Review: A Penny For My Thoughts

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A Penny for my Thoughts (henceforth referred to as ‘APFMT’) is a collaborative storytelling game in which players take the roles of amnesiac patients undergoing therapy to recover their lost memories. It’s written by Paul Tevis better known for the podcasts Have Games Will Travel and The Voice of the Revolution and published by Evil Hat Productions.

The Concept

APFMT is presented in the form of guided therapy instructions provided by the fictitious Orphic Institute For Advanced Studies and each play session is designed to play out as an individual therapy session. Paul states that one of his design goals was to make the experience of the participants as close as possible to the experience of the characters in the story. The rules and background to the game are treated as actual in game artifacts that the characters have access to, and are designed to be read aloud during game play. This means that this game can actually be picked up and played successfully without having read the book first.

The Book

APFMT is available in two forms – as a paperback and electronically as a PDF. The publishers (Evil Hat) offer a ‘Bricks and Mortar PDF Guarantee‘ – if you buy a physical copy of APFMT they’ll give you the PDF. You will need to send them proof – a photograph of you holding the book or a scanned copy of the receipt will probably suffice.

The form factor chosen for APFMT is the same as Spirit of the Season, Don’t Rest Your Head and Don’t Lose Your Mind, all previously published by Evil Hat. It’s a 6′ x 9′ perfect bound softback book with glossy cover, 94 pages in length, and black and white throughout. Layout is excellent, and gives the whole publication a very professional feel. Artwork is in the form of photographs rather than traditional illustration. These photographs are provided by Jeremy Tidwell, the freelance photographer who provided a lot of the shots for Paul Tevis and Ryam Macklin’s previous book, ‘Finis: A Book of Endings to Give People New Beginnings‘. The photographs make perfect sense since illustrations would have felt out of place in a document purporting to be a professional guide produced by a medical institute.

One slight concern I do have about the book is that nowhere on the cover does it state this is a game. In fact the first acknowledgement that you are playing a game is in the Designers notes/ Afterword starting on page 63. This does seem to limit the audience somewhat to people who already know what the product is.

Breaking it down

The book opens with a single page game description, involving three patients. It’s taken from the viewpoint of the characters, but because the physical tools used by the players (the pennies, bowl, sheets etc) all have counterpoints in the game fiction this is surprisingly close to what the players will experience (just without the white jumpsuits.) This is followed by a single page table of contents.

‘The Nature of Your Condition and How We Can Help’ (Chapter 1) – is a three page introduction, written from the viewpoint of the characters. It introduces ‘Dr. Peter Tompkins’ as the alter ego of the author who will guide you through the therapy process (i.e. the game). It then explains that you do not remember anything because you are a patient at the Orphic Institute For Advanced Studies suffering from profound retrograde amnesia. It goes on to explain that the rest of the book is a guide to an advanced experimental treatment used to recover lost memories. Finally this chapter gives a quick overview of the rest of the book and what you can expect to find there.

‘The Treatment Procedure’ (Chapter 2) contains the rules of the system. This is presented as 16 pages of guided instructions. The instructions are designed to be read aloud, and you genuinely do not need to read the entire chapter before proceeding. This makes APFMT the first truly zero prep I have encountered, however I feel this may have been a slight mistake since on page 11 the group will run headlong into the instruction to gather a copy of the player questionnaire (think character sheet), five slips of paper and at least four pennies for each patient, a variety of writing implements, and an opaque container (such as a hat or bowl). This impromptu treasure hunt is likely to derail your game – I would strongly recommend having the required bits ready rather than trying to find them during game play. Apart from the minor issue with collecting game materials I have to say the decision to present the text this way is inspired. Learning the rules from the APFMT rulebook is remarkably easy, and the rules format and presentation chosen reinforce the game fiction brilliantly.

The text in this chapter is accompanied by a series of short patient transcripts. I know from Paul’s blog that these transcripts come from a play session that actually occured during playtesting – or at least come very close to something which occurred. Although I started reading these with view to seeing how things worked I found myself reading with an eye to the developing story and a lesser interest in the mechanic. In fact the final part of the transcript (found on page 20) almost brought tears to my eyes. The memory is supposed to be a happy memory although it’s definitely bitter sweet. I’m really envious of the people who got to play in that game session. I wouldn’t be surprised finding myself becoming emotionally involved in a film, book or even stage play, but to become that involved in a short play example is truly extraordinary and says a lot about APFMT.

‘How to Get the Most out of Your Treatment’ (Chapter 3) contains 12 pages of advice on how to play the game. These usually fall into the form of good form vs. bad form. They cover things like how to reintegrate earlier ideas, how to build on other players suggestions, looking for connections, and how to be specific. All the advice is presented in an ‘in character’ voice, and targeted at the character rather than the player. There is some pretty solid advice here that could be applied to any story telling game, including most roleplaying games.

