INC 2012 report - 1001 Nights
(To the folks who where there - Hello everyone! First, thank you for your gracious welcome to me as a guest of INC - I had a fantastic time. I am only sorry I could not play even more games, or meet each of you that attended. Next time, find me and say hello!)
This was my first game at INC, and to run it in English with no translator, for mostly people I'd never met (Mario had helped me bake cornbread earlier that morning). At the table to begin were Mario Bolzoni, Alberto Muti, Mattia Bulgarelli and myself. Alberto mentioned a friend was running late, so we started character creation without him. I read the examples of the different senses in Italian, with the patient pronunciation correction and occasional guidance from the other players. This helped get everyone at the table comfortably speaking English together, and put us in a cooperative mood from the start. This also let me see how the other players interacted with each other and with me.
The characters around the table: Mr. Mario chose to play the newest wife of the Sultan, Aziza, as yet unsettled in her role, and a little out of her comfort zone. Alberto played Behman, the visiting scholar of Euclid, who has been set the task of cataloging the Sultan's treasure - he's stuck here until it is complete, and the storehouses are vast. Mattia played the astrologer Kuziamah, a sever man with an eye for nice things - including the young Sultana. I chose to play Melia, the favored musician, secretly in love with the Sultan's bodyguard, the NPC Schraz Daud. Over the course of character creation, many things about all the characters were revealed, such as Melia's childhood far from Court, Kuziamah's alchemical interests and his willingness to be bribed, and Behman's loneliness. As we were in the last stages of character creation, +Fabio Succi Cimentini arrived, and Mattia quickly caught him up to speed as Danash, the dark-skinned hawk master.
I have all of the character sheets, and it is interesting to see the notes players made about the other PCs, whether it is the apparent age of the PC or a key phrase of their description or a word that sums up the attitude of the player's PC towards the other PCs.
To the game itself.
I had each player introduce their character in an audience chamber, before the young Sultana. As the PCs were all of a similar social status, and useful to the higher levels of Court, the Sultan had decreed Aziza should interview them and get to know the staff. It started out with a bang, as Kuziamah unrolled a long tale of the alignment of the stars and the prospects for conceiving a child. With already a hint of unseemly attention on his part to Aziza's sex life. The others followed suit, interrupting Kuziamah, who got to look indignant, and eventually they described plans for a garden to please the new Sultana. This made me think of stories involving gardens and fertility, and so to Rapunzel. But how to find my Story-level characters, and enough to go around? That's the question.
The answer is easy - begin the tale, and move as quickly as is pleasing until there are enough characters on the scene. I told of the devoted husband and wife, unable to conceive, and their willingness to try every answer. Ok, that's two Courtiers, but which ones? I watched the characters and considered my motives in casting them, where I wanted to poke fun, where to say a true thing. I talked of an old woman who directed the lovers to a garden holding a certain fruit. A fruit? Was I going to cast a Courtier as a fruit? And clearly the old woman was a walk-on part, although I could have stopped there if I had only three players, and cast her as the third. But no, I had one more Story-level character to find. So into the garden I take the lovers, under cover of night, by the light of the moon and the inconsistent stars. The players had already declared a couple of interests, so they were beginning to see how the mechanics worked. And then I see my four Story-level roles.
"So, Behman, would you play the devoted wife Rahima? And Danash her loving husband Amid?" These to underscore Behman's longing for a loyal friend and Danash because as Melia I could not think of Kuziamah as a loving husband, and I envied Danash his care for the beautiful and powerful birds, so to make him the care-taker of the woman Rahima was logical. I also wanted to make Kuziamah's declared interest in the lovers quarreling more challenging.
"Noble Sultana, please show us the queen of beasts, the tigress who stalks them" By this I curry favor with Aziza, but also I tell her she can find strength in herself and that she has more power than she realizes.
"Kuziamah. will you play the voice of Allah, who tells true things to all creatures, unlike the wandering stars." Here I slight Kuziamah's astrological skills. Again.
The Story we played out was really, really beautiful, full of danger and devotion. A few moments in particular remain very strong in my mind: Aziza as the tigress realizing her power and offering the lovers a choice between three terrible outcomes; Rahima seizing the opportunity to take matters into her own hands, Amid putting himself between Rahima's blade and the tiger's teeth, and the voice of Allah finding the lovers worthy at last, and finding a way to solve the problem without going back on his word. Everyone brought really great descriptive and evocative phrases to the table, and it was a great story. One thing that makes it roll along really well is when people grasp the need to declare interests in the Story and look for ways to make pointed remarks about the other Courtiers - once that happens, it's all good.
Back at Court, some of us advanced and others were rebuked in private. Then the Sultana Aziza was next to tell a story, as every die Mario had rolled had gone against him in the first story. I found it fascinating how hesitant we other Courtiers were to suggest things that might displease the Sultana in her own Story - lots of good in-character social pressure there! In the story that followed, Mario chose to pass up the first opportunity for four Story-level characters (the three brothers and the little bird) in favor of a more complex combination a bit later on, to better illuminate the things Aziza was interested in seeing. So we had a slightly shortened second story about the poor love-struck boy, the princess, the bird, and the prince, and in the end Melia won her ambition - a return of Schraz Daud's affection!
In our conversation as we were cleaning up for the next group, someone commented that this was such a different game of 1001 Nights from one they had played earlier, which was much more cut-throat and competitive. I was glad to have had such a nice environment in which to play, and time to play a more spacious game. Something I really like is how there are different experiences to be had depending on what you put in - if you have only a short one-shot in a crowded noisy convention hall, it can be excellent fun but quick and brutal, where in a more relaxed setting, the game really opens up into something entirely lovely.
Questions and comments welcome!
