What a great weekend for playtesting! Breaking the Ice and Shooting the Moon with Ben, and Polaris with him, Meg & Vincent. Completely affirmed again for me the necessity of actual play for functional design.

Game description & character gen
So Breaking the Ice is a two player game where you play out the first 3 dates of your two characters. Each player makes a character that's like the other player in some way--some general trait, like gender, age or social group, not specifics about the player like "tomboy who grew up in rural CT". Each date is made up of several scenes, in which each player narrates their character trying to make the other character become more attracted to them. The other player awards you dice towards this goal for things you narrate that relate to your character's traits and conflict, or for creating setting elements, taking suggestions from them and so on. There are several successive pools of dice that get rolled: dice equal to the Attraction score, Bonus Dice awarded for narration of good stuff, Rerolls awarded for narration of bad stuff, and the Conflict dice.

Switching genders is de rigeur, so Ben played a female character: Linda, an independent & outdoorsy therapist and amateur pilot. I played Dan, a chivalrous & honest environmental consultant with a failing business. You brainstorm the characters based on a round of free-association the players do together from the characters' "favorite color". Linda's was blue, Dan's was green. Linda's energetic trait came from a long chain of association from water (blue-water-flow-willow-wind-energy) and Dan's failing business came from a short chain starting with money (green-money-gain-loss). This gives you a starting point & other traits can be added in play.

Conflicts
Each character has a Conflict, something that makes it problematic for them to go on the date. Linda's Conflict was that she had recently broken her leg in a plane crash. Dan's was that he was recently divorced. You can pull the conflicts into your narration for a big bonus in a scene. The broken leg trope worked particularly well. It was easy to bring up in every scene and was the source of a lot of humor.

Date 1: Enter the Restaurant
On their first date, Dan & Linda made plans to go out to dinner. They had a phone conversation in which we discovered they knew eachother from their joint membership in a canoe club, and Dan found out that Linda had a broken leg. Despite the handicap, they decide to go out and to meet at the restaurant. A fateful decision.

Next scene began at the parking lot, this is Ben's scene, so it begins with Linda trying to get out of her car. Ben calls up on his conflict right away, so her leg gets stuck between the seat and the floor of the car. Linda is all "Hi, how're ya doing? No, I can get it." and waves off Dan's help. (Dice for Independent, Energetic). Dan finally gets in there to help her out, and the whole "pressed up against you" thing is definitely in her favor. Linda's looking fine. So dice get rolled, not enough successes. (Need at least three 5's or 6's). Yes! Now we get to do the fun stuff. Dan gets her foot unstuck and they go flying, a car was just about to park there and they get honked at, and now Linda's well-groomed appearance goes out the window: hair everywhere, clothes akimbo. Roll: no dice. It's not turning Dan on.

Oh well, my turn now. I frame the scene to pick up right after the tumble. No reason to move on from here--plenty of possiblity for bonding or action. I call upon his chivalrous nature by having him throw himself between her and the near-parking car, but he lets her get herself off the ground (playing in to her independence). I roll this set of dice and its a no go. Excellent! I get to bring in my conflict: Dan's ex-wife is driving the car. She yells at Linda & Dan has to step in between them and shows his naive side by saying "Oh, Monica--I'm so glad it was you, let me introduce you to my friend Linda" (glares exchanged between the women). She stomps away, leaving Dan to explain to Linda that this was his ex (which he does, since he's honest too), and as she drives away, Monica splashes them both by driving through a puddle.

I roll and make it. From the midst of this horror of the first 5 minutes of their first date, comes a burgeoning of new attraction. Linda is a divorcee too. They bond.

They decide to nix the restaraunt and Dan offers to cook Linda dinner at his place. Again the broken leg is an ideal cue for narration: there is a huge staircase that leads up to Dan's apartment. She appreciates his garden on the long walk up to the door, and he humors her independence by convivially chatting with her as she makes her slow way up. They gain more connections over cooking and a shared love of travel, and the date ends.

