S/Lay w/Me: At the precipice of Hell

Last night, Oliver and I ventured into the bold, uncharted lands of Ron Edward’s “S/Lay w/Me,” a two-person game of short, Sword&Sorcery stories. We played two games, the first with me playing “I,” the second with Oliver in that role (for those unfamiliar with the game, “I” is the player responsible for creating a lover and a monster for the “You” player’s Hero; the game text is formulated in the first person from the point-of-view of the “I”).

Preparations

The game starts with “You” making a very brief character by reading a short, ritual statement, then choosing a brief character concept which is fleshed out by a ten-word description of the Hero’s physical appearance. “You” then chooses a general setting from a list of one-line descriptions, which it is then up to “I” to flesh out. Finally, “You” chooses a Goal that he wishes to obtain.

Oliver chose the concept “I am a scholar with my head spinning with knowledge and wisdom, but I am still able to kill,” and described himself as “a monk in flowing robes with steel gauntlets.” He chose the location “what remains from when they tried to dig to hell,” and the goal “the bones of a fallen angel.” Thus, he handed the reins over to me.

The “I” then fleshes out the location, and creates a lover and a monster for the Hero to deal with. “I” also sets a Lover score (the number of times the player can script “Goes” aimed at the lover) and a Monster Score (the number of dice “I” can roll before the “Match” ends – see below).

I described the location like this:

The city of Honour’s Gate, built underground as a base for the Apostle King’s failed crusade on Hell. Today, the city is inhabited by the degenerate progeny of the diggers, called the dross, and by a cadre of angels, standing guard by the gate to the abyss.

The Lover:

The Angel, Seraphina, who is a low ranking angel in the guard. She is old, but does not know anything about love – because she has only met the degenerate dross. She knows, that if she loves a mortal, she will thrown from Heaven’s Grace.

In game terms, she loved him: Innocent, Forbidden, Open-Hearted, Knowledgable. Her score was 2.

The monster:

The Demon Raniel, who is a fallen angel. For a thousand years since the battle in the abyss, he has waited. But now, the Prince of Hell has given him the chance to leave it – in return for opening the way for the hordes of Hell. Fast, Deceit, Civil, Singly. Score: 5

Some parts of the Lover and Monster was changed during the cause of the game as the story evovled. For instance, Raniel changed name (Raniel is his final name) and was suddenly acting alongside his brother, Aramiel (which, I guess, would mean he was acting “in a group”).

Playing it out

I started the game by simply reading out my description of the location. Oliver then described how his Brother of the Steely Hand ( a name which appeared during play) arrived as part of a company of pilgrims travelling to the point of this holy war. We had a little negotiation, as I had thought of it as a monument of shame to the Apostle King’s hybris. We agreed that the pilgrimmage was an act of rememberance and penance for the shame of the forefathers.

I then set the first go (which must somehow contain the lover, though “I” am not required to tell who it is).

The company has been trecking downwards for a couple of days underground. In the tunnel, magically glowing crystals have been mounted to light the way. But in the thousand years since the age of the Apostle King, many of them have dimmed or gone out, leaving long stretches in complete darkness.

Now, the pilgrims see a light of a different hue: ahead, they are approaching the gates of Honour’s Gate, lit by huge torches, as well as by the flames from the raised swords of the angelic guard at the gate.

At the gate, the pilgrim’s giude raises his iron-bound staff and pounds on the gate. A trio of angels decent upon them, one male and two female – one with red hair, like the flames of her blade, and one impossibly bright, with hair as fair as light (the Lover).

The two females go around the group, fixing each in turn with her gaze, then returning to their sergeant, pronouncing their half to be of pure intentions.

Olivers Go: The pilgrims proceed to the centre of the city, to the great Seal that has been erected on top of the shaft that leads to the battleground at the border of hell. Here, each pilgrim deposits a stone he has carried from his home, both as a sign of the burden of guilt carried by all of them, and as a symbolic gesture to keep the Seal to Hell firmly in place.

My go: Around the Seal, six angels pace. They go, evenly spaced, every second looking inwards at the Seal, to prevent anything from passing it from below, every second looking outwards, to prevent anyone from the crowds of pilgrim and dross from approaching the seal.

Suddenly, a stone lands feebly quite close to the monk. On of the outwards looking angels immidiately spots the culprit, and grasps the guilty dross by his throat, holding him several feet from the ground.

The monk gets to the ground, and asks the angel to have mercy on the dross. The angel tells the dross that he will temper his justice with the offended party’s mercy – but that the wretched creature should not expect such leniency in the future. The Monk then retreats from the Seal.

Finding a way

Oliver’s go: The Monk goes to one of the bridges up to the angel’s bastion, hanging above the seal, at the top of the cave in which Honour’s Gate is built. He proceeds up one of the narrow marble bridges that lead to the bastion, and ask the angelic guards at the gate for an audience with the captain of the angelic contingent, Adamantus.

Adamantus receives him in an amphitheatre in the bottom of the bastion. At the centre is a whole, through which hangs the great crystal which is the main source of light in Honour’s Gate.

The Monk asks Adamantus for permission to go past the Seal to recover the bones of the Angel. Adamantus refuses his request blankly, berating him and his order for thinking they have any right or duty to castigate the fallen angel – an angel’s duties are to the Lord alone! [Thus starteth the match!]

My go: We now zoom from the closeup of the haughty Adamantus down through the hole, past the crystal, and down to the Seal below. The six guards are going their prescribed rounds, not letting a thing get past their attention. Suddenly, one of the mounds of rocks on the seal collapses, stone tumbling down its side. The closest inwards looking angel fixes it with its gaze.

But while he is looking intensely at the fallen pile, a small stream of glowing embers and flames flows out from under the Seal. It flows under the cowl of one of the pilgrims, who spasms, as if in rapture. Then, he rises and leaves, his eyes glowing red under the cowl.

Oliver’s go: Though having been denied by the angels, the Monk does not cease his attempts to go past the Seal. Instead, he seeks out the other group resident in Honour’s Gate: the dross.

Going into a dross neighbourhood, he is quiclky accosted by a gang of dross, telling him to give up his valuables. He objects that he is a monk, sworn to poverty – but the dross counter by pointing out his robes, made of sturdy, new cloth, and his gloves of the finest steel.

He then states his purpose with going into their neighbourhood. The dross quickly change their attitude, and they take him to a cave down a narrow corridor. Here, the leader of the pack turns out to be the King of the Dross, who is more than willing to give him what he wants – provided he will perfom a small favour in return.

The dross king tells him how his forefather was the chief engineer responsible for the tunnel to Hell. He had a censer, which he unfortunately had to leave behind when he had to flee for his life out of the tunnel. If only the monk could bring this with him back, the king would gladly ensure the passage. The monk is told to appear at the Temple of the Twenty Columns four hours later.

Meeting the Lover

My go: As the monk is leaving the Dross, I decide to reintroduce the lover.

