[Go Play Peoria][Dirty Secrets] A simple plan….
GreatWolf:
Why yes, the title is a film reference. But the concept is so very noir. We’ll just transgress the boundaries just this once, and no one will get hurt. The stories that arise prove that this is wrong.
So, we sat down to play Dirty Secrets at Go Play Peoria. I haven’t had a chance to play my own game of late, so I was pushing pretty hard to get it to the table. Our table ended up with five players: myself, Raquel, Tim, Dave, and Ian. I was particularly pleased with Ian’s presence. He’s a friend of mine, but he has done little or no roleplaying. It’s entirely possible that this con was his first serious exposure to roleplaying. It was certainly his first exposure to Our Games. On the whole, I thought that he did quite well.
Since we had the time, I pushed for a Novella length game, which ended up being about four and a half hours long. Not too bad for a con.
The experience levels of the players were varied. Three of the five had never played Dirty Secrets before, and I’m not sure what prior exposure Dave and Ian had to the genre. Nonetheless, I thought that the game gelled quite well.
By strict rules of the game, we should have set the game in Peoria, since three of our players were from Peoria and only two from Chicago. But, since our investigator was from Peoria and because the previous RPG we had played was set in Peoria, we deferred and set the game in Chicago.
What Happened In Play
So, Tim was our investigator, playing Harry Shelton, an ex-PI who had spent some time in jail for an unspecified crime. Now he’s out, bumming around, not doing much of anything. He gets pulled into the case by Tanya Ventura, a young woman who he had mentored before he went to jail. She’s now in college and is being blackmailed for some minor hacking that she’s done. The blackmailer is threatening to turn her over to the police unless she and her group go to work for the blackmailer. All Tanya can figure is that the woman who cleans her apartment might have figured something out.
I’m not even going to attempt to reconstruct the series of events that resulted from this start. Rather, here’s what was really going on.
Juan, Tanya’s partner in crime, wasn’t really her boyfriend, like she had originally claimed. Rather, Ron Pastor was her boyfriend. Or, should I say, Agent Ron Pastor? We never established which agency he was working for, but it didn’t really matter. The two of them were working together to crack personal information databases and sell the information for money. Juan was working for Tanya. Sarah, an undercover cop, figured this out and, rather than arresting them, tried to blackmail Juan and Tanya into giving her a cut of the action. (Crime 1) Instead, Juan murdered Sarah, probably with Ron’s full knowledge. (Crime 2). Then, Ron murdered Juan, probably to cover their tracks, although his motive was never really revealed. (Crime 3). At the end of the story, the cops had arrested Ron and were trying to get some initial information from him. But then, a black sedan pulled up, and men “took Ron into custody”. Was this a cover-up? Was this a rescue of an agent? Were these rogues who were assisting Ron? We will never know.
Throughout the game, Tanya kept falling under suspicion and, as things began to unravel, began to act in increasingly violent ways. When an agent attempted to gain access to her apartment, Tanya shot him through the door. Later, she pulled a gun on Harvey while he was driving. When he escaped from the car and was hit by a passing motorist, she shot the motorist when he stopped to help Harvey. Then, she chased him down, forcing him to club her with a chunk of cinder block. But, with all that, Tanya didn’t actually do any of the Crimes that were defined in the game. A perfect example of the system doing its job.
Our closing scene was classic. Harvey goes to visit Tanya in jail, trying to get her to blab on Ron for murdering Juan. She refuses, and Harvey basically says the whole “I raised you better than this” thing, pleading with her. She turns to him and says something like, “Oh? And where were you the last few years of my life? You abandoned me. I know where you were.”
Harvey says, “I’m sorry I failed you.” Then he turns and walks away.
The end.
Trusting the System
About halfway through the game, I was thinking, “This isn’t coming together.” Stuff wasn’t happening, energy was low, the investigator was wandering aimlessly. It seemed like the game was failing.
Then, suddenly, it wasn’t.
I had forgotten that the first stretch of the game is all about building stuff and making things up. Reincorporation happens later. I hope that this doesn’t sound arrogant, but I really should have trusted my game more.
I’m curious to hear from the other players at the table. In my mind, the pivotal scene was when Tanya was getting ready to bug out and then shot the agent. That revealed that Tanya wasn’t the innocent little girl that she was portraying herself to be. This seemed to give the rest of the story the necessary energy.
Sympathy for the Character
Dirty Secrets uses a rotating semi-GM system, where players take turns being responsible for Chapters of play. However, being the Authority (as the game calls it) doesn’t require you to portray all the Characters. The narration rules allow anyone to narrate whatever they desire, subject to the Authority, and a specific application of this is that the Authority may assign the role of a Character to another player.
