by Paul Czege, Half Meme Press, no ISBN, city not identified, 2003. 64 pg. 7"x8.5" trim, center stapled, b&w, 2-color cardstock over. $13 in print format, or $8.95 as a PDF, from Half Meme Press.

My Life with Master is a tabletop RPG of the Gothic Romance. Actually, that's not quite right, as I doubt Czege has read, say, Castle of Otranto; it's not a game of the literary genre, but of the genre as interpreted over the course of the 20th century, mainly in film.

The System

Each of the players takes the role of a minion, who serves an evil Master. The specific nature of the Master--his needs and wants, the "outsiders" whose respect s/he strives for, the degree to which governed by base lusts or inhumane reason, and the specific style in which the Master attempts to achieve his/her objectives--are arrived at through negotiation between the gamemaster and the players. That sounds quite freeform, but actually, Czege provides a sufficient set of defining characteristics (is the Master a Feeder or a Breeder or a Collector?) that the results of this negotiation should be a reasonably well defined personality, and a well-defined set of goals.

A Master has only one characteristic: Fear, which represents his ability to enforce his commands on his minions. There is also a global characteristic, not tied to any individual character: Reason, which represents the Townsfolk's ability to resist the minions--and to respond favorably to minions who make positive overtures.

Once the Master is defined, the players each create a character, again with the GM's participation. Minions have three characteristics: Self-loathing, weariness, and love. Love always begins at zero. The player divides 3 points among the other two--it doesn't really matter, actually, as both self-loathing and weariness are likely to increase during play. The player must also devise a "more than human" characteristic, and a "less than human" characteristic. Each must have an exception, and each is an obvious method of creating story hooks for play. As examples, the book provides:

Less Than Human

Example: Is mute, except when signing hymns.

Example: Walks with an uncontrollable limp, moving slowly and awkwardly, except when swinging from the ropes and rafters of the belfry.

Example: Will transform into a stone every evening, unless fed by a child that day.

More Than Human

Example: Powerfully persuasive, except between midnight and 2 AM.

Example: Can heal the sick with the power of his mind, except not animals.

And finally, each minion needs one or more "connections" with Townsfolk--people they have some emotional tie to, and who are potential sources of love as the game progresses. E.g., "I like watching the little girl who plays ball in the graveyard."

Unlike a conventional RPG, the game is not played under the assumption that all PCs are together in a party; rather, the game is played round-robin style. The gamemaster introduces and resolves a "scene" with one player--then with the next--and so on, around the table. Ultimately, he returns to the first player, for that player's next "scene." The players are tied together by mutual service to the Master, and may at times assist (or thwart) each other, but they each experience their own aspect of the story.

I may have missed something, but there seem to be only three types of scene:

1. One in which the Master orders a minion to perform some horrific act; the minion may, if he chooses, attempt to resist the order. In either event, the Master's confrontation with the minion, and the minion's response, are roleplayed.
   
2. One in which a minion attempts to carry out an order from the Master; his/her success or failure is determined; and the results are roleplayed.
   
3. One in which a minion chooses to "make an overture" to a connection in the town.
   

In each case, the scene is set; the player roleplays, with input from the GM, to the critical moment; a die-roll is made; the player then roleplays the outcome.

A die-roll means rolling some number of D4s, treating 4's as 0, and summing the results; while rolling an "opposing" number of D4s using the same scheme. If the first total is greater, the action succeeds; otherwise, it fails. (There's a minor ability to 'escalate' and get an extra D4, D6 or D8, but never mind.)

The number that determines how many dice rolled depends on the nature of the scene and/or confrontation. For example, when a minion attempts to resist a Master's command, the Master rolls as many D4s as his Fear plus the minion's Self-loathing; while the Minion rolls as many D4s as Love minus Weariness.

And the result of an exchange depends on the type of scene. In a "Master orders" scene, if the minion fails, he is obliged to follow the command. If he succeeds, and has sufficient love, the end-game may occur, in which the master dies. In a "obey orders" scene, the outcome is less discreet, and depends on whether violence is involved, but it may result in an increase in the minion's self-loathing or weariness. In an "overture" scene, success means an increase in love; failure results in self-loathing.

