Sorcerer and Sword: The Sodden Lands of Snia Mer, The Final Session

After eight sessions, we brought an end to our mini-campaign using Ron Edwards’ Sorcerer and Sword supplement.  You can access the video by clicking here. 

I’ve now run two games of Sorcerer, and in both cases it took a full 7-8 sessions to bring the kickers to a satisfactory resolution. The players for this series literally ranged around the globe: I’m in central Florida, Rod is in Texas, and Aybars is in Istanbul. To state the obvious, scheduling was a challenge, and it’s a testament to our commitment that we pulled this off.

I have some more sessions recorded, and we’ll see if I have the time to get those edited. This session, however, provides much food for thought, so rather than wait, I’m releasing it now.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I tend to run games that operate on a slow burn, and despite the fact that our session builds to a dramatic crescendo, there are signs of that deliberate style in ample evidence here. Some players will balk at my approach, but I like the way all of this developed in our game. In terms of why the slow burn occurs, I can put my finger on a number of sources.

First, I’m not making it easy on the players. I regularly introduce situations or scenes where you will see the players mulling over their options . . .  and I let them linger in their uncertainty. You’ll see a number of examples in this session.

At the start, for instance, the two Sorcerers have to decide whether to drug their friend (Zeki) who is experiencing an intense withdrawal, or to leave him behind to complete the process. You’ll see them working over that question, until Nagimo (played by Rod) opts for a low-dose drug option, only to have Balder (played by Aybars) rescue the situation by creatively coming up with a creative placebo option (aided by a successful roll of the dice).

And, towards the end of the session, you’ll see the duo encountering a number of fraught situations where they are thoughtfully debating what the best course of action might be: Do we sneak into the compound of the necromancer (named The Prime Herald) or do we take a more direct approach and ask for an audience? Do we try to contact the powerful demon named The Chryxen Butterfly, and if so, what should that timing be? Afterward, should Balder risk a binding with that demon, realizing that, by doing so, he will be initiated into the necromantic arts? The dilemmas come streaming down, and one consequence is that the game sometimes veers into anguished debates over tactics and morality instead of pulse-pounding action.

This session features a number of Humanity rolls. I love the way Balder/Aybars comes to a gradual realization that necromancy is nasty business . . . and there’s even a spot where he tries to justify (mostly to himself) dabbling in this very dark and wicked art (see the sequence starting at 1:14:00). Aybars is in fine form as he works through the ethics, and eventually he arrives at that favorite refuge of morally ambiguous decisions (at 1:18:00): “I have no other choice. . . I’m too deep in this!”

Sorcery and accompanying Humanity rolls are firing on all cylinders as things come to a close. At the 48:30 mark, Balder decides to contact the Chryxen Butterfly, and he uses a wonderfully described blood ritual along with some group sorcery to build up a sizable pool of dice to pull off the Contact. This again takes time (about 15 minutes of game play, some of which is edited out), but it builds up to some memorable rolls and some dramatic and satisfying outcomes.

During planning, I had determined that the Chryxen Butterfly was in a rebellious state with respect to his “current” master, The Prime Herald, though this fact was not known to the players. With the successful Contact roll and some nice role-playing on the part of the Sorcerers, the demon breaks free of The Prime Herald, and Balder then attempts to Bind the demon, In the fiction, this involves a gruesome and excruciating moments as the object demon fuses itself onto Balder’s skull. Normally, the sequence goes Contact ⇒ Summon ⇒ Bind. But since this was a case of an unbound, rebellious demon, we rolled the successes from the Contact directly into the Binding roll. There didn't seem to be any need to Summon a demon who was already there.

Balder ends up losing one of his Humanity checks, which was clearly making Aybars nervous. The session then ends with Nagimo and Balder trying to get the Chryxen Butterfly to reverse the soul entrapment afflicting Nagimo’s friend Zeki (start around 1:30:00). Eventually, the demon comes around to the idea, but notes that this type of reversal draws on necromantic forces--meaning, of course, that a human life is required. The two creatively decide to offer up the life of a former nemesis (the giant named Baseer) whom they knew to be at the complex. So the dark designs set in motion just continued to cascade!

The reversal of the soul entrapment was a puzzle for me: On the one hand it required a human sacrifice, which clearly risked a Humanity loss. But at the same time, the effect was one that was beneficent, restoring a human life (Zeki) to wholeness. In the end, I ordered Aybars/Balder to make two Humanity checks: One to see if he lost a point of Humanity for mercilessly sacrificing the giant Baseer; the other to see if he gained a point of Humanity for restoring Zeki’s soul. He succeeded in both rolls, meaning he ultimately gained a point of Humanity.

With that, the kickers were wrapped up. Nagimo had not only found his friend Zeki, but managed to have him healed. And Balder had achieved his drive for power . . . though I wonder how long it will take for him to wither in corruption like the previous Prime Herald.

As you can tell from this account, Balder had the spotlight in this session. Nagimo in fact had contemplated whether he even needed to travel to the Prime Herald to bring things to a satisfactory (or at least liveable) conclusion. Had the two Sorcerers decided on a secretive operation when they landed , then Nagimo’s superior physical abilities would no doubt have come into play. Thinking about the sessions as a whole, I believe Nagimo commanded a number of key spotlight moments throughout. Still, given that we knew this was driving towards a concluding moment, I would have liked to have found some way to give Rod more of a closing aria. It may be some consolation that Nagimo clearly has more potential as an enduring character in an ongoing saga.

We have a short session debrief at the end, which will provide some insights from Rod and Aybars. I invite them or anyone else interested to offer additional commentary here. We decided to set the game aside, though as I noted to them, it still lies ready in the dock, and I look forward to continuing to develop the setting if others are interested in trudging through the sodden lands of Snia Mer.

I’m itching to take another dive into Sorcerer. Given the frightening COVID-19 pandemic, I’m mulling over Jared Sorenson’s Schism (which is aptly subtitled “A Virulent Setting for Sorcerer”) as a timely supplement in these dark days.

Putting the Gaming Irons in the Fire in 2020

January is the month when, like its titular god, we look forward and look back.

