Introduction

So, in this thread here, I mentioned that the only thing missing to make Nicotine Girls highly playable was some advice for the GM approaching it for the first time.

If you haven't ever read NG, get yourself over to the website and grab a copy. It's about two or three A4 pages, depending on how large you make the font. Should take 5-10 minutes to read. It probably won't cause you any lasting damage.

Now, stop throwing bottles and hear me out. NG is not going to be a game to replace your weekly Warhammer session. But some of you might have a bright, imaginative friend, possibly female, socially conscious, and aware of the existence of an underclass and its culture. Perhaps you have thought that this friend might enjoy aspects of roleplaying (and you, of course, would love to play with this friend), but she or he has no interest in fantasy or science fiction or horror or cowboys or superheroes or any of the styles of game you have. It is to you I speak.

NEXT: How do I run this game?

How do I run it?

There are two possibly contradictory things you must hold in mind while running Nicotine Girls:

1. You need to have some sympathy for the characters. If you don't have any, best not play this game. I could be wrong here.

2. You need to put barriers between those little slappers and their dreams. If you don't, there's no game.

So the first thing to do is get a grip on the characters' dreams and backgrounds. This will tell you what sort of scenes to frame.

There are two basic types of scene: conflict scenes and Smoke scenes.

Conflict scenes
I think that you should keep scenes without conflicts to a minimum, but it's not a hard-and-fast rule. In general, whenever a scene begins, be looking for the conflict.

Example: Imelda is working at the local supermarket when one of the other workers (ie an NPC) asks if she can sell her some speed. Imelda says okay and gives her a bit there and then in the aisle. Here's a good chance for a conflict – does Imelda get caught?

Here's where it takes some skill as GM. Are you going to make Imelda roll to see if she gets caught? Or are you going to roll right on and have her nabbed, then make a roll to get off (or not)? Keep in mind what her dream is, and go for the option that attacks that most strongly.

The odds are stacked against the girls unless they use Fear for all they're worth. You want to be tempting them all the time to pick up extra Fear (Why? Because it gives you more material to work with as GM).

[Continued]

Smoke scenes
These scenes may be called for any time the player wants to try and boost their chances in an upcoming conflict.

The key point is that if the character takes the advice she gets a better chance. As GM, you should deliberately feed the character advice that goes against their dreams.

Example: Cindy is the singer in a band, and she wants to become famous. In the last scene, the other band members complained about her attitude and hinted that they want her out. She comes to NPC Mardie to ask for advice. Mardie advises her to quit the band.

See? If Cindy takes the advice, it's a step away from her dreams. If she doesn't take the advice, the conflict roll becomes harder. Cindy may have to rely on Fear to get through it.



Fear
Any time a player takes extra Fear for her character, you must seize upon it and play it for all it's worth. If the player doesn't, immediately introduce a scene that plays on that Fear. Any consequences of the scene should be tied to the recent increase in Fear.

Example: Cindy rejects Mardie's advice and tries to get her boyfriend (recently reconciled; 5 Fear) to do something about the situation. The roll is a failure, and Cindy's boyfriend beats her up and throws her out.

Endgame
The rules don't say in what circumstances to roll for the girl's dreams. I think there are two broad approaches: individually or as a group.

Individual rolls allow a competitive element to enter the game – which girl will be first to get her dreams? The downside is that it might remove somebody from play prematurely, but I guess you could agree to end the game there.

Alternatively, all players could roll at the same time (at the end of the session, at an agreed-upon time limit, whatever).

Essentially, the roll for achieving the dreams ends the game, whether for one or all characters. Stealing a bit from My Life with Master, you might allow the player to narrate an epilogue saying what happens to her character.

And that's it. I wrote it all pretty much on the fly in and around household stuff, so I'm sure it's not the best bit of GM advice ever written. Any questions? I'm going to have a cigarette.

Seems like pretty good advice to me. Looking over the rules (and falling back on my prefered method of play) I'd set the game within a specific time frame. For example - One week before the clinic the girls are working in closes down.

Each day would bring a specific new conflict to be worked out or  another dimension would be added to an already existing conflict. The pcs would have to have certain goals (dreams?) they would want to accomplish within the time frame.

Guess I (my players) would need a little overt urgency for the game to have  any play value for us

Regards,
David R

Unless you have a very unusual group of players, I wouldn't suggest trying Nicotine Girls on them. Save it for somebody else, like that special friend I mentioned.

Thanks for the advice, droog.  Nicotine Girls now looks playable to me.

Okay, so now you spent hours hiding the dragon posters from the basement, conveniantly "forgot" to invite your socially awkard but very enthusiastic power gamer and successfully ran a "Nicotine Girls" game while wearing a black turtleneck.

That happened a week ago. Soon the pierced art major girl will appear and walk into your trap: KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS!

Mwahaha.

Your advice is useful by me, but at the same time the rules give me little idea what use Hope has except as an endgame mechanism, it's simply too risky to use in game. Now it makes some sense as using Fear will create more dramatically intense situations win or lose, but I can then see every game as players allocating high scores to Hope and simply pumping up Fear through bad situations to generate success. Even more bothering, using Hope to reduce your Fear has no in game impact aside from the themes the various situations will create.

Yes, this line of thinking goes against the intents of what is a Nar game, but even if the group understands this concept, I think what I mentioned will always be in their heads. It creates a depressing contradiciton that abandoning Hope and embracing Fear is actually the best way of keeping your hopes alive and achieving your dreams. Man, this game is depressing.

Quote from: JamesVMan, this game is depressing.

"Horrible" my friend Annabel called it. But she talked about it for weeks afterwards, and still brings it up occasionally. You might say it sold her on roleplaying.

Okay, this game seems to work best as a single player/GM game. I'm still going to attempt to run it for the group though. They are curious about this game - I think they just like the title - so, we will see how it goes.

Regards,
David R

Well, cool. Let us know how it works out.

I've got to admit the title drew me too, when I first heard about it.

Nicotine Girls plus Kill Puppies for Satan plus Alma Mater.

You're going to run this, right?

Quote from: droogThe key point is that if the character takes the advice she gets a better chance. As GM, you should deliberately feed the character advice that goes against their dreams.

Oh, I am so totally flashing on a scene from Say Anything right now:

QuoteDenny: Man, all you gotta do is find a girl that looks just like her, nail her, and then dump her, man. Get her of your mind.
Mark: Your only mistake is that you didn't dump her first. Diane Court is a show pony. You need a stallion, my friend. Walk with us and you walk tall.
Luke: Bitches, man.
Lloyd Dobler: I got a question. If you guys know so much about women, how come you're here at like the Gas 'n' Sip on a Saturday night completely alone drinking beers with no women anywhere?
Joe: By choice, man.  Conscious choice.

I totally want the game to support also occasionally giving people the exact right advice, again because of that movie ("Don't be a guy.  The world is full of guys.  Be a man!")  I think that the key to that is that you give them good advice when you want to try to entice them into risking their Hope.

Sadly, I don't see, looking at the rules, how a strategy of trying to husband your character's Hope can possibly work out in the game as I imagine it's played.  If you were going to run five or six sessions of NG before the end-game, well then, Hope would be a powerful tool there.  But I'm hard-pressed to imagine anyone surviving that experience, emotionally.

Hrmm ... maybe if it were played in half-hour sessions as a warm-up to some "main-event" gaming. :hmm: