So I got to run a playtest of Silence Keeps Me A Victim at Forge Con, this weekend. Here's a list of previous posts if you want to see how I got here. I'm thinking only the first post is currently going to be applicable to what's turning in my mind.

• What is possible to achieve with game design(Adult with some vulgarities)
• Narration limits and General Feedback
• How to properly use Metaphor
• First Mechanics Playtest of Act One

There's going to be some general bitterness and cursing expressed in this post. I don't need any attempts to reinforce my psyche, I'm using this as an opportunity to vent, so will be typing in my more natural voice.

So what's happened since my last post? I threw away the dice scheme. It just wasn't doing what I wanted and was hard for me to explain. I still think there maybe something worth prodding in that dice mechanic but not for this game. I took a deck of cards and put blank stickers on them so I could write on them. The cards that were complete had two things on them; a statement that served as a reminder of a scene that I've pre-created, and a bad condition. I've only created a few scenes. Here's an example:

The Ace of Spades was representing, "The Land of Rape and Honey." This is a place where adult, male, tribal hunters, with no clothes other than huge penis gourds, hunt and capture children to sacrifice to their bee god who has an erect penis for a stinger. The bad condition was the children would lose their sexual innocence.

The cards were weighted by how bad I saw the situations. The higher faces cards had more horrible loss conditions. They also were numerically stronger. The idea is that playing to win would be harder for the children. The resolution method consisted of the players getting dealt 5 card, and then choosing to place one card on each of three options. Winning, Narration, and Declaration. This means 5 cards, one card on each option, leaves two cards left over.

The person with the highest card on each option "won." I know... winning the winning option is butt-ass confusing. What this means is someone would get to tell us what happens (narration), someone would get to tell us how we feel (declaration), and someone would keep bad stuff from happening, or would enforce the bad stuff happening if the Abuser.

Let's get to the playtest. I had Tim, Jono, and Char as players. We went through two scenes. There was some narration, and some declaration, and basically everyone lost the will to go on as there was absolutely no fun. Fucking painfully joyless would be how I would describe it. Char had to leave and Tim and Jono gave me lots of great ideas for how to improve the cards. I don't think I'll be taking any of their advice as the cards are bullshit. They're Story-before. I don't want to diminish what my playtesters did... they were absolutely wonderful to be willing to risk a bad game so I could learn from the experience.

So what did I learn? I need more of these mini-cons because every-time it's like having some of the crust ripped off my eyes, so I can better see this shape that I'm desperately trying to figure out how to show to someone else. Yeah, I hear you... say something understandable Clyde. Alright. Challenge accepted.

Fuck competition. Fuck trying to set it up so the players are in opposition to each other. Fuck all the characters being in the same scene at once. Fuck my previous ideas of social commentary, and trying to express how the community is holding me down. It's not, it never was. That was all me baby. And for general purposes... fuck.

This doesn't mean I'm upset with Silence Keeps Me A Victim. I'm actually more motivated than before. I think I'm seeing it a bit clearer. This game is about crushing the silence by giving it voice. That's question number one right? I couldn't answer it before.

Questions? Comments?

So this post is a failure. The Forge isn't my blog it's a place for discussion, let me see if I can salvage this thing...

Here's my problems....

I want the game to push buttons. I want it to be dark, and perhaps horror. I don't want to let people turn it into children having adventures. The cards were an attempt to try to force that onto the game, but I think they are too much force. The present design is saying here's the scene, here's the scene ending, now connect the two. This really doesn't leave much room for creativity from the folks playing. It's also seems like I said to be story before, and I want story now. I'm presently thinking that ripping off Death's Door and having all the players write down issues they or someone important to them can't face, and using that to drive the darkness of the game would work much better as it ties the players in immediately to issues that are hard from them, but not so hard that they aren't willing to present them by introducing them into the game. This seems to me a better way to push towards darkness rather then struggling to preform scenes to shock people. Am I on to something here? How do I enforce the game to be played in a manner I want without crushing the life out of it?

The next thing is the whole winning, narrating, declaration bit. Winning is out the door. That's gone, competition is not what I'm looking to produce for the game. However, the divide between describing what we see, from what we feel seems very important to me. It seems like it's part of the shape of the game I see in my head. Why is it important though? I don't know. Can anyone see why it might be an important distinction? I can't see why I need to keep it. What does it achieve that the presently defined paradigm of narration doesn't?

Is it necessary to separate the characters to keep the focus on issues a little more than adventure?

Let me ask some focusing questions.

Lets start with the title "Silence Keeps me a Victim" is a pretty cool title.  Is this still want you want the game to be about?  Because that gives me a very different impression than say Little Fears. 

That title doesn't say to me "children dealing with horrible things that are happening to them". 
That title says to me "the horrible things have already happened and now you have to deal with the aftermath"

Is the game really focused on how avoiding talking about the issue perpetuates the problem?

My Life with Master has as its central premise resisting the oppression of the Master.  The players all recognize how horrible the Master is, but the characters literally cannot stand up to him until they accumulate enough Love.

I see the potential for a similar dichotomy in your game...not necessary MLwM mechanics, but the players seeing how much better things would be if the issue got dealt with rather than supressed, but the character literally cannot do so until some other things happen.

I don't know how to translate this into mechanics that aren't campy.  MLwM is well served by a little camp given the genre it emulates, but this is far more serious stuff.  But I'm curious as to where you see the main thrust of play.  Is it putting the characters through the horrible event.  Or dealing with the aftermath that no one wants to talk about?

Hi Ralph,

Wow. Thanks. "The horrible things have already happened and now you have to deal with the aftermath," is much closer to what's in my head. I think that will help me to excise a lot of garbage.

For your second question.... If you are speaking of the present design then the answer is no. What I have doesn't achieve that. If you are speaking of what I want, then the answer is yes. I want the game to be about how silence perpetuates suffering. I want it to look at both angles, how it's enforced externally and internally. I also want the game to be about healing, and finding the strength to face your pain i.e silence. I find it interesting that you suggest My Life with Master as I've told Paul several times I'm not interested in the game. As I'm sitting here thinking about what he's said about the game, and looking at want I'm wanting, it makes me think theres something more important there than I've realized, so I'm going to have to pick the game up. The henchmen are victims right? The thought that I may have been pushing something away and trying to make something similar at the same time is giving me an ironic smile.

Its gets real easy (too easy really, it can become something of a cop out) to refer game designers to other games.  So I don't refer you to MLwM because the game has mechanics you should steal.  But rather MLwM is a game about a horribly dysfunctional abusive family wrapped in the metaphor of b grade horror. 

Hi Ralph,

I get you. Thanks for being clear about why you suggested MLwM.

My response was more self referential which is of course why you may not have got it. What I was pointing at was I'm trying to make a game about victims becoming whole, and at the same time had been saying I'm not interested in a game about victims becoming whole. Because I don't want to play a victim. When in actuality, it seems, I desperately do want to play a victim. That's what was making me smile, the ironic truth.

I have a feeling I may have completely derailed this thread. Let's call this thread done, and I'll post when I have some better  ideas for mechanics and such for criticism.