[Tales of Lust] Frightful horror, no holds barred

[Ron Edwards]

A couple of months ago, Megan, James, and Rob joined me at the Dice Dojo, and Tales of Lust ([Tales of Lust] Ronnies feedback) seemed like just the thing for us.

I think the links provide a sufficient introduction, so I'm going to launch straight into a discussion of play and the rules.

Preparation
We kept prep to a minimum, as I think you don't need a whole lot of additional tenets after the existing Color text. Our set included Germany, curses, deep normative traditions (e.g. hospitality), love/hate for the land, and that monsters go either way regarding mores and religion.

My monster was Angela: the fanged woman of the swamp, a hybrid descendant of the ancient folk, snaky and sleek, spawning monstrosities. Her Major Aspect is being overwhelmingly attractive despite mottling and ... other things. Her three Lusts are (i) to breed (with whomever or whatever she can); (ii) to marry (when she chooses you, down you go); and (iii) to pray to God (don't look at the woman in the back row).

People who know me will instantly see that this is Atla, the witch-woman of the moors, lifted wholesale from Robert E. Howard's story Worms of the Earth (free to read here!) and bulked up with a significant dose of Thed-ness from Glorantha (see my essay Goddess of Rape).

Rob made up Copelius who he later explained came almost fully from a specific German literary source, a frighteningly detailed toymaker living in a scary isolated house, collecting eyes for weird bird nestlings in the trees above the house. James made up an old man in forest who I recall was quite violent and brutal, almost a basic serial killer type. Megan made up Gnome, a kind of rock-elemental youngster with a strange obsession about the earth as its mother, and what its mother wanted: sacrifices to the stones.

Play
Play quickly demonstrated the main skill set to develop: adjusting to various circumstances of who is narrating vs. who is posing a Challenge. The former is usually the monster player, but not always; and the latter can be the monster player or anyone else. So that means, as a monster player, you are playing within a range defined by, at one extreme, yourself as both narrator and Challenge-author, and at the other, yourself as neither. That's a broad range, requiring a good understanding of many different possible meanings for statements which in other games always mean the same thing, such as, "I do this."

Since we didn't want any hint or possibility of a monster mash, we kept all three stories completely separate. Thematically and internally that worked well, but it had certain consequences. Specifically, that we had to remember that anyone can be involved in a particular scene or situation during play. There's no need to sit around waiting for your turn, but at first glance, it's hard to remember that when someone else is narrating away.

The other core concept for play is almost as hard, but it's crucial: the monster faces problems and hassles in its existing story, but the main mechanics of the game actually concern altering its existing story. Therefore success or failure regarding a given fictional problem is one thing; but the outcome of the scene being in accord with or changing the content of the monster's saga may be another. Challenges are all about the latter ... or, I think they are.

The rule states that the person posing the Challenge must be seeking a change to the story, whereas the person defending against it may either pose their own change or say "no alteration." But what does "the story" mean? I am still confused about whether Challenges prior to the climactic one have any chance to change the saga at all, or are they merely about the direction of the narration at the moment, concerning our process of working out what the existing saga is. I think that's what they are.

Furthermore, the final Challenge of a round is all about the monster's internal triumph or failure, with the implication that according with the existing saga is an internal failure, i.e., succumbing to the existing Lust. If I'm right in suspecting that only these Challenges have the genuine potential to affect the saga (i.e. the monster's fictional identity), then everyone must understand how serious this switch is, compared to the "ordinary" Challenges played so far in this round, which are more like ordinary success/failure as a part of the existing saga.

We forgot minor aspects entirely, unfortunately. Play itself yielded plenty of raw material for them, so I'll certainly make sure they get incorporated next time I try the game.

I won't go into the plots, especially since we only had a little bit of time for each characters, but the following points jumped right out. First, adversity is good. Bringing in serious hassles for the characters makes it possible to see what they can do and what they really care about. Second, carnage is good. Monsters can cause much havoc and there's no reason not to devastate the village, since another village is always handy for later. Making things move forward, exactly in terms of my "Making good Goes" principle from S/Lay w/Me, is especially good. There is no point to posing problems and letting them hang.

Scope and scale
With four characters, three Lusts each, and three circles per Lust, 36 circles to complete is a hell of a lot! We swiftly realized that this game is meant for dedicated long-term play, probably working with more than one episode of the monster's career. We only got a few scenes in, getting up to a saga-altering challenge for each character - i.e., 3 circles total.

Maybe long-term play will show that this is no big deal, but as I see it, there may be simply too much content to address. Maybe the total could be two Lusts, with five circles distributed between them, per character. (Although that makes ties possible ...) Anyway, I can't say for sure. This is an issue I'll keep my eye on during later playtests.

Andreas just sent me an updated version of the rules, which I presume he'll do for others or make available at the forum, so I urge lots of playtesting for the game. It is really different and I hope to see it get developed. With illustrations.

Best, Ron