An Introduction to Crowbar and Her Brothers

This is for the people who came to the "Around the Writer's Block" panel at Wiscon, who were interested in the games that my writing partner (Aaron) and I play.  Keep in mind that these games are very free-form (Rules?  Rules are for sissies and flaming knife-wielding badgers*), and we are constantly reinventing them as we play.  The only two hard-and-fast rules are: you need more than one person to play; and, absolutely no critiquing is allowed.  It's also very helpful not to think too hard about stuff while you're playing.  The idea is not to come up with "good" stuff, but to allow yourself run free, like a two-year-old wearing nothing but a diaper running away from your mom across the back lawn with all the speed your tiny little legs can muster and squealing for joy the whole time.

1. The Bachelorette Game, Part 1
According to Aaron, he invented this game while a camp counselor, as a way to draw out the shy kids (I suspect that he was just really bored).  The basic format is sort of like the Dating Game, but  not.  The game is played in rounds, and as follows: In round one, Player 1 invents a set of three characters, from which Player 2 has to choose the most interesting (mysterious, seductive, freakish, scary) character.  Then Player 2 creates a set of three characters from which Player 1 (or Player 3) has to choose, and so on.  The chosen characters then advance to round two, to compete against two new characters, and so on.  We also add characteristics to the characters as they advance through the rounds.  Because this game is so simple, we often use it as a warmup for other games (or actual, you know, work).
By the way, it's called the "Bachelorette" Game because it did start out as a "Who Would You Marry?" game (these were teenage boys, remember).  But because Aaron almost instantly started presenting them with choices like "Bachelorette Number One is a giant spider with twelve legs and a human head who carries the key to the great Library of Hell on a chain around her neck," the term "Bachelorette" quickly became kind of an ironic misnomer.

2.  The Bachelorette Game, Part 2
This game uses virtually the same format as Part 1, except that the characters are created within a narrative.  We usually play it as an adventure game, where Player 1 takes Player 2 on an adventure, where he or she is introduced to the characters, and has to choose which character to "follow" into the next round.  Remember that the adventure doesn't have to make sense.  It's only  "narrative" in the sense that it's in the verbal structure of  "that happens, and then this happens."  "This"  doesn't necessarily have to follow logically from "that."  Again, thinking too hard is anathema to the spirit of the game.

Well, I think that's all I want to put in this post...next post will be the Jack-the-Wheel Game, and Verbal Backgammon.


*I was going to give an explanation here, but now I realize that I don't actually have one.