The Driver - An experiment

 

Driver - An experiment

In the spring of 2023, I got an idea to run this "duet scenario" a handful of times for different players.

The Driver is a short, improvised horror scenario for Kult Divinity Lost, written by Robin Liljenberg and Alex Obernigg. It is based on a few simple set-up choices and a starting situation. The role is on its way through the Nevada desert in a car. He's running from something, has someone with him, has something to his advantage, is on his way somewhere and just now, just as he's about to run out of gas, he sees something on the side of the road.

These questions are posed to the player, who must choose from three choices for each question.

Briefly about duet playing

A duet game is a role-playing game with one Game Master and one player.
I like duet play, and have some experience from this, most recently from Gumshoe's 1-1 system (Cthulhu Confidential and Night's Black Agents Solo Ops). The Gumshoe games require a lot of prep work, and it can feel a bit wasteful to prep so much for a duet game played once. Such traditional duet games have also required some internalization of information, which is more mentally demanding for a GM.

Duet playing is more intensive, both for the GM and the player, because you lose the group dynamics you have with larger groups. In duet play, GMs miss out on the natural pauses when players discuss with each other, time that is often used to brush up on rules, double-check scenario information, or simply rest their heads for a bit.

Players also get no breaks (they are in every scene), and must make all decisions for themselves. The latter point can, of course, be both an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on the player.

The traditional duet performances I have had have been of "normal" playing length (3-4 hours), which is far too long in such an intensive setting

The purpose of the experiment

Apart from the fact that I am fascinated by Kult (as a setting more than a rules system) and duet playing in general, I wanted to see if such an improvised framework, in addition to the replayability, gave a greater "return" than other duet games. I also wanted to see if I could see any trends in what players chose, as well as see how different players interpreted the same situation, if they chose the same as previous players.

Improvisation vs. prep

I must admit that I am a GM who likes prep work. “Lonely fun” is among my favorite pastimes (doesn't that sound sad?), so I decided to prepare a little more than the scenario gave me. The scenario gives a few suggestions for events and NPCs in the various locations that the player can choose from, and I elaborated on this a bit more.

Why? Well, after listening to a couple of Actual Play podcasts play through Driver (I listened to a total of 4 play-throughs), it struck me that horror scenarios can be difficult to improvise. It's not too difficult to throw in a rabid killer with an ice hockey mask, a pale guy with pointy teeth or people suddenly appearing out of nowhere, but the best horror I know is when the creator moves into what the Germans call unheimlich , or in English - "the uncanny". Or as Freud explained it - "the strangeness of the ordinary".

So I prepared some such points, which I highlighted if appropriate.

• The man in the window with the tight-fitting pig eyes stares out at you. The window is partially covered in dirt, which slowly runs off and gives the brief impression that the man's face is melting before your eyes.

• It is completely quiet in the house. The kind wife who served dinner sits and smiles and watches the meat pudding as it roasts in the oven. The half-drunk man is watching a sitcom with the sound off. He never laughs. The only sound you hear is the overly loud grandfather clock.

• You get back into the car after filling up the tank, but it won't start. The meter is still at E. You look up at the pump and see a large sign. "NOT IN USE". How could you have missed it?

I don't know if it's "cheating" in what is supposed to be an improvised scenario, but even if I may have missed the training involved, the most important thing for me is still to give the players (in this case me and one other) the best possible experience. And even if I had prepared more for the location The Driver came to, I hadn't prepared anything for what would happened after this. 4 out of 5 moved on from the starting location, and then I had to improvise.

The choices

At the core of The Driver are these choices that the player makes at the start of the scenario.
After five plays, I got a picture of the most popular choices:

What are you running from?

• A heist went wrong, and a cop died. In the back seat is your partner, Glover, with a gunshot wound to the stomach - 2 choices

• Your former boss. You have brought her 5-year-old daughter Destiny - 3 choices

• An enemy from the past. You thought he was dead, but he won't leave you alone. In the car, you have your romantic partner asleep

What do you have going for you?

• A .45mm with a half-empty magazine - 1 choice

• A bayonet from an old war - they say terrible things happen when you rub it with blood - 2 choices

• A briefcase of $100,000 - 2 choices

What are you trying to achieve?

• A deserted airstrip where a refueled plane awaits you - 1 choice

• An old friend - 2 choices

• A bus station with a locker where you can find fake passports and money - 2 choices

What do you now see along the road?

• A retro gas station with a diner and a small shop - 4 choices

• A hotel far past its glory days

• A house, a small detached house painted in sage green - 1 choice

Thoughts

The first two play-throughs had little or no sense of the supernatural. The first was unnerving enough, but more reminiscent of a Tarantino gangster flick than a horror film. The second involved cults and sacrifices, but with the exception of a mysterious blackout/time jump at the end, it was also free of the supernatural. The third play, on the other hand, was supernatural at its core. Although the third player made some of the exact same choices as a previous player, it was the combination of these that caused them to go in a slightly different direction than the first player, thus encountering the more supernatural elements I had introduced.

Since we played with the security tool Lines & veils , a significant detail was also changed compared to previous playthroughs, which turned out to allow for a very supernatural twist. You might think that Lines & Veils gives limitations, but sometimes limitations also give opportunities.

When it comes to the choices themselves, we see that the petrol station is clearly the most popular starting location. I think this is natural, all the time the introductory text mentions that The Driver has run out of gas. And although it is naturally up to the player to choose what is most interesting for the story, a couple of the players mentioned that the Americana feeling that the diner and the retro gas station gave was also crucial. I did not experience that the players made that choice because it would be easier for them, all the while the player probably expected complications anyway.

The only one who didn't choose the gas station had his injured partner in the back seat, and therefore wanted to choose a slightly more remote location (he was probably trying to largely avoid the people living in the house as well).

I think that on several levels it is difficult to pull yourself out of the situation and think that The Driver does not make these choices, that it may not always be as optimal. You could perhaps imagine rolling instead of choosing, or as in an Actual Play series I listened to, the choices disappearing as players chose them (meaning the 3rd player doesn't get to choose anything, but has to take it which remains). At the same time, it is interesting to let the player choose, as it says something about what the player wants to play and focus on.

Another observation is that The Driver is on the run, while at the same time it is the location that one focuses on and that you want to be a supernatural, creepy or horrible place. Lack of gas and the fact that you're carrying either a 5-year-old, an injured companion or a romantic partner who isn't updated on the situation helps a lot to keep The Driver in place without giving too strong a feeling of railroad tracks.

Conclusion

This was a very good experiment. The sessions lasted from 1.5 - 2 hours, including some introduction to Foundry (the VTT I was using) and rules. Kult is a flawed system in many ways, but doesn't get in the way of telling a good story. I'm not very good at (or interested in) the Kult mythos, the most important thing was to set a good framework for an intense story. Whether a couple of them had little or no trace of the supernatural in them didn't matter much. The PCs in these cases had to make some hard choices anyway, where others were regularly sacrificed. And isn't that terrifying enough in itself?

After this experiment, I have thought about writing a similar framework myself, with a few, short questions that set the stage for a short and intense duet playing. One of the goals must be to offer choices that do not immediately stand out as the "best".

If you want to try the scenario for yourself, it is available for free her: The Driver