[Secret Lives of Serial Killers] Yes, a Playtest
Ron Edwards:
Hi everyone, and hello to you, Crystal!
Brendan, that second post of yours nailed it. I've been intrigued since the beginning that the revelation at the end of the game can be productive, and not merely a practical (and vicious) joke.
I do understand what all the objections are about. Here's a clip from last Tuesday's dialogue at the Dice Dojo, where there has been a weekly, ongoing discussion about this game. I posited a situation - which is historically unfortunately accurate - in which two or more players collude, beforehand, to have their characters rape the female character of another player. Consider the GM, or DM in most cases, to be one of the colluders. Consider as well that the in-game statement "I do this," "I do that," of the targeted player are rendered irrelevant and ineffective by the GM as part of play.
As I said, this is not some hypothetical scenario but something which has really happened, often enough to be a recognized feature of the subculture. I've never witnessed it personally, but I've also briefly played in or sat in on tons of D&D and other fantasy games which I then avoided strenuously, and wouldn't be surprised if some of them had included it.
For someone who is rightly appalled or worse, scarred by such goings-on, Willow's game must seem like absolutely nothing but a foul reprise or unaccountable celebration of this ... what do I call it, "practice." Unreconstructed, or worse, reactionary, from all the work we've done here at the Forge regarding Social Contract as the foundation for all aesthetic and procedural features of play. I bet that's what Moreno and I are going to discuss when I get to Italy next month. It's also why Willow wrote "no one should play this game," in the beginning of the rules, and why I found that a reasonable statement.
But ... the question is not about Social Contract, but rather Technique. The Technique in question is transparency, not in the gamer sense of how the rules work, but in the more general sense of relevant knowledge held by one or more members but withheld from others. How far can the lack of transparency can go, and still be powerfully productive?
Point #1: We need not over-idealize full transparency. I'll pick one example. It is flatly the case that GM-held knowledge of back-story is a productive feature of play. It's not required for all games, nor is over-protection of that knowledge necessary during play, but the last thing I would want as a Sorcerer or Dogs player, for instance, is to know the GM's back-story prior to beginning play. That lack of knowledge is a feature of those and many other games. This goes double (ha! tenfold) for classic exploratory/assault fantasy games, such as Tunnels & Trolls.
Other examples have proliferated since then, which do not rely on the classic centralized-knowledge model of GMing. The Dark Secret in The Mountain Witch, the Trespass in Spione (initially pilloried as "dangerous and wrong," if you remember), and more, all utilized lack of transparency on an individual-player basis.
Granted, there are some other game designs in which transparency is maximal: Universalis, With Great Power, and more. All that means to me is that transparency is a genuine Technique dial, much like the four Authorities and much like how resolving-narrations might be distributed.
Point #2: Revelations which absolutely redefine what has gone before are a much-desired feature of stories for some, and much-loathed by others. I'm talking about information which, once it has appeared, forces the audience to revisit everything they have seen or read until this point. Much of what they thought was rock-solid is now shown to be a lie. Certain things that were seen as excuses or lies must now be taken to be true. And one key feature of such films and stories is that prior to the moment(s) of revelation, the techniques of presentation (in film: music, shots held for a second longer than usual, other signals) were all deliberately pointing the viewer/reader the wrong way. The skilled creator is able to do this and still pull off what Brendan talked about: the sudden understanding that all sorts of details and features of the story so far are more consistent with the new/actual interpretation than with the previous one. In other words, it's a trick, but not a cheap trick - the payoff being that the ultimate story is better than the one the viewer thought was going to play out.
Point #3: Narrativism is about thematic punch. That doesn't necessarily mean constant punches; buildup and pacing are all big parts of the Techniques tool-box servicing that CA. Nor does it mean - as I wearily, wearily repeat as the years go by - story-conferencing by a set of absolute equals in terms of Technique. And perhaps that issue may even extend to Premise itself. If a revelation recasts all that has gone before into a different, better Premise, then the concealment of that information prior to that point would be itself, a productive Technique.
In the Ronnies feedback thread, I tried to articulate exactly what thematic content I was talking about: specifically, the deconstruction of a common, trite theme in many movies to reveal its similarities to - and disturbingly, affinities with - another phenomenon entirely.
Point #4: And now look. Two playtests so far, among people who apparently are not psychotics and who I presume are not so outstandly virtuous or talented as to be above the rest of every other gamer on the planet. Regular people, who among other things have very strong commitment to their Social Contract - so strong, in fact, that it can endure what appears to be unforgivable strain (the D&D rape) - to see whether it is, in fact, something else. And when it does turn out to be something else, because of the "makes more sense this way" effectg and the thematic punch, the result seems to be ... acceptable. And in fact, fun.
