[Dirty Secrets] MK RPG Third Playtest

[Neil the Wimp]

Dirty Secrets is Seth Ben-Ezra's game of detective fiction, in the mould of Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer.  Read Seth's notes and some other playtests, including the first and second MKRPG playtests.

This playtest was outside the club with a few people who'd expressed an interest in playing it.  The game didn't go that well.  At the end is a set of observations and suggestions that came out in play. 

All the players had role-played a lot before.  All had at least a passing familiarity with the detective genre. 

We played a short (3x3 grid) game.


Characters

Investigator
Dave Marlow, male, 32, Irish, lower class, private investigator

Victim
Detective Inspector (DI) Joanna Self, female, 48, British, upper class, police officer

Suspect
Kieron Finnegan, male, 55, Irish, middle class, ex-prisoner

Caroline Chan, female, 27, Welsh (Hong Kong Chinese parents), upper-middle class, private citizen


These were created in play:
Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Jeremy Hennings, male, 43, British, middle class, police officer

Richard Chan, male, Hong Kong Chinese, upper class, private citizen


Initial Crime: Murder, brought to Marlow's attention by Finnegan
DI Self was viciously beaten to death in her home.


Scenes and Events
Prologue
Finnegan came to see Marlow in his office.  DI Self had been investigating Finnegan for some unspecified dodgy dealings.  Finnegan had been set up as Self's murderer by Finnegan's 'business partner.'  Finnegan claimed that if he was arrested, his business dealings would fall through and then being in jail would be no protection.  Finnegan wanted Marlow to keep him out of jail for a few days.  Finnegan could pay Marlow hansomely.  It also transpired that Marlow had been kicked out of the police a few years ago.

Scene 1: Investigation
Marlow went to a police pub.  Conversations stopped when he walked in.  He found an old colleague, DCI Hennings, and tried to get some information from him about the murder.  Conflict!  Marlow lost, with 1 violence, thus earning the enmity of Hennings.  Hennings stonewalled and then a couple of other coppers manhandled him outside and gave him a kicking.  As the police went back inside, Hennings said that DI Self was a far better copper than Marlow ever was, and that the crime had similarities to the one that got Marlow kicked off the force.

Scene 2: Investigation
Marlow broke into Self's house, but found that someone had already broken into it before him.  He was surprised by the intruder, clonked over the head and had a torch shone in his face.  The intruder knew who Marlow was.  As the intruder left, Marlow got a glimpse of long black hair.

Scene 3: Revelation
Marlow searched around in Self's house.  It had already been searched, but he still managed to come across a ledger with names and payments.  Specifically, Hennings was making payments to Self (this was the random relationship revealed).  Caroline Chen was also making payments to Self, and Self was making payments to Finnegan. 

Scene 4: Reflection
Having lost two conflicts and been beaten up, Marlow retired to his flat with the ledger and a bottle of whiskey.  The whiskey was for both internal and external medication.

Scene 5: Investigation
Marlow arrived, unannounced, at Caroline Chan's office.  She's a lawyer, specialising in immigration cases.  Marlow burst into her office to find Finnegan's already there.  Marlow challenged Caroline about her presence in Self's house the night before and there was an argument in which Caroline demanded that Marlow produced some evidence and said that he didn't have the photographs.  In the end, Finnegan splashed a jug of hot coffee over Caroline (2 Violence) to shut her up, then ran off.

Resolution of this scene was problematic: the Witness was moved to the only other name on the grid, meaning that Hennings was the perpetrator of a crime.  It felt odd that the only crime in play was resoled so soon, so we created a crime of Blackmail on the spot: Hennings was blackmailing Caroline.  Caroline said that Hennings was a gangmaster for illegal immigrant workers (see the BBC News story on the deaths of many illegal Chinese immigrant workers while picking cockles in the tidal reaches of Morcambe Bay for why be brought this up).  This rang bells for Marlow, as he was kicked off the force, by Hennings, just as he was getting close to the identity of another gangmaster.

Scene 6: Investigation
Marlow followed Finnegan to Self's house.  Finnegan let himself into the house and Marlow followed. He found Finnegan sat on Self's bed, clutching a dress to his face, and sobbing.  When confronted with the ledger, Finnegan claims that he was simply laundering a little gambling money for Self.  Marlow pushed the issue and Finnegan confessed that he and Self were lovers and that Self was bringing Filipino immigrants illegally into the UK for cheap labour.  Caroline's father, Richard Chan, was involved at the supply end. 

Scene 7: Violence
As Marlow and Finnegan were leaving Self's house, Hennings and some goons turned up.  They proceed to beat up Marlow (1 Violence) and arrest Finnegan.

Scene 8: Revelation
Marlow returned to his office to lick his wounds (again).  When he arrived, an elderly Chinese man was waiting for him.  He introduced himself as Richard Chan and was trying to find a Mr Walsh, who was behind in his payments to Mr Chan.  The photo he produced was of DCI Hennings. 

(At this point, we didn't have enough character cards left to make this a formal Alias, so we just rolled with it.)

Scene 9: Investigation
Marlow arranged a meeting between Caroline Chan and Hennings in Marlow's office.  I forget what the conflict was about, but it ended up with 3 Violence and Chan beating Hennings over the head with a desklamp, killing him.

Scene 10: Reflection
"The man that stitched me up is dead."  The situation was the same as when Marlow was kicked off the force, but now he had the CCTV evidence to clear himself. 

