|
GB Steve
England
East Dulwich
London
-
At this weekend's Indie RPG Meet-up I got a chance to play Witch, the hot indie game in the UK at the moment. It's another game in the lineage of Montségur and Love in the Time of Seith where a set of quite well defined characters are set up in conflict with each other and play out a number of pre-determined scenes, mostly involving just the characters with little outside influence.
The characters are:
- Elouise (a young women accused of witchcraft)
- 'Sir' Thorne (a deserter)
- Sir Hayden (an old knight)
- Berrick (a young squire)
- Ham (a guide)
- Brother Armond (a priest)
Each character has three descriptive traits and three questions which can be answered during play (such as Why do you hate Thorne?). There are also some elements of scene setting to help with the mood.
The characterisation and scene setting is lightly constrained and there are plenty of ways conflict can arise. Scenes can be set within a given area of as flashbacks, each player taking their turn. Our story of casual death, silent grudging, love gone wrong and wronged children chugged along nicely with many high points. There is no resolution system as such, the characters involved in each scene decide what seems right or throw it up to the group if they can't or won't decide. We had no problems using this. The lack of randomisation is not a barrier to interesting or challenging situations arising.
At the end of the game, Elouise reveals whether she was a witch responsible for the Black Death or just a wronged innocent. This provides the opportunity for an epilogue.
I'd certainly recommend this game to any story gamer, and if you aren't, I think it's so easy to pick up that it's a good bet for a first try.
The only downsides I can see are a few historical inaccuracies such as the cobbled streets of London and mention of witches being burned in England - they were only ever hanged. Also Ham doesn't have so many connections to the other characters and is slightly peripheral. This might be a good thing allowing him more freedom of action but means that his players has to work a bit harder.
-
GB Steve
England
East Dulwich
London
-
Re: Witch - Corrections
It turns out that I was wrong about not burning witches. That was only during the witch craze. Under the Catholics witches, such as the Witch of Eye in 1441, were burned.
-
|
|
|
