The Forge Archives

I ran a game of My Life with Master last Saturday. It went well and we had a lot of fun. This was the first time anyone of us had played MLwM. It was also the first Narrative-style game any of us had played.


Introductions

All of us have fairly extensive role-playing background. All of us have played on MUSHes before (and we know each other from Firan, the MUSH that I run). We had not gamed together as a group. I'd run D&D 3E games for some of them. Lisa and SarahScott played in one political-based campaign, and currently play in my new D&D 3E game where I'm trying out some drifty Nar techniques; Dave played in my old Gam/Sim-style D&D 3E campaign. I'd never run a game for Claire. I don't think she's ever played table-top games before. SarahScott is relatively inexperienced at tabletop role-playing. Lisa has played longer (mostly D&D and Shadowrun) and has run a couple games.

Dave reads a lot of comics, has run a supers-based MUSH, and has played in some of the tabletop games run by Fred and Lydia of FATE fame. I was worried at the beginning of the game as I described the premise and he said he wasn't in the mood for a dark, gothic horror game. After all, I'd invited them to a dark, gothic horror game (this was clear from my descriptions of the game, I thought).

Claire had wanted to just watch. When I pressed for a reason (expecting her to say it wasn't her thing or she was shy about tabletop role-playing), she surprised me: "I don't want to commit to something then find out it's boring. I'm worried that people will be upset if I quit the game in the middle and I don't know if I'll like the game." Fair enough, I told her. The game, I thought, could handle the rapid exit of any player. I promised her that if she got bored, she could quit and we'd let her kill off or "disappear" her character in an appropriate manner.

I'm close friends with all of them. Dave and Claire are dating. Lisa and SarahScott are good friends, and they get along all right with Dave and Claire.

I've been gaming for decades, mostly as a DM for various versions of D&D. Some WEG Star Wars and R. Talsorian Cyberpunk (2013, 2020), plus short-lived excursions into other primarily-1980's games.


Preparation

I read the rules four times over the course of a month or so, then invited the players to my house. We played in the living room upstairs with a fold-out table in place of the coffee table. The table was a little too large for the size of the group and I regretted a lack of intimacy this created. The room was too well lit and I considered shutting off some lights once or twice but abandoned that idea. It seemed cheesy. In retrospect, I should have done it and lit some candles. (I would at least have known where they were later on when the power went out -- after the game ended.)

This was intended to be a one-shot. I created a blank character sheet and a rules reminder sheet similar to those in the back of the MLwM booklet and distributed these to the players. My goal was to play the game as written, without Drift.

I started by explaining the premise of the game and the expected roles of the players and GM. I talked briefly about what the five numerical stats meant.


Master

Then we launched into a half hour discussion of who the Master should be. First we set some parameters. The Master would be Mental not Beastial. We wanted a more cerebral Master. He'd be mostly human and there would be few metaphysical or magical elements. He was a Collector of sorts (he ended up being more of a Feeder).

We collectively invented Dr. Forrester, a scientist and doctor and member of the Royal Medical Society in London. Dr. Forrester was researching an elixir of life that would cure all disease (and he, himself, was dying of cancer or something similar). The doctor had acquired an ancient Mayan artifact that extracted life essence from people and he was bubbling life essence through rubber tubes and glass beakers to make his potions. He had yet to perfect his potions, though, and while some worked in a minor way, none had the sweeping cure-all effects he needed. He was driven by his Need for more victims to provide the life energy that he sucked out of them with the artifact and by his Want to impress the Royal Medical Society (RMS) and show them he was right.

These days, he believed that the life essence of children was stronger than that of adults, so he was sending his minions out to kidnap kids. He'd extract their life essence, leaving them as grotesque, wrinkled, gray-haired children and make his potions. He'd test each formula on the shriveled kids, often killing them. Dr. Forrester and his minions moved from town to town across Europe, disappearing just before the authorities caught up with them.  Things had recently changed, though, as the RMS was in just one week meeting in the very town in which they'd just settled. In one week, Dr. Forrester must have his elixir so he could show them all he was right. The doctor was convinced that he was doing the world a service and that a "few hideous deaths" were an acceptable price to pay to cure the world of disease.

