While We Were Fighting is a game in development by Peter Nordstrand about intrigue and such in Rennaissance Italy.  I've been wanting to playtest it for a while, but I haven't yet had an opportunity.  However, reading the playtest draft prompted an observation.

See, what I was thinking was, at the beginning of the game, we have these different families and influential persons, with all their conflicts and intrigues.  And it struck me that what they're actually doing is playing a game.  A petty, silly, self-indulgent game that they play because they don't work for a living and they need something to do with their time and ability.  Interestingly, this is precisely what I don't like about mafia movies.

But then a crisis hits, and suddenly it all means something.  They don't call the game off just because the crisis hits; no, they're not that kind of people, and, besides, they've been playing the game their entire lives.  But because of the crisis, big things are at stake, and smaller maneuvers taken before the crisis are seen to have long-running consequences that probably were not anticipated.  And then the crisis runs its course and everything has changed because of the damage done by/during the crisis.  Somewhere down the line, these people have to start asking themselves some tough questions.

Very cool.

So, Peter, I wanted to ask if your playtest experiences have reflected this.  I think it's pretty well-supported in the text that this is where the game is supposed to go; has it gone there yet?

-Marshall

Thank you Marshall for posting this. I think yours is an astute observation, and it most certainly captures what I am trying to achieve with While We Were Fighting. Being a long time HeroQuest player made me realize what a powerful tool world events can have on a game. This was even more emphasized in the first Hero Wars edition that had explicit rules for introducing crises into a long running campaign. While crises are a great tool, it is my belief that it could be anything that forces you to consider your actions and their consequences on a grander scale.

“Is this feud really worth pursuing even when facing famine, war, or the Bubonic Plague?”

As for actual play experiences, that’ll have to wait. The yearly ritual of watching of the Eurovision Song Contest is about to begin and I am bound by tradition to participate.

Marshall wrote:
So, Peter, I wanted to ask if your playtest experiences have reflected this.  I think it's pretty well-supported in the text that this is where the game is supposed to go; has it gone there yet?

Here's an interesting event in a recent playtest. Remember that we always now beforehand not only that a crisis is about to hit but what type of crisis it is. When a crisis is about to arise, players get to frame one scene each, and then it happens.

This event took place just before a crisis involving an uprising among the townspeople. One of the players (let's call him Frank) framed a scene in a seedy bar. His own character (let's call him Federigo) was there, as was another player's character (eh… Carlo, played by Carl). Frank started the action off by having his character Federigo saying something along the lines of "our conspiracy is working as expected. The commoners are about to rebel, and when they do, we shall take control of this city."   

The cool thing is that this conspiracy hadn't even beenhinted at before this scene. It was manufactured on the spot by Frank. Carl could have vetoed it, since it implied actions on the part of his character, but he didn't and it was beautiful. At this stage, Federigo was a long way from realizing his goal of becoming the absolute ruler of the state. Frank new there was an uprising on the horizon, and decided to take a shot at using it to his own advantage.

In the end, Federigo was thoroughly humiliated. An angry mob looted his warehouse (that's justice for you!), and Carlos turned out to be a major sellout, changing allegiances left and right, eventually attaining everything he dreamt of, and more.

It was a lot of fun.

Note: I'm making the names, for reasons not worth going in to.

A clarification:

What Frank did was to establish that Federigo and Carlo had instigated the upcoming plebeian revolt.

See, that is really cool.  The way the systems of the game interacted with the players to produce outcomes that were unanticipated but completely within expectations (in the sense of what the fiction is expected to be like); that's just awesome.