Players: Diego, Alex, Alan, Jerome

This rendition of My Daughter featured a shabby, has-been widower (Shakespeare); his priggish, yuppie daughter (Suzanna); her uncle (Polonius), a jilted ex-suitor (Jared); and Shakespeare's lone acting protegee (Bastian).

Central to the estrangement was the simple fact that the successful, corporate schmoozer Suzanna felt ashamed of her crummy, low-rent father. Unable to bear another public embarrassment, she cuts all ties and disowns her pathetic family.

Three of our four gamers had never played My Daughter before, and one player was completely new to story games. Inexperience ended up not being an issue at all, though, as all the players took to the game with relative ease. By the end, we had some very impassioned scenes, with some killer soliloquies by several players.

I can't speak for the other players, but I consider this the most successful game of My Daughter I've played to date. The estrangement avoided the usual "overbearing, control-freak Shakespeare alienates his daughter by attempting to mold her in his image" model. The players discovered their characters naturally through the course of the game, gradually building emotional depth. The scenes were balanced to give all characters a chance to develop, and overall narrative had a nice tight arc.

Overall, an excellent effort by everyone at the table. Big thanks to Alan, Alex and Diego for bringing some great game on Saturday!

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Personal Notes: I was pretty nervous about running this with a relatively inexperienced roster, but my concern was unwarranted. This was one of the smoothest story games I've played, regardless of experience. I was really impressed by how patient everyone was through the early stages, and how emotionally expressive the game got later on.

Also, we allowed the character-within-a-character dynamic to emerge gradually, rather than engaging it up-front, which was comfortable. There was very little confusion about which characters people were playing, or what their roleplay goals were.

Finally, we had next to NO TABLE TALK. After the initial setup, everyone stayed in character for the remainder of the game (excepting a bathroom break). I personally found that to be enormously helpful, and will continue to facilitate My Daughter in that style.

I'm glad to hear this game went so well with a bunch of relatively-new players. I think this may also be the first game I've heard of where the estrangement was very explicitly the result of the Daughter's agency (she almost always initiates the events leading up to it, but usually Shakespeare is the one who decides it's an estrangement.) So yay for that.

I am as usual curious about soliloquys -- I'd love to hear more about their circumstances, content, etc. (but only if you feel like getting into it, of course!) I'm particularly curious about whether the soliloquys felt more complementary or contradictory -- did the Friends use them to put forward opposing viewpoints, or variations on a theme? Were they primarily emotional/expressive in content, and if so whose emotions were expressed (the Friends', or the characters'?)

In this particular game, as with most I've played, the soliloquies ended up being used as mechanics that allow the Friends to bypass their in-scene character and speak directly to Shakespeare. In this sense, I see the soliloquies as a hall pass from the scene-once-removed (players as Friends as characters) to the simple scene (players as Friends). This this usually results in a lot of heartfelt brutality directed from the Friends toward Shakespeare, which I always enjoy.