Zero at the Bone

[jburneko]

I lost sleep over this issue last night.  I wracked my brains running over my history trying to think of the WORST thing anyone I've ever known has ever done.  Here's what I came up with

1) Cheated on a significant other.
2) Took credit for someone elses work.

In the second case I didn't even really KNOW the person.  I just had a few classes with them and by an odd twist of fate had to testify at their academic dishonesty hearing.

How milk-toast.

And I'm affraid that in a circle of friends like I have you'd just get three or four copies of these.  If you've got a group of people with really murky pasts, sure, I can see this as being really kind of scary and compelling.

Unless, the point of the exercise is that no one REALLY knows their friends as well as they think they do.

Also, this doesn't exactly strike me as repeat play kind of game but I'm sure that wasn't a design consideration, it being a proto-game and all.

Jesse

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jesse,

Milquetoast? I don't think so. I make judgments about these things. Whole novels and films are based on judgments about these things. I've had many opportunities to do both of the things you mention and had to make decisions about them. One of them seems quite heinous to me and the other seems, if grubby, not morally reprehensible (no, I'm not telling which one).

If I were playing Zero at the Bone and two of the other characters had these Wrongdoings, I think the information would greatly affect my helping and hindering choices throughout a series of flashpoints. That information would be further modified by the way the player chose to demonstrate them through the characters' actions, which would convey to me the character's sense of responsibility for them.

You are wholly underestimating yourself and others in terms of judgment, and the use of that judgment as a motor for effective and fun role-playing.

It's an inflation-issue, I expect. Years of overwhelming emphasis on alien invasions, Elder Gods awakening, slinky cat-chicks in thigh-high boots and no panties, unravelling the very fabric of space and time, slavering serial killers who amputate their victims' limbs before slaying them and then have sex with the torsos, robots with flashing LEDs stalking through the flaming ruins of big cities, elaborate plots involving highly symbolic cryptography ...

... shit, is any of that important? Bluntly, it's tripe. One remorseful accidental shooting in a suburban home beats the crap out of any ten post-Silence of the Lambs serial killer flicks.

Best,
Ron

[jburneko]

I can buy that its an inflation thing.  Though, not QUITE on the scale you're talking about.  I just like morally complex things.  Stuff along the lines I suggested before.  I'm not totally discounting the effect, just wondering if it would really work the way you claim it would.  It's just time to take it to the laboratory with this one.

By the way, the rule about ACTIONS only counting for hints and not dialogue is brilliant!

Jesse

[xiombarg]

I read it when it was first put up. I wanted to wait for a thread like this one before commenting, in case my questions got answered in the thread.

I like it, particularly the odd Drama-based resolution. My questions are mainly procedural:

1) Um, could you give an example of a starting "code red" situation for a character? This was my big block for the game. I imagined myself explaining it to a group... and I couldn't think of a single example that would fit all the criteria in the "But is it all vague and depressing chilliness?" paragraph. That section needs examples badly.

2) The accordian initiative thing looked neat, but it confused the Hell out of me. In particular: If I have a card atop another one, can the "covered" card be moved atop a different card if the opportunity to do so pops up? And if so, does the whole column move with it?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

1) Um, could you give an example of a starting "code red" situation for a character? This was my big block for the game. I imagined myself explaining it to a group... and I couldn't think of a single example that would fit all the criteria in the "But is it all vague and depressing chilliness?" paragraph. That section needs examples badly.

I agree about the examples.

To some extent, "code red" instances would depend a lot on which city was the setting. I figure the default city is East Berlin, and my thoughts on "code red" usually involved assassinating some middle-level government executive or perhaps smuggling some person across the wall who was so significant that half the city would land on your ass along the way. For a more over-the-top setting/time, hell, "set off the nukes" might be in line with the idea.

2) The accordian initiative thing looked neat, but it confused the Hell out of me. In particular: If I have a card atop another one, can the "covered" card be moved atop a different card if the opportunity to do so pops up? And if so, does the whole column move with it?

No, if you're covered, your card is stuck. But the covering card can move if it has the opportunity, unless it is in turn covered.

Best,
Ron

[james_west]

I've just now read the game through thoroughly - I, frankly, thought it did an astonishingly good job of capturing the feel of the genre. This sort of thing is like chess - whoever moves first, or knows to move first, wins - but the trick is knowing it's the right time to move. The resolution system captures the 'oh shit, too late' feeling perfectly.

Further, even though you're dealing in international politics, the fact that your personal relationships are most important in determining how things come out is also very realistic with how humans work, and also very powerful.

As far as code reds, lots of potential code reds come to mind; somebody important in the heirarchy turns out to be on the opposite side than everyone thought (you've been passing results to him - your superiors suspect you of complicity; you need to protect him from his own; whatever); played in a third-world proxy, the guerillas are on the verge of overrunning the capital (communications are mostly down, chaos in the streets); prague spring (Russian tanks rolling across the border).

The 'Wrongdoing' part seems like it's designed to be perhaps excessively revealing of the players, which puts them on edge right from the start; do you actually reveal the worst thing you, or one of your friends or relatives have done, and have the other players push for information on it? I, for one, immediately knew that I'd have to tone it down. Gets the right paranoid edge going right from the start.

The main thing I thought didn't work is that everyone knows whose side everyone is on. That seemed to glaringly violate convention to me. You -never- know whose side anyone is on, regardless of their nationality.

This is, without a doubt, the best spy genre game I've ever seen.

- James

[Ron Edwards]

Hi James,

Thanks!

Actually, people start knowing only which side the other characters are supposed to be on. I figured this represented the information their characters had about one another ... and only as good as such information can be expected to be. After all, they might be double agents. But maybe I can phrase all that better.

What I'm looking for now is source material. Not the fictional, dramatic stuff, which is pretty easy to get. I'm looking for actual information about spies and 1960s East Berlin (which I've decided will be the default setting if the game gets developed further).

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

Thanks to a course titled
The History of US Foreign Intelligence Operations
taught by a former CIA spook who wrote the text book (which we didn't get until the last day of class cause the CIA weren't finished black lining it yet)

I have a good number of these.
The text book itself is an excellent overview going all the way back to intel operations in the Revolution.

Then there's The Puzzle Palace and President's Secret Wars which have all sorts of nice anecdote type stuff.  Like assasinating democratic leaders of central american countries because they wanted American corporations to start paying reasonable wages to their citizens...can't let em get away with crap like that.

There's a bunch on latin america and the middle east, but if memory serves there's at least a few chapters on cold war Berlin.