The process was totally interactive. I supplied some guidance and suggestions, but mostly the players invented the Master. Our process at first created a more cerebral version of the doctor, who was searching the world for clues to an ancient mystery. I pointed out that his goals weren't very horrific and the game would probably play better if we turned up the volume a bit on the evil. They did the rest after that, coming up with the artifact, the need for children from whom to extract life essence. I supplied the Royal Medical Society with no objection.

Because we wanted a one-shot game, we set the Reason of the Townspeople at 5 and set the Master's Fear at only 3. I also gave their characters 2 points of Love for their two Contacts.


Minions

After we formulated the Master, I explained more of the rules and suggestions for minions and we brainstormed ideas.

Dave created Vladimir, Dr. Forrester's strong-arm. Vladimir's role was to do the dirty work, actually kidnapping kids for life-force extraction and "cleaning up" messes when the Townspeople started to catch on. Vladimir could kill anyone easily unless the doctor ordered him to do it. He could not understand what children were saying unless they were screaming. He was motivated by his need to find a cure: he, too, was dying of some disease. Vladimir had two contacts. Agatha was a barmaid that he slept with. She had a young son that he also liked.

Claire created Annabelle, a financier of sorts. Her role was to manage the money for the doctor and procure equipment and food and lodging for the team. She could convince anyone to loan her money unless they suspected it was for children. She could not pass up embezzlement {unless...}. Annabelle considered herself separated from the vileness of what the doctor did. She was just moving money around. The doctor's influence over her was through blackmail. He had information on her that could get her jailed for embezzlement. I cannot remember Annabelle's contacts.

Lisa created Elizabeth, the most warped character (at least at first glance). She was a puppeteer with few morals at first. Elizabeth was limited by her inability to speak with her own voice unless she was using her puppets (she could only speak through the hand puppets). She could convince anyone but children of just about anything. Elizabeth was a freak that the doctor took in and gave a job so she felt an obligation to help him. She had befriended a cook at the hotel where they were staying.

SarahScott created Emma, a frustrated nurse who wanted to be a doctor in a man's world. Her fate was sealed, though, because she fainted at the sight of blood except when it was a kid's blood. I don't remember her strength. She saw the doctor as a driven man with a noble purpose. She tried to stay out of the process of actually extracting life force from people but she was deeply interested in the chemical research. She was also very religious. Emma trusted a young friar.

The character creation process was stop and go. We had difficulty coming up with suitable More Than Human / Less Than Human traits. It was harder to tie them into the Master's premise. I think that this process the next game, however, will prove easier for us, now that we've done it once. The players helped each other and we brainstormed ideas openly.

The strange puppet ideas were mine but Lisa latched onto them quickly, cackling with glee. With MTH/LTH, I was more active than I had been, because the players were obviously having difficulty and were looking for ideas. I didn't force anyone to do anything; I just supplied ideas and tried to explain how their choices would impact game play.


Play - Round One

I began the game with rapid "around the table" scene framing, starting with Vladimir. Dr. Forrester approached him and "asked" him to follow one of the married couples in the Town back to their house and kidnap their kid. Vladimir was happy to comply and did not even resist. Dave caught onto the game quickly, improvising the creation of a couple he saw at the restaurant and their young son. I framed aggressively, forwarding to the sun going down and the lights in their house going out one by one. Vladimir climbed a tree and found the child's room. I narrated the scene inside the room then asked Dave what he was doing. We rolled dice for Villainy and I think I narrated the outcome -- the kid gagged and wrapped in a blanket tied with rope and writhing around on the bed like a larval beetle. I complicated the scene with the arrival of the child's mother. Vladimir didn't need to roll Violence dice because of his More Than Human and the player narrated grabbing her from behind the door as she spotted her bound son, grabbing her, and snapping her neck. She screamed as she saw her son and the whole house woke up. Vladimir jumped out of the window, bundled kid in his arms, and ran back to Dr. Forrester with the victim. Vladimir earned a point of Self-Loathing for this.

