Bitter Tears at Sad Mary’s

Bitter Tears at Sad Mary’s is a wonderful interactive drama freeform live action role playing game by Scott Beattie and Tonia Walden that plays with the nature of reality. It is predominately an experiment in deconstructive interactive drama with a twist. It is a small piece with merely a dozen players but it is complex and so not really appropriate for most groups. the piece is a live action or freeform adatpation of the Over the Edge tabletop RPG by Atlas Games (there is also an On the Edge trading card game so I like to think of interactive drama adaptations as being Off the Edge). BTW, while the mechanics of these games are pretty straightforward and uncomplicated, the actual setting is very complex and is very engaging to the thinking gamer – the kind who read critical theory and philosophy and art reviews and the like. An academic troupe would find it most appropriate. The Life of Brian entries on Interactive Drama include links to other resources . . . including my own troupe and scenario archives (my doctoral dissertation is on interactive drama scenarios).