2019 was an active year on the gaming table. A few highlights:

• I rolled out a playtest of Becoming Beowulf, my original classroom game about Anglo-Saxon culture. The game relies on resource management, strategizing, and roleplaying, and, while it had a few glitches (which I’m working out), it was quite successful.
• I played many new games, largely due to the Gauntlet, an online gaming community.
• The gaming club I sponsor at school has kicked it into high gear. Free moments during the school day saw an army of kids in my classroom relaxing, socializing, and playing games.
• I led a presentation titled “Beyond Gamification” at the FCIS (Florida Council of Independent Schools) annual convention. That talk discussed ways of hacking and designing games for the school environment, and it used numerous examples of specific games that I have modified and created.
• Our Legendary Lives group completed an amazing 18-session campaign. That was an immensely satisfying and thought provoking experience. The game is a so-called “Fantasy Heartbreaker,” and it remains a rich, complex game. The major weak spot in the rulebook is a lack of awareness of how to turn the game into a campaign, but Ross, our GM, was brave in facing the challenge, and in the process, he showed me much about GM strategies that have impacted my own approach.
• I remained active on Ron Edwards’ Adept Play website. My sense is that twitter remains one of the go-to places for gamers to discuss the hobby. Despite years of tinkering with twitter, I’ve come to the conclusion that that “short form” format is not conducive to the kind of probing, non-posturing discussions I most enjoy. Adept Play is a place which fulfills many of my needs for provocative, informed discussion of games.

So what’s up for 2020?

I’m still going to be active on the Gauntlet, but I’ve decided that the long form is where it’s at with rpgs. So I’m working on building some groups which might be willing to carry a game forward without setting a specific number of sessions at the outset.

Currently, I’ve started a Sorcerer and Sword campaign which has some legs: It’s set in a world where vast areas are swamp land, and the two players came up with kickers and pasts that opened the way to some compelling scenario building. That game has also sparked a renewed interest in the kind of no-holds-barred sword and sorcery genre that enthralled me in high school. I’m now reading Wagner’s Kane stories, and I plan to continue to delve into the literature and to bring that spirit to my games.

I’ve also started an Over the Edge campaign. Stay tuned for more thoughts about this groundbreaking game from the 90s. I’ve been looking at the most recent 3rd edition which came out in 2019, but I opted to go with the WaRP system and materials of the first two. I’ll let you know more about my reasons for that. This campaign is rather unique in the makeup of its players. My daughter graduated from high school last year, and the gaming group that she participated in has moved to various schools. I volunteered to run a game for her and her friends via video call, and four of them were enthusiastic. We did some character creation yesterday, and we’ll be landing in Al Amarja on the first of February!

I bought a new “gaming laptop” with some Christmas funds, and I’m using it to edit some actual play videos. So I’m hoping to stay active on that front. If you are interested in Sorcerer and Sword or Over the Edge, you will probably see some postings in the coming months with links to my videos.

I’m hoping to present my Beowulf game at the Lausanne learning institute, and I’m also applying for a fellowship grant from FCIS which would assist in my educational gaming initiative. If I get that grant, it might lead to a full-on teacher workshop that would bring in some select game designers to help teachers reflect upon bringing games into the classroom.

Accompanying this presence in the educator arena, I'm going to be making some steps into full-fledged gaming conventions. Next month, for example, I'll be travelling to New Jersey to attend Dreamation 2020.

One last item: I’m moving forward on teaching ttrpgs as a medium of communication and an art form.  In February, I have played a 3-week unit devoted to the topic. The centerpiece of the unit will involve students playing games in small groups and then reporting upon those experiences to the class.

Those are just a few of the gaming irons that I have in the fire. It promises to be a thrilling and satisfying year. I’ll continue to post here to keep you abreast of the developments!

Cold Soldier: First Flight

Ron Edwards has been a proponent of a two-player game called Cold Soldier, which was written by Bret Gillian in 2011. It has a tight set of rules, and it has you weighing what you want to accomplish in a local scene against a final endgame which will determine the ultimate fate of the Cold Soldier. The GM plays a Master who is pursuing some type of repellent agenda, and the Player plays a reanimated "Soldier" who is ordered to carry out the Master's wishes.

Below are my reflections on the first flight. For more actual play reports, you should check out Adept Play.

After the opening of Christmas presents, my daughter (home from college) and I sat down to play our first trial run of Cold Soldier. Not your typical holiday fare, but the mulled wine in my glass helped to keep me in the holiday spirit during play.

Given that this was our first stab at Cold Soldier, we were trying to get a feel of the game and the mechanics, and I was especially trying to get a sense of the “logic” behind the rules--to get a sense, for example, of what it means for a card in play to get moved into the Master’s or the Soldier’s hole.

We set the game in the present. I took on the role of the Cold Soldier, who was a military paratrooper killed in combat, but whose death was accidental--the result of a parachute malfunction, which meant that I died at the very moment my boots hit the ground. My weapon became, appropriately, the “Kiss of Vertigo.” The Master was a one-eyed restaurateur who was a weird combination of Plankton from Sponge Bob and Albert Spika from The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover. There was some humor in the Master, but it was tempered by an underlying grimness.

Some issues and questions that emerged from our play:

If the Cold Soldier succeeds at the task, there is a narrative benefit for the Master (the GM gets to narrate the outcome), but there is not, at that point, any mechanical payoff or cost for either player. This makes that result different than the other two possibilities: If the Soldier fails at the task, he loses a card from his hole. And resisting the Master’s order also requires discarding a card from the hole. In other words, failure and resistance both require a loss for the Soldier. Oddly, a success can mean no card benefit for the Master, even though the Master had his order successfully carried out.

Consider these two sequence:

Sequence #1: The Cold Soldier starts to pursue the Master’s plan and, off the bat, draws a high card. The Soldier allows the success to stand, so neither Master nor Soldier ultimately gets a card.

Sequence #2: The Cold Soldier starts to pursue the Master’s plan, but draws a low card. So the Soldier activates a memory, gets that card for his hole, and then draws a success, which he allows to stand. So the Soldier ends up with a card in his hole and the Master strikes out card-wise (though he does get to monologue).

We were considering this revision to the game rules:

If the Soldier succeeds in the task, the GM gets to narrate as usual, but the Master also gets to choose a card remaining in play for his hole (an advantage for having his task accomplished), and the Master in turn gives the Soldier a card from his hole (a “reward” from the Master).

This rule revision would give the Soldier an added motive for carrying out the Master’s orders: Not only does he avoid the cost of failure, but he gets a card. However, this revision also might be giving the Soldier a reason to resist or fail, because he doesn’t want to give the Master an opportunity to choose a card in play. So the Soldier might be considering whether it is better to give up a card from his hole, or whether it would be better to retain that hole-card and get another one, but at the expense of allowing the master to choose one of those cards in play.

