Clinton, Remi and I decided to play Contenders, based on our extremely positive play experience at Gen Con and the fun I had running it later at a local con.  One of the guys who played in that session was Shane, who we invited to join us, figuring (correctly, as it turns out) that Contenders would work better with four players.  Plus Shane is awesome.  So Shane's in, and we had one of the most fun sessions ever last night. 

First, to back up, we spent our regular session last week watching Raging Bull.  This was time well spent, because Contenders is the Raging Bull RPG.  It was the first time several of us had seen the film and we not only enjoyed it, but found ourselves insanely excited about playing Contenders.  So that's a definite recommendation, if you have the time and are planning on running the game - watching Raging Bull will prime the pump in a big way.  It is full of sloshy violence and pain, pain, pain. 

Contenders was my choice, and although there is no GM I had the prerogative of defining the setting.  I chose 1913 New York, mainly because I had a bunch of background material from a previous campaign that could be re-purposed to provide details and interesting hooks.  Being a transitional time for the sport of boxing also makes it interesting.

I'm playing John McGurk, Junior, the son of a colorful real-world guy who ran a hideous brothel and gambling den called McGurk's Suicide Hall (where the teenaged prostitutes routinely drank carbolic acid to end their miserable lives, hence the name).  McGurk senior was hammered in a corruption investigation and now tends bar in the hall he once owned.  So Dad's my Connection and I want to buy his building back for him.  I played him as a sort of clean-cut but streetwise guy.

Remi and Shane are playing Italian brothers, Paolo and Vincenzo Butcher, both in league with an insane loose cannon named Ignacio Lupo, "Lupo the Wolf" (another real dude and an absolute bad-ass).  Vincenzo, played by Shane, turned out to be a solid fighter, very serious and currently undefeated (he trains a lot).  Paolo, played by Remi, is a complete nut-job, an aggressive beast who fights dirty and talks himself up a lot. 

Clinton's playing Leon, who has aspirations of Olympic greatness and wants to rise in class, but is hampered by the fact that he is half African-American.  He managed to knock out McGurk in the final round of an evenly-matched bout.  They are all good characters with interesting connections.  We're working hard to pressure each other - I played Margaret, the upper-middle-class girl that Leon's after, and we had a pair of brutal Connection scenes where she rejected him.  I also added Remi's Connection, his girlfriend Lulu, as a Connection for myself.  So there will be some Threatening going on next week, and probably a Brawl as well.  Remi's Pain is very, very high right now.  THings were just crackling. 

One thing that sort of surprised us was the speed at which our game is developing - after a single short session of play and four fights, several characters are roughly half-way to end-game.  So we might wrap it up in two sessions (although three is more likely). 

We've made a strong choice to roleplay every scene, regardless of content.  Everybody has several recurring roles.  So for training scenes we invented a pair of gyms and their weird owners, who interact with the boxers.  Shane made a great choice to frame a Training scene as a paid beat-down for Lupo the Wolf, where he messed up a dude and then was pinched and had to use his Cash to bail himself out of jail. 

Every scene was fun and engaging.  We had some of the best play ever for our group, and can't wait until next week to keep going! 

Man, this game is fun.

After playing Contenders and Swansong, I've found commonalities in Joe Prince's games. They both feel a little unsafe and rickety to me, like a county fair ride. This isn't a bad thing - they both work great. Looking at the rules, though, I keep thinking I've found something too out-of-control, but the ride just gets better. The way your Pain and Reputation both skyrocket in Contenders seems like too much, but it's working well so far.

I really love Jason's setting. It's allowing for a nice combination of squalor and pain and hope and idealism. I'm definitely the hope and idealism guy - the idea of trying to get in the first boxing competition of the Olympics in order to become respectable is fun. (I got the date of boxing at the Olympics wrong - it first happened in 1904, but a little creative license is fine, I think.)

What's most interesting to me is the quick grabbing of non-main characters by each of us, and the pressure put by us on our own characters and on others. I'm working on a game without a GM right now, and I get worried that pressure won't be put on the characters without a main source - but what I'm finding is that more pressure is put on with four sources to do it.

My goals for next session are to get to know everyone else's characters more!

