I found my way here from Brand’s blog. It’s frustrating to read about fun being had without having a chance to check the actual game text producing it, so I guess I have to buy Breaking the Ice. Every time I read about it, it gets more interesting, and now you’ve written a great actual play report.

Besides the ease of playing time wise, it’s cool to have a game suitable for two players. Solo play in games not designed for it can feel weird. First of all it’s a lot easier to agree on stuff when there are only two of you, so complex systems usually feel unnecessarily cumbersome. Secondly, games that are designed to provide conflicts between PCs can feel a bit flat, when there’s no one to have them with. BtI seems perfect from what I’ve heard, as it gives two players exactly the support they need to tell their story.

Just out of curiosity, is it necessary to be exactly two players? Could you do a love triangle with two guys chasing the same girl or three people involved with each other all going on dates together? Or could you have two guys and two girls who meet regularly, and in the end you decide which of them will be together, like the TV-series Friends. Would the system support it, or is it built for just two players?

Oh, and don’t feel bad about not writing anything for two months. I empathize completely with shifting interests to pour energy into. Besides, now you’ve just crossed the four-post-limit to get into my RSS feed sidebar, so I’d be interested in hearing more RPG stuff in the future.

- Jonas Karlsson

Perhaps there’s no feed for me to find?

Great write up! Thank you so much. I found the story of Deneis and Charles gripping. Though it sounds like it flows more in the re-telling than it did in your creation of it. The game does have a very different feel to it. I think you gave it the best description I’ve yet heard:

In Breaking the Ice, there’s no pusher, and no push. The game is all pull, everything is contribution, collaboration and agreement.

The way the dice are rolled is, again, pretty different. They function as running checks: first check: is the Attraction + good stuff that happens (Bonus Dice) enough to bring them closer together? No? What about if we bring in this character’s Conflict? Or this Compatibility? If not, what if this embarrassing thing happens? Or this misunderstanding occurs? So you get a lot of narration, with rolls of dice pools interspersed. Each roll is a moment to see which way the wind is blowing: blowing them together, or apart.

And thank you for the very thoughtful discussion of the challenges you each experienced, with the Switch, with Guiding. It sounds like it stretched you in surprising ways. But it sounds like the disruption of immersion might have had the most impact for you. Would you mind saying more about what immersing is like for you?

Also, Jonas, I’ve found that the game works fine with more than two players: you just have people collaborate on playing a single character. There is a game I’m working on that is about a love triangle. More as that develops!

We want a feed!

We want a feed!

Reflecting on Breaking the Ice, I think that it is a game that is going to make me a better player. I do not say this lightly. Dogs, for example, is one of the best RPGs ever made — but it hasn’t made me a better player.

I am already a kick-ass GM (he says modestly), but the truth is I’m a mediocre to suck player. Breaking the Ice makes me redefine roles and look at doing things in a more colaberative, pull/influence way that is important to being a player who still wants to help guide the story.

Jonas,

Buy it man. Seriously.

Also, I could see playing the “Double Date” version of Breaking the Ice with four players doing dates. There may even be a way to do it so that the attraction can go wrong (what if the girls hook up and ditch the boys?) but it would take some work.

The feed should be working now. Brand confirms Thunderbird is viewing it correctly. I did some lame-ass formatting in this post, so it might not view properly (especially around the word webs). If not, let me know.

Brand and I have discovered a whole new love for solo gaming in the last couple of years. We currently have five solos on the go - one that I’m running for him, 4 he’s running for me. They use Unknown Armies, Truth & Justice, Godlike and 7th Sea, and are Sim or Nar or Sim/Nar hybrid. It does take some adapting, but with the right participants, there are ways in which it’s more (and less) rewarding than group games. There’ll be more on the solo game in this blog, and no doubt over on Yud’s dice.

As we play them a lot, our solos are really not flat - they are actually more hardcore than many of the group games we play. Although I’m coming at it from a different angle, I would agree with you: BtI could be a fun training ground for solo games, or a different means of approach for those who have tried it and found it awkward. That would be an interesting experiment. I may know a couple of folks that have had problems with solo in the game who *might* be interested in giving BtI a try.

The rules don’t account for triangles yet, but Emily indicates in her reply that she’s working on a game for that. I should note though that there are rules for four or six players - essentially playing multiple couples in one game. There are additional rules for enhanced interaction between the players - such as pair 1 acting as pair 2’s Guide, and interesting ways to award dice between groups.

Personally, I think it would be funny to do a “25 dates model” (this is a local speed dating service where you have 25 dates in 3 hours and hope to hook up) in which six players have interchanging dates with each other and their final combined Attraction and Compatibility scores determines who ends up with who.

Boys: A, B,& C and Girls D, E & F are the players. On Date 1, they pair like this: A&D, B&E, C&F and have independent dates in two rounds under a “time limit of say, a half hour. They serve as each other’s AP & G. Then Date 2 is: A&E, B&F, C&D doing the same and then Date 3 is: A&F, B&D, C&E. After all dates are done, the total Attractiveness and Compatibility scores of each pairs are ranked to determine who ends up with who. Then they could, if they wanted play a regular format game.