In our game, the Soldier and Master were not previously acquainted: The idea was that the Master was taking advantage of a fresh corpse to be his tool. If we play again, we are thinking it would be preferable to have a pre-existing connection of some sort between the two. This wouldn’t need to be a friendship or family connection, but some acquaintance would have added to the drama during play.

One final note to self (as well as to other players): If you are the Soldier, you should start off play considering the specific stakes available to you the end game. This will give you an added edge and pathos to the memories you recall during play, and it will make the endgame more satisfying. In our game, I was too focused on simply trying to construct a memory using an element from the scene, and I wasn’t thinking ahead to how I could combine these memories into a compelling narrative that would contribute to the stake of the endgame.

On the flip side, if you are the Master, keep your agenda squarely in mind. It helps if you have a solid sense of the repellent goal you are trying to accomplish, and you should use the scenes to build and add layers to this goal through the framing and description of the scenes.

Looking Back...and Forward...to Legendary Lives

It's been a while since my last post, but I've been busy playing games, and there are many irons in the fire. So I'll be getting onto a more regular schedule now that the semester is wrapped up. I begin with a look back at a run of Legendary Lives  that started in the summer. I'm also posting this over at Ron Edward's Adept Press site. If you are interested, head over there, as there will be more discussion and a full video debrief involving the four R's occurring over the coming weeks.

Here's the report:

The Four R’s (Ross, Ron, Rod, and I) played through eighteen sessions of Legendary Lives, completing our run at the start of December. For background, this heroic fantasy rpg is one of the so-called Fantasy Heartbreakers that came out in the 1990s. There are still plenty corners of the game that I would love to explore, and that fact in itself is an indication of how good the game is. We could easily have played on for another eighteen sessions, but schedules and other commitments were weighing on us.  Though the game would richly reward more study, it is fair to say we put Legendary Lives through its paces and are in a good position to offer some measured judgments of its qualities. What follows are some notes I’ve put together in preparation for a debriefing session.

To begin, here are four of the game’s real strengths.

• The rulebook is superb. Many rpg creators would benefit from studying the text of Legendary Lives as an example of clear, cogent writing. When you turn to a random page of the rules, the stylistic craft of Joe Williams and Kathleen Williams jumps out at you. The prose is consistently direct, engaging, and crystalline, without superfluous verbiage. The rules provide abundant concrete examples and advice, but all of this is measured and contained.
• The resolution system shines both in concept and in play. Everything--magic use, combat, skill checks, exercises of abilities, etc.--involve a D100 roll which is then fed through an Action Results Table. The core mechanic is quite easy to get ahold of, and since all these resolutions are part of the same basic system, the players have no problem with it. At the same time, the system is quite nuanced: For resolutions, there are ten different levels of outcome ranging from Catastrophic to Awesome, and this prods the GM to add nuances and shades to the outcome. This results in some thoughtful and engaging roleplaying at the table. From a “history of rpg design” perspective, I’m curious about where Legendary Lives sits in terms of the multilevel resolution system. Are there other games of the era that offer this type of stepped system? 
• The various skills, spells, and abilities are well considered. As we often noted at the table, this is a game that was thoroughly playtested, and the authors have packed the character sheet with abilities and skills that have been well considered and thoughtful. (More on that below.)
• The character creation system is unique and rich. Initially, there seems to be a wild, cartoonish quality to the game. You have over 25 races, each of which has a list of specialties, racial abilities, and religion. You also have numerous tables that give you information about your family background, physical appearance, and lifelines. You then take this abundant information and try to work out a brief character history (including goals) that drives the play forward. The end result still has some fun, cartoonish tinges to it, but what strikes me is how the characters have complexity and vibrancy, which results in some committed play at the table.

Religion and Magic

In game terms, the effects or religion and magic are quite similar. Religious miracles (guidance, fortification, wonders, etc.) and spells carry supernatural effects which are flexibly molded by the players and GM. In fact, miracles have added utility because they are so plastic and because your supply of miracles gets replenished each day (the total number of Miracles being dependent on your character’s Devotion score). Casting spells comes with a cost that gets deducted from the spell score, and this makes the spells more difficult to cast and it limits the number of times you can use them. In the case of both spells and miracles, I like the creative room left for the player. Divination, for example, (which Grrrl used on multiple occasions) can be used to detect events, qualities, or features near and far, and there’s quite a bit you can do with the spell within those types of wide parameters. The system is nicely scalable in terms of the power of the spell: The wider or more forceful the effect, the more a spell costs and the more difficult it becomes to cast.

I had my character (Grrrl) to explore both miracles and magic. I achieved some notable effects (including a wild triptych of a vision towards the end of our run), though I could have taken even more advantage of these resources. At the same time, there is a danger that the game could take on a zaniness if characters were fully exploiting their miracles to the extent allowed by the rules. Our trio of adventurers kept the miracles in check, and this was in part because our characters took religion with a certain level of gravitas. Had we used our full allotment of miracles, the game could have swerved into a direction which would have made religious powers more mundane and flat.

Epic Play

So much of Legendary Lives is set up to reward the long arch. Consider the following:

The character generation yields delightful complexity that can blossom over time.

The rules subsections involving societies, religion, magic, and plants (!) invite continued exploration.

The world map and descriptions of the different races gives you the chance to develop some intricate social, cultural, and political networks.

The skill advancement system is steady but slow.

Curiously, Legendary Lives received much of its playtesting and popularity by being run in convention settings, which has left parts of the game underdeveloped. In other words, you have a game amply loaded with elements that say “long-term play,” but the rules don’t provide much in the way of advice or aid for campaigns moving into their second wind. My sense is that Ross (our GM) had some good techniques operating behind the curtain to make up for this gap, and I’m looking forward to hearing more from him about how he handled preparation.

One idea that might be worth exploring: Have the players periodically revise the character stories to provide new goals and drives (along with introducing new NPCs and factions to deal with). The GM might even flashforward the game, taking the company to a different region and/or time period.

I sensed that Ross had a load of ideas sizzling on the backburner, and we sometimes fumbled in the triggering of those elements. Part of my problem was the time between sessions (usually one week, but sometimes more): I’m an avid notetaker, but even with those notes, it was challenging to keep the various story strands in mind to spark actions in play. One of my notes to self: I’m going to be more active in the future and will put together postgame reports which will help to keep NPCs, events, and developments in better order (and to keep my memory banks firing more effectively). Ross was superb in keeping things open for the players, allowing them to determine what they wanted to do. I did wonder, however, if we could have telegraphed for him what we were wanting to do to help him with prep between sessions. For example, we let him know that we were inclined to attend the masquerade ball prior to that session, and I imagine that was useful for him in getting notes together. But on some weeks, we could have offered him more in the way of forecasting our upcoming moves--at least providing a sense of what our characters were mulling over in terms of the immediate future.

