[Stranger Things] Heartbreak in the City of Forgotten Gods

[rafial]

I ran a game yesterday for Phil, Tony, and Wilhelm. It was a lot of fun. I'm hoping to convince Wil to write it up in Actual Play.

Ah yes.  The game in question being a playtest of John's Trollbabe inspired game Stranger Things.  The players take the role of half-human, half-demon Strangers in an endless baroque city.  Possible referents might be Hellboy, Dark City, China Mieville, pretty much anything drawn by Ted Naifeh, etc.

The system I will call Trollbabe with some slight refinements and some small extensions.  The coolest innovation is the use of small geomorphic map tiles, each containing a little bit of mysterious city with cryptic names and references.

In this writeup, I'll try hit the moments that stuck in my mind during play, for good or ill.

The first is right at the beginning of character creation.  After everybody arrived and we navigated through the usual social chat, John handed us some character sheets and said "you should make some characters".  And it was dead silence as people started scratching away.  This despite the fact that John had explicitly written in the game text "generate characters collaboratively".

Now me, I started out blocked, I didn't yet have a kernel or inspiration for who I wanted to play.  After staring at my sheet in panic for a few moments, I finally summoned up the courage to say "Hey!  Why are we all being so quiet!  Tell me about what kind of character you are making..."

Tony's immediate response was "Well, he's not done yet."  "I don't care," said I, "what's your idea?"  "The Phantom of the Opera meets Pinhead" (I paraphrase)  Oh hey cool...  And he had some other cool notions like involving lots of leather, dueling pistols, etc.

So the things that struck me were a) it took a real mental effort on my part to break the silence and say "hey, let's talk" and for Tony to talk about a character that "wasn't done".  I'm sure Ron's in the corner snickering about "gamer baggage".

And then the second weird thing happened.  Phil (jokingly I believe) accused Tony of creating a "Mary Sue" character (Mary Sue is, as I understanding it, a fan fic term for a wish fullfillment "ueber" character).  Now that's a really weird thing to say given that in a Trollbabe style system, it doesn't matter how "ueber" you say your character is, everybody has been given exactly the same package of resources with which to bargain for credibility in play.  So why not revel in a little kewlness?  Phil, if you read this, care to comment?

If anybody was running a Mary Sue it was me.  I ripped my character straight out of a novel I was reading, reimagined her to the setting, and didn't even bother to file off the serial numbers.  I felt a momentary twinge of guilt, but heck, I was having fun, so what!

We laid out the tiles, and picked our starting locations.  My character, picking her way though a Gypsy Camp, Tony's guy facing the Rune Tree, and Phil's waiting for something in the shadow of a grand Palazzio near the Moon Bridge.  These were all locations from out map tiles.

It was interesting to compare the starting situations.  For my character, I picked the gypsy camp because I liked the contrast between her elegant detachment and the rough and tumble of the camp.  I narrated a starting encounter between her and a gang of rough gamblers -- but I shied away from defining her intention in order to give John some space to frame his ideas into it.

In contrast, Tony started with a very definite goal.  His character was confronting the Rune Tree, and wanted to obtain a specific rune leaf he needed for a spell.  It quickly came out that the spell he needed the leaf for was to find something.

Finally Phil's start seemed the most neutral.  He was waiting for something but no particular hint as to what.

The outcome of the first round of scenes also mirrored the setups to an extent.  John managed to hook me with his offered situation (explore a curse on the gypsies), and of course Tony already seemed to have a situation in mind (find something of importance to him).  Phil pushed back on the situation John offered him (take sides between a gang of vampires and a gang of slayers) and went looking for something else.

Tony and I hooked up in the second scene.  The framing process was very interesting.  We both had been given a clue that a noted moneylender was a key to what we were looking for (me for the cause of the curse, he for the heart [in the quite physical sense] of the witch of Heartbreak Tower).  So it started like this...

Tony: I want to break into his mansion and get the heart.
Me: He's having a fabulous party tonight and I'm attending.

For me, that particular conflict was the highlight of the session.  We both took it action by action and interleaved the rolls.  And here we ran into the one issue I've always had with Trollbabe.  It's really hard to have one character help another.  My declared intention was to ferret out the nature of my hosts dealings with the witch of the Tower.  But I also decided early on that I wanted to help my lurky acquaintance get into the house as well.  But mechanically there really wasn't anything I could do in that regard.

In the end, we both failed our conflicts, but there was some lovely build up.  My attempt to render the moneylender pliant, first with cigarettes and charm, next with feigned sexual interest, and finally with a handy flowerpot all came to naught.  We did point out to Tony however as he failed roll after roll that as his intention was to get the heart, it was perfectly within bounds to narrate getting into the house, just not finding the heart.

