Playing the Game

Being a chapter of hopefully useful advice on getting the most out of Malandros

 

Guidelines for Players

 

Show your character

Outside of the things they say and do, your character doesn’t exist to the other people at the table. So if your PC is angry about something, demonstrate it. Say so to someone, smash a chair, make it known. If your PC dreams of being a ballerina, go to auditions, or at least dance around a bit when sweeping up in the factory canteen.

 

Follow your Desire

A lot of the time you won’t have a problem thinking of what scene to call next. There’ll be some plan in motion, or something to respond to, that will make it pretty obvious what your PC’s next move would be.

 

But when that doesn’t happen, and you’re having trouble thinking where to go next, look down. Your character sheet holds the answers. The main one is your Desire. Think of the shortest route between where you are now and your Desire, then take it.

 

If that doesn’t help, look at your Dramatic Poles – which one haven’t you played up for a while? How could you demonstrate it? If you can do that while heading for your Desire, all the better. But if you can’t, just acting out your personality once in a while is pretty good too.

 

Play the game you want to Play

Do game the system if you feel like it – that’s what it’s for. Astute observers will notice that DramaSystem lets you mess with other players in a fairly simple way – give in to others’ demands for a couple of scenes and you’ve already got enough drama tokens to force someone to do something they don’t want to do.

 

This is intentional. It reflects the give and take of relationships between people who are emotionally connected, and you can use that. This approach to play works well if you’re playing a character who’s a bit of a hustler, a social manipulator or a politician.

 

Dramatic scenes also feed into refreshing procedural ability pools. You can get a drama token and an ability refresh in the same scene, and you’re very much encouraged to do so. The GM and other players will be along shortly with all kinds of ways to spend those things.

Feel free to play for keeps with scene framing. Cast other PCs in procedural scenes that they maybe don’t really want to be involved in – if they want to duck the scene, they can pay a token for the privilege.

 

DramaSystem also works if you choose to pay only peripheral attention to which tokens are going where. If book-keeping and plotting moves in advance doesn’t work for you or doesn’t fit the character you’re playing, don’t worry about it. Just play your character and use the procedural rules or exchange drama tokens as and when the rules indicate – they’ll become a framework for your actions rather than a tool: when a dramatic scene isn’t going your way, look down and see if you have the tokens to force a concession; when your ability pools are running low, think about having your character take a break in a refresh scene.

 

Embrace the force

You’re always playing your character but you aren’t always in control. Sometimes your PC will be forced to make a concession. Most of the rest of the time, the game is about deciding what your character would do and then making that happen.

 

When someone forces a concession on you, the game temporarily becomes about figuring out a convincing reason why your character would do the thing another player just decided on. Have fun with it. You can always get revenge on the other players later.

 

Short scenes are OK

It’s easy to be paralysed by choice when your turn comes round to call the next scene. Sometimes you just can’t think of what your next move should be, or come up with a way to pursue your Desire on the spur of the moment. But you don’t get to skip your turn.

 

Remember that there are really three kinds of scene, even though we only distinguish two mechanically: there are scenes where you exchange drama tokens, scenes where you roll for actions, and the third kind – scenes where you establish something about your character or the world.

 

The third kind is the place to go when you’re short on ideas. Visit your mother, have a coffee with a friend, visit the market, tell someone a joke.

 

Whatever your character would do on an ordinary day, where they’d be – that’s the “something” you establish.

 

You can play out a brief scene with the GM or another player, or you can just describe it, like Felipe on break at the fish market, hanging around with the other crate loaders, smoking a cigarette. Someone does an impression of the foreman and Felipe laughs so much he starts to choke.

 

Give everyone a little vignette of your character’s life, then move on. See what happens next.

 

Call the scenes you want to see

To a great degree, you’re responsible for your own fun in this game, and you have the power to make it happen through scene-calling. The other players’ characters have their own Desires to pursue. The GM has plenty to do keeping track of everything that’s going on and depicting a vibrant, living city. So if you want to do domething, don’t wait for it to happen.

 

Call your scene, because no one else is going to do it for you.

 

Guidelines for the GM

 

Help the players to call scenes

Sometimes it’s suddenly your turn to call a scene and you don’t know what to do. If this happens to a player, first of all give them some time to think. Then, if they ask for help, ask them questions to draw out the scene they want to call.

EXAMPLE:

GM: “Who do you want to talk to next?”

Player: “We need to go talk to the Captain!”

GM: “Where do you think he would be right now?”

