A Game About Murder And What Comes After...
Since RPG Trader just opened for business I'm going to take a minute to talk about some of my stuff that doesn't get as much attention as my play treatises.
Haunted dates back to about 2011 when Ron Edwards was still doing "The Ronnies" on The Forge. "The Ronnies" were a game jam like event judged solely by Ron using 2 out of 4 terms he selected for each event. I don't remember all four terms but mine were "whisper" and "murder". Haunted ultimately came in as a "Runner Up" and only didn't place because I over engineered who the police were most suspicious of. I've since removed that element from the game such that including police is entirely optional and even if included they function like any other supporting character.
Fundamentally, the game is a ghost story. It's about a murderer being stalked by the ghost of their victim. One player always plays the murderer and another player always plays the ghost. Everyone else plays any of the other characters whenever it's appropriate. Only the murderer can see and hear the ghost and the ghost can't really interact with anything except through indirect supernatural means. It's a fun dynamic.
It's a GMless game but I've carefully constructed a set of "right of way" rules regarding decision making so nothing ever breaks down into story conferencing. I actually really hate purely collaborative/consensus based rules and have been careful to avoid them here.
Another features that may likely jump out to gearheads upon reading is that the math behind the mechanics is intentionally "broken". If every player simply maximizes their odds of success at every instance of play the dice will rapidly become a death spiral against the murderer and they will be crushed under an avalanche of opposition. This is because I want selfish players to end their games quickly and hopefully never play it again because it's "broken". I'm tired of designing around "the worst player at the table."
The path around the "broken" mechanics is empathy. Treating the characters as real people, with real concerns, and most importantly, capable of change and growth will avoid invoking the death spiral, at least immediately. You see, the murderer still is at a horrible mechanical disadvantage out of the gate and about 90% of games play out like a supernatural episode of Columbo. Even when not directly dog piling the murderer, pressure tends to circle in until the murderer breaks and goes mad, goes to jail, or commits suicide. And that's.... fine. That's one way the game can go and it's fine that it's also the most common.
But it doesn't have to be that way. The game has a kind of restorative justice path mechanically built into the rules. What's really fascinating to me, is how people don't seem to really know how to engage them. They're right there. They're not hard to understand. But they do require treating the characters as real people, with real concerns, and most importantly capable of change and growth.
Haunted has taught me that role-players are WONDERFUL at portraying one note characters and DRAMATIC CONFLICTS! But they seem real bad at reflection and change without some kind of cue card telling them to do so. So, if you want to develop the art of subtle character development without hand rails just keep playing games of Haunted until they stop playing out like supernatural episodes of Columbo.
But in the mean time, supernatural episodes of Columbo are kind of fun.
One thing to note is that Haunted is not really good for single session games. These days I prefer to play it over about 3-5 sessions. Take your time, do some reflecting between sessions. Give the game some room to breathe. It's lovely at a leisurely pace.