‘Example Treatment Transcript’ (Chapter 4) is precisely that – a 26 page transcript of play. Interestingly during this transcript they choose not to have a reader (the player responsible for amongst other actions reading from the book). This is an advanced optional variant presented on page 68 and the introduction of a method of play which hasn’t yet been covered might cause a little confusion. I can’t be sure since I read chapter 5 first and then returned to chapter 4, so I was fully prepared for it. The transcript is clear, well written, actually pretty interesting as a story in it’s own right, and well documented in the margins with hints and feedback.

‘Notes from the Waking World’ (Chapter 5) is 10 pages in length. This is the first section of the book written by the author as himself (and not as Dr. Tompkins) and addressed to the players as opposed to the characters. He talks about his inspirations and the road the game followed to reach publication. I must admit that I had guessed most of the influences probably because I’ve studied both Improv and Psychology and try to stay aware of Indie games. This chapter finishes with a number of variant methods of play including Reader-less (GMless) play, variant questionnaires (to produce different styles of story), and variant reassurances document (which produce different world assumptions).

Finally the comprehensive appendices include a variety of  questionnaires (the standard questionnaire, a questionnaire designed to produce a more emotional game and a questionnaire designed to reveal information in reverse chronological inspired by the film Memento), a variety of reassurances documents (a standard real world, a dark mythos world and a covert spy themed world document). In addition it contains a rules summary flowchart, a two page rules reference, a summary of each chapter, a list of example memory triggers and the game credits.

Therapy

Play is in the form of therapy sessions. The character currently undergoing therapy is known as the ‘Traveller‘. As the game progresses each player will get to be the traveller several times. The traveller’s history is revealed through play using a series of Memory Triggers. In the game’s fiction memory triggers are people, places, objects, feelings, or sensations that are strongly associated with a particular incident, whilst in reality they are seeds around which the players can improvise a story. As such the perfect memory trigger will be specific, involve the characters senses, but won’t limit the player’s story choices. Example memory triggers might include things like:

• The taste of blood
• A bright blue toy soldier
• The sounds of laughter
• The thrill of falling
• The smell of clean sheets
• A stuffed bear caked in mud

At the beginning of the game the first traveller and optionally the reader are selected. Each player is given a number of pennies (typically one although the first traveller gets two and the another player starts with none), and five sheets of paper on which they note a set of memory triggers. They then place these triggers the container. The traveller draws a memory trigger and reads it aloud. Each of the Guides asks at least one Guiding Question about the trigger (although there are circumstances under which they may ask more). The questions must be answerable with a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, and the traveller must answer each of these with a statement that begins “Yes, and…”

So, for example suppose the Traveller had drawn the first memory trigger listed above – “The taste of blood”. The exchange might go something like:

The Traveller reaches into the container and draws a Memory Trigger reading “The taste of blood.”

Player One: Was it your blood?

Traveller: Yes, and I had bitten my lip.

Player Two: Had you been in a fight?

Traveller: Yes, and I’d been beaten and kicked by the school bully.

Player Three: Was he older and bigger than you?

Traveller: Yes, and I was new to the school. He liked to pick on the new younger kids.

Player One: Did someone find you?

Traveller: Yes, and it was a teacher. They called my parents.

The answers to these questions provide the setting for the memory being recovered. The actual memory begins after the events in the questions, so in the above example the traveller’s lip has already been broken in the fight with the school bully. The traveller begins by providing a brief narrative explaining how the answers tie together, effectively summarising the background. In the above example he might says something like:

Traveller: I remember a time when… My parents had just moved to Yorkshire, and I’d been sent to a new school. I had a Home Counties accent and they thought I was a ‘posh kid’. They teased me and made fun of me. I found it really hard to make friends, and I was an easy target for the school bully, a kid called Spenser. Anyway, one day when he threatened me I didn’t back down as quickly as usual. He got angry, he punched me, and when I went down he started kicking me. When I came around I was in the headmaster’s office. The school nurse was there, my head was ringing and I could taste blood. The headmaster told me I’d be alright and my parents were on their way.

Play then proceeds with the traveller describing how things proceeded up to the point where his character would have had to make a decision. At each decision point he asks a question along the lines of ‘”What did I do then?” or “What did I say then?”. He gets answers from two other players and then selects his preferred choice from the two. The player providing the better choice is rewarded with a penny which he can use during his turn as Traveller. This continues with the traveller stopping at each decision point and rewarding the player who gave him his favoured answer up to the point where he runs out of pennies.