I had a harder time with Annabelle. The character was not closely tied to the doctor's machinations and her More Than Human / Less Than Human were only marginally tied in. I engineered a scene where the doctor angrily insisted that she secure 500 gold crowns (in gold, not notes) by noon the next day. She exercised her abilities on the local banker, but he just didn't have enough gold coin to give her. She found Vladimir and asked him if he knew anyone who might have that much money. He pointed her to a horse trader (invented by the two of them). Annabelle flirted with the charismatic horse trader and convinced him to loan him the coin. Because she knew she'd never pay him back and thus his business would be destroyed, she made a Villainy roll (and succeeded). The next morning she picked up the money and took most of it to Dr. Forrester. Of course, she had to embezzle one coin. This fact did not escape the doctor, and he threatened her and forced her to do something more vile in the next scene. She gained a point of Self-Loathing for her villainy.

Elizabeth the puppeteer's first assignment was to go down to the school during a lunch break and lure a bunch of kids back to the hotel for a "private puppet show." She cheerfully played pied piper with enthralled children, led them to a private room, closed the door, and let the doctor's thugs bind them and prepare one for extraction. She gained a point of Self-Loathing for her villainy.

Emma the wannabe doctor had up until now been only a researcher. Now the doctor was pulling her deeper into the evil. He ordered her to perform the extraction process on the newly kidnapped boy while he managed tubes and admixtures. She resisted but failed (gaining a point of Weariness). I had the player make a Violence roll to see if she could go through with it. She succeeded, draining the kid of life and gaining a point of Self-Loathing. SarahScott had createad Emma with 0 Weariness and 3 Self-Loathing to start. She was on a rapid path to The Horror Revealed because she knew it was difficult for her to resist Master and it was hard for her to fail at Violence.


Play - Midgame

After the first round, I tried to continue to circle around the table with short scenes, giving each player one roll of the dice and some narration opportunities. This proved difficult as players pulled each other into their scenes. Vladimir started resenting Elizabeth for her success with kidnapping that was greater than his (and Dr. Forrester's high praise for her and her later mockery of Vladimir for his inferior "catch").

Emma introduced the doctor to her friend, the chef. Dr. Forrester invited the widower chef and his son to dinner. The plan was that Emma would take the son off to a potty break at some point while the father and the doctor talked, then Emma would fake an attack on her and come back with an alarm that someone had run off with the kid. Emma was only partly convincing and the man threatened to go to the Constable. Dr. Forrester ordered Vladimir to take care of the guy. I think he directly ordered him to kill him, and of course his More Than Human forbade that. Vladimir ended up knocking the man out, dragging him to the outskirts of town, breaking both his legs, and leaving him "for dead."

Emma continued to fail her resistance rolls and thus she was stuck in the laboratory, killing more children in more horrible ways. Three at a time. Then the doctor asked her, "When is life most potent?" He was hinting that it was at the moment of death and he wanted her to strangle the children to death and extract the life force at the last second. She interrupted him and suggested that life was most precious in the newborn but he put that off for now. He had three children strapped to chairs waiting for the process and the RMS scientists would be here in 6 days! She resisted his order and failed (and gained a point of Weariness) but was able to interpret his order as killing them how she wanted, so she injected them with potassium chloride (and gained another point of Self-Loathing, bringing her to 5). In the next scene for her, Dr. Forrester sent Emma out into Town to find a pregnant woman who would give birth in the next day or two. She wandered town and ended up at the monastery where her friend, the young friar, prayed. He sensed trouble in her as she vaguely questioned him about pregnant women, and he invited her into the confession booth. This was a great scene, as Emma told half-truths and outright lies while she "confessed," and she even tried to get information about her next victims from the friar. She left and eventually found a down-and-out prostitute, took her to the hotel and gave her a clean bed and said they'd take care of her. For this, I gave her a point of Self-Loathing for villainy.

The doctor had Elizabeth bring her friend, a grocery clerk, to meet the doctor at the hotel. It was a recruitment mission and Elizabeth realized this was corruption of an Innocent. I think she failed her Villainy roll and the girl sensed something was wrong and ran off in fear when she first saw the doctor. Later on, Vladimir made a Connection with the girl when he visited her and warned her to get out of Town to save her life.

