Well, Origins was a great time, as usual. Late one evening I found myself in a hotel room with a bunch of folks, and we were trying to decide on a game to play. It looked like we were going to do TROS until someone asked about MLwM. I told them that it had been great in playtesting, and that I'd run it if I could remember the rules, and they were really interested. I did, and they were, so off we went into that danse macabre that is MLwM.

Names have been ommitted to protect the not-so-innocent. If players want to admit to their characters and their actions, they can post below. Instead of trying to do a recount of play which I feel could not possibly recapture what happened, I'll just post some tidbits and impressions. I'll also leave the secrets of the mechanics alone unless Paul wants to talk about them.

First, however, the Dramatis Personae:

The Master: I gave him a name, but it seems that you rarely use such a thing in play. It's just more fun to call him "The Master". Our Master, as devised by the players was a very wealthy man who had inherited a chemical company. He had used profits to set himself up in a building he'd purchased in a sleepy little town in upstate New York. He resided in the loft/penthouse atop the small tower. A completely emotionless man, the master had a desire to conquer women, and to do so required a concoction that was mad in part from the tears of children. Here's where the minions come in...

The Minions:
Albert the Albino - the buttler and chaufeur for the master, Albert was a giant who could intimidate anyone when not intimidated himself by the sun. He also could not speak unless a bell was rung in his presence.

The Gardener (name not remebered) - this man had been employed by the Master to tend to the gardens about the tower, and to other "chores". He was adept at disposing of bodies that tended to occur around the master, but somehow could never conceal well the bodies of pretty women. In fact he was unable to speak to women at all unless it was on the subject of gardening.

Pug - Pug was part dog, the result of an experiment my the master than had produced him a son. Human enough looking, pug could pass amongst people, but tended to have some dog-like behaviors like the tendency to "mark his territory". He also retained his canine sense of smell.

Wolf Boy (name forgotten) - another son, and result of experiment, the Wolf Boy appeared completely as a dog, but was possessed with the brain of a human. Thie meant that he wasn't allowed out of the apartment without a leash, and the pretense that he was merely a pet. His heritage had left him with immense speed, which allowed him to outdistance others except when he came across water which he feared for some reason.

Ridiculous (given name forgotten in preference of the Master's nicname for him) - a chemist obtained from the company, Ridiculous was a dwarf nebish who had no real experience with the outside world. Tiny, he couldn't use most equipment unless it had been sized for him. He was, however, capable of creating almost miraculous concoctions, though in the end they never really seemed beneficial to anyone.


Tidbits:

Albert looming over the Master's date to prevent her from fleeing.

Wolf Boy knocking a grandmother down and stealing her cane so that Pug could grab her granddaughter.

The Garderner barging into a lady's appartment to get some Begonias, and being beaten back outside with a watering can.

Ridiculous's trip to the Peep Show.

Pug giving the little girl ice cream. Then later having to beat her to death and using her grandmother's cane to do it.

The elevator with the Master's date on it opening up to see Pug holding the little girl in a tarp.

The gleeful look on Albert's face as he resisted the Master's command to clean the kitchen and instead pursued Wolf Boy and the Gardener who had orders to kill the Master's date (she having seen too much).

The Gardener's insistence that, after Wolf Boy had knocked out the Master's date, that she be put into the shed instead of buried.

Riduculous then showing up and suggesting that if Wolf Boy were to use his scalpel to disfigure the woman that then the Gardener would be more inclined to get rid of her properly.

Wolf Boy dragging the body off to the river, and Albert's thrashing about in the water looking for it.

Wolf Boy's several pathetically unsuccessful attempts to kill himself.

Albert using Ridiculous's new concoction to bring the Master's date back as a zombie, and the implications that followed.


MLwM is amazing in play. Players are constantly agape at the play of the other players ( I know I am). And it's not like this is just the players willingly being overly grotesque, somehow when players are making this stuff happen, it all makes sense in terms of the characters and the situation. Basically the system serves to create what seems to me to be amongst the most intense moments of play that I've ever encountered. And it does so with remarkable regularity and fecundity. Like every 15 minutes of play or so.

I'm not the greatest GM. I'm sure that I misremembered some of the details of the rules. And I had no prep at all. And still we were able to have a great time, just based off the basic concept of play driven by the mechanics. I'm probably sounding like a raving fanboy here, but this really is quite a game, IMO. I'm sure other's will agree...assuming they want to admit to playing. :-)

Mike

I may or may not have played the Wolf Boy who may or may not have been named Tobey. The gardener's name was Geraldo, btw.

MLwM is everything Mike said and more. It is a truly amazing game. Paul has hit it way out of the park with this one.

The actions your characters take in-game are oftimes hilarious, oftimes repulsive but, as Mike said, they fit. Even though, as a person, you're going "Dear sweet Jesus, what's going on here?" you realize that everything the characters are doing falls within context.

Poor Tobey...resolved to a life sleeping inside the dishwasher....

