[Nerdinburgh '08] Spione
Gregor Hutton:
Just a quick post to say that I'm now back from being in Ireland and I'll have a post to make later. A few points just to clarify.
(i) I played as a player, so there weren't any non-particpating people at the table.
(ii) We got through 3 Flashpoints in play, so I don't think we were going straight to flashpoints at all.
(iii) The two characters chosen both had short Supporting Cast lists, so we did actually complete the game in the 3 hours or so. Most cast went out through double cards though Joe Prince revealed a trespass and wrote one out using a Fate.
The text is very clear on how to set-up and play the game, how to move cards in Flashpoint and what they allow you to do. The book was passed around to help people decide what they wanted to do on their turn in flashpoint and it wasn't always a "crude" or "flashy" event that was generated.
[In fact, Joe Murphy seemed bored by me going through the sequence of ordering the cards very deliberately, since I guess we all "got" how you could move them and what their positioning and strength meant.]
A tripping point was that no one had seen the book beforehand since the con was put together at very short notice. We also were very unfamiliar with each other as a group -- I think if we played together again we would have a much better feel for each other.
We did have some discussion of when to go to flashpoint, over and under-shooting but I got the feeling that we didn't act as a group on what we discussed. But more on that later.
Ron Edwards:
Hi everyone,
Callan: yes, that's right. That's a good analogy. The interesting thing, too, is that when the water boils, not everything will necessarily be resolved or known, but some will, and there's no way to tell what will or what won't until you're in the middle of it. Once that particular process (Flashpoint) is over, the group returns to Maneuvers.
Gregor: I was waiting for you to encounter this thread, because you were the point man and my primary thing to say is, "Thank you," for bringing out the game to everyone there. Please don't get the wrong idea from the thread so far. It's not an easy experience for some of them, and I've had to address points of confusion or dissatisfaction as they've come, from that person's point of view. That does not mean I think you fell down on the job, misrepresented the game, or did anything poorly.
The fact is, you can say X and Y and Z about Spione until you're blue in the face, and people will only hear what they can process at that moment, for whatever reason. I went through this a thousand times with Sorcerer, which is only a half-step (albeit a signficant one) away from "normal" role-playing. With Spione, the difference is indescribably vast. It's like asking people to jump off a cliff with you.
Regarding introducing Spione to strong role-players, is, "I've been there." Even if people have a fun time, they still itch and fuss and find things to be weird about. I really don't know whether it will ever work as a convention or demo game. It lacks a comfortable structure like the ones found in Contenders or Perfect. Its genre features are not quite "genre," as you know, and they deliberately kick the more familiar Thriller genre features in the balls. The only thing to do is to trust the slow boil, and for the ingredients to be added to be things that are genuinely interesting. It also requires prompting genuine interest in the history, or elements found in history. For instance,
Did you know that the communist spymaster for East Germany totally dominated the intelligence "war" for twenty-five years? Without him, the KGB would have been a mere shadow of itself, in terms of spying on the west. He made the CIA and everyone else look like idiots, over and over, and the more we find out, the worse it gets. His name was Markus Wolf. And get this: he was a liberal, intellectual, Jewish German. When he retired in the 1980s, he became a glasnost activist.
If you're talking to an American or a Brit, and if the person is really listening and using any part of his or her brain, that little speech is pretty much guaranteed to elicit a reaction like, "What? He was what? How ... no, wait a minute. What?" (Yes, everyone who's into this stuff, I know that Wolf's character remains a matter of some controversy. I'm presenting a superficial view which is, nonetheless, at least accurate if not nuanced.) The point is that the person is jarred a bit. That's not the KGB. That's not the communists. That's not the Germans, for Pete's sake. Then they might be curious. Who was this guy, and what were his spies like? Once someone shows some curiosity, then things can move. It's the equivalent of being turned out by a genre character-concept, but not the same.
I really don't know how that can be made to happen in a con environment when everyone's just pulled up a chair and is expecting some comfortable variant of Dogs, Polaris, or My Life with Master. In my expected model for play of the game, it shouldn't be "made" to happen anyway, it's just a matter of finding out who's interested in that way and pulling them together eventually. If neither anchor is present (shared interest in the topic, or shared social familiarity as a group), then I dunno.
