THE RAT-GOD'S GIRLFRIEND, KIRK MITCHELL

Kirk Mitchell's The Rat-God's Girlfriend makes a nice trilogy with Munch-Mausen Tales and Me & the Rat . It'd be a neat thing if all of them became products which mutually advertised one another, and I think all the authors should play one another's games and comment on them in Actual Play.

Here's the feedback which applies to all three games equally:

This game presents a hilarious basic situation, well told and full of possibilities for what to do and what might happen. It is less suited to development as a role-playing than to development as a card or other sort of token/item/board game, much on the Cheapass model. Whether it's cards, dice, put-together squares, or what, doesn't matter.

The actual system needs to take one thing into consideration: right now, this is a "conch" game. I use this term in reference to the conch in Lord of the Flies, which was used as authority to speak. Effectively, as it stands, this game represents an elaborate means of permitting one person to speak while everyone else listens.

I think conch games don't work. I think strategy games with light narration do work - Give Me the Brain, for very simple version; Before I Kill You Mr. Bond, perhaps Clue in some cases, and so on. I think whatever-we-call-them, "role-playing" games work as well.

But a conch game isn't either one. It's ultimately an unsatisfying activity that leads to limping-along, exhausted attempts to "make a story to win" crossed with "win in order to make the story." The closest any game I've seen come to success is the card game Once Upon a Time, and it suffers badly from a weak endgame for this very reason.

These aren't the only conch games in the Ronnies entries - All Growed Up, The Great Rat Raid, and others are similar. These three I've lumped together because they share so much in common regarding "rat" and "girlfriend," and I am certain that the three authors can benefit and hone the respective designs by focusing away from the "story" and more towards the fun competition.

In other words, use the great introductory text to draw people in, just the way Give Me the Brain does. "Zombies, working in an all-night fast-food place, and they just wanna finish their damn shift and go home!" Laughing yet? You should be, it's funny. But after that, it's a card game that works as a card game, with funny pictures to reference the introductory joke.

As I see it, that's where these three could go with the right kind of work.

The strongest part of this game is the great set of character concepts, setting up a three-cornered conflict of interest centered around the brilliant phrase, "Girlfriends just confuse things." Any of the three (one girlfriend, one rat-god, and any number of Chosen) seem like they'd be fun to play.

Now, my major critique should be seen as the combination of all the following things - not just each as an item, but each as part of an overriding flaw in vision.

- Tension strikes me as a clunky mechanic - the whole Moment of Revelation isn't working.

- The death section makes no sense.

- The example fails to capture any necessary conflict among characters. A Chosen lets out the tiger and then captures it? What?

- The girlfriend has no face, no character, no nothing.

- Scene structuring isn't for anything.

See what I'm getting at? What you need are situations in which conflicts of interest are very, very pronounced. You don't get those by playing "blah" stuff until something sorta just, you know, happens. For this game, I suggest you need bona fide cards or places on a board or anything else arbitrary and unavoidable.

Best,
Ron

I think this game has a genuinely brilliant comedy premise. There's so much you could do with the basic trio of Rat-God/Girlfriend/Rats:

Rat-God: "OK, guys. Now I want you to meet Judy. Judy, these are my friends. Rats, this is Judy."
Judy: "Jesus Christ! They're fucking rats!"
Rats: "Oh, great, another one."

And I can imagine of some great examples of play, based on the Rats trying to get rid of the Girlfriend. Here's a (fairly lame) one I thought up while reading this:

Girlfriend: So we're in the restaurant. And I say: "I'm so glad you took me out for dinner. And I'm glad you didn't bring your pets."
Rat-God: "Honey, they're not pets, they worship me."
Girlfriend: "Well, I'm just glad they're not here." I look at the menu.

Rat 1: All right, so we're in the kitchen. And I've brought this huge bomb with me, made out of bits of scrap metal...
Rat 2: OK, and I make this cake out to put the bomb in. And just as they're ordering dessert, we slip it on the dessert trolley.
Rat 1: And the waiter takes it out to them. We hide behind tables and watch.

[Some sort of conflict roll. The rats fail.]

Girlfriend: So the bomb goes off. Shards of glass fly everywhere. And I come back from the bathroom and say: "Honey, where's the restaurant gone?"
Rat-God: "They tried to flambe something. It went wrong."
Rat 1: "Yeah. Flambe."
Rat 2: "Brandy everywhere."
Rat 3: "Didn't even taste good."

Not a great example. But if the rules supported it, there's a lot of potential for a very funny game, I think.

Graham

Not a great example???! That's a fuckin' awesome example!

To round it out a little, I think the girlfriend is the most interesting of the bunch - every time you play it, whoever's playing her is basically setting the foundational tone for the "human" side of the equation.

Best,
Ron

Now...that's interesting. For me, the Rat-God is the most interesting character. He's the one caught in a very human dilemma: he's got a girlfriend he loves and these disreputable friends and they hate each other. How do you resolve that?

And then, the way I see it, the Rats aren't very deep, but they're fun to play because they cause chaos. And the Girlfriend's a one-dimensional character but she's a brilliant comic foil.

Kirk? Feel free to jump in any time you want...

Graham

A short word on your basic premise and title: this is the only Ronnies entry the title of which instantly makes me want to read the game -- which I will do when I get home.

Graham wrote:
I think this game has a genuinely brilliant comedy premise. There's so much you could do with the basic trio of Rat-God/Girlfriend/Rats:

Rat-God: "OK, guys. Now I want you to meet Judy. Judy, these are my friends. Rats, this is Judy."
Judy: "Jesus Christ! They're fucking rats!"
Rats: "Oh, great, another one."

I apologise for my absence. I've been off working and doing a dramatic arts course, so I haven't had much time to check in. I want to thank you all for your comments.

The first thing I realised when I had finished the game was that it wasn't going to work very well, at least in its current state. But as I understand it, Ron, what you are getting at is for me to create some sort of system which forces players into a conflict of interest. I tried doing that with the Moments thing but obviously that doesn't work. Working off the cards idea, how about cards that create a setting and a situation, and then the players have to resolve it. Y'know, crazy situations that get even crazier because of the combinations afforded by randomly drawing cards. Then players chuck in their bits to make the situation even worse and some sort of conflict roll assigns who wins. But then again, I'm dead tired and its probably not that great an idea. What are your thoughts? Any ideas on how to progress beyond a "conch" game? (I got the conch reference without the clarification. I love that book.)

If I do end up finishing off this game, I plan on totally re-writing the game from the three perspectives. Sections of the rules written by the Rat-God, the Girlfriend and the Chosen. The writing style I'm thinking of is sort of like Chuck Palanhuik (Fight Club) crossed with Douglas Adams... or Terry Pratchet. Normally I write games that take themselves all-too-seriously, so this is my first foray into comedy games.

The death section is right out. Goodbye death section.

Again, thanks for the critique. It was a learning experience to say the least (making the game and getting the critique both).

Kirk