Murder Ballad Blackjack

Julia Bond Ellingboe

Utensils

Index cards

Poker chips, play money, real money (not yet described how it's used here, but coming soon)

A deck of cards.

A copy of The Child Ballads (The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, compiled by Francis James Child), a similar compilation of ballads from somewhere else, a similar compilation of English/Scottish/American ballads, or just a bunch of your favorite murder ballads, ancient, old, or contemporary. Gillian Welsh's "Caleb Meyer" is a perfect example of a contemporary murder ballad, as is "One Morning". Lefty Frizzell's "Long Black Veil", isn't so much a murder ballad, but it's a perfect ballad to play in this game.

Objective

Tell the true story behind a folk/murder ballad. Each character has a stake in how the true story is told. The character who is able to endorse or alter the story the most (through winning blackjack) wins the game. This game probably doesn't take more than an hour per song. That's my hope.

For our example, we're going to use Julia's favorite murder ballad, "Pretty Polly" as sung by Ralph and Carter Stanley, as our example.

Choose a Bard and the characters. More than one person can play the same character. In fact, more than one character should play the same character, and these players should have conflicting points of view.

Each person takes two index cards. On the first one, write a few questions your character wants answered (which will lead to filling) in the details. On the second one, write a few things about the song that your character seeks to refute.

Prologue

We start at the end.

The Bard says something like "This is the song/ballad/story of Pretty Polly." He gives a quick, incendiary conclusion of the story: "She was a whore and Sweet Willie was right to stab her."

So naturally at least one of the Pretty Polly's will beg to differ, and declares what is wrong about the Bard's assumption. ("My gossiping cousin was jealous of me, and lied about my reputation to Sweet Willie".) The player can only refute one aspect of the statement, and should refute it by including notions about other characters in the song (like Sweet Willie), and possibly characters not in the song (The gossiping cousin, a de facto NPC who will be played by the Bard). If other players agree, they raise their hands and say "Amen". Those players who agree with the Bard speak up. The Bard deals two cards to each player, including himself (as the dealer), and you play blackjack.

Say the Pretty Polly who refuted the Bard's statement with "My gossiping cousin was jealous of me and lied about my reputation to Sweet Willie" won. Sweet Willie and the gossiping cousin show us the fateful scene. On the back of one of Pretty Polly's index cards she writes, a P (for Prologue) "I was not a whore."

Now someone other than that first Pretty Polly can refute or attest to the fact that Sweet Willie was right in killing Polly.

Say one of the Sweet Willies says, "Yessiree, whore or not, she deserved it because she was pregnant, and the baby wasn't mine." (Legend has it, the reason Willie killed Pretty Polly was that she was pregnant.) The first Pretty Polly cannot refute or endorse Sweet Willie's assertion, it's the second Pretty Polly's turn (of course, if there's only one Pretty Polly she can speak up again.)

The bard deals the cards around again, the person who gets 21 wins the conflict, writes a P. If the Bard wins, all players write a P and the statement which the Bard recites again. Let's say the Bard won. Because he made the original assertion, he gives one more sentence to elaborate, and the scene is acted out by any Polly or Willie who agreed with the Bard.

To recap: In the Prologue, the Bard gives a quick, inciteful conclusion to the song, including two or three statements that are certain to rile up a character. The first statement can only be refuted. Subsequent statements can be refuted or attested.

The Song Begins

Sweet Willie is the first voice in the song, so he says the first verse. If you have more than one Sweet Willie, the players choose a speaker, and subsequently take turns simply reciting their lines of the song. If the verse or line is in the third person, the Bard says it.

If anyone has any questions about this verse, or wishes to refute it, he speaks up.

If it's a question (i.e., "how long have they been courting?", or "is Polly the only woman he's courting?), the Bard gives an answer (again, it should be one with which any character will vehemently disagree), and so continues playing blackjack to win conflicts, and characters take turns acting out what really happened.

If a character refutes fact ("We were in bed together and he simply turned to me and asked her for a cigarette.") Same thing.

Whenever a character wins a conflict, she writes a statement about the story on her card, preceded by a number. (P for Prologue, 1 for the first conflict, 2 for the second conflict, etc.)

Epilogue

When you get to the end of the song, each person takes turns reading in order, the statements they won. Count up who has the most statements, that person is the winner.

The Bard then makes another statement about the song, summing up all that happened outside the song.