Thanks for posting this, Mike. I think you hit all the main points. I've been trying to write up my gonzo-journalism style write-up of the con on my Live Journal. I was hoping someone would get to posting about our mad, macabre and darkly humorous game of My Life with Master.

This session was EXTREMELY fun. I really, really like My Life With Master (and heck, I'm probably not even playing it "right"). Paul, you've got a winner on your hands. Run with it at GenCon, man!

Pug giving the little girl ice cream. Then later having to beat her to death and using her grandmother's cane to do it.

Everything I did I did for Science.

For those struggling to find out more about this game, like me, check out
http://www.halfmeme.com/

EDIT: Oh heck, I just checked and discovered the website is only a release date announcement. Where can I get a copy? I'd love a download pdf.

Alan:

Clicking on that link leaves me struggling to find out more. Unless there's a button that isn't loading on my browser, there's no info at that address other than the title of the game.

But based on that brief description, I'm wondering about the "self loathing" part and how it might have shown up in play. Mostly the above is a list of horrific acts. I could do that with D&D. What about the insight into the pain and sadness of the characters? How is that facilitated in play?

Hey,

I'm momentarily between meetings at work, so this is necessarily brief:

1. Good lord. Mike, Ralph, Jason, Matt...you guys are depraved! The game is a reflecting pool, you know.

2. As far as availability is concerned, My Life with Master will be for sale in print at GenCon, at the Forge location, booth #1841. It is 64 pages, 7" x 8.5", with deluxe margins, saddle-stitched, and priced at $10.00. It has amazing cover art by Will Terrell, of Lucid Comics, and awesome interior art by the Forge's own Colin the Riot. If I have a few print copies left over after the convention, I'll probably just post to the Forge and sell them off that way. If I have more than a few left over, I'll sell them at http://www.halfmeme.com. PDF sale is planned for after that.

Paul

Paul Czege wrote: 1. Good lord. Mike, Ralph, Jason, Matt...you guys are depraved! The game is a reflecting pool, you know.

Ahh, poor Pug. Our lives often turn on the smallest chances - Pug failed in a control role against the Master, else wise, the tale might have been different.

The cane was a nice touch though, wasn't it? ;)

That said, I agree with Paul. We are all clearly depraved. Nobody in their right mind designs games.

Mike Holmes wrote: Basically you won't believe what comes out of your own mouth. You know it's the "right" thing for the character to do in the situation, but you're loathing saying it at the same time. As are the other players. It's that sense of loathing that puts the humor in the game. We laugh because we don't want to acknowledge how horrible it all is, and perhaps how small parts of our lives resemble the play in mundane ways.

You keep wanting to say, "Oh my God, I can't believe that you said that, you poor pathetic player, you. But it was soo right that I can see how you couldn't have sad anything else, so it sucks to be you." Does that make any sense?

Depraved schmaved...it was a thing of beauty.
The cane was perfect...have some ice cream little girl...WHAM WHAM WHAM.

Fortuneately I was right there to collect a blood sample for future lab work.




What?
Its for Science.

Hey Ralph,

The cane was perfect...have some ice cream little girl...WHAM WHAM WHAM.

Mike messaged me earlier that there were spectators for the game. Ruth? Should I assume that Danielle and I no longer have an open invitation to visit?

Paul

Paul Czege wrote: Hey Ralph,

<FONT COLOR="RED">The cane was perfect...have some ice cream little girl...WHAM WHAM WHAM.</FONT>

Mike messaged me earlier that there were spectators for the game. Ruth? Should I assume that Danielle and I no longer have an open invitation to visit?

Paul

Jared A. Sorensen wrote: I think that's pretty much how the PARANOIA RPG should work. That game has a built-in survival mechanism that interferes with the "I want my character to get vaped" mindset that the game seems to *want* to get across.

Hi
I'm a bit lost trying to figure out is going on (a common condition for me, I admit).

What I think I got so far is that it's a game where you all play the twisted henchmen of an evil mastermind of some form. I've gotten from this thread that something about the game encourages players to roleplay their characters as the horribly deformed things they are.

Anything else I should know about this game that is attracting & revolting me in one united action?

Nick Pagnucco wrote: Hi
I'm a bit lost trying to figure out is going on (a common condition for me, I admit).

What I think I got so far is that it's a game where you all play the twisted henchmen of an evil mastermind of some form. I've gotten from this thread that something about the game encourages players to roleplay their characters as the horribly deformed things they are.

Anything else I should know about this game that is attracting & revolting me in one united action?

As a player, you're dealing with three attributes: Weariness, Self-Loathing, and Love. Love is crucial. In playing Albert the Albino, my ambition was to earn enough love through clumsy-but-charming acts toward my master's date to 1) earn her romantic interest and 2) get enough decency to overthrow the master. However, I lost all that love when she died, despite my intentions to save her when no one else was looking. My hapless albino succeeded only in transforming his newfound love into a pale zombie (which made him no longer interested in her, alas -- her radiant skin was what he loved most).

