2019.03.04a Noir World: GC Confidential

WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:05.719 Everybody and welcome to just played. This is my just played report on a 2 00:00:05.839 --> 00:00:10.679 game I played called Noir World, and this was the GC confidential or Gauntlet 3 00:00:10.720 --> 00:00:15.960 City confidential session that I played on noir world. Now, noir world is 4 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:22.399 a powered by the apocalypse system for playing noir flavored adventures, one shot, 5 00:00:22.440 --> 00:00:25.440 saying campaigns. In this case we played a one shot. This was a 6 00:00:25.480 --> 00:00:29.600 gauntly game, so we played over gaunt hangouts. This was facilitated by David 7 00:00:29.800 --> 00:00:34.880 W now, noir world is a GM full system. I don't love that 8 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:40.439 term, but basically it means that in each turn a different player was the 9 00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:44.520 mcne. We kind of rotated around the table for the person who had the 10 00:00:44.600 --> 00:00:48.759 role of a traditional MC in a typical powered by the apocalypse game. I'll 11 00:00:48.799 --> 00:00:51.479 talk a little later about how well that worked. I'm a little I'm not 12 00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:56.880 entirely sold on it. So I was war veteran Stanley Dumb Bramovich. I 13 00:00:56.960 --> 00:01:00.600 was a sniper in the North African and Italian campaigns in World War II. 14 00:01:00.159 --> 00:01:03.680 Our game was set in late S, you know, kind of a few 15 00:01:03.799 --> 00:01:10.640 years after all the GAZZ got back from Europe and Japan. Agatha was private 16 00:01:10.680 --> 00:01:14.239 investigator Ashley Ross, who used to be on the police force, a former 17 00:01:14.359 --> 00:01:19.519 COP. David m was the FEMME fatale. In this case, Fatale Victor 18 00:01:19.680 --> 00:01:23.959 Whittier, club owner of the Blue Parrot, and David W are facilitator. 19 00:01:25.040 --> 00:01:30.120 It was detective Elliott Jones and he was using the good cop playbook from up 20 00:01:30.200 --> 00:01:34.120 noir world. So to start the game in noir world you roll some dice 21 00:01:34.280 --> 00:01:38.000 and check out a table to see what the crime that the your movie or 22 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:42.760 your episode is going to be focused around. In this case we rolled a 23 00:01:42.840 --> 00:01:47.319 kidnapping, but we also had a museum exhibition of Priceless Mayan Artifacts, so 24 00:01:47.400 --> 00:01:49.959 there was plenty there for us to work with. We could choose either one 25 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:55.120 of those to go with. Our background questions revealed that ash occasionally employed me 26 00:01:55.159 --> 00:01:59.040 as a heavy and that one night things went south and I saved him, 27 00:01:59.120 --> 00:02:02.159 much to his regret, but probably not necessarily to mine. I helped victor 28 00:02:02.239 --> 00:02:06.840 avoid getting drafted, but no one knew. And the other characters had background 29 00:02:06.879 --> 00:02:08.520 questions that tied them together and tied some of them to me, and in 30 00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:12.400 different permutations. I'm not going to go to all of them just for this. 31 00:02:12.639 --> 00:02:16.199 We each had a secret starting out. Mine was that the MP's were 32 00:02:16.240 --> 00:02:21.000 after me for something that happened during the war. Ash used to be a 33 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:24.719 cop and partners with detective Jones, but got drummed out. Victor had a 34 00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:30.400 terminal disease that he was keeping secret, and Detective Jones had started to visit 35 00:02:30.479 --> 00:02:34.439 Victors Club after hours. So we had this rich and so be mixed of 36 00:02:34.560 --> 00:02:38.080 entanglements and motivations. We have the option, if we wanted to, to 37 00:02:38.199 --> 00:02:40.919 keep our secrets secret and not let the other players know, but we all 38 00:02:40.960 --> 00:02:45.280 agreed that it's way more fun, especially