I've been trying to explain the magnificence of The Watch for a year. Tony explains it after a weeks thought.

I've been trying to explain the magnificence of The Watch for a year. Tony explains it after a weeks thought.

As is becoming usual, I am stupendously glad I get to game with Tony Lower-Basch on a regular basis.

Originally shared by Tony Lower-Basch

The Watch, Dreamation Long Con, Pt. 1 (long)

I usually do my write-ups closer to the event, while the little details are fizzing and popping in my head. The Long-con (three slots, each slot four hours, telling one long arc) of Anna Kreider's new RPG The Watch (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/medeiros/the-watch-rpg/) is an exception for the best reason: I've had to think and digest on all of the cool stuff that happened, and each day I've found better things to say than the previous. I'll probably be better able to tell this story a month from now, but I've thought enough for a write-up, so I'll get it out there before Dreamation is just ancient history.

The first thing you will always, always, hear about The Watch is that it is a story of women and non-binary characters. And this is true! And it's a great thing to talk about, because representation is soo important. I'm going to let someone else talk about what that means. I want to talk about something that is (to my mind) equally radical that Anna is doing, and not even calling attention to.

We did the usual: Got our eight players together and learned the system a bit, absorbed the setting (tribes put their past history behind them to unite against The Shadow that threatens to consume them from without and within), and worked up past connections. I wanted to avoid, as much as possible, playing "A woman," as if that were the end of a conversation about personality, rather than the beginning. You know how it goes "This is Dirk, he is brooding and sad, but with a core of insecurity, this is Paldrin, he is bright-hearted and open, sometimes to a fault, and this is Lindelle, she's a girl." To give myself a creative constraint to force me to dig deeper than that, I sat out selecting play-books, and got the one that everyone else passed on: The Eagle is a vain, bragging, up front character specialized in two things ... kicking ass at the front of a charge, and being brave about opening up to people between battles. So, naturally, I mini-maxed the heck out of her ability to do those things. From the table discussion I gathered that other people were likewise finding where their character strengths were, and honing them.

This gets to the bit that I think is particularly brilliant about The Watch: There is not, as best I was able to discern, any dichotomy in the game between Fighting Stats and Interpersonal Stats. Everybody is going to have a particular way that they're good at fighting when swords are out and blood is flowing. And everybody is going to have a related way that they're good at the emotional work that binds a unit and a community together. Some people build their friends up. Some people get sloppy drunk and drag your shy self on to the dance floor. Some people call folks in. Some people keep other people's hard secrets. Some people are steady rocks that everyone knows they can count on... and just as in combat, the team works when people play to each other's strengths and tailor their moves toward setting the volleyball for other team-members to spike.

I'm getting ahead of myself though ... this is what I learned during play. What actually happened next is that they took the two people who had chosen to have their characters be Corporals, and lined the rest of us up against a wall, and had the non-coms take turns picking us out, like pickup soccer. Then each group of four went off to their own table (and not knowing what happened at the other table was maddening, let me tell you!) Our team was:

Our corporal, Laustec, who was amazing at taking on other people's secrets and hurt. Played by Albert D.
Spooky priestess-reconnaissance girl Peyma, who kept everything under wraps (literally!) until it was time to cut loose. Played by George Austin
Natural-born XO Tabak, who was sooo strong and reliable at lending support and backup when people needed. Played by Christo Meid

We got the inimitable Aaron Friesen as MC, and they threw us straight into a mission: Take back a fort! The dice did what dice do, and we had an overall success but with pretty severe complications. During the battle Tabak got cut off and did terrible things under the Shadow's influence (and we ended up with three more bodies to bury, rather than three rescued hostages), and we also had a "Shadow-problem to be named later."

Laustec, being the non-com, ended up absorbing the brunt of both of these brilliantly. Tabak came to her to confess, and Laustec took on the responsibility and covered up the crime. Then one of the NPCs came up and straight out tried to knife Laustec, her eyes blank with the Shadow's influence. Laustec's priority was "conceal what's happening with my cloak, so nobody knows." So she gets stabbed and is hugging this girl until the shadow passes and the girl breaks down. As far as any of the rest of us know, the NPC (whose name eludes me, and it's killing me!) just went up and got swept into an embrace, then broke down crying. Laustec discreetly pockets the knife, pats her on the shoulder, and goes off to bind her wounds.

We loved our corporal.

