So this weekend I played in my first Norwegian game, In The Belly of the Whale. I had in the past avoided these games for a couple of reasons, first because I always got the impression they were highly emotional, and don't always feel up to it. Second, because I doubt my ability to improvise. Here is a quick summary.

There were five of us at the table, and since I don't know everyone's last name I'm going to leave out names. I do know that one person at the table is not particularly fond of indie games, at first I felt a little sorry for him because I knew he would have picked something else. The other people at the table were more or less as seasoned as they come to indie games.

The game works like this: you get a character with a couple of driving traits and a motivation. I was a seductive one eyed pirate who dressed all in black. Also at the table was a Cartesian rationalist, an inquisitor who doubted his faith, a noblewoman murderer, and a bavarian scientist. The mechanics basically give you a scene, and in your scene you have to incorporate a random story element, some other previous random story element, and then pass off to the next character. We ended up passing to the left, which might not have been necessary, but with five players seemed to keep the complexity down. Because of this your character ends up linked with the other characters in the game.

Over the course of the game I had multiple affairs, including killing the sister of another character. I was dealt the motivation of wager, meaning I had made some ridiculous bet and felt obligated to stick with it. My first random item was the whale itself, so I may have stolen a bit from Moby Dick. I was surprised at the direction this took. The other players were much more forgiving to my character than Melville was.

Some other highlights include: a murderous English lady and pirate queen selling the lover of another character to the Turks; a master swordsman inquisitor who seeking and finding revenge for his time as a galley slave; a scientist seeking only ways to humanely kill people, including from poisons to self sharpening swords and guillotines watching has master plans carried off; and a man who sought to understand the true nature of death finding out the hard way.

This was a really awesome game. My initial internal reaction to the English lady declaring herself a pirate was negative, after all that was one of the two distinguishing characteristic of my character. But I got over that fast and was glad. The player who did it was very good about taking it in a different direction than me and not stepping on toes. Even the person who I know/suspect doesn't like indie games seemed to have a good time, though I don't think it really changed his mind.

In response I went to check the free downloads for Norwegian Style, to see if my impressions about these games were really off. It seemed like a fifty-fifty mix of what I would expect. Then I noticed the almost ridiculously low price on lulu (for the length of this book) and was sold. Hopefully soon I'll have a chance to play some more of these. I'm definitely looking forward to it.

I was in this game and I liked In the Belly of the Whale so much I ran it again last night! It again delivered and everyone chewed the scenery and seemed to enjoy it a lot. It reminds me of Baron Munchausen, but improved with the addition of focused thematic elements and mechanical reincorporation, so that in practice it isn't people telling isolated stories, but a conversation in which each player's narration builds upon and includes the contributions of others.

One thing I noticed in both games was some confusion around the third of four turns, where things just start to get a little Byzantine and unravel. Tracking the fiction, which by that time has taken many, many weird turns, becomes hard, and people make missteps (like bringing somebody back to life, or declaring somebody a Protestant when it was established that they were a Catholic). I think experience would mitigate this. It was also suggested that not drawing a new element a time or two wouldn't hurt anything, and I think this is true - a story emerges and adding an evil uncle, while fun, may not always make it better.

The cinematic, over-the-top setting, combined with GMless play, makes this game drift toward gonzo on first play, and that's a tone it accommodates well. I'd love to play a game where everybody was trying to keep it grounded, though! It'd be a challenge with all the twins, poisoned perfumes, and interrupted duels!

We played UWS last night after In The Belly of the Whale, and it didn't come out as the clear favorite. I'll write more later.

Weird, we found it a little bit lackluster - we had to work really hard to make it work. There's nothing in the text that encourages you to care about the dead guy or each other. The tourists are roundly unsympathetic. The roles vary in their completeness (one guy played the native son and had nothing to work with). The natives themselves are largely undifferentiated, and one particular guy ("this native is fat, dirty, and stupid") made us all cringe.

We all really liked the scene-ending mechanic and found fun ways to use it.

Posted By: Clintonso that was a blast.

[rimshot]

Magnus loves poop jokes.