Meanwhile, Dr. Forrester had ordered Elizabeth to go talk to the Town Constable, who was sniffing around the hotel since the kidnappings. He had questions about the doctor but Dr. Forrester wanted neither to interrupt his work nor to get within capture distance of the local law enforcement. Elizabeth sensed the trap and realized that if the insane puppet-talking lady went to the Constable, they'd arrest her immediately. The doctor must be setting her up (he was). She went to Vladimir and convinced him to talk to the Constable in her stead. Well, Vladimir set her up anyway. Elizabeth ended up running off into a dark alley to escape the Constable's Deputy, whom she later garotted with her marionette (gaining 1 Self-Loathing for violence).

Sadly, I cannot remember much of what Annabelle did after that. The doctor did force her to perform an extraction as punishment for embezzling from him. She resisted and failed and hated herself for the violence she'd been making possible but she tried to distance herself more from it.

Vladimir had a touching scene with Agatha. He'd been back to visit her for sex (and gained Love) once but now her son spotted his knife and asked him what it was for. He lied, saying it was for hunting. Agatha suggested he take her son out hunting the next morning. Of course, this foreshadowed all kinds of nasty things that could happen. Worse, Vladimir could not understand the kid unless he was screaming, so he was uncomfortable spending a lot of time with him. Still, he took him out and had a "bonding" morning with him and gained a point of Love. Dave had been creative in twisting the doctor's orders to allow him opportunities to gain Love so he was rapidly approaching End Game conditions.

Emma was trying to get out of the lab still. The doctor ordered her to aid him in a C-section on the prostitute. She hadn't gone into labor and he was sick of waiting. She knew she'd faint at the sight of blood so she could not help the surgery, but he'd deliver the baby, clean it up, hand it to her, and Emma would do the life extraction on it. The game was definitely getting into vile gothic horror now. Emma begged the doctor to release her from this task, applying Desperation and then Sincerity but still failing her resistance roll. This triggered The Horror Revealed. After brainstorming with the other players, SarahScott narrated a scene in which the oldest captive child, a teenager, had killed the other children in the "holding room," then himself, in a mercy murder-suicide. We left one of the kids alone, narrating him into a different room, since he was one of Emma's Contacts.

As the game progressed, Emma triggered The Horror Revealed twice more. The second time, the player narrated a scene of the Town blaming the murder on her Contact, the young friar, and burning down the monastery / church. The third time, she narrated a scene involving the people rioting and burning down other buildings in the Town. Somewhere along the line, we collectively decided to lower the doctor's Fear to 2 to speed up the game a bit. His grip on the Town was slipping.

Vladimir invaded a hospital and stole newborn babies and brought them back to the doctor.

Elizabeth was still on the run. She was seeking revenge on Vladimir and was planning to kill or kidnap his Contacts. I had inadvertently allowed her to "leave" the Master and thus she had no tie to the doctor anymore, yet she was not Captured. I allowed her to continue play at her whim, and she developed her Connections and sought revenge.

The doctor handed Annabelle a sack and asked her to dispose of it discreetly. She did what she was told without looking in the bag or asking questions. As she dumped the bag in an alley, it opened and one of Vladimir's stolen babies rolled out. It had the wrinkled face of an old man, was covered with hair, but was otherwise like a baby. She was horrified. She shoved the baby back in the sack and looked for a better place to hide them. She found an open grave at the cemetery, tossed the bag in, and threw some dirt on top of it.

Vladimir visited Agatha and confessed to her that he was involved in the kidnappings. She freaked out but he insisted he was going to stop the doctor. Agatha reminded him that she'd trusted him with her son. She kicked him out of her house and he promised he'd return after he'd put a stop to all the violence. He got his last point of Love and I called the End Game. This was technically a mistake, since he had not successfully resisted the Master here, but no one seemed to mind.

Dave framed the scene. Vladimir returned to the hotel and confronted the doctor. He said that he didn't care if he died, that he couldn't kill anymore. It wasn't right. Dr. Forrester told him he was being irrational and told him that, yes, he would kill again.

Elizabeth framed herself back into the hotel. I made her confront the Constable first. She knocked him out and left him in the kitchen and ran upstairs to find Vladimir (and the doctor).

Annabelle had returned, too, and she joined Elizabeth, peeking through the door and listening to Vladimir confront Dr. Forrester.

