Dirty Secrets audio review
In which Brennan Taylor calls Dirty Secrets his pick of 2007.
The Voice of the Revolution, Episode 20
No commentsSome Dirty Secrets discussions
A couple of Dirty Secrets discussions broke out on the web today. So, here they are:
“Investigator Investment in Dirty Secrets” by Gerald Cameron
blog version
Forge version
Story Game version
[Practice: Dirty Secrets] Be Judgmental.
This is a really good post, by the way, with some excellent discussion that will help your Dirty Secrets game.
No commentsAnother international review of Dirty Secrets
This review is in German. Thankfully, Google does an automated translation of German, so here’s the Mangled English version of the review.
No commentsIf you can read Polish…
…then you can read this review of Dirty Secrets. The author has indicated that it’s a positive review, so I pass it along.
No commentsRace and RPGs and Dirty Secrets
Sam Chupp interviewed Chris Chinn for his podcast The Bear’s Grove on the issue of race and RPGs. Dirty Secrets was mentioned positively during the interview. This is a good thing. Crystal put a lot of effort into selecting a racially diverse group of photographs. She knew that, since we were addressing the issue of race with the game, we would need to be especially mindful of this aspect of the game. Glad to see that it was received well!
No comments[A Flower for Mara] Actual Play videos
When we playtested my latest project, A Flower for Mara, last month, we videotaped the whole thing. I’m still working on assembling footage, but these are approximately the first half of the game:
A Flower for Mara Funeral Dinner Part 1
A Flower for Mara Funeral Dinner Part 2
A Flower for Mara Spring Scenes part 1
A Flower for Mara Spring Scenes part 2: this clip illustrates the use of “phone call” techniques to have two characters talking to each other on the phone. In our game, we ended up turning this conversation into two spotlight scenes, one for each side of the conversation.
A Flower for Mara Spring Scenes part 3: This clip illustrates the use of off-stage characters. Also shows the general mood of the evening, which was happy and not at all bleak. This is an important point, actually. We enjoyed playing the game. Sure, a lot of it was catharsis, but we enjoyed doing this thing together. Finally, you can see the feedback from the “audience” to the developing storyline. Cast members are perfectly free to make comments during the game, and there was a lot of talking in between scenes. This is a Good Thing; it showed me that everyone was engaged in what was going on.
A Flower for Mara Spring Scenes part 4: The exchange beginning around 2:10 shows an excellent example of Endowment in play by Whitney (portraying Ruth). (Endowment is giving another character or object an attribute of some kind.) It was fairly subtle, too. It took me a little bit to realize that, according to Whitney’s statement, Mara had stolen Ruth’s boyfriend and then married him. This wasn’t part of anything preplanned, and it is an excellent example of what makes this game work.
A Flower for Mara Easter Dinner Part 1: I was particularly pleased with a shocking explosion from Jana (starting around 8:00), set up by Jennifer as a result of the preceding soliloquy. This is a good example of how one player can use soliloquy information to help set up another player’s actions. In addition, Jennifer’s statement that that pizza was for dinner was