Heart of Darkness - The Mountain Witch at GPNW 2008

Just over a week ago was I caught the second half of 'Apocalypse Now' on TV. When the movie ended, I sat on my couch and thought, "a journey up the river to kill someone, trying not to die from within? How is this not The Mountain Witch?!" Next thing you know, I was running a game of it at GPNW in Seattle this past weekend.


INTRO:

Vietnam: 1969. A war that was eating two countries apart, 8000 miles from each other. A war of napalm and Jimi Hendrix and enemies hiding behind smiling faces. The six players in this game each played US or friendly soldiers who were sentenced to death or long periods in military prison for grievous crimes committed in-country. Their one chance for a pardon? To travel up river in a 31-foot river patrol boat into Cambodia and assassinate Colonel Kurtz, a highly-decorated Green Beret who has gone over the deep end and was building an army to fight his own personal war.


CHARACTERS:

John Kim played "Moon Dog", a ROK Marine Lance Corporal who was done with both Korea and Vietnam. His piece was coming to him, and he wanted it!

Ben Robbins played "Swede", an Air Force Intel Observer who had spent too much time in the back seat of a reconnaissance plane and was a rank amateur when boots were on the ground.

John Harper played "Top", a Marine Master Sergeant who feared that he would let his men down again.

Brandon played "Smith", a CIA spook who was trusted by...well no one really.

Ogre played "Choir Boy", a cigarette-smoking Navy puke out for revenge.

Johnzo played "Jughead" played an Army Airborne soldier whose father was desperately trying to pull him out of the hell that was Vietnam.

They were commanded by an NPC, Captain Willard, a hard-edged special forces officer with a shadowy background.


RULES:

I changed a few things around from The Mountain Witch rules based on my experiences running 'The Dirty Half-Dozen', a WW2 hack of TMW. I got rid of the Zodiac rules for Trust and instead stole (once again) from The Roach. I asked each player to write down "Why do you trust the guy to your left, and why do you distrust the guy to your right?" I also had them write down what killing Kurtz was going to do for them (besides gaining their freedom) and exactly what the crime was that they were guilty of. Even though we spent 45 mins of a 4 hour session on character creation, I was so glad we took the time because it really set up the game for success. Everyone got to pick a name, rank and service, and rivalries and mistrust were quickly rampant.

I also asked each player to narrate some sort of flashback or voice over during the first 1/2 of the game. Something about them accepting the mission, something relating to their Dark Fate, and the like. And we ended up getting some really nice flashbacks.

STORY:

(Beginning)
I wanted to set the tone of the game from the first scene, where the crew was motoring up a relatively quiet part of the river. A sampan pulled alongside with two boys and a little girl with a load of apples for the market. The boys were yelling "GI! Candy! GI! Candy!!" Apples were exchanged for chocolate and the little girl handed up a cute puppy to "Top". But someone else noticed that the puppy had something strapped to it. "Top" was able to pull the detonator off with his teeth, and when someone noticed one of the boys going for an AK, the camera (thankfully) pulled away as machine guns opened up. Damn.

(End)
And as we hit midnight in the gaming room, the crew never even made it to Kurtz's compound. After some sharp firefights and an escape from the VC, the team basically broke down from within. The boat's engine started sputtering, and a search of the engine bay showed that someone neatly cut the fuel line. It was the middle of the night, their commanding officer was dead, and they had just enough fuel to reach a nearby town where "someone knew somebody". And Two other guys wanted to steal the helicopter and fly it straight to Kurtz's compound. And then suddenly Jughead's father showed up to get him out...and it was Colonel Kurtz! We didn't even touch the dice the last half hour of the game, and no one cared. We ended the game with "Top" and one other guy, M-16s in hand, running from building to building to waylay the helicopter. And then they're ambushed by waiting locals and go down, Butch Cassidy-style.

Ok, I'll just vomit forth what I remember about the game on and off the table.

During character creation we got ahold of our cards and nearly everyone went out in the hall to talk to Chris about what they meant and what they meant to the game. I drew Revenge and figured that would evolve pretty quick in play, so I sat and worked on my questions and on trying on nicknames for other characters. Nicknames are kinda my thing.