As he walks down the streets towards the Halls of the Pilgrims, glowing red eyes are staring at the Monk. A cowled figure starts following him, and is reaching out to grasp him from behind. Suddenly, Seraphina swoops out of the sky to cut down the former pilgrim.

Oliver’s Go: The angel and the monk go alongside each other to the Halls of the Pilgrims. Outside they sit down, talking until the monk has to leave to go to his meeting. He parts with hoping they will meet again.

My go: …but all is not well. The head of the slain pilgrim-turned-demon suddenly ignites, and, hiding in the torches along the way, follows the angel and the monk. As the monk turns away, it flows over and hides in the flames of Seraphina’s sword.

Down the Hellhole

Oliver’s go: The monk now meets up with the dross king and his cohort in the Temple of Twenty Columns. In the floor is a hidden trapdoor. Underneath is a tunnel, leading to a smaller, cobbled together looking relative of the grand Seal above.

Two Dross mystics open the Seal to let the monk through. Before he passes, the dross king reminds him that he will not be allowed through without the censer.

Outside is the immense expanse of the bore hole. Straight down it goes, with only two (seemingly) small paths leading down the side. The monk proceeds towards the bottom.

My go: The monk walks downwards for what could be hours or days – time flows strangely here. He passes skeletons both human and otherwise – and close to the top are several skeletons, and even a few rotting corpses of what appears to be dross.

He reaches the bottom. Here, everything is covered in piles of debris from the horrible war. Whole hills and paths are formed by the piles of bones and armour of the fallen.

Suddenly, from behind a pile of bones steps Raniel. He sneaks up behind the Monk, and moves to strike him. But the monk hears him, and catches the sword in his gauntlets. He is thrown clear by the force of the blow.

Oliver’s go: the monk and the fallen angel battle amongst the debris. Suddenly, they turn a corner – and there is the Chariot of Aramiel, and with it, the remains of the fallen angel.

My Go: Above, Aramiel’s soul splinter has acted. When Seraphina looks at her sword, it bewitches her, causing her to follow the monk. She discovers the Seal of the dross, flies into a rage, kills the mystics and jumps into the hole beyond. Here, she starts to fall, landing on top of Aramiel’s Chariot.

[This was the end of the Match. Oliver had won, earning two good dice. He chose to save Seraphina, leaving Remiel free and himself wounded. Seraphina would leave with him]

Raniel knocks the monk away, and starts the ritual that will reincarnate Aramiel in Seraphina’s body. All the bones dissolve, and flow into Seraphina.

But the monk is not out of the picture. He overpowers Remiel from behind, interrupting the ritual. Then, he presses the palm of his gautlet with the holy symbol of his order impressed on the metal, into the hole in Seraphina’s chest. The gauntlet, hot from Remiels fire, brands Seraphina, closing her wound.

Enraged, the five splinters of Aramiel’s soul grasps the monk, burning him with their fire. At this, Seraphia awakens. She jumps up, cutting the flaming tendrils with her sword. The monk falls into her grasp, badly burned and barely conscious.

Seraphina jums up, flying upwards on her burnt wings. She goes out through the hole where the dross had their seal, and comes out onto the square of the great Seal. A great crowd of pilgrims and dross gather, looking at the spectacle, and down the hole where the two came out, until three angels force them away. Adamantus flies down, landing at a building and coldly observing Seraphina and the monk – she has removed herself from the Lord’s grace, as far as he is concerned.

But unseen to anyone, the last pilgim suddenly spasms. He stands up, and leaves the area, Raniel’s eyes glowing through the cowl.

In the end, Seraphina and the monk leave, the angel supporting the monk who is wrapped like a mummy underneath his robes.

Thoughts on this round

This was our first round, and had to sort of feel our way around.

Oliver had made a Hero who was unlikely to ever engage with any lover – a chaste monk. To go with this, I’d made a chaste angel… not the best combo. In fact, I think you should strive for both heros and lovers who are not actively against sexual interaction.

We seemed to be going through the goes very rapidly. This may partly be because a Go is only vaguely decribed as a “significant, forward-moving event.” In the end (after both games) I came to the conclusion that we needed to think it as setting an entire scene, stating, to ourself or to the other “this is what happens at the end of this scene.”

And there is probably more – but I don’t remember, and I have another post to write about this. So, until next time.

[Reading Group] And the next piece is…

I have, by a unanimous vote (Johs was the man, and the vote was his) been chosen to select the next scenario for the reading group.
That left me to decide which criteria to use. One of the great things about the reading group has been getting to read many different and interesting shapes the genre “scenario” can take. So I could definitely choose something that I really want to read.
On the other hand, one of the main reasons for this whole endeavour is to highlight scenarios that have not received enough attention, scenarios that we think other people should read – and play, of course.

And so, these are the scenarios I considered, but didn’t choose (a list I provide as much for my own benefit, so that I may come back to it next time I have to choose):

• Den Gale Kong George: I played this at my first Fastaval, and was very impressed with it. Besides, I would like to read one of Mikkel’s scenarios, but have never gotten around to it. HOWEVER: It’s not as if Mikkel needs advertising, being already one of the brightest stars in the Fastaval sky.
• Dragens Dom: I’ve read, but not played this scenario. It looks neat – HOWEVER I have no personal experience with it, and since I’ve already read it, I would rather read something else.
• Occulus Tertius: I played this a long, looong time ago – in fact, it may have been my first Fastaval scenario ever. HOWEVER: I have no idea about the qualities of it, and remember it as a rather conventional game – so I don’t really want to endorse it before I’ve read it.
• Memoratoriet: I’ve always been curious about this game. Besides, it’s a larp, and I want to further larps as a scenario form. HOWEVER Morten was one of the writers on Memoratoriet, so it wouldn’t be proper for him to review it. Besides, I want to play it, not read it. And is it even available online?

This leaves this as my choice:

• Nantunaku Manga, by Malik Hyltoft. This was the first scenario I played at Fastaval 2005, and I had the great privilege of having Malik as GM for it. It won the Audience Otto that year, something I thought was well deserved – it was the same year I played Den Gale Kong George, and while that was quite an experience, it was nowhere near as much fun as Nantunaku Manga. Since then, I have run it a couple of time, and I have a great fondness for it – for several reasons that I shall not gush about here, but wait until the proper review, so that a) you’ll have a reason to read that, and b) my co-reviewers won’t be influenced by me in their reading of the scenario.

And there you have it. I am anxious to know whether you will be as fond of it as I have been, and whether my recollection of it can stand up to scrutiny.

Reading Group: Unik

I had decided that I didn’t have time to do a reading group review this month – then I started reading the scenario, and decided I might not HAVE the time, but that I wanted to MAKE the time.

Because Unik is rather quite unlike any of the other scenarios we’ve looked at in the Reading Group. Locked Doors may have left the resolution of the game firmly in the hands of the players, and the Mirrored Reality may have been purposefully unspecific in its instructions to the GM – but both are firmly in the business of telling a story – a specific story concerning some specific characters in a specific location.

