Something interesting happened at our regular game night this week. It’s personal, not a sweeping theory or a review although there’s a bit of both in there as well.
Summer is really hard to schedule and it’s worse if your group has kids. So I typically try to have a big campaign in the fall, one-shots during winter, another big campaign in the spring, and more one-shots in the summer. This is also when I shake up my regular play group and try new things. It’s a good cycle and it’s worked well for me for a long time.
We recently had a (very) long time player decide to take a break from play. That’s good and healthy, and an opportunity to shake up the table a bit. I asked another friend to come back in after a long absence. Our first game together at my home table – we’ve gamed together at cons in the interim – after our long separation was The Facility, which I wrote about last week.
So here’s what happened. I can’t stop thinking about it.
A couple days ago, I needed another short-run game while the last of our vacations played out. After struggling way too long – having so many games at hand means every choice inflicts FOMO for all the other ones I rejected – I settled on Masks: A New Generation. It’s a banger, it’s always a good time, and it’s very hooky. It’s also on my very short list of PbtA games I’ve played but never run. Everyone jumped in and had a great time.
When everyone got together for Masks, we had one new-to-them attendee. I made introductions all around. But I also introduced my long-absent friend around the table because I couldn’t remember who had met him and who hadn’t. Even though most of the table had played The Facility with him a week ago.
Even today, I have almost no memory of the physical act of playing The Facility. I wrote a column about the game, and today I can’t visualize the table, the attendees, rolling dice or not, highlights of the game narrative, or even holding the book. I can remember reading the book in bed but I have almost no memory of the actual event.
Where Did It Go?
I think it is a combination of three factors. I’m still chewing on the alchemy of how much each one mattered.
The first is that a lot of my bandwidth is taken up by being the president of my child’s school parent-teacher organization. It’s my second year, I love doing it, and it’s emotionally and mentally encompassing in a way that, I think, other folks’ careers are. So, you know, a low investment one-shot isn’t going to make much impression on me. We got together, had some laughs for a few hours. I was already in introduction mode, so it was easy for me to roll right into introducing folks I had forgotten already knew each other.
The second is that between getting COVID (at least) 5 times at this point and turning 55 in a few weeks, I might really be experiencing some cognitive decline. This is notable enough that I’m going to get a professional evaluation. But I’ll say I felt plenty sharp running Masks! And I’m told The Facility session came off just fine as well.
Finally, and this is where the theory and review stuff comes in: I think the anonymous characters of The Facility, without any real agency beyond problem-solving, left me with nothing at all to hold onto. They had to survive a series of weird rooms – I know this because I went back and read the book, and said ah yes to myself a few times – and those weird rooms had no particular connection to each other. And the characters had no real connection to each other.
I checked with the players and they all remembered the game just fine! Of course, they were the ones solving the problems. On my side of the table, there was little for me to do other than execute the rooms fairly, consider the viability of their plans, and time the only tool The Facility gives the GM: the introduction and escalation of Nemesis robots.
In this way, The Facility reminded me a bit of Labyrinth: the Adventure Game, the game adaptation of the movie. On the GM side of the table, it’s quite similar: a series of weird spaces to figure out, and very shallow characterization pulling everyone together. But at least in Labyrinth there’s your character class and background stuff. Like I played a small worm who was also a spectacular, overconfident duelist. That’s good stuff! Memorable! Meanwhile the only real differentiation between the test subjects of The Facility is in their devices. And, eventually, their flashbacks.
None of this is a criticism of The Facility. Not at all. The game does what it says it does, and quite well. Heck, my amnesia about running the game even fits nicely into the theme of being an amnesiac test subject. What the experience is highlighting for me, I think, is that for me to invest in a game as the GM, I have to care about the characters and their relationships. I haven’t run this sort of preprogrammed content in a very long time, so I’m betting that’s a big piece of my mental block on the evening as well.
I’ve lived a lifetime of facilitating character-driven play and it’s left me not only without particularly honed skills for plot- or map-driven play, it’s left me unable to digest those experiences at all. I just don’t have the enzymes.
I do notes after the session. Quick points that resume things, and then complete the story for final notes.
I also GM masks, and I find it awesome. I also created a new playbook, tell me if you are interested in reviewing it.
That sounds deeply unnerving. This probably doesn’t apply, but I learned only a few years ago (I’m nearly 60 myself) that instances of remarkable cognitive lapses that I call “Swiss-cheese brain” are almost always a marker of stress (especially when I think I’m not stressed). Meditating a little or even general mindfulness (body scans, a few deep breaths) help enormously. Do with that what you will.
As to your game-playing take on this experience, I envy you your long and deep experience playing character-forward games. But I would imagine that GMing non-character-forward games would have to feel less interesting. Which makes me wonder: have you played Microscope, and does it scratch the same itch? It’s GM-less but emphasizes collaboration and narrative, though not necessarily character. Just curious.
I have played Microscope! But it’s a world building tool in my mind. The character play is a lot of lift for everyone involved. But I’ve used Microscope to set up Apocalypse World and other longer form games, and that’s satisfying.
Yes, I can see that. Ben Robbins, the game’s creator, has commented that players often skip the “scene” part of the game where role-playing characters comes in, and I can see why. I guess it’s possible to give players too much agency …