Player: “Probably having a drink after work, with some important people he knows.”

GM: “OK, maybe at Cafe Raimundo, sharing a bottle of red wine with the Duke at an outside table overlooking the plaza.”

Player: “Right. Yeah. So me and Tico-Tico walk right up to his table and push his guard out of the way...”

 

Give them hard choices

This is how dramatic scenes work – making hard choices between what you want and what the other person wants. In mechanical terms it means deciding whether to get your own way or to take the drama token.

 

It’s also how GM actions work in procedural scenes. In this game, the GM doesn’t roll dice like the players do. Instead you describe what’s happening and say “what do you do?” – if the PCs do nothing to change the situation, you take an action. If they roll and fail (get a 2 or less), you take an action.

 

What’s happening can be broad in scope – “Unless someone stands against him, it looks like Sandro Oliveira will win the election in a landslide. What do you do?” – or relatively small scale – “Gafanhoto swings a bottle at your head – what do you do?”

We’ll come to the specifics of GM actions later.

Note that when you take an action in response to what PCs do or don’t do, there’s no requirement to make it happen right away. But it does have to happen at some point.

In the examples above, if the PC didn’t try to dodge or block the incoming blow you’d most likely deal harm immediately, but the effects of Sandro Oliveira winning the election could take days or weeks to be felt.

 

Offer PCs what they desire

But giving them hard choices comes first. Your Desire for acceptance can be realised now that you’re upwardly mobile – but you have to leave friends and family behind. Sure, your Desire for respect could come true if you succeed where other civil guard captains failed – but will you put your best friend in jail? You want to punish the men who ruined your family? How far are you prepared to go? The love of a good woman is right there in your grasp – if you can settle down and give up being a malandro.

 

Play off their dramatic poles

Before a new episode, take a look through the Dramatic Poles of each PC. Have any of them been neglected for a while? If so, come up with some scene ideas that will bring those poles to the fore.

If you see a Dramatic Pole that doesn’t seem to apply to the character any more, due to changes the PC has gone through or because the character as played hasn’t turned out quite like the original idea (which is, by the way, totally legit), discuss writing a new Dramatic Pole with the player.

 

Say ‘cut’ when the scene is done

Scenes don’t have to be very long to be valuable. A whole bunch of short scenes that build up to a bigger picture is just as good as one big scene where all kinds of things occur. Maybe better.

Keep an eye out for scenes meandering on after they’re finished. A dramatic scene is done when an emotional petition is granted or refused. Do the token exchange and move on. Don’t hang around for small talk.

 

The same goes for procedural scenes. At the start of a procedural scene, the first step is to find out what the PCs are trying to do. Once you have discovered whether or not they achieve it, that’s the end of the scene.

 

Someone tried to break his friend out of jail and got caught? And he’s been cornered by armed guards? Well, the aim was “get my pal out of jail” and that didn’t work, so the scene is over. Cut. If you want to know what happens next, wait till it’s your turn and call the scene where you find out.

 

Mix high and low stakes

Granted, the very first guideline above says “give them hard choices” – just don’t do it all the time. Malandros is a game of desperation, corruption and violence, but it’s also a laid-back, sunny afternoon slice-of-life kind of game.

 

When it’s your turn to call a scene, consider the value of a low-key moment. An invitation to go for a drink at the botequim on the corner can be just as valuable and revealing an emotional moment as an order from a commanding officer to shoot unarmed protestors – and in terms of how many drama tokens they’re worth, they are precisely the same.

 

Use your GM-called scenes to offer a counterpoint to those the players are calling. If they’re exchanging drama tokens scene after scene on the basis of coffee invitations, introduce a more serious, life-changing decisions. If the players’ scenes are all blood and thunder, remind them of everyday life with a gentler interlude.

 

 

 

GM Actions

If you are the GM, any time a player rolls a 2- on a procedural action (unless the rules text says different), or when everyone looks at you to say “what now?”, you can take one of the following actions:

• Put someone in a difficult situation.

• Bring news of things happening off-screen.

• Offer an opportunity.

• Demand wealth.

• Make known an impending threat.

• Inflict harm or stress.

• Take away their stuff.

• Show an advantage’s downside.

 

Put someone in a difficult situation

The someone doesn’t have to be a PC. It can also be an NPC who the PCs care about. It cannot be an NPC the PC’s don’t care about.

 

Bring news of things happening off-screen

Good news or bad news, either way. As long as it’s interesting.

 

Offer an opportunity

This opportunity may or may not come with a cost attached.