Yeah, I think engaging other characters and Connections is key to a rollicking good time in Contenders - if we can pressure Connections and poach each other's mojo, it's going to provide strong motivator for in-ring conflict, more so than the simple grudges we've automatically assumed already.  We're working to tightly bind our characters together through a web of association and malice, and it's going to be on fire next week. 

We need to work out how to bring the Butcher boy's grandmother into all this.  And Leon's laundress mother.  My Dad's an easy target, and so are the pretty ladies, Margaret and Lulu.  The Big Men, Lupo and Monk Eastman, offer a lot of potential for reincorporation and agony. 

We've made a strong choice to roleplay every scene, regardless of content.

Yeah, I think engaging other characters and Connections is key to a rollicking good time in Contenders

We're working to tightly bind our characters together through a web of association and malice...

Cheers guys, sounds like a great session!
Where's the fun with safe games anyway?

The setting Jason has built up is really impressive, nice touch incorporating real life characters and places.

I think you've hit the nail on the head in terms of investing in each others Connections and characters. Wanting to roleplay is key and players who like to grab NPCs help the game a great deal. Otherwise, as CaeserX mentions, players can focus purely on the reward mechanics and neglect roleplaying and narrative.

A central sheet of paper to record story elements is a real boon to Contenders (or any RPG). In fact, I've built this into my upcoming design The Dragon vs The Gun - you get rewarded for reincorporation. Inspired partially by Grey Ranks no less.

Jason wrote:
Remi's Pain is very, very high right now.

Just a note, Joe - not sure if you've played Contenders using just the reward mechanics, but it's still pretty fun.  At the convention game I ran, we only had two hours and it degenerated into a tactical card game.  We all still had a blast. 

That's a really nice summary and really kind words, Jason.  Thanks!  I too am having a rocking good time in Contenders.  The boxing matches are very, very satisfying.  But what's really shining is the drama:  Clinton's John McGurk was breaking my heart the other night when he learned Margaret, the girl he was sweet on, thought his boxing dreams were a foolish fancy, and of course it was Jason who was turning the screws with Maggie--the man is evil.

And then Remi broke my heart again.  He's Pauli, my younger brother, who's always idolized me, and whom I've been looking out for as we deal with a lot of rough characters.  So this guy organizes a "friendly fight" between brothers and I reluctantly agree, and suddenly the bell is ringing and Pauli's launching himself at me like a wild animal, using every dirty trick in his arsenal.  He's going to prove that he's better than me he says.  I won the match, but left my relationship with my brother in the ring.  I think the rematch will be a grim, grim day.

I've been playing Vincenzo as a little slow, and reactionary, but I'm angry now and I want to hurt some people.  I can't wait until Monday!

Thanks Jason, it's good to know the mechanics function as a pure card game.
I have played a couple of games that have gone that way, they were pretty fun but-

It's so much better when you have the kind of investment Shane talks about in the previous post!

We had another round of Contenders greatness last night and it included some of the best play we've had as a group.  I think our second session saw a lot more pushing the system's limits - we saw every possible scene type, we saw aggressive use of Hope and Pain as resources, and we saw a lot of hardcore calculation going on pre- and post-bout. 

Interpersonally we had a ton of very satisfying play, most of it the result of consciously reincorporating scenic elements and using Connections whenever possible to tie our characters together.  For example, Clinton wanted a work scene for big money, and Remi (as criminal kingpin Monk Eastman) had him go beat the stuffing out of my character's father to remind him to pay his debts.  This was a gut punch for Clinton, who is playing a genuinely positive and nice character who didn't want to break an old man, and also a gut punch to me, because - damn, that's my old man!  My #1 Connection. 

My proudest moment was a successful Connection threatening, in which I stole away Lulu, Remi's character's girlfriend.  In the related fight scene, we went at each other like maniacs, instantly burning hope and ending the first round in a Domination tie and double knock-out!  I took away every morsel of Hope his guy had in the world. 

A couple of observations:

We've been dutifully buffing up NPC boxers as we train, but we've never fought any of them and don't see why we ever would.

Threatening a Connection isn't worth it - it's a dickweed move because you spend precious resources with zero return, other than harm to your opponent.  Remi thought perhaps the winner should get the Hope the other guy lost - Joe?

Brawls, on the other hand, carry no risk and a potential for gain.  Are we mis-reading?

