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Actual Play Vignettes: [Contenders] If You Want to Save Her, Lose Her

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  1.  # 1
    Reposted from my LJ, because I'm impatient for Matt to put up the full AP report :)

    We played Contenders at Go Play PDX last Saturday, and it made me think of something Vincent had said about playing characters and finding out in play if they were protagonists or not. It turns out Contenders sometimes does that. Contenders is a GM-less roleplaying game about boxers trying to make it. Matt is writing up the actual play report, but I feel the urge to just share this little tidbit anyway.

    So my character, Boris, has a connection with his sister Alena. This is Depression Era New York, and she's involved with union and Communist work. His fear is that she gets killed because of it. In Contenders terms, that means that if we end the game with his pain rating higher than his hope rating, his fear comes to pass and she is killed. If it's the other way around, she makes it.

    Matt's character, Finnean, is an Irish immigrant whose father is a longshoreman. They're trying to unionize. To make the long story short, Finnean hooks up with Alena, Boris does anti-union thug work and breaks Finnean's father's knee, the two have a brawl in the streets in Gangs of New York style... basically the two boxers become nemeses who haven't even fought each other in the ring yet.

    But Boris' pain rises to 8. His hope is at 1. I just have horrible luck with the cards and lose two fights. There is NO way I could get his hope up high enough before the end of the game. Alena seems doomed.

    Matt, on the other hand, has the luck of the Irish. Finnean's hope grows to 5, his pain stays at 1. He wins fights, he takes care of his connection (his younger brother), and things just work out for him. Except for Alena.

    You know what my ratings mean? They mean Alena is going to die. Even though Finnean is trying to save her, Boris' pain has doomed her, because she's my connection and her fate rests on my hope and pain ratings.

    And then Matt says: I know how to save her.

    And he threatens my connection with her. That's a mechanic in the game by which you can cut off someone's connection if they fail to fulfill a certain stipulation in a fight. They lose all hope points associated with that character, but the fear won't come to pass either.

    So here we are: Boris and Finnean finally will fight. With a stipulation: Boris has to lose if he wants to keep his connection with Alena.

    The two of them meet in the ring, and Boris comes out bringing the pain (i.e., using his pain rating for extra damage). With 8 pain, he massacres Finnean in the first round--Boris' first and only win. He loses his connection: Alena saw his savagery against the man she loves, and she finally leaves Boris behind forever. In order to save Alena, my character had to lose her.

    It was perfect.

    And the result? I found out that my character was not a protagonist. He was Finnean's antagonist.

    Truly beautiful.
  2.  # 2
    Contenders, man. Have I mentioned in the last fifteen minutes how much I love Contenders?
  3.  # 3
    Definitely a great game. It has some glitches, problem areas and underdeveloped potential, but the foundation is wonderful.
  4.  # 4
    Wow. That was fantastic.
  5.  # 5
    Posted By: xenopulseDefinitely a great game. It has some glitches, problem areas and underdeveloped potential, but the foundation is wonderful.

    Christian, are you interested in expanding on this a little? I expect to be playing some Contenders soon and would like to know what sorts of pitfalls to avoid.

    Regards,
    Daniel
  6.  # 6
    Sure, Daniel.

    The most jarring factor is the difference that Bringing The Pain makes once your pain gets up to a certain level. We had two characters who ended up with two-digit pain levels. They not only could dominate all fights, they also lost all chance of a good outcome at some point, and then the question became: what do we do with them?

    In my case, I was lucky that we had interconnected our characters, because I could be an antagonist. But I think the other high-pain character without such connections was out of luck and simply brought the pain in the first round of every fight just to achieve something, namely winning the fights and getting more cash and rep. That also made it impossible for the "good guys" with higher hopes to win the final bouts or to ever beat the pain guys.

    On a less mechanical level, I think there should be more about tying the characters together. There is one element of drawing a joker, which means you should bring an element from one scene into the next player's scene. But that only came up once, and most of the connecting is something we did on our own. Now, I know this is supposed to play like a "we're interested in other characters because we all have the same theme going" thing. But it was much more involved and interesting once we interconnected our characters through NPCs.