Unik is also in the storytelling business – but it doesn’t tell a specific story, it contains no set locations, and its characters are archetypes and functions within a greater, archetypical story: the story of lovers that meet, fall in love, only to fall apart and start the cycle all over again (there, I gave the ending away). All the specifics are invented by the players during play.

In fact,Unik reminds me more of a storytelling Indie game than a scenario – a story game with individual characters and a firm framework to govern collective storytelling (I imagine Polaris or maybe Shock or In A Wicked Age to work like this).

Oh, I’d better remember to say that Unik was written by Klaus Meier Olsen, and won the Jury Special Price at Fastaval in 2005.

Unique Toolbox

Superficially, Unik contains at last some of the trappings we expect from a scenario: a number of scenes in order and a group of characters. But the characters rotate and mutate, and the players set the scenes rather than the GM or even the gamewright. In many ways, the “scenario” is more like a tool box that will allow players and GM to create a story of a certain kind

Characters are divided up in two parts that are brought together to form a starting point for what you are going to play. On one hand, each player has an archetype, defining an approach to love and relationships: the Hunter, the Beast, the Ascetic and the Profet. On the other hand, there are four Positions that move from player to player from scene to scene. The Positions define what function or role you will have in the scene – either Lover, Beloved, Friend or Enemy.

So, do the specific characters you make follow the Positions or stay with the archetypes? Funny you should ask – because it is not clearly stated in the game text. Two things are stated explicitly: First of all, the Positions remember what has happened to them earlier. This would indicate that the character follows the position. On the other hand, the text mentions that changing environment from scene to scene is entirely possible, having one scene in revolutionary America and the next in Ancient Greece.

I think it is done this way to allow the players to make the story they want to make, instead of a rigid game getting in the way of good storytelling. It is like a good writing prompt: it will provide structure to fuel your imagination, and not get in the way of it.

Alongside the characters, there are 13 scenes. Together, they form the story arc of a particular kind of love story, going from the initial meeting to the break and potential reconciliation. Each scene has a title that should be written on the blackboard in order to remind everyone what we are doing at the moment, a section that should be read aloud, a “GM only” section concerning the purpose of this scene and, finally, a number of suggestions about how this scene could look.

Finally, the text contains a section on three tools the GM can use to keep the game under control – he can Ask the players questions about the game world (“What does it look like?” “What is he doing now?” and so on and so forth); he can Instruct the players, thus dictating how the players should play things; finally, he can Narrate, taking active part in the storytelling and potentially creating a Narrator as a fifth (rather peculiar) character in the game.

Scene before?

The game is a very easy read, and enjoyable as well. It is built around a simple idea, using a great number of literary concepts without any remorse to create a potentially powerful tool for storytelling. I am particularly fond of the way the game is fixed very firmly around a number of archetypes and archetypical story structures.

There are issues with it as well, however. The number of scenes seems rather large, and they are very fixed in their place in the structure, without giving good guidance to the GM about making the scene do what it’s supposed to do. Several scenes underline the importance of the Lover and Beloved not breaking up yet – why not let them, skipping scenes if this would serve the story better.

Also, the game seems to have a very fixed idea about what a relationship is, and how they develop. It is not for me to say how accurate that idea is – but what if the players do not agree with this idea? A gamewright should of course be allowed to tell the story they want to tell – just as a writer, a painter or a movie director. And if you write a very specific game with fleshed out story, characters and location, you can allow yourself great control over the development of the story. However, the more of the story you want the players to provide, the more space you should provide for the players to shape the story after their own mind. Now, I can see how each scene in Unik has a function in the story arc – but it might have been a good idea to allow for some flexibility, in case a story develops in a very different way from the standard layed out by the game.

Arrogance and schoolmasters

As much as I enjoyed reading the game, there are a couple of places that made me wince. The worst is this:

“Desværre er spillere ofte forbløffende inkompetente, så de kan sandsynligvis ikke håndtere det ansvar, scenariet giver dem”

["Unfortunately, players are often astoundingly incompetent, and so, they probably can't handle the responsibility the scenario gives them"]

Now, I shall freely admit that I have often had the urge to yell loudly at players, at Fastaval or otherwise. But equally often, I have raged against gamewrights who believe that their text is blatantly simplistic and self-explanatory and that all the GM’s reading their game will think (and GM) like they do, when their text is really an obscure mess, understandable only by themselves and the close circle of their friends who think like they do.

In any case, no matter your feeling towards the people (“cretins”) who is going to play (“ruin”) your scenario (“masterpiece”), expressing such arrogance is not going to win you any friends. And it is NOT going to help your scenario being run smoothly if you start out predisposing your GM against your players. In fact, with all the focus this game gives to making the GM a facilitator of player creating, it seems downright counterproductive.

On that note, I’ll turn to the other quote I want to mention here:

“Så vær ikke bange for at irettesætte dine spillere, hvis de ikke udfører deres funktion [som dikteret af deres Position]  godt nok. I sidste ende er det til alles bedste.”

["So don't be afraid to reprimand your players if they don't perform their function [as dictated by their Position] well enough. In the end, it is the best for everybody”]

NO, NO, NO! This is probably one of the worst pieces of advice I have heard concerning how to get people to contribute and open up to common storytelling. Kids, don’t do this at home. If you start rebuking your players you risk them being a) mad at you for challenging their ability to play their character (in particular if they feel superior/equal to you), b) sulky and uncooperative (if they feel almost equal to you), or c) afraid to contribute to the story (if they feel inexperienced or insecure in their own abilities). None of these are desireable in a game – especially not when you can’t play around a noncooperative player, as in this game, where everybody will be playing a main character approximately two scenes out of four.

Now, I do admit that I am reading this advice like the devil reads the bible, and that it might be appropriate to point out if a player is not living up to the Position he’s playing – it is easy to being confused at the changing Positions, and start just playing your Archetype. My issue is simply with the tone of the advice – especially since some GM’s are blathering idiots who will take advice like that seriously.

Shall I compare thee to a Unik day

Arrogance aside, this game is, by the read of it, a gem. If nothing else, it’s worth reading through for inspiration, both for writers of Danish style scenarios and “Indie”-style gamewrights. Playing this would probably be a grand, if possibly a bit surreal, experience. It also exposes players to the important role played by archetypes and schematic stories in human thought.

It is also an interesting study in player-GM relationships, casting all the players as semi-GM’s, instead asking the GM to moderate this “GMs’ conference.” Not that it is unique – many other (newer) games, Indie games in particular, have a similar distribution of narrative power.

Unik may not be as unique as when it came out. But it is still solid craftsmanship, still well worth playing, or reading, for that matter. Besides, it is one of the relatively rare scenarios that can be replayed or even read, then played, without it taking anything away from the enjoyment

What can we learn?

• Make sure the freedom of the players matches the expectations placed on the players.
• Don’t predispose your GMs against their players – especially not when you need them to work together so closely.
• Simplicity and brevity are no crimes, as long as you tell your players and GMs all they need.

Who should play this?

