Role-playing isn’t just about swords, magic, spaceships, or fantasy worlds. Role playing can also be something more earthlysomething more “concrete”, and for these reasons in some cases it could even be painful. Five Dayswhich we are talking about today in our review, is part of the very small category of those more “delicate” products, those that must be handled with care, especially for strong themes treated.
The title in question was created by Claudio Serena with MS Editions, and it is one of the most atypical games we have ever approached. Let’s find out together, step by step.
“It’s not a kind game”
Precisely with these words we are accompanied inside the very short game manual: Five Days is a tough game, where players will play out the tragedy (real or metaphorical) of a dysfunctional group, and where fun will be rare, or maybe not at all. Five Days is played by asking questions and engaging in inspired discussions five stages of acceptance of grief (Denial, Anger, Negotiation, Depression, Acceptance).
It is an extremely delicate game, where the creators have placed several precautions to undertake the session, such as “don’t play if you don’t want to feel uncomfortable” and “no one should be forced if they don’t want to” to start with, but also different tools to the safety of morale of players, like the Trigger Warning and it Script Changes. Above all, it is specified that although for some players the experience can be cathartic, NOT this is a session therapy.
The manual himself tries to take us into the mood more appropriate, with black and white drawings, gray scales, disturbing and sometimes distorted, but damned eloquent drawings.
From preparation to “game”
Given the theme, prepare as best you can to play Five Days it is essential (during our test it was a fairly long-lived phase nrd). First of all it is necessary to better understand what the game is about, going through all the terms used described in the glossary (useful and essential to understand the concepts expressed in the manual). In fact, it will be very important to understand the role that the players have (not only on a gaming level, which the formula adopts master-full), that of mourning itself, and that of the family – with the various roles and backgrounds – and connections, as well as the concept of “Greater Good”.
It is also fundamental decide, Before to begin, if the story that the players will experience is of the mold supernatural or real.
What instead you shouldn’t do it, is choosing what happened, or what the accident is. Instead you need to know how long ago it occurred, so it’s better to write a note with date and place of the accident.
Once all this is done, we start with the actual match, where you choose the reason why players gathered or met. At this moment you will begin to fill out your form, with name etc., but without too many details, because there you will add during the game.
Phases
The game uses tokens to manage some of the dynamics, while players will above all have to answer questions. L’scene setting while speaking is fundamental, given that they aim to help the player do give an answer to a question he was asked. For this reason the duration is not fixed, but some ways can be used to get the player back on topic if by chance he is getting lost.
The regulation it is described in the last part of the manual, where the small steps and the procedure will be explained. Basically, a lot of it will be, as we anticipated, based on asking questions and giving answers.
As already mentioned, Five Days deals with the 5 phases of mourning, and the game takes place exactly in these: the requests and the actions that we can undertake will therefore be influenced by the phase that we are playing.
For example in phase 1Denial, spending a token can reveal a truth contradictory to what was shown, while performing the same action in the phase 2, Rage, will cause another player to hurt themselves without immediate consequences. This game, with the various questions that will have a criterion that is described in the manual, will continue until all players will not have answered 5 questions. So after the last phase (5, Acceptance) you will have an idea of what happened that day, and the moment of the final question arrives: “what happened? And why doesn’t anyone want to talk about it?”.
At the end of the manual there is also a short example story to better understand how the game unfolds (it’s easier said than done, don’t worry).
Acceptance
Five Days is therefore a game extremely delicate, a title that upon closer inspection at the beginning of the short manual alerts us to how to play, who to let play (or not to let play), and which gives us important tools to avoid “doing damage”. That said, it’s a very deep gamecapable of making us explore and dig inside ourselves, but it is also true that given the very heavy themes and the intrinsic mood of the work, which Five Days is recommended (and may it be appreciated) especially from a narrow niche of players. We are sure, however, that the latter will have a unique experience.
#Days #Review #mourning #process #RPG