    From personal experience, one piece of advice is to start with little pain. I started with pain 3, hope 1, because I thought it would be challenging. But bad luck with drawing cards on every single connection scene meant that my character soon had no chance of escaping the bad outcome. You might think that the double hope gains of the final fights could fix this, but because the other PC had even higher pain, I couldn't even win the finals without bringing the pain, which defeats the purpose.
    • CommentAuthorLarry
    • CommentTimeMay 10th 2007
     # 7
    C,

    This is beautiful to the point of nearly making me cry. (In a good way.)
    •  
      CommentAuthorGraham
    • CommentTimeMay 10th 2007
     # 8
    Man, this is fantastic.

    The best trick I was told (by a bloke called Joe who thought he was royalty or something) was not to use NPCs. At least, not too much. Then all the PCs have to fight each other, all the time, and that's relationships right there.

    But, yes, you have to make some effort to weave the characters' stories together.

    Graham
  9.  # 9
    We saw the pre-ordained bad outcome happen, too. I don't think it bothered anybody in our run too much. Also, we explicitly tied the characters together - Remi made a connection, and I immediately tried to take her away, even though it didn't help me mechanically. I don't recall invoking the joker rule.
  10.  # 10
    We didn't fight any NPC boxers, either. But the flipside of that is that we'd be competitive and bring the pain on each other a lot, especially those people who were already beyond salvation. NPC boxers don't get to use pain (AFAIK).
    •  
      CommentAuthorJoey P
    • CommentTimeMay 11th 2007
     # 11
    Awewsome AP Christian, thanks for sharing.

    I'll be back later with some more thoughts!
  12.  # 12
    It occurs to me that making your hope and fear impossibly extreme is a good move. By explicitly staking Alena's life, it made the struggle that much more intense. When we played most recently, mine were much milder. I was afraid I'd end up a useless yegg like my father - in retrospect, that's pretty boring.
    •  
      CommentAuthornemomeme
    • CommentTimeMay 11th 2007
     # 13
    We gon hit em wit da left, hit em wit da right
    It's a fight it's a fight head busta head busta

    Long hours and prepping for my Friday game have prevented me from doing an AP yet, Christian, but it will be up this weekend, I promise. It will represent my ridiculously belated return to blogging. (gloves in air)

    Have to say that taking Alena from you by being "Brutalized" in the first round to the guy who broke my da's knee was a special moment.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJoey P
    • CommentTimeMay 11th 2007
     # 14
    Hi everyone

    Good advice all, if I ever get round to doing a revised version it will have explicit guidance on connecting PCs through shared NPCs and locations. Shared Connections are pretty cool. I'm surprised more jokers didn't come up during the game though.

    Yes NPC boxers cannot use Pain (or Hope).

    Christian is bang on the money when he says starting with 3 Pain is a challenge! I must say I've never had a game where PC Pain has skyrocketed that much compared to Hope.

    On the Pain spiral - it can seem like a one way trip, but there is always (a glimmer of) hope. You can gain lots of Cash from Work scenes and re-invest it in Connections. Don't forget gambling too, doubling 10 Cash can buy a lot of Hope! I remember one player doing this really effectively (he also had a lot of Cash from winning fights by Bringing the Pain and gambling). He was on something like 9 Pain 3 Hope but got them back level before Endgame was triggered.

    Right enough you need the cards to go your way too!

    -But if you give up on Hope and dive into Bringing the Pain every fight then yes, you are doomed. Doubly so because Endgame will be triggered earlier.

    Pain racked boxers who are monsters in the ring but broken men outside of it - that's totally the way it goes.
    They coulda been contenders...

    That was an amazing storyline with Alena. Looking forward to Matthews full AP.

    Cheers
    Joe
  15.  # 15
    Posted By: JoE PrincEYou can gain lots of Cash from Work scenes and re-invest it in Connections.


    There's no time - particularly if other guys are training while you monkey around. Then all your work to build hope is lost when they pummel you in the ring. I think we tried this approach and decided it was a fool's game.
  16.  # 16
    Hey Joe,

    Good points. I think playing it as a one-shot with limited time plays into the endgame considerations, too. At 8 pain and 1 hope, and only two hours of playtime left, I didn't think Boris could make it. And he still didn't have a chance of gaining double hope in the end because the other high-pain character was definitely going to bring it.