Date 2: The Hospital Ordeal
Okay, I guess these characters are both just stubborn, cause they try to make it in to the same restaurant on their next date. The successfully make it out of their cars, across the parking lot, and up to the door. Dan is chivalrous again, yet doesn't undermine Linda's independence, all is going well. But all the dice we get for these positive things don't give us enough successes. As Linda goes to open the door, we find that it is locked. A sign says "Closed Due to Repairs". It's raining and the roof is leaking in the restaurant. As they stand there befuddled, a car races past and splashes them.

As they start to leave, a crutch falls out from under Linda, and she hurts her broken leg. Aieee! Dan takes her to the hospital, and they spend their second date in an interminable wait in the emergency room, being tortured by bad tv and getting cozier. She falls asleep on his shoulder. He ventures out for bad food, the only thing open is White Castle. The Ordeal becomes part of their shared history. After they work out some awkwardness about Linda being loopy with pain killers, and Dan having to carry her up the steps to his house since he doesn't know where she lives, they end the date with increased trust and affection between them.

Date 3: Unstoppable Juggernaut of Attraction
So by this time, the attraction level between the two characters was wicked high. In this revision, since both players are increasing the same Attraction score, it goes up quickly. The trick is to make sure that people need to dip into their Re-rolls or conflict to introduce setbacks & adversity into the narration. So, the Attraction levels were not permanent. After each date a d6 was rolled for each level of attraction that got scored during it and all that came up 5 or 6 were kept, the rest were erased. Rerolls were allowed for negative things narrated to happen between the dates. This made the second date have enough opposition, but by the third date, it was hard not to succeed with a base roll of 5 or 6 dice after a scene or two in.

In this revision, each level of Attraction was associated with a joint trait, a compatibility, so we got to make many, many during the last date. It also allowed us transcend the Conflicts, letting the characters finally make it to that restaurant and enjoy the elegant ambience and live music in peace. Although, amusingly enough we needed a Re-roll around when the food arrived, so the place ended up having sucky nouveau-cuisine, and the two contemplated sneaking out with out paying, but nixed this on better though of how impossible it would have been to be subtle given Linda's cast. : )

Ben made a suggestion to separate out the Attraction & Compatibilities again, and to make players choose whether to create one or the other. This would make the game much like the earlier version--except for the shared Attraction scale--and I think it would fix the problem of overwhelming success found at the end of the game. I will playtest it again using these rules, and probably try changing the number of successes needed to create a Compatibility back to (the ridiculous) amount of 5 or 6.

Other than the excessive success problem, the game really flowed. The Conflicts & traits do their jobs. Gaining dice for taking suggestions from the other player helped grease the wheels of contribution & collaboration, and overall it was just fun to come up with the wacky disadvantageous stuff that happened.


L'envoi
We did a follow up to the game that I'd thought of for a closure stage: each of us answering the questions: 1) Do they stay together? 2) When did they fall in love (if they did)? 3) What are their chances together? We figured they do stay together. I think Dan fell in love with Linda when she fell asleep on him in the emergency room. I think it was when Dan tucked her in on the couch after the ordeal that did it for Linda. And they probably do stay together, though they'd have to find some kind of balance between Linda's need for independence & Dan's desire to take care of her.

We left the characters on a flash-forward to a scene showing them stepping out of a restauraunt on the continent. A disadvantageous inter-date issue (that Linda had to leave for Europe soon), Dan's trait of owning a failing business, and a Compatibility of a shared love of travel, resolved themselves into him following her to Europe. As they walk happily arm in arm away, a car drives by and splashes them with a puddle. They laugh...


My thanks to Ben for your help & advice!

best,
Emily Care

Emily-

This was a great read. I hadn't been that interested in this game before, but after seeing how it works out in play, I'm intrigued. I don't know if that comment is valuable to you or not, but it struck me as odd that discussion of the game wasn't engaging to me, yet a sample of play was.

Hey, that's me!

My experience playing the game was very interesting. It is a game that plays a lot different than it reads. I thought it would be all about exploring the other gender roles but, as it turned out, it was a lot more like playing out a romantic comedy / date movie sort of storyline. Lots of funny hijinks with a touching ending.