Yeah, that's it Matt. You're rooting for them in a way. The same way that you root for Dr. Moreau's creatures when they kill him. Because no matter how bad they are, they're really only extensions of the Master's will.

Having once taken out a Master in a playtest, I can tell you it's a joy when it happens. Cathartic.

Mike

My only regret in that game is that I never got to turn the dishwasher on.

I sooooo wanted to turn the dishwasher on...late at night, going to get a midnight snack...snick...

It would have been for Science.

Hey Matt Snyder,

That's a great summary. Right now I'm just so mentally close to the game that I can't seem to describe it without going over much into the details. Thanks for posting it.

Paul

Good lord, I want this RPG.
Are there any specific comments about the color being comedic versus oppressive? What I mean is does the game focus specifically on one form, or is a 'dial' put in somehow?

Either way, I like what I'm hearing. I'm just curious.

Hello,

Mike, I presume you did not use the Endgame mechanics? Or did you use them, but the requirements were not realized?

Paul, if you don't want me discussing mechanics of the game yet, just let me know.

Best,
Ron

We never qualified for endgame. Or more precisely we never qualified for endgame based on what Mike and I could remember about how it worked.

We played the whole game with mechanics from memory so there were likely some areas that were mechanically incorrect anyway. What I view as the most important mechanic...that being gain a point of love always from any human gesture and then roll to see if you gain self loathing, we ran with pretty well. Even though we didn't make too many rolls, it was the primary thing that drove most of the actions of the game. Earning love and then trying to avoid losing it when your connection gets killed.

But its a statement about how powerful the tropes of the genre were that we fell right into play.

Um...

Wow.

I think I'm going to need to order a Forge Booth Care Package this summer and have it shipped out to L.A. Can such a thing be done?

Christopher

$100 (round number, does not attempt to approximate actual value) of all new Forge-endorsed indie games at GenCon, as allowed by availability? That would be kinda cool, assuming they're all ashcans, of some sort.

Otherwise, I would simply say arrange with someone going to pick up some games for you.

The name of the game, and the vague discussions I've heard mentioned prior to this didn't really catch my attention, but this sounded immensely entertaining. If anyone ever wants to try to run a one-shot of this in indie-netgaming on a night I can join in, I'd definitely be game.

Is the game available online anywhere?

Jake

The world metrics I kept low and equal so that there was a chance that the players could meet them in one session. And by my reckoning, they got close on a couple of occasions. But not quite there. Which, as Matt pointed out was just fine. We all had a good time, and even speculated what the futures of each character would be in the short run, and how they might eventually get to take a stab at the Master. The following session would have rocked, had it been given a chance to occur.

What I really like about the endgame is that the results seem to follow well the way the character got played. If you have a character that never really tried to redeem himself, and did heinous acts, he'll end up dying a horrible death himself. Those that are pathetic but try may end up adopted by the townsfolk, etc. Basically, whatever the story of that character was, gets wrapped up neatly at the end by the mechanics. Really cool.

Jake, like Paul said above, it's not available until GenCon. So you'll have to wait until then. Afterwards I think he'll be putting it up as a PDF. And if this doesn't get played a lot at GenCon, I'd be very suprised.

Mike

Not to step on Paul's feet about this (he's been busy getting his game to the publisher) I know that print copies will be for sale at Gen Con (as stated) and he wants to sell the rest thru the Half Meme website. After the print run is done I believe his intentions are to sell pdf only.

Kudos to playing the game out of the setting, early 1800's eastern Europe, and making it totally work.

I would like to add that yes, you as a player do lots of horrible deeds and the strangest thing is that it is all funny. And not in a psycho-killer kinda way, but a 'my God what a terrible things that makes the story so great' way. My best moment (for those who didn't have access to the play-test forum) involved my 16 year old male character who's more than human was that he was mistaken for a woman, which correlated to the grand stage actor Master. After he had been publicly sodomized by the master then rejected for a young woman, Ambrose had the opportunity to save this girl, the Master's next rape/murder victim. I had alot of different options here: save her, grope or kiss her (very male) or kill her myself for revenge. But, instead, while she was being restrained by another minion to return her, I took her shoes. Self centered and telling her she was doomed all at once without a word. Ugh.

Kudos to playing the game out of the setting, early 1800's eastern Europe, and making it totally work.

What a cool sounding game. Should be on my 'Buy' list.

A stray comedic thought
Tattoo - "Mr. Life with Mr. Rourke" -- the Fantasy Island edition

Edit- Any chance of an indie-netgaming run by you folks?

I think its a shame that this game wasn't included in that Dang Le Mon Mori/ Kill Puppies for Satan thing that happened awhile back. Someone should do that again someday it made for great reading.

Bob McNamee wrote: Any chance of an indie-netgaming run by you folks?

That would be up to Paul.

I've got no problem with it, as long as you don't post game text or rules summaries.

Paul