Rather than addressing specific points, I'll talk about the broader reasons why I thought the game failed to click:

1. The Protagonist

There were times when Oliver, as the protagonist, failed to drive the story, possibly waiting for the story to come to him. We had several occasions where the protagonist wasn't involved in the story, but attempts to draw him in were rebuffed. This verged on the ridiculous and frustrating on a couple of occasions. I don't mean this to be a critique of Oliver as a player, more of my inability to communicate what was required of the protagonist. I think the text needs to make it clear that the protagonist has to play aggressively, continually forcing the story and the situation and driving it along at a rapid pace.

2. Out of game antagonism

There was definitely an out of game antagonism between Oliver and Dave, possibly born out of a failure for the protagonist to engage. Dave kept hitting him with demeaning revelations ("he's killing cos he's impotent!" etc) which I tried to rebuff and deflect as inappropriate, but because I failed to communicate why and what would have been appropriate I think this just heightened the frustration.

This hearkens back to an incident here where my protagonist kept getting hit with personal revelations ("your legs are wooden!") and this just reminds me that it needs addressing explicitly. But how? Is it fair to simply rule out personal revelations about another character's motivations or situation? Or is this too heavy-handed?

On the other hand, this antagonism did draw the protagonist into the story a bit more, as he was forced to fight to keep his character in line with his vision and the story on track. At one point he was definitely sliding towards being the villain, in the eyes of the story.

3. Poor setup/explanation of the game

Although I explained the rules sufficiently (and for once the mechanics did not cause any issues in the game), I think I failed to communicate what the game should look like, how it should play and how it should click together. I skimped on the explanations because my initial attempts were causing bemused and confused looks by the players so I thought I'd launch in and see what happened. What happened was the players were left fumbling for what they were supposed to do, leading to unsatisfactory chapters and antagonists.

4. A perceived lack of drama

This old chestnut cropped up again (it was first mentioned here), that the players felt that because they knew how the story ended already, there was no drama, tension or mystery. Although this hasn't been my perception in previous playtests, it was clearly felt here. The suggestion was that the game play as normal, but the epilogue is left open until the very end, when the story forwards back to the epilogue and the end of the story. I'm going to mull this suggestion over and see if it works, although it rankles with me a bit.

5. Not enough revelation tokens

There were times when the protagonist was being batted about by revelations, but had none of his own to dispute them with, or to introduce revelations in his favour. Revelation tokens only get handed out for participation in conflicts, which generally works but led to ...

6. Not enough dice

The protagonist felt that he was fighting a losing battle with the dice currency, as he felt he kept having to choose revelation tokens instead of dice to keep control of the story, but then kept running short of dice in conflicts.

This went hand in hand with the reward pool being neglected, as it only ever seemed to be me who was giving out reward dice. I'm not sure why, and I'm not sure how to encourage the giving out of reward dice either. I'm also toying with the idea of having rewards take the form of either more dice, or revelation tokens, as picked by the player getting the reward. Not sure whether this will lead to a surplus of revelation tokens yet though.

On the flip side, the antagonists never seemed to be short on dice, even after the major curtailing of antagonist dice following the Spodley Grange playtest. So this part of the game seems to be working.

7. No clear narrative authority

The issue of who can narrate what, when and who cropped up, and there were times when the various authorities (typically the chapter antagonist and the protagonist at any given time) clashed over who could specify what about a chapter. I think this needs to be very explicitly laid out, although I'm not sure how yet.

So, although it's easy to dismiss this playtest and say "this game wasn't for them," I think it did provide some food for thought, most notably in how the game is structured and how clearly the procedure of the game is explained.

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the failure of the game in this instance, what I can learn from it and how I can make changes to the game in light of the playtest.

I think unsatisfying playtests like this are great -- as they raise issues that need addressed.

What strikes me at first is that the protagonist was blocking, and also not being very proactive. The key here is getting the right player to be the protagonist, which will suit some players more than others. It sounds like some of the antagonists would have been better as the protagonist, really. So that is maybe something to make real clear at the start. What does the protagonist player have to do that is different from the antagonists? (I guess in most games we see the story through our character's eyes and in SBFV there is only one protagonist.)

Does the protagonist have to have enough dice to keep control of what they want? Isn't the point that their resource is such that they have to, at times, "give" and accept additions from other players?

Good post Andy, I salute your honesty!

Hmm, lot's of food for thought. How about if during the first epilogue the battle between protag and antag is to first blood. And the final outcome is not decided until the very end of the game.

In fact why not have every player with a potential Protag PC in the epilogue (Mexican stand-off The Good, The Bad and The Ugly style).

Let it emerge during play who're the good guys and bad guys. That way everyone's got a chance to be the last man standing. Everyone's on a bloody path of vengeance but is it for a righteous or monstrous reason?

Course you may have to tweak a few mechanics...

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JoE
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Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....

I could probably write a lot in response to this, but for now I'll stick to commenting on this point specifically since it's been something that's come up before.

People have different ideas and expectations in a game, and this should maybe be a point that is left open for the style and preferences of the group.

