[Nighttime Animals] Cat Mafia

[Graham W]

A night in with the girlfriend tonight. I was meant to buy a Scrabble set over the weekend, but I couldn't find a cheap one. So, instead, I suggested that we go for a walk and play The Nighttime Animals Save The World. She was very keen on this and we collected some coins: two pound coins, a fifty pence, two twenty pences and a penny.

"So," I said, "You can choose your animal. You can be a rabbit and run really fast. You can be an opossum and hang by your tail."
"Oh, I want to be one of those." she said.
"Great. Or there's a skunk or a raccoon."
"No, I want to hang by my tail."

Which was rather a surprise, since neither of us know what an opossum is. We decided they were a bit like squirrels and ate nuts.

Her opossum, we decided, had been frightened by Basil the Cat and had rushed up the tree outside her house.

"Right," I said, "And how about Basil wants to take over the world?"
"Oh, I don't think Basil wants to take over the world." she said. Basil is her cat and she knows him quite well. "Just Tottenham."

And so we decide that Basil is a sort of low-grade Mafia don, intent on claiming Tottenham - where we live - as his territory. He's got all the other neighbourhood cats in his gang.

We start walking. Both of us really get into the idea that the opossum's walking with us (swinging from tree to tree). It's fun to visualise. We do a couple of conflicts with the opossum dodging past catty thugs.

"So," I say, "What does he do now? Does he stop Basil taking over Tottenham?"
"Oh, I think he just wants something to eat. He's not too bothered about Basil. He goes hunting for nuts."

We're on the verge of a rather dull story here, of course, if the opossum doesn't care about Basil. So I invent a story that the cats are claiming a cut of all the nuts gathered (as protection). A couple of conflicts later, some cats beat the opossum up and take his nuts, yelling threats at him.

And the story goes on. A couple of things are clear as we play the game. Firstly, using the actual surroundings is fantastic, since it gives you something to react to. If the opossum's trying to avoid the cats and you come to a road, you have to say  "How does he get across that road?". And the danger is always that the cats see him.

Secondly, I realise I'm being "clever" with the coins. Because I want the opossums to win, I don't want to have all the big coins at the end of the story. So I make sure I win lots of conflicts just before the end to give her the big coins.

There's some interesting things about the way my girlfriend plays, too. She'll often suggest things she wants the opossum to find: "How about he finds a gang of opossums?". Also, she'll sometimes deliberately lose conflicts if she feels she should: on one occasion, she lets the cats discover the opossums raiding the secret nut store. Oh, also, she calls for conflicts a lot: "I come down from the tree. Surely there's a danger there?"

At the end of the story, we reach a park, with a community centre. By now, we've got a whole gang of cats, with cat guards and patrolling cats in surveillance vans and green floodlights sweeping the streets. The community centre is the cat's base, she decides, and the opossums raid it and get the nuts back.

It was a lovely game and my girlfriend was more enthusiastic about it than anything else we've played. She liked Breaking the Ice, but she really liked this. We've decided we'll play again. I'm hoping she'll GM and I can be a hedgehog.

[Jason Morningstar]

That sounds great, Graham! 

For future reference, at least around here possums are needle-toothed nightmares from the dawn of mammalia, hissing, carrion-eating beasts.  But good eating!

[Bryan Hansel]

This whole play report is pretty cool, Graham.  Makes me want to try it with my girlfriend.  We've been playing a lot of board games lately.

There's some interesting things about the way my girlfriend plays, too. She'll often suggest things she wants the opossum to find: "How about he finds a gang of opossums?". Also, she'll sometimes deliberately lose conflicts if she feels she should: on one occasion, she lets the cats discover the opossums raiding the secret nut store. Oh, also, she calls for conflicts a lot: "I come down from the tree. Surely there's a danger there?"

I noticed something similar when I played InSpectres with my girlfriend, niece, and mom.  Sometimes, it just seemed like they deliberately wanted to screw-up their successes, and they wanted to have a conflict when there wasn't really anything to have a conflict with.  I wasn't sure what to think of it at the time, and I find it interesting that you've described something similar.  I didn't ask them why they were doing it that way, did you ask you girlfriend about why she plays that way?

Jason, good eating in Road Kill Stew!

[Graham W]

Hi Bryan,

I noticed something similar when I played InSpectres with my girlfriend, niece, and mom.  Sometimes, it just seemed like they deliberately wanted to screw-up their successes, and they wanted to have a conflict when there wasn't really anything to have a conflict with.  I wasn't sure what to think of it at the time, and I find it interesting that you've described something similar.  I didn't ask them why they were doing it that way, did you ask you girlfriend about why she plays that way?

Ah...OK...yes, I asked her. She says she lost conflicts because she only had small coins. I'd genuinely thought she was throwing conflicts, but no. So not as interesting as I thought.

However, I also asked why called for conflicts. She said that some things just sounded dangerous and there needed to  be a chance it should go wrong. And I find that very interesting.

On another note: I've read through some old Actual Play reports of Nighttime Animals and I notice that Vincent says it's a hard game to run. Does anyone know why this is: has there been a prior discussion you could point me to? When we played it, it seemed to run remarkably smoothly, without any effort needed to keep the story on track.

Graham

[chris_moore]

I've read through some old Actual Play reports of Nighttime Animals and I notice that Vincent says it's a hard game to run. Does anyone know why this is: has there been a prior discussion you could point me to? When we played it, it seemed to run remarkably smoothly, without any effort needed to keep the story on track.

I have played the game several times with my children, and it feels draining.  Maybe because I ended up doing most of the narration. (I don't know why I got the idea that that was the way to play the game). 

Chris