We've got Contenders up to 7 Rep now, so next week will be the explosive finale!

Jason,
Brawls do carry some risk. If had lost, Vincenzo's Rep would have gone up, and Paulo would have gotten Pain. Of course, an 8-card-to-3 beatdown meant my risks were pretty small.

I had a blast last night. My guy was pretty much doomed from the end of last session, he still hasn't won a fight straight up, so I'm essentially cruising around making life worse for everyone, which is awesome. I am a little worried that playing hyper-defensively seems like the best strategy to win a fight, however it makes the fight less exciting, as you don't really see the big punches. My fellow players' pointing out the realism of this mechanic aside, it doesn't seem like much fun. Is there a way around this? Or is this a conscious decision in the game, to make the 5-card draw on defense the optimal move for most fighter?

To clarify, Shane and I had a fight in which I played diamonds (bob and weave) every round.  My Technique was five, I'd tag him for 1 VP every round, it was the death of 1000 paper cuts.  Boring but effective.

Also - I mentioned burning hope in our double KO fight; we brought the pain actually.

Remi (and all),

I think one reason going defensive has worked so much for us is that no one has a good Cover. If one of us did, defensive punches wouldn't be so effective, as they'd carry a big risk of not actually hurting the other guy.

I absolutely love my character in this game. I have a plan to make everything work out for him! He's a really nice guy as long as you don't bring up the fact that he's black. While my character lost his temper twice and beat up two dudes, they both deserved it so bad that I'm not carrying a lot of remorse.

The really great part for me about this game, though, is the NPCs. I think I may love  the NPCs I play even more. Low-down, the horrible gym owner who sells cocaine in training scenes, is awesome. Lulu, the pregnant Catholic awesome cheating girlfriend, is an absolute blast to play.

I'm right there with you on the NPCs, Clinton. Monk Eastman is pure evil, I love when someone comes to see him. So much fun to figure out what's going to hurt someone the most, and then be utterly blase about it. And I really enjoyed the Butcher's Grandmother from last night, Vincenzo feeding her laudanum and her complaining about how it makes her see the Devil.

Yeah, the supporting cast in this game has been really strong and fun. I love how decentralized it is, and how flexible their ownership (I got to play Low Down when Clinton trained last night, which was a hoot). I mean, we're even seeing Monk Eastman and Lupo's henchmen start to get personalities! I really love the world we're building around our characters, and I feel like, even for those of us with bad endings, we'll have a lot to say, come endgame.

Oh! And playing the boxing announcers! When Shane's character, Vincenzo 'The Tower of Steel' Butcher was finally defeated, by KO, Jason and I were jumping up and down shouting, "The tower has fallen! The tower has fallen!" at the top of our lungs. So many great moments from last night.

Thirded, man, I adore playing all the greasy yeggs, growling cut-men, and high-society hobble-skirted belles. 

One great example of how fluid incorporating NPCs was follows:

Remi needs Cash (again).  He goes to see Lupo the Wolf (again).  I'm Lupo, and I growl to my enforcer, Eddie (who Clinton had established just to keep a hand in Lupo scenes but never fleshed out) that I'm busy, my stomach hurts, tell him to go away.  As a player I'm just fucking with Remi, upping the tension and making him see how unimportant his guy is to Lupo.  So Clinton says:

"Look, Lupo don't want to see you right now no ways.  But listen, maybe I got a little job for you..."

And all of a sudden Eddie's a real guy, with real (awful) needs of his own.  And throughout their scene, Lupo's in the background bellowing "where's my stomach pills, Eddie?"  And the work scene plays out absolutely normally.

It was unspeakably great. 

Playing with you guys is awesome, no doubt about it.  I figured last night would be a chance for me to step up and do some hard core role-play more than in the first session, where I mostly trained and boxed, and I was quite happy with my initial scenes, where I added Father Manelli for no other reason than that I wanted to tell someone how bad I wanted to kill my brother Paulie, and then my next scene where I had to convince my Grandmother to take her medicine.

Oh, but the ass-beating I started to take after that!  It was brutal and relentless.  I think I kind of turtled a little bit after that, although I was happy when as Maggie's father I told Clinton "Get your hands off my daughter".