I had the young friar come to the hotel to check on Emma. She tried to keep him from stumbling into the horrors in the rooms off the hallway, but he saw too much. The friar saw the room full of murdered children and the room with the dead, fileted prostitute. He was now a witness. The young friar was stumbling around in horror when Emma pushed the artifact against his chest and sucked his life out. Then she went to her remaining contact, a young boy, and fatally injected him with potassium chloride, telling him that he would not have to suffer any more and that he would not suffer like the other children had. Emma joined Elizabeth and Annabelle at the door.

Vladimir listened to Dr. Forrester ramble on about his destiny and how he was chosen by God to cure the world and that the power of life and death was in his hands because God had given him the artifact. He told Vladimir that he would kill again and told him to get back to work. Vladimir replied, "You're right. I do have one person left to kill," and he stepped towards the doctor. The doctor stepped back. Vladimir advanced. The doctor stepped back again, towards the door where the rest of the characters were. Vladimir attacked him. His minion vs. Master roll was a few points shy of success but the others had stepped in to help.

Emma delivered the final death blow. As the strangled doctor gasped for air, he fell into the chair where he'd tortured and drained of life so many victims. Emma pressed the artifact to his chest and sucked every bit of life remaining from his body.


Epilogue

Vladimir, Annabelle, and Elizabeth had angled towards the reintegration with society option. Dave narrated a happy ending scene with Vladimir marrying Agatha and adopting her son and them living happily ever after (no mention of the fatal disease). Claire narrated a happy ending scene in which Annabelle took the money she'd embezzled and built up her own business and was successful thereafter. Lisa narrated a happy ending scene where she escaped to a far-away land and founded a drama school where she taught puppeterring to children.

SarahScott's scene turned out the most twisted. She'd killed off her Connections intentionally to have 0 Love. This opened up the option for her to become an agent of Fear in her own right. She narrated that Emma escaped with the artifact and found work at a prison. After the doctor's death, she believed that the potency of evil life force was the key ingredient in making the right elixir. She experimented on insane criminals at the prison, where all the inmates called her Doctor Emma. She'd never had a problem with killing to develop the elixir, but she rejected Dr. Forrester's belief that he was God's chosen, given the power of life and death over everyone.

We'd played for about 5-6 hours, including group preparation. We retired to the basement den and chatted with Steph and watched the recorded season finale of Battlestar Galactica, then I sent everyone home a half an hour past midnight.


Analysis

I stuck to the rules pretty much, though I made some mistakes.

Should I have pushed Claire harder to get her character integrated with the theme? Is that my responsibility as GM, as ambassador of the new game, or is it her responsibility as player? I did warn her during character creation.

Was it okay to let Lisa's character, Elizabeth, become a "free agent"? It didn't seem to hurt anything.

I think I did the players' work for them sometimes, stepping in to do narration and framing when they didn't seem to want to. They're not used to this kind of game and I'm sure everyone has those moments when they just don't know what to do. Instead of letting the game halt, I kept it moving, but sometimes I think the players fell back to that as a default. I need to be more patient sometimes.

I missed the second End Game condition (that the minion must successfully resist the Master). This didn't seem to harm game play at all.

I strayed from the rules a bit in letting the group modify the Master's Fear down a point in media res. This was intended as a game accelerator. The players wanted to reach End Game by the end of the play session.


Reactions

The game was a blast. I think everyone had a good time though I wonder about Claire. She had been hesitant to play at all, citing lack of tabletop role-playing experience and worry that she'd be bored. I'd told her that she could leave the game at any time without any kind of stigma but she played through till the end. Still, her character was the least connected to the doctor, and this kept her from realizing the maximum potential of the game.

I had been worried about SarahScott too. She seemed sullen at the end of the game. I was worried that the darkness of what her character was doing was getting to her emotionally. It turns out she was just tired and low-blood-sugar. She had fun and enjoyed the twistedness of it all.

Dave exclaimed at least once, "This game is really fun!" as Vladimir caused all sorts of trouble. He played the game as a challenge to get to the End Game first. I know he felt cheated that he didn't get to kill the doctor himself, but his dice roll just wasn't there. The rules really worked though, and his drive to gain Love so he could kill the Master was in line with the goals of the game design. He understood best of all the players how to frame scenes, improvise and create non-player characters, and create interesting conflicts for the entire group.

Lisa had a lot of fun. We talked the day after the game and she still seemed quite enthusiastic about the prior night's sickness.