Combat and Skills

The combat system uses the same core mechanic as everything else in the game. There is a hit location aspect at play, and the head is the most vulnerable spot, which made us worried that fighting would be unforgiving. After the initial combat encounters, it because apparent that Legendary Lives is far more wicked on the Foes than it is the player character heroes. I enjoyed the fights in the game, and Grrrl was quite fun to play both in Wolf and in human forms. I also appreciated, however, that the game encouraged a mix of activities. We had some sessions that were combat oriented, others that were more explorative, and others focused on interpersonal negotiations and relationship building. Legendary Lives supports all those types of play, and its array of skills and abilities supports them all. To illustrate, skills are divided up into 12 ability categories. Four of those--Strength, Stamina, Dexterity, and Agility--involve skills that come in handy during combat. That leaves a robust 8 ability categories which involve skills involving a wide array of pursuits--Business, Repair, Caves, Preach, etc..

Some “skills” are odd (partly because some really aren’t skills at all), though in play we found them to be useful and intriguing. Some examples:

Grrrl had low cunning, and thus was not prone to duplicity, lying, or disguises, and she also was mediocre in the Charm department. This made her Sincerity score low, so when put into situations where she was being truthful, she was usually not perceived as such. The regular Cassandra effect became a strong minor theme.

Sanity has an entire subsystem worked out for it, which caused for some intriguing curveballs in the fiction.

Fate and Memory provide a mechanic for the gamemaster and players to determine whether a possible event becomes an actuality or to determine if knowledge is available.

In Conclusion

When you say that something “holds up well,” there’s a backhanded insult implied. The unstated idea is that the something--whatever it is--shows the marks of age and defunctitude. The something is o.k. if you want a retro experience, but that there’s much better stuff out there.

So I won’t say Legendary Lives “holds up well”: The game is so much better than that. It has always been a rock solid fantasy rpg, and it remains so. The game has much to teach current designers, and my sense is that new games would be better if they took some inspiration from what Legendary Lives does. LL would certainly elevate the writing craft of rpgs. We can debate some of the odd descriptions of races or point out the gaps the game leaves in terms of the long arch. But these small blemishes pale in comparison to all the game has to offer. If I had a chance to play Legendary Lives again, I’d jump at the opportunity. It is a uniquely satisfying and continually rewarding experience.

Empathic Gaming

It's been a while since my last blog post, but the reason is largely because I've been busy reading and playing games. Which means I am building up good material for further reflection and game designs. Below is a lengthy response I put together for an interview posted at Adept Play. I'd encourage you to head over there to see the original exchange between Ron Edwards and Simon Pettersson. There will be further commentary and insights there.

Here's my post:

I was all set to write a post on Legendary Lives, and then got sucked into the conversation (or seminar) with Simon Pettersson, and it put some hot ideas on the front burner. So I promise a reflection on Legendary Lives, but let me provide some thoughts and questions here . . . and then I’ll get back to what has transpired in Smith City.

Some immediate context first. In June, I ran a four-game series of My Life With Master with The Gauntlet (an online rpg community). This was my first time playing the game. And in a couple weeks, I’m going to be working through Emily Care Boss’s “Romance Trilogy” with The Gauntlet. Bret Gillan notes that Cold Soldier is inspired by Boss’s Breaking the Ice, Czege’s game, and Ron’s S/Lay w/Me. So many of the topics in this discussion are directly touching on issues of concern for me.

Scary Gaming

One of the reasons why I’m taking on the Romance Trilogy is because so many of the ideas and principles of the games scare me. I suspect that this is a reason why many other prospective players would avoid these games immediately upon hearing the elevator pitch.

Ask me to play a violent Wolfling on the edge of a mental breakdown who is set loose on a band of weapons smugglers? No problem.

Want me to play a game close to home--one where my own unvarnished experiences, desires, hopes and fears are potentially on display? I’m not so sure about that. While the rules don’t require this type of “close to home” intimacy, Boss regularly mentions and encourages it in her games.

Breaking the Ice (the first game of the trilogy) is a two-player game where a pair of characters work through three initial dates. It’s designed to deal with the awkwardness, sparks, setbacks, miscommunications, and building attractions involved at the start of a romance. During the initial character generation, Boss asks you to chat with your fellow player to find out about your commonalities and differences. You then take one of these differences and then use it as one of the core attributes of your characters . . . except you switch it with the other player. So, if you are young playing with someone a couple decades older than you, you might play the older person starting up a romance with someone significantly younger. The game can obviously get quite personal . . . just as Cold Soldier can with its requirement that the GM order the soldier to do things that the GM finds personally repellent. 

The last game of the trilogy, Under My Skin, turns up the heat even more. It is initially written as a LARP (Live-Action RolePlaying game), and the players take on the roles of friends, couples, and acquaintances who discover new loves and attractions and who then have to decide on how they will react. Even if they return to their previous partner, they will be changed by the experience. 

Scary stuff. These are games with a high potential for bleed (a spillover between character and player). And I could see things turning out very badly--badly on a deep, emotional level--for some players who come to the games with the wrong approach, expectations, or mindset.

Emotional Modulation (or Controlling the Bleed)

Here’s a provisional principle: For games with an empathic content, there needs to be a set of mechanisms and procedures in place that will allow players to modulate and manage the personal identifications they have staked. The higher the empathic content, the more important these mechanisms and procedures become. (Is there a term that describes the way that these mechanisms and procedures serve to manage the empathic content?)

For Breaking the Ice, the Switch requirement, is, from the start, one such device: You are, by definition, required to play a character who is, in at least one significant way, very different from yourself. So your character is clearly not you.

The mundane elements of the character sheet, dice rolls, and outcome evaluations are also key. If I’m starting to get uncomfortable with the amount of bleed in Breaking the Ice, I can focus more of my attention on these mechanics to settle me. The card mechanics of Cold Soldier seem to have a similar effect: If I’m slipping into an emotional valley which I’m not wanting to enter, I can think of the game in terms of the poker hand I’m trying to build

Setting can also be used to good effect. In My Life with Master, I suggested that we could place the game in the current day, but the players unanimously and vigorously vetoed that idea because they were afraid of the game cutting too deeply into the heart. This is one reason why Czege’s default 19th-century eastern European setting works well. 