That's why I think the Milgram experiment is not necessarily the model for what's going on with the game, although it definitely belongs in the discussion for purposes of comparison. Nor do I think the game is merely a practical joke, or worse, a recapitulation of remembered abuse.
Perhaps a discussion of "No One Gets Hurt" vs. "I Will Not Abandon You" should come next.
Best, Ron
Brendan Day:
I was disappointed to learn that everyone else in the world knew the truth about this game, as it meant that I would have few, if any, opportunities to play the Recluse. If I could somehow play again as the Sunshine, I would. It would help me figure out what I think of this game. It’s tempting to dismiss Secret Lives of Serial Killers as a cruel joke, but I want to believe that there’s more to it. I have to believe there's something more. It's taken me a week to respond because I'm afraid that maybe it is all a joke, and I'm a fool for taking it so seriously.
I was surprised to learn that Sunshine Boulevard was a game of light romantic comedy, but really, what else could Willow do after Escape From Tentacle City, the game of hateful stereotypes? She had followed that road to the end, and now she was setting out in the opposite direction. I kept expecting Sunshine Boulevard to turn into a satire, but we were told to play it straight, and we did.
That proved rather awkward, as I was a married man playing a romantic rpg with a single woman. Perhaps this was all part of the design, and the game wasn’t as harmless as it seemed. One player is married and the other single, and it's the job of the third to arrange this awkward pairing and then block the exits. But why? What was Willow trying to accomplish, other than to make us uncomfortable?
Just last week Shari told us how she went to a fetish bar to study how people flirted. Perhaps that was a clue. It soon became apparent that she had no idea how to construct a conventional love story, either because she was riddled with kinks that she didn't want to reveal, or because she was emotionally illiterate. In either case, it made for an awkward afternoon. This was supposed to be a light romantic comedy, but there was very little chemistry between the Sunshine and the Recluse, and the only comedy came in the form of slapstick. Perhaps it was my fault. My Sunshine was a lonely traveling salesman, a recluse in his own right. Shari was indifferent to his advances, until at last the Recluse developed this weird fascination with him, if only because the rules dictated that this should happen. She started following him around, but there was nothing romantic about it. She was just stalking him.
Was this Shari’s idea of a love story? The game continued to unravel around us, and I smiled and nodded. I didn’t want to offend Shari. I've seen groups disintegrate as players act out their dislike for one another, and I wanted Shari to like me. But was it too late for that? Had I already done something to offend her? I sensed no overt hostility in her tone of voice or body language, but perhaps she was trying to keep it hidden. Or perhaps she was angry with Willow, and was punishing her by sabotaging the game.
In these situations I usually disengage, allowing others to pick up the pieces, but with only three players, the game left me nowhere to hide. Instead, I took refuge in my assigned role. I remained chipper and energetic, like a puppy. I chased the chew toy into the sink, and when it disappeared down the garbage disposal, I jumped in after it, barking happily. Yes, we were having fun. I looked up at Willow and Shari, and waited for something to happen.
They flipped the switch, and it was not fun. I said nothing. I did nothing. My character was in a state of shock, and so was I. At last I pushed my chair back and asked “Where is this going?”. It was too late, of course. The train had already flown off the track and exploded, or rather, the roller coaster had taken its final, sickening turn. It was about to glide to a halt.
Why didn’t I stop and ask the obvious question. Are you all insane? This can’t be real? You can’t be serious? Why didn't I see through the deception? I could have made the Sunshine a masochist who wanted nothing more than to be eaten alive by his sadistic beloved. I could have beaten Willow at her own game, if only I had seen her palming the cards. I'm glad that I didn't, because that would have spoiled the trick.
Sunshine Boulevard is a broken game. It's supposed to be. That's part of what makes Secret Lives Serial Killers work. In the final moments I was ready to dismiss it entirely, to sweep the pieces into the box and burn it. Nothing could possibly be done to fix this game, until suddenly all the pieces fell into place, and I realized that it wasn't broken at all. It was a puzzle, and Shari and Willow had tricked me into assembling it. Of course it was a story about a serial killer and her victim. What else could it possibly be?
I blinked in amazement. For two hours I had been an actor dying on stage, and just when I was about to bleed to death, the lights came up, the director rushed out in a cape, and everyone started to clap. I wasn't an actor at all. I was a magician's assistant. I had been locked in a box and sawed in half, but now the two halves of the box were clicking together, and I was emerging from the hidden compartment, shaken but unharmed. We all took a bow. Willow had made a clever game, and Shari had played it brilliantly. I hadn't quit in rage, and thank god I had kept all of those terrible thoughts to myself. Think how embarrassing it would have been if I had shared them?