Emily's endgame mechanic is genius. I think Linda fell for him when he made her dinner.

yrs--
--Ben

Thanks, Andrew. Yes, that's very useful to know. Was it that the premise didn't sound fun, or did you have a different impression of it, as Ben did before playing it?

I think my idea for the game was for it to be more focused on exploring the differences, but I've found it makes more sense for it to be able to live up to its name. For some folks, just playing cross gender or what have you may seem challenging enough. I believe it would be possible to delve into deeper territory with these rules, but it makes more sense not to require it.

Fun is going to be more compelling in the long run.

And thanks again, Ben!

best,
Emily

Emily Care wrote: Was it that the premise didn't sound fun, or did you have a different impression of it, as Ben did before playing it?

Hi, the other Andrew *orris here.

I just wanted to say thanks for posting an Actual Play on this -- I've been following Breaking the Ice since it was mentioned in some thread months ago, so it's exciting to read more about it.

I think it has potential to reach an audience outside of the typical gamer. Emily, was this your intent during the design at all? I thought of that because of Andrew M.'s response that he wasn't interested in the concept, but how it played out as a game drew him in.

Hi Emily,

thanks for this, it sounds really cute, the "Sleepless in Seattle" way. Say, does the rules version linked in your above post already include all the adaptions you made recently? If not, which are missing?

I must definitely ask my girlfriend again to try this.

- Frank

Hi other Andrew & Frank,

Thank you both!

Andrew Norris wrote: I think it has potential to reach an audience outside of the typical gamer. Emily, was this your intent during the design at all?

Frank T wrote: Say, does the rules version linked in your above post already include all the adaptions you made recently? If not, which are missing?

This sounds really interesting. It is a game that could really make people address important real-life issues that they'd never talk about in a normal setting. Just imagining playing it with different people I know is exciting. I'll be watching this. (Are you planning to release it as a free game, a non-free PDF, or a printed booklet?)

Victor Gijsbers wrote: (Are you planning to release it as a free game, a non-free PDF, or a printed booklet?)

I agree, this game sounds great, and well geared towards people who wouldn't usually be into traditional RPGs.

Keep us posted :)

Emily Care wrote: My plan is to publish it as a printed booklet...for pay by this summer.

Christopher Weeks wrote: It's already for sale at my local game shop! I assume they got it at the Forge booth at GenCon while making the rounds. (Was that run distributed elsewhere?) I think they're charging $3.50 more than I paid for my copy. :-)

No, he's not. I can vouch for this. It's over in the little non-d20 pile which makes up the "Indie" section, along with a print copy of Lacuna and a couple copies of Vs Monsters.

*chuckle*

Very cool. I guess if other folks are charging for it, I should sure start. I should see if they want a couple real copies when time comes.

<Squints really hard>

Do you mean to tell me that some retail store owner picked up a copy of a game that had been being distributed for free and started SELLING it at his store without asking permission and without sending any funds to the creator?

Granted the free plublicity and idea that the guy thought enough of the game to do it is pretty cool...but still...this seems rather profoundly...whats the word I'm looking for...ILLEGAL to me...

Is anyone else concerned by that?
Or did I completely misread what's going on...

Yeah, that's what it sounded like to me, as well. Which would, well...suck, even if Emily is okay with it. That just seems like a damn rotten thing to do, whether it's legal or not.

It is not illegal to sell an out of print book for more than its cover price, regardless of what the creator has to say about it. It's called "collector's item."

I am totally amused that the first Forge game with such a mark-up is Breaking the Ice.

yrs--
--Ben

It's not like he snuck into the Forge booth and made off with a box of them. There is a single copy -- probably what he felt entitled to. I have mixed opinions on it, but can easily imagine a person doing this and thinking "hey, they're paying $3.50 for my trouble of going to GenCon and getting it." And you know...what's so wrong with that? But I do get a chuckle over it because it seems cheesy in some way. (And actually, I have no idea how many were originally there, but there's been a single copy there for a few months.)