Phil's character, who by this point had been established as being a minion of the witch, was sent to fetch us to her presence, so she could threaten us about meddling in her business, and sneakily attempt to bind Tony and my character into her service.  Her big issue was that the moneylender had (literally) stolen her heart, and she wanted it back.  The fascinating tension at that point was I now had the moneylender as one of my relationships.  So I could have just had him show up, bearing the heart, and let John figure out why.  But I deferred, it seemed like a situation to rich to throw away.

As for the denouement, I'll steal John's words from Attacks of Opportunity, where I also stole the title from this post from, since it was so cool:

Our playtest was a blast. Tony's character ended up with a relationship with the Rune Tree. Phil's character took a relationship with the Witch of the Tower of Heartbreak Square. And Wil's character took a relationship with the moneylender who had (accidentally) stolen the Witch's heart.

By the end, Tony had sworn to serve the Witch in return for some information about secret magical stuff. And Wil had struck a deal to keep some gypsies safe from the Witch's curse. Phil's character remained bound in service to the Witch, though he is starting to get ideas about being leaving if she ever gives him what she promised -- to make him human.

All of the Witch/heart-stealing/bound-to-serve stuff was created by the players. It never occured to me that a Stranger would be anything but a totally free spirit, and now we have two of the three Strangers as servants to a rather unwholesome, demon-hating Witch. Very interesting.

A final interesting comment from the session -- as we wrapped up, Phil said "well I lost".  I'd like to hear him talk more about why he said that.

[philaros]

Well, first off, a Mary Sue character ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue) is not an uber kewl character, it's an idealized stand-in for the author. Your character would not be a Mary Sue, nor would mine - even more blatantly ripped off from the arcade game Street Fighter II (Blanka, for those of you familiar with the game series). The keys are that a Mary Sue directly represents the author in the story, the character is the center of the story, and the character can do no wrong within the story.

I've forgotten what it was about Tony's character that made me accuse him, but it was definitely tongue-in-cheek. I didn't have any problem with the character he devised, it was just some detail that gave me the excuse to say "hey, you're just playing yourself" as a joke.

A final interesting comment from the session -- as we wrapped up, Phil said "well I lost". I'd like to hear him talk more about why he said that.

This again was a joke, but one with more substance behind it. Essentially, I felt that I had failed to establish a particular goal or arc for my character, and so failed to have any resolution at the end either. I participated in events without being fully engaged in the story, and it was only at the end that I started to see where I might go with the character. So in a sense I "lost the game" because I didn't confront a situation that was meaningful or significant for my character and therefore didn't change. Note that this was not a flaw of the game, I just didn't bring particular goals or motivations into the game with my character, and that would've helped. (That was probably due in part to my choice to duplicate a one-on-one fighting video game character, but I was too amused by it to pass it up. Next time I'll create something more original...)

[John Harper]

I had a blast with this session. Mostly it was a thrill to take the game out for a test drive after working on it almost non-stop for two weeks. It was also very gratifying to see Tony's map tiles work so well. We all riffed off them like I knew we would and they added at least 50% of the atmosphere to the game. I'm considering putting Tony's name on the cover instead of mine. :)

Wil has a good point about character creation. Since the playtest, I've added a section on GM techniques for getting the character creation phase going strong. Lots more GM techniques in general will be part of the game text. I'm taking my cue from Dogs and PTA and trying to be as explicit as possible about game procedures.

About Phil's "I lost" remark. I see where he's coming from. Of the three Strangers, his story was more background in this session. Phil didn't really grab the reins of his story, and neither did I. If we had been playing PTA, his Screen Presence would have been a 1. However, his Stranger is at the heart of all the action now, and he is set up in prime position for session two. Will he stay bound to the Witch's will? How far is he willing to go to pursue his dream of becoming human? Will the Witch ever get her heart back? (both Wilhelm and Phil have a lot of control over the fates of those NPCs). All juicy story opportunities.

I'm pleased with that, actually. It's hard for all the players to get equal spotlight time every session, so it seems natural that one player might do more "set up" work in a given session instead of wading into lots of conflicts and changing a lot of stuff.

For those who are curious about the game, I have a temporary website set up for it:

http://www.onesevendesign.com/strangerthings

There's a sample PDF there with some pages from the book, an example character, and a map tile sheet. Also some desktop wallpapers. The game will be out towards the end of August, and I'll update the site (and my blog, below) with info about the release when it's getting close.

[tonyd]

hmmm "links to the wild" eh? So can my character have a relationship with the wild?  >:)

I cound ST very challenging. It usually takes a while for me to get into a new game. I can't really grasp mechanics until I've seen them in action. Consequently, I had a hard time seeing how to set the scene and develop relationships the way I want. Most of my stumblings were from the creative side, rather than the game side.

That said, ST provides plenty of room to step in, much about, and see what happens. The scene with the Rune tree was a good sandbox for me. Losing the conflict so completely set me back a bit, but it didn't completely fetter me in later scenes.

My biggest concern with ST was that the human magic, requiring a scene to set up, wasn't going to work. I've revised that now. I think it can work fine, but it requires some cleverness to pull off. Chosing a character that emphasizes human magic could still end up being a fetter if the player isn't ready to take control of scenes in a way that sets up future spells.

