Good news:

Ken Hite wrote about Breaking the Ice in his  latest Out of the Box column, along with many other great games including the Mountain Witch and Polaris. City of Brass, Jihad, Bacchanal, Thirty, the Farm, Dread and Discordia all get excellent coverage.  Thanks to Ken, and congrats to all!

He says something interesting about BtI:

Ken wrote: This game, like many narrativist games, doesn't merely presuppose interested, cooperative players, it actively requires them; otherwise, there's far too much room for apathy or spite to wreck things. (This is also very much true of The Mountain Witch, Polaris, and Bacchanal.) The game works to buttress such play to some degree (and works nicely to model the romance genre) by awarding dice for letting complications mess up your character's date, or otherwise adding in twists. Although my old-school sentiments still don't trust an RPG that's almost entirely dependent on the players not being jerks, I can certainly understand that if you can't ask people to be on their best behavior on the First Three Dates, you shouldn't play romance games with them at all.

I didn't understand his comments when I read them first, and I don't understand them now.

Although my old-school sentiments still don't trust an RPG that's almost entirely dependent on the players not being jerks,

Hi Victor,

And really, I don't see how Breaking the Ice is more vunerable to being messed up than some other games, except perhaps for the facts that as its closer to home, playing it with insensitive jerks might be more painful than when you were playing, say, a D&D Dungeon Crawl.

Emily wrote: Yeah, you do need the players to not be jerks to one another.  But is that so much to ask?  What does it mean about gaming if it is?

Hi Brand,

Good point that mis-matched expectations with respect to competition and cooperation can cause the feeling of playing with a jerk, even if that is not the person's intent. 

BtI is a bit far out on the cooperative edge, though I had one couple do a demo at GenCon who took a very competitive tact with one another:  their free-associations had a one-upping air, and they ended up assigning each other their conflicts, giving each other challenging things to work with: "belches all the time" is the one I remember.  But they were clearly enjoying the repartee and on the same page.  We only got to play out one set of conflicts since it was a demo, but they bought a copy, I'd love to hear how it went for them if they've played a full game by now.

But, what Ken expressed concern over was having two people who wanted to play & who would contribute, as well as be respectful.  I am reminded of the (not too many thankfully) role playing games I've played where a few people spoke the most & the others had little to put forward except when action came their way.  Very uneven contributions to play.  In a recent post, Ben mentioned that role players are used to zilchplay & dysfunctional play in our games, and that's clearly what underlies the comment. 

And also I've found myself in games where I just didn't see how I could get meaningfully engaged in the action, while at the same time others around me were happily making stuff up.  As I design, I keep that feeling in my mind--there is of course no cure for a player who doesn't want to be there, but part of the point of the rules of any game are to give people appealling, accessible options for being able to be creative. 

best,
Emily

Ken does have a good point though, linked to Vincent's old discussion about brittle/robust and strong/weak games as different axes.  (I'll find a link later if required; the basic idea is that a brittle game only works if the players are well in tune with the material, a robust one can handle off days and jerks and people not in the mood.  A strong game does one thing really well; a weak game can be drifted more readily to do what the players actually wanted.  All of the games Ken lists are ones I'd categorize as brittle.  The two axes interact in ways that are not well understood yet.)

My experience with playing Breaking the Ice - I'll getcha an Actual Play at some point, Em - with my wife is that it's fairly brittle in the sense of not dealing well with players who aren't pretty well vamped.  I have to admit this one was mostly me going through a depressed stretch, but BtI just could not take it, or I couldn't take BtI at the time, whichever.  It fell apart.  I still love the game, and fully intend to restart now that I'm in a better life spot... but I do concur with Ken about this being an issue with these kinds of games.  Something we, as designers, need to learn how to facilitate.

- Eric

Hi Eric,

Thanks for sharing your experience.  I'm glad you're in a better spot now.

This is the post from anyway you mentioned. It's a question of strength or weakness of this, or any, game to create a given dynamic that is needed to play.  Brittle games have a very specific dynamic that's required, flexible games work with a wider variety.  Pretty much what you said.  Vincent classifies Dogs as strong & brittle.  The mechanics do a good job of bringing about the right kind of interactions.  The rules of breaking the ice are put together to do the that: foster cooperation, spark interesting ideas, vest the players in each others' contributions. 

Word one about the game was that it would be too scary to play with a someone you aren't close to.  It hasn't turned out that way, but you're right, it will be good to learn where the sticking points are & what other blocks may arise.

best,
Em