Playing in the Mud

[jeregenest]

Reviewing a friend's game can always be touchy, at least for me as I'm not always known for my tact or diplomacy, but here goes.


robotnik recently wrote a game based on the Animal Farm called General Mud. This game fits into a rather new, and nascent branch of roleplaying that has been primarily advocated by folks over at the Forge. These games are primarily one-shot games that require little preparation and planning and have a set of mechanics that drives and channels play in a very specific direction. They inevitably have end conditions. Which makes them a very closed system of play.

Rob's game does an excellent job at this. Drawing on a recognizable literary theme, it could with proper packaging appeal to the same audience of casual party gamer that made Mafia so popular or heartily embraced the How to Host a Mystery model. Coupled with a very simple mechanic its only weakness here is its reliance n a standard gaming trope of wanting "stuff". The dependence on a large quantity of colored six sided dice pretty much makes this a gamer’s game. Not a bad thing, as gamers do like games, but it does limit any widespread appeal.

Mechanically the game seems to flow smoothly. Nothing negative stands out from reading and my assumption is that it would be effortless to run the first half.

The second half, the Trials, demonstrate that Rob has played a lot of these type of games (with me even) and absorbed their lessons as he offers very solid and practical advice on handling the narrative flow and keeping things running smoothly. Fans of this sub-genre should read most of this advice as it applies to the entire style.

The biggest question here, and the author admits it, is that while there are very clear mechanics for a crazy spiral the game itself hasn't been played enough to see how that ends up. So there is little solid advice and more supposition. A more polished version of this game, having benefited from playtesting, could be expected t offer as solid play advice as the author offers in earlier sections.

Recommendation: This is a good game for gamers who want a social, low maintenance pickup game. With some work on presentation I can imagine this being an excellent classroom tool or even party game.

I'd play it.

Comments

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Jere. Clearly you can be diplomatic and even over-generous when you want to be.

I wonder if there's any way the innovations of these more structured "closed system" games, whatever we end up calling them, could be employed in more traditional open-ended games. I could imagine a game meant to be played as an open-ended campaign, but where the rule system was altered each session based on the kind of story you intended to generate on that particular evening.

Now, just because I can imagine it doesn't mean it's a GOOD idea, but it's interesting to think about. Could be a way to play a genuine Planetary game (flashing back to a conversation you and I had once) that actually deconstructed different genres each session a la Planetary instead of just raiding the comic for second-hand ideas.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

It is. I can imagine something like Torg, but the various axis would be where you push certain dials of rules.