in one shot, if we knew 39 00:02:45.280 --> 00:02:47.520 what those were so that we could kind of play towards them and point our 40 00:02:47.599 --> 00:02:53.199 characters towards their noir inflected dooms plots and ops of the game. After some 41 00:02:53.319 --> 00:02:58.840 establishing scenes where we met all of the characters and set up our locations, 42 00:02:58.840 --> 00:03:04.199 got a chance to see who normally hung out where, we settled Inan on 43 00:03:04.560 --> 00:03:09.319 a heist plot involving those priceless Mayan artifacts. Victor Helpfully opened one of the 44 00:03:09.400 --> 00:03:15.199 museum's Windows for my character stand but then, after the job was done, 45 00:03:15.360 --> 00:03:21.039 sold him out, along with Ash, who wasn't actually involved in the heist 46 00:03:21.080 --> 00:03:24.719 and kind of threw US under the bus to the detective after the job was 47 00:03:24.759 --> 00:03:29.639 over. In the mask had been passed off. So there was a botched 48 00:03:29.759 --> 00:03:34.759 arrest attempt in Victor's Club, the blue parrot involving ash and stand. Ash 49 00:03:34.840 --> 00:03:38.520 got captured, but stand went on the lamb and Boh and victor's assistant, 50 00:03:38.599 --> 00:03:43.919 Vanessa, actually took a bullet in the crossfire, but a stand managed to 51 00:03:43.919 --> 00:03:47.960 get away and went on the lamb, but eventually he and his sniper rifle 52 00:03:49.080 --> 00:03:53.319 caught up with Victor and the detective, who was celebrating their victory to celebrating 53 00:03:53.400 --> 00:03:58.759 the fact that I was probably long gone, but alas, I returned and 54 00:03:58.840 --> 00:04:02.879 forced vic to overdose on morphine, on the morphine that he was taking to 55 00:04:02.879 --> 00:04:08.439 suppress the symptoms of whatever terminal disease it was he had. I forced him 56 00:04:08.439 --> 00:04:14.319 to overdose a gun point before I turned myself in for trial to the detective. 57 00:04:14.360 --> 00:04:16.399 At the end of the game, victor was dead of a self inflicted 58 00:04:16.480 --> 00:04:21.279 overdose under duress. You're welcome, everybody. Ash was miserable, with all 59 00:04:21.279 --> 00:04:27.319 his friends dead or disgraced. The detective had been demoted because of his involvement 60 00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:30.959 with Victor and the mass at his house and the overdose, although he saved 61 00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:36.680 his job by bringing me in and my character ended sitting in the gas chamber 62 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:42.120 as ash looked on, very genre appropriate. It was a grim and dark 63 00:04:42.160 --> 00:04:46.639 and cynical and nihilistic, just the way that a good noir story should be. 64 00:04:46.680 --> 00:04:50.160 So Kudos for that. My favorite thing that another player did was when 65 00:04:50.240 --> 00:04:56.680 victor just viciously sold out ash along with me, even though ash had nothing 66 00:04:56.720 --> 00:05:00.120 to do with the crime. At the beginning of the game one of the 67 00:05:00.199 --> 00:05:05.160 connections was that victor resented ash for walking around acting so superior all the time 68 00:05:05.279 --> 00:05:09.639 and acting like he was better than Vic and there was a little bit of 69 00:05:09.680 --> 00:05:12.439 that, that kind of a little bit of sort of sniping that they did 70 00:05:12.439 --> 00:05:15.480 it each other. But when he sold me out, I expected that. 71 00:05:15.519 --> 00:05:19.480 But when he threw ash under the bus along with me, that was great. 72 00:05:19.560 --> 00:05:23.399 Such a noir moment, such a jerk, and it was. It 73 00:05:23.439 --> 00:05:29.279 was perfect. So my favorite chamming moment was one of the scenes where Agatha 74 00:05:29.519 --> 00:05:34.519 was gmming was acting as MC. She faded to black just as a scene 75 00:05:34.560 --> 00:05:41.439 had reached its climactic moment. So we saw what actually happened in that scene. 76 00:05:41.439 --> 00:05:45.759 In Our epilogs after the fact. She cut it early, which was 77 00:05:45.839 --> 00:05:50.480 perfect. It was very cinematic and not something we probably would have done unprompted. 