The game continues, until eventually a minion is able to resist Master's orders, and has greater love than weariness; in this case, the Master inevitably dies in some ensuing struggle, and the outcome for each PC is determined. The outcome depends on the minion's stats at that point, and can range from "becoming a new force for evil" (that is, a new Master) to peaceful integration with the townsfolk--with suicide or death at the hands of the enraged townsfolk the most likely outcomes.

The Paradigm

I have not closely followed the tabletop RPG scene in many years, and it is entirely possible that My Life with Master is less innovative than I give it credit for--indeed, Czege very properly credits bits of his system to other designers. But I want for a minute to contrast this game with what you might call the "standard model tabletop RPG"--exemplified in its most primitive form by Original Dungeons & Dragons, but not hugely changed in commercial games such as Paranoia, Call of Cthulhu, Deadlands, et al., and only modestly changed in the White Wolf games.

In a standard RPG, player action is tightly constrained on a moment to moment basis: Essentially, the skill system, combat system, magic system, et al. combine to offer a player a limited set of options at any moment. The player selects an option, and rolls dice to determine whether or not he is successful with the chosen action (or, in some cases, the action is sufficiently simple that the player succeeds automatically). However, the narrative is conceptually open ended--any narrative arc is imposed through gamemaster fiat (or post-action reconstruction)--and there are few, if any, constraints on the sorts of narratives that can emerge through play.

In Master, by contrast, there are no literal constraints on action, on a moment-by-moment basis; there are no systems to resolve the success or failure of actions, so that the only real constraint is gamemaster acquiescence, which is unlikely to be withheld unless you are doing someting inappropriate from the perspective of narrative coherence. On the other hand, the narrative is highly constrained; inevitably, Master will die, and each character will achieve or suffer one of five possible outcomes. Moreover, the only NPCs who can appear in this scheme--townsfolk, the outsiders whose approval Master seeks, NPC minions, and Master him/herself--are tightly limited in role. There are only three types of scenes, and the outcome of each is governed by a single resolution roll, rather than many.

To put it another way, a standard RPG is character-centric; its rules define a set of abilities that each character possesses, and the rest is up to the gamemaster and players to negotiate. Master is, by contrast, narrative-centric; its rules define a narrative arc from which there is no escape, and the rest is up to the gamemaster and players to negotiate.

I can conceive of two possible criticisms of this game style. The first is that one might argue that a game of this type requires very sophisticated roleplaying gamers, who are willing to subordinate the desire to "advance the character," the main driver of gameplay in most RPGs, to the desire to "cooperatively tell a good story." If you look at the Blacow player types (which, pace Bartle, precede his), this is a type of game that will appeal to roleplayers and story-tellers, but not to power gamers or war gamers.

I'm not sure that criticism is valid, however; it is true that a power gamer will find little to like in this style of game, where outcomes are essentially predetermined, with minor fluctuations allowed. But if I were to sit down with a group of 13 year-olds who had never played any RPG before, I don't know that I would have any more difficulty getting them into this type of game than D&D... It requires a somewhat different mindset, is all. Improv rather than dungeon-crawling.

The other potential criticism is that while My Life with Master is an admirable treatment of its particular narrative niche, there are genres and narrative styles for which it is inappropriate. Thus, for example, Dungeons & Dragons would not be improved by trying to impose Master-style narrative consistency on what is essentially a "generic fantasy" game--with fantasy being an extremely widespread and variable genre.

But if you look at it, this is not a problem; this is a strength. There are settings for which a constrained-character RPG works better than a constrained-narrative RPG--but there are also settings for which a constrained-narrative RPG works better, too.

