October 27, 2024

Love Letters add some extra umpf to the start of your session

The chapter is called 'Advanced Fuckery'.

It's in Vincent and Meguey Baker's Apocalypse World, a game that likes to play with tone. No surprise, then, that the bits of fuckery I'd like to pick up today are called Love Letters. They are 'setup moves'—little procedures to start a new session with—that move a character's story forward. I say forward, but while time may have passed, the main point is to make things more interesting, challenging, and complicated. (The name is somewhat ironic.)

After listening to Sam Dunnewold and Aaron King talk about Love Letters on Dice Exploder, I was itching for a chance to write one. Luckily, one of my playtesters missed a session.¹ But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Like a cold open

Love Letters were a solution to a problem many role-playing groups are familiar with. 'We missed several weeks in a row,' reads Apocalypse World. 'Our collective memory was running dim and we'd lost collective momentum.' Enter a custom move made to put the characters right back into the tension and turmoil of the story. A neat little personalized package of drama, like this one:

Dear Keeler, please roll+cool. On a 10+, choose 1. On a 7–9, choose 2:

• The headaches are getting seriously worse.
• You’re missing time, sometimes hours out of a day, more and more.
• You’ve been eating some really weird-ass stuff.

On a miss, I’ll choose two for you.
Love and kisses, your MC.

Even if Keeler's player rolls high, something interesting is added to the story. Even the 'weird-ass stuff', arguably the softest choice, raises questions. Like what, or why? Interesting questions to answer through play.

A Love Letter functions like a cold open after a mid-season break. Instead of recounting the events of the previous sessions—as if you're reading a summary on Wikipedia—the move zooms in on what's going on right now. We see Keeler opening up his ice box to reveal jars filled with a tar-like substance. When he tries to twist one open, the jar falls out of his hands as he grabs his head, letting out deep groans of pain. Keeler, he's going through it.

Like a recap montage

Looking back, now, I see that telenovela-simulator Pasión de las Pasiones incorporated a kind of Love Letter into its setup as well.² In line with its soap opera theme, the procedure is called 'Previously On'. At the start of a session, each player chooses from a list of events or actions that happened earlier on the show—episodes that, by the way, preceed the story told at the table. It works like one of those recap montages that make sure you're up to speed.

Here's the full list for El Caballero, one of the game's character options, a tough guy with a golden heart:

LAST TIME ON
At the beginning of each episode, choose one from the list below and cross it off. Once all are gone, it’s time for the series finale.

• You got into a scrap that you barely got out of alive
• You uncovered a letter that ties you deeply to someone
• You bare-handedly touched a weapon that has since gone missing
• You agreed to work with the authorities to trick someone
• You spilled a piece of your sordid past, tears in your eyes
• You spotted two people embracing through a window
• You put in some hard work to get something fixed

As you can see, this Letter is actually as long as the campaign is. Every session, options tick down until the big finale full of surprising reveals, tearful confessions, and, maybe, finally, true love. Until then, Pasión de las Pasiones makes sure each session starts with three or four interesting new ingredients: from lost weapons to proofs of parentage.

In the soap opera reality of Pasión the las Pasiones, any established truth is just a shocking twist away from being subverted. Really, the constant injection of material is a necessity. It gives the players new levers to pull in every session, so there's always reveals to be made, or mysteries to be added to the run-on sentence that is a telenovela.

Maintaining momentum

The Love Letter I wrote for that playtester went something like this:

Dear Agnes, while your friends discovered Doctor Briegel's connection to Marga's disappearance, you disappeared yourself. After your initiation, the masked figure guided you into the forest, to a make-shift shelter, promising your future ascendance. Roll+guts, on a +10 choose two, on a 7-9 choose one.

• You know how to find your way back to the hotel.
• You've managed to steal one of the cult's wooden masks (a Clue).
• You discovered the identity of a cultist. Which chambermaid is among their ranks?

On a miss, you may still choose one, but only if you take a Condition. I'll tell you what it is. All the best, your Mistress.

And it worked well! The move explained the absence of the character, put them into an exciting situation, and even gave them a chance to immediately gather a new clue to make up for lost time. It was fun.³

Love Letters are just one way to handle a role-playing game's need for propulsion and surprising complication. My mind also went to Blades in the Dark's Entanglements: possible new problems that arise right after the characters return from a heist.⁴ In a sense, those also make sure the story doesn't lose momentum, even though it's moving into its more languid downtime phase.

Because momentum is what Love Letters are about, first and foremost. Their place at the start of a session makes sure you get the most out of their potential. Give them a try the next time a player skips a week. Or when, God forbid, you've all missed a session or three.

That's it for now,
Hendrik ten Napel

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PS Alex Rybitski is running a playtest of The Girls of the Genziana Hotel—and you can watch. It’s over on his YouTube channel. He's a great GM and the players are doing a wonderful job.