Dreamation in Brief: Part One

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Purchased thus far: New Tales of Miskatonic Valley, Solar System (aka the system for The Shadows of Yesterday) pdf and print, the latter to be delivered, as IPR ran out. I'm not expecting to buy more stuff, other than food.

Played thus far:

Mouse Guard, which had my usual two issues, though it was a fun session. Issue one is the disconnect I have between the rolling and roleplaying. matt_rah pointed out the rule of advantage dice, which really helps, and jlighton suggested a minor hack of switching to Fortune in the Middle. Issue two is that the rules are still crunchy, but that's something I know is a factor going in. And, familiarity with BW/BE plus the streamlining of Mouse Guard rules did help.

Misery Bubblegum, which logically should have had the same disconnect, but did not, quite probably because the rules are simpler and the flow is faster. The mechanics really feel like they support the soap opera angst. I'll probably buy this one, and I'd be happy to read over a pre-publication version and check for clarity.

Call of Cthulhu, where there was an interesting moral dilemma, and we split on how to handle it.

Don't Rest Your Head, with a stealth playtest of new rules for helping, which worked out well. This was the first time I did character generation for the game, as I've only played convention runs of it, and all the others used pregens. We did good collaborative work on the PCs, and drivingblind noted a weakness of the way he used the idea of the mad city in the book. As with Ted Chiang's take on a story that he wrote, but considered flawed, I find myself saying, "But... dang, you're right."

Dreamation in Brief: Part One

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Purchased thus far: New Tales of Miskatonic Valley, Solar System (aka the system for The Shadows of Yesterday) pdf and print, the latter to be delivered, as IPR ran out. I'm not expecting to buy more stuff, other than food.

Played thus far:

Mouse Guard, which had my usual two issues, though it was a fun session. Issue one is the disconnect I have between the rolling and roleplaying. matt_rah pointed out the rule of advantage dice, which really helps, and jlighton suggested a minor hack of switching to Fortune in the Middle. Issue two is that the rules are still crunchy, but that's something I know is a factor going in. And, familiarity with BW/BE plus the streamlining of Mouse Guard rules did help.

Misery Bubblegum, which logically should have had the same disconnect, but did not, quite probably because the rules are simpler and the flow is faster. The mechanics really feel like they support the soap opera angst. I'll probably buy this one, and I'd be happy to read over a pre-publication version and check for clarity.

Call of Cthulhu, where there was an interesting moral dilemma, and we split on how to handle it.

Don't Rest Your Head, with a stealth playtest of new rules for helping, which worked out well. This was the first time I did character generation for the game, as I've only played convention runs of it, and all the others used pregens. We did good collaborative work on the PCs, and drivingblind noted a weakness of the way he used the idea of the mad city in the book. As with Ted Chiang's take on a story that he wrote, but considered flawed, I find myself saying, "But... dang, you're right."