• The players should not expect to be fed a great story. Rather, they should be keen on taking equal part in the storytelling, not being afraid to get in there and define the game we’re playing
• As the players take more control over the story, so the GM retires. The GM who runs this should not be a control freak, yearning to perform and entertain the players. Rather, he should be content to oversee the players’ game, jumping in only when necessary.

Also read Morten’s, Johs,’ Thais’ and Simon’s reviews

Imperiet 40k: What I want to write

I have cheated myself. That’s right, I’ve played a rather nasty trick on my own, sorry self.

See, I’ve been wanting to get into the scenario writing scene for quite a while. But writing a game for Fastaval is a daunting task, and even though I come up with many great ideas, I alway say to myself: “Next year! Next year, I’ll have better time be better prepared, the heavens will open, and an angel is going to come on floating down with the perfect scenario that I always wanted to write.”

Well, this year, I have trapped myself. I am now comitted in a way that will actually lose face if I don’t deliver. I, in a moment of optimism and bravado, said I’d contribute to the anthology, “The Empire 40k” – a continuation of last years success, “The Empire,” an anthology of small scenarios, based on the world of Warhammer. This year, the masterminds behind the project have decided to follow it up with a game set in the sci-fi version of that world, Warhammer 40k.

So, there is nothing for it. In a month, I must hand in something that is, at least at first glance, a playable scenario. Good thing I know what I want to write, huh?

Sigh – if only! I know what story I want to tell, I have the general run of the thing – the problem is that it’ll require a load of mechanics that I don’t know how will work. So, I will post my thoughts here, and hope someone can help me make sense of this mess. But first – the concept:

Necromundian Roulette

In the filthy Underhive, the strong rule. Rival gangs fight each other with decrepit weaponry over everything with any value, with desparate Ratskin tribes defend their territories against the enchroaching overlings. Meanwhile, rabid zealots hunt anything with even the slightest resemblance to anything that is not in strict accord with the Emperor’s law, while well-equipped noblemen just hunt anything, without discrimination.

In this mess lies a little pearl. A small, filthy piece of heaven. A settlement of some prosperity, that has not yet been torn apart by warring gangs, greedily trying to extract anything of value from them.

This place has been frequented by two gangs. Living an uneasy truce, they have kept other, greedier gangs at bay.

Now, the truce is off. Something has happened, and the town is not big enough for the two of them any more.

But because they are surrounded on all sides, and hate the outsiders more than they hate each other, they have decided to settle the matter with a minimum of bloodshed. They will decide the matter through a game of Russian Roulette.

The feel of the game

In the game, the players take on the role of two members from each gang, taking turns biting the barrel, and pressing. In between, they recall memories of the settlement, reaffirming their commitment to driving out the filthy scum at the table with them, and calm their nerves with copious amounts of synthetic whisky.

The GM’s role will be as an umpire, both in and outside the game. Ingame, he’ll play the role of an innkeep, official, or other figure of authority who has been asked to ensure that everything happens according to the accord set out by the gangs in advance. Outside of the game, he’ll be helping the players navigate the rules, so that they can use as much focus as possible on telling their character’s story.

Right, so what are the rules?

Ideally, there should be a toy gun at the table. The players should pass this around and act out the pressing of the trigger when their character does likewise.

Every time a player receives the gun, he sets a flashback scene of something in the character’s past in the settlement. The other other players add to this story, the enemies by trying to ruin the picture the player is trying to paint, the ally by supplementing/supporting it. I have three types of scenes in mind:

1. Cherised memories/reasons to live: The character remembers something that ties him to the place, positive images that makes it important for him to live on in the city. The opposing players try to add elements to the scene that destroy the idyllic image the character is trying to paint, thus eroding his will to live, but also tarnishing the city, spoiling it for them as well. Mechanically, the character is trying to make it less likely for him to get the bullet, while the opponents try to make it more likely.
2. Grudges/ reasons to hate: The character remembers something the opponents have done that makes it important for him to see them defeated. This should of course be done in a way that doesn’t violate the concept of the other character – one of the tasks of the GM will be to help make this work. The opponents try to erode the grudge, showing how their character is really totally innocent of any crime. Mechanically, this makes the character better able to defend against the opponents (I think).
3. Sins / Crimes commited / reasons to repent: The character remembers some crime he has commited against the settlement. The character has commited the place he loves, whether by foolishness, pride, neglect, malice, or in pursuit of personal goals. I think the opponents may be trying to show how the settlement defeated the threat to it, or to put an emphasis on how great the character’s guilt in this is. Mechanically, this kind of scene will give the character more ammunition to use against the opponents.

The idea here is that the players should have an incentive to choose 2 and 3 often, thus ruining the very prize they are trying to win.

After a scene, a character may choose to take a glass of whisky to wash away the memories. This will prevent some of the bad consequences. However, this will also affect his mind, making the bad memories line up, and lower his ability to resist the opponent’s attempts at spoiling his memories. Drinking may work now, but there’s a price to pay.

Note that there should be a reward for failure, at least for the active character, so that a player will never be thrown out of the game. When your cherised memory turns foul, you will have more power to do likewise to your opponent.

After the player has played his scene and drunk his fill, he’ll put the gun in his mouth, the GM will secretly roll the dice, the player presses the trigger, and the GM announces “click” or “bang.” When someone is shot, the game ends.

Reading Group: Den Spejlvendte Virkelighed (The Mirrored Reality)

The Mirrored Reality (Den Spejlvendte Virkelighed) is a scenario, written by Michael G. Schmidt for Fastaval in 1995. It was nominated for the Otto for “Best Scenario,” and has been chosen by Morten as the next scenario for the reading group.
Last time, I chose a very rigid structure for my review. Looking back, that turned out to be a bad decision – the review turned out in a very chopped up way, and I had a hard time drawing a coherent picture of the scenario. This time, I am reverting to a more free form (appropriate, since it is more freeform), though I am keeping two of the “boxes” from last time: “What can we learn?” and “Who should play this?”

The Mirrored Reality

Fear. It’s about as basic as it gets. Animal and man alike dance to its tune, playing the age old game of fight or flight. But for us, the primary fear is not the fear of being eaten. Rather, it is the fear that the world might not work – that the world we think we know is a lie; that we really live in a universe where we don’t know the rules.

Because fear is rooted so deeply within us, it also fascinates us more than anything else in the world. We seek it out, though preferably when it’s safe, in books and movies – and in role-playing games.

The mirrored reality is a game that wants to provoke fear in the player. It does this in two ways: by presenting you with a world that conforms to the norms of neither player nor character, and by evoking terrible images of violence and degradation far beyond the bounds of comfort.

The game is set in the universe of the role-playing game, Kult. In this universe, as in quite a few other (WoD and Unknown Armies spring to mind) the world we see is an illusion, enforced on us by some other entity. But this reality is beginning to fall apart – and the players are some of the unfortunate souls who happen to fall into the cracks.

