the losing game

You’re a team of elite knights trained to slay dragons.This is the first adult dragon you’ll face. You’re specially equipped and trained. You outnumber the dragon one to five. Even as mere mortals, you stand a chance to actually kill it! Still, you’re sent on the mission equipped with enchanted runes that will implode and seal the lair’s entrance for good. The Dragonslayer Order has given this merciless monster its final allowance of five kills. You are determined, there will be no more.

***

As a detective, you’re worried about the way the residents treat the police in this precinct. “Don’t they see I’m here trying to protect them?” you think to yourself. The lady whose house was broken into is picked up by her son. You remember his face. You saw him among the protesters a few years ago. You picked the troublemakers up by the dozen that day. They actually dispersed pretty easily, of course, but you were told to not let go of the chase. You were ordered to round them up, give them a scare. That was necessary to keep the order.

Here are two play-pretend game moves: lose a fight and win a fight. When a fight your characters are in is coming to a close, and you have an idea who won and who lost, use them to determine the consequences of the fight.

When you put these moves in a game; violence destroys, bit by bit, what everyone values and needs for thriving, win or lose. Characters would have good reasons to break out of repeatedly participating in it, and would need very compelling reasons to participate at all. 

This game is MOSAIC Strict.

Itch page cover image includes:
Fracture de l'humérus by Laboratoires Servier, licensed under CC-BY 2.0