So, again, thanks. I'm interested to know what the game was like for you, and any suggestions you might have for dealing with the game in this context.
Best, Ron
Callan S.:
Isn't that being a bit dramatic to say it's potentially impossible to present? I know it covers a vast amount of ground, so it seems unbefitting to describe it in some reduced way. But people are (and should be) trying to find out whats fun about a game, in order to play for that very quality and then they actively pursue it. Too much trust factor, as you'd know, and their just following your footsteps. I know you want them to find whats important about the various world events, but surely that can come with repeat play. Surely a more basic pitch can initiate things? I thought of one to get at the core idea of guys - I mean, yeah, world events are important but at the base your game is about guys, so it's not missplaced to set a basic pitch revolving just on that. Anyway, here's a pitch I had fun making up, taking into account what I know of the game:
Quote
What does an animal do when it's cornered?
What does a man feel, when every step he takes slowly backs him into that corner?
This is the life of a spy. This is Spione.
I mean, way off? It seems a core part of the game - people backed into corners, and it suggests something juicy to get out of it - what he feels. Or is 'feel' too passive? Anyway, surely Spione's not that impossible to pitch?
Ron Edwards:
Hi Callan,
Depends on whom you're talking to. In this thread, and in reference to Gregor's experience, I'm talking about dedicated role-players in a strong gaming-community context, like a convention or at a website like this one. Presenting Spione in that situation is like selling air to fish. That's not a slam on that culture, but it is a fact; I've had it demonstrated to me extremely clearly on multiple occasions. For instance, I introduced the book and the activity to a roomful of folks using a personal pitch almost exactly as you describe. Y
Gregor, in hopes of making better tactics for the future, I'll be interested in anything you suggest. I also hope I'm doing a better job of promotion in this thread than I've managed in the past, as I've been ripping my brain apart with every post to try to apply what I've learned from those past experiences, and to be as absolutely honest with the readers as I can conceive.
Outside of that context, the book is a remarkably easy sell. I've passed out cards on request to people standing in line at the butcher shop, sitting next to me in an airplane, and chatting on the basis of having kids in strollers in the same location. None of these were intentional targets for sales at the outset, either - more like, "Oh man! I have to have this book. Do you have a card?"
If you check out the website, you'll find the back of the book in there somewhere, and I think I did a pretty decent/dramatic job of describing the Cold as a juicy thing. But again, it's not targeted toward role-players, and the notion of being and feeling like a spy, as a goal or purpose of the activity, is not mentioned or present in any way. It's not at all about "you have a spy guy! you say what he does!" (I know that deviates a bit from what Ralph posted, but I think his point was far more focused on a particular stage of play rather than toward the purpose of the activity as a whole.)
Best, Ron
Gregor Hutton:
Hi Ron
Yeah, I agree and I don't know how to best tell people to have an open mind and don't try to be over-clever. I find the book really helpful to me to read out loud when playing, next time I should get someone else to read it out actually that would be a great way of spreading the knowledge about the table. I really think the handing the book around thing helps a lot, it passed around a lot for flashpoints but it should have circulated more.
The phrase that strikes me at the start of play is "Principles are spies -- not spymasters, not politicians, not special ops commandos". But the thing is, we all nod and go "yeah, yeah, I get it, no James Bond, ordinary people, lying and spying" but in play we still default to more "gamer" stuff. Y'know, the big, flashy stuff, the kills, the bombs, disappearances, etc.
I think we had problems with holding ideas lightly and just playing the game, it's like we have to unlearn some of the "indie game" and "general gamer" expectations we have. I mean, we got to the first Flashpoint and I think one of the players asked if we should set the stakes.
Maybe it's like the playing music analogy. We all came along with our own strong riff, or style we are going to play, and just played that riff irrespective of the beat, scale or contributions of everyone else and the theme of play. But I think the only way you get better is to talk about it, and we did (and are), and we pick up the instruments again.
I think Spione has a really stripped-back and elegant way of generating fiction, and the answer I see (for me, anyway) is to leave other games and their expectations at the door and just follow the advice in the book. It really is low prep rules-wise as long as I bring my own opinions and observations about people and life to the table.
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