At first I'd wanted to play the oddball, but the more we talked about it the more I decided that I needed to let that habit of mine go. As it was when I mentioned the South Korean Marines along with other non-American and native Vietnamese forces John Kim seemed to like that idea a lot, so I'm glad I brought it up.

I made a naval lieutenant, junior grade to pilot the boat. Brandon was going to, but I remembered a novel I read about the brown water navy called Float. I'm glad this freed brandon up to play the CIA guy, because "Smith" was pure slimy awesome.

Ok, my favorite scenes?

The loud speaker with the woman's voice talking to us by our nicknames, and my character displaying false bravado by shouting "Hey! You fuckee suckee?" and such back. Didn't work, of course, we were all still freaked.

We had multiple guns pointed at multiple heads for multiple reasons, and I'm still disapointed that no one pulled a trigger, but it would have been a bummer if someone missed the end of the game.

Swede, as played with exceptional levels of humanity and comedy at the same time by Ben Robbins, doped up on morphine on the deck of the boat offering inadvertent clues and unhelpful suggestions through a giant dopey smile.

Moondog firing the dual fifties until the barrels were white hot and then when told to cease fire because they'd melt down HE DREW HIS SIDEARM AND CONTINUED TO FIRE INTO THE JUNGLE!

So the game ended with Jughead thinking he was going to get out on his dad's helicopter, and Moondog thinking he was betraying everyone to Kurtz, and then both being surprised that Kurtz and Dad were one and the same. What's really cool about this? John H and Brandon were so impressed by the narrative that instead of reaching for character goals they decided to go out butch Cassidy and Sundance style with the Khmer Rouge standing in for the Bolivian Army.

Choir Boy and Swede had been left On the boat. Swede was hopped up on a lot of morphine and Top pretty much said in no uncertain terms to Choir Boy "Get him out of here, go awol."

So, while coming aboard with fuel, Choir Boy hears a lot of shooting and looks down at Swede...

CB "You ever been to paris?"
S "Oh yeah, it was my graduation present, but I like Thailand better."
CB "The military can find us in Thailand, Paris, not so much."
S "No, they can't find us. I have lots of friends in Thailand. You know anything about smuggling dope?"
CB "No, but I can learn."

And that was our "This is the start of a beautiful friendship" moment.

Every single player in this game brought his A game and we played hard. Chris, you rocked as a GM, and thank you for a top ten gaming experience.

I had a blast with this. I was a little nervous about my character, who was a total psycho, which can be a bit of a shallow stereotype. Also, he didn't talk much. I had drawn the "Unholy Pact" card, which meant that I was headed to make a deal with Kurtz. I was stumped at first about what someone would get from Kurtz. Then I decided that it was someone who had nowhere else to go, and was going off to say goodbye to all of the . Ogre suggested a ROK (Republic of Korea) marine as an option, and I picked up on that to make Lance Corporal Mundong Han aka "Moon Dog" -- who had informed on his parents as communists when he was a child in Korea and gotten them killed in the 1950s purges. He hated communists, and was in prison for executing communist prisoners and pistol-whipping a Red Cross nurse who tried to stop him.

Name: Mundon "Moon Dog" Han
Service: ROK Marine, Lance Corporal
Abilities: pistol-whipping; smell liars (and communists)

Crime: Executed commie prisoners, pistol-whipped and blinded a nurse who tried to interfere
Goal in the mission: prove his worth to the Americans
Why trust the guy to left ("Swede"): he's not a killer
Why distrust the guy to right ("Jughead"): he's a fucking racist who thinks I'm stupid

(By agreement, Jughead's reason for trusting Moon Dog was "Asians are inherently trustworthy")

There were so many great bits from this game. I loved how Top disarmed the explosive-rigged puppy with his teeth, and then kept the puppy, later naming it "Composition C".