Scene 11: Revelation
Marlow went to see Finnegan in the police cells.  Finnegan revealed that he was also sleeping with Carloline.  He asked Marlow to look after Caroline and gave him the details of a bank account to see her right.

Scene 12: Violence
Marlow and Caroline meet somewhere deserted on the canal.  Marlow hands the money to Caroline.  Caroline then pulls a gun on Marlow and says it's a message from her father.  In the ensuing struggle, 4 Violence is done.  Caroline ends up shot and dead and Marlow takes 1 Violence as powder burns and a ringing in his ears. 

Scene 13: Investigation
Back to Caroline's office.  Richard Chan is there with a folder that Marlow recognises: it's the case folder from when Marlow was kicked off the force.  Richard is dropping pages from the folder into a fire in the wastebin.  A struggle ensues, Richard's hand is burnt, and Marlow gets most of the case notes.  It was Caroline that killed the worker five years ago, even though Marlow got disciplined over the affair.

The original crime was resolved.

Scene 14: Endgame
Later, in Marlow's office.  Finnegan bursts in with a crowbar, still covered with the hair and matted blood from Joanna Self.  Finnegan confesses to killing Self, then goes on to bludgeon Marlow to death. (Starting bid was five aces, raised to 10 twos, called.  There were 8 twos)

Fin


Phew.  That was that.  A marathon of a game in the end. 

Some observations:

• This is the big one.  Characters need some form of explicit motivation or goal.  Without that, we were finding it very hard work to bring any of the scenes to life.  Generally, in an Investigation scene, Marlow's aim was simply to rattle a few cages and to see what fell out.  If we set that as the stakes of any conflict we'd have ended up with a boring scene if the Investigator lost: nothing new is revealed.  That forced us to look at what the other participants in the scene wanted so we could use them as stakes.  The trouble was, we had no idea about what the other Characters wanted.  This needs to be added.  We had a few suggestions about what that could be: Characters could have explicit goals or motivations (which could easily change after a scene if need be); they could have issues, as per PTA characters; or they could be introduced with one relationship they would want to act on.


• In other words, the characters (as created according to the rules) aren't grabby.  They don't want anything, and they definately don't want anything from the Investigator


• One suggestion was explicitly to frame investigation scenes around the revelation of some secret held by a character.


• The other thing that ties into that is the idea of making the situation unstable.  The existance of the crimes does this to some extent, but it can still sometimes be difficult to see how the characters are in motion in an unstable situation.

As I said in the feedback from Playtest Two, I think this is the biggest thing that needs sorting out.  And it wasn't just me saying it: that was the considered opinion of everyone at the table. 

OK, that's the big ones dealt with.  Now on to the minor stuff that came out. 

• There was a little confusion about how Violence dice come into the Liar's Dice mechanic.  Do Violence dice count for the number of dice in the winning bid?  In other words, is the highest achievable bid for ten dice or thirteen?


• This game was longer than it really should have been: the random resolution bit us at the start and then didn't resolve anything else for a long time.  You may want to consider having a fixed budget of scenes, to give an upper limit on the length of the game.


• The very freeform style of the game, as described above, means that players can be lost the first time through the game.  Having many examples of play in the final book, covering all sorts of situations, would help to give some guidance.


• Following on from that point, there was discussion about the intended audience.  The amount of guidance needed to play would tend to suggest that it's not a pick-up game.  You need to play through it once or twice to work out what's going on.  On the other hand, even the short game we were playing had enough people and relationships in it that we were struggling to keep everything straight.  We suspect that the cognitive load to keep a longer game even vaguely consistent would be beyond us, especially accounting for breaks between sessions.  An open question.


• There needs to be a suggestion to develop a relationship map in play, to keep everything straight.  However, it's one more thing to keep on the table and it's got to deal with the revisions that will come up in play


• Liar's Dice was thought to be an over-complex resolution mechanic, mainly due to its unfamiliarity.  In particular, ace bids didn't seem to add anything.  I think a clearer explanation of Liar's Dice, and making ace bids an optional rule, would help.


• There needs to be some way of vetoing things that come from a random roll.  For instance, if the dice had said that Self was the perpetrator of her own murder, that would have been difficult to bring in to the narration.  Perhaps if no-one at the table can think of how to include a random event in the narrative it should be re-rolled


• Using the alibi and mistaken identity rules is difficult in the short game due to the need to have an extra character card on hand to link the two identities together.  Is this extra card needed?


• Crime resolution comes after a scene.  This makes it difficult to incorporate it into the ongoing narration.  Perhaps there should be an explicit extra scene type, similar to Revelation, where the revelation of resolved crimes are played through.


• Two observations about demographics.  For UK gamers, race isn't generally an issue, but nationality can be.  Also, you are amusingly colonial in the way you equate social class and wealth.  If a working class man suddenly becomes stinking rich, he does not become an arisocrat: that takes a generation or two.

I think that's it.  The general consensus was that the game shows promise, but it still needs work.  In particular, Characters need to have something to drive them forward.

Neil.

[GreatWolf]

Thanks for the playtest!

Before I address your points, I want to ask a question.  You say that this game didn't go well.  But, as I'm reading the transcript, it looks like a fun game.  I grant that it's a transcript and I'm not seeing the processes that brought it to light.  So, why do you say that it didn't go well?