In fact, I can immediately think of a whole series of settings that would never work with classic-style RPG rules--but would absolutely work with Master-style rules. You need a genre in which outcomes are pre-determined, or can vary only within strict limits; in which the shape of the narrative arc is also predetermined, or variable only within strict limits; and in which the narrative importance of character action can also be categorized strictly. As examples, here are some games you could unquestionably design, using a Master-like system:

EPIC FANTASY: Unassuming hero gets the gizmo from Point A to Point B in order to thwart the Dark Lord.
ROMANCE: {Adjective} heroine meets {in adverb fashion} {adjective} love interest, and after {N number of obstacles} they come to realize their true love for one another.
THE LOVE BOAT: In this week's episode, {character} with {life issue} comes aboard the Love Boat and after {meeting and having N number of scenes with other character} plus {Y encounters with stock characters in which trite bits of wisdom are brought forth} finds happiness and/or cheerful resignation to his/her current circumstances. Music by Paul Williams.

Now.... Okay, "The Love Boat" is funny, and intended to be. But yes, I believe I could do a Master-style game based on that dreadful TV show, and it would work, just fine. Apart from the fact that yes, this obscure hobby game has potentially profitable and licensable implications, there's another point, too: The standard tabletop RPG model, the D&D model would never work for The Love Boat. What are your skills? What are your powers? Where are the monsters to kill? And.... Who cares?

One other minor thing that occurs to me, before we pass to the final section for tonight: I wonder if this is an example of the "photography > abstract art" phenomenon. By which I mean that once photography was possible, painting was forced to respond by finding something to do other than producing realistic images of real-world things: photography could do that better than someone daubing in oils. I'm sensitive to the criticism that I'm a technological determinist, and I'm sure there were other cultural forces--but really, it seems so obvious.

In this case, I wonder whether the advent of MMGs, which do a pretty good (far from ideal, but not bad) job of satisfying the same jones as classic RPGs--with really pretty graphics, albeit much inferior storytelling--is forcing tabletop RPG designers away from the classic RPG style and toward styles that reward real storytelling, which nothing digital (despite Chris Crawford's best efforts) can provide as tenth as well as a skilled GM.

The Ludological Perspective

I'll begin by pointing out that I'm on the ludologist side of this particular debate, not the narratologist side, and in fact have been since before the people on either sides were born, and indeed long before these terms were applied to them. Nonetheless....

We have in My Life with Master a game that certainly challenges ludological ideas about how games are shaped: It's a game that depends utterly on narrative, and for whom outcomes are minor lacunae to be resolved in "epilogs" after the main action. Interactivity, in the sense of meaningful impact on outcomes, is irrelevant, since the outcome is pre-determined (Master will die); and neither "exploration of space" nor "exploration of the system" is a player motivation, since "space" is "master's demesne" plus "the town", while "the system" is a minor appendage to provide a guide for role playing.

Contrariwise, My Life with Master is a resounding and (I think) successful refutation of my argument that making a game more like a story makes it an inferior game, while making a story more like a game renders it an inferior story. In this case, we have a game that, by moving away from "game" and toward "story" has created something quite novel--and quite interesting. It has done so through one fundamental insight: That we can keep the system "a good game" by constraining the narrative arc at the expense of freeing the moment-to-moment action. Thus, what My Life With Master seems to say is that: Good story depends on constraining action through narrative consistency; good games depend on constraining action through adherence to system (within which free interaction is permitted); and both can be achieved by providing a system that enforces narrative consistency while permitting freedom in other spheres.

This is.... almost a mind-blowing idea from my perspective... and I do hope Mark Barrett is reading this... Albeit I understand if it seems less important to most readers.

And it's also not at all evident to me how you go about "enforcing narrative consistency while permitting freedom of action in other spheres" in digital media. Certainly Crawford's (valiant if ill conceived) Erasmatron didn't fit the bill. But I find it interesting that Czege has made it work in a print medium, at least.

Additionally, My Life With Master is interesting, from a ludological perspective, because many prospective definition of "the game" would not include it. There are no quantifiable outcomes, really; indeed, outcome is pre-determined (or variable only within a very limited range). I think my definition ("an interactive structure of endogenous meaning that requires players to struggle toward a goal") still works pretty well here, but then, I can be a smug bastard at times.

In short, except for those jejune dweebs who classify all non-digital media as outside the realm of "games", or rather "games sufficiently meritorious to be included in the category of games that we study," My Life with Master is an important, challenging, and highly original work.



posted by Greg at 8:52 PM 6 comments