At this point, my character is the only one with a clear possibility for a happy ending.  I feel I really still need to earn that, though.  Now, I need to deal with Pauli, who just gave me a beat-down in the alley, and see if I can become a champion again, while still looking out for my littlest brother, Luci.  Thanks for adding him to the game and making my life harder, Remi.

I actually think we might need to rush to get to endgame, though.  Doesn't Clinton have 7 rep?  He'd need to be in 2 matches and win one of them to force endgame, wouldn't he?  And then endgame is another set of boxing matches, or am I remembering wrong?

ShaneJackson wrote:
I actually think we might need to rush to get to endgame, though.  Doesn't Clinton have 7 rep?  He'd need to be in 2 matches and win one of them to force endgame, wouldn't he?  And then endgame is another set of boxing matches, or am I remembering wrong?

I think it'll all go down smooth as carbolic acid with a phenol chaser next week.  Any idea how many scenes we're averaging in an evening?  It seems like quite a few.  Shane, maybe your Connections need a good hammering next week.  Although I feel sad that I took the low road with John McGurk Jr, I, for one, am dedicated to the proposition that no one leaves the table with a happy ending.  So watch out!  If you want it you're going to have to punch through me to get it.

I'm confused if you mean I need to punch through you, John McGurk Jr, or you, Jason Morningstar, so I'm just going to pick one and beat the hell out of him/you when you/him aren't looking.

Man, this sounds like fun.  I am seriously jealous.  Contenders is one of my favorite games, but I haven't really really got to play it much past a demo.  I'm going to keep pitching this game until I get to play it.  I'll be curious to hear about any perceived imbalances in the boxing mini-game part of it.  I'm wondering if there are some alternatives to Threat scenes, and some other possible Scene types that might be house-ruled in...

Our third and final session was last night, and while it was the softest of the three, it was still like a marching band of awesome parading through our brains while on fire.

Going into this session we had good ideas about where characters were headed, and we just pushed for end-game.  Remi and I knew, mathematically, that our guys were doomed to a sad end.  Clinton and Shane had a chance of pulling out a positive conclusion, but it would be difficult - in Clinton's case, pretty much everything would have to go right.  And since Remi and I had nothing to lose, that was going to be really hard, and in fact didn't happen.  Nobody pulled any punches, if you'll pardon the pun.

Remi's character had degenerated into this bestial nut-job (at one point he bit off John McGurk's ear).  But there was redemption, a reapproachment between the Butcher brothers, a touching moment before the literal slaughter of the end-game fights.  We set those up as a ladder, with the two winners fighting the title card.  Gentleman John McGurk took out The Doubloon, and the Butcher brothers had an uneven fight where Paolo pretty much let his brother win.  So it was me and Shane for the title, and due to a single mis-step I not only took the title, but did it with a 9-card knockout.  That's a lot of win.  Shane decided that since 5 cards is a regular knockout, 9 cards killed him in the ring.  Vincenzo's spine snapped like a gunshot and it was over. 

The epilogues were sad and fun to hear.  Shane's was "ambivalent", and the rest were all tragic.  Nobody had a happy ending.  My guy had 13 pain and 7 hope. 

We all felt that the end-game was the weakest part of Contenders (which is honest criticism rather than an indictment; "weakest" in this context is still pretty damn good), and spent quite a while hashing out possible tweaks to make it more fun.  I'm hoping the guys will weigh in with some of our conclusions.  Overall this run of Contenders was one of our more memorable and fun games as a group, definitely top 2-3 material, and we are all in love with Joe Prince, Jr. 

Thanks guys that was too awesome!

The ambivalent ending was dying in the ring?! Holy crap.

Good observations on the mechanics. Connection Threat Scenes only really work in your Contender's favour if you force the opponent into a 'must lose' match. Otherwise yup, they're a bit of a dickweed choice for when your guy is already screwed...

Clinton's bang on the money with Cover countering defensive strategies. A reason to develop an oft neglected Trait.

As for NPC boxers, you're right it's more satisfying to beat up each other! But I know some RP groups who don't like PvP conflict at all, so the NPCs are for them and to give players a chance to test the waters before tackling one another. The game Ron posted about a while back also had some really cool uses of NPC boxers.
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=21003.0

If you've any suggestions for Endgame tweaks I'd like to hear them.

Love you all too!

Cheers
Joe