Eero Tuovinen:
It occurs to me after reading Brendan's post that what would stop me from running this game or designing along similar lines is social accountability: the cabal players really aren't leaving themselves any justification at all for what they did if the victim does not end up appreciating their creatize zeal in tricking him. In other words, I have difficulty understanding how playing this game could be considered virtuous in retrospect if it so happens that the victim retroactively condemns it as a cruel trick. That's awfully lot of responsibility to take, to shoulder the blame while leaving the justification of the act (forgiveness, essentially) up to your victim. Whether you think that roleplaying is mere consensual hedonism or art, the theoretical problem of justification doesn't really go away.
Asymmetric knowledge itself is a crucial design tool, though, so I've no mere technical concerns here. In fact, it occurs to me that I have a very similar game in my desk drawer from way back (before he Dance and the Dawn, which also does this). My game is for three players, one of whom plays the romantic interest while one of the others plays the bad lover while the other plays the good lover. The tension of the game is in the fact that the player of the romantic interest has to choose between the two through play without knowing which is which, while the other two are bound by certain rules in how they lead and mislead the romantic interest. Of course there's a crucial difference between these games in that Secret Lives doesn't introduce the uncertainty into the diegetic framework while Dance and the Dawn and my game here both very much incorporate it: Secret Lives is not problematic because it includes uncertainty and hidden knowledge, but because it abuses (uses against intent, literally) the implicit social contract to enforce its surprise.
I'm harping about this not to condemn anybody morally, but to wonder whether the game couldn't achieve its artistic goals without abusing the ritual space of play. Ron has a good list of reasons for why the game needs that surprise; I especially appreciate the idea that awkward story material can be recontextualized to make perfect sense with new, surprising information. In this regard, consider the game that is almost the mirror image of this except for consensuality, It Was a Mutual Decision: in both of these games it is possible that what seems like a love story (well, relationship drama anyway) will be recontextualized as a horror story in the latter parts of play. IWaMD achieves this by rolling dice. It's basically like if everybody in Secret Lives knew in advance that it might be a serial killer story, but after the third act dice are rolled to find out if it is or isn't. Would something important be lost artistically if the game worked like this?
Another way to include the actual game within the envelope of pre-accepted possibilities is to play with a very auteuristic GMing culture, with the expectation that you don't really know what you're getting into when you play a game. We get a lot of this in Finland, at least as a certain sort of ideological ideal. The "hah haa, you thought that you're playing a modern teen drama but you're playing another Vampire chronicle after all" bait and switch is pretty well-known in this regard. If and when the local play culture is like this, playing Secret Lives seems much less outre as the players are already subscribing to the idea that the GM has the right to surprise them totally insofar as the subject matter of the game goes. I don't object to that, but I do find it something of a weakness if the game can't be made to work in a different social context.
Ron Edwards:
Hi Eero,
Would you apply that final point to fiction or film? That a given work is "weaker" given the social context of the person who walks into the theater or picks up the book?
I don't think you would.
Best, Ron
Eero Tuovinen:
Well, I suppose I would be willing to criticize the relevance of an artistic work when and if it's obviously insular in its execution. There's nothing wrong in making works of limited and special interest, of course, but it's also good craftsmanship to consider seriously where you need to sacrifice in general comprehension to achieve your artistic goals. Being incomprehensible or unenjoyable can only be justified by artistic vision when there is an actual artistic issue requiring you to sacrifice legibility - it'd be merely lazy to create a movie or novel that is more incomprehensible than it needs to be, insofar as art critique is concerned.
Note that I didn't decide for myself that Secret Lives is unnecessarily cruel, I just asked the question as fellow designer, interested in the answer: is it unnecessarily cruel, or does the cruelty bring something positive to it as a game or art or whatever it strives to be? I would be happy if the answer were deeper than the average postmodern artist's rallying cry where any reaction whatsoever from the audience, no matter how negative or frustrated, is considered a sign of victory for the artist struggling with his own irrelevance. That is, I'm not sure if you can hold the fact that the game is better at hurting people as proof that it's also better as a game.
I do admit that I find it a bit scary as a designer if the truth truly is that a game actually becomes better by intentionally consuming social trust and breaking not only expectations of content, but expectations of the rules and limits of the game-activity itself. Of course isolated works are one thing and general trends are another, but I can't help but think that a gaming culture that routinely accepts these sorts of tricks in the hunt for stronger experience is playing with fire; it's like doing bondage without safewords, which is problematic from a best practices point of view even when nobody actually got hurt this time around. At the very least it encourages objectifying of co-players when you accept the idea that a single player or some subset of players can renegotiate the nature and boundaries of the game unilaterally merely to improve the experience. There was a movie about this, actually... The Game, a particularly incipid piece about pervasive gaming and how a gamemaster comes to view their co-players as objects of their art.
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