By Dwight and Brandy Upton
An RPG for Game Chef 2017
What is this?
The Roshomon Effect is a game of unreliable narrators, each recounting the same tale before a magistrate who will determine the truth, render judgement, and sentence the guilty. Together the players will craft a story of murder as each spins a conflicting tale striving to evade the executioner’s sword and be found innocent.
Game Chef 2017
The theme is “borders”, and the fiction of The Roshomon Effect stands where truth and lies, perception and reality meet, blur, and diverge. The ingredients are yarn, smoke, echo, and cut. Each of these elements is a metaphor in play, with the stories (“yarns”) told by each suspect, the tale repeated each with it’s own variation (“echo”), the lies and misdirections told in desperation (“smoke”), and the conclusive finale in which the magistrate reveals the truth and renders judgement and a capital sentence (“cut”). We hope you enjoy the experience.
Setup
You will need:
role cards, and judgement cards (included)
index cards for writing clues and motives
pencils or pens
about half a dozen players
Summary of Play
1. Choose The Magistrate, and choose other roles
2. The Magistrate draws a victim from the role cards,
and will frame the crime with Clues
3. The Magistrate will choose the first Suspect
4. Each Suspect will narrate the same story,
changed by their own point of view
5. The Magistrate will interrogate each Suspect
6. Each Suspect gets one rebuttal
7. The Magistrate will relate the final, true story
8. The Magistrate will deliver sentences
Choosing The Magistrate, and Suspect roles
The table will choose as The Magistrate for the game, the most honest and reliable person as determined by the group. If all of you are scoundrels, you can roll a d6, draw for the highest card, or play rock/paper/scissors.
Next, everyone else will draw a Role Card randomly from the stack. All but the magistrate are Suspects, and you all place the card before you so everyone can see. After everyone has a role, The Magistrate will draw a final role card. This card is the victim of murder most foul, and someone is guilty.
The Magistrate will begin play. Your job is to determine who murdered the victim, and to suss out the truth by hearing the accounts presented by each Suspect, weighing them for veracity, and determining the sentences for each character as play progresses. It is your job to inform the other characters of the gravity of their situation. Inform the Suspects that each of them was seen in the vicinity of the victim on their last day and that their lives hang in the balance. Some will go free, some will face prison, and someone will be executed. Choose which Suspect begins the narrative, and demand they give an account of themselves. But Pay Attention, as you will have to tell the True Story after all the Suspects finish, using facts from each alibi as established in the narrative. You will then pass Judgement on each Suspect, issuing the Sentence cards
Framing the Murder
As Magistrate, you will frame the setting of the story, and the nature of the murder. You should account for the Time (era) and Place, as well as the apparent nature or Method of the murder. This need not be the final truth, and during the narrations, what may seem to be death by one method may prove to be otherwise. But as magistrate, you frame what is obvious.
You should include three to five details offered as clues to the crime or the scene. To do this, place the victim role card in the middle of the table, and with three to five index cards, write a word or very brief statement to lay the foundation for a narrative. Each card should offer a Clue discerned by one of the five senses. There should be at least three senses represented, and no more than two Clues for any sense.
For example, you may note that the day was particularly Cold, but the victim had only a light robe, that a woman’s Scream was heard, but the victim was a man, and that the victim has an Axe in their skull, but there is little blood. These offer variety, appealing to the senses of touch, hearing, and sight respectively, and the Clues may suggest several avenues for the story to go, but may not directly include anyone but the victim role.
Explain that all Suspects are under suspicion because they have a known relationship to the victim, and were in proximity before being rounded up for the investigation.
Suspect Narratives
The Magistrate will choose the first Suspect to relate the narrative. As the First Suspect, you have responsibility for relating the story of the last day of the victim as it relates to you. Each subsequent Suspect must follow up in turn by relating the same story, though it should be from their point of view only. Note, as Suspects you cannot deny either a relationship, or contact with the victim on that last day.
You must begin by telling who you are, what your relationship to the victim was, and then what you were doing in the area around the time of the murder.
On your turn as a Suspect, you have the option of doing two things as you relate your narrative:
First, you may take any of the Clue cards laid down by The Magistrate, and may make a single word or short statement modification to the card. Axe, for instance, might be amended to be a Woodcutter’s Axe, or a Battle Axe, or My Father’s Axe. So long as it is included in the narrative that everyone tells, and does not deny an already established fact, anything is fine. Note, that this might be amended multiple times, each time revealing a new facet of that clue. Axe, might become Battle Axe, which might become Sold Battle Axe, for example. You may then, at your option, either place the card back with the victim, or you may place the card in front of another Suspect, so long as you do so within the already established and repeated narrative. You might as the Soldier for example write Sold on the Battle Axe, before placing it in front of the Bandit, implicating the Bandit instead.
Second, you may write on a new index card, a new Clue, an alleged Motive, or an Alibi to assert your innocence. A new Clue should relate in an immediate and obvious fashion to the victim, and must be laid with the victim when first introduced, though it may move later. A Motive is laid down in front of another Suspect as long as they do not already have a motive connected to them. A Motive should be a single word or short statement such as, Jealousy, Cheated, or Insulted. After a Motive card is introduced, it can be modified just like Clues, by any Suspect as they repeat the established narrative and so long as the Motive does not violate that narrative. An Alibi card is placed in front of yourself, and serves to support your innocence, such as Love, or My Mother.
On your turn to tell the narrative as a Suspect, you must try to reincorporate as many elements as you can into the story. The more you can elaborate, the more you have an opportunity to create doubt about your own guilt, and suggest doubt about the other’s innocence. The only thing not allowed on your turn is to make a direct accusation against another suspect.
You may suggest… but you may not accuse yet.
Interrogations and Rebuttals
After each Suspect has repeated the narrative once, The Magistrate will ask each Suspect one or two questions about the narrative. It is during this time that Suspects may make a single direct accusation against another Suspect. So long as it does not violate the established narrative or modify any Clues, Motives, or Alibis already on the table, it is fine. The Magistrate may however move or amend cards at this time as the interrogation proceeds. Suspects who have an accusation against them may make one rebuttal to each accusation, so long as they can justify it within the established narrative.
The Magistrate’s Tale, and the Verdict
After each Suspect has one turn to answer questions and offer rebuttals, The Magistrate will tell the whole story again, repeating it in as much detail as possible. This is the true story, and the one upon which guilt and innocence are determined. This is where your tale as a Suspect will bring you exoneration… or execution.
After The Magistrate relates the story one last time, the Sentence Cards will be laid down, with the Innocent card laid on one of The Magistrate’s choice, followed by the Flogging card, then the Prison cards, and finally, the Death card. Justice served, the game is concluded.
* * * *
Inspirations
The most obvious one, is of course Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film, Rashomon which is itself based on two short stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Rashomon, and The Grove; classics of the unreliable narrator story. But going back further, is that old childhood game of unreliable narratives, Telephone. Hopefully, this is a little more fun than Telephone.
ROLE CARDS
SENTENCE CARDS