Now, to address specific points:

• This is the big one.  Characters need some form of explicit motivation or goal.  Without that, we were finding it very hard work to bring any of the scenes to life.  Generally, in an Investigation scene, Marlow's aim was simply to rattle a few cages and to see what fell out.  If we set that as the stakes of any conflict we'd have ended up with a boring scene if the Investigator lost: nothing new is revealed.  That forced us to look at what the other participants in the scene wanted so we could use them as stakes.  The trouble was, we had no idea about what the other Characters wanted.  This needs to be added.  We had a few suggestions about what that could be: Characters could have explicit goals or motivations (which could easily change after a scene if need be); they could have issues, as per PTA characters; or they could be introduced with one relationship they would want to act on.


• In other words, the characters (as created according to the rules) aren't grabby.  They don't want anything, and they definately don't want anything from the Investigator


• One suggestion was explicitly to frame investigation scenes around the revelation of some secret held by a character.


• The other thing that ties into that is the idea of making the situation unstable.  The existance of the crimes does this to some extent, but it can still sometimes be difficult to see how the characters are in motion in an unstable situation.

As I said in the feedback from Playtest Two, I think this is the biggest thing that needs sorting out.  And it wasn't just me saying it: that was the considered opinion of everyone at the table.

You are absolutely correct that the Characters need motivations.  However, this cannot be addressed by making an explicit system mechanic for motivation.  The reason for this is simple:  the game is about discovering Character motivations.  The gradual reveal of Character goals and reasons is what the story is about.  If you just write it down on the cards, then you're "playing before you play".

Instead, the players should be inventing possible motivations for the Characters as they go.  When I enter an Investigation sequence as Authority or Adviser, one of the questions that I ask myself is, "If it were totally up to me, what would I make this person want?"  Then I play the Character assuming that I'm correct.  Of course, since you may only narrate Character actions and not internal Character dialogue, there are a multitude of ways to interpret the action.  Gradually, as you build up a history of Character choices, patterns begin to emerge, which make it easier to play the Character.  Table-talk comes into effect here, too.  Someone says, "I'll bet that So-and-So murdered him!"  I think, "Hmm.  Maybe...."  Then that sits in the back of my head the next time that someone draws So-and-So into a scene.

• There was a little confusion about how Violence dice come into the Liar's Dice mechanic.  Do Violence dice count for the number of dice in the winning bid?  In other words, is the highest achievable bid for ten dice or thirteen?

No, the Violence Dice don't count.  I'll make sure that the manuscript is clear on this.

• This game was longer than it really should have been: the random resolution bit us at the start and then didn't resolve anything else for a long time.  You may want to consider having a fixed budget of scenes, to give an upper limit on the length of the game.

There actually is a fixed budget on Chapters by the very nature of the Grid.  For a Short Story, the absolute most Chapters that you can have in the game is 10, plus closing sequence, and this would require a convergence of several things, including the Witness starting in a corner.  Also, the game gives you several pacing tools to adjust this.  The big one is Pushing conflicts, which allows you to have more control over when to roll for Crime Resolution.  I'm spelling this out in the manuscript with some examples.

Now, you say that the random resolution bit you at the start.  Why do you say that?  The game doesn't end until all the Crime cards are gone, so resolving the murder early doesn't actually hurt anything.  Instead, you follow up by asking "Why?" or poking at the motivations of Hennings and see what comes up.

That being said, it was cool that you integrated a local issue into your game.  That's the kind of thing that I'm hoping to see in Dirty Secrets.

• The very freeform style of the game, as described above, means that players can be lost the first time through the game.  Having many examples of play in the final book, covering all sorts of situations, would help to give some guidance.

Absolutely.  I intend on having extensive examples for each major point in the tutorial section of the game, including player thought processes, to try to help this.

• Following on from that point, there was discussion about the intended audience.  The amount of guidance needed to play would tend to suggest that it's not a pick-up game.  You need to play through it once or twice to work out what's going on.  On the other hand, even the short game we were playing had enough people and relationships in it that we were struggling to keep everything straight.  We suspect that the cognitive load to keep a longer game even vaguely consistent would be beyond us, especially accounting for breaks between sessions.  An open question.

You're correct.  I gave up on this being a pick-up game a while ago.  Experienced players could whip out a Short Story and play it as a pick-up, but novice players should allow for more time to play.

And yes, there's a lot going on that needs to be remembered.  But, a question.  Were you writing these things down in the Investigator's Notebook and on the Character cards as you were playing?  For example, when you revealed that Finnegan was sleeping with Caroline, did you write that down "Sleeping with Finnegan" on Caroline's card and "Sleeping with Caroline" on Finnegan's card?  This helps a lot.

• There needs to be a suggestion to develop a relationship map in play, to keep everything straight.  However, it's one more thing to keep on the table and it's got to deal with the revisions that will come up in play

My group has done this in the past, and I'm pretty sure that I suggest doing so in the book.  However, if you write down comments like "Sleeping with So-and-So" or "Son of Such-and-Such" on the Character cards, you have a virtual relationship map running already.  It can be fairly easy to construct one on the spot, if necessary.

• Liar's Dice was thought to be an over-complex resolution mechanic, mainly due to its unfamiliarity.  In particular, ace bids didn't seem to add anything.  I think a clearer explanation of Liar's Dice, and making ace bids an optional rule, would help.