Though I have to say -- the one thing we agreed on as our line was "violence to women and children". Lo and behold, the very first scene brought by the GM was some kids coming in a boat who try to ambush us. We cut away without giving details on the fight, but it was perfectly clear that Moon Dog had gunned them down, and he explained afterwards "They were old enough to know better. I informed on my parents when I was no older than they were!"

I agree that Ben was great as "Swede" -- who was the perfect straight man to the rest of us hardened killers. There was a bit reminiscent of Reservoir Dogs, where "Choirboy" stood up for Moon Dog against Spook, who had just offered him a VC disguise which patently seemed trying to get him killed. So Choirboy has a gun to Spook's head on the verge of shooting him, when Jughead draws on Choirboy -- not to stand up for the Spook, but because Spook reveals that he knows where Jughead's father is. (Moon Dog wanted to kill Spook then, but wasn't so far gone that he would shoot him in front of the commanding officer.)

"They were old enough to know better. I informed on my parents when I was no older than they were!"

THAT should have made it on the Quote of the Day board! \o/

Chris: Who's on the bow gun? It's a dual fifty with an armored shield...
Moon Dog: [raises hand]

Chris: Who's driving? There's a little armored enclosure for the pilot...
Choir Boy: [raises hand]

Chris: Who's manning the aft gun? It's an M-60.
Everyone: [look at Jughead]
Jughead: Ok. What kinda armor do I get?
Chris: None.
Jughead: WTF??
Top: Welcome to Vietnam, Specialist.

Posted By: Caesar_X-How did the rules make the game better?

-How did the setting make the game better?

-How was it enjoyable despite the rules and the setting?

As we talked about a bunch, Mountain Witch seems _made_ for Apocalypse Now, but oddly when we actually played I think your choosing to use the Shab al-Hiri roach "trust left, distrust right" was a much bigger contributer to success since it meant that all trust was confounded by distrust.

I'm not sure we ever got a handle on who we could spend trust on or not per Mountain Witch. We really roleplayed the distrust much more than we used the mechanic. It may be that just the idea that it was a trust/distrust based game got us off on the right foot.

Yeah, that reveal is still haunting me. "Hi, Dad." Damn.

Hey, Ben, there was no disapointment in staying with you and the boat and getting away to Thailand. All my guy wanted out of the whole thing was him out of it. When top told him to "stay with you and the boat." it was like Christmas.

The look on John Kim's face as Moon Dog smoked that cigarette in the CIA man's face... priceless. So utterly perfect.

Posted By: jhkim
Do you mean your character didn't know -- or you as a player didn't know? Because I thought that me secretly talking over the radio in Korean just earlier was a pretty big giveaway. Not to mention that I was in general batshit psycho.

Justifying that sequence from Jughead's point of view isn't hard: either he was so overstimulated that he missed the Korean speaking, or he took it for the murmuring of Cambodian troops, or (in the post-reveal hindsight) he knew that Moon Dog served Dad and was reassured to hear his trusted ally talking to the boss.

But from a player point of view, it's a bit mysterious. I remember the Korean radio scene vividly, but I didn't act on it or file it away to act on later, I let it pass me by. I didn't assimilate it at all.

I want to look at that decision a bit, because when I started playing these weird games, I really had to work to learn how to say Yes. I didn't really get how important that was until I played Beast Hunters last year and discovered how much fun I had when people said Yes to my battle narration. So nowadays I always try to default to Yes. And yet I totally said No to that Korean radio episode. What's up with that?

During the game I was really in the moment, and most of what I did was instinctive, so it's hard to be sure about what was in my head. My best guess is that I ignored that bit of information because the mission was in danger of disintegrating and I wasn't sure how much farther the game would go if it the mission fell apart. I wanted us to get back on the boat and move on. Selfishly, I wanted to get on to my own story; unselfishly, I thought we had some extra goodness ahead of us if we could only get back together and pointed in the same direction.

Also, the reunion conflict success was mine to narrate and I was very explicit about how Top had heard the Korean and recognized it as Korean though he had not parsed the words. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I wanted to abdicate responsibility for responding to the Korean thing and put that knowledge in the hands of someone else with a clear-headed PC (!) and trustworthy fun-producing skills. So I didn't really say No, I guess I kinda said Abstain.

