Slay With Me: 1st Game
Willow:
So, Tim and I sat down tonight to play a game of Slay With Me.
Let me preface this by saying I don't think I'm the target audience for this game. I wasn't even alive during the time period addressed by Ron's Naked Went the Gamer Essay. I'm female, and quite frankly, I find the naked pictures a little juvenile. The game is also far too light for my tastes. But hey, it's one on one, so why not?
Tim played the warrior, a young man with grey hair and martial prowess, going into the dark tunnels beneath the black plateau in search of the mystic artifact of his people. Tim and I both rather liked the mini oracles for characters and places.
The Lover was an animate carving of an ancient princess of his people; giving guidance and communicating in runes. The Monster was a bestial, smelly, loud furry thing- somewhat like a minotaur, though I never actually used the word minotaur.
So I picked up dice for threatening and attacking the warrior, which the monster was happy to do on repeated occasion, though I was careful not to do on every go- there were several based on conversation between the warrior and the lover, or of descriptions of the tunnels. Also, the fact that the monster would be injured and spend time regenerating often gave Tim a reprieve of several goes before I invoked the Monster again.
Tim only picked up two dice- one for finding the central chamber, one for taking a sword out of the coffin, and one for heading towards the safety of his tribe. He was unsure of his authority to give himself dice, and I was unsure of what length he needed to go to to earn them. Once I hit my five dice he had three, and we discussed it a bit- he felt he deserved 1 for his interactions with the lover, and he was probably right, but it wouldn't have made a difference in the endgame.
The rules on endgame say the goes should be especially leisurely, but once Tim saw he only had enough dice to accomplish one thing, he choose to kill the monster, and said he let it collapse the tunnels, killing it, him, and the lover. Not really much room for narration after that.
Tim had some more extensive questions regarding the system and gaining dice and goes, I'll let him post them.
TJ:
I think page 22 partially addresses my issue with the session seeming a little too tight. I also think some of the 'Where?' questions on page 6 may be too restrictive for my tastes, such as the Twisted Caverns which we both imagined as an isolated, static environment with no characters besides the hero, monster and lover present.
Does the hero get a die for narrating how he was distracted from working towards his goal?
Ron Edwards:
Hi Willow and Tim,
I apologize for taking so long to reply.
I hope that you go back and forth with several adventures. Most of what you're describing is resolved through applying the same rules with more experience, especially shifting from one-critter-one-lover-one-place encounters into more nuanced, character-rich scenarios.
I can clarify a couple of your questions and what I see as possible readings issues.
1. Tim, you don't get dice when your adventurer is distracted from working on a Goal. Unlike Lover dice, those dice are one-way, you have to get some distance covered toward whatever-it-is. The "Making Goes good" section provides advice about how to do that.
2. It seems to me that interpreting the location descriptions as static and empty can only be ascribed to one's decision when using the description, rather than to its textual content. Nothing prevents the tunnels beneath the Black Plateau from being filled with people, for instance. That said, a one-critter-otherwise-empty-place encounter can be fun too. The first adventure I ever playtested was like that.
3. When the "you" player chooses the final options based on the outcome and dice-structure of the Match, those statements are not themselves adding to the fiction yet. So let's say I choose "kill the Monster" as one of the things I buy with Good Dice. The Monster doesn't die right then and there. Picking it then means that either you or I will incorporate the Monster's death in one of the Goes to come. I am not sure, but I inferred from Willow's description that Tim basically ended the whole adventure with direct narrations of each choice as he picked them. Correct me if I'm wrong about that. However, if so, then I need to clarify that (i) picking those options is not itself in-fiction narration (so that player doesn't, for instance, say how the Monster dies at that time); (ii) Goes individually include one major forward-moving event; so (iii) post-Match play must by definition include at least one Go by each player.
4. That was a very interesting concept for the Lover. I'm interested in the content of the conversations that she and the adventurer had, and also in whether there was any explicit way for him to embrace her (i.e. have sex) and/or to stay with her.
Best, Ron
Paul Czege:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on September 30, 2009, 07:13:39 AM
So let's say I choose "kill the Monster" as one of the things I buy with Good Dice. The Monster doesn't die right then and there. Picking it then means that either you or I will incorporate the Monster's death in one of the Goes to come.
FWIW, Danielle and I also didn't realize the things purchased as accomplishments were inputs to post-Match Goes. We interpreted the purchasing to be Intent, Initiation, and Execution, and we sort of mutually embellished the accomplishments with details to work them into the SIS. And then then we had pretty lame post-Match Goes. But were weren't playtesting with your final text, so maybe it was phrased a bit differently than the current text.
Still, the current text says "Your Goes demonstrate these decisions, and mine provide reactions and resulting events." Which doesn't seem the same to me as saying that either of us can incorporate the Monster's death in one of the post-Match goes. It seems to be saying the adventurer player incorporates the accomplishments into his Goes and the other player provides reactions and results.
Paul
Eero Tuovinen:
I've interpreted it similarly, Paul. That is, the adventurer player makes his choices and reveals them in his Goes, with the M/L player providing reactions and consequences to those choices. The Goes go on basically as long as it takes for the adventurer player to reveal all of his choices.
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