[Touch of Noir] Plot and the Relationship Map

[Caesar_X]

Last night I got together with my good friend (and long-time RPG player) Mark MacVicar to play through some of the concepts I have been working on for "Touch of Noir"(ToN). 

We went to a faded diner and sunk into a booth before ordering boysenberry pie and mugs of coffee.  Our waitress was a young blond beauty; a femme fatale in the making.

Mark and I had nothing but a notepad, pen, a single 6-sided die, and the rules floating around in my head.  But I wanted to experiment with the group creation of a relationship map and whether it would lead to interesting scenes and narrative situations.

I asked Mark what the setting should be and he suggested the 30s because he liked gangsters.  I know that most Noir films take place in the 40s and 50s, but I agreed since I want to keep the rules as a guide rather than a constraint.  Plus I felt like we could work some nice noir concepts into a gangster game.

Where should the game take place?  Well he didn't know Chicago that well and New York City seemed an obvious choice.

The Relationship Map in ToN starts with a player writing the name of the victim in the center of a piece of paper and drawing a circle around it.  The victim doesn't necessarily start the game dead, but their demise is a certainty at some point.

Next each player in turn writes the name of a character somewhere on the paper along with a 1-2 word description (usually of their occupation) and draws a rectangle around it.  Then they draw lines to link that person with at least one other on the map.  One line for a work-type relationship (WORK), two parallel lines for a family relationship (FAMILY) and three lines for a romantic relationship (LOVE).

Since it was only Mark and I, we decided to alternate adding characters until we got to eight (not counting the victim).  That would be a good amount for a four-player (+ GM) game of ToN since everyone would select a character and the others are left as NPCs.

When the R-Map is finished, each player in the game would choose a character to play and flesh them out with a few simple stats as well as motivations/traits such as "what do they NEED?" and "what do they FEAR?"  Each player would also exchange a Trust Token with every character they are directly connected to.  A player whose character is not connected to any other PC would be considered "Isolated" and automatically get a Guilt Point.

Here's how the R-Map turned out:

-Shonie Carter (Male); Victim
-Candy Carter (F); Shonie's sister
  -FAMILY-->Shonie
-Joey Pants (M); Bookie
  -WORK-->Shonie
-Lonny McNair (M); Fight Promoter
  -WORK-->Joey
  -LOVE-->Candy
-Bubba Brown (M); Crime Boss
  -WORK-->Joey
-Natalie Brown (F); Shonie's lover
  -FAMILY-->Bubba
  -LOVE-->Shonie
-Eli Carter (M); Honest Cop
  -FAMILY-->Shonie
  -FAMILY-->Candy
-Kevin Snow (M); Paperboy
  -FAMILY-->Shonie (but no one else)
-Elizabeth Swinger (F); Daughter of the Governor
  -LOVE->Joey

I know it looks confusing, but I couldn't figure out anyway to post a flow chart!

There was much discussion even while we created the R-Map about plot possibilities.  It totally made sense that Shonie was a boxer who was in debt big-time to Joey.  And it was obvious that Joey was going to be a key character in the game since he was connected to four different characters including the victim. 

And what was up with Kevin Snow?  He was a paperboy so did that mean he was a kid?  That raised questions about whether all of the characters in ToN should be adults since we are dealing with lots of adult situations.  Perhaps Kevin is Shonie's son, or maybe Kevin is in a washed-up guy in his 40's and Shonie is his illegitimate son?

We decided to skip the character generation phase for time's sake and move directly to scenes to see how they played out.  Mark called for a scene between Joey and Shonie.  Joey is leaning on him for the $50,000 he is owed from gambling debts.  He tries to Intimidate Shonie into throwing his next fight so Joey can make the money back.  Remember that Shonie is the victim and would automatically be a NPC played by the GM.

The stakes were:
-If Joey/Mark wins: Shonie throws the fight (and possibly loses his life in the process) while Joey gets his $50k back.
-If Shonie/Chris wins: He convinces Joey that he will throw the fight, but then he actually wins it and ruins Joey.

In lieu of a solid mechanic (to come later) we did a single roll and I won.  I gleefully narrated Shonie getting beat up the first six rounds of the fight.  Between rounds Bubba (who put up the money for Joey to bet) comes over to Shonie's corner and tells him, "All right kid, this is your time."  Shonie winks at Bubba and says, "You are so right."  Shonie proceeds to pummel his opponent into the mat and wins the fight.  And Joey gains a Guilt Point (towards his Downfall) for what he tried to do to Shonie.

For the second scene, I wanted to play Bubba calling Joey over to his office to get his money back.  I also decided that Bubba's sister Natalie would spend a Plot Point to enter the scene so she could influence the situation if possible (since it involved her lover Shonie).  As Bubba, I really leaned on Mark and tried to extract a promise of something concrete.  Mark role-played Joey beautifully and tried to squirm out before finally setting Shonie up for another fall.

The stakes were:
-If Joey/Mark wins: he gets a week to pay Bubba and he promises to "take care" of Shonie.
-If Bubba/Chris wins: nothing will happen to Shonie and Joey only has 24 hours to pay up and avoid the wrath of Bubba's people.

Natalie decides to use a Trust Point to help Bubba win since she doesn't want to see anything happen to Shonie.

Joey responds by using a Desperation Point (from his accumulated Guilt) to even things up.

Mark won the roll, and he narrated his promises to Bubba about getting all his money in a week.  We decided that since the victim's life was at stake in the scene, Shonie should die at this point.  Although not necessarily by Joey's hand.

