In Dark Alleys is a difficult game to write about in part because it’s a very dense game. It’s the kind of game where what your character does for a living changes the point costs of skills at character generation. It’s the kind of game that has an equipment cost list in 8pt font and lists everything from Scuba Gear to Peephole Reversers to four different kinds of Flashlights. It’s the kind of game that presents the default setting of Los Angeles as a large amount of statistics likely pulled down from census and other data gathering sites. It’s the kind of game that has all kinds of made up and extremely detailed lore about every supernatural thing. It’s the kind of game where character creation is the first 124 pages of the book, most of that being lists and descriptions of classes, skills, powers, equipment, advantages and disadvantages. It is a very dense game.
And yet, despite all that, it has a very compelling core premise. The idea is that the power hierarchy in our current culture, especially here in the United States, is created and maintained because all the marginalized and oppressed identities and people possess supernatural power that could be used to liberate ourselves if they were free to truly be themselves. The game calls out patriarchy. It calls out abusive police. It calls out oppressed gender identity. It calls out poor treatment of immigrants. More than anything else it calls out the hypocrisy with which we treat homelessness. In fact, that’s where the name gets its name: “In Dark Alleys” because that’s where classicism and white supremacy likes to sweep away all the things that offends them.
I am so here for the fundamental premise of this game. However, I will say that the implementation of this idea is…. Problematic. I know a lot of people don’t like that word but I think it’s very apt here. The game is extremely well intentioned but then does a lot of very questionable things. For example, many of the character classes, for lack of a better term, are based on marginalized identities. For example, Androgynes are people who derive supernatural power from gender fluidity. Which, by itself, sounds pretty cool. But the included lore goes on to badly conflate gender and sexual orientation. And that’s a repeated pattern through the text; really compelling idea followed by questionable detailed execution.
To give you an idea here are all the character classes in brief (these descriptions are pulled directly from the text and therefore illustrate my point about cool idea + problematic execution):
Androgynes- Have discovered there is a power to human sexuality, a power beyond and capable of changing our bodies and our genders.
Animists- Heirs to aboriginal wisdom, they learn to speak to the spirits that are everywhere and gain power using dangerous drugs.
Cannibals- Monks and priests who deny the flesh, break taboos, mutilate themselves and gain powerful phantom body parts.
Faustians- Alien entities living in their minds give them mental strength and supernatural powers but have their on agendas.
Heroes- Troubled vigilantes, some with unusual powers, who seek meaning in life by hunting supernatural horrors.
Lost- Become lost, often while drunk, and end up wherever they want to be, sometimes even in places that don’t exist in this world.
Outcasts- Labeled crazy because they can see and hear things others can’t. They know the city’s supernatural places, people and things.
Professionals- Workaholic problem-solvers who have earned the trust of the Powers-That-Be and access to special training by secret societies.
Scribblers- Heretical academics, study dark philosophies, trade knowledge by writing graffiti in dark places.
Survivors- Having overcome death by force of will, they find themselves nearly immortal, yet hunted by something from beyond.
Wonderlanders- The fantastic worlds of their childhood imagination are real. Things and people can cross between them and this world.
What I keep circling back to with this game is the ambitious premise and the basic ideas. In play I would probably strip down the lore to just its fundamental ideas and rework it to taste. However, there’s also a mechanical element I find really compelling: The Psychodynamics System.
Every character has eight psychodynamic stats rated from 1 to 20. These stats represent how influential various elements of the character’s internal identity influences their behavior. The stats are as follows.
Animus/Anima -- How much the character is influenced by impulses associated with the opposite gender identity. A non-binary person would set this stat very low.
Ego - This stat is about keeping the other stats in tune to create a whole identity rather than singular impulses.
Id - How much the character is influenced by impulses associated with pleasure seeking.
Reptile - How much the character is influenced by impulses associated with raw survival.
Super-Ego - How much the character is influenced by impulses dealing with avoiding punishment or judgement for doing bad things.
Shadow - How much the character is influenced by impulses to do bad things.
Stranger - How much the character is influenced by empathy for others not like themselves.
Thanatos - How much the character is influenced by death wish like impulses.
In addition to rating these stats from 1 to 20, a psychodynamic can become corrupted. A corrupted psychodynamic in which the impulses are so overblown or so suppressed such that the character has an unhealthy behavior pattern around that stat. For example, if Stranger becomes corrupted the character basically becomes xenophobic, completely distrusting anyone perceived as “other.”
In play there are basically two ways these stats can help you and three ways they can hinder you. All five ways involve either the player (if it’s a benefit) or the GM (if it’s a hindrance) rolling a d20, adding the stat and trying to beat a 20. Assuming that succeeds here’s the breakdown of outcomes.
Psychodynamic Help (Player Rolls)
-Insight - The character gets a bit of information from a “feeling” or intuition relevant to the stat rolled.
-Aid - The character gets an on-going bonus based on the margin of success for some stated goal guided by that stat.
