventure) at 4, 5, or 6, as you said. This is purely a matter of desired pacing on the part of that player, although it's not 100% mechanically fixed by design because neither player is required to get dice on a Go. The pacing I'm talking about has a lot to do with how many threat-based forward-moving events there are. In turn, this has a lot to do with the actual story structure. As play has shown, 4-dice adventurers are more short-story like and 6-dice adventures are either very eventful long-ish short stories, or could (with an eye toward scene transitions) even become novellas.

If that player picks a higher number of dice, and then makes a Monster which really has nothing to do but attack (rrrahhh!), then yes, the fourth, fifth, and sixth dice may seem a bit forced. But that's due to lack of imagination and commitment to a more structured story than merely "I met and fought this thing." Basically, if you pick a higher number, then be prepared for the Monster's mode of threatening the adventurer to undergo some changes of direction, and perhaps even of specific purpose.

4. Yes, it's mechanically possible for the adventurer player to "get a jump" early on by the Monster/Lover player rolling a 1 early on. What this means is that this adventure is one of those stories where we really get to see the adventurer shine as a bad-ass, even though grim choices do remain. I think such an adventure once in a while is a good thing.

5. On a related point, but not synonymous, adventures vary extremely widely in terms of how easy it is for the adventurer player to rack up dice. The relevant variables are (i) how much the Monster/Lover player wants to push the Monster, rather than, say, pure Lover-based soap opera; and (ii) how easy it is for the adventurer player to concentrate on the Goal as such relative to all the other stuff going on. It's purely and simply based on the SIS as it forms in any one case. In my character's adventure with you, these were remarkably synonymous - by combating the Monster I was also seeking my Goal and pursuing the relationship. Whereas in my other character's adventure with Maura, doing any one thing (Lover, Monster, Goal) was almost impossible to combine with another in a single Go - it's hard to carry out a grim, silence-filled, nuanced conversation with an ex-partner while fighting a hydra by yourself.

Best, Ron

[Tim C Koppang]

Ron:

Your explanation of the Monster dice as a pacing mechanic helps a lot.  I think I was making the mistake of treating the value as a measure of the Monster's effectiveness.  Instead, if I understand you correctly, a low value means I want a quick story with a generally straightforward monster.  A high value means I want a longer story with a more multi-faceted monster.  This is an important distinction, and one that I don't think is apparent from the text.  Intuitively, a lot of people are going to think nothing more than high value = bad-ass, which isn't necessarily true.  Even one sentence of explanation could clear this up.

Now that I understand what the Monster dice are for, all of your additional explanation about pacing and story construction follow rather naturally.

The Lover dice I'm not as solid on.  I look at the choice between 1 and 2, and think, "really, what's the difference?"  It may be that I simply need to pay closer attention to the numbers over a series of stories.

On the other hand, your second numbered point makes a lot of sense to me.  During our games, we both interacted meaningfully with the Lover long after we had used up our Lover dice.  The desire to earn the Lover dice served as a nice catalyst for those future interactions.

Out of curiosity, why did you decide the make working towards the goal a source of infinite dice as opposed to the lover?

If I can speculate on an answer to my own question, here's what I think:

The monster and the lover are both attempting to draw the hero away from his goal, even if only subtly.  The goal exists for the hero alone, and so it makes sense that his major mechanical motivation is related to the goal.  Plus...

(1) The monster/lover player's source of dice is derived exclusively from playing the monster.  So the monster is always in the story.

(2) The hero gains dice (almost) exclusively by working towards the goal.  So the goal is always in the story.

(3) This leaves the lover.  The monster/lover player is forced to introduce the lover, but has no other mechanical encouragement to foist the lover on the hero.  But... the hero can pick up a couple of dice by interacting with the lover.  And that's enough to get the ball rolling (per your point #2).

Does that sum up your intentions?  If so, I find it interesting that the lover seems like the odd man out.  You must have a lot of faith that the players will create a strong relationship between the hero and the lover.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Tim,

The Lover dice I'm not as solid on.  I look at the choice between 1 and 2, and think, "really, what's the difference?"  ...

Keeping in mind that the primary reason for one vs. two Lover dice is that #2 point, to generate a diverse range of meaningful mathematical contexts for play, I also think it's important for the Lover/Monster player to evaluate "less" or "more" as a pure qualitative pre-play judgment of the Lover for this particular scenario. It may not turn out that way in play - a one-die Lover and a two-dice Lover are probably not that different in terms of pure interest and usage - but it is important as prep. In other words, you have to think about the Lover a little when prepping him or her.

Out of curiosity, why did you decide the make working towards the goal a source of infinite dice as opposed to the lover?

... I find it interesting that the lover seems like the odd man out.  You must have a lot of faith that the players will create a strong relationship between the hero and the lover.

You kind of have it backwards. I set it up this way so that the adventurer character is absolutely free to reject the Lover, or in fact to be totally uninterested in him or her. The adventurer even gets Lover dice for saying "Begone!" and backhanding the Lover, after all, or leaving him or her to be whatever'ed by whatever. I'm speaking to an approach to playing one's adventurer which is absolutely visceral, and rooted in the opening spoken phrases. If that turns out to be "get my Goal, kick monster ass, who's this chick/dude and who cares anyway," then that's cool too.

Just because the Monster/Lover player is (in the long term) trying to get the adventurer player to have his or her character stay with the Lover, doesn't mean that's the point of play. The former is only a feature of the System. I think that might be something one can only get from the text absolutely as written. I bet that verbal paraphrasing will stumble over that point quite a bit.

Best, Ron

[Tim C Koppang]

It may not turn out that way in play - a one-die Lover and a two-dice Lover are probably not that different in terms of pure interest and usage - but it is important as prep. In other words, you have to think about the Lover a little when prepping him or her.

I buy that.  And I think my play experience matches up with what you're describing.  As you can see from this thread, I was certainly thinking about the Lover.  Thinking about the difference between 1 and 2 dice is perhaps a bit of over-thinking.

You kind of have it backwards. I set it up this way so that the adventurer character is absolutely free to reject the Lover, or in fact to be totally uninterested in him or her. The adventurer even gets Lover dice for saying "Begone!" and backhanding the Lover, after all, or leaving him or her to be whatever'ed by whatever. I'm speaking to an approach to playing one's adventurer which is absolutely visceral, and rooted in the opening spoken phrases. If that turns out to be "get my Goal, kick monster ass, who's this chick/dude and who cares anyway," then that's cool too.

Perhaps my phrasing, "strong relationship" is incorrect and misleading.  All I meant to say is that the lover is less emphasized mechanically (i.e., less than the monster or the goal).  The lover's continued presence in the story has to come almost entirely from the players' own sense of interest in him/her.  I think Paul's actual play thread touches on this better than I'm explaining.  In any case, you've answered my question and so I don't think there's any point in belaboring things.