Man, I could study this game like it was the Torah.

I want to talk a bit about Brandon's CIA agent, Smith.

I've gamed with Brandon a lot, and he has something of a reputation in our circle as the power gamer. He is really good at playing to his character's advantage and manipulating situations. Of course, the CIA spook was a perfect fit. But Brandon still surprised me with the man he presented in Smith. I love the way Ben put it, "Brandon played him like a guy who got a gun put to his head a lot, and it wouldn't stop him from taking another sip of his morning coffee." The calm Brandon exuded while Ogre pressed a "gun" to his head was amazing.

There was no winning strategem in the hellish situation Smith found himself in, but he still fell back on the familiar tools in his toolbox: misdirection and manipulation. I could kind of see it click in Brandon's eyes. Smith was not getting away clean, but trust and cooperation just were not options for him. He didn't have the wiring for it. I think it's really cool that Smith ended up throwing in his lot with Top, the man he trusted the least, because that was the only pure relationship left to him -- he had burned all the others on the way down the river.

Posted By: Caesar_X
Johnzo, I think your second comment is right on the mark. Remember that if you don't *actively* say (or act) "No", you are implicitly saying "Yes". And you did not in any way deprotagonize anyone or halt the flow of the game to say (for instance) "Wait, how did they get electricity for these speakers in the jungle?" By ignoring it, you went with the spirit of what was happening in the scene.

Just to disambiguate, I'm talking about the scene on the shore where we rescued Top and Swede, and Moondog was transmitting on his radio in Korean. Not the Hanoi Hannah PA scene. :)

Posted By: Caesar_XOne of the reasons this game was so great was because the CHARACTERS pushed their own agendas hard, but the PLAYERS did not.

Really? I-the-player was following your instructions to push my agenda hard all the way through, from the opening Spook/Dad scene to the final scene where I said "Okay, we're pulling up to the Kungdong's crappy pier and a chopper is flying overhead and Jug is gonna go meet it." (in character) "Moondog, you're with me."

That reminds me: there was a virtuoso GMing moment late in the game, when I wanted to metagame some reason for us to stop in Kungdong -- I think I was asking for a lucky bullet through a fuel tank. You forced me to do something in-character about that. That was superior kung fu.

I'm just glad that Jug rolled well against the combined suspicion of everyone at the table, and had the Captain to pin the sabotage on. Shadowy dead NPCs are the perfect patsies -- thanks, Hanoi Hannah!

Posted By: John HarperInteresting analysis, John. I think I must have picked up on your abstain-vibe a bit, because I, too, kind of dodged the Korean radio transmission. It was a great bit of foreshadowing by John K, but I didn't want to have the explodey confrontation over it right then. Top was just coming out of his flashback freakout and I don't think he felt he could trust his own instincts. That last sentence is a very bizarre thing, but there ya go. This was definitely a game where we tuned into the short-wave radio signals of our characters and let them speak.

I've been thinking about the Korean speech bit for a few days now. I know we all heard it during the rescue scene and even talked about it, and I know at the time I said to myself "Oh, Moondog is a traitor or has some kind of external allegiance, cool" but then there was so much going on that was more about the characters than the mission that I think I really did put it out of mind, or at least expect it to be something else, so I was genuinely surprised when he pulled the Summon Kurtz in the village. I remember even Chris looked surprised.

It's kind of inexplicable. Like Johnzo said, there are some interesting things to study here.

Posted By: Caesar_XOne of the reasons this game was so great was because the CHARACTERS pushed their own agendas hard, but the PLAYERS did not.

Posted By: johnzoReally? I-the-player was following your instructions to push my agenda hard all the way through, from the opening Spook/Dad scene to the final scene where I said "Okay, we're pulling up to the Kungdong's crappy pier and a chopper is flying overhead and Jug is gonna go meet it." (in character) "Moondog, you're with me."

Sorry, I didn't explain myself well. I meant that the players pushed their characters' agendas hard rather than a player pushing his own personal agenda.