Ace bids allow you to completely dodge any Violence in the resolution.  Also, in practice, they can be a way of cutting your losses if you feel like you've bid too high.

And I intend on having a Conflict Strategy section of the tutorial, including one (or maybe two) full-blown examples of Liar's Dice, including player thought processes on both sides.  I'm going to do this by sitting down with Gabrielle and Crystal and actually recording a couple of conflicts, so that it's not just a hypothetical conflict.  I'm rather looking forward to that, actually.

• There needs to be some way of vetoing things that come from a random roll.  For instance, if the dice had said that Self was the perpetrator of her own murder, that would have been difficult to bring in to the narration.  Perhaps if no-one at the table can think of how to include a random event in the narrative it should be re-rolled

I'll give some thought to that.  Something that I forgot to include in the playtest is that, if the Victim of a Crime is also the Perpetrator, you have the option of saying that the Crime was faked.  This is important, and I need to make sure that it's included.

• Using the alibi and mistaken identity rules is difficult in the short game due to the need to have an extra character card on hand to link the two identities together.  Is this extra card needed?

Well, I need to make a couple of points.  In your game, I don't think that you needed to use the Alibi rules.  Those exist for when someone wants to combine two Characters that already exist.  Was there a Mr. Walsh already in play?  If not, then you didn't need to worry about it.  Same deal with Mistaken Identities.

However, I wanted to put a limit on how many twists could be put into the game by those sorts of revelations.  "These two people are the same!"  (a la The Goodbye Look) or "The murder victim is really someone else!"  (a la The Lady in the Lake).  This way, when these are used, it will be rare and therefore powerful.

• Crime resolution comes after a scene.  This makes it difficult to incorporate it into the ongoing narration.  Perhaps there should be an explicit extra scene type, similar to Revelation, where the revelation of resolved crimes are played through.

This is something that I need to clarify in the manuscript.  Crime Resolution "just" tells the player who the Perpetrator is.  It does not mean that the investigator knows yet.  You still need to work this into the story somehow.

• Two observations about demographics.  For UK gamers, race isn't generally an issue, but nationality can be.  Also, you are amusingly colonial in the way you equate social class and wealth.  If a working class man suddenly becomes stinking rich, he does not become an arisocrat: that takes a generation or two.

I mention this briefly in the Designer's Notes.  To wit, the Demographics assume an American context.  It's what I know.  For example, over here, your perceived social class is tied very tightly to your money.  So, that's how it works in the game.  This means that folks who aren't from the U.S. may want to hack the Demographics to better fit their actual circumstances.  That's cool, and I'm interested in seeing how folks restructure things for their countries.  Personally, I think that it would be really neat if my international audience started posting alternate Demographics lists for their various countries.  Who knows?  Sometimes this may lead to a greater understanding of each other, if I can say that without sounding odd.  However, I'm choosing to let my design be primarily American in focus.

And, that being said, an important fact about the Demographics is that they are simply objective observations about the Character.  They don't actually require any form of action from the Character.  Instead, they poke at the underlying assumptions and prejudices (legitimate or not) that the players bring to the table.  So, even as you're hacking the Demographics, you'll want something that will provoke a similar response in your specific environment.

Again, thank you for the playtest.  This one, in particular, has brought out a couple of items that I need to address in the manuscript.  So, your comments have been quite helpful.

[Neil the Wimp]

Before I address your points, I want to ask a question.  You say that this game didn't go well.  But, as I'm reading the transcript, it looks like a fun game.  I grant that it's a transcript and I'm not seeing the processes that brought it to light.  So, why do you say that it didn't go well?

It was just hard work.  It took us a long to time to deal with each scene.  This was mainly due to the problems of coming up with interesting stakes for the investigation scenes: what did this non-investigator character want, and how could we frame a conflict around that?

I think there was also a feeling that the story we ended up with wasn't particularly coherent.  There was an impression that the random elements were pushing the story into places that we couldn't really rationalise.  (Personally, I think the wrong cause was attributed: there wasn't that much story-determined-by-dice in the game.  I think it's another symptom of people feeling lost with the characters, but I'm reporting what the others said.)

You are absolutely correct that the Characters need motivations.  However, this cannot be addressed by making an explicit system mechanic for motivation.  The reason for this is simple:  the game is about discovering Character motivations.  The gradual reveal of Character goals and reasons is what the story is about.  If you just write it down on the cards, then you're "playing before you play".

Instead, the players should be inventing possible motivations for the Characters as they go.  When I enter an Investigation sequence as Authority or Adviser, one of the questions that I ask myself is, "If it were totally up to me, what would I make this person want?"  Then I play the Character assuming that I'm correct.  Of course, since you may only narrate Character actions and not internal Character dialogue, there are a multitude of ways to interpret the action.  Gradually, as you build up a history of Character choices, patterns begin to emerge, which make it easier to play the Character.  Table-talk comes into effect here, too.  Someone says, "I'll bet that So-and-So murdered him!"  I think, "Hmm.  Maybe...."  Then that sits in the back of my head the next time that someone draws So-and-So into a scene.

I need not be as explicit as a goal or a motivation.  Something like a PTA Issue was also suggested.  It was also clear that whatever goal/motivation/issue was chosen should be reviewed after every scene and changed often to cope with events.  It could be something as simple as a personality type or a few traits.  It may be useful to think of it as an aid to bringing the character to life in those first few scenes. 