The Mirrored Reality is set in a generic American city, with a rather generic set of characters, each with their own personal trauma – the Jock, the Beauty Queen, the Pizza Deliveryman, the Artist, the Religious Nut and the Average, Suburbian kid. All except the Pizza Deliveryman are college students. The game starts by showing the characters in their idyllic normalcy, on their way to a movie. But soon, they are thrown in the way of a strange, horrifying set of events, revealing secrets and tearing away the fundament of their life along the way.

Seen descriptions

The scenario is built up as a string of scenes. Each scene is described with a very lyrical version of how that scene might play out, plus a number of pointers as to npcs, subplots and so on in each scene. The pointers, when they are there, take up the bottom third of the page, the description of the scene taking up the rest.

There are many ways of describing scenes. Sometimes, you have a fairly thorough script, with bits to read out and “if the players do this, this happens” guides. Sometimes you have a very general set-up, and maybe a few pointers as to possible outcomes.

The Mirrored Reality takes a different approach – what we might call the “subjective description.” The scenario gives no precise, objective description of the events of the scene. It only hints at what the scene contains, instead giving a subjective portrayal, letting the GM share the experience she should attempt to convey.

This is an admirable attempt. It is not, however, one I’d be quick to copy. It leaves the GM with only a hazy idea of what should happen, and requires a large amount of preparation and improvisation from the GM to pull off. Most problematic is the fact that most of the scenes never tell you how to transition from one scene to the next. Why, for instance, do the characters suddenly decide to go visit the Deliveryman’s mother? The game just assumes that this is the natural thing to do at this particular point in the game.

No-choice adventure!

The lacking transitions is even more of a problem because the game is so highly linear. If this game had been a “Choose your own Adventure!”-book, most paragraphs would read something like: “Whatever you do, go to paragraph whichandwhatever.” A few of the scenes have subplots to spice things up, but they are mostly “scenes-in-the-scene” that the GM can apply to one or more of the characters. And none of them seem to lead towards the next scene.

In the beginning of the text, Michael G. Schmidt states that this scenario is for people who know the genre, and who therefore don’t need to be dragged around by the nose. That is an admirable sentiment. It just isn’t the kind of game I see when I read the text of “the Mirrored Reality.”

Of course, there may be reasons why it’s written that way. In the beginning, Michael G. Schmidt also states that horror is a very personal thing, and that he expects the GM to choose a direction with the game that suits that particular GM. That might also mean that he expects the GM to fill out the gaps in the game. But he doesn’t say so specifically – and he doesn’t give helpful suggestions along the way, to help less experienced GM’s. The subjective scene description seems like a good idea, but it can’t stand on its own. That makes for confused GMs. There is even one scene, and a fairly important one at that, in which I simply don’t understand what is supposed to happen, at all (scene 8, for those who are reading along).

Laying it out

That is not to say that this game is bad. It contains many potentially powerful moments, and with the right group, it could probably make for a great evening of roleplaying.

The layout is also amongst the better. The text is nicely laid out, in decent fonts, and spiced up with evocative pencil sketches. Unfortunately, the text contains a lot of typos and spelling errors that add considerably to the obscurity of the text.

There are two aspects of the layout I am particularly pleased with.

The first is the small band that runs at the bottom of the pages, which I mentioned earlier. It contains little titbits of gamestuff relevant to what is going on on the rest of the page, and thus, it breaks up the very linear structure that many scenario-texts have. A scenario, by nature, contains a great deal of alinearity. But too many scenarios present their material in a mostly linear form, instead of breaking up the form to accommodate the content. The Mirrored Reality does this quite well.

The second thing is the players’ descriptions of the characters. They are made to be folded along the middle, and placed in front of the player (it doesn’t say so specifically, but this is how I read the layout). One side contains information to the player, the other contains the other characters’ views of that character. I like the idea that everyone 1) will have their character’s name and picture in front of them while playing, and 2) that everyone knows roughly what everyone thinks of the others. I can see how that might help the interaction between the players.

All’s well…

All in all, there is a potentially powerful story in play here, even if the presentation of it is less than perfect. The story presented contains both the hair-raising horror of the Lovecraftian, transcendent, unfathomable terrors from beyond, and the heart-pumping, stomach-churning fear of human atrocity.

But really, despite what the game may say, it is not the Lovecraftian, but the human side of it that will have players in its grip. We may be scared by beasts and terrified by the unknowable. But that which can really send send icy water down our spine is the malice that can hide in human hearts. Even in the Mirrored Reality.

What can we learn:

• Layout is important – it can work with or against your text. Try to make the document support the nonlinear structure of your game.
• Speaking of which, if you make linear games, make sure that your GM knows how to make the transition from one scene to another. And, of course, that the players will accept the railroading.
• Subjective descriptions are an interesting concept to work with – but make sure you still tell the GM how to run the scene.

Who should play this game?

• A group that can accept the premise of the game: that there is one, and only one, way through the game.
• In Model terms, Immersionists are the most likely type of players to truly enjoy the game, I feel.
• The GM should enjoy, or at least accept, fleshing out the game and setting the mood according to her style.

And there we have it. Done in far better time than last time, though I think I’ll let it mature a bit before posting it, so it will come out around the same time as the others’.

Just a historical note, towards the end: after my review of Laaste Døre, Kristoffer supplied some helpful info on the historical context of the game, something I am completely oblivious about – I started roleplaying around ‘97-’98, and I didn’t participate in Fastaval until 2006. I had questioned why Thomas Munkholt had included such a loose system as he had in Laaste Døre. Apparently, the year from 1994 to 1995 would have made a world of difference, being the year when “system-less” (what is the proper English term? Someone told me that freeform is something different) roleplaying really came through in Denmark.

Reading this scenario, I can believe it. This game in about as “system-less” as they get, throwing flowcharts and structures to the wind to focus on the subjective experience of the players.

Aye Dark (imagined) Overlord

Today, I played both Smallworld and Aye, Dark Overlord for the first time. Both are games I’ve been quite eager to try, and both were quite positive experiences – even though I got trashed at Smallworld, getting 74 points when everybody else had between 90 and 110. I don’t feel like I know either game well enough to pass a verdict on them, and so I won’t review them here and now.

I will, however, tell you about an alternate way of playing Aye, Dark Overlord, we discovered.

We played one game, which suffered a bit from the fact that we were waiting for food to arrive, and so none of us were fully in the game. Then, later, when another group wanted to play the game, we were only four, while the game calls for four “minions” (players) and one “overlord” (moderator/umpire). Suddenly, someone said: “Do we even need an Overlord? No, it turned out, we didn’t.

Here is what we did (if you don’t know the game, what follows may not be entirely comprehensible):

Each of us took cards as usual. Then, one of us would draw the top card of the “hints” deck (a deck of cards with “typical” fantasy tropes, such as the psychic bomb or the wicked elf). He would then turn to the player next to him clockwise, take on the voice of the Overlord, and ask why this or that plan didn’t work – just like the Overlord usually works. Play then goes on as usual.

