Hiding in the Mosque: a micro RPG experiment