thread: 2009-12-08 : Your 3 Insights
On 2009-12-08, Seth Ben-Ezra wrote:
Okay, let me take a stab at this with Dirty Secrets.
1) Subject matter: I think that the noir and hardboiled detective genres are often obscured in the popular imagination by the time period when they were originally produced. By updating the time period to the modern time, I think you can more easily engage with the timeless themes that underlie these related genres.
2) Roleplaying as a practice: I was trying to come up with an interesting solution that married the player-driven style that I prefer with the emotional impact of the big "reveal" that is critical to a mystery. By placing the reveal in the hands of the mechanics, I freed the players to focus on other things, namely, building scenes full of tension, mystery, lies, and...well...dirty secrets.
3) Real live human nature: humans are far more corrupt than we care to admit. This is true of the characters in the story; no one comes out of a Dirty Secrets game clean. It is also true of the players. The Demographics force the players to interact with their preconceptions and prejudices, simply by requiring that each character be given an age, race, social class, and the like. Suddenly, all kinds of assumptions rise to the surface.
Is this what you're talking about, Vincent? Or have I missed something?
