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In this second part I will describe the second part of our third session of Shell Shock in Gaza. I will also address a couple of points that have occurred to me during this play test. These are the influence of writing Actual Play reports on our games as well as the discussion on how our game has infuenced our views on the situation in Gaza.
I had prepared the following course of action as the action-oriented part of our third session: When the bombing of the police station would start, both civilians and Hamas fighters would try to escape from the station towards the locations of the player characters' group. The action would have (again?) consisted of quick decisions that would have to be less than perfect. Who to fire at, who is a civilian and who's a Hamas gunman etc.
Residents of Gaza inspecting the damage of an IAF air strike on a police station in Gaza. Photo by Amir Farshad Ebrahimi , Creative Commons - licensed (Attribution, Share Alike)
The actions of the players changed this scenario. The more conservative line of Cpl. Spielberg which Sgt. Baruch also adopted resulted to the palyers' groups position to be revealed to the Hamas fighters and the police in the station before the air strike and the people tried to escape with more conviction and better planning that I had planned beforehand.
At beginning of the second part of the session we went through a series of scenes where a number of people tried to get through the zones watched by the players' group to the police station to warn the people there about the players' group. At that they succeeded on more than one occasion.
This led to scenes where people tried to escape from the station. The Hamas fighters used every dirty trick in the book: snipers, civilians as human shields etc. The player characters found it pretty much impossible to both accomplish their mission soundly and not endanger the civilians.
This led to a multitude of approaches. Lewandowski ended up firing his MG at the approaching group hitting every andany body coming his way. Baruch bombed the station's windows with grenades (probably wounding as many civilians as snipers) but later was able to shoot only Hamas gunmen in the midst of a mixed crowd running towards him. Spielberg was wounded badly and ended up on the verge of nervous breakdown as he accidently shot a civilian child in the head when trying to shoot a Hamas fighter (a failed Destroy conflict with a stress toll). In the end Baruch had to rescue the wounded Lewandowski from enemy fire and drag him to cover.
Although it seemed that I'd already drained this theme in previous play and the events seemed a bit like a repetition of past ones (some kind of action before bombings seemed to be the modus operandi of the group), there were meaningful choices for the players and the play kept their interest well. There certainly was enough challenge too: Spielberg was on the verge of both death and shell shock (one damage point away from both, actually).
The system supported our play as well as before. The players used a lot of traumas and the use of them fit their view of the fiction as well. I alternated the risk of individual conflicts between wounds and stress according to the situation and that seemed like a meaningful choice now too. All in all we had now complaints now that we had learned to use the system.
After this the air strike started and the group proceeded to the extraction point. They were transported out of gaza and given a leave. Spielberg had a long rest in the hospital ahead of him.
The Influence of the Game on Our Attitudes
After the session we discussed how the game had changed our attitudes and views on the real life issues it portrays such as the conflict in Gaza and ultramodern warfare in general. The unanimous answer regarding our attitudes towards the gaza conflict was that the game had not changed our views on the subject at all. I had come closest as I had acquired a lot of information about the situation in Gaza and about the view-points of all involved parties as I prepared for the game. I could now make more solid arguments related to the interests of each involved party in the conflict. Regardless of that I did not think that my attitudes changed in the process either.
A demonstration against the Gaza offensive in London. Photo by Claudia Vieira, Creative Commons - licensed (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike)
On the other hand we felt that our views of ultramodern warfare and the experience of a soldier in it had possibly evolved a lot. We felt that the game portrayed this very well; the strength and burden of the experience, the fear of death and not knowing whether you are dealing with a civilian or an enemy soldier. laku commented that he now realized why I had said in the beginning of the game that we should play Israeli soldiers and that the game would not do as well to portray the conflict from a view-point of a couple of Hamas fighters.
This result, which may have been surprising regarding our un-changed attitudes towards the situation in Gaza, may have been partly a result of our focus. Shell Shock, out-of-the-box, portrays the view-point of a soldier very well. To evolve our views on Gaza we would have had to work harder to focus our play on relating to and exploring an Israeli or Hamas or Gazan view-point. Now we had links and glimpses to the Israeli one, but in no was it the main focus of our game. Rather, it was more of a backdrop to exploring other issues.
We discussed the situation in Gaza more generally too, but that is a matter of a different blog post, preferably in a different kind of a blog :)
The Effect of Writing Actual Play Reports on our Game
I havn't written such extensive actual play reports on any game I have played before this one. Most notably the amount of meta-game-level observations is one I've never before done. Sometimes I've kept a diary on the events in game fiction or made some remarks on meta-game issues in a blog, but I've never done this in such a systematic way.
 The effect in the game has been great in my opinion. I believe that most players have read these reports (they have, after all, gained interest outside our group too :) and that has supported other meta-game discussions. This communication has been beneficial in my opinion and has supported at least two things: 1) learning and negotiating about the rules and processes of the game and 2) flagging and negotiating personal interests.
I'm not sure if I should keep this up in the future, too. Writing these reports tends to be a bit of too much work. On the other hand the possible reward is more successful gaming. And when you think about that with these kinds of games (story games) the prep time for GM is much less than for so-called traditional RPGs, maybe I could use the time I save on that to continue writing these reports. Maybe in a little less time-consuming and a little more efficient manner in the future.
Photo "On the Road Manuscript, #1", Thomas Hawk, Creative Commons - licensed (Attribution, Non-Commercial)
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