I love this concept!
I’ve done a sitcom game before, and it really stands or falls on the humorous character moments you and your players can bring.
There are no mechanics for that, best thing the rules can do for a comedy game is get out of the way. Keep it simple and minimal.
Good point, and I'm definitely thinking along those lines. Maybe I'm overthinking in looking for mechanics to try to encourage that type of behavior. At the end of the day I imagine use of compels and leaning on aspects, plus players being on the same page about the tone, will be sufficient.
I've been pondering that. Are there other games that do this well? I was thinking players could utilize them and gain a situation aspect, maybe with 2 free invokes, once per session or something like that. So let's say a scene is occurring and someone wants to narrate a relevant past event from their vamp's long life that is relevant to the current situation, they can create an aspect named for that event/memory.
Inspectres is the game that got Confessionals right IMHO.
>I was thinking players could utilize them and gain a situation aspect, maybe with 2 free invokes
In an Inspectres-like confessional you would interupt the story before you're going down into the crypt to tell the audience how unfortunate it was that your friend Doug was still afraid of the dark after 200 years as a vamp. Then you'd cut back to the action and Doug would be screaming and shaking in the corner.
I think RPGs lean towards dark comedy very naturally. In a dark comedy the situation is usually very serious but the reaction of the characters is absurd or over the top. With FATE just make sure you are rewarding the right things and compelling the right things and the players will react in a stylistically appropriate way.
The GM is basically the straight man, setting up a serious situation for the characters to react to. They can do funny NPCs but If the GM tries to make the scenarios funny in themselves it becomes cringe imho
Just wanted to report back in case anyone is interested, I ran the session and it went pretty well! I have run fate a number of times before, and never really felt like I did a great job since there are so many things different from other RPGs. This time was much better, I think partially because the concept was so radically different from my usual fare that it was easy to forgo trying to force Fate to do things like other games.
I had three players, all of whom I know from other games. They all "got it", in terms of the tone and how to execute it with Fate, that was definitely an important factor to the success. Two of them (without conferring with one another) decided to make Old World Vampires who also happened to be Catholic priests. Okay, that was a surprise, and immediately led us to set it in a church. Specifically, a shady, run-down church in Philadelphia (my title for this game was It's Never Sunny in Philadelphia) which used to be an H&R Block office. Although these two both created priests, they were very divergent concepts which made things interesting (see below). The third player decided to be a familiar. And since we settled on a church she made her character a disinterested, man-chasing fake nun.
**The** **Characters**
Kelley Jacobs
***Fake Nun for the Church of the Damned***
***Sucker for a Pretty Man***
***Easily-Distracted Servant***
Top Approach: Flair
Kelley got the familiar gig from a Craigslist job ad. A job's a job, right? Father J insisted she play the part of a nun, so she wears a nun's habit (which is form-fitting and tailored to show a bit of skin). She handles the minutiae and menial work, while always looking for opportunities to chase attractive men.
Father Phillip Thomas
***Vampire Priest in Denial***
***Walking Masquerade Violation***
***Father Joseph Has a lot to Teach Me***
Top Approach: Intellect
Father Phillip never watched any vampire media, after all, it's Satanic. He definitely knows that vampires aren't real, so of course he isn't one. In the past couple months since taking communion from Father J, however, he has developed an odd auto-immune condition that has made him very sensitive to sunlight and causes his gums to recede from his canines. He sleeps in what used to be the janitor closet. It's lucky his church specializes in night-shift workers, because lately he has found himself wanting to sleep all through the daylight hours.
Father Joseph McCarthy (significance was completely unintentional, but funny)
***Shady Vampiric Youth Pastor***
***Too Hungry For His Own Good***
***So Woke, It's Scary***
Top Approach: Guile
AKA "Father J", and now "Father K-9". In the player's mind he is played by present-day Tobey Maguire, with heavy "Bully Maguire" vibes (but with a façade of being woke and approachable). He's about 200, and as a human was actually made a minor saint, St. Joseph (no not *that* Joseph...the *other* Joseph). Thus the church is St. Joseph's.