At this point we decided to break for the night.  But if was obvious that Joey had dominated things a bit.  So the next scene might be something like Candy talking to Lonny to get him to talk to Joey and take the pressure off of her (now dead) brother.  And perhaps later on Joey would want to talk to Elizabeth to try and bilk her of the money that he owes to Bubba.  Or even a scene where Kevin finds Shonie's body.

Afterwards we talked about the Guilt mechanic (a key one in this game) and what it means for characters.  If  everyone is guilty in some way and the game tends towards their collective Downfall, should that be their goal in some way?  Or should they be playing off their Guilt and Fears while they try to attain their Want?

There are still a lot of holes in the rules and mechanics that need to be perfected.  I need to figure out a real goal for the game and think more about working in other noir elements like flashbacks and voiceovers.  But wow, we had a lot of fun just creating the world and the characters that inhabited it.  The plotline that developed from it was disjointed of course, but that is part of the fun and is a good parallel to a lot of film noir.

It gave me enough confidence to want to finish the next draft of the rules and do some more playtesting with a larger group.

As we escaped the diner for the dark streets, the waitress gathered up the change and the empty mugs before cleaning the table of the filth it had accumulated.  I couldn't help thinking: "What did she want?  What did she fear?"

Chris
Caesar_X@yahoo.com

Real more about 'Touch of Noir' here: http://troupeberkeley.infogami.com/Noir

[Ron Edwards]

Dammit, you got me all interested in the waitress too!

... But maybe that's a useful signal. Once having made the relationship map ... whom to drop into it? Where does the protagonist come in? Is he or she already there, or as in so much of the source fiction, is he or she the outsider who disrupts the delicate balance of already-unstable parts? Let's work with that latter point.

Given your map, I want to know what happens when the fictional equivalent of that very waitress contacts any single element in it.

So maybe it could be an actual game rule that once the map is made, you look around ... and find the person, plucked from the real world and fictionalized into the setting, who's going to be the catalyst.

I know it's weird and hippy and touchy-feely. But your post sure seems to lead straight to it.

Best, Ron

[Caesar_X]

That's a very interesting point, Ron.  Several people who are most familiar with the "investigator" type of Noir ask about "who the outsider/detective" is.  After reading your reply, I realized that I had been fighting that tendency for two reasons:

1. I had wondered who would actually play the protagonist.  It doesn't seem like it would be fair to let one player be the main protagonist.  And it didn't make sense to have the GM play the protagonist either.  Whomever plays that person would naturally be the focus of most of the scenes, which wasn't what I was trying to accomplish.

2. After doing a lot of research into Film Noir, I learned the different types of stories that don't necessarily involve a "disinterested outsider" and wanted players to be able to replicate a wide range of Noir stories.

Which is one of the reasons that I had added the "victim" into the middle of the R-Map as a center for the different characters to link into.  Whether the victim started the game dead or died as a result of play didn't seem to matter too much.

But the game overall certainly needs a "point" or a "focus" to it.  The base mechanic is playing the characters as they accumulate guilt towards their downfall as they pursue their wants ("make the big score and and retire to the country") and face their fears ("people will find out that I cheated on my husband").

I will definitely give the protagonist possibility the thought it deserves.

Thanks,
Chris
Caesar_X@yahoo.com

Dammit, you got me all interested in the waitress too!

... But maybe that's a useful signal. Once having made the relationship map ... whom to drop into it? Where does the protagonist come in? Is he or she already there, or as in so much of the source fiction, is he or she the outsider who disrupts the delicate balance of already-unstable parts? Let's work with that latter point.

Given your map, I want to know what happens when the fictional equivalent of that very waitress contacts any single element in it.

So maybe it could be an actual game rule that once the map is made, you look around ... and find the person, plucked from the real world and fictionalized into the setting, who's going to be the catalyst.

I know it's weird and hippy and touchy-feely. But your post sure seems to lead straight to it.

Best, Ron

[Ron Edwards]

Hi,

Here's a thought, which may be overly intellectual. If it's not helpful or doesn't resonate for you, then please ignore it, because I do not want to impose my sensibilities onto your game design. However, it might work for you, and if so, might be helpful to see in this form.

The term "noir" is vague and often refers to style (lighting, etc). I'd like to focus instead.on its most common content, which I think is tremendously subversive, especially in print rather than in film (the endings are changed for a reason).

If there is one common feature about the people you describe as wanting things or accumulating guilt, it is that they are not protagonists. They are, in fact, fucked-up, and the themes that roll out of the stories say, to me, over and over, "Don't be like this. Life was not supposed to be like this. Why are we living this way? Why is this shit 'normal'?" The characters do not ask these questions but rather are the bleeding victims of living without asking them.

The protagonist, as I see it in these stories, is the person who understands these questions himself, and is somewhat marginalized because of that, but has not used that insight as an excuse to be a crappy person and do rotten things. He or she is in-between, a character who cannot embrace the 'normal' life because it is fucked-up, but also holds onto morality - which cannot be articulated, but can only be seen or discovered through suffering and decisive action, especially choosing someone to support.

The private detective turned out to be a useful trope for this sort of protagonist, but as you say, it can be anyone. But the key is that this viewpoint or perspective is not found among anyone else in the story. They are fucked-up.

So I confess that playing any such characters as player-characters holds no appeal for me. They have no "protagonist juice" and are dangers to themselves and to others - pure neuroses with legs, whether rich or poor, young or old, male or female, law-abiding or criminal.

I'll be paying close attention to how you are going to address the issue of protagonism as a feature of player participation in the game.

Best, Ron