• There was a little confusion about how Violence dice come into the Liar's Dice mechanic.  Do Violence dice count for the number of dice in the winning bid?  In other words, is the highest achievable bid for ten dice or thirteen?

No, the Violence Dice don't count.  I'll make sure that the manuscript is clear on this.

Ah.  We were playing it the other way, and the violence dice were included in the pool for bids.  That seemed to work perfectly functionally, though maybe it led to slightly more violence in the game.  Perhaps you could offer this as a switch in the final rules?

There actually is a fixed budget on Chapters by the very nature of the Grid.  For a Short Story, the absolute most Chapters that you can have in the game is 10, plus closing sequence, and this would require a convergence of several things, including the Witness starting in a corner.  Also, the game gives you several pacing tools to adjust this.  The big one is Pushing conflicts, which allows you to have more control over when to roll for Crime Resolution.  I'm spelling this out in the manuscript with some examples.

Pardon me if I'm being slow, but how does Pushing conflicts lead to faster crime resolution?  On a 3x3 grid, just about any confict leads to rolling for where the Witness ends up.  Is there a bit about having a pushed conflict leading to putting extra names on the grid?  (By the way, no-one pushed a conflict in any of the playtest games, even though I mentioned the option several times.)

Now, you say that the random resolution bit you at the start.  Why do you say that?  The game doesn't end until all the Crime cards are gone, so resolving the murder early doesn't actually hurt anything.  Instead, you follow up by asking "Why?" or poking at the motivations of Hennings and see what comes up.

That being said, it was cool that you integrated a local issue into your game.  That's the kind of thing that I'm hoping to see in Dirty Secrets.

We could have poked into Hennings more, but it wouldn't have felt very comfortable: why wouldn't Marlow simply go to the police with the evidence?  I think we were stung more by the lack of crimes on offer.  You may want to include in your advice something about getting a number of crimes specified as quickly as possible, rather than leaving them for twists at the end. 

And the Morcambe Bay thing wasn't local (other end of the country), but immigration is a current hot topic in UK politics. 

• There needs to be some way of vetoing things that come from a random roll.  For instance, if the dice had said that Self was the perpetrator of her own murder, that would have been difficult to bring in to the narration.  Perhaps if no-one at the table can think of how to include a random event in the narrative it should be re-rolled

I'll give some thought to that.  Something that I forgot to include in the playtest is that, if the Victim of a Crime is also the Perpetrator, you have the option of saying that the Crime was faked.  This is important, and I need to make sure that it's included.

Ah, that's good.  That would have made things even more interesting.  An alternative would be that there was a case of mistaken identity when it came to the victim (so long as there are sufficient Character cards left to allow this).

• Crime resolution comes after a scene.  This makes it difficult to incorporate it into the ongoing narration.  Perhaps there should be an explicit extra scene type, similar to Revelation, where the revelation of resolved crimes are played through.

This is something that I need to clarify in the manuscript.  Crime Resolution "just" tells the player who the Perpetrator is.  It does not mean that the investigator knows yet.  You still need to work this into the story somehow.

I take your point.  However, if it's a first-person game, you don't want to have player knowledge too far away from in-character knowledge for too long.  I think the Investigator should discover who the Perpetrator is as soon as possible after the players know.  Hence the suggestion of an additional scene where this comes out.  I'm not sure if that extra scene should allow for conflicts. 

And, that being said, an important fact about the Demographics is that they are simply objective observations about the Character.  They don't actually require any form of action from the Character.  Instead, they poke at the underlying assumptions and prejudices (legitimate or not) that the players bring to the table.  So, even as you're hacking the Demographics, you'll want something that will provoke a similar response in your specific environment.

My comments were intended to be a bit more light-hearted.  Sorry if that didn't come across. 

That said, the demographics didn't contribute much to the game directly, though the Chan's ancestry did suggest the immigration idea.  The idea of demographics introducing elements of power and prejudice didn't really fly with us.  I have no suggestions as to why. 

Neil.

[GreatWolf]

Hey, thanks for the reply!

I have a thought.  Next time you try the game out (see that big assumption I'm making!), try using a Novella grid.  I'm finding that it's actually hard to put together an effective Short Story unless you are working with veteran players.  In the book, I discuss how a game of Dirty Secrets has three phases.  At the beginning, you're creating things.  Then at the middle, you're discovering things.  Finally, at the end, you're resolving things.  The difficulty with a Short Story is that you're essentially into the middle phase right off the bat.  Using a Novella gives you a chance to make up things to "seed" the SIS with facts and suspicions that you can later reincorporate.  So, I'd be interested in hearing if some of these issues are lessened with the increased flexibility of a Novella.

I need not be as explicit as a goal or a motivation.  Something like a PTA Issue was also suggested.  It was also clear that whatever goal/motivation/issue was chosen should be reviewed after every scene and changed often to cope with events.  It could be something as simple as a personality type or a few traits.  It may be useful to think of it as an aid to bringing the character to life in those first few scenes. 

I really don't want to make this a formal thing.  However, it would be *very* easy to implement this on a group level.  Just make a note on the Character card or in the Investigator's Notebook, saying something like, "Appears to want to defame So-and-So".  Then, when the Character comes back into play, whoever ends up with Jurisdiction can refer to that for assistance.  I will note this in the manuscript.

