8 thoughts on “How do letters to/from home fit into the rest of the game?”

  1. Letters from PCs, often the result of the Reach Out move, are like monologue scenes- they give the player a chance to reveal a significant new truth into the game and open up new directions in the fiction. It’s not necessarily a relationship but a chance for a player to reveal some new aspect of their character.

    PCs getting letters from home are an expression of a GM making a soft move, probably based on fiction provided by the PC earlier. This might spur the characters to action, or distract them from their duties, or even bring the attention of the Politruk (since all letters are read for security).

    So for example, the Sparrow playbook has a move called “Murky Past” (p.44) that involves secrets the character keeps hidden. Using Reach Out and writing a letter home is a perfect opportunity to bring those secrets into the fiction without revealing them to the other characters (yet).

  4. I think that’s it, guys.  Steve’s response is great.  What I take from it is:

    – As a player, writing a letter home is a way to foreground my character’s thoughts and feelings, giving the other players the opportunity for creative irony.  When a player tells us what’s in a letter, they are throwing us a ball, giving us a new narrative thread to their character.

    – As a GM, a letter from home is another tool in my toolbox.  When there’s a narrative thread that I want to pull on, sometimes a letter from home will be just the thing.  I don’t need to think of an example right now.  I’m sure when the right situation comes up, I will recognize it and go “a-hah, a letter from home would be perfect here.”  Also useful when I want to involve the Politruk in a PC’s business.

    What do you think?  Can you think of other effects of letters in the game?

  5. Yesterday I talked face to face to Mauro Ghibaudo, after a demo he had run at Modena Play (a gaming fair in Italy). We discussed about GM options when players choose for their characters to write back home to no one, and here there are some of my hints:

    – Ask them back “Ok, but is there someone who writes back to you, nevertheless?” (seek out their stories).

    – Tell them an unexpected letter arrives. Who is it from? What does it tell? Ask the player and/or come up with your own ideas (offer an opportunity and name the price; ok, maybe there is no price here, at least apparently, which is surely ok as well).

    – A comrade wingwoman regularly writes letters home to someone. During the last mission, she broke her writing arm and now she asks you to write a letter on her behalf while she’s dictating it (put them somewhere they don’t want to be).

  6. In my demo, a PC declared in the background (e.g., as an answer to questions during characters creation) her feelings to a female friends of her, but was refused; in her first scene I had a letters come to the PC from her loved one (no sender, the handwriting was enough to recognise her). The PC kept it for a while in her hands then put it in her back pocket, because she wasn’t ready to read it.

    Being it a demo it never entered the fiction anymore, but just the PC not feeling ready to read it was a powerful story hook.

    (I wanted to ask if, during the mission, she had the letter still with her; unfortunately, I forgot to ask.)

    (I think in the letter she was saying she was sorry for her reply, that she got afraid, and that she will enroll too so they would be able to see each other again soon! But maybe due to something happening while playing it’d have said something else.)

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