Hunger Gaming

Last weekend I saw The Hunger Games. I was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed the movie quite a bit. It was exciting and well acted; the effects were evocative and believable but not over done. The future world presented was at once strange and familiar. Just the sort of film to inspire role-playing.

Possible spoilers ahead.

The dystopia of the movie provides an example of a future society done right, especially the Capitol (dirt-poor squalor looks pretty much the same no matter the calendar)– the fashions, the technology, the architecture, all created a feel of distance (I was remind again and again of Corusant). Of course, in a game the players will rightly demand more details, but this is what a possible future should feel like. And the hypocrisy and doublethink of the Capitol was just the sort found in Alpha Complex.

Another thing the movie does well is to present a seamless and believable mix of technological levels, with a simple but solid rationale: strict control by a fascist government. This allows the film – or the GM – to restrict the heroes to bows and swords, but grant the villains some very high tech, an exciting situation indeed. This is most apparent in the arena, where the tributes fight each other with knives and arrows in a seemingly pristine forest while the – ahem – “game-masters” manipulate and harasses them with contrived forest fires and instantly summoned mutant beasts.

The arena is, in fact, a giant “dungeon”, one where the GM could introduce any environment, obstacle, monster, weapon, or treasure at a moment’s notice with perfect in-game justification. The movie presents a forest and mentions an urban wasteland, but any locale would be equally plausible. Subtle and overt reminders that the arena is televised would give the PCs excellent reason to act for the cameras in the hope of outside help from impressed viewers, thus creating an in-game “brownie point” system.

There are two challenges for a GM who wishes to play a straight version of The Hunger Games. Firstly, to quote a film about slightly older folk trying to kill each other, “There can be only one”. In the actual Hunger Games there is but one survivor. Many players will not like having to kill each other. But even if your PC do enjoy a little player-vs.-player there is a bigger problem: not only will the players likely split the party, there may very well be no party at all! There is no reason why the PCs should not run off to different parts of the arena and start scheming and slaying. This presents a problem for even the most skill GM. The simplest solution is to change the rules of the Game to allow for team play — perhaps each district sends a team of tributes to the Games. A GM could always inform the winning team that there can be only a single victor after all, if she wished to preserve the cruelty of the film.

This brings me to the second challenge: the film’s cruelty. In The Hunger Games, the tributes are entirely at the mercy of the government. Even while fighting the other tributes, it is clear that the heroes are the playthings of the Captiol. I’ll forgo the obvious joke about players and the GM to say that, as much as grimdark games are in fashion, players do not like being mere playthings. Each group is different of course, but most players need to feel some control of their character’s fate. The knowledge that, no matter how well they play or how good their rolls, they can be wounded, imprisoned, or killed at any moment will ruin the fun for many players. This is a much trickier problem. The first step in planning a Hunger Games game (or any game) is to know your players – know what they enjoy and what they find boring, know their comfort zones and their boundaries. If your players enjoy in-depth character development, then perhaps you can play the game straight: focusing on the pre-Games drama, the budding and conflicting relationships, and the impossible moral dilemmas. If you players resent the powerlessness of their characters perhaps you could introduce a growing rebellion of the districts or the tributes (a direction I suspect the sequels will take). A little powerlessness can be a great basis for revenge. Imagine the potential of reversing the roles and allowing the tributes to run their tormenters through the arena.

The Hunger Games is fun movie and a great inspiration for the gaming table. May the odds – and the dice – be always in your favor.