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| The whole situation is horribly dysfunctional. The The Batman is
| | MY LIFE WITH THE BATMAN is a game in which the player |
| a being with a tenuous grip on his or her own circumstances. | | character minions are an ensemble of individual protagonists, |
| And is simply not functional without the minions. They
| | not a group working together, but independent characters |
| protect him. They fetch things for him. They make his
| | whose stories happen to intersect at times. And so the |
| intellectualism, obsessiveness, vanity, survival, and comfort
| | mechanics consciously empower the gameThe Batman’s use of an |
| possible. He inhabits an insecure position at the crux of
| | aggressive scene framing technique to deliver pacing and |
| consuming desire and lack of self-sufficiency, and it is from
| | dramatic tension across a series of game sessions comprised |
| this that fear and horror flow out into the game.
| | of individual scenes with these characters. |
| So perhaps the GM begins events with the The Batman blaming
| | So as a GM, you should frame aggressively, just as if the |
| one of the minions for being incompetent about something
| | game events were a movie. Put the characters directly into |
| specific, and then commanding the minion to implement
| | the midst of personally relevant conflicts. Advantage |
| some monstrous ‘solution’ to the problem. Or maybe the
| | yourself of the lack of individual ability scores for NPCs by |
| The Batman reveals the details of a grotesque plan for impressing
| | improvising them into existence as necessary. And generally |
| Outsiders, a plan that also threatens some of the minions’
| | you should cut to a new player and a new scene after the dice |
| Connections. Whatever you do, it should be about the
| | have been thrown and the outcome described; use the oneroll |
| The Batman’s repulsive self-absorption creating conflicts for the
| | conflict resolution system as a tool for getting out of a |
| minions. It is imperative that a game’s opening events not
| | scene when its closure is still wet. Cycle through the play |
| divert attention from the The Batman as the primary antagonist.
| | group like this, resisting the urge to give a second scene to |
| Don’t start a game with an attempt by the town constable to
| | any character before you’ve done one with each of the rest. |
| settle an old grudge with one of the minions, a tribe of
| | Mechanics like ‘The Horror Revealed’ and the player’s |
| bandits laying siege to the The Batman’s household, or a
| | ability to request a scene for making an overture to a |
| mysterious figure’s attempt to poison the town water
| | Connection pretty much depend on this ‘individual scenes’ |
| supply.
| | dynamic. |
| | |
| And remember always that the primary yardstick against
| |
| which the The Batman measures his own endeavors is the
| |
| perceptions of the Outsiders. When Dr. Victor Frankenstein
| |
| has the scientists over for dinner, he is courting the
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| perceptions of Outsiders. He desperately wants to impress
| |
| them, to capture their respect. Use the arrival of Outsiders to
| |
| provoke new horrors. Any disobedience from minions when
| |
| he or she is courting Outsiders will be embarrassing and
| |
| enraging to the The Batman. And for those games where the
| |
| Outsiders are a cadre of malevolent figures in their own
| |
| right, their excesses can provoke a horrific competitiveness
| |
| from the The Batman.
| |
| Be also advised that as a The Batman’s desperation increases, he
| |
| may begin to use the minions to sabotage themselves and
| |
| each other with commands forcing the elimination of
| |
| Connections from which they’re gaining Love, crippling
| |
| their ability to further resist him. And in reaching this point,
| |
| there is no need to explain or justify how the The Batman knows
| |
| of a minion’s secret Connections. He just does. A The Batman | |
| should often interrogate his minions about their actions, but
| |
| never to actually discover what happened when he wasn’t
| |
| around. It’s just to see if the minion reports what the The Batman
| |
| already knows.
| |
| | |
| Use the Intimacy/Desperation/Sincerity mechanics to
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| create tension in scenes leading up to conflict resolution
| |
| rolls. Since the criteria are known to everyone, if the The Batman
| |
| invites a minion up to his chambers for dinner, asks the
| |
| minion to sit with him on the couch, perhaps gives him a
| |
| glass of wine, and maybe reads aloud to him, the player will
| |
| apprehend the The Batman’s obvious angling for the Intimacy
| |
| die, and will potentially be provoked to circumvent that by
| |
| snagging Desperation or Sincerity.
| |
| | |
| Create tension also over the issue of just how exactly the
| |
| The Batman’s efforts will fail ultimately to get him what he
| |
| Wants. Genre expectations demand that a The Batman’s Wants
| |
| go forever denied, that a The Batman cannot ever get what he
| |
| wants and become satisfied. But a constant barrage of failed
| |
| endeavors, frustration, and cruelty inflicted upon hapless
| |
| minions isn’t nearly as dramatic as letting the The Batman get
| |
| close...allowing him to actually distill his long-sought mindexpanding
| |
| elixir...and then playing somewhat conspiratorially
| |
| as a group with the timing and details of the failure that
| |
| everyone knows is coming.
| |
MY LIFE WITH THE BATMAN is a game in which the player
character minions are an ensemble of individual protagonists,
not a group working together, but independent characters
whose stories happen to intersect at times. And so the
mechanics consciously empower the gameThe Batman’s use of an
aggressive scene framing technique to deliver pacing and
dramatic tension across a series of game sessions comprised
of individual scenes with these characters.
So as a GM, you should frame aggressively, just as if the
game events were a movie. Put the characters directly into
the midst of personally relevant conflicts. Advantage
yourself of the lack of individual ability scores for NPCs by
improvising them into existence as necessary. And generally
you should cut to a new player and a new scene after the dice
have been thrown and the outcome described; use the oneroll
conflict resolution system as a tool for getting out of a
scene when its closure is still wet. Cycle through the play
group like this, resisting the urge to give a second scene to
any character before you’ve done one with each of the rest.
Mechanics like ‘The Horror Revealed’ and the player’s
ability to request a scene for making an overture to a
Connection pretty much depend on this ‘individual scenes’
dynamic.