There was hugging and crying freakin' everywhere... because that's a game move. You can gain camaraderie (and other bennies) by opening up and being vulnerable, or arguing, or carousing, and we certainly had plenty of opportunity for all three: My character (Presti) came to Peyma and choked out "These were our people before the Shadow ... I knew that guy (points to corpse), I played with him by the river, and now I've >choked sob< I've killed him! I don't know how everyone else can seem okay with this! Peyma, I know we have to be strong, but I'm n-not okay-ay with thi-i-i-isss!", and we both hugged and cried it out, and collected Camaraderie (the "help your team-mates" currency). I quickly realized that if my vain, bragging Eagle was not going to be a complete twit, she would need to be bragging about how awesome her team-mates were, so I went around assuring people that they were the best thing ever. We had a funeral for those we slew, and during my flubbed attempt at a eulogy we got attacked and kicked some more ass ... then more emotional work, with Peyma reaching out to Tabak, and everyone closing circles to make sure nobody had failed to connect with anyone.

The emotional-work scenes ripped away the unreality of the battle we'd just fought, and turned it from something we could imagine as a tactical exercise into, retroactively, a heart-and-guts trial of trauma and bravery. It made perfectly clear that the only way we were going to get through the battles to come would be by counting on our sister warriors. And then it backed that up with very concrete game currency. So good.

At the same time, the emotional work was advancing our tactical options: Tabak was emotionally in ruins about what she had done, and was confiding left and right. As she looked for redemption, she concluded that she needed to make some way that the Shadow could never get to her again. And, of course, Laustec and Peyma were ready and willing to help, though they argued over the best way to do so (Tabak confessed to Presti and got a forgiveness so complete and unconditional that she then couldn't talk to Presti about her need for redemption ... it was bizarre and cool). So when a group of Shadow-held tried to take the fort back, our unit jaunted through the spirit world to pop up right in their back ranks, and disrupt the heck out of their formation, to seize a shadow artifact for Tabak's plans.

Now I heard a lot about the difference in dice between the two tables ... I don't know, I wasn't at the other table. But I'll tell you what I saw in this second battle: We had some good and some crummy rolls, again, but now we had a huge bank of camaraderie points from the emotional work we'd done between battles. So when something went wrong, we had the in-game resources to mitigate the damage, and could narrate our team-mates swooping in to save the day. We did that a lot and it made a huge difference in how the second battle turned out (pretty much flawless victory, post-camaraderie-spend, which would be our trope going forward).

While Peyma and Tabak used the shadow-artifact to make an awesome amulet of shadow-protection that saved the day a ton going forward, Laustec went to report to our higher-ups. And when she did so, she immediately totally confessed that under her direction the unit was meddling with shadow-stuff, that she wasn't going to tell our superiors who was doing it, because it was her responsibility as corporal. She insisted that any consequences that fell upon the group fall upon her. The higher-up (whose title eludes me) commended her for her honesty, sentenced her to ten lashes in front of the unit, and promoted her to sergeant.

And, of course, with the drama ratcheted up that way we flipped the heck out on hitting our distinctive ways of doing emotional work. Tabak argued with the higher-up, then went and comforted Laustec. Presti was all guilt-prone about having caused this (she had her contorted logic, it was not sound logic, but she clung to it). Peyma was kicking over stuff and shouting that this wasn't right, the sergeant stood up for us ... and yeah, maybe Presti got a little breathless at Peyma's unleashed passion. There may have been some lip-locking there. Camaraderie all around!

That's the thing, see? Throughout that session is became clear that there wasn't a distinction between fighting with a sword on the battlefield, and giving each other high-fives afterwards. They were both essential acts in the overall struggle. That is so freeing! It's way more than simply saying "Women can swing a sword too!" (although that's important). It's saying "There is more to fighting for your people, and for justice, than some toxic vision of unending combat. It's something you bring your whole personhood to, and we're going to tell a story of the whole thing." I think that is radical. I want to do a ton more.

A lot of discussion of The Watch is going to center around gender, but for me this distinction isn't a gendered one: I've played to these exact stories (in far less supportive systems) with character names like Spencer, and Forzy (4Z-LX). This is something that comes up (for me) whether I'm playing a guy, or a girl, or a genderless droid. The emotional work of drawing a group together? That is my RPG jam. It was so very, very cool to see a rules system that recognized that not merely as an alternative to combat and conflict, but as another piece of the jigsaw puzzle. It was great to see a system where you could approach each other with your fists clenched, or your arms opened, and neither was wrong, neither had priority over the other, they were all part of a big complicated emotional world.

And that, my friends, was session one.

