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~4-10 |
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15 min |
This three-part scenario lets you role-play a ritual of your own hunter-gatherer community.
Version of record
An official, highly stylized version of this game is available at https://odolany.itch.io/uluk-rain-ritual
Preparation
Played in a circle, standing or sitting. Percussion or toy instruments are useful, but not required.
Setup
Before each of the game's three phases, including before the first one, there's a time for open discussion. It is a good moment to agree on how many solos there will be in an upcoming phase (~33%-50% of the number of participants). Important: do not say WHO is going to be a soloist.
Game start
Start playing a beat in a common tempo, using instruments (if present), found sound, or body percussion. This is your instrumental background (medium volume).
Gameplay instructions
In the first two phases of the game, there is a basic interaction loop:
- Instrumental background plays at a medium volume.
- Any player: At any time, you may decide to initiate a solo, if so, raise your hand.
- (There should be only one initiator, so if two people raised hands at once, lower, raise again etc. until there's one hand up).
- On the signal of a raised hand, everyone starts playing much more quietly.
- Initiator: Lower your hand, and point to a chosen other player — this is a solo proposition.
- Player pointed towards: You may now nod and become the soloist, or point back towards the initiator, who then becomes the soloist.
- Soloist: Make a vocal solo, telling a partial story of your community (details below).
- After a solo, the instrumental background should get back to medium volume.
Each time you take a solo, you play a role of a member of a long-gone community. The text will be the focus, and it should be improvised as if addressing a fictional divine higher power, but if you want to use instrumental additions here, you have complete freedom. The solo may be performed with any vocal technique which keeps the words legible. If possible, try to relate to some of the solos that appeared before.
Phase I — grace invocations
This phase consists of 1-4 solos interspersed by improvised instrumental part played in a common rhythm, the same type of playing as from the very beginning of the game (with lower volume during the solos). Now, we'll explain how a single solo should be done.
Each solo has three parts of diminishing lengths: "I am …", "I thank you for …", and, lastly, a closing as "…but even more I'd thank you for the rain". All these three fixed lines may appear in synonymous variants. An example of a short solo might be "I am Abelard, I thank you for the honey, but even more I'd thank you for the rain", but being more elaborate in the first, "I am" part will let other players relate to you more easily. Let your imagination carry you further! :)
Phase II — plea invocations
Between phase I and II there is an unstructured intermission, when you are allowed to agree on the amount of solos in the upcoming phase. If you choose to do it, set this number so that after the end of this phase, there is still one or two players who didn't have a solo during the game.
The phase starts with mid-volume instrumental playing. This time, while each player plays in rhythm (to the best of their ability), each plays in their own tempo, and arriving at the common rhythm should be avoided. Such playing should be continued during the solos, but more quietly. Initiating the solo is the same as in phase I.
In this phase, there are again three parts in the solo, and their fixed lines are: "I am …", "I ask you for …", "…but even more I ask for the rain."
Phase III — revelation
In the intermission before this phase, identify who didn't have a solo yet. This person, or a group (hopefully small), will have special rules in phase III. The process of initiation will be different and there is only one single solo, which is usually shorter, as it just describes a task for the role-played community (realizing this task will not be a part of the game anymore). Try to connect this task with themes that appeared during the game.
The background played in this phase is by default quiet and without rhythm; during initiation or a solo it turns to complete silence. There are at most three solo attempts initiated again by raising a hand — but this time with no pointing. Initiators should not repeat.
1) During the first signalled silence, only people who didn't have a solo before may have a final solo (i.e. give a "fictional task" to the group from the gods).
2) During the second silence, anyone who wishes may take a solo.
3) During the third silence, people who didn't have a solo before "should" deliver the final solo.
Game end
The game ends after the final solo (whether it was the first, second or third attempt).
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