I’m developing a four-player version of Breaking the Ice (which I’m calling Hacking the Ice), and in this one, I’ll have two players controlling a single character. One player will be responsible for the rational/practical dimension of the character, and the other will address the emotional/passionate side. Aside from opening the game to more players, the added focus will help to modulate bleed effects. In my hack, you won’t be your character: At most, you will only be half of your character.

To LARP . . . or Not?

Under My Skin adds additional challenges for me. I don’t know that I’d be equipped to play the game in its default LARP form, especially if it were played close to home. Boss writes, “In Under My Skin, players can choose Core Issues for the characters that relate to their own experiences. This is (relatively) safe space to explore what might be very risky to do in one’s own life.” 

That phrasing with the parenthetical “relatively” has me quaking in my shoes.

The fact that I want to play the game online, however, already defuses some of that fear. The kinetic and intimate nature of face-to-face LARPing along with its tendency to avoid some of the mechanics of ttrpgs, increases the possibility of bleed effects. VARPing (Video-Augmented RolePlaying) provides some technological distancing which for me is useful.

In The Romance Trilogy, Boss includes a variant of Under My Skin titled “Ere Camlann” which sets the game in the days of King Arthur. Players take on the roles of people like Lancelot, Guenevere, Morgaen, and Mordred. And I’m going to add some light tabletop roleplaying elements to the game for an added measure The literary-historical setting and the dice roll mechanic will give me some added ways to modulate the empathic bonds.

It is clear that the extent of empathy and bleed effects are variable in a game. I’ve been in games where some players have been impacted on a deeply personal level while other players are simply appreciating the fiction as a separate entity. This variability might in part be a result of how the players are (or are not) using the modulation tools that the game affords them. If one player wants to experience a more emotional or empathic game, they can direct their mind away from the mechanics and procedures that could tone down that dimension. Whereas another player might leverage those elements precisely in order to keep themselves in a zone where they are more comfortable. 

These game elements are analogous to the formal and aesthetic features of literary texts. Shakespeare’s sonnets, for example, touch on topics and emotions that cut deep, but there is a reason why we read him as opposed to listening to a heartfelt emotive rant on Youtube. Much of that has to do with the poetic qualities of Shakespeare’s work, which we can use to modulate and control the emotional content he is expressing.

Guaranteed Story?

There are so many other topics to address. I’m especially keen on the discussion of whether one should design a game that guarantees a good story. But that discussion actually touches on some of my thoughts concerning Legendary Lives, so I’ll plan to develop those thoughts in a separate posting.

Demons are Social Media Junkies, Sessions 4 and 5

I am again cross-posting this actual play report over at Adept Play I'd encourage you to check in over there if you are interested in possible further discussion or commentary.

I continue to play Sorcerer with three players from The Gauntlet, an online roleplaying game community. We are now through five sessions (plus a session zero) of our “Demons are Social Media Junkies” campaign. For reference, here are the links for the most recent gatherings:

Session 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr0-SgxHV8s
Session 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2T1buuVAgY

I’d like to focus this actual play report on two topics:

• The flexible nature of the Demon Abilities, using Hint as a specific example.
• Players grappling with the idea that the GM wants them to do something (when the GM is in fact simply offering opportunities for the players to do with as they wish).

I have three players whose characters know each other, but are unaware of their identities as sorcerers. For sessions 4 and 5, I used a heavily modified version of the “Training Scenario” in Sorcerer. The characters were each invited to a classy party at the mansion of a reclusive, behind-the-scenes executive producer named Richard Barfield. Barfield is known for brokering deals between entertainment companies, but he is mysteriously absent from his own party.

Taking a Hint and Running with It

Shawn is an Apprentice Sorcerer who has bound a Possessor Demon named Aaron. Aaron’s need is to influence people to believe and to act in irrational ways. When choosing abilities for his demon, Shawn selected Hint, with the idea that this ability could be used to implant suggestions (or hints) in the minds of others. Being relatively new to the game, I had not fully drilled into this ability, so didn’t know enough to warn the player away from this choice. I’m wondering if my ignorance about Hint was actually fortuitous--either that or I was just being daft..

At the big party, Shawn was looking for an opportunity to satisfy his demon’s need, and the issue of using Hint came up. So we read the book, and it was dawning on us that the original intent of Hint was to have it serve as a type of divination: The target would typically be the sorcerer or another player character, and it would be used so that a character could get some truthful information from the GM.

But Shawn wanted to do something very different with the ability. He spied a young celebrity couple which had recently reconciled after a period of conflict. The relationship had been in the tabloids. He would walk up to the couple and engage one of them in a conversation. Meanwhile, the demonic Aaron would set to work and use Hint on the other half. But he would use the ability to implant a false idea--namely that Shawn and his interlocutor were engaged in heavy flirting with the intention of making the other partner insanely jealous.

We rolled Aaron’s Power vs. his target’s Will, and Aaron succeeded, so we interpreted this to mean that some hallucination would be involved, and that this hallucination would reinforce the idea of heavy flirtation. The target succeeded in the second roll [and also a subsequent Taint was ineffective]. But since the target’s Will had been overcome by the demon’s Power in the first roll, I ruled that the Hint had some impact, and that the target was overcome by jealousy, creating an embarrassing public scene caught on Aaron’s smartphone camera.

This sequence raises a more general point about other Demon Abilities (and, even more generally, about how other games conceive of spells and other supernatural influences). I like the fact that Sorcerer demands work from the player and the GM to define the details of most of the demon abilities in actual play situations. This is especially the case when abilities get used in tandem, but even when used individually, there are delicious possibilities available.

I’m sure some would take issue with the way Hint got used in this case, but I would point out that the usage did not violate the strict stipulation against mind control: The target was already susceptible to the suggestion that his partner might cheat on him, and the Hint was used as a communicative ability to implant an idea that would amplify those pre-existing doubts. One issue is whether the demon using Hint in this way could also use it in the more normal prescribed manner: I’m tempted to say “no” since these two types of Hints are so different in intent and operation.

What Would the GM Have Me Do?

