[Nicotine Girls] If you want it hard enough, and you try hard enough - and?
Ron Edwards:
Hi Jesse,
That's a good point, and I totally confounded session/story in my thinking when I wrote the post. It's true that my +1 and only +1, ever, was over-stated. I don't think it diminishes my analysis too much though.
Basically Maura and I were damned lucky not to lose Hope, and I think the main cause for that was that we Smoked whenever we could and followed the advice. Sooner or later, that wasn't going to happen, and even with that mechanical boost, the dice can really nail you in a system like this in the most pointed, must-have-been-planning-it way. I know it happens with The Pool all the time (i.e. the one roll out of many, ouch!!), and that's with d6's.
What I'm saying is that even with several sessions - and like you, I think 2-4 is a good number for this game - a +1 per session is very likely not going to happen.
I'm also thinking (and this really makes me want to play it again!) that the in-fiction events will become increasingly tense, as a combination of opportunities opening up and constraints boxing in. Especially once added Fear gets involved, as it had only begun to in our game. If what I'm thinking tends to happen, then the whole dynamic of Hope vs. Fear will shift a little. I'd like to see what play toward the end of, say, the second session will be like. I wonder whether I'll use Hope more than I mathematically "should" in tems of risk, because I'll not want my girl's life and life-decisions to be ruled by Fear.
Best, Ron
Paul Czege:
Hey Julie,
I'm not sure there should be a game effect for that. I certainly didn't have one in mind when I designed the game back in 2002. Thematically, Fear is what makes a character tenacious on behalf of her own needs. But the difficulties a player adds to his character's life from the chart don't go away when Fear hits zero. I don't think the game should say the character's tenacity or behaviors or personality should be changed if Fear hits zero, any more than a low Humanity takes behavioral or personality options off the table in Sorcerer.
But y'know, if I were running the game and a player zeroed out Fear and asked for his character to have an experience of living in the moment, a moment of peaceful happiness, without anxiety, I'd be glad to see it. I think that would be a fine interpretation of what might happen when a character zeroes out Fear.
Paul
Ron Edwards:
That's interesting. By contrast, after we played, Maura mentioned that she found the idea of a nicotine girl without Fear to be disturbing ... acting in a dream-world, convinced that dreams will make her reality, and destined for an encounter with Fear of the worst sort (from the Fear list) quite soon.
Best, Ron
E:
I also wanted to play this game for a long time. But each time I tried to, I could only find one player to play. Since the importance of the smoking scene, we dropped the idea. Maybe we could try to frame each other scenes. But I wonder what kind of dynamic it will create since you will be giving advice in the smoking scenes for the scene that you will be framing.
Quote
Nicotine Girls is not a wind-up toy. You can win every conflict and you know what, that only means a tiny increase in your chances, and that's all the bennies you get. Starting Hope is far more important.
I dint see it at first, but creating a character with a score of Hope of 1 is kind of aiming for a ending where your girl don't get her dream. It is like pre selecting your endgame or epilogue. If you do so, is it a way of telling what kind of game experience you are wishing for? (well in a one or two session game)
greyorm:
Full disclosure: I mentioned this to Ron privately, and he asked me to post about it. I hesitantly am.
Basically, his AP of Nicotine Girls made me cry.
Ron's critique of why it isn't played because of how it would make higher-class Americans feel is, indeed, dead-on (all of it: contemptuous and exploitative, regarded as less-than-human, petit-bourgeois mythology of hope/work, systematically powerless, etc).
The game is depressing...because it's true. And not "depressing" in that made-for-television-movie-after-school-special way, because it is not just "a story" sad; it's fucking depressing in the same way "Schindler's List" is depressing.
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