 

Demand wealth

Make them spend their money. Need somewhere to live? Spend wealth on fixing the roof. Want some ammo for that revolver you got? Spend wealth. Want to get into that party to meet that guy? Spend wealth on some nice clothes.

 

When they are down to 0 wealth, they need to find a way to get some (an honest job, a con, marrying someone rich, maybe). Or they need to go into debt. And remember, they start at 0 wealth – get them into debt early.

 

Make known an impending threat

Give them a chance to react before you inflict harm or stress, take away their stuff or show an advantage’s downside.

 

Inflict harm or stress

Do this when you’ve warned the player what the harm or stress will be and they either fail to avoid it or choose not to.

E.g. Harm from being punched. Anger from having to shove your way through a crowd of block-headed pedestrians. Exhaustion from staying up all night. Dying from execution by firing squad.

 

Example

Miguel arrives at the harbour in the morning and goes to where he moored his little fihing boat to discover that a coterie of local fihermen are trying to force him out. The GM is about to say “someone has set fie to your boat in the night – it’s just a blackened husk now” but stops. Because this is the fist encounter with the rival fihermen, burning Miguel’s whole livelihood is a step too far. He hasn’t had any warning yet. Instead, the GM says “you see a couple of guys in your boat, messing with your nets and gear. What do you do?”

 

Take away their stuff

They’ll probably want to get it back. Stuff can be physical possessions or money, but it can also be more abstract – social standing, health or family, for instance.

 

Show an advantage’s downside

The problem with being rich is that people try to rob you. The problem with being famously great at capoeira is that capoeira is illegal.

And so forth.

 

 

The quotidian grind

The Player Characters have long-term dreams and Desires. It’s not really your job to call scenes that focus on those things, although if there’s a scene you want to see that focuses on a PC’s Desire, by all means call it.

 

But while they are thinking about their lofty ambitions, your job is to introduce the day-to-day hassles that make them dream those dreams in the first place.

In dramatic scenes those include: Bosses who want them to show obedience. Bullies who want them to show fear. Friends who want them to show trust. Relatives who want them to show family loyalty.

 

In all these cases, make those difficult demands to accede to. Make them choose one Dramatic Pole or another – or neither – if they accept the petition.

 

You can use stress as an in-scene threat (but you have to tell the player about the potential side-effect first): Showing fear to the bully is humiliating now, leading to the Embarrassed stress, but not showing fear could get you beaten up later.

 

Play one relationship against another: The boss wants you to be obedient and work late, but your wife already got you to show devotion by promising to leave on time tonight.

 

Make accepting the petition a fairly obviously bad idea: Trusting the friend means lending him Wealth that everything in his previous history tells you you’ll never see again.

 

Use procedural scenes for ‘slice of life’ events, like escaping an attempted mugging, or loading a cargo of coffee without suffering stress.

Use them whenever a PC wants to get some Wealth, too. If a fisherman wants to earn money to maintain his boat, he doesn’t get anything just for saying “I would have been fishing today, right?” You don’t get something for nothing – procedural scenes representing going to work should offer threats that match their compensation.

For example, simply going out to sea to fish or working at a bar for a scene has the potential to infict stress, but earns the character 1 Wealth. If you need to make more than that, you need to make a deal with someone to pay you 2 or more Wealth, and that job is concomitantly more dangerous. You have to head far out to sea or into a storm where you may suffer harm, or you can get a loan with your house as collateral.

 

Reacting to the players

The way Malandros is set up, an individual PC can just go and accomplish stuff all by themselves. Once they have enough drama tokens to force a concession, they can get one. Ability points give them a very good chance of getting things done in procedural scenes, even if it means a refresh scene or two later on. Because of that, they don’t exactly need help from the other PCs when it comes to actually accomplish the actions.

 

But the city is a big place – a lot bigger than the Player Characters. And almost anything they do in pursuit of their Desires will cause a backlash. As the GM, it’s your job to make that backlash feel real and compelling.

 

Have NPCs take direct action. When a gang leader takes new territory, the people who had it before will want it back.

Get the other PCs involved. When a PC market trader turns the bairro against the crooked politician who’s planning ot tear their houses down, his agents offer the street tough PC a lot of cash to scare her into silence.

Draw on their Dramatic Poles. This is a more authorial kind of reaction. If a player has been leaning heavily on one Dramatic Pole to the neglect of the other (let’s say it’s been a whole lot of “War” without much “... or Peace?” for a couple of episodes), think about calling a scene that will tug the character in the other direction.