I wanted to share some thought about the Bryanna Hitchcock game we played at Big Bad Con last week. Bry has already done a great writeup (as Tony put it, “And that’s how you do an Actual Play writeup”) which I’ll link at the bottom, and Tomer Gurantz has touched on some of the cooler moments in play, so I won’t cover those. Instead, I’m just going to focus on the things that felt unique to me about the game system and our particular game. These aren’t in order, or even necessarily complete thoughts, but they all feel meaningful to me, even if I may not be able to express myself perfectly.
– Epic gameplay. I don’t know how else to put it. The Watch captures the epic feel of multi-volume, fantasy fiction like nothing else I’ve played. LOTR, Wheel of Time, Game of Thrones… take your pick. I don’t pretend to fully understand how it did this (and obviously our particular play group and Bry’s MCing played a big part), but I think it had something to do with the fluid way it played with time and space in both the war and downtime parts of the game. Bry kept saying, “Don’t worry about exact chronology, we’ll make it work,” and we did, and that freed us up to just create awesome fiction that just worked. Also, the ability to play through epic battles, just touching on the points of greatest character conflict, was critical. And the same with the downtime. I’ll talk about Bry’s MCing, and how it contributed, but the rules really encouraged this style of play.
– Rolling the dice drove the story. We rolled a lot of dice in this game, and it made the story awesome, putting a giant wooden stake in the heart of the claim that you’re either a “roll-player or a role-player.” Bry really pushed this: pretty much every scene was centered on a critical roll, and the results of that roll took the story in a new and exciting direction. This just happened again and again, and picking up the dice was a highly anticipated moment each time.
– Bry should fucking write the book on how to MC PBTa. There’s just no polite way to put this. I’ve been ruminating, trying to figure out what exactly it was that she did, and I came up with a few things:
1. She gave just enough detail to fire our brains up, and then let us take it from there.
2. She had an innate sense of when it was time to roll the dice or cut the scene. As soon as it became clear in a scene that we were floundering a bit, she would ask, “Okay, is there a roll to be made here?” This kept the story moving forward.
3. She placed a huge amount of trust and power in the hands of the players to frame scenes, introduce characters.
4. She kept the focus on the PCs, which made us all feel like bad asses.
– Thoughts about being a guy playing The Watch at a con. This is going to be a bit jumbled, but, whatever. Early on in the game it occurred to me that I was taking a seat in a game that could have been filled by someone who was queer, or a woman, or trans. In other words, I was doing that thing that straight, white guys do: taking up space that marginalized communities need. Maybe there was a trans person somewhere at the con who would have played in the game, and couldn’t because I did. That statement stands on its own, but there are two follow up points. First, I took a lot away from the game about gender identity and toxic masculinity, and I think that’s valuable. Second, if we’re seeing queer/female games fill up at cons, then maybe more people will be encouraged to run them. And that would be a good thing
– That scene between my character, Measho, and Jerry Ozbun’s character, Peale, when Measho tried to humiliate Peale in front of the commander, and it backfired horribly. Well-played, Peale, well-played.
– The romance scene between Measho and Tomer Gurantz’s character Ahjo. Wow. Wow. What was special about that to me, was how it played out moment by moment, with each bit of narration leading to the next bit of narration in a careful, focused dance. First, Measho reflecting on her brother and their matched swords (which Tomer did an awesome callback to in the climactic battle), then Ahjo reflecting on her spear, then Measho going in for a kiss but getting shut down. Timing was spot on!! Also: of course Measho falls for the one asexual character in the game. Figures.
– Adversity. I did find myself, as we got towards the end of the game, wanting a bit more adversity. It seemed like by the time we got to the showdown, every roll was at +3 to +6, meaning we were basically rolling 10+ the entire time. Also, I had a huge stack of +1 forward chips at the end, couldn’t use them fast enough. These bonuses took a lot of the sting out of Weariness (who cares about +2 history with another character? I’m rolling at +6 anyway) and made the final battle feel more like a slam dunk than a desperate fight with everything on the line. Even the death of Tony’s character was essentially a decision he made. I’m curious (to anyone still reading), does playing the game out over more sessions change this aspect of the rules?
Okay, that’s about it. I’ve decided to run a game of The Watch myself, and my players are already pumped. Thank you so much to Anna Kreider and Andrew Medeiros for creating this incredible game, Bryanna Hitchcock for running it, and Steve Moore, Tomer, Jerry, Alison, and Anthony for playing.
Bry’s Actual Play Writeup, which includes Tomer’s comments: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+BryannaHitchcock/posts/7BKNXxDZTnW
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+BryannaHitchcock/posts/7BKNXxDZTnW
You drove that scene amazingly well Tor. It was my favorite scene of the game and really it was Paele’s defining moment in the game. The climax of the game was amazing and beautiful but if I were to pick one moment in that game which really defined a part of that game for me, it was that scene in the commanders tent.
I agree with everything that you say here. Especially the part about you and I taking space that could have gone to a person who could have gotten something far more personal from it.
Once I have run this for my home players, I’ll try my hand at running this at the next BBC. That gives me a year to work the kinks out. That way maybe I can give a little back, though I doubt I can mat’s Bryanna’s MC chops 😀
Hi, Tor Erickson. Thank you for the kind words. No MC should be able to read such words. Our egos are already swollen. 🙂
On the issue of space: This was actually my unspoken concern with the roster. I knew if I had crashers (people trying to join, more common at other cons) I would frame it up the way you did and let the player who got the seat decide what to do. As it turned out, everyone came who signed up and no one else, so it was ok. I’d certainly like to run the watch for a group of gals. My home game has a good mix.
I didn’t even check to see if anyone played a trans character in our game. It’s not a requirement obvs, but gives me a thrill.
On making it Epic: MCs just have to let themselves and their group go there. Get over the idea that the awesome stuff has to be earned and just shovel it on like a Hollywood blockbuster. If your players are seeing Helm’s Deep or the Battle of 5 Armies in their imaginations, why in the heck would I want to dial that back? The escalating drama of the missions themselves inspired some of it. PBTA makes it easy for me, as the moves are the same no matter the scale. We can easily ramp up the fiction without breaking the game.
My AP reports are never quite like this, but this was worth documenting. Thanks again for choosing my game and bringing your best.
Oh my lordie, I totally missed this… glad I’m coming back here to post my little writeup for this game, cause I get to read this great post!