We wanted it to be so that the others had to agree when you recieved a Withering stare. We decided on an “X-factor” model (which is probably really an “”X’s got talens” show) where everyone would put a clenched fist on the table when they thought people deserved the stare.  When there were three fists on the table, the person got a stare.

The player who lost would discard his hand and draw a new one, as per the ordinary rules. But then, he would draw an extra hint card and make a new plan based on that, directing it to the person next to him.

It worked quite well. We did lack someone to keep track of the story for us, as our story sometimes turned out to be rather confusing, and not entirely coherent.

Later, I’ve come up with this way of deciding who to direct the opening of a round to: the Overlord should choose the person with the most actioncards in his hand. If there’s a tie, the person with the least number of Stares decides. If there’s still a tie, the person closest to the Overlord in a clockwise direction.

[PR] Geiger Counter: Frigid Fear

I just came home (this thing was written 24 hours ago, but only published now) from playing a game of Geiger Counter. We were five people: Ole, Andreas, Oliver, Jacob and me. We enjoyed the game a lot, and everybody was more than willing to give it another go sometime. Oliver is going to write a play report as well, hopefully including a scan of our map.

For those who don’t know it, Geiger counter is a storygame in which you jointly tell a survival horror film, along the lines of the Alien films, 30 Days of Night, the Sphere, or a host of other, marginally similar films. The idea is that you have a cast of characters, most of whom are going to die, up against a “menace,” that is, some kind of nonhuman threat that is going to increase its threat trough the film, then be fought down by the surviving protagonists. You take turns as the director, framing scenes, as well as being responsible for one main character each.

We had a long brainstorming session, finding different elements that we wanted to include. Andreas wanted a zombie game, I was quite intent on playing something with cramped spaceship corridors, and Oliver wanted “body horror.” Then, someone (I think it was Oliver) mentioned radioactivity, and we started riffing on nuclear plants. I said research station, then suddenly, someone said old Russian base under the Ural lake (or something along those lines). In the end, this is what we came up with:

• The movie is set on an underwater research base under Antarctica.
• The base had been closed and forgotten when the USSR collapsed. Now, it’s been reopened.
• The menace is some Cthuloid thing, with plenty of tentacles, spawned from experiments made back then, and inadvertantly released by the new scientists.

The characters were as follows:

• Vasilli Gregorin(Oliver): A russian bureaucrat, intent on keeping the base running.
• Michael Lloyd Adamson (Jacob): A Canadian marine biologist who wanted to open up the secrets contained in the station.
• Jorge Dreyer (Ole): An Argentinian of German decent, Jorge was the security chief who wanted to get out of there alive.
• Captain Yankowich (Andreas): A russian naval captain who wanted to make sure the Russian secrets contained within the base never saw the light of day.
• Dr. Ramin Zanjani (me): An Iranian doctor, who was looking for certain secrets to take with him from the base. I considered making it plans for a nuclear plant, but didn’t think it fitted him. On the other hand, the way it ended up was far too goody two-shoesy.

We made survival dice be some characteristic about the character that would make him strive to survive. Mine, for instance, was his rock-fast believe that the world WORKS, provided by a synthesis of his Islamic beliefs in a higher order, and his scientific beliefs in a logical, sensible world. Others had stubbornness, selfish self preservation, and a curiosity making it imperative for him to find out MORE.

Trailer

The trailer started on the surface, graduately zooming in on the base, maybe showing the nuclear reactor. I missed a voiceover or some dialogue, but in the end it turned out fine. After that, we tried coming up with a good name, eventually settling on my suggestion, “Frigid Fear.”

The game itself

The game then proceeded to the preview. Here, two Russian scientists were walking about the storage of the underwater base, stumbling upon a box they didn’t know. They open it, and light pours out. The screen “shatters;” opening credits.

The next scene was the three characters coming down from the surface (Andreas, Jacob and me) coming towards the base in a submarine. After that, we had a scene with me being rushed to the scene where one of the scientists had been killed and the other had vanished. I took a look at him, then rushed off to the med-bay. Then I framed an alternate shot of the same, seen from a dark corridor, a pov shot from “something” slithering about at floor height.

[In retrospect, the opening scenes were not that good. We should much rather have framed the scene when the newcomers arrived at the base, thus having an opening scene of everyone. This way, Oliver wasn't properly introduced to the plot untill relatively late in the game.]

After that, Andreas discovered some strange marks on a wall. Discounting it as rat markings, he orderd a goon to fix it, then went to the submarine bay, where he and Ole had a row, because Ole had ordered his men to load Andreas’ submarine. As a matter of fact, Andreas’ character would have wanted to do the same thing. But out of stubbornness, he countered Ole’s orders, and the submarine was unloaded again. Then, after I’d had a row with Ole and Oliver over gaining access to dead crew’s files and quarters (something I really wanted in order to be able to spy), Andreas and a goon found one of the dead scientists sticking out of a hole in the wall. When the goon tried pulling the scientist out, he was suddenly being pulled in instead, and Andreas failed to save him, instead finding himself Lost in the corridors.

Jacob went to the lab, and talked to a female scientist. She showed him a new kind of sea urchin they had found that had developed a very lethal toxin. We had a great scene with me (as the scientist) describing the effects, and Oliver (as direcor) cutting to shots of a goon suffering the effects.

After a scene of Oliver not noticing the lost Andreas on his surveillance screens, the poisoned goon arrived in the lab. I went to Oliver to show him; in the meantime, Jacob arrived in the lab and started examining the dead goon, when something sprang from the dead flesh and at him. He won the confrontation, and was able to get the mask off, before it could reach him.

When I returned Jacob and I examined the thing, discovered its cells were mineral in nature, then being attacked by the dead corpses that had arisen, animated by the Meanace. Using the medical equipment, including a saw and a laser cutter, we fought our way out.

Meanwhile, Andreas saw something going into the reactor room and down into the reactor water. Ole and Oliver arrived, and tried getting him out of there. Andreas won a conflict with Ole, and Ole became Hysterical when he saw what was down there.

Out in the corridor, Jacob and I, still chased by the creatures from the Med-Lab, suddenly ran into another monster. We tried running on each side of it, but we lost, and I was injured, Jacob had the corridor be Overrun. We barely managed to fight our way into the reactor room.

In the reactor, Oliver, Jacob and I were attacked by the Menace. We lost. Ole hit the emergency button, then left in a hurry, while Oliver was presumed dead, I was Alone on the other side of the containment doors, with the overrun corridor on the other side, and Jacob was Trapped in the reactor room.

Jacob had an encounter with one of the reanimated creatures, beating it soundly with the crane for lifting out the fuel rods, then spotting some sea urchins down in the reactor water. Andreas made Ole pull together, then they armed and gathered their goons, and set out down the corridor to rescue me. They failed, however, making the storage area from the prelude become Overrun as well. This, however, allowed me to leave while the beasts were engaged, and go to the lab. Here, the computer was done analysing the urcin’s toxin, and I could start working on something to fight the creatures, while looking for the documents I had really come there for.

