Setup: You and at least 2 other players who have seen the movie The Princess Bride get 5 six-sided dice each. Each of you writes at least 2 agendas (goals) on note cards. The agendas should be in conflict with the goals of characters from the movie. For example, you might write “Vizzini secretly loves Buttercup and wants to get her away so he can marry her himself.”
The film’s framing device of the grandpa and kid are not included in game play, with one exception (described below). So your agendas cannot include them.
Shuffle all the agenda cards and place the stack upside down. Each player then draws 1 card. This is your narrative agenda. Outside it, you can guide the story however you wish, keeping to the movie’s story if you prefer.
Keep your agenda entirely secret! Lie to conceal it, if you must.
Play: Someone starts by describing a scene. It doesn't have to be in the movie... it can be a scene that was implied but not shown, or one that you invented that fits into the story.
For example, you say the story begins with child Wesley arriving at the Farm as an orphan. The first thing they ask him to do is muck the stalls in the barn. When he enters the barn, he sees Buttercup playing. She says something smarmy like "You're supposed to be working."
At this point, your narration ends. You set up the scene and introduced a conflict. But you cannot be the one to narrate the outcome. Another player must step up and decide what happens next.
If more than one player wants the honor, they roll 1d6 each and whoever rolls highest wins that honor. If a player strongly wants to do it, they can gamble dice from their pool of 5d6, rolling as many of them as they wish until they run out of dice or win the roll. These gambled dice rolls are added to the original total, not counted as separate attempts.
You never recover spent dice. Once you roll them, they are gone. Regardless of an empty pool, everyone gets to roll at least 1d6 when they want to compete for narrative control. The only player excluded from competition for narrative control is the one who setup the conflict. Once a different conflict is introduced, the original player can rejoin play - even if it is technically the same scene.
When you have narrative control, you can describe the outcome of a conflict and/or change scenes. If you change scenes without resolving the conflict, someone can interject in a high pitched, worried voice with “But what happens to [fill in name of character]?” When this happens, another roll-off is initiated.
Goal: Your goal is to weave and guide the narrative to achieve the agenda written on your card. If your agenda is satisfactorily completed and the game is still going, draw another agenda. If that agenda no longer makes sense due to events that have already been described (example: "make sure Inigo fails to get revenge"... but Inigo has somehow already died), then draw another card.
The game ends when a player has no agenda and the agenda bank is empty. That player then narrates the final scene. The end.
If you really want, you can count how many agendas each player achieved and whoever has the most is the best Princess Liar.
Notes: Obviously you can play this game with another movie or story. You could do Supernatural, Lord of the Rings, Buffy, War and Peace, or whatever you want. But the whole group has to be familiar with it and agree on it.
This was just a silly idea that hit me at work Friday. I'm open to questions or suggestions, but I doubt I'll do much more with it other than maybe putting it into a PDF.
No comments:
Post a Comment