I loved it. It was a challenge to GM but I think I did all right. It helped me understand the Narrativist style of game better. Reading theory isn't enough; you have to play these games. The session made me feel confident that my own Verge rules were going in the right direction.

Oh, the game had a few thrilling moments that I haven't mentioned. There was a raging thunderstorm all night and I could see a few frightened faces around the table. Also, at one point, my wife Stephanie came bursting through the front door into the room, trying to get out of the rain, but she did it so quickly and suddenly that it surprised us all. We jumped out of our chairs and shouted, I think. It had been a tense moment in the game and she had frightened us a bit.


My Life with Mr. President

I talked with Stephanie that night after everyone left. The storm had knocked out the power and so we lay in bed and chatted. I described the game to her and she turned up her nose at the horror elements. I explained that the game didn't have to be horror. The rules even suggested that it could be repurposed for a Mafia hitman game. She hit on the idea that it would make a great political game and we discussed how we could play My Life with Mr. President, the story of a cruel U.S. President who is running for re-election and needs his minions to do his dirty work to get him re-elected and keep the country running. Minions might include senators and other congressmen, cabinet members, White House staff, Pentagon and DOD officers (for example, a general or CIA director), high profile reporters or news anchorpeople, radio pundits, or even rich political supporters.

Love would be reinterpreted as support to overthrow the President. Violence could mean political violence, such as destroying someone's reputation, or it could be literal violence, usually perpetrated by the minion's own paid cronies. The Townspeople are U.S. citizens. Fear is the President's ability to control people. Self-Loathing and Weariness remain as they are. More Than Human / Less Than Human would most likely be social and political abilities: "Able to intimidate people to get anything he wants, unless it's a woman."

I talked Steph into running the game, with my help at first. I want to play!

Cool game.  I thought it would be a Supers version of MLwM, but this was very interesting.  Neat that most of the players went for the happy ending, and one went for the "Force of Fear" ending, and everyone got what they wanted, instead of getting strung up by the mob.

Quote from: AdamDray
My Life with Mr. President

I talked with Stephanie that night after everyone left. The storm had knocked out the power and so we lay in bed and chatted. I described the game to her and she turned up her nose at the horror elements. I explained that the game didn't have to be horror. The rules even suggested that it could be repurposed for a Mafia hitman game. She hit on the idea that it would make a great political game and we discussed how we could play My Life with Mr. President, the story of a cruel U.S. President who is running for re-election and needs his minions to do his dirty work to get him re-elected and keep the country running. Minions might include senators and other congressmen, cabinet members, White House staff, Pentagon and DOD officers (for example, a general or CIA director), high profile reporters or news anchorpeople, radio pundits, or even rich political supporters.

Love would be reinterpreted as support to overthrow the President. Violence could mean political violence, such as destroying someone's reputation, or it could be literal violence, usually perpetrated by the minion's own paid cronies. The Townspeople are U.S. citizens. Fear is the President's ability to control people. Self-Loathing and Weariness remain as they are. More Than Human / Less Than Human would most likely be social and political abilities: "Able to intimidate people to get anything he wants, unless it's a woman."

If you substitute "presidential candidate" for "president", this is pretty much the story of Primary Colors.  Defintely play this and tell us how it goes!

That all sounded pretty grotesque, in the best possible way.

I'm a bit confused, did you have more than one dice roll per scene?

Usually two: one for an attempt to resist, then one either for Getting the Love or for Violence / Villainy in pursuit of the Master's order.

Some scenes seemed to call for more than one die roll and sometimes I had them roll on the spot. Other times I interrupted their scene and cut away for a bit, then returned to give them another die roll. I tried to follow the "only one die roll per spotlight" guideline. That is, not one per scene, but one per GM-player spotlight time. A scene might take two, rarely three, spotlights to complete.  Most scenes finished with just one, but none of those counts includes the attempt to resist the Master.

Adam,

I tried to follow the "only one die roll per spotlight" guideline. That is, not one per scene, but one per GM-player spotlight time.

Very nice. I'm not sure the game text is as clear as it could be on this, but you've intuited my intent.

And I have to say, I'm totally thrilled that your online gamer friends enjoyed bridging the divide to face-to-face play. Congrats on your game.

Paul