    Let me point out, by the way, that the fights were really exciting. Especially because it was PvP all the way. In the beginning, we were all experimenting with different tactics. But in the end, most of us picked the defensive style most of the time. Puncher's Choice, with 4 fewer domination cards, was really only picked with Bringing The Pain. We chose to reveal the draws card-by-card and narrate the exchange of blows accordingly, so the high card draw didn't matter that much.

    Oh, quick question: when you get caught cheating, the other player gets 2 VP but the cheater can still win the round, right?

    And more importantly: who chooses which trait damage is inflicted? We opted for the victim, because otherwise we'd always inflict conditioning damage, but the text doesn't seem to say anything about that.
  17.  # 17
    Alright, I spent some time thinking about this. I found it frustratingly hard to gain any hope without gaining pain in the process because:

    1) Gaining cash can net pain, making the cash gain already useless for hope;
    2) Connection scenes can ALSO net pain.

    Let's say I have pain 4. I need more cash than pain in order to have a good chance of gaining hope in a connection scene. If I did work for 4 cash, however, I'd already have a much higher than 50% chance of gaining pain in the process (since ties net pain), which defeats the purpose. How about I go for 2 cash instead.

    But wait: The probability of getting pain in the attempt is over one third. (I did the probability table for it, so if you want me to lay out how that works out, I can. The actual chance is 11/32.) Again, the fact that ties net pain makes a huge difference here.

    And I need three successful attempts to make more cash than I have pain, so that I have a *chance* of gaining hope, and even that chance still carries a substantial risk of netting pain. So gaining hope without gaining pain through work and connection scenes is very, very unlikely.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJoey P
    • CommentTimeMay 15th 2007
     # 18
    Hi guys, thanks for the feedback. I’ll try and explain why some elements of the game are set up the way they are and suggest some house rules for tweaking them.

    Posted By: Jason Morningstar
    Posted By: JoE PrincEYou can gain lots of Cash from Work scenes and re-invest it in Connections.


    There's no time - particularly if other guys are training while you monkey around. Then all your work to build hope is lost when they pummel you in the ring. I think we tried this approach and decided it was a fool's game.


    Right Jason – except when you’ve got a pile o Pain to bring in round 1. And Cash from Work to back yourself.

    Posted By: xenopulse

    Oh, quick question: when you get caught cheating, the other player gets 2 VP but the cheater can still win the round, right?

    And more importantly: who chooses which trait damage is inflicted? We opted for the victim, because otherwise we'd always inflict conditioning damage, but the text doesn't seem to say anything about that.


    Yes Christian, someone caught cheating can still win the round – if they score a KO (as long as it’s not the third time they’ve been caught which is an instant DQ). Otherwise even 4 Damage (2 VPs) will only tie with the 2 VPs from being warned.

    The aggressor gets to choose which Traits are damaged (page 35). You’ll be surprised how rarely people choose Conditioning compared to Tech or Power.


    Glad you enjoyed the fights, I'll have to try the card by card reveal myself, it sounds pretty cool.

    Going back to your OP, you’ve hit upon a core component of the game, protagonist or antagonist?

    If a high Pain PC wants to become an antagonist he should make use of plenty of Brawls, Connection Threats and Bringing the Pain. Making this choice almost certainly dooms the character to a painful ending. But if the player feels his Contender is already doomed then it’s a rational choice. It tends to be the actions of these antagonists that determine whether or not the other boxers get a good outcome.
    I’ve never seen it demonstrated as beautifully as in the OP AP!

    It’s a harsh world to succeed in if you try and impossible if you don’t.
    It’s not uncommon for all PCs to have painful endings. I've still never had a hopeful ending!

    However, if you’re playing with a limited time-scale and want it easier to escape from the Pain spiral you can implement one or more of these house rules. But know that this games designer will think you’re a bit soft ;-)

    1. Conditioning adds to effective Pain for Work Scene checks.
    2. Work scenes net double pay
    3. A Contender does not gain Pain for tying a Work draw
    4. Pain is capped at Hope + 5. Instead of gaining extra Pain, a Bad Thing happens to a Contender at his Pain limit.

    Cheers
    Joe
    • CommentAuthorptevis
    • CommentTimeJun 4th 2007
     # 19
    In our game, we almost never did Work scenes, as Fights are a much more efficient way of getting Cash. Even more so if you can bet on yourself. And especially if you're fighting an NPC controlled by a player who has also bet on you.

    --Paul

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