All the characters came to the big party at the Barfield mansion under different pretexts. One was serving as security; another was there to provide entertainment; and a third was there as a young minor celebrity. The players knew that the party might offer opportunities for the characters to recognize each other as sorcerers, and I allowed them to observe events that put them into the orbits of other characters. In some cases, those orbits were quite close. Chuck saved Dylan from the clutches of two demon thugs, but neither of them were fully aware of the demonic identities of those thugs or of the sorcerous identities of each other. They did note the sharpened teeth of the thugs, but they assumed that maybe that was just some strange practice or oddball cosmetic choice. And Shawn (a somewhat naive member of a new age cult) was able to see Dylan’s demon running off to help after a rather vicious bludgeoning assault of a party guest . . . but Shawn wasn’t understanding the import of all this (though, of course, the player of Shawn was).

At one point, Shawn’s player asked me if I wanted his character to do something or to move in order to be part of a dramatic scene in progress and thus to force some type of revelation. I was adamant in insisting that I really didn’t need his character to take any specific course of action and that he should play the character as he saw fit. So Shawn stayed at the soiree, mostly taking note (with wide eyes) of a sequence of puzzling events swirling around him.

The characters are now in the process of leaving the party, and the air is laced with dramatic irony. The characters are still in the dark about what exactly was going on . . . and they still do not realize the identity of the others as sorcerers. So the flood waters continue to rise, and the suspense for the players is mounting! At the end of the session, the players were excited about what was in store. After some high action scenes, they are looking forward to some “hanging out” time where the characters will begin (perhaps) to piece some things together. That will potentially lead to some humanity-shattering revelations. But this is still only potential.

When it comes to aesthetics, I’m a fan of the slow burn build-up, so this gradual development is my jam. During the session, Shawn’s player (who was asking if I wanted or needed Shawn to act in a prescribed manner) was perhaps thinking of other games (or GM styles) which involve shunting characters down prescribed narrative paths.

My answer to the question “What would the GM have me do” is “As you (and your character) wish.” Many of us were thinking that the play session would involve major revelations and that sorcerer characters would pick up on the demonic powers swirling around them.

That didn’t happen.

The end result was an action-packed session ending with plenty of future developments waiting in the wings. The conclusion of session five wasn’t planned, and it’s all the more exciting and satisfying because it wasn’t forced. As a GM for Sorcerer I see my role as one of constantly reviewing and revising the character diagram, and using that to create situations filled with potential for the characters. The operative word is potential. It’s ultimately the players who must make the decisions to activate those fireworks.

I was worried that the players would be disappointed with the session as I worked through the mechanics and tried to figure out (partly on the fly) the Hint move. The fact that there was an almost palpable deferral of major revelations was also weighing on me.

But my concerns were not justified: During the debrief of session five, all three players were excited about where the next session would lead, and they quite enjoyed the fact that their characters were brushing up against each other yet not making the connections. [Side note: The same may not hold true of the character’s demons: I will be making some rolls to determine how that side of the equation works out.]

The Pool and The Snowball: Forward to the Past

I’ve been running a sequence of four game sessions working with James V. West’s The Pool. Here is the video of our session.

 As with recent play reports, I'm going to cross-post this at Ron Edwards' Adept Play site which has provoked much of my thinking of what is going on in this session. Feel free to comment here or over there!

The mechanics of The Pool are lean and streamlined: Players start by creating a 50-word story introducing their characters. Traits and attributes are derived from those stories, and a players can assign points to those traits according to a simple formula. They leave some points (usually 3-5) for their “pool” which they can then use to boost the number of dice they roll in the case of a challenge or conflict. The number of dice involved in a roll is the sum of:

• The points of the trait involved
• 0-3 discretionary dice awarded by the GM
• Gambled dice from the pool

If a player succeeds in their roll, they can choose to deliver a Monologue of Victory (which gives them the power of controlling the narrative for a short period of time) or to add another die to their pool.

For our first session, we used the rules as written by James West, and on subsequent weeks we have moved to variants. To get the players in the same head space, I sent them some pictures with the statement, “These are some of the inhabitants you see around the village in which you live.” One player used the term “rustic fantasy” to describe the kind of setting and atmosphere that developed from that seed.

I am focusing this Actual Play report on our most recent session (Session 3), which incorporated some rules from a variant of The Pool called The Snowball (by  Alexander Cherry). The most significant changes to core rules involve:

• The LOSS of gambled pool dice on a SUCCESS (in the original rules, you lose those gambled dice when you fail a roll.
• The addition of a Monologue of Defeat (in addition to the core rule’s Monologue of Victory).
• The playing of the game in reverse chronological order. 

[Note: We are not incorporating all the rules of The Snowball, in part because this is part of an ongoing campaign whose previous sessions were run the proper rules of The Pool and the Anti-Pool Variant.]

I hope  to produce a summary of the entire 4-session series when we have completed it, but I wanted to make some specific observations about this curious Snowball session because the reversed chronological order touches upon some other issues recently raised at Adept Play. Those issues include those of “knowing the future,” the requirement to roleplay in terms of a necessary goal or terminus, and improvisation within increasingly rigid structure.

I’m including a diagram to help with establishing how the session was organized. Sessions 1 and 2 were already “in the can,” and they established a known and unalterable backstory for the players (who had participated in those sessions). For the first scene of Session 3, we lept to the future.

As the GM, my procedure was to give the players a setting and some detail. I then went around the table and each player could briefly establish where their character was and what their character was doing and/or feeling as the scene opened. From there we roleplayed to a point where we were satisfied that the scene had come to a sense of closure or conclusion.

I then transported us back to Scene 2 using the same scene framing technique: The GM provided a setting and some interesting details, and the players inserted their characters in the scene. We then played out the scene with a major objective in mind: Namely, we needed to end at a narrative point close to where Scene 1 began.

Play proceeded in this manner until we ended with a scene that was in close narrative proximity to where we had ended in Session 2.

A few things to note:

• The starting point of Scene 1 was constrained by the basic “facts” established by the first two sessions, but otherwise was open in terms of content. Likewise, the end point of Scene 1 was determined by play and not planned. Scene 1, in other words, was very similar to the way we had been playing in previous sessions with the exception that there was a notable time gap that had elapsed. As a result, Scene 1 begins with a disorienting in medias res moment as the players try to figure out what has been happening. But this “figuring out” follows the “pump” model (State 2) of play as described by Ron: That is, it proceeds “from a pressurized position into a unique and unplanned circumstance.” 
• The later scenes, by contrast were much more constrained. We had some freedom with the starting point of the second and following scenes, but the end points were largely predetermined (by virtue of the fact that they had to fit in with the starting point of the scene we had previously played). That said, we found that we could modulate the difficulty of the play by considering the details of one scene and then deliberately framing the “next” scene with some of those elements in mind. To illustrate: 
• Scene 1 was set in the middle of an ancient stone circle. A plinth in the center was covered with the shards of a broken blood-red gem, and a hot war hammer lay on the ground. During the scene, an earth golem was discovered to have been involved in the act of destruction, and one of the characters (Auntie Pine) notifies the company that she is leaving her role as the firekeeper of the village.
• It eased the way in Scene 2 to frame things such that some of those key elements were already in play or explained. 
• The final scene of the session was the most heavily constrained: We had to start near the end-point of Session 2 and end with the starting point of the last scene we had played. (Hopefully the diagram helps to make all this clear!)

This way of play required us to move from the  pump model to a funnel model of play, and this is one reason why the players were challenged. Note that we could have been taking a form of funnel approach from the start, but my play group was happy to begin with some basic aspects of setting and then work out a story in the course of play without any predetermined end point. So Sessions 1 and 2 along with Scene 1 of Session 3 all followed with this pump approach. But with the retrograde chronology of “The Snowball” in place, Scene 2 and the following scenes have to abide by the funnel.

This made for a curious experience, especially since the trajectory of our story had not previously been decided ahead of time. Now, we were playing a series of scenes where a specific goal was in mind. Unlike a usual funnel, however, this goal was now a narrative necessity: Had we decided to pursue a different goal, our story would have fallen apart, and we would have been left with two scenes that no longer meshed with each other. Normally, the funnel is more optional.

This style of play also required some special focus and deliberation on our part. You will particularly notice this towards the end of the recording when one of the players who was battling fatigue realized that it was on him to do something with his character to preserve the narrative continuity, but memory lapses were making this task virtually impossible. I had to provide some prompting for his light bulb to go off.

I don’t think our play required any extensive fudging of the rules as we set them up at the start of the session, though with a more merciless or deadly rules system, that would change. For example, if you were following a reversed chronology and you knew that a character was alive in one scene, then what if the mechanics of your game dictated that the character died in the scene that immediately preceded that one in time? That would face you with a gordian knot, with the easiest solution being to massage or alter the results.

A few general observations about our experience playing with The Pool and some variants:

• Using magic as a trait in a fantasy setting provides so much power within this system, and there are times when I wish that we could limit it because it can so effectively overshadow some other attributes which are more unique and curious. Traits like old age, storytelling, and cooking are interesting to put into play, but once the magic gets rolling, those traits are getting forced to the wings. 
• The Monologue of Defeat and consequences of failed rolls motivate interesting narrative twists, but when they are the result of GM-forced rolls involving perception or knowledge, they get more tricky. To explain: Imagine that the GM asks a character to roll because they want to see if a character realizes something about an event taking place. If the character fails the roll, then it can be hard to think of some narratively consequential impact (i.e. something more than simply that the character remains ignorant of something). 

Questions or comments about The Pool, The Snowball, or issues raised by our play are welcome.

Ron Edwards' Sorcerer: Novice Test Flight

I've taken a big plunge and have started up a campaign using Ron Edwards' Sorcerer. I'm excited about the game and the players (most of whom are completely new to me). I've decided to put my full Actual Play write-ups over at Ron's Adept Play site, where they are likely to meet a larger audience and to generate some comments, so if you are interested, please head over there!

As a bit of a teaser, the grounding statements for the game are:

• "Demons are social media junkies"
• "The most magical place on earth: Orlando's theme park empires"

Edwards has this subtitle for Sorcerer: "An Intense Roleplaying Game." He's not kidding. This is a serious and deep roleplaying game. I'm considering it as a possibility for next year's module in my AP English classes to introduce them to the complexity and seriousness of roleplaying games. This might be over their heads...but maybe not. 

Stay tuned. I'll continue to put up some actual play reports over at Adept Play. And I hope to have a post up here soon about running games online.

Self-realization and Unknown End-points in Games AND in Teaching

Ron Edwards continues to touch on issues that are at the core of what teaching should be about (and also what some game experiences can be about), and that has prompted me to reflect further about my profession and my work with students. See the full conversation at Adept Play. Ron has also been reflecting on some of the toxic effects of social media and his thoughts are leading to some exciting changes that are in the works. Stay tuned!

Ron wrote:

“The second term [“self-realization”] might look out of place, but as I see it, it's necessarily more relevant to K-12 teaching than is safe to admit. This teaching isn't just offering a social service, it's developmental intervention - a risky and conflicted form of parenting, like it or not.”

Self-realization is not out of place. I totally agree that, as a high school teacher, I have an obligation to do much more than just teach content or to build skills. The (often unstated) developmental work of teachers is crucial . . . though many teachers do not receive much direct help that equips them for that role. At least in my case, I was never told much about that aspect of my work. I’m hesitant to equate teaching with parenting, though there is overlap and, in an ideal world, teaching and parenting should work together (though differently) to help young people achieve independence, self-reliance, and fulfillment. On any given day, some of my student can have as much time in my presence as they have contact with their parents, and that gives me a deep sense of duty that goes beyond delivering course content.

“My one intended input is this: in none of the topics I mentioned above, can the result be inserted or implanted, it can only be cultivated. So the game might not work, or if it works, its degree of engagement may vary from person to person, or, and most importantly, for every person so engaged, the reflection may yield varying conclusions.”

Yes. The levels/types of engagement and end-points of reflection will vary from student to student. I’d take it one step further and say that they should vary, though the structure and underlying assumptions of our educational approach often aim at conformity. In other words, education often seems to be set up to achieve a uniform outcome, but if we are interested in developing creative, thinking individuals, then we should embrace variance . . . provided those variances are also accompanied by growth. So if I were successful in designing a classroom game that met with different student responses, I’d be content and even eager to explore those responses.

A bit of a digression for the Beowulf game, but one that touches on the work I do with students and that touches on both the issue of self-realization and the issue of an open-ended result: I’m coming to the conclusion that my sponsorship of a game club at school and to engage with students seriously in playing games is, for many of my students, becoming just as important as my role as a teacher in the classroom (though writing that might be heresy). In that club setting (and the club meets daily during breaks and lunch and even on weekends), there is crucial social, intellectual, and creative work being done. And one thing that makes the club wonderful is that it is divorced from the concept of a prearranged, dictated outcome: Students can develop, grow, create, and imagine in a safe setting without the pressure of a test or assessment. In some cases, students have been learning about games used by me and one of my colleagues in the classroom, and then they find their way to my room during breaks and lunches to join the club. That’s been fun and satisfying to watch.