Alternately, the group could serve as G and the 2 focus players of each date would both be AP’s.

Go buy! definately worth it.

I’ll be writing an immersion post soon. I have a bunch of notes sitting in a draft post. I have just needed some time to get back to it. Coming soon - promise.

I’m still a little unclear at where exactly the dice should be rolled. Last night we did this: Round starts, I’m AP, we have an AS (Attractiveness Score of 3), Brand gives me 3 whited6’s to start the game, I roll the dice, get: 2 4 6. I reserve the 6 as a success. Charles arrives late to pick Deneis up, I re-roll, get a 3, discard the die. When he shows up, she’s wearing a dress that reminds him of Lorelai: he gives me 3 red d6’s for conflict. I get 1,2,5, I hold onto the 5 and discard the others. He goes to tell her she looks beautiful, but it comes out all wrong. I re-roll the second failed AS dice and get a 6 which I hold on to.

Then he takes her to a jazz club, which gets me 1 green d6 with which I roll a 3, and discard it. She gets up spontaneously to sing him his favorite jazz ballad and I get another green d6 to roll for her participation in the Compatibility. He gets up and joins her in the song, doing something particularly gallant which impresses Brand enough to earn a bonus white d6: I roll a 2, but Brand suggests that maybe Charles’ voice cracks in just the wrong place, but the action makes him embarrassed and real to her, so I re-roll and get a 5 and get to keep the dice (and so on…). Are we doing it right?

Did you guys find the game romantic at all? Not as in, the content was romantic (because I assume it was), but that the experience of playing was romantic for the two of you as players? Much the same way that watching a romantic comedy with your SO can be romantic?

However, I can see the game being romantic once we get more comfortable with it and, especially, if we make fitting characters.

About the dice, yes, you were doing it right, just differently than I usually do. You’re only re-rolling Attractiveness Dice and Bonus dice, and that’s the most important part.

What I usually do is roll the Bonus & Attraction dice together all at once, after letting them build up together based on the narration. Then go into the Conflict, Complication or Re-rolls. I think of the Re-rolls as happening all together, just like the Bonus Dice. But other folks have done it the way you did (making re-rolls immediately, or interspersed between Attr. rolls & Bonus dice), and it has worked fine.

I would say that if that pacing feels right to you, go with it. The advantage to how you are doing it is that the good & bad stuff are intermingled. An advantage to the other way is that you have longer periods in between making rolls.

And, Brand, sexy but not romantic? Say more.

I am not what is typically considered an immersionist. I do not get into my characters, act method, or feel my way through game based on my character’s internal pyschology or emotionality.

I do things based on the story, which sometimes leads towards sardoodledum, and the emotionality of the events of the story. I do emotionally engage in the game, and I do “immerse” to the point at which I sometimes lose track of reality for short periods of time. However I do it into the drama, not into a character — even when I’m a player rather than GM.

In this game there were moments in the game where I felt some powerful sexual elements going on. My character was sexy. Mo’s character was sexy. There was sexual spark between them. I got into that element of things and enjoyed playing in it. I made choices to make things sexier (like the rainstorm to make my sundress cling to my body), and so did Mo (I think).

The story also ended with a pretty romantic scene, in the Leonard Cohen version of romance. However, I didn’t feel that scene as strongly as I felt the sexy scenes. It felt natural, and when I read the text of the game it looks powerful — but it didn’t feel powerful as we played it out. It felt curiously flat.

This lead me to believe that the characters were probably not going to make it long term. Lots of attaction, not so much compatibility. I did think they were good for each other long term, but that they wouldn’t be romantic long term.

If’n we’d had characters, and a story, that was more “long term love” and less “god she’s hot” I think I probably would have felt the romance.

The story also ended with a pretty romantic scene, in the Leonard Cohen version of romance.

Heh. That’s absolutely right.

However, I didn’t feel that scene as strongly as I felt the sexy scenes. It felt natural, and when I read the text of the game it looks powerful — but it didn’t feel powerful as we played it out. It felt curiously flat.

Funny. I felt closest to “strongly” as I did all game when we were playing out the end, though I do agree it felt flat. However, I think my feeling closer to it had less to do with a sense of romance and more to do with the cohesiveness of the story. The Cohenesque aspect of the Romance made it less a romantic comedy and gave it a more bald and gritty romantic-ness that few would actually call romance (Think: Hallelujah). The sexiness, on my part was not so much felt as glimpsed: I could see it, like looking through a set of snapshots, but it didn’t translate to feeling sexy - if that makes any sense.

All that said it’s similar to my “think” instead of “feel” bit: an immersion problem. I was a little to fragmented through the process to be able to engage properly. I think this will clear up with practice.

That is odd, we’re not normally so differently emotional about a scene. Sounds like we were on a different wavelength durring that last scene.