Pardon me if I'm being slow, but how does Pushing conflicts lead to faster crime resolution?  On a 3x3 grid, just about any confict leads to rolling for where the Witness ends up.  Is there a bit about having a pushed conflict leading to putting extra names on the grid?

Sure.  Um, my ASCII skills are very rough, and I'm not sure that I'll be able to portray this using forum formatting.  So, let's do this.  I'll pull out a Crime Grid and describe what I'm talking about.  If you (or anyone following along) sketches one out, it should be pretty clear.

Let's say that the upper left square is (1,1), okay?  So, we'll put the Witness there and put a name there.  Actually, for this example, just put an "X" there.  The important thing is that it is filled.

In this situation, it would be possible to drag the game out for eight Chapters by moving in a Z-shape, like so:  (1,1) to (2,1) to (3,1) to (3,2) to (2,2) to (1,2) to (1,3) to (2,3) to (3,3).  Since you *have* to make a legal move if you can, this ensures that there will be no Crime Resolution for those eight Chapters.  Now, maybe that works for the story.  But, maybe you'd rather pick up the pace a bit and force the issue.

So, instead, let's move as follows:  (1,1) to (2,1) to (3,1) to (3,2) to (2,2).  Now, during the next Chapter, someone Pushes.  Doesn't matter who wins for our purposes.  The point is that now you have to move the Witness two spaces, not just one.  That's impossible to do, so now you move to Crime Resolution.

There are a couple of fun possibilities for where the Witness might land.  (2,1) or (3,1) means that you will go to Crime Resolution immediately following the next Chapter.  But for the sake of this example, let's say that the Witness lands at (2,3).  Of course you fill it in, but you *also* get to put a name anywhere on the Grid.  So, say you put it to the left of the Witness at (1,3).  Now, during the next Chapter, you will have to move to the right to (3,3), and if someone Pushes again, you will go to Crime Resolution.

The trick is to use that extra name that comes from rolling a blank space in Crime Resolution to shape the Grid to allow you to trigger Crime Resolution again...assuming that you're looking for that effect.

The larger Grids have Suspicions spaces that allow you to do this simply by landing on them.  This is to provide the players with the tools to affect the pacing of the game.

(By the way, no-one pushed a conflict in any of the playtest games, even though I mentioned the option several times.)

Huh.  That's odd.  People hate to lose in our group, so Pushing happens somewhat regularly.  Plus, because of the effect on the Crime Grid, there's a sense that a conflict that was Pushed is a turning point of some kind in the game.

We could have poked into Hennings more, but it wouldn't have felt very comfortable: why wouldn't Marlow simply go to the police with the evidence?  I think we were stung more by the lack of crimes on offer.  You may want to include in your advice something about getting a number of crimes specified as quickly as possible, rather than leaving them for twists at the end.

Well, had I been playing in your game, Marlow wouldn't have gone to the police because of all the apparent police corruption that was showing up.  He's an ex-cop, and apparently he has good reason not to trust them.

That being said, your point about encouraging people to get Crimes on the table is definitely taken.

And the Morcambe Bay thing wasn't local (other end of the country), but immigration is a current hot topic in UK politics. 

Gotcha.

My comments were intended to be a bit more light-hearted.  Sorry if that didn't come across.

That's cool.  Makes more sense now. 

That said, the demographics didn't contribute much to the game directly, though the Chan's ancestry did suggest the immigration idea.  The idea of demographics introducing elements of power and prejudice didn't really fly with us.  I have no suggestions as to why.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'll ask a question.  There were a *lot* of police characters in your game.  Even the investigator was an ex-cop.  How did that affect the gameplay?  Were the police viewed as the "good guys" or "bad guys" by default?

Also, my offer about Demographics is serious.  I'd be very interested in getting some conversations started in the Dark Omen forum about alternate Demographics sets for different countries.  Through playtest, I've learned that you should definitely not allow them to be chosen free-form; you need a list.  But I'd be really curious to see how those alternate lists would look.

[Christoph Boeckle]

Hi Neil and Seth

So I only played once, and we weren't even capable of resolving the crimes properly, but here is an idea that might tie into the character goal idea you have, Neil, while making use of Demographics.
It is my opinion that non-investigator characters' goals don't need to be known until Crime Resolution. What we need for a strong story is that the investigator find those goals, through Crime Resolution (this is his goal, by the way).
My idea is to focus on character demographics in Investigation scenes. Know how in the newspapers we always get brief reports of the type: "Man (26) of foreign nationality robs car and crashes"? And if the nationality isn't given, people reading the newspaper go "I bet it's one of those foreigners"? There's something really wicked at work here, that makes us look at social details of a person and then find reasons why he or she of course is a criminal. I think this could work well for age and sex too, and especially well for legal status ("oh, he did drugs before, murder is only the logical progression"). Choose a character, choose a demographic, and try to learn more about it. What's neat is that the bad person could of course very well be a rich and old white woman.

Now, we had some of those slow scenes too, where I had the sense that everyone was wondering what should be happening. We had a few investigation scenes without conflict. What worked really well, in my opinion, was to launch a gratuitous violence scene, as the manuscript recommends. "Why did he do that for?" This lead at least once to a very interesting revelation sequence with the assaulter as one of the characters involved in the relationship. And after that, it made sense. We were starting to understand the character's motive (though we were wrong, in the end, to think he was one of the Crime criminals).

This ties in nicely with what you wrote here:

(...) it's a first-person game, you don't want to have player knowledge too far away from in-character knowledge for too long.  I think the Investigator should discover who the Perpetrator is as soon as possible after the players know.  (...)

I strongly suspect that all player's point of view should line up with the investigator's, even those not playing him, because it's his story.
And, in my view, it could even indicate against assigning character motivations before crime resolution (so as not to restrict options).

[Neil the Wimp]

I have a thought.  Next time you try the game out (see that big assumption I'm making!), try using a Novella grid. 

I don't know when we'll have the time to do that.  It took us over four hours to do the short story, and my limited gaming time is looking pretty full for the near future.  But if I do get a chance, I'll give a Novella a go. 


Moving on to talking about Pushing and the speed of crime resolution.  Do you know that you don't define the term 'Exchange' in the draft rules?  I interpreted it as being a combinination of a bid and the narration that goes with it; I think you mean that one Exchange is the entire bit of mechanics from initial roll to calling and revealing dice. 

That explains why we were rolling a lot for the location of the Witness.  Most conflicts in a short story were moving the Witness four spaces (four bids), which just didn't fit.  Anyway, our version was a quite functional way of doing it and, as mentioned, would probably lead to shorter stories as crimes would be resolved sooner. 

Also, my offer about Demographics is serious.  I'd be very interested in getting some conversations started in the Dark Omen forum about alternate Demographics sets for different countries.  Through playtest, I've learned that you should definitely not allow them to be chosen free-form; you need a list.  But I'd be really curious to see how those alternate lists would look.

Dead simple.  For the UK, drop 'Race' and replace it with 'Nationality' with options of English, Welsh, Scottish, (Northern) Irish, <Any 'old' EU state>, <Any 'new' EU state>, <any Commonwealth state>, <any other>.  Class has descriptors Aristocracy, Upper, Lower upper, Upper middle, Middle, Lower middle, Nouveau riche, Working, Socially excluded (yes, they're all different and yes, most people could place people in the right place on that ladder).  Depending on the game, you may want to include Religion (Christian, Catholic, Protestant (and all the flavours thereof), Jewish, Muslim, &c.)

Neil.

[Valamir]

You know its important to remember that Dirty Secrets is based on a very very specific form of novel...one that I suspect is a fairly uniquely American literary form.

For this reason, any sort of identifying motivations for the characters would be a hugely bad idea...because you'd basically be throwing the inspirational genre out the window.

For Dirty Secrets to emulate the hard boiled / noir detective literature the other characters literally HAVE to be completely devoid of any details whatsoever except that which is immediately recognizeable (i.e. demographics) and what is revealed through play.  We can't ever see in their heads.  Like the readers of the book we have to observe this characters solely through the eyes of the private eye.  And in those novels, the characters are often either complete stereotypes that are not intended to be "characters" so much as proxies and commentary on "society" or so quirky and eccentric...often to the point of being down right bizarre.

There is no real trail of clues, or gradual reveal of a mystery or build of an understanding of motivations.  Instead the crimes resolve themselves much like a Lotto drawing.  There's a bunch of balls bouncing around erratically in a chamber and eventually they open a slot and Poof, suddenly theres a numbered ball there.  The point is not the crime at.  But a window into a slice of life where we see how people treat people.  Where we see vanities and prejudices and selfishness, and all manner of vice on display.  The purpose of the detective isn't to solve anything...but merely to be a witness to the worst aspects of people and occassionally catch a glimmer of their better aspects.  The crime is nothing more than a crucible forcing all of dirt out in the open and providing an excuse for an outside observer to force there way in to take a peek.

Therefor, anything that would allow us to get to know these characters in any fashion other than how they erratically bounce of the investigator would really not be true to the literature.

[Neil the Wimp]

You know its important to remember that Dirty Secrets is based on a very very specific form of novel...one that I suspect is a fairly uniquely American literary form.

For this reason, any sort of identifying motivations for the characters would be a hugely bad idea...because you'd basically be throwing the inspirational genre out the window.

I agree that the Investigator character shouldn't know the motivations of the people he meets.  However, in the source fiction, those characters do all have motives that are known to the author.  The reader, via the investigator, discovers them as the book progresses.  How would the source fiction read if none of the characters wanted anything?

In play, we found it very difficult to portray those characters without giving them some kind of motivation or goal.  We had quite a few scenes where the investigator's only goal in the scene was to rattle a few cages to see what dropped out.  That meant that the impetus for the scene rested entirely with the other characters.  To allow those other characters to drive the scene, they had to have something they were striving for within that scene.  We found it hard work to create these motivations afresh for every scene and ended up discussing them between ourselves to gain inspiration. 

This is the problem I was talking about: the difficulty for the non-investigator players in portraying the other characters.  The suggestion that we proposed was to ascribe apparent motivations/goals/issues/something to the characters, and to revise them as play went on.  On other words, a crutch to help things get moving. 

Neil.

[Caesar_X]

The suggestion that we proposed was to ascribe apparent motivations/goals/issues/something to the characters, and to revise them as play went on.  On other words, a crutch to help things get moving. 

I'd say this was more of a necessity than a crutch or an option.  I'm reminded here of one of Kurt Vonnegut's Rules of Fiction:

Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.


This is a really great thread guys, keep it coming!

Chris B.

[GreatWolf]

Hey, it's possible that we're talking past each other.  Let me explain what I'm saying.

