[Carolina Death Crawl] Domande e risposte da Jason Morningstar

[Daniele Di Rubbo]

In breve, mi stato chiesto di portare questo fantastico gioco a GnoccoCON 2016. L’ultima volta che ci ho giocato era alla GnoccoCon di tre anni fa, per cui stavolta ho riletto il regolamento e, nonostante le due partite giocateci in precedenza, andate lisce come l’acqua, stavolta mi sono fatto delle domande, le ho poste a Jason su Google+ e lui mi ha risposto.

Ho pensato che fosse cosa buona riportare qui le risposte, a beneficio dei giocatori futuri.

I’m going to bring Carolina Death Crawl to GnoccoCon, in Reggio Emilia, Italy, next weekend, and I just ended reading the rules once again, since I haven’t played it in almost two years.

During the reading, there were some question which came up, and they are all about the usage of Action Cards on the behalf of the Swamp Ghosts.

1. Can the Swamp Ghosts play their Action Cards only in the scene set by them or in any other scene as well?

2. Can the Swamp Ghost play more than one Action Card per scene? Can they play more cards against the same character? Can they play more than one card against more than one character?

I'd give Swamp Ghosts a free hand to play their cards whenever they see good opportunities. They can play more than one card per scene, more than one against a specific character, etc. Their job is to increase the adversity and horror and they can easily decide who "wins", but that's not really in the spirit of the role. Spread the misery around.

[…]

Think of the game as a larp you are playing to fail, with rules that force you toward success. Since you know you are likely to die, you can embrace that, and the cards offer more points for more horrible, difficult choices.

One note from my experience at conventions: players seem to see the cards and points and assume they need to play aggressively to win,trying to cram their cards into scenes. It's worth explaining to them that it's better to think like storytellers- does that card prompt really fit the scene? Will it make it better? If not, hold on to it for now.

As Steve Segedy says, "playing to win" is going to be less satisfying. If you do you will probably "win", but that's not what the game is really about. In addition it is very fun to be a Swamp Ghost!

[…]

Daniele Di Rubbo despite the game's trappings as a competitive card-based game in which you want to "beat" the other layers with more points, that is the last thing you want to be thinking about. Focus on the story above all and make interesting, rather than optimal, choices. That's all!

So, Jason Morningstar, we played the game, eventually, and it was really great. Everyone had a great time, but some other questions came up. It would be sweet if you could answer to these, too.

1. During the First Chapter of the Escape, can the PCs be with some other brothers in arms of the 1st North Carolina Cavalry Regiment or some other Regiment? I guess in the end no soldier other than the last “winning” PC could be alive, is it correct?

2. We had a game full of supernatural and that was my first one with so much of it. +Marco Iotti asked me if it was usual that Carolina Death Crawl had a “supernatural rating” high like that. As I just said, it was my first time, but nonetheless I wonder: did it happened to you a lot? Do you think it could be someway problematic for the Southern Gothic tone? Reading the Prompt Cards, I could see a lot of potentially supernatural prompts; are they meant to be used in this way?

1. My intention is that you are alone and considered deserters by your former friends. If you have some other soldiers with you that's OK, but they must die or be abandoned or disappear. It's simpler to be a small unit of just player characters.

2. It varies and can accommodate anything from no supernatural to a whole lot. At my table it is usually quite low because that stuff isn't interesting to me so I don't encourage it. But there is no specific tone to try for.