[Drill] No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!

[JMendes]

Hi, all, :)

I thought I'd ((try to) be the first to) take up Ron's suggestion that we develop role-playing drills. I present to you:

I Expect You To Die! (IEYToD, for short...)

This is a three-player drill. I imagine it could be adopted to include more, but I'm not sure it would be easy.

Materials:
A) Two sheets of paper
B) Once writing implement should be enough
C) Optional: A word generation tool, like a dictionary or perhaps Word Spy Random Words

Preparation:
A) One player plays James Bond 007, one player plays Auric Goldfinger, archvillain, and one player plays The World.
B) Goldfinger takes one sheet of paper and writes down five words on it, then hands it to The World. These are The Facts, and they represent things that Bond already knows.
C) The World copies The Facts onto the other sheet, and, after each Fact, adds another word, based on word association. These are The Truths, and they represent things that Bond must guess or needs to find out.
D) The World hands the original list of The Facts to Bond, and the list of Facts and Truths to Goldfinger.

Important: Bond must not see the list of Truths. Goldfinger must not try to influence The World while generating The Truths.

Play:
A) Bond must say: "do you expect me talk?"
B) Goldfinger must say "no, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!"
C) Bond now has a total of ten sentences to convince Goldfinger to let him live. If he manages to Hit The Truth, he lives. If he manages to Hint At The Truth, he lives. Otherwise, he dies.

Sentences and resolution:
A) These sentences are divided into groups called sequences. Each sequence must begin with "I (also) know all about xxx", where xxx is one of The Facts. (This does not count as a sentence.) This gives out an average of 2 sentences per Fact, but Bond is not constrainted to this. He may distribute his ten sentences among the five Facts however he sees fit.
B) If any sentence in a sequence containts the Truth that corresponds to the Fact that began it, Bond has Hit The Truth. Bond wins.
C) If any three Truths have been mentioned during the course of all ten sentences, Bond has Hinted At The Truth. The World wins.
D) If neither condition has occurred, Bond dies. Goldfinger wins.
Goldfinger is highly encouraged to harry Bond by adding snippets like "you're fishing at straws, double-oh-seven"
Important: The World must remain silent throughout the whole of the exchange.

I expect Bond will die most of the time, but I thoroughly expect that surviving will be pretty cool. This drill can be play-balanced by altering the quantities in bold.

What's being practiced:
This is an exercise in shared imagination. While Goldfinger tries to hide his plans from Bond, The World is establishing a bridge between the imaginations of Bond and Goldfinger. Who wins depends on the success of that bridge.
This is also an exercise in fairness, especially on the part of Goldfinger, who should select words that make cool sense for archvillain superplans, but also on the part of The World, who shouldn't twist his associations around in order to steal the win from Bond.(*)

This whole thing just popped into my mind as I read Ron's suggestion of drills. I haven't tried it, yet, but I hope it works. :)

That's it. Thoughts?

Cheers,
J.

(*) I realize that last part borders on dysfunctional, but nobody ever said drills must conform to standards of functionality. Chromatic scales aren't functional music either. :)

[TonyLB]

Well, let me see if I understand how play will develop.  One of two ways, right?

Bond Loses:

• Bond says "You expect me to talk?"
• Goldfinger says "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die."
• Bond says ten sentences.
• Goldfinger (or the World?) says "Nope.  You die."

Bond Wins:

• Bond says "You expect me to talk?"
• Goldfinger says "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die."
• Bond says ten sentences or less.
• Goldfinger says "Ah.  'Apricot Jam' is one of the Truths.  You live."

Is there any feedback that Bond gets as he talks that lets him refine what he's saying?  Or is it all just a long series of shots in the dark?

[JMendes]

Hey, :)

Nope, one of three ways:

Bond Wins:

• Bond says "You expect me to talk?"
• Goldfinger says "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die."
• Bond says ten sentences or less.
• Goldfinger says "Ah.  'Apricot Jam' is one of the Truths.  You live."

Close, but not quite it. The Bond wins scenario would have to be as follows:
Bond Wins:

• Bond says "You expect me to talk?"
• Goldfinger says "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die."
• Bond says something like "I know all about Operation Marmalade" (not a sentence), where marmalade is one of The Facts, and continues with "I know about your plan to replace all the marmalade in the world with apricot jam" (*), before saying "I also know all about the Scrambler" (also not a sentence), which is another Fact.
• Goldfinger verifies that apricot jam is the Truth that corresponds to marmalade and says "Very Well, Mr. Bond, you may be worth more to me alive." or something to that effect.

There is also a scenario where The World wins, in which Bond has to hit three Truths in the sum total of all the sentences, regardless of what corresponds to what, to which Goldfinger might respond with, say, "No, Mr. Bond, you're fishing at straws, but it seems you do know more than I expected. Very well, I'll keep you alive. For now."

As for it being all just shots in the dark, yeah, pretty much. My first flash of this was just a two-player Bond vs Goldfinger, but it took me all of two seconds to realize that a third party with his own agenda was necessary to come up with cool word associations to give Bond a chance.

Still. I expect him to die. :)

Cheers,
J.

[JMendes]

P.S. Hit commit too soon... I wanted to add:

(*) Not a very cool evil master plan, but what the hell do I know about being an archvillain... ;)

[TonyLB]

Cool.  I've totally done that "Guess the secret phrase that the GM is thinking," game in RPGs before.  It would be nice to be able to recognize it when it's happening.

Perhaps Goldfinger's player should have a phrase that he responds to each failed word-dropping sentence.  I think that would drive home the point of Goldfinger's agency and Bond's helplessness.