In case you're wondering, yes the Kickstarter is still open. And it's in Canadian dollars, so, y'know ... all the jokes about currency exchange rates. It's a terrific game. I'm looking forward to eventually seeing how it plays in a Play-by-Post or Hangout format, because I think it really benefits from being more than a one-shot ... folks were visibly digesting their experiences, and they came to the second session with new insights and building excitement. But that's for Part 2.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/medeiros/the-watch-rpg/

Back and Spent Again: or, How Adventurers Pay The Rent

Back and Spent Again: or, How Adventurers Pay The Rent

There's a start of session move called Pay The Rent. You lose some resources, based on conditions. In particular, you lose assets or else take harm. You lose Bonds or else take stress. You lose Credit or else take Jaded.

In a previous version, I had you pay rent when you came back from an adventure.

During a session, I realized I could do better.

When you come back from an adventure:
For each Harm taken, spend an asset. For each you don't, mark another harm.
For each Stress taken, spend a bond. For each you don't, mark another stress.
For each Jaded taken, spend a credit. For each you don't, mark another jaded.

You get no particular benefit from this, you merely stop your wounds from getting worse.

Dear friends

Dear friends,

Have you made the world safer for your neighbors this week?

In the last week or so I've:
-- Gone to a huddle, been disappointed in the organization, and tried to push other people to organize
-- Called my house rep, asking when he'll be pushing for impeachment
-- Built in poverty and privilege rules for my game about fantasy adventurers. This game has morphed pretty hugely from where it began, and may do some good.

The work crap came to a head, and should be coming back to a normal state. I came out a winner, and should have extra money! I'll know when the paycheck shows up in a few days.

Some of that extra money is going to the ACLU, but I am questioning what to do with the rest. Comments welcome.

This week, I plan to:
-- Host a postcard party to help our friends contact their representatives
-- Complete that game, get it to the civic games contest and move that part of my brain onto something else.
-- Continue to bother my house rep about impeachment.

Love to you and yours! He will not divide us!

... and Back Again: or, How adventurers pay the rent.

... and Back Again: or, How adventurers pay the rent.

Last night, we playtested.

Adam Dray, spoilers here for a game you're gonna have to judge. Use your own judgement on whether you should read.

I warned my friends that this game is not safe, and that it may be emotionally harmful.

I decided up front that agender dwarves with visible prosthetic would be the most privileged group. For each axis you aligned, you got a bonus -- you needed to pay less in upkeep. For every point you were not like the privileged group, you had a minus -- life was more expensive. If you were not matched up on all of them, you got an even worse minus.

If you matched up on all three, you got a bonus.

That is, if you were an agender dwarf with prosthetic eyes then you got an effective -2 to each poverty stat. If you were a male dwarf with prosthetic eyes, then you get a -1 to two poverty stats stats.

(lower poverty is easier.)

I told them none of this, and let them decide. My players have grown pretty accustomed to choosing from six gender options and maybe a dozen prosthetic. Because I often think such things are cool, and make for more interesting conversations and characters.

One player chosen to be an agender dwarf with aforementioned eyes. Their rent due was zero.

Another player chose to be a male human with no prosthetic. He had to pay 2 resources of each type. That is, he had to pay six resources to get the same thing the other player did from nothing.

This went about as well as could be expected.

By which I mean the character who had to pay so much thought it was incredibly unfair. He's not wrong, but that was kind of the point.

He thought he should be able to chose, because its a game. I empathize, but the eye rolls from folks who aren't straight white men was kind of fantastic.

The character who didn't have to pay upkeep was all "why should i bother doing things? life is peachy"

I'm going to change things around a bit, make it a random draw table, and change prosthetic to origin -- essentially, immigration status.

Oh, and I'm going to get it to ten pages. Somehow.

This game is very close.

This game is very close.

What game? I don't know the name, but its about fantasy adventurers returning from the adventure.

It really is; there's a move for going on an adventure and everything. And you've got classes like Paladin and Thief. And bard.

That being said, the MC is tracking a poverty rating for each character -- which is how much you need to pay when you pay the rent. This rating is based on privilege levels, which are invisible to the player characters. That is, I didn't tell them before they made unalterable decisions.

At the same time, the three poverty fronts are also spewing out new problems -- ones related to safety, friendships, and your place in society. These have countdown clocks. If the PCs ignore them, they get worse until they make everything terrible.

Next steps: remove the hard currency, simplify, cut to ten pages and submit to the civic games contest.

I need a name. Who can name games?

That feeling when ... you've got your print outs for a playtest, and want to revise everything.

Got any RPGs about poverty, oppression, loneliness?

Got any RPGs about poverty, oppression, loneliness?

asking for a friend. well, for me.