We used this to good effect in our game. Raquel really empathized with Tanya. So, without consciously discussing this, I noticed that our group fell into a discernable pattern. First, we’d have Tanya do something awful. Like, shooting an innocent motorist who was just trying to help. Then, we’d give Tanya to Raquel to portray, who would then try to do her best to portray her as sympathetic. Repeat until end of story.
This produced a fascinating dynamic, where we ended up with a surprisingly deep character who, despite all the horrible things she had done, managed to remain a sympathetic person that you could still empathize with.
Now, this was a designed feature of Dirty Secrets, but I wonder if this technique can be adapted to other games. Any thoughts from folks?
Conclusion
I want to give a big shout out to my fellow players. I really appreciated the chance to be able to play my game again, and I enjoyed being able to play this with you. I felt like we were able to quickly enter a cooperative zone and work together to construct a satisfying story. So, thank you very much.
Nev the Deranged:
Man, this game should have been called "A Lot of Not Very Nice People Get What's Coming to Them... And Some Innocent Ones, Too"
I think the least sympathetic character ended up being Harry. Tim's portrayal of him was great, but the character himself ended up being by turns incompetent and brutal. It's definitely not a surprise that he spent some time in the clink.
Dirty Secrets is kind of like Clue played from the opposite direction, if that makes any sense. You never knew what was going to happen, or which characters were going to show their dark sides. Toward the end, I felt like I had an obligation to portray the elderly cleaning woman as completely innocent, just so there'd be at least one redeemable character in the story... and Harry cold-cocked her and left her for dead just for putting sugar in his tea.
Interestingly, one of the "bogeymen" of Dirty Secrets, the whole race/class thing, didn't seem to really have any impact on our game. Maybe others disagree? Aside from one instance of Sarah, who was Asian, conveniently speaking Cantonese, it never really came up. Not sure what that says, if anything.
I dig the game. It's almost simple enough that I'd consider trying to get my boardgamers to try it, but not quite. Alas. I'd definitely play again myself, though.
Thanks, Seth, for facilitating; and to Tim, Raquel, and Ian for playing. Good times.
Raquel:
At the risk of simply being repetitive, I enjoyed this game a lot. This is the first time I'd played it since it was officially out of playtest, and it was just as beautifully painful as I remembered.
Quote from: Nev the Deranged on February 26, 2008, 03:47:23 PM
I think the least sympathetic character ended up being Harry. Tim's portrayal of him was great, but the character himself ended up being by turns incompetent and brutal. It's definitely not a surprise that he spent some time in the clink.
Huh. I actually found Harry to be a sympathetic character. Admittedly though, I spent most of my time viewing Harry through Tanya's eyes, and as we established at the end, she really did come to him for help. Well, sort of. And if you explain away the little episode where she tried to kill him...
So, yeah--thank you Seth, for facilitating one of the most enjoyable afternoons I've had getting my heart ripped out and stomped on. It was great.
GreatWolf:
Quote from: Nev the Deranged on February 26, 2008, 03:47:23 PM
Interestingly, one of the "bogeymen" of Dirty Secrets, the whole race/class thing, didn't seem to really have any impact on our game. Maybe others disagree? Aside from one instance of Sarah, who was Asian, conveniently speaking Cantonese, it never really came up. Not sure what that says, if anything.
I was thinking about this, too. I assert that the Demographics will have their effect in every game, although it's impossible to know before the game which will be critical.
So, try this on for size.
You have Tanya, who is ultimately defined as being young. I mean, all the really bad stuff that she did during the game was the result of her panicking, as opposed to being premeditated.
Whereas you have two men near here (Harry and Ron) who are both older. It's probably not much of a stretch to begin analyzing Tanya's relationship with Ron as being connected to her understanding of her relationship with Harry. Ron was obviously a bad influence. Harry...well, that depends on what you think of him. Was he actually good for Tanya?
Actually, that would be an interesting question. I agree with Raquel that I found Harry to be sympathetic, as was Tanya. Ron was definitely bad, and, in my head, he got away scot-free, which is a big deal. Juan and Consuela just got stuck in the middle, I think.
Hey, there's a race thing. The Latino characters were less criminal than the other characters. Make of that what you will.
Oh, and regarding this:
Quote
Man, this game should have been called "A Lot of Not Very Nice People Get What's Coming to Them... And Some Innocent Ones, Too"
That pretty much sums up the genre as I understand it
Nev the Deranged:
Alright, admission time.
I made Tanya and Juan hackers specifically to play against stereotype. So, in that sense, the demographics did play a part.
I was totally stunned when you guys had Tanya shoot the federal agent, that caught me off guard.
And if everyone else hadn't already been bastards by the time Consuela came in, I would have done my damnedest to make her an agent of the Russian Mafia.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page