Throughout each player’s turn as Traveller all the players know that a certain question from the player questionnaire is being answered and should try to steer the story in that direction, however at the end of the story it is the Travellers job to explain how the story answers that question. The questions on the standard questionnaire (Recall a pleasant memory, Recall an unpleasant memory. etc.) are reasonably easy to work into any scenario, whilst the questions on some of the advanced questionnaires (Recall a mission where you faced a moral dilemma etc.) may require a higher degree of inventiveness.

Each player gets to be the Traveller three times and three key events in their life are been described. Hopefully by the end of this we have a good idea of who they are. The characters (who are undergoing therapy) are then faced with the choice – do they want to return to a relatively normal life by becoming the people they were, or would they prefer to have those few memories they’ve rediscovered wiped and remain ignorant of who they were. This decision marks the end of the game. Players give a little epilogue where they explain the reasons behind their choice and then depending on their choice keep the memories they have acquired (represented as pennies) or return them to the bowl.

The Penny Economy

The most obvious mechanism in APFMT is the transfer of Pennies. Each player starts with a single penny, but as the game goes on the number of pennies increases. One penny is added to the economy each time the role of traveller switches player. The number of coins a traveller has at the beginning of his turn determines how long his story is. Extra pennies are rewarded to players for providing the story options that the traveller chooses. Hence you need to get other patients to reward you for providing the choices they like in order to tell your own story. As such the perfect story option is the one which offers activities the other players will find interesting. Giving someone a penny is an explicit way of acknowledging that you like their contribution.

In Play

I’ve only played APFMT once and neither of the other players was familiar with roleplaying games. As such there were no comparisons (which in many ways was a godsend). Play was initially slow, but speeded up quickly as people got the hang of things. The game requires a lot of player buy in – it’s very easy for players to derail the game with a thoughtless question, which the traveller has to accept. We did have to backtrack at one point when the Memory Trigger was an antique revolver and the questions went: “Did you find it?”, “Were young?”, “Did you fire it?”, “At your head?” We suggested she pick a different question, which she did. In hindsight we could probably have let the question stand. There are all sorts of places the story could have gone from here – maybe it misfired, maybe he went to hospital, maybe someone tried to stop him and got shot instead.

APFMT seems great at producing emotionally stories. In each case by the time we had got to the end of our yes / no questions we had set a scene that was almost guaranteed to produce an interesting story.

People with experience of traditional games may feel they don’t have the narrative control of their character which they are used to. They don’t but instead the get a huge role in creating a compelling story – and strangely even though I was always just choosing form two options as the game proceeded I felt more emotionally attached to this character than I have to most characters in traditional games.

Improv

The other thing worth noting about APFMT is that I’ve done this all before!  In September last year I attended one Keith Johnstone’s workshops during his European trip. As part of this workshop he combined two separate exercises from his book ‘Impro’ – firstly we formed a single character scene, based on suggestions from the group, adding one condition at a time (using ‘Yes and’), and then one person acted out the scene. The other workshop attendees formed into two separate groups who provided suggestions for what came next, and the actor went with his preferred option. The aim was to get the actor to go with more of your suggestions than the other teams.

Following in Keith Johnstone’s footsteps is in my book something to be proud of. APFMT is a fun high quality Improv exercise and that’s great. Paul Tevis notes Keith as one of his key influences. I hope someone tells Keith about this game – I think he’ll like it.

Conclusions

A Penny For My Thoughts is a well constructed Improv game. It’s not really a roleplaying game in the traditional sense, and it may not appeal to traditional gamers, who will feel they do not have full control over their characters, but I found it really enjoyable. I would suggest that APFMT is a fun party style game suitable not just for roleplayers but for everyone. For roleplayers it will call on much of you existing roleplaying storytelling skill set, but also allow you to practice Improv skills you seldom get to use. Considering the poignancy of the scenes APFMT seems to generate I’d love to work those same mechanics into PTA scene framing somehow.

The APTMT rules suggest that a full game will take approximately 3 hours. This is probably accurate for an experienced group, but I would estimate something closer to 4 hours for your first game. I’m also sure the time would have been longer with more players.  Time wise this makes it perfect for an evenings entertainment.

APFMT deserves a space on any game shelf. The game is fast, it’s entertaining, and it’s always surprising. Because players have no idea when they’ll be required to ask something of the current story or to provide a suggested course of action each player is always fully engaged in the action. This really is the best in collaborative story telling. You have to enter it with no preconceived ideas about where the story will go, and be ready to improvise and cope with surprises. As a quick exhilarating game for producing facinating short stories  it can’t be beaten, but don’t expect a game that will support an ongoing campaign or will replace your favourite roleplaying game.

Declan Feeney is a guest blogger on Gaming Brouhaha .