Der PigDog's PigBlog

This post has some bad language in it, including gendered and homophobic slurs. It Was a Mutual Decision 's pitch is strong, incredibly strong, maybe the single best pitch for a game I have ever heard: you are in a breakup, as civil or toxic as you like, and one or both of you may be a horrible rat-human monster. Oh, and the game ends either when you've both gracefully exited the relationship, or one or both of you are dead. Also, it's a team-based game: all the boys play the girl, and all the girls play the boy. -- Every single time I have delivered this pitch, I see eyes light up. It's so obviously fun, funny, and resonant. Cover of It Was a Mutual Decision with a thumbs-up representing my positive opinion of the game Unfortunately for the reader, there are no digital copies, it is not currently in print, and the writer has no immediate plans to make it available again. I ordered a copy off ebay but it got snatched by porch pirates. Luckily when I was complainin...

It Was a Mutual Decision (2002) Photo of It Was a Mutual Decision, stolen from the internet Played with Misha, Divya, and Ken. Misha and I are a real-life couple, and Ken and Divya are a real-life couple. Misha and Divya are women, Ken is a man, and I am nonbinary, though I played on Ken's team in the game. All three, and everyone else I have talked to, were absolutely charmed by the premise of the game. It is an extremely easy sell. The rulebook promises that the rat content will serve to soften the blow of the breakup content, and this is certainly what I observed in play. We would go from shouting and breathing hard as we hurled in-character invectives across the room, to giggling uncontrollably while figuring out how to add rats to the scene. Authorities in play were natural and easy. Ken and I, and Misha and Divya, handed of narration without a word and without conflict. Everyone was creatively focused. We did not put much work into establishing the social landscape around our...

Traditionally RPGs centralize many responsibilities and authorities in one player, the GM. That's not necessarily bad, but it isn't necessarily good, either, and it's certainly not mandatory. I am going to look at some traditional functions of the GM to see why we put them in one player's hands, and how we might distribute the responsibility for these functions differently. A GM traditionally does a whole bunch of different things: Pitches the game Organizes play sessions, including recruiting players Knows the rules and teaches others Leads creatively Creates the background ("worldbuilding")  Creates the scenario for play Runs dramatic coordination Frames scenes Says "what's going on" generally Plays all side characters Resolves in-game tasks and conflicts Pitches the game, organizes play sessions, knows the rules. If the entire play-group is interested in gaming and excited about games, anybody should be able to do these things. (This or that ...

We did a bit of a refresher since it had been two or three weeks since the last session . Refreshed both rules and the situation at play. I explained the string economy and asked everybody what their character had done last session. Everybody was, of course, able to remember their own activities, with just a few additions from me. I also read through the list of thematic objects, and asked if everybody was interested in them, and told them that if they wanted another topic dealt with, they had to bring it into play themselves, but that they can always talk about it outside play too. I wanted to revisit some threads that got skipped over last time. Evann's Fae had gone for a walk in the woods with her friend before the party; what happened there? I was interested in her feeling of alienation/inhumanity, and I wanted to push her into some decision about her place among humans. So I had the Green Woman, the Fae's mother, a 7 foot tall naked green lady, freeze time and greet her d...