Thoughts on Inspectres

[Rod Anderson]

(Also posted at RPGnet)

Hi everyone. Me and some friends of mine played 3 games of InSpectres a couple weeks back, and since then I've been sorting thru my thoughts about it, and thought I'd post here (regrettably, my thoughts are not THAT well sorted and this will meander quite a bit) . . . I'd especially like feedback from people who've played long-term games of InSpectres on what I've got to say.

First of all, we loved playing the game. There were ghosts and cultists and blah blah blah, but the real highlight was the interaction between the characters (and I think from reading the game that this is what's intended). We had some great situations where throwaway NPCs from one game came back to become villains or PCs in the next. Standout examples include Pendleton, the excessively efficient temp ("I answered your e-mail for you, sir") and Rebecca, the out-of-work-actress-turned-executive-secretary who immediately started treating the receptionist like her personal lackey . . . she was a bit insufferable, but her knowledge of aromatherapy may well have saved the franchise.

Anyway, so we've got a great stable of characters worked up, but the stories themselves that we made - I mean the fight-the-supernatural-horror bits - seemed kind of rambling and forgettable. When we played, the GM (me twice, my friend John once) bent over backwards to make sure resolution was in the hands of the players, but I'm thinking that now that we understand how the game works, it wouldn't hurt for the GM to be more forceful in establishing a dramatically engaging villain (e.g.) near the start of the game. I'm curious if other InSpectres players have had similar experiences, and if they have perhaps added a little more advance-prep to their game?

Another idea that occurred to me to give a game more thematic meat would be to start each character with a Kicker for the episode, of the kind you might expect to see in a weekly TV show . . . e.g., "Sally is tired of being labeled a slacker, and has decided to kick ass and take names"; or alternately, some characters could cede the spotlight and take "kickers" that are just little running gags, like "Bill is trying to get a date with this girl, but they keep playing phone tag". I think everyone has seen the sort of ensemble TV show where the protagonizing spotlight moves from character to character, and characters out of the limelight do supporting-actor routines like running gags. So that's a thought.

One other thought . . . I was a little surprised that the Confessionals didn't go very well with us. Me and another player tried them out for the sake of trying them out, but I think for that very reason it felt like a bit of a stilted exercise, like it didn't belong in the game. I think in part, we generally felt like we weren't doing "that kind of TV show" -- does that make any sense?
Admittedly, the rules say it may take some time to get used to Confessionals, but maybe someone can help me out be describing some of their best Confessionals and what they added to the game. The rules also say that once you get good at Confessionals, you will be "twisting the plot into pretzels", but I'm not sure I want to do that! Our plots were twisty enough, if not a little too twisty, as it was!

Well, I think that's enough from me. I'm eager to hear what others have to say about InSpectres!

With regards,

Rod

[Mike Holmes]

Hmm. You are, indeed, not playing "that sort of show". At least not from what I'm reading. Which is cool; there's no reason you have to play it any other way if you're having fun.

The Confessional aesthetic? Hmmm. Well, there are severasl ways to use the confessional, but the best to me seems to be the combination "advance the plot in weird direction, and screw another player" option.

For example, you hear a lot of, "Well, I'm not sure exactly how Bob got his head stuck in the barrel of the water cannon, but that's the sort of *unlucky* thing that happens to him all the time. In this case doubly unlucky, as that's when the slime creature decided to grow spikes."

And that's it. Now we go back to play, and we have to figure out how Bob got his head stuck, and narrate to the creature growing spikes. Fun, fun. This is key. The players should constantly be throwing opportunities for conflicts (the funnier the better), so that those characters can make rolls, narrate weird responses, and get the Job dice.

I think that your game is just a bit more serious in tone. You might want to change from a confessional mechanic, per se, to another aesthetic. A number of the supplements do this. For your game, you could instead have mission reports kinda like the X-files moments where Mulder or Scully Narrates as they type on their computers. Dead serious. But still giving the other characters characteristics.

"We found the bodies, and I was shocked at how Unphased Smith was. It was as though he'd seen things like this too many times before. It was this detachment that allowed him to discover the stub of the ticket to the movie theatre that would lead us to their killers."

That sort of stuff. Think that would work?

Mike

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Another tip on Confessionals is to keep them vague - too detailed Confessionals can seem like you're forcing the story to go one way, and as they often deal with other characters, this may not work for everyone.

The best Confessional I've ever seen was by someone else towards my character, the first time I played Inspectres: "I should have known giving him that piece of equipment was a bad idea - he's so clumsy with equipment. Luckily, it worked out for the best." This didn't force my character to do anything, but I got the chance to flub with the piece of equipment and get an extra die for the result turning out good anyway: it added humor, gave me a neat role-playing experience, and didn't force anything.