78 00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:54.680 We probably would have wanted to play that out and maybe played a little 79 00:05:54.720 --> 00:05:57.759 too much of it, but she just was, you know, she was 80 00:05:57.800 --> 00:06:00.920 a merciless with fading that to a black right at that moment and it was 81 00:06:00.959 --> 00:06:04.480 a really, really good choice. That really made the game. Missed opportunity 82 00:06:04.560 --> 00:06:09.079 for this one. We only got to play two acts of the full three 83 00:06:09.160 --> 00:06:13.240 act structure. This is a thing I talked about with Jinkies. Sometimes, 84 00:06:13.439 --> 00:06:16.480 especially with these online games, the prep and the setup can be kind of 85 00:06:16.560 --> 00:06:20.720 laborious. It can take a while and because we're doing stuff online and having 86 00:06:20.759 --> 00:06:25.319 to make sure that we're very conscientious of taking turns and not at the table 87 00:06:25.439 --> 00:06:28.360 just kind of Yah can stuff out and fill and stuff out in paper. 88 00:06:28.439 --> 00:06:31.319 It took quite a while to build everything, which was worth it because we 89 00:06:31.319 --> 00:06:35.480 got a great game. But again we didn't get to see the full structure 90 00:06:35.560 --> 00:06:42.319 that the game encourages you to use in order to really duplicate the pacing of 91 00:06:42.360 --> 00:06:45.319 a noir movie thing. We kind of bum rush things at the end. 92 00:06:45.360 --> 00:06:46.879 We got a satisfying ending, but it would have been nice to see it 93 00:06:46.959 --> 00:06:49.680 play out if we could have done that. So a thing I noticed about 94 00:06:49.720 --> 00:06:55.480 the game is that, unlike just about every other powered by the apocalypse game 95 00:06:55.519 --> 00:07:00.079 that I've played, and very strangely given the nature of this game, noir 96 00:07:00.279 --> 00:07:06.480 world has no avoid a terrible thing move. It's got no defied danger, 97 00:07:06.519 --> 00:07:10.959 it's got no act under fire, it's got no move that, if you 98 00:07:11.160 --> 00:07:15.000 try something dangerous, how do you avoid it? How do you or do 99 00:07:15.040 --> 00:07:23.519 you avoid it? It relies very heavily on judgment calls by MC's and when 100 00:07:23.560 --> 00:07:28.040 you're swapping out MC's like that, it may be that that works for noir, 101 00:07:28.120 --> 00:07:32.240 but it's really tough in a G MLEST GM full game to have those 102 00:07:32.279 --> 00:07:38.879 negotiations and decide when moves are going to kick off and when they're not. 103 00:07:38.959 --> 00:07:43.199 This is something that I experienced in a GM less game of monster hearts that 104 00:07:43.240 --> 00:07:47.000 we played the other day, and I think that really you need a GM 105 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:51.480 in order to you need a GM and MC in order to enforce that and 106 00:07:51.639 --> 00:07:57.920 to bring the pain when players do stuff that might get them into trouble, 107 00:07:57.959 --> 00:08:01.160 and I think we had a little trouble negotiating that in this game I really 108 00:08:01.160 --> 00:08:05.720 feel like it needs some kind of a hey, I'm trying this crazy thing, 109 00:08:05.920 --> 00:08:07.839 what happens? Type of move. I want to play a couple more 110 00:08:07.839 --> 00:08:11.040 games of it. I have a couple more games of its scheduled this month. 111 00:08:11.079 --> 00:08:13.160 I've got one the one, the next one that I'm playing is called 112 00:08:13.319 --> 00:08:18.040 the shadow knows, so I'm hoping we lean into a little bit of Superhero 113 00:08:18.079 --> 00:08:22.000 content with that. So that should be fun and I'll report back on that 114 00:08:22.040 --> 00:08:24.439 when I know what's going on. So thanks for listening. If you're interested 115 00:08:24.439 --> 00:08:28.360 in finding out more about what I'm doing gaming wise, you can find me 116 00:08:28.399 --> 00:08:31.839 on twitter at Jim Likes Games, and you can buy Games from me at 117 00:08:31.959 --> 00:08:35.639 Jim Likes Gamescom, as well as read my occasional blog posts when I get 118 00:08:35.639 --> 00:08:39.840 around and putting those up. Thanks a lot for listening. I'm going to 119 00:08:39.879 --> 00:08:39.720 go play more games.