As far as I can tell, no one is saying that Characters don't need motivations.  Of course they do!  Otherwise, why are they doing what they are doing?

The complication is that, at the beginning of play, the Characters are blank slates.  We don't know them or their motivations.  Additionally, we aren't allowed to narrate their thoughts; we can only narrate their actions.  This is fine from a story perspective; indeed, it is necessary.  But how can the players author a story in this environment?

The solution is that the players need to assign provisional motivations to the Characters.  These motivations don't have to be fixed or even correct in the long run, but they need to be sufficient to allow the players to guide the Characters.

I think that these points are not in contention.  (If I'm wrong, then someone feel free to step forward and disagree with me.)

The point of contention seems to revolve around having objectively assigned motivations built into the game, like a PTA Issue.  Certainly, they can be revised in play, but these motivations are recorded on the Character card to be used by all players.  (At least, that's how I'm reading you, Neil.  The Internet is famous for magnifying misunderstandings, so I could be missing something.)

What I am wanting to preserve in my design (and what Ralph and Christoph are addressing) is the subjectivity of motivations.  What I mean is that we only ever have apparent motivation, without actually having the objective certainty that (say) a PTA Issue brings to the table.  After all, the point of the story being told is the unfolding discovery of Character motivations.

Here's what the difference looks like in play.  If the players assign objective motivations, they are stating that they, as creators, are committing to guide a given Character according to this motivation.  Therefore, there is a measure of force inherent in an objective motivation, because one player can point to the Character card and say to another player, "But you're acting against type here."

If the players assign subjective motivations, they are stating that they, as audience, are perceiving a motivation but that their perception may be incorrect.  Therefore, a player, acting as creator, is free to expand on narration in unexpected ways, which will require a re-evaluation of the Character's apparent motivation based on the players' ongoing evaluation of Character action.

In my opinion, this constant revising and re-evaluating is a major player function in the game.  It's a large part of the decisions that the players are supposed to be making at the table; it's what playing the game is about.

Now, Neil, it's possible that you're saying, "Sure, I agree with all that; it would just make life a lot easier if the group tracked the current subjective motivation on the Character card."  If that's the case, then we're not really disagreeing.  My style when playing this game is to keep those assumptions hidden.  That way, each player tugs on each Character in a slightly different way, giving rise to the inconsistencies of behavior that are common to us fallible, complicated, humans.  But the rules leave plenty of room for the game group to decide what needs to be recorded.  If doing it that way helps your group, then more power to you!

Does this get all of us to the same page?

[Valamir]

If the players assign subjective motivations, they are stating that they, as audience, are perceiving a motivation but that their perception may be incorrect. 

Does this get all of us to the same page?

I would expand the above a bit further.  For some characters its not that the perception of motivation may be incorrect, but that its almost certainly incorrect.  Jotting it down on the character card then doesn't mean "here's what the motivation is" but instead should be taken to mean "here's what the motivation isn't, but it looks that way to the investigator so far".

[GreatWolf]

That's a good point, Ralph.  When I'm playing the game, I'm always asking myself, "What is really going on here?"  Sometimes I find out that the apparent motivation is actually the real motivation.  But, more frequently, people are hiding things.  So, when I come to a Character, I assume that the Character is hiding something.  Then I make up something that the Character might be hiding and narrate actions that are consistent with this.

Of course, those actions can be perceived differently by different people, which leads to different interpretations of the underlying motives.  This is why, in my opinion, it's better not to write down motivations, because those will tend to reflect the group's concept of the Character, whereas I think that the game does better if a Character reflects a composite of each player's concept.  I don't think that it will break the game if a group decides to go that way, though.

[Neil the Wimp]

Now, Neil, it's possible that you're saying, "Sure, I agree with all that; it would just make life a lot easier if the group tracked the current subjective motivation on the Character card."  If that's the case, then we're not really disagreeing. 

A good clarification, thanks.  That's pretty much what I was intending to say all along.  I'm glad we got that sorted. 

I agree with your concern that writing the motivation (in whatever form) on the card could lead to a slightly more rigid game.  The trouble is, we never got to the stage where that became an issue in the playtests.  You could address that with an explicit bit of procedure in the post-scene phase where character's motivations get reassessed as well as some advice that suggests that motivations aren't made explicit if the players don't find it necessary.

That's a good point, Ralph.  When I'm playing the game, I'm always asking myself, "What is really going on here?"  Sometimes I find out that the apparent motivation is actually the real motivation.  But, more frequently, people are hiding things.  So, when I come to a Character, I assume that the Character is hiding something.  Then I make up something that the Character might be hiding and narrate actions that are consistent with this.

That's a good piece of advice which should make its way into the final manuscript. 

Neil.

[GreatWolf]

A good clarification, thanks.  That's pretty much what I was intending to say all along.  I'm glad we got that sorted. 

Woot!  High fives, all around!

That's a good point, Ralph.  When I'm playing the game, I'm always asking myself, "What is really going on here?"  Sometimes I find out that the apparent motivation is actually the real motivation.  But, more frequently, people are hiding things.  So, when I come to a Character, I assume that the Character is hiding something.  Then I make up something that the Character might be hiding and narrate actions that are consistent with this.

That's a good piece of advice which should make its way into the final manuscript. 

It has been done.  I have a section especially devoted to "You're stuck; now what?".  I put this advice in there.