A Funeral in Bhaloidam (Gameplay Sample)

Last week we revealed that Bhaloidam allows a Spinner to perform an entire scene, including other character’s actions. She also gets to determine what gameplay effect is assigned to which character. Today’s gameplay sample subverts that approach, but requires even more cooperation because of it. The Funeral is almost entirely dialog driven–physical movement of the character is considered flavor. Depending on your Skein, this scene can take a few hours (and did on Sunday when I ran the demo), so I’ll only be sharing an excerpt liberally interpreted from previous playthroughs.

The Scenario
Three estranged adult siblings find themselves face to face for the first time in a year. Their father–having been in a coma since the car accident that killed their mother–has passed away. The funeral now over, they gather in the kitchen of their parent’s house and begin to talk. Each has a shame they want to keep secret and each harbors a suspicion about one of their siblings.

Game Setup
Each Spinner is given a placard to set in front of their Lifewheel. The front of the cards read, Eldest Sibling, Middle Sibling, Youngest Sibling. The back of the cards lists that sibling’s shame and suspicion. The eldest sibling has three bullet points to her shame, the middle sibling two, and the youngest, one point.

Because each Spinner does not know the actual shame of the others, they are unable to perform their actions with any degree of success. Furthermore, in interpreting their suspicion, they may make accusations that are completely off the mark and not worthy of spilling Ego. Because of this, the core rules are interpreted a little differently.

The stated goal of the scene is to uncover the shame behind your suspicion while keeping your own shame secret.

Kiai-Megill Variant Rules
Three Ego tokens represent each shame bullet point on the Lifewheel (so, the Eldest has 9 Ego, the Middle 6, the Youngest 3). When an Ego token is spilled, the Spinner must hint at their shame. When three tokens have been spilled, one of the shame points must be completely revealed.

Instead of directly controlling other characters during her Performance, a Spinner gives one of her purchased sentences to another Spinner when she would like them to response to a comment. (Remember that the amount of Will you exert for a Performance is spent on descriptive sentences and dialog (display as italic text in the gameplay sample below). 1 Will Token = 1 sentence.)

When contributing to another Spinner’s Performance, a Spinner must decide if her reply should result in the Spilling of an Ego token and respond appropriately, revealing some portion of her Shame and choosing to spill her own Ego token. Vague allegations can be redirected or deflected and not result in the Spilling of Ego. Wild accusations can be flatly denied (and not result in the Spilling of Ego). Direct, close to the mark, accusations need to be addressed and should result in the Spilling of Ego. Note that a carefully worded denial, coupled with the spilling of an Ego token, is considered addressing the accusation.

If she has not yet spilled three Ego and revealed a shame, a Spinner may “shore up” her own Ego during her performance.

Suspicion & Shame
I’m going to put this behind spoiler tags. If you’re doing to be doing a demo with me later this month, you might consider not reading this and skipping to the gameplay sample (where I’ll try not to be too obvious).
[SPOILER] (highlight to read)
The Eldest Sibling

• Suspects Middle Sibling of stealing parent’s prized possessions.
• Shame(s):
  • You’ve been disbarred from practicing law.
  • You’re being tried for unethical behavior and are likely to face jail time.
  • You’re guilty of the charges against you.

The Middle Sibling

• Suspects Youngest Sibling caused the accident that killed your parents.
• Shame(s):
  • Mother gave you heirlooms to pawn so you could pay for your romantic partner’s rehab.
  • You’re also an addict.

The Youngest Sibling

• Suspects Eldest Sibling is a Mob Lawyer.
• Shame(s):
  • Your parents asked for your help taking care of the car and you’d been pocketing the cash instead of having the regular maintenance and repairs done.

[/SPOILER]

Gameplay Sample

Note: Paragraphs in mono-width font are Spinners’ gameplay actions. Italic text are Performances. I’d suggest opening up (and maybe even printing out) a copy of the Lifewheel and trying to follow along with the movement of tokens and pawns. If you don’t know which Influence is which (Mastery, Poise, etc), don’t worry about it–just pick one of the six large central Influence icons that looks the most like the name to you.

