I’ve now run two sessions of Heart: The City Beneath and I think I definitely picked the right game for this group. We’re moving at a glacial pace, compared to how the game is built to run, but that’s because we’re doing some pretty heavy roleplaying. We’re also still getting used to the game and I’m still introducing my players to the various systems and rules involved it, along with carefully setting expectations as we go, so I’m really not that worried about our pace. I’m making sure to separate the game’s mechanical concept of “a session” from the actual runtime and pacing of our gaming sessions since it would really undercut the utility of several moves and the pacing of the beat system if we completely abandoned our rate of play and strictly adhered to the period of time on specific days that we gathered to play the game. I mean, I had a powerful figure in the world give my characters “An Answer” as part of their payment for the tutorial mission (meant to help them all solidify their character’s goals and provide them with a bit of information they could use to kick off their character’s journey) and we spent almost half the session roleplaying through everyone’s answers. A quarter of the session went to talking about how the game worked and translating the things we were discussing into more concrete terms for the players and the last quarter was smaller bits of roleplaying and the final stages of the tutorial delve. We filled almost four hours in the blink of an eye and we were even down a player.

Part of the origin story for this group is that several people I know wanted a chance to do some meatier roleplaying. We’ve all got different games available to us and some of them have more room for roleplaying than others, but we all wanted to hang out in a cool, rotting world and do some deep-dive roleplaying with some fucked up characters. No one wants to experiment with being horrible to each other, but we all want to take the time to investigate a character who is flawed and occasionally winds up being horrible to other people as a result of that flaw or the selfishness that drives them. We want to experiment in a world where we can be just as horrible and messed up as the world is. I doubt everyone is using this chance to explore something that’s weighing on their minds, but I bet there’s at least an element of that involved for everyone. I mean, this whole campaign idea came out of me wanting to explore what it would be like to live in a world that is visibly and undeniably rotting. I wanted to take the more “subtle” (though we’ve hit a point where I don’t think this word can rightly be applied anymore) effects of climate change, social decay, and economic disparity present in our own world and play with them by making them larger and more easily dissected in a fictional world. So I’ve worked with my players to create a world that reflects this idea and have put characters into it who are uniquely suited to ask the right questions, provide the right answers, and help the players tip the scales one way or another. Sure, the mechanics of Heart are great, but we’re all here to tell stories and to see what stories we can tell together.

One thing the book Heart is incredibly clear on is that the game of Heart is thematically about “Humanity in the face of Inhumanity.” It is focused on people just being people as they are confronted with the horrors of their day-to-day life and the twisted world that doesn’t care for them or each other. Just as there are sections about how to play up the horror, how to scare and creep out your players, there are sections about how to cope with the horrors within the book and how to support your players by making sure there are enough people in the world who are there just to help each other. It is a constant balancing act that the book does a great job of setting up. It cautions against going to hard in one direction or the other, using breaks to maintain your ability to increase the tension AND to give players a break from the tension when they need it. It also reminds you of your own humanity and the humanity of your players by setting realistic expectations about how the game will go and what you and your players should expect from each other. When you get down to it, almost the entire book is about how to tell good stories and why certain kinds of stories fit this system best, scattered about in between chunks of mechanical instruction or various playbooks

As I anticipate how we will play through this game, each of us spinning up our stories into one collective web, I think about the way the book couches the entire game in this idea of exploring what it means to be human by, in some cases, becoming what many would describe as “inhuman.” All of our Heart characters are monstrous, in some way or another. All of them are giving up some aspect of what it means to be “human” by most people’s definition in order to find something incredibly important to them, be it answers they’ve longed for all their life, their final resting place, or the source of a dream that calls to them. All of them will likely reach a point where even those accustomed to the world they live in will reject them for giving up their humanity. But, as we’re reminded every time the book tells us what this game is about, being “human” isn’t really about your body or your state of mind. It is about what you do and why you do it. It is possible to create a horrible-looking “monstrous” character who is dedicated solely to the protection of other people. It is possible, through Heart, to give up all control and free will in order to create someone who finally knows peace. All of these characters, from the one who can’t seem to stay dead to the one who isn’t sure they’re alive in the same way as most other people, are just doing the same thing we’re all doing: trying to find some kind of meaning in the chaos. Sure, some of them might compromise their morals and endanger others in search of those answers, but few will truly become villains or do something that truly gives up on their humanity. Which is a pretty familiar description since I’ve applied that to the real world on multiple occasions.

Mechanics aside, I’m really looking forward to continuing to play Heart with this group. I think we’re all settled into the game, now, and that we’ve figured out our individual and collective footing. I’m really excited to see where they all take this stuff and I can’t wait to see what they explore and discover about the world I’ve been trying to seed story into. I have no goals for the whole thing beyond exploring the ideas I outlined above, but I think I’ve put enough of that into the world that, no matter what my players do, they’ll find some interesting things to help me develop. Waiting two weeks between each game is a nightmare worse than any I could concoct in-session.