Oliver woke up from being “dead,” and saw Jacob fotographing the things in the reactor. He tried getting the camera from Jacob, so he wouldn’t reveal the problems in the base, but lost becoming “hysterical” (we interpreted this as him losing all hope). Meanwhile, I encountered Andreas, who was going to destroy all the research. I’d just finished the “menace repellent,” but he wouldn’t listen, and just wanted to destroy everything. In the end, I tried attacking him with the toxin, but he shot me, and burned everything in the lab. (We had planned this scene, so that, no matter what, one of us would get our goal in that scene).

Ole and his goons made a barricade in the storage, but were all killed, Ole being turned into a mutant. Oliver set the reactor up for meltdown, then they all got ready to leave in the sub. (The sub-bay had been blocked by me earlier, but they found a way to get out).

While they were leaving, the hive mother suddenly left the reactor where she’s been living, exiting the base through a panorama room with all sorts of aquariums and Soviet memorabilia, all of which was destroyed when the creature crushed the glass of the room, and the water swept in.

Back in the subbay, they encountered Ole’s character as a monster, before finally leaving in the sub. They fought the creature with the sub, first using it’s robot arms to cut its tentacles, then raming it, thus killing it when it was cought in the explosion of the dying base.

Andreas, Oliver and Jacob all made it to the top. However, Oliver wanted his character to die, and the Menace still had a die left. So I scripted Ole’s revenant character coming up, eating Oliver, then attacking Jacob, who gave it a sound thrashing. The end.

Or rather… there are still a few sea urchins attached to the bottom of the ship…

Thoughts

We all really liked the game. However:

• The condition “overrun” is too hardcore. A minus 2 to all rolls effectively means that the meanace is unbeatable, making it impossible to beat the menace there. As that is the buyoff, a location being overrun effectively makes it unusable for the rest of the game. The minus should be reduced to 1, so it is easier to beat. Or maybe the buyof should be changed – all the other conditions can be bought off with play and not with dice, but Overrun needs dice to be bought off.
• We interpreted “Hysterical” very liberally, as paranoid, broked, etc. However, it might be a good idea with more psychic conditions, so that you can more easily have non-physical conflicts.
• We took too long to start fighting the menace. That meant that none of us got any conditions until the second half of the game, and that too many characters survived. It also meant that we didn’t define aids till very late in the game.
• We learned how important it is for the Director to set his scenes very sharply: He needs to set it quickly, and be very specific about the purpose of the game. What are we trying to accomplish, here?
• It really helped that someone were keeping track of the Menace and the secondary characters, so that we alway knew what was established. We need to do that even more. For instance, we had a great secondary character that only appeared in one scene. Maybe you need something corresponding to the map where you can draw every secondary character you introduce?
• We had two locations called “nondescript corridors” (though one quickly contained the creatures’ lair). However, we made the mistace of attaching them to other rooms, thus turning the map into a physical map, instead of just a visual index of locations encounters. Next time, things like the corridors and roads should maybe somewhere where you’re not tempted to connect it to other rooms – becase that ties our hands, and makes it difficult to set new locations. And, really, it’s not that important WHERE the corridor is, as long as we know it’s a corridor.

All in all, Geiger Counter is a good game, and one we’re likely to try again. One thought for the next edition, though: the rules needs more explanation. As it is, many rules are only properly explained in the examples, making it difficult to quickly find a rule.

Thus ends my report on last nights game. I am happy to say that Geiger counter lived up to the hype online.

Reading Group: Laaste Døre (Locked Doors)

Johannes Busted has started a reading group with the purpose of reading and reviewing scenarios from the online repository, Projekt R’lyeh. To me, this is quite a brilliant endeavour, with both altruistic and selfish perspectives: the altruistic is that it will make accessible some of the scenarios of the somewhat unapproachable R’lyeh. Unapproachable, because if you don’t know the games, it can be hard to know which game will be interesting for you to read. Also, it may kickstart a discussion of what constitutes a good scenario, something that is always worthwhile. The selfish perspective is this: that I get an incentive to read some scenarios, and someone to point me towards interesting games to read. It is eeexcellent!

What follows, then, is my review of the first scenario, Laaste Døre (“Locked Doors”) by Thomas Munkholt Sørensen – an oldie from 1994, chosen by Johannes. According to its Alexandria page, it won an Otto for Best Handout.

I have considered how to review the games so that it will be easy for me to do, and be of some use to the reader. I have decided to do it very systematically, dividing it up into a number of questions: “What is it?” (a brief description of the game), “What are the aesthetical qualities of the game?” (a fluffy description of my thoughts on the game as art – pretentious? Moi?), “What can we learn from this?” (what should gamewrights, and maybe players/gms as well, learn from this scenario?), “Who should play this?” and “What issues could I foresee with this game?”

And so, without any more ado, i give you…

A review of “Laaste Døre”

What is it?

Laaste Døre is a game about a group of people who are being made into scapegoats by the byzantine goverment of “the State,” the country in which they live. They are locked inside “the Department” until one of them confess to having comitted the theft of a certain, classified document. The game consists of the players trying to unearth each other’s secrets and save their own hide. Meanwhile, strange things are going on inside the building. The game quotes Kafka as a major inspiration – and it shows! The dehumanizing workings of the government come across as as inhuman and horrifying as a good, lovecraftian terror.

What are its aesthetical qualities?

I find the game to be quite an interesting read. It dumps the players into a dilemma with neither an easy nor a desirable exit, and provides the GM with means to keep up and escalate the creepy feelings the scenario lives off.

Also, the many strange occurences and the circuitous logic of the “Government” provides a surreal experience. In spite of this, the game will still seem like a coherent narrative to the players.

Apart from all that, the game document in itself is a very nice read. Nicely laid out, and with many apropriate pencil drawings, the language of the words themselves take you into their universe, making the GM feel it before even adding players. Very nice.

Who should play this?

Relatively experienced players and GMs are required for this game to succeed. The GM needs to be able to keep a very light grip on – or even let go of – the reins, and only intervene when the dynamics of the group require it. The players needs to be able to do intrigue, but should play, not to win, but to enjoy the bittersweet nectar of futility. If you’re playing this scenario, and your game has winners, you’re doing it wrong.

What issues do I see with the game?