Psychodynamic Harm (GM Rolls)
-Impulse - The character compulsively does something they did not intend to do.
-Slip - Similar to Impulse but less direct. The kind of thing you wouldn’t even notice you were doing.
-Hinderance - The opposite of Aid. The margin of success acts as a penalty while the character is acting counter to the impulses associated with that stat.
The systems associated with the psychodynamic stats are really basic but I find them extremely compelling. In a game ostensibly about identity vs power and the things we keep hidden vs the things that we show the world, I really like the idea of spending a lot of intimate time inside the character’s heads.
The rest of the system is about what you’d expect from a game this dense and detailed. It’s a basic d20 roll, plus a stat vs a target number, the standard value of which is 20. And there’s all the expected sub-systems for combat, chases, diseases, drugs, poisons, drowning and falling. It’s all very basic and functional. Nothing inspirational but nothing that’s going to fall apart in play either. The phrase I like to use for such things is, “It’s fine.”
Another thing I really appreciate about the game is its XP system. At its core, it’s just a basic get points, spend points on advancement system. But what I like is that the game actually breaks down what kinds of accomplishments and behaviors are worth XP. I think here, more than anywhere else, the game reveals its good intentions in what might otherwise be construed as a cynical, nihilistic grab to be “edgy”.
One XP reward is for “scaring the other players” which could be worrisome as a goal if it were not placed in the context of “making friends”, “personal growth”, “making the world a better place” and “working well as group” as four other called out categories of XP. The XP system makes it clear that yes, this a game about people damaged by the world and that manifests in dark and scary ways but it is also a game about coming together to grow and make the world a better place. For all it’s flaws, I admire In Dark Alley’s attempt at finding a heart in our corrupt and falling world.
Bonus Thought: The game has a supplement called Abandoned which at the time of writing this article I have not had time to read in detail. However, from my general skim through it, it is one giant love letter to Silent Hill which is basically my favorite video game series. From what I’ve seen it’s very much keyed into the themes of abuse and trauma that are so central to the lore of Silent Hill. And like the core book it undermines itself my over developing themes with too much detail. Together In Dark Alleys and Abandoned both enthralls and frustrates me. A true “heartbreaker” with all the love and sadness that phrase is meant to carry.
In Dark Alleys can be found here in pdf format: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/147671/In-Dark-Alleys-PDF--donate-a-book
Next Up: Riders by Caias Ward. A game about playing mortal servants of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse who have changed their mind about ending the world.
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I'd never heard of In Dark Alleys before, but it seems like it doesn't quite know what it wants to be. The break down of the psyche is so individually detailed but overall broad it would be a useful tool for any character creation. Quantifying the elements of a character like this helps give an idea of who the character is far better than any alignment or snippet of backstory. Mechanically I love that your nature can backfire on you, so long as whoever is running the game doesn't use it to take too much control away from players.
The biggest question I'd have is why go super natural? It seems like such a good system to throw curve balls at players in any genre of game. Espionage, fantasy, sci-fi, even something that is grounded in everyday life could be made into thought provoking commentary by the author of a world using the systems in a way a short story or film couldn't. Maybe I'm missing some of the point since I haven't dove into the material but it almost seems tacked on to give the players some action and an over arching goal.
I suppose this highlights a part of table top gaming that draws me here. Anyone can write rules for a system and any one can change them for their own group. I'd have fun just making characters with the psychodynamic system. Rolling through situations on my own would still have twists that challenge me since the game almost gives cues. Even by myself I'm not writing a story alone. It's the kind of story telling that, once you establish characters, you can really pick up at anytime. Just a chatroom and a few friends is all you need to start having fun.
There's a reason I didn't go into the world lore. It's a weird collection of supernatural strangeness informed by the aesthetics of abandoned buildings, urban decay, and a survey course in philosophy. But it in no way serves the stated premise of being about the status quo power structure.
A good example is one of the sample adventures. The premise is that friend of the PCs has fallen into a coma with no known medical cause. The PCs then receive a phone call from him. Turns out he's trapped in some other worldly plane that manifests as an abandoned city. After researching it's discovered that he was practicing lucid dreaming. While dreaming he kept coming across a black marble that seemed to want to suck him in. It eventually did. Now he's being stalked by some weird monsters and the PCs have to save him.
And that's it. It very much feels like it's "tacked on to give the players some action and an over arching goal." I find myself asking, "What does this have to do with maintaining the status quo for power?" Like it would be way more interesting to discover that beings at the hospital were mining his soul or something as metaphor for our broken medical system. Instead it's just "ooo a secret world and a monster."
It says a lot of your breakdown of the game that I could infer something like that. I don't see what's wrong with just making a system to get people thinking. You can help guide what kind of story is made with things like the skills and attributes you fill in when making a character. Obviously don't be ham fisted with it by putting in literal oppression points but something like the psyche can encourage players to think along the lines of less action more roleplay.
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