By: Nick Proctor
Executive Director
The Reacting Consortium

The first rule of Emperor's Club is that you do not talk.

I attended my first Reacting conference at Smith College in January 2005. I’d run a couple of Reacting games by this point, but as anyone who attends a conference well knows, playing a game is a very different experience. Dana Johnson, Reacting’s first administrative director, dropped me into Confucianism and the Succession Crisis of the Wanli Emperor, 1587, and cast me as the Son of Heaven himself, Emperor Wan-li. Not wanting to let down the people of China (or Dana), I took game preparation seriously. I read the gamebook and pored over the Analects. I also practiced my Chinese calligraphy. I wrote the symbol for harmony/peace/togetherness (和) over and over again. I was determined to be a good emperor.

The best pregame conversation I had was in the lobby of a little hotel next to campus. Struggling to understand the degree to which my role could be convinced, I had a good long talk with a couple of student preceptors. The game focuses on Wan-li’s attitude toward succession. He wanted his third born son to replace him. I was distressed because the Analects suggested that Wan-li was wrong. Couldn’t I be persuaded? They urged me to be true to my role sheet. I remained a bit disgruntled, so I turned to the Analects for guidance. Consequently, when the game started, I was determined to be as proper as possible. Two analects guided me. The first is at the beginning of chapter two, “He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.”

A few pages later, Confucious provided me with some additional advice, when he explained that the superior man “acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his actions.” I did not know how to escape from the dilemma that faced me, so I sat with my uncertainty. All day long, I listened. I whispered a few things in the ear of my First Grand Secretary, but I never spoke aloud.

A few years later, Mark Carnes told me that this caused some consternation for my GM. At a break, Mark asked him how the game was going. “Fine,” my GM said, “but my Emperor – I don’t think he gets it. He’s just sitting there.” Mark is appropriately sage-like about this sort of thing, so he just shrugged and said, “Let’s see what happens.”

It was a two-day conference. I’d spent the first presiding with gravity, and I was scheduled to give a speech on the second day. Preparing for it was when Reacting hooked me.

That evening, while others gathered and socialized, I sat at my hotel desk in the cold air, the iron New England dark. My dog-eared Analects was open and heavily annotated. My little book of Chinese calligraphy exercises was open too. I’ve read a lot of Faulkner, so I sat with these garrulous outraged baffled ghosts, listening, having to listen, as I turned myself to writing my speech.

Using a keyboard seemed improper, so I wrote by hand. There were lots of cross-outs. I kept finding analects and counter-analects. I entered that space where time disappears; you have nothing before you but the task. When I surfaced, I rewrote the whole thing in clear script. I finished up with a Chinese symbol for each page. These would help me to stay organized. The next morning, I got to the classroom about twenty minutes early.

Some grand secretaries had been irksome. I wanted to head off any potential for disobedience, so I pushed all the tables together to make one big one. Then I put chairs around the margins of it and placed one chair – my throne – on top. Eunuchs would have been useful, but a good emperor does what he needs to do. After all, the Master said, “The business of laying on the colors follows the preparation of the plain ground.” When people started trickling in, my First Grand Secretary helped me with stage management. Once everyone was seated, I entered the room, used the chair she’d kept clear to get on top of the table, and sat. The grand secretaries reacted in different ways. Some clearly agreed with the assessment the GM shared with Mark. Others smirked. Some rose and bowed with appropriate depth. One chortled. He would get his soon enough.

The FGS got things moving. As before, I retrained myself. Nodding sagely from time to time, I followed the discussion. Then, it was time to speak. I didn’t wait for the FGS to recognize me. I just started speaking. When I started, two grand secretaries audibly yelped. Their deportment left something to be desired, but one of the purists bowed so deeply that his forehead made an audible bonk on the table. He totally got it. This abject obedience made him untouchable. The speech prepared the ground well. Most grand secretaries agreed that their filial piety was the paramount virtue, so they remained obedient and supported my succession plans. One troublemaker was angling for martyrdom, so we sent him to investigate the rude tribes living west of Shaanxi. When the FGS announced this, he broke character and started complaining that this meant there was “no way he could win.” How offensive! Foul disrespecter of the rites! I reversed myself and had him executed instead.

Afterwards, our preceptor asked if she could have my written speech. Was this like asking for the set list after a particularly good rock concert? I enthusiastically handed it over.

Has this ever happened again? No. Regardless, it helped to cement Wan-li as my favorite game in the series. This is not just because it has the potential for building a fanbase. I love it because everyone needs to use the same central text. They understand the world differently, but they need to describe it through the prism of the analects. This always takes a little while for players to figure out, but once they do, it is a real thing of beauty. Philosophy and politics are enmeshed. On top of that, the game structure is elegant and pure. It seems too simple, but it is not. If we had the Brilliancy Prize back then, this would have been a shoo-in.

This Fall, Reacting is bringing back online workshops for games, if you have any interest in having a formative Reacting experience be sure to sign up to play Confucianism and the Succession Crisis of the Wanli Emperor, 1587, on October 25th!

Register Today!