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Lachek (from Hammergames) created a voluntary critique forum for the Little Game Chef 2009 comp. I entered the peer critique thing and got some really good feedback already (thanks Ash!) so now it is time for me to give some back. The first game that was chosen to me was Chained (pdf link), here's the intro blurb straight from the game:
In Chained, you and two or more of your friends will play individuals who have fallen under the sway of a psychorealm known as the Hole. Ultimately your characters may succumb to its pull, but hopefully you will be able to save the people dear to you first!
You can read my critique on the Critique Forum or by reading the full version of this post.
First a disclaimer: unfortunately I haven't been able to play Chained and I think that will affect this critique very much. I don't consider myself a strong reader of rpgs, I even have a track record of not getting the game fully before playing it (see the Shell Shock thread on Story Games and then contrast my experiences on playing it on my AP thread on S-G). However, I'll try my best and offer you honest critique based on my views of the game before playing. So, time to stop the excuses and make observations on Chained.
For me Chained is a game that centers on building this dreamlike psychoreality collaboratively in your play group and exploring it by means of mirroring it with modern pyscho-social rationales. By this I mean that I see the game-play centering around the collective imagining the world of the Hole. The backstory, the anagram subway map and the incorporated elements list work as stimulants to build this world, but the main part is negotiated at the table, with different players having different roles in scene framing, filling out the different "GM" roles (antagonist and milieu) for the active players' scenes etc.
At first I didn't see this; at that point the shades' destinies seemed to be in the focus. If that would have been the case, I would have said that the theme of Chained was most definitely adulthood and the transition to working life. I kid, I kid, but there's some truth to that too. The whole metaphor of leaving the known world for an unknown one, risking one's most important relationships, convictions and beliefs and even memories tells me that it is a basic story about transition in life, and a scary one at that (leaving home for school, moving to another city/country, making a big career move, choose your poison). The rules concerning the shade's convictions, beliefs, precious ones and memories are very rigid, even the conflicts allow very little leeway (and decisions for the shade's player) and the endgame is a brutal one of comparing cold numbers. This has lead me to interpret that the convictions and fading memories of the people wandering in the hole aren't the game's focus.
I like the idea of the anagram subway map very much. Reading the text it doesn't seem to be used very much in the game, just for ideas for the different neighborhoods in the Hole. On top of that there's a whole list of other things to use in scene framing to help you come up with the scene and its details: you randomly pick a sense that will dominate the scene, you pick an element from a list that must be incorporated, the antagonist players creates the antagonist force for the neighborhood, the shade's (protagonist's) belief and memory are incorporated as elements. While this gives a lot to work with and is sure to help players that have hard time making stuff up, the list is so daunting that I would suggest slimming the "necessary" elements down to 2-3 and giving some of those as additional advice or crutches in case of emergency.
In the endgame, each shade will be judged by Hayagriva, the horse-headed god of law of the Hole. The judgment is based on how many beliefs and memories of the character have stayed intact. The judgment is just plain comparing the numbers. This strikes me as being against the overall feel of the game and to be frank a bit anticlimactic. I mean why should the players care about Hayagriva, he hasn't been incorporated in the fiction before? I probably would substitute the endgame with a final scene, a judgment if that is preferred, with maybe the Lost player being the judge, the sinister being the prosecutor and the shade player defending herself. In that way, the players could play it out the same way as before and also complete the world they had created by implementing a final moral code in it.
BTW, if the author of the game would like the game to concentrate more on the destinies of the shades I think that the conflict and antagonism rules should be revised. For me the conflicts have too direct outcomes concerning the memories and beliefs that the shade player could (or should) reasonably invest very much on those. And in particular the belief conflict being between the Lost and the Sinister player, with the Shade player a mere bystander led me to believe that this is not the focus of the game. It would need a very good group to keep that part of the game interesting with so specific rules if the main interest and investment of the players was on the beliefs and memories. And some good luck too, as fortune would be very much an influence in conflicts, too. I would prefer a system that would have diminishing resources on the convictions and memories, that would be risked in the conflicts but would allow the players to interpret the outcomes more with negotiation and less with rules. And a lot of more advice on how and why to lead to these kinds of conflicts as the Lost and Sinister players.
As I'm balancing on critiquing these two possible goals for the game, I think that I rather like the collaborative world-creating aspect of Chained. I think that has lots of appeal to it and could provide very interesting play. The conviction-memory-part seems much more shallow to me. It's a good fuel to the world-exploration but as a sole theme maybe too black-and-white (for example, the possible endgame results for the shades) for me. Kind of a classic horror movie kind of morality and philosophy, which is okay and even very good if it isn't the sole purpose of the game.
I'm probably not in the main target group for this kind of a game. I'm pretty particular of my in-game fiction and the backstory and other aspects of the Hole that were offered in the game didn't do very much to interest me. But this is no fault of the author as other games that have had a similar effect on me fiction-wise include Polaris, The Shadow of Yesterday etc. And I think that 10-15 years ago I would have found the milieu quite intriguing (I was more into this kind of fiction, movies and games such as Kult and WoD then).
The second thing that probably results in me not trying Chained out is the large number of rules and low amount of explanations and guidance. I've already described the rules and mechanics that seem to be too much of the same thing to me. If the author wants to work on the game further, I would suggest working on the following:
- Outline the theme of the game in the introduction to raise interest (why you wrote this game? what does it do?)
- Give more advice to the players of sinister and lost roles, particularly how and why they should challenge the shade player
- Give more advice on linking the milieu elements to the memories and beliefs (why = what is to be accomplished, how etc.)
- Describe the Endgame and Hayagriva in more detail; maybe re-think the endgame according to your chosen theme
But these are only my views on the game. Go check it out yourself!
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