I have no problems knowing how it ends because I find the drama and enjoyment in 'discovering' what got the characters to that point. Alternatively, I've mentioned the idea of splitting the epilogue in half before - and mentioning the concept of the game to some friends this has also been independently suggested by them as a possibility. This allows them to establish the 'target' for the narrative but keep the suspense of success or failure for those who don't like to know how the story ends. Another take on this, which might prove trickier to narrate than it sounds, is to show the very end of the showdown but then leap up to the very moments prior to and leading up to that conflict as the final scene - so that finally, with the entire rest of the story told, that final conflict can be put in context. (e.g. Knox and Ten Bears in the bar, knife fighting to death - tell the rest of the story, fast back to how Knox and Ten Bears got into that fight in the first place and not tell it as the second scene.)

In fact, there are many alternative ways to play a story of revenge and still have an enjoyable game not so far removed from your original ideas. Some may prefer to play it by telling the end and then telling a more traditional linear story from beginning up to that point. It would need some fiddling on that part, but if that's how they want to play it, let them - you needn't worry about making the rules fit this desire, since it's not the concept of the game, but I'm sure someone would have that bright idea themselves.

Splitting the epilogue is a matter of dramatic taste and what people want to get out of the game. Done right it can heighten the game's enjoyment. But if you're going to split the climax of the story, it needs to be run differently. Rather than, as has become the 'norm', starting the game with the showdown itself players need to tell the story right up to the point at which the showdown is about to begin - a bit of banter can be allowed to set clues and revelations in place for the rest of the game, but the actual fight (or the meat of the fight) should probably be left until the very end of the game. Whereas, when you're playing the game as intended players may start closer to the finale.

In short, I think it should be something that's optional to the specific group or something a group of players should be allowed to experiment with to find out which method they prefer as both, IMHO, result in slightly different game experiences.

Andrew, I will offer whatever opinions I can, although I cannot promise that they will be of any use!

I have a bit of a hobby horse about reactive players and it's one I've harped on about quite a bit on other forums. But the short version is, this smacks of reactive play, a player who acts like that and when encouraged to be more active ignores it and continues to act reactively is just always going to be like that. Which is not in-and-of-itself a problem, but perhaps he's not cut out to be the protagonist of this game? Does he ever GM? If so, what are the games like? I'm guessing that if he does GM, he probably waves around a pretty un-subtle plot-stick, not railroading so much as pointing the players to the nearest station so they can be presented with a list of destinations.

Which, yeah, presents the question of what you do about Six Bullets vs the Reactive Player. This is one of the problems with GM-less games:

With the trad game, usually the GM buys the book, reads the book and learns the game. He then explains/summarises the rules for the other players who defer to him when they don't know a rule or how to behave. This is how it's been for years.

Remove the GM and you take away that point of reference. But most GM-less game sessions still actually follow that same structure: Someone buys the book, reads the book, explains the rules to the other players and they still defer to him when questions arise about rules or behaviour.

So I'd say you have two choices here, either you advise the co-ordinator to avoid giving the protagonist to a reactive player (which is a bit of a cop out and also rather hard to explain unless you cop out again and say something like "don't give the protagonist to a player who isn't comfortable GMing, which is also quite crap) or you lay down the behaviour of the protagonist explicitly in the book, possibly reinforcing it with rules. Like perhaps "Any player may narrate the protagonist into a scene at any point." Force that bastard into the conflicts!

How about this:

Any player (antagonist or protagonist) can veto any fact about their character if they don't like it, provided they replace it with something they are comfortable with.

For example: Malcolm wants to put the revelation "He's killing cos he's impotent!" onto my character. I think that's stupid, so I don't want that. I can't just say "No, that's stupid", but I can say "No, he's killing because he's angry about a woman".

That way, if you want to set a revelation about another person's character, you better make damn sure it makes them awesome.

Thanks Nimrod, that's really helpful to put things in perspective. The game is as it is - if people want to change the way the game runs, they can, but, as with the setting, I can't hope to pre-empt them.

That said I have written a sidebar about splitting the epilogue up, but I don't think I'll go any further than that.

Yes, I understand the problem- When the 'end' already exists, it's very hard to create sense of drama. Here's a drastic suggestion, but one that could work;

Don't start the game at the final confrontation, but just before- Then, flash back to the beginning, and play as normal. That way, the game would become more competitive, with 'hero' and 'villian' both struggling to accumulate as many successes as possible, before the final showdown.

Thus, while it's a given that the hero will suvive until *before* the final battle, there's still a sense of tension and drama, as you haven't run the finale of the game yet- That only happens in the end.

An example of this would be 'Kill Bill 2', where the Bride retells most of the story in the car- While she's obviously survived the events of the 1st movie, she hasn't confronted Bill yet, and the outcome is still in doubt. Some John Woo movies also do that, with a flashback immediately before the showdown.

That way, you can still preserve the sense of drama all the way to the end- As the villian isn't screwed over beforehand. The game would be more like one of attrition, now; The villian would want to use his greater resources to wear down the hero, so that he can win the final battle, while the stronger hero will want to overcome the villian's obstacles, with a minimum of resources.

Just my two cents.

Edit: Hmmm, I think that someone else might already have said this, but it seems like a good change for more conventional groups.