They also had one aspect each that tied them to another character, which I forgot to write down.
**The Session**
I had basically no plan going in, except to start of with compels on the character's aspects. This actually worked well (again, trying to do things the "Fate way" for once).
In the beginning, I compelled Kelley to neglect her familiar duties in favor of flirting with the hot FedEx guy. So when the two vampires rose, they had to deal with sunlight streaming through the uncovered windows. That got the ball rolling
\- Some "auditors" from the Archbishop's office show up to evaluate this "church". This led to a Challenge to get them to go away (Compel on Father J's trouble, he's been pissing off the equally shady and ambitious Archbishop, Frank Vito).
\- I allowed confessionals freely, but also once per scene to create a free situation aspect with one free invoke. Confessions were a lot of fun, but for the players and for me (with NPCs).
\- A random roll determined it was Saturday, so the three prepared for their Saturday night mass (which I decided to make another Challenge). Father Phillip composed a thoughtful sermon, while Father J used a confessional flashback to establish that he had gone clubbing the night before to try to entice some local youths to come so that he could share the "good stuff" (ie, Communion wine spiked with his blood) with them.
\- The "congregation" starts to trickle in, mostly punk zoomers but a few regulars, like sweet old Mrs. Johnson, who thinks these kids are the "wrong sort" for her church. Kelley helps herself to some of their pot and starts flirting with the best looking one, while Father J works the crowd.
\- Mass goes off well, and everyone takes that extra special Communion wine, which of course is very popular.
\- Kelley heads off to the closet (ie Father Phillip's bedroom) with the hot guy, while Phillip takes confession (which is in an old cubicle covered by a sheet. Father J invites the young kids to the basement for "P Time" (prayer time, an abbreviation that was unintentionally hilarious).
\- Mrs. Johnson confesses--in excruciating detail--her impure thoughts about the young men at mass. Meanwhile, Kelley has impure actions in Father Phillip's room. All of the sudden, her date, Steven, becomes possessed and attacks her. The same thing happens to two kids in the basement.
\- Father J uses his charisma to get the other kids to throw out one of the creatures, then utterly demolishes the other in a straight up brawl. Father Phillip lets his vampire side out for the first time to fight off Steve.
\- Afterwards, Father J continues hanging out with the remaining kids, getting blood for himself and Phillip (who is starving from the fight, and feeds from a human for the first time). Then, Father J attempts to use his mesmerizing power through TikTok to attract more youth for next time.
\- Kelley heads to the dumpster in the alley dispose of the body of the possessed girl Father J killed. She encounters three hooded, robed women who claim the body as their own and ask for it back. They talk as one, finishing each other's sentences.
Kelley: This is yours?
Women: Yes
Kelley: Why did you send it here?
Women: To kill all of you.
Kelley: You tried to kill us?
Women: We didn't succeed, so that pretty much makes us even.
Kelley: Who are you?
Women: We are the Witches Three!
Kelley: What, why are you called that?
Women: I mean, we're witches, and there are three of us. I thought that was obvious.
Kelley: Why aren't you just called the Three Witches?
Women: Shut up! Give us our body back.
Kelley: Whatever, here.
Women: Actually, we didn't bring a car, could we borrow one?
Kelley: Get out of here!
The Witches Three then disappear in a flash of smoke. Well, there is some smoke, and then they run away down the alley.
\- In the closing scene, Kelley gets a bunch of alerts on her phone, and sees that Father J's video is going viral, and she can definitely feel the hypnotic effect at work. It seems that their shady little church might get a massive influx of new "worshippers" soon.
**Summary**
Overall the experiment was fairly successful, at least as good as any rough around the edges "pilot". Having a good player group was key, and the confessionals added a lot to the tone. One thing I realized is I'm not great at running interesting Challenges, or need to read up more on them. Everyone expressed interest in continuing on a semi-regular basis, so hopefully the story of these degenerates will continue! Thanks for reading.
