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What a fun game!
Nov. 5th, 2011 09:56 pmI am spending the weekend in a small town near the Swedish city of Umeå attending a role-playing game convention. The weekend has been fun all around--I and my friends are based in the "Indierummet" (room dedicated to "independent" role-playing games), which is the home-ec room in the school we are using for a site, which means we have not only a full kitchen, but enough stoves and ovens and sinks to ensure that we can all cook at the same time if we feel for it.
I have enjoyed all of the games we played so far, but tonight game, The Daughters of Verona is by far the most fun game I have played in a long time.
The game is run like a Shakespearean comedy in five acts. Like all of his comedies the play ends in a wedding, but, as is expected, there are characters who are attempting to block the lover's and prevent their joyous union. Each player in the game is an actor, and each of us has two (or more) character cards before them at any given time. Unlike most other role-playing games it is possible for actors to trade cards and thus play any role one is inspired to play at the moment. Also unlike many other role-playing games rather than speaking in the third person we describe our actions in the first person, for in any play the audience in the cheap seats in the back of the theater might not be able to see what the actor does as he kneels to pick that lock, they will still hear him when he says "Now I shall kneel and pick this lock so that I may enter the door to this room".
We played the game tonight with the man who wrote it, who is a friend of mine. He tells me that he wrote the game in 10 days (during which he continued to work his normal day-job) as an entry into a Shakespeare-themed game competition. I am truly impressed with that accomplishment--to write a game in his second language, and to take the time to create so many character cards (each one illustrated with a reproduction of an actual period portrait) and so many "scene cards" embellished with appropriate quotes from Shakespeare's plays all put together on a tight deadline.
I strongly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys playing games or watching plays, or reading literature, or any combination thereof.
I have enjoyed all of the games we played so far, but tonight game, The Daughters of Verona is by far the most fun game I have played in a long time.
The game is run like a Shakespearean comedy in five acts. Like all of his comedies the play ends in a wedding, but, as is expected, there are characters who are attempting to block the lover's and prevent their joyous union. Each player in the game is an actor, and each of us has two (or more) character cards before them at any given time. Unlike most other role-playing games it is possible for actors to trade cards and thus play any role one is inspired to play at the moment. Also unlike many other role-playing games rather than speaking in the third person we describe our actions in the first person, for in any play the audience in the cheap seats in the back of the theater might not be able to see what the actor does as he kneels to pick that lock, they will still hear him when he says "Now I shall kneel and pick this lock so that I may enter the door to this room".
We played the game tonight with the man who wrote it, who is a friend of mine. He tells me that he wrote the game in 10 days (during which he continued to work his normal day-job) as an entry into a Shakespeare-themed game competition. I am truly impressed with that accomplishment--to write a game in his second language, and to take the time to create so many character cards (each one illustrated with a reproduction of an actual period portrait) and so many "scene cards" embellished with appropriate quotes from Shakespeare's plays all put together on a tight deadline.
I strongly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys playing games or watching plays, or reading literature, or any combination thereof.