The thought that occured to me was to be sure to put "FREE COPY" on playtest versions if I want to avoid this kind of thing. But I don't begrudge them any $3.50 they can get for it. If I had charged them a buck, it wouldn't be much different.

It does bring up some odd questions though in this age of pdfs and print on demand. It would be very easy for people to make "alternative" print runs of games & books. That would certainly infringe copyright.

Did the free copy have "copyright to your name in 2004"? If it didn't and it is given out for free, that sounds to me like a perfect example of public domain. If it did have a copyright and they did this then they ripped you off but they did it in the printing rather than they taking of the free copy. That would make a civil mater. In that case they only get into trouble if you take them to court. Which I imagine they are banking won't happen.

If they are printing and selling your game (leaving your name and contact information on it) then they are doing more for you in terms of advertising that they are stealing for having done it without your permission. But if you don't fight the matter (with at least a cease and desist letter) then you weakening your copyright to later printings of the work.

At least that's my non legal oppinion. My dealing with the courts has mainly been in probation revocation, and child custody hearings.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press

Nobody panic.

Printing isn't going on. It's just a resale of the text that was given away for free last GenCon.

Chris, copyright is ensured, at least in the US, whether or not you date the text and add a copyright symbol to it. Anyone concerned with such issues should go to an Intellectual Property Forum or ask a lawyer.

And, we're wildly off-topic. Apologies, Emily. Let's take this whole passel of copyright / printing / resale issues to another thread, probably in the Publishing forum.

yrs--
--Ben

Fascinating thing:

When I was talking to my mother about the game, she pointed out that Dan and Linda's courtship had *a lot* in common with the way that she and my father got together. Which is interesting, 'cause Emily of course didn't know my family's old stories.

Food for thought...

yrs--
--Ben

P.S. My mother, not a gamer, is really interested in the game, and would like to play it with some of her friends.

Ben Lehman wrote: When I was talking to my mother about the game, she pointed out that Dan and Linda's courtship had *a lot* in common with the way that she and my father got together. Which is interesting, 'cause Emily of course didn't know my family's old stories.

P.S. My mother, not a gamer, is really interested in the game, and would like to play it with some of her friends.

I agree that Breaking the Ice seems like a great RPG for non-gamers. After reading the actual play post, that was one of the first things that came to mind. I've already thought about who I can talk into playing it.

I do have a question for you, Emily. Have you had any experience with same-gender players? Specifically, does the game feel uncomfortable to two heterosexuals of the same gender, or, by extension, to two homosexuals of different genders? When I think of playing it with my female friends, it sounds fun. When I think of playing it with my male friends, I kinda squirm inside and think, "I really don't want to be that intimate with them." It seems to me that this game requires a level of inter-player trust similar to that which might actually be extended between a couple over the course of their first few dates. Am I wildly off base here, or have you seen elements of this phenomenon in others?

Hey Andrew M.,

Andrew Morris wrote: I do have a question for you, Emily. Have you had any experience with same-gender players? Specifically, does the game feel uncomfortable to two heterosexuals of the same gender, or, by extension, to two homosexuals of different genders?

When I think of playing it with my female friends, it sounds fun. When I think of playing it with my male friends, I kinda squirm inside and think, "I really don't want to be that intimate with them."

It seems to me that this game requires a level of inter-player trust similar to that which might actually be extended between a couple over the course of their first few dates. Am I wildly off base here, or have you seen elements of this phenomenon in others?

Emily Care wrote: Their session got written up here.

For some reason, I think I would be uncomfortable playing BtI with all guys. But if even one member of the opposite sex were involved, then I'd be cool. Establishment of a "co-ed" social environment or something, or maybe just a reality check on hand.

Although we have dabbled with superheroic dating...

Larry, I'm not sure I follow you. Are you talking about modifying the game to accommodate more than two players? Or have I missed that BtI already does that (I thought it was a two-player-only game).

Ahh... The Logan's Run Actual Play post was what initially attracted my attention to the game, so I guess I've still had four players in mind for how the game might play. I hadn't actually noticed the rules don't explicitly support double dating, but sure enough, you are right.

Such things will surely work their way in to a print edition, no?