Weaver: “Okay, the Eldest is closest to the top of the Opportunity track, so tick 3.”

All Spinners move their pawns up 3 hexes on their Opportunity tracks.

Eldest: “Ready! I’m going to use Mastery, want to affect for other characters, and I’ll guarantee it.”

Moves 3 Will tokens to Mastery. Rolls the Effect & Opportunity dice, gets a 3 and 4 respectively.

“I’m thirsty and I’m tired. Which one of you knows where dad was hiding the booze from mom?” I look pointedly at Middle Sibling, arching an eyebrow quizzically*.

“Middle, push your Opportunity pawn 4 hexes up the Opportunity track.”

Resets pawn to 3 (her capacity for Mastery) on the Opportunity track.

Middle: “That puts me on the perform icon at top of the track and I guess I’m Ready. I’ll use Design–for knowing where the liquor is–against the World. I’ll guarantee it with 1 Will.”

Rolls a 2 Effect and 1 Opportunity.

“Since this is against the world, I can add Design’s capacity of 1 to my Will, giving me 2 sentences.”

I leave the kitchen and head to the basement, returning shortly with an armful of assorted, half-consumed, bottles of alcohol. I open the bottle of whiskey and pour myself a double, hand shaking slightly.

Resets pawn to 1 and slides it back to the critical hex.

“I’m going to crit myself on the Opportunity track, meaning I can’t advance until everyone else has either performed or crit’d as well. Because I’m reluctant to speak first, I figure that’s actually good for my character here.”

Weaver: “Nice. Okay, Youngest is 1 hex away, so tick 1.”

Youngest and eldest move 1 hex up their Opportunity tracks.

Youngest: “I’m Ready. I’ll use Charm to affect a character. I’m exerting 3 Will, but I’m not going to guarantee it.”

Rolls a 1 on the Outcome die, a 2 on the Effect die, and a 2 on the Opportunity die.

“Wow. So the outcome is completely the opposite of what I wanted and because I rolled doubles on Effect and Opportunity, it’s a critical and I have to use the full effect and opportunity adjustments allowed by the dice even though I only exerted 3 Will. And it’s all got to be bad for me. Okay, fine. Let’s see how non-poised I can be!”

I pour myself a drink too, glare at the Eldest, and blurt out, “Must be weird spending so much time with your family after spending a year with just la Familia, eh Eldest?”

Points to a Will token and nods to the Eldest to take a line.

Eldest: I don’t… I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Youngest: Sure, like I’m the one who does stupid things and gets people hurt.

Moves 1 Ego token to Spilt.

I wouldn’t know anything about that kind of guilt!”

Moves 1 more Ego token to Spilt. Resets pawn to 3 and slides it back 2 hexes to 1.

Weaver: “Excellent, you took 2 hits to your Ego because of the Effect die and 2 penalties to your pawn because of the Opportunity die. Nice work on being a off balance because of your failure, too! I had no idea how you were going to justify taking the 2 Ego hits there. Okay, looks like Eldest will be up next. Tick 3″

Middle is still on critical until Eldest performs, so only Eldest and Youngest move up the Opportunity track.

Eldest “Okay, Persistence this time, affecting a character, 2 Will.”

Rolls a 4 on the Outcome die, a 3 on the Effect die, and a 1 on the Opportunity die.

Having poured myself a drink, I look our Middle sibling in the eye, raise my glass, and say, “Here’s to knowing where all of mom and dad’s good stuff is!”

Holds up 2nd will token and nods at Middle.

Middle: I raise my glass to take a drink and mutter into it, “If you think dad’s old cheap alcohol is the good stuff, you’re sadly mistaken.”

Moves 1 Ego token to Spilt

Eldest: Resets her Opportunity Pawn to 2.

---

That should be enough to give you an idea of how a scene can play out. I know that’s a lot of text to parse and make sense of (although following along on a Lifewheel will probably help quite a bit), so stay tuned for more visual gameplay samples over the next week. Feel free to ask any questions this has prompted and I’ll do my best to make things more clear for you!

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*It’s interesting to note that Sunday’s Skein did not name their characters, but referred to each other by their birth order. It didn’t seem to lesson the immersion at all.