Trickster Ritual - Roles and Archetypes

[Raymond Arnold]

Last week I got to run the first draft of the Trickster Ritual. I ran into an issue where basically everyone was a trickster, and so instead of the night exploring insightful things about Tricksters, it was just randomly chaotic in a non-meaningful way. (Fun, but not ideal)

So my new idea is to have each player get a mythological archetype, which have different goals for the evening. My current list of archetypes (assigned via Tarot cards, but not paying heavy weight to the official Tarot meaning):

Fate (Wheel of Fortune) - Your job is to safeguard a bag of M&Ms, and periodically throw a handful of M&Ms on the to the table and watch people scramble for them.

(The primary goal of the Trickster Ritual is to learn interesting things about yourself, but since that's hard, the secondary goal is to have as many M&Ms as you can at the end)

Justice (Justice) - Your job is both to reward effort as well as maintain balance - when someone does something cool, impressive or appropriate for the evening, tell Fate to award them M&Ms (include Fate, themselves). If you see someone who hasn't gotten to talk as much or people who are talking overly-much, make sure the quieter people get a chance to participate.

(Fate and Justice's roles are public. I *think* I want everyone else's role to be secret, but it's unclear if that can be meaningfully done)

The Hunter (The Emperor) - You care about rules and tradition. Your job is to be very serious and try to reign in chaos when you see it and occasionally be the butt of jokes. If you are good at your job, you will find a way to reign IN the chaos rather than reward trolls with attention that makes them more crazy. (Unclear if I should just call this guy "The Emperor." "Hunter" is a reference to Apollo, the anti-trickster)

The Fool (The Fool) - You are the naive trickster. You violate societal law because you don't know any better. You copy ideas you barely understand. Occasionally this works out for you and you grow as a person. You frequently embellish but seldom lie.

Death (Death) - You are entropy. You are kind of a downer. You take and you take and you take and do not discriminate between sinners nor saints.

The Hermit (The Hermit) - You are a wise trickster. (Think Yoda). You live by yourself because you don't fit in with society, but you try to help people when you can. You may lie whenever you believe it will lead to something good.

The Mysterious Old Wizard (The Magus, or maybe the Heirophant) - You are a mysterious old wizard. You always tell the truth, but not always all of it. You speak as mysteriously/metaphorically as you can get away with while still being understood. You try to help people understand themselves and fulfill their destiny.

The Hacker (...Knight of Pentacles?) - You are a crafty trickster. You like to break things open, take them apart, and sometimes put them back together. You lie occasionally when it seems appropriate. [Trickster Gods are sometimes also the gods of Merchants which is related to being the Gods of craftsmen, and I'm not sure if the Hacker should try to embody both or if I should separate them]

The Devil (The Devil) - You are a malicious trickster. You lie and cheat and steal whenever you want for your own gain. You encourage others to do the same. If nobody guesses you were the Devil at the end, you win.

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[Matt Elder]

As a game setup, the Devil's "win condition" probably needs to be different.

I doubt this is needed for most of the roles, but lots of people in any community are not going to be able to do a good adversary unless they're given a pretty different frame from everyone else. If there's some particular adversarial end they're trying to achieve, it'll be much easier for them to frame "lying and cheating for gain;" and *then* you can give him the goal "if you achieve your goal *and* people don't know you're the devil at the end of the night, you win." Maybe that goal is just have the most M&Ms?

In any case, you'll need to make sure that any adversarial roles actually have a goal that encourages their adversariality. Otherwise, it'll be hard too either get them to be adversarial, or it'll be hard to draw the Golden Circle -- to limit the stakes being played for.

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[Raymond Arnold]

Everyone has the goal 'have the most Candy', and the Devil just has a possible bonus way to win (I doubt they'd win that way most of the time). Not sure if this changes your comment?

[Matt Elder]

Ah, good. Then the devil probably needs the win condition "you have the most candy *and* no one knows you're there Devil." Otherwise, the Devil can probably win just by being really checked out.

[Zvi Mowshowitz]

Devil goal is not easy, but it does discourage devil being too evil or active.

Hacker should be a major. Lots of good choices. I am amused by making him The World...

[Raymond Arnold]

After some conversations on the Facebook-parallel-version-of-this-group, the consensus was the following changes should be made:

 • Emperor was switched to Heirophant

 • Magus is now playing the role of the Hacker (without being as explicit about it)

 • Hermit is now the mysterious old wizard, who tries to help people achieve their destiny and speaks mostly in metaphor

 • Hanged Man is a cynical person who sees through society's bullshit, enjoys fucking with people but ultimately still tries to help people when they can (think "Quirrel" at his best if he wasn't secretly The Devil). He tells the truth or lies depending on what seems important at the time.

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[Raymond Arnold]

I expect to need to fiddle around with the Devil's role a bit to find something optimal. I think most of the changes can be made, not to the role itself, but to the surrounding gameplay (i.e. exactly how much opportunity is there for mischief beyond stealing people's M&Ms?). I think there's some inherent incentive for the Devil to want to mess with people which probably outweighs the incentive to just be blandly inoffensive.

It was also suggested that there be both M&Ms and Skittles, possible accompanying rules:

• First place going to "most M&Ms" and second place going to "most Skittles" (requiring people to pay more attention to what kind of candy they're grabbing, and possibly to incentivize trading, although I'm slightly worried about the trading ending up distracting from the main ritual content)
  
• Final score is "#M&Ms minus #Skittles" or something.

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[Zvi Mowshowitz]

If you want The Devil to be non obvious you want there to be a roll that is missing...

On Monday, August 29, 2016, Raymond Arnold <raem...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Raymond Arnold]

I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but one thing I like is that if there are less than 9 participants, there may not be a Devil, but people are still paranoid.

Or did you mean there's an empty niche for a role that should be filled in?

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[Zvi Mowshowitz]

I mean that if every roll is filled, no matter what you do, SOMEONE knows you're faking it.

[Raymond Arnold]

Ah, right. 

For unrelated reasons (resolving the "Devil can't just tune out" issue), I was thinking it might be better if the Devil's condition was "greater than zero but less than half of participants guess your role", which may also resolve this issue.

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[Zvi Mowshowitz]

If that was my condition I simply play as another character! 

[Raymond Arnold]

Lol, maybe the Devil's Role is "figure out the optimal role for the Devil to play in all future Trickster Day events, and then do that."

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[James Babcock]

How about making the devil's goal be to minimize the number of M&Ms held by all other players at the end of the night? This would allow him to play the role openly, and do things like lead players into temptation (eating their M&Ms).

[Raymond Arnold]

I think that role should be Death.

[Raymond Arnold]

(Who takes and takes and takes, and does not discriminate between sinners nor saints)