Night Witches isn’t working for us
I’m running a game of Night Witches at my local club, for four players. Despite all our best efforts, it’s not working.
The game is hard work for everybody. Nothing’s really flowing from the fiction into play. For instance, one of the PCs decided to open a book on an aerobatics competition between a couple of NPC pilots. Another PC decided to make a bet on it. What should she bet? Cigarettes? Choccolate? A week of doing the chores around the base? Whoever won, what would the consequences be for how the game unfolded? What was really at stake for the players (not the PCs)?
Another example: when a plane is damaged during a mission, how does the fiction inform me (as GM) whether the section’s mechanics can repair the plane themselves, whether the PCs need to help with the plane, or whether they need to scrounge for parts first? If they need parts, how does the fiction inform me about how hard it will be to get those parts?
Now, I can just make this stuff up, which is what I’ve been doing. But it’s hard work, as it’s hard to be able to point to things in the fiction that compel me to introduce situations and consequences.
The other main problem we have is with character goals and motivations. The PCs are spending a lot of time simply reacting to events that I, as GM, are throwing at them. The players aren’t finding much they can latch on to as things for their characters to strive for. War stories/films/biographies are full of things like soldiers striving for the basic staples of life: chocolate, cigarettes, sex, warm boots. Those are really important to people who are suffering from a lack of them, but those basic drives and wants are really hard to translate into feelings in players at the table. (Reflecting on this, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most goals suggested for PCs in most games are rather higher up Maslow’s hierarchy.)
The military hierarchy plays its part in this too: to a great extent, it doesn’t matter what the PCs do in the game, they’ll still get the basics of food and shelter, and they’ll still have to fly on their missions every night.
Finally, a smaller problem (but a problem nevertheless): the characters, especially at first, are all very similar. Without a bunch of custom moves, there’s not much to differentiate the character natures from each other.
These problems didn’t become huge until the third and fourth session. Before then, excitement about the game and the general novelty of the characters carried us through. That’s not enough any more.
Moving on to questions: how to fix this? My usual approaches to making games interesting are to have a dynamic, unstable situation with real consequences, and hence have factions/Fronts/threats taking action. But the military setting makes the situation rather static (apart from character deaths), and the book suggests that factions/Fronts/threats aren’t something that the game should have.
We’d all like the game to work. Everyone’s got a lot of experience with various story games, including a whole bunch of PBtA games. But in this game, the fiction being created isn’t doing anything to drive the game forward.
Help.
.
I’ve never played a story game, but from a military perspective, there are tons of setbacks not related to actual war. My first thought was go read Catch 22. It’s a book about US pilots in Italy, but every military has similar trials. And, if you haven’t read it, it’s a subversive story you don’t often get about the period.
My second thought was to phone a friend – Kira Magrann. I believe she’s been heavily involved in this game as a player..and maybe a developer…can’t remember. Anyway, I bet she’ll have some advice.
I kind of remember rules for plane damage! But a lot of the other stuff is just up to players. Like, the narrative consequences and scarcity has lots of inspiration but nothing is concrete.
It sounds like you should just play another game. Your players are not interested in making their characters real. What should she bet? Whatever is meaningful to her and the other NPCs. There are no rules for this in the book. It is up to you, and if you’re not interested, it will be hard work. The characters only get the basics if you give it to them. The mechanics will only fix the planes if there are enough parts, if they don’t have a grudge against the PCs, if they are getting enough to eat, if they weren’t kept up all night from German bombing, etc. etc. etc. You need to make the war real, the NPCs real, and the Stalinist hierarchy real.
Sub
Graeme Comyn We’re all interested in making the characters real, the war real, and everything else real. The problem is that the game doesn’t seem to help us with it.
For the bet, we could say it’s about chocolate or cigarettes or something, but it’s all disconnected from anything else. Do they have cigarettes, or enough cigarettes? We can make it up, but it’s obviously us just making it up ab initio.
Apocalypse World has Fronts, Blades in the Dark has Gangs and Factions, Torchbearer has rations and conditions. They’re all something that helps the situation become real, but offering something that can push things into the fiction and something the players can react to.
What’s the equivalent in Night Witches, or is there something else that will help drive play?
Instead of Factions there are other flying Sections that could be rivals, a woman Ace with the men’s fighter squadron followed around by journalists, men from nearby Air Force or Army groups, villagers who could be disgruntled that you are attracting bombing, eating all the food, or happy that you have ousted the German occupiers, senior officers or military bureaucracy, Hitlerite bandits, the State and the NKVD, the weather, poor supply lines, etc.
For the bet you know that there is some chocolate in the plane survival rations but once that is gone you are unlikely to get more (but maybe those French volunteer pilots flying the Yak-3s who are always sending flowers might have some). The military doesn’t issue cigarettes so getting any will be a Scrounge roll. Now the roll and the fiction determine the total supply and how valuable they are.
The PCs drive play. Their desires, wants, jealousies, loves, and hates. The players have to bring these to the table. Give them NPCs that they can care about or hate. Have one PC care and another hate the same NPC. Hit them with your Moves and Threats.
Graeme Comyn, I’m about to run my first session. Just wanted to say, great stuff! Really, this game gives you a framework, but like say D&D, the cool shit is the stuff the players bring to the table from their wild imaginations.
Sorry, should have responded to this thread. It was very useful, but in the end we decided the game wasn’t for us. The situation seemed set up to deprotagonise the PCs, forcing them too much to react to the events of the war and without giving them enough space to forge their own paths. Yes, opinions vary.
Thanks again for all the input.
Michael Pfaff Just remember that the game is really about what the PCs get up to during the day. The missions are very abstracted so there isn’t any game in tactics or strategy, etc. But depending on successes, failures, and what the survivors say or don’t say, it can have a big impact on what the PCs do. Having vibrant NPCs with their own schemes really helps. If you have the NW card deck you can give a face to a name.
Graeme Comyn what’s the NW deck? I have the portraits handout.
Michael Pfaff it’s a deck of cards, with all the portraits, via DriveThruCards. It’s also got cards for medals, advances, and a few other bits. I’d recommend getting it: it really helps making the situation real.