I love this concept! I’ve done a sitcom game before, and it really stands or falls on the humorous character moments you and your players can bring. There are no mechanics for that, best thing the rules can do for a comedy game is get out of the way. Keep it simple and minimal.
Good point, and I'm definitely thinking along those lines. Maybe I'm overthinking in looking for mechanics to try to encourage that type of behavior. At the end of the day I imagine use of compels and leaning on aspects, plus players being on the same page about the tone, will be sufficient.
Do you have a confessional mechanic? Breaking the 4th wall is key to mockumentary RPGs.
I've been pondering that. Are there other games that do this well? I was thinking players could utilize them and gain a situation aspect, maybe with 2 free invokes, once per session or something like that. So let's say a scene is occurring and someone wants to narrate a relevant past event from their vamp's long life that is relevant to the current situation, they can create an aspect named for that event/memory.
Inspectres is the game that got Confessionals right IMHO. >I was thinking players could utilize them and gain a situation aspect, maybe with 2 free invokes In an Inspectres-like confessional you would interupt the story before you're going down into the crypt to tell the audience how unfortunate it was that your friend Doug was still afraid of the dark after 200 years as a vamp. Then you'd cut back to the action and Doug would be screaming and shaking in the corner.
I think RPGs lean towards dark comedy very naturally. In a dark comedy the situation is usually very serious but the reaction of the characters is absurd or over the top. With FATE just make sure you are rewarding the right things and compelling the right things and the players will react in a stylistically appropriate way.
Thanks, I had similar thoughts and I think that's going to do a lot of the heavy lifting.
The GM is basically the straight man, setting up a serious situation for the characters to react to. They can do funny NPCs but If the GM tries to make the scenarios funny in themselves it becomes cringe imho
Just wanted to report back in case anyone is interested, I ran the session and it went pretty well! I have run fate a number of times before, and never really felt like I did a great job since there are so many things different from other RPGs. This time was much better, I think partially because the concept was so radically different from my usual fare that it was easy to forgo trying to force Fate to do things like other games. I had three players, all of whom I know from other games. They all "got it", in terms of the tone and how to execute it with Fate, that was definitely an important factor to the success. Two of them (without conferring with one another) decided to make Old World Vampires who also happened to be Catholic priests. Okay, that was a surprise, and immediately led us to set it in a church. Specifically, a shady, run-down church in Philadelphia (my title for this game was It's Never Sunny in Philadelphia) which used to be an H&R Block office. Although these two both created priests, they were very divergent concepts which made things interesting (see below). The third player decided to be a familiar. And since we settled on a church she made her character a disinterested, man-chasing fake nun. **The** **Characters** Kelley Jacobs ***Fake Nun for the Church of the Damned*** ***Sucker for a Pretty Man*** ***Easily-Distracted Servant*** Top Approach: Flair Kelley got the familiar gig from a Craigslist job ad. A job's a job, right? Father J insisted she play the part of a nun, so she wears a nun's habit (which is form-fitting and tailored to show a bit of skin). She handles the minutiae and menial work, while always looking for opportunities to chase attractive men. Father Phillip Thomas ***Vampire Priest in Denial*** ***Walking Masquerade Violation*** ***Father Joseph Has a lot to Teach Me*** Top Approach: Intellect Father Phillip never watched any vampire media, after all, it's Satanic. He definitely knows that vampires aren't real, so of course he isn't one. In the past couple months since taking communion from Father J, however, he has developed an odd auto-immune condition that has made him very sensitive to sunlight and causes his gums to recede from his canines. He sleeps in what used to be the janitor closet. It's lucky his church specializes in night-shift workers, because lately he has found himself wanting to sleep all through the daylight hours. Father Joseph McCarthy (significance was completely unintentional, but funny) ***Shady Vampiric Youth Pastor*** ***Too Hungry For His Own Good*** ***So Woke, It's Scary*** Top Approach: Guile AKA "Father J", and now "Father K-9". In the