[Matt Wilson]

I'm really liking the constraint that the tiles appear to be providing. It's a strange thing how you can often get far more creativity and satisfaction from a very limited set of choices.

[John Harper]

In fact, Tony, your scene with the rune tree -- and the failed conflict -- made your character more powerful. You took a relationship, AND prepared a spell in the same scene. So you got an extra re-roll and magic potential in your very first scene. A veteran move from the newbie!

[johnzo]

I'm really liking the constraint that the tiles appear to be providing.  It's a strange thing how you can often get far more creativity and satisfaction from a very limited set of choices.

crazy-ass, probably inappropriate rules tinkering ahead:

This was something I mentioned to Wil last night after we playtested, and I wondered if SThings could get even more extreme about this -- for example, by using some kind of mechanic to force new scenes onto specific tiles.

Besides the slavery=freedom thing that Matt remarks on, I thought this might do a couple other positive things:

a) because we played spread across a living room, and the map was on a coffee table a good distance away from myself and another player, so I kind of forgot about it, and I was wondering if there were ways for it to claim the attention it deserves when the gamespace doesn't complement it very well.

b) Last night, our game resembled four very short one-on-one gaming sessions until James and I converged in the penultimate scene for both of us.  To be honest, I missed interacting the other players, and while I recognize that players need to seize responsibility for the story, I couldn't see an opportunity for convergence until late in the game.  Having a spur from the tiles might have helped in this regard--perhaps by requiring that two players frame their next scene on the same tile.

The reroll matrix is neat, though I wonder if more mechanics could be hung off of it, like maybe demonic magic could result in the crossing-off of whole rows or columns or other sections of it.  That doesn't work with the rules as they're currently constituted, though, since depending on the players' choice of row or column for reroll sourcing, it might not be a penalty or a constraint at all.  Still, there's a richness there that seems exploitable.

An actual play post for Wil's game is upcoming.

[Alan]

To bring up more rules tinkering:

I've been in very few Trollbabe games where all five reroll items got used.  This leads me to two thoughts:

1) Maybe Stranger Things should keep the refresh at once a session.  Recovery scens would then only recover wounds.

2) Maybe the reroll matrix should be 3x3 instead of 5x5.

- Alan

[Darren Hill]

I've been in a couple where all reroll items got used.
But I agree, I'm not sure the recovery scene should be a full refresh, and I like the idea of a 3x3 matrix.

[rafial]

I agree that it's been a rare TB session that you use up all your rerolls.  However I think the 5x5 matrix is good, because you only get to use five of them anyway (all in one column or one from each).  The effect I have seen it have is to massively increase the sorts of things that can be brought into a reroll narration, in a very positive way.

[John Harper]

I'd like to point out the other use of a recovery scene. They are the only time we get to see a simple "day in the life" moment for the Stranger, possibly disconnected from any conflict around them. They're a chance to reflect and set aside the Author-mode for a moment. The rest of play is tightly focused on the problematic situations the Strangers find themselves in, and how the players author their judgments of those situations, using the Strangers. It can be rather high-pressure for a player. During recovery, the pressure is off for a scene. Just "be" the Stranger.

So it's "recovery" for the character as well as the player, in a sense.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I'd like to point out the other use of a recovery scene. They are the only time we get to see a simple "day in the life" moment for the Stranger, possibly disconnected from any conflict around them. They're a chance to reflect and set aside the Author-mode for a moment. The rest of play is tightly focused on the problematic situations the Strangers find themselves in, and how the players author their judgments of those situations, using the Strangers. It can be rather high-pressure for a player. During recovery, the pressure is off for a scene. Just "be" the Stranger.

So it's "recovery" for the character as well as the player, in a sense.

I'd just like to say "hear!" to this. It's a technique I used in the new revision of TSOY and I hadn't realized how much I'd picked it up from Trollbabe. It allows the heat to be taken off, and it's also a good chance to meet new NPCs in a non-threatening context.

[GaryTP]

This actual play thread just got me to purchase the PDF of Trollbabe. It was the combination of the setting, the map tiles, the comments on conflict, and Stranger Things preview pdf I just downloaded. I'd not grasped enough of Trollbabe from other threads I'd read before. This is giving me loads to think about in terms of what makes a person look seriously enough at at game to buy into it. Call it a purchasing "tipping point".

[John Harper]

Very good to know, Gary. Thanks for the info.

[Larry L.]

The system I will call Trollbabe with some slight refinements and some small extensions.  The coolest innovation is the use of small geomorphic map tiles, each containing a little bit of mysterious city with cryptic names and references.

Geomorphs! I've always loved the idea of geomorphs. Always sad they're always used for generating miles of featureless caverns or what not.

Honestly, "Trollbabe, with geomorphs" is a hell of a sales pitch to me.

How'd the geomorph thing work for you here?