A few weeks ago, the Spodley Grange weekend playtesting event saw the first ever playtest of Okhrana, a game I initially wrote for the 24 Hour Espionage RPG competition hosted by the Modus Operandi website. The pre-playtest version of the game text can be found here.

I entered into the playtest with a certain amount of trepidation: would the game actually work? Would it provide the kind of experience I was aiming for? In addition, this was the first game I had ever created that did not have a traditional GM role, with the role being distributed throughout the group (in the manner of Contenders, for example).

With all of this in mind, myself, Scott Dorward, Rich Stokes and Graham Walmsley sat down to play.

The first thing to comment on was the historical setting: would it require a large degree of knowledge on the part of the group in order to make the game function effectively? Graham raised this point while we were discussion character creation. Luckily, there are some strong historical markers that can be grabbed by a group, touchstones that are common in popular culture: The Moulin Rouge, Parisian boulevards, impoverished artists bemoaning their existence in smoky little cafes. As we discussed, the game is not aiming for total historical accuracy, it aims for a good story. The characters actions and stories may change what we accept as history anyway (what if one of them assassinates Lenin as a political rival, for example?). So, while there is a need for some brief, to the point historical information, the game should make clear that the players should not be worrying about details.

The process of character creation was interesting, in that it threw up some very different characters from those I had imagined would come out of a game of Okhrana. We had Leon Trepilov, a disaffected pianist. Anatoli Sergeyev, a man of noble birth who had fallen in love with a Jewish anarchist. Nikolai Volkov, a haughty composer who came to Paris because they refused to perform his operas in Russia. Finally, Grigori Orlov, a former minister of state and man bent on vengeance (this was my character, and perhaps the most ‘traditional’ of the characters).

During this process, quite a number of very valid points were thrown up: the need for a concise list of example Russian names was the one that was most prominent. Individual players sometimes found it challenging to come up with a name that they felt was appropriate for their character and for the antagonists.

At this stage, it’s probably best to note that Okhrana is made up of six defined scenes, which each of the characters must go through in order (e.g.: everyone’s character plays through scene one in rotation, then scene 2 in rotation and so on). We had about three and a half hours in which to go through the playtest and managed (with four people taking part) to get through the first three scenes (which meant 12 scenes in all). This actually fits quite well with what I imagined happening, although it leads me to think that the maximum number of players that the game can really handle is four. Any more would see to make it slightly unwieldy and risk people have periods of boredom.

A number of things came out of the scene that were played out:

The ‘gift cards’ that participants who are not currently in the role of a protagonist or antagonist can hand out came in for some analysis. The cards should be physically handed to players during the deal, but remain face down. This means that the player giving the gift card cannot tell whether or not it is of any value to the player they will be handing it to. Secondly, it should be specified that the gift card must be handed out during the scene: this forces the gift card holder to make an actual choice during the scene and not abstain from what is going on.

Jokers in the game represent some positive or negative advantage that a protagonist or antagonist can get in their next scene. It was suggested that joker remain out of the pack an in front of the relevant player until they are used. This provides a reminder for the player and everyone participating.

The meat of the issues that the playtest threw up revolved around conflicts in the scenes, the outcomes of those conflicts and the nature of the scenes themselves. The game text should explicitly state that the conflict must present a danger to the character: not always a physical danger, but something that presents a definite threat to the character. In addition, when the protagonist wins the conflict, there should be something that increases danger and tension.

In those scenes which are set by the Antagonist, in the pre-playtest version of the game, the player of the protagonist involved in the scene got to select which character they wanted as the antagonist. It was suggested that the player taking the role of the antagonist should be allowed to select which character they would like to play. I think this gives a greater degree of involvement for non-protagonist players and will be incorporated into the next version of the game text.

Very seriously, it was seen that a definite ‘death spiral’ could occur if a protagonist loses conflicts in the first three scenes. Badly losing these conflicts (gaining +2 points in negative attributes) could result in a situation where the protagonist is guaranteed to have a negative outcome by the end of the game. While for some this is not a bad thing, other players would be keen to at least have the chance to pull it back and gain some other kind of outcome for the character. So, the resolution to this issue was suggested as:

Scenes 1 – 3: Conflict win results in +1 to positive attribute, loss results in +1 to negative attribute

Scenes 4 – 5: Conflict win results in +2 to positive attribute, loss results in +2 to negative attribute

This means that there is still everything to play for in the second half of the game.

All in all, the playtest showed that the game works at a basic level, but requires an awful lot of work. The fundamental structure seems to be in place, but some parts of the structure need to be altered to provide a better experience in play.

So, my thanks to Scott, Rich and Graham for their input in the playtest session. If anyone has any questions or comments at all, please do feel free!

Thanks
Malcolm