• The game has a very rudimentary system, with three numbered stats: the character’s loyalty to the state and their personal integrety are set on a scale, so that the sum of the two will always be 10. The character’s willpower represents their selfpreservation drive, and is supposed to be used by the GM as a way of forcing the players into gradual meltdown – a kind of safety valve against wrong players, I guess. However, the system doesn’t really explain what the effects of the system is supposed to be. How does one cave in? Why not just roleplay this – if you have a player who needs this to tell him his character is falling apart, can he play the meltdown anyway? And what are the effect of canges to your Loyalty/indviduality? The rules make no explicit explanation of this, and leaves you to work it out for yourself.
• The game provides the Gm with inspiration for two kinds of little notes to slip the players – memories and suspicion. I guess it makes sense to ask the GM to write out suspicions themselves, as they can then take into consideration what has been going on in the particular instantiation of the scenario – but why not make preprinted handouts of memories that could just be cut out and handed out?
• I’m not sure if the players will be able to figure out what the story of the game actually is. There is a detailed story in the GM section, which is the real story of what is going on. I don’t think the players will be able to piece this story together in play. If not, it’s a shame. I know that in some games, it’s best to keep players (and characters) somewhat in the dark, in order to rack up suspence. I just don’t think that is neccesary in this game.
• The game asks the GM to set up the room as an imitation of the main location of the game, and encourages you to do things in semilive. It still has some scenes that are definitely to be done in a traditional P&P style, and it never discusses how, and when, best to go from one to the other. A luxury issue, I know – but still.
• The game is apparently intended to run real time. But I think it may be stretching it a bit that this game is set to run for six hours. I’d say four to six. On the other hand, if the game is forcibly halted after six hours…

What can we learn from this?

Locked Doors can serve as example in a number of areas:

• Write story text, even if it’s GM’s eyes only metatext, in a language appropriate to the feel of the scenario. This game is mostly written in a language that brings to mind the Kafkaesque universe we’re set in, and that makes it easy to get in the mood. Unfortunately, it breaks it a few times, and that also takes the top of the mood – but mostly, it’s good writing, and worth thinking about when you’re writing you own game.
• Tell the GM how you imagine he should run the game. The game starts out with a relatively long description of the different roles of the GM – something I’ve sorely missed in many scenarios I’ve GM’ed at Fastaval. I wan’ you to hold my haaand. Very well done.
• If you want a homebrewed system, fine – but remember to give us very specific instructions about what it should look like in action.

And so, this review is brought to a halt – finally! It’s been underway for many days now, and I’ve even recieved a very gentle prodding from Johannes as to the whereabouts of my review. Well, here it is. Now go play it – and tell me how it works in real life. The game certainly looks good enough to try.

Also read Morten Greis,’ Simon Pettitt’s and Frikard Ellemand’s – not to mention Johannes’ own. I’ve read none of them, as I believe reading other reviews would colour mine – and I want you to read my undiluted opinion. I might go back on it later, when I hear good arguments from the other readers, but for now, I stand by the above – even if it is, alas, not the best I feel I can do, but only the best I had time to do.

Review Summer: What is the purpose of a review?

Over the next few weeks, I will take you around to many of the murky corners of reviews. But before we embark, there is something we need to establish first: where are we going? When we are writing reviews, what are we trying to achieve? A review that is good at being a review does what? In other words, what is the purpose of a review?

A famous (in critic circles) Danish critic called Poul Borum wrote thus (my translation):

The purpose of a review is to annoy the author, and to prevent the reader from buying bad books

This carries an ounce of truth, even if it is an exaggeration. The first insight is this: a review is not written to please the author. Not that it should be a goal to insult the author – but the critic’s audience is not the author. It’s just as much the art consumer, the art community, the people who just read the paper in question. Besides, again in Mr. Borum’s words:

Every time you praise a bad book, you slight a good author

This quote I’ll return to

The second insight is this: the review should definitely tell you something about the quality of the reviewed object. This seems intuitive: if we read a review, we feel cheated or confused if we are left with no idea about the merits and demerits of the work reviewed.

Qualifying Qualities

So the review has something to do with qualities. Fair enough – but this spawns the next question: what kind of quality are we talking about? You could easily imagine someone saying: “It’s a masterpiece!” “Well, did you enjoy it?” “No, I really struggled to sit through it.” On the other hand, you might also hear someone say “Wow, that was a blast!” “Was it good?” “No – it’s a piece of stereotypical trash.”

It would seem we are dealing with at least two kinds of quality here: one has to do with the enjoyment someone derives from a text, the other some other kind of quality.

The shrewd reader will already have gathered what I’m getting at: I’m actually trying to sneak in a distinguishing between narrow “art,” and other “popular” fiction. And yes, that is the point I’m trying to make: that something can take it’s audience by storm, and still not be good, and something can be reviled by everyone, and still have something that redeems it from immediately going to the wastebin in the sky.

Not that these two types of quality are mutually exclusive – the best works do both. In fact, when reviewing, I believe you ought to separate them into two different considerations: What are the artistic qualities of this, and how enjoyable is it – or rather, who would enjoy it?

The third spice

But that’s not enough. Many people will not be considering watching the film/reading the book (though, if you post a review online, it’s far more likely that someone will come via Google exactly to find out if they should invest in this object or not). If you want these people to read till the end, and to feel your text was worth the time, you must provide them with something else.

Now, this is where we come back the two kinds of quality we were talking about above. Just as a film or a book can be enjoyable or not, so can your review. And if it is enjoyable enough, people will read it, even if they have no interest in what you’re actually reviewing. I watches all of the Zero Punktuation reviews, even if most of the games are some I’d probably never even consider trying.

And just as there can be something in a work of art that makes it worth getting through, your review can have something extra that makes it worth reading for it’s own sake. This could be a certain insight into the medium you are reviewing, or sharp, well formulated opinions that provoke people into rethinking their own opinions.

In short

All in all, I believe that the purpose of a review can be summarised in three points (neat, ain’t it?):

• A review should guide the reader when he chooses whether to spend his precious time and money on something. In other words, the reviewer should consider what kind of consumer would benefit from this product, and maybe tell him what situation it would be appropriate for.
• A review should fuel a debate about art. It should outline how the object fits within it’s genre, how it relates to the society around it, and what the state of that art form is today.
• A review should be an experience to read. It can be hilarious, it can be a small poem in its own right, or it can just be well written and pleasant to read.

That’s not saying that all good reviews do all of these things. Zero Punctuation is notoriously bad at consumer guidance: he is so sarcastic and so critical, it can often be hard to tell if he likes a game or not. But he more than makes up in entertainment. Besides, if you listen closely, you can actually hear his passion and his strong opinions about where he wants video games to go. And two out of three? That’s not too bad.

Have I forgotten something? Am I just plain wrong? Then, by all means, tell me so.

Review Summer

It seems I have neglected this blog a bit over the last few weeks. Well, many things have happened, and I have been busy. And I will be more busy in the weeks to come, doing all sorts of strange and interesting things.

But despair not! I will not leave you all hanging. Instead, I am going to give you a series of posts about reviews, and how to write them.

I was taught how to write reviews in a class on cultural journalism when I studied Comparative Literature. Then, as part of my MA in Journalism, I had a class in “Analytical Journalism,” which included reviews, but I ended up teaching that part. Also, I was asked to come back the year after to repeat the lecture I gave.

What I will write in this series is a rephrasing of what I said in those lectures. I’m going to divide it into several bite sized chunks, and I may follow it up with a few reviews of reviews. The first posts are going to lay out the genre as I see it, then later, I’ll give you some pieces of good advice for when you start writing your own reviews.

Of course, I should say that this is my take on reviews. There may be other opinions about what makes a good review. If you disagree with me, please tell me so – I would very much like a bit of debate about reviewing.