Why a game about Beowulf?

Ron Edwards asked me a probing, fundamental question in an exchange over at his site Adept Play. I recommend that you see the full exchange there and to look at other posts.

Here's the question he asked

Before really getting into the document, I want to know more. It's not an easy question: why have students at this grade level, today's culture, faced with today's problems, encounter Beowulf at all?

That’s a very complex question, and one which demands multiple answers. Here are a few . . .

One value of reading Beowulf is that it is a text which revolves around problems and crises: It shows characters responding to those crises in different ways, and also shows the consequences (sometimes unpredictable) of those decisions. Are those problems the same as the problems our society faces? Yes and no . . . but both the similarities and differences have important values.

The problems faced within Beowulf are different than our problems: In our world, we face countless situations where groups and people are facing problems that are not our problems. This is the case both globally (the problems facing Vietnam, for example, are often not the problems facing the United States) and locally (the problems facing a single mother living in a housing project in downtown Orlando are not my problems). Does that mean that problems that are not my problems are not important or that I should not pay attention to them or learn about them? Holding to the line that my problems (or our problems) are the only ones worth thinking about would lead to a very narrow and toxic way of confronting the world. We should equip ourselves (and I should equip my students) to be able to build empathy: Even if someone (or some other group) is facing problems that are not my problems, I should develop the ability to see the challenges and difficulties facing them . . . and perhaps see a way to helping them or offering up solutions. That’s one way we can tear down walls and build community.

The problems faced within Beowulf are similar to our problems: This notion might initially seem unlikely. The world of Beowulf is so different from our world. But if we develop the sensitivity to see some similarities, the text might give us a different lens through which to view these problems. To take one example, there are situations where a warrior of one tribe is harmed, and the members of that warrior’s tribe are then weighing the response: Is it better to wage war? to ask for some compensation of material value? to seek help from allies? to withhold resources from the offending party? To decide, I need to look at the options, evaluate possible consequences, and take action. The concerns of Beowulf are not entirely irrelevant to, say, the current situation involving the death of Jamal Khashoggi and the responses being weighed.

Beyond the realm of problem solving, Beowulf is important because, in order to understand that text, we must expend some real effort to grasp the cultural background driving it. And if we are successful in that effort, we are gaining some valuable skills and tools that might help us to deal with cultural differences when we confront them in other contexts. Students might find the actions, beliefs, and values of Beowulf to be strange and foreign . . . just as they will find the actions, beliefs, and values of other cultures and communities to be strange and foreign. To develop an understanding requires imagination, empathy, creativity, and insight--and these are all abilities that can be cultivated and taught. Presenting students with a challenging text like Beowulf can build those muscles in a way that other easier and more accessible texts cannot.

Beyond these more sweeping arguments, there are some other specific topics and themes that make Beowulf valuable: It is about how the “monsters” we face in the future are created by the choices we have made in the past. It is about adapting to new roles and changing situations as we age (and about how we confront our mortality). It is about dealing with conflicting value systems that we hold (for example, what happens when the value of maintaining honor comes into conflict with the value of  preserving health and even life?). These are all important, real issues and valuable to think about.

Beowulf is a great text to confront these topics and more. And there is a real power to Beowulf both in terms of its story and in terms of the aesthetic experience it offers. But is not an “easy” text: It requires imagination and alertness from its reader. My sense is that a well constructed game (and in this case this means a game that can both stand on its own two legs AND also one that faithfully accompanies the poem) can assist in building those imaginative and intellectual powers.

Ideas for an Actual Play Assignment: Becoming Beowulf

Ideas for an Actual Play Assignment: Becoming Beowulf

My playtest group for Robert Bohl’s Demihumans is unable to meet this week, so instead of writing
up a report on a playtest session for that game I’m going to delve into ideas concerning a playtest of a different type this week.

One spark for these ideas comes from Ron Edwards’ “Actual Play” section at adeptplay.com which I’ve been exploring. Ron’s ideas for Actual Play Reports have started me thinking about the usefulness of his approach for an upcoming experience I’m going to try in my 9th grade English classes.

Here’s the set-up: At the end of the semester, I will be teaching Beowulf to a varied group of 9th graders. I’ve been tasked this year with teaching a course that can reach students who have been challenged by English classes (some have learning disabilities, some have attention deficits, some are unmotivated, some have had bad English class experiences, and some are simply looking for a more deliberate pacing).

Beowulf is one of those texts which is challenging to ninth graders under any circumstance. It faces students with issues that they have a difficult time grasping and appreciating. Problems of scarcity, strange rituals, archaic notions of honor, mysterious monsters--these elements and more are baffling to first-time readers.

What is the teacher to do? I’ve taught Beowulf many times, but this year, I’m taking a different approach. Since June, I’ve been creating a nuanced classroom game about Beowulf that involves resource management, tribal negotiations, and role-playing. For those interested, a rough draft of the player’s guide is here.

I’m planning to use the game as a way to bring the students closer to the world of Beowulf as we read the text. The game will put them into situations based on ones encountered by characters in the old English epic.

But what do I do after we play through the game (and finish reading the poem)? I could just leave the game behind, hoping that it has done its work. But now I’m wondering about ending with a written reflection piece modeled somewhat along the lines of Ron’s “Best Practices for Actual Play Posting.” I will obviously have to do some tweaking to set up the writing assignment for students. But I would be interested in getting their thoughts.

One thing that really excites me about my Beowulf project is this: In my mind, there is a lot of literature which is valuable because it provides an experience in a way that history books or other “dry” forms of writing cannot. But the experiential dimension of Beowulf is initially unattainable for many students. If a reader cannot fathom the problems and issues faced by the characters in the text, then how can we expect the reader to feel or to inhabit the text in any powerful or meaningful way?

But what if a well-designed role-playing game can more dynamically put them into the world of an initially mystifying text? What if a student can become a character who now has to make concrete decisions and to discuss with her or his peers the crisis that is bearing down on the tribe? In what way can a gaming experience help a reader to better connect with a literary text--and, in so doing, to give them a more enriched experience of a literary text?

These are exciting questions for me, but it seems to me that I won’t be able fully to flesh out the answers to those questions unless I hear from the people who are playing the game (and who are struggling with reading the text). So I’m thinking that an Actual Play Response might be the ticket and that it will work on multiple levels: It will give the students a meaningful writing prompt, it will spark them to reflect on their reactions to two art forms (one literary, one a game), and it will give me some good evidence for how my game has worked (or faltered) for the players.