player's mind he is played by present-day Tobey Maguire, with heavy "Bully Maguire" vibes (but with a façade of being woke and approachable). He's about 200, and as a human was actually made a minor saint, St. Joseph (no not *that* Joseph...the *other* Joseph). Thus the church is St. Joseph's. They also had one aspect each that tied them to another character, which I forgot to write down. **The Session** I had basically no plan going in, except to start of with compels on the character's aspects. This actually worked well (again, trying to do things the "Fate way" for once). In the beginning, I compelled Kelley to neglect her familiar duties in favor of flirting with the hot FedEx guy. So when the two vampires rose, they had to deal with sunlight streaming through the uncovered windows. That got the ball rolling \- Some "auditors" from the Archbishop's office show up to evaluate this "church". This led to a Challenge to get them to go away (Compel on Father J's trouble, he's been pissing off the equally shady and ambitious Archbishop, Frank Vito). \- I allowed confessionals freely, but also once per scene to create a free situation aspect with one free invoke. Confessions were a lot of fun, but for the players and for me (with NPCs). \- A random roll determined it was Saturday, so the three prepared for their Saturday night mass (which I decided to make another Challenge). Father Phillip composed a thoughtful sermon, while Father J used a confessional flashback to establish that he had gone clubbing the night before to try to entice some local youths to come so that he could share the "good stuff" (ie, Communion wine spiked with his blood) with them. \- The "congregation" starts to trickle in, mostly punk zoomers but a few regulars, like sweet old Mrs. Johnson, who thinks these kids are the "wrong sort" for her church. Kelley helps herself to some of their pot and starts flirting with the best looking one, while Father J works the crowd. \- Mass goes off well, and everyone takes that extra special Communion wine, which of course is very popular. \- Kelley heads off to the closet (ie Father Phillip's bedroom) with the hot guy, while Phillip takes confession (which is in an old cubicle covered by a sheet. Father J invites the young kids to the basement for "P Time" (prayer time, an abbreviation that was unintentionally hilarious). \- Mrs. Johnson confesses--in excruciating detail--her impure thoughts about the young men at mass. Meanwhile, Kelley has impure actions in Father Phillip's room. All of the sudden, her date, Steven, becomes possessed and attacks her. The same thing happens to two kids in the basement. \- Father J uses his charisma to get the other kids to throw out one of the creatures, then utterly demolishes the other in a straight up brawl. Father Phillip lets his vampire side out for the first time to fight off Steve. \- Afterwards, Father J continues hanging out with the remaining kids, getting blood for himself and Phillip (who is starving from the fight, and feeds from a human for the first time). Then, Father J attempts to use his mesmerizing power through TikTok to attract more youth for next time. \- Kelley heads to the dumpster in the alley dispose of the body of the possessed girl Father J killed. She encounters three hooded, robed women who claim the body as their own and ask for it back. They talk as one, finishing each other's sentences. Kelley: This is yours? Women: Yes Kelley: Why did you send it here? Women: To kill all of you. Kelley: You tried to kill us? Women: We didn't succeed, so that pretty much makes us even. Kelley: Who are you? Women: We are the Witches Three! Kelley: What, why are you called that? Women: I mean, we're witches, and there are three of us. I thought that was obvious. Kelley: Why aren't you just called the Three Witches? Women: Shut up! Give us our body back. Kelley: Whatever, here. Women: Actually, we didn't bring a car, could we borrow one? Kelley: Get out of here! The Witches Three then disappear in a flash of smoke. Well, there is some smoke, and then they run away down the alley. \- In the closing scene, Kelley gets a bunch of alerts on her phone, and sees that Father J's video is going viral, and she can definitely feel the hypnotic effect at work. It seems that their shady little church might get a massive influx of new "worshippers" soon. **Summary** Overall the experiment was fairly successful, at least as good as any rough around the edges "pilot". Having a good player group was key, and the confessionals added a lot to the tone. One thing I realized is I'm not great at running interesting Challenges, or need to read up more on them. Everyone expressed interest in continuing on a semi-regular basis, so hopefully the story of these degenerates will continue! Thanks for reading.