Catch Your Hare

Tonight, we were meant to play A Taste For Murder. Sadly, Steve didn’t turn up as expected. Apparently, we’d forgotten to tell him to come.

Instead, we played The Dying Earth RPG, which is my new favourite game.

It’s frustrating. It was a superb game, but if I try to describe it, it sounds rubbish. Look, I’ll try.

So Alex and Steve are on board a ship. They argue about what should be done with the cook and the cook is hung overboard, while little jumping fish take bites out of his skull.  Meanwhile, they argue about some stuff with the rest of the crew. They attempt brain surgery on the cook, who now has no cranium, but it fails. Eventually, they both get thrown overboard.

They drift to shore, arguing, then go to a tavern. Simon orders the finest food, which is brought to him. It is a fish and it is clearly very expensive. He attempts to construct a fake purse and, to do so, steals dice from the gamblers next to him, but they notice. This leads to a long conversation.

Meanwhile, Alex is in the stables, talking to a mysterious stranger, who persuades him to go on a dungeon crawl. He goes into the tavern and shags the innkeeper’s daughter. Somewhere along the line, he eats Simon’s fish and attempts to convince him to pay for it. Simon orders another fish for Alex.

Then the locals try to saw off Alex’s face and they run away.

See? It sounds completely incoherent. It was really good fun, though.  How can I explain this?

It’s proceeding apace. I’m doing background reading.

I’ve just finished Life in the English Country House (that link is to Amazon.co.uk, but our friends across the pond can get it from Amazon.com). It’s an extraordinarily fascinating and beautiful book that details country houses from medieval times until 1940, when they were mostly requisitioned for the Second World War. I’m genuinely sad the book is over and wondering what to do with myself now.

I’m also watching the Channel 4 series The Edwardian Country House (which our American brethren know as The Manor House). It’s a wonderful programme, halfway between documentary and reality TV, in which modern-day people are put into an Edwardian house, to live and work in Edwardian roles. If you’re in the UK, do buy this: it’s three pounds from Amazon.

When I’ve finished, I’ll write a big chunk of setting material, which will go into the Taste For Murder book. Lots of wonderful stuff about etiquette. The second footman wakes the first footman at 6.30am, with a cup of tea; who wakes the butler at 7am, with a cup of tea; who wakes the master of the house at 8am, with a cup of tea. Lots of hierarchy. The hallboy isn’t allowed to talk to the butler. Superb stuff.

It’s sold 350 copies, as from today, and I’m very happy.

The next thing I’ll publish is A Taste For Murder.

Graham

When you join, you do exactly what someone else is doing. Someone goes on a quest: you accompany them. Everyone’s drinking in a tavern: you order a drink. Everyone’s lawful good, so you’re lawful good too.

This isn’t always bad. In traditional games, where the GM takes you through an adventure, it makes perfect sense. Everyone fights the goblins: you fight too. In Lacuna, everyone’s hunting the Hostile Personality: so do you. If you did something else – for example, if you tried to negotiate with the goblins – it’d be annoying.

From a storytelling point of view, however, there’s a problem. When you join someone, you implicitly accept that:

• You’re the same status as them. If you’re fighting side-by-side, neither of you is dominant over the other.
• You’re not opposing them. You’re fighting side-by-side, not against each other.

But, to make play interesting, you need status differences and you need opposition.

In most games, that’s the job of the GM. The GM provides opposition, by throwing things at us: monsters, obstacles, NPCs to negotiate with. The GM provides status differences, too: by providing high-status NPCs to humble or low-status mooks to beat up.

The problem comes in GMless games (the Shab Al-Hiri Roach, for example) or egalitarian games (In A Wicked Age). These games need both opposition and status differences to make them interesting. If you simply do what everyone else is doing, you’ll kill the game.

Beware, then, of joining. Firstly, look for chances to oppose what someone else is doing.

But don’t stop at opposing. That’s the blunt instrument. Use status, too. Patronise the other characters. Be subservient to them. Better still, patronise them at first and be subservient later.Doing what everyone else does kills a story. Do something different instead.

In the next post, I’m going to take this further (and, um, slightly contradict myself) by talking about mirroring.

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