[Black Dog] Play Report from Knudepunkt 2011 run in Denmark

[Nath]

Written by one of the players:

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Play report
I had read the scenario before the game and wanted to try it out to see how the mechanics of the game really works. Though the game mechanics seemed to be a kind of complicated while being explained it worked perfectly simple and in no way disturbed the game feeling.

I really enjoyed having lots of freedom in defining the storyline and it was great fun both to design and to play the scenes. The players were very open to the game and to each other and I had the feeling in any single moment of the game that no matter how cruel my idea of what should have happened to the protagonist was, it wouldn't be actually considered as improper. It was in someway pretty liberating to design the way to destroy character's life and to be allowed to behave mean to other players while playing side characters.

The game was very emotional, though it was not a close to home story for me. It was interesting to see how the game story was taking its shape and the players were immersing deeper and deeper into the characters. Some side characters soon started to be very life-like and it soon made very little difference if one played the protagonist or a side character in a scene. For instance, I found myself crying in the forth scene while playing a side character. On the other hand, I think every player associated themselves with the protagonist. I remember one of the players speaking of a protagonist using "I" though we were designing a scene for another player.

Concerning the depression which was the main topic of the game I really found myself having this special feeling of absolute despair a couple of times during the game.

The only critic point I have is a very shot de-briefing. I guess we needed to talk much more about what had happened in the game as it was in some way stressful if not traumatic experience. I needed the rest of the day to sort the whole thing out for me and we spent some ours talking about the game with the other players some days later.

All in all it was a great game and I consider running it as a GM on one of the German event.
***

[Nath]

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