Love in the age of debasement is a game about dysfunctional couples (at various levels of dysfunction). It’s quite an intense game obsentially about making the decision about whether to break up or stay together, but also about talking around a topic, and exploring power dynamics in a relationship.
Each couples had various issues, and we were playing next to a workaholic (who thought his partner was using him for money) and a party girl type (who wanted her partner to lighten up.) Their main conflict was whether they could continue as a couple given their different lifestyles, which was pre-generated information. You did have some options to create the background for the characters and in doing so you could create the stakes. Had they been together for 6 months? 18? Did they have shared friends? What were their hobbies and interests?
I played Hanna who was in a couple with Einar, her abusive boyfriend. This role came quite close to home in personal history, which is something that I wanted to explore. I felt that maybe there was something in the character I wanted to understand, to remember. It felt safe. I was playing with a very good friend who had made it clear that he was looking out for me, one of the people I would really trust with this.
I found some of the mechanics of the game a bit difficult, but I wonder how much of that was in terms of our couple, who had a rather black and white dynamic. Although there was nuances - mainly put there by the wonderful person I was playing with, it was never going to be a situation with a potentially happy ending where the couple walked off into the sunset, all problems behind them.
The rules were that we could only address the issues in the relationship directly when our songs played (and after our last song when we had to decide whether to stay together or not). The two songs we chose were Tainted Love and Enjoy the Silence.
To start with this went quite well with Einar beginning apologetic and talking about plans for the future with Hanna. We did indirectly allude to the abuse, and I also established Hanna had been manipulated to the point where she believed that if she wasn’t the abuser herself then she was certainly partly responsible for it.
The issue of only being able to have the conversation about the partner’s central issue during the songs made things difficult and after the first song we let it slide a bit. I wonder if it was difficult for the other couples who had less black and white issues in their dynamic. We got in a bit of a circle and ended up playing out a process which would probably take a much longer time to play out in real life. Einar wanted Hanna to give up her job and Hanna wanted to keep her job, see her sister and visit her old friends from university. We played these conflicts out over again in a variety of ways.
Einar trying to force Hanna to call work and tell them she wasn’t coming in any more.
Einar taking her phone, deleting her work contacts and going through it. “Who’s James?”
Subtle threats, less subtle threats, shouting.
Hanna being sent to the bathroom after she started crying “tidy yourself up and stop making a scene.”
Hanna, with her best fake smile assuring Rita from the other couple that everything was fine.
Einar banging on the bathroom door “Hurry up”
“You just keep going on. We would be perfect if you didn’t keep going on all the time”
“Look at me. Now smile. Now kiss me. That’s better. We’re fine. Everything’s fine”
Hanna desperately apologising, not knowing what was wrong with her that she couldn’t keep the man she loved happy.
Talk of a child. Hanna realising this is something she wanted desperately.
Hanna saying “No, we shouldn’t have a child.”
Hanna suggesting she see a doctor or a therapist to find out why she acted so unpleasantly all the time.
Hanna daring Einar to hit her, telling him no-one was watching, wanting desperately to believe he could control his temper, that a child would be safe.
Einar telling her that she hadn’t heard the last of it. Storming out punching a wall on the way.
Einar and Hanna desperately clutching hands as the last song played, talking of going home, of decorating the house, of whether the baby would be a boy or a girl.
I think we got immersed to the point where we didn’t explore everything. We established that Hanna had been mainly isolated from her family and old friends, but not what Einar’s family were like. Traditional? Abusive? We didn’t really examine his reaction at all. The concept of the baby didn’t come up until near the end of the game, although it actually fuelled quite a large part of my internal play once the idea was there.
And why did Hanna stay? I wonder how many people have played the character before me, who have played a triumphant Hanna having a moment of realisation that she had to get out. How many others played a Hanna who was rescued (in the debrief the couple at the table next to us revealed that they had slipped out to phone the police who had been unhelpful.) And maybe less often, how many times did Einar’s player promise to change and mean it (at least for the moment.) But we didn’t play like that. Hanna was afraid, and she had been manipulated into believing she was complicit in the abuse. She had been worn down until she was dependent and had been isolated from her friends and family, from anyone who suggested that maybe Einar wasn’t good for her. And they were all reasons. But there was another one, one which isn’t often talked about in this narrative and that is the pure intensity of a relationship where you’re the centre of someone’s world. When you’re on a pedestal, adored, when you’re terrified to slip. Maybe that’s another reason.
I fell easily into Hanna’s mentality, but despite my experiences of abuse and despite Hanna’s fear of and for herself I never once as a player felt frightened or unsafe. I wonder how it would have felt to play against someone I didn’t trust so much and I’m not sure if I would have been able to do it.
It does raise an interesting question about playing games inclusively (and I do genuinely feel that we should be welcoming to people who are new to the hobby or the group) and playing characters who are more of a stretch for you in a small group of people you know and trust.
I suppose these options aren’t really mutually exclusive. I’ve been part of campaigns where the players have been selected as a continuation of previous campaigns and also larps and RPGs with lots of new players. I enjoy Nordic larping, and that can be intense. I remember how nervous I was the first time I played. So I think running games for newcomers should always be an option but so should playing games that stretch you in ways you only want to risk around people you know. Games where you can explore and understand things about yourself.
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