Jonas Ferry’s blog

You can now get my Noir GothCon story Dold kärlek (”Hidden love”, in Swedish). Don’t forget the quick rules (also in Swedish) if you want to play the story without flipping through the main rule book.

The story was well received at the convention. We had almost 150 players divided between three sessions.

Some comments published on the web by players and storytellers (in Swedish, because I’m lazy):

• papylon: “Det är inte ofta spelare i ett scenario vilt bankar på väggar och bord för att illustrera specialeffekter och dyl, det lyckades Dold kärlek framkalla och dessutom på ett grymt sätt foga in homosexuella aspekter i en genre som hittils varit befriead från seriösa försök att tackla denna fråga.”
• orn72: “Som SL/berättare tyckte jag det var en höjdare, jag ledde två pass och fick känna på två mycket inlevelsefulla lag. Som tidigare nämts så var det intressant att homosexualitet kom med i berättelsen på ett naturligt sätt, och det tog sig båda lagen an utan att förfalla till parodi.”
• Gorger: “Jag gillade skarpt optningsforge:andet, som skapade flera riktigt otippade och intressanta situationer.”

I’m one of the contributors to the new Swedish roleplaying game Noir. More specifically, I wrote chapter 8 “Upplevelsen” (”The Experience“), rewrote the introductory scenario “Dödläge” (”Stalemate“) from an early version and provided a short text in the introduction on roleplaying games in general. I also gave Marco Behrmann feedback on different parts of the game.

Imagine the joy when Noir was voted “Best Roleplaying Game of 2006″ by the readers of Fenix (page in Swedish). According to themselves Fenix is Sweden’s biggest magazine for roleplaying and strategy games. Noir placed before the widely known fantasy game “Drakar och Demoner Trudvang”, which is hard to believe. Thanks everyone who voted for Noir!

The good stuff doesn’t end there, though. This issue of Fenix (#2, 2007) has a review of the game by Henrik Örnebring with the heading “The most innovative game in ten years”, 9/10 in “impression” and “8/10″ in “content”. He ends the glowing review by stating that Noir gets a “recommended” stamp because of the final chapter (chapter 8) with its down-to-earth suggestions on game mastering, on handling NPCs, how to make the player characters the focus of the story, and so on. Neat!

The third Noir-related thing in this issue of Fenix is a 16-page scenario I wrote. It’s called “Portrait of a Killer” and drops the player characters into a web of strong wills, where different groups want bizarre things from the characters. This adventure is a lot longer, text wise, than the introductory scenario in the main rule book. It was fun to write, and I’m looking forward to play reports or comments from readers.

Marco just posted a full thumbnailed preview of the Noir roleplaying game. If you want to see what I’ve written the easiest way is to scroll to the very end, back up to the picture of two persons having dinner and and then onwards. To actually read the text you’ll have to buy the book.

If you scroll the preview page you’ll see some wonderful two-page pictures of the city and its people.

I’m happy that the Noir website has as much activity as it has, considering the game isn’t even released yet. A lot of great people have showed up and been interested, which is great.

Apart from a lot of short posts, I’ve written a longer blog entry at the developer blog called Rapporter från skyttegravarna (”Reports from the trenches” in English) on the merits of actual play reports. I’ve also written a post in the prep thread for a chronicle, where I outline the storyteller preparation method presented in the book.

Under downloads you can find a preview of the whole first chapter of Noir.

The Noir front cover illustration.

I’m soon to be published as a contributor to a new Swedish roleplaying game called Noir. It’s a film noir inspired game set in a dystopian alternate world, a kind of mix between The Maltese Falcon, Sin City and 1984. There’s a huge empire ruled by different noble families, but the focal point of the setting is the capital of the empire called Sandukar. Sandukar has parts that are heavily controlled by the all-ruling State, and parts that are left to criminal gangs, enemies of the state and other people left out of the system.

Speaking of system, the basic rules are simple and quick. They are still traditional enough to have a fixed list of skills and abilities and a combat system that’s more detailed than the rest of the game, but experimental enough to have escalation rules in social conflicts inspired by Dogs in the Vineyard and a scenario preparation method from Sorcerer.

The chapter I wrote is on story preparation, and I rewrote the introductory story to follow the method. Marco Behrmann, one of the main guys behind the game, wanted the stories to be centered around the characters and their choices, and asked me if I were interested in helping out.

Of course I was, and immediately thought of relationship maps and bangs used in Sorcerer and later games. The Swedish roleplaying forum Rollspel.nu has a similar method they call “fish tanks”, but as far as I can tell that model doesn’t include events to set things in motion.

This makes it very interesting to see what the reactions of Swedish roleplayers will be. Do people want a non-railroaded scenario design method bad enough or are they too comfortable in the old ways of preparation?

Oh, and when I talked about “traditional” and experimental above, I definitely don’t mean “traditional = bad”. I like the combat system a lot, it feels somewhat like a computer game in that you don’t have complete control of the character. You might say you want to fire suppressive fire towards someone hiding behind a crate, but how many bullets you waste and your initiative the next round is based on the result of the dice.

If everything works out with the printing house the game will be in stores late November or early December. It’s 2500 copies and will be distributed by Neogames, but if you want to catch an early copy or want the limited edition you can pre-order now.

The Noir back cover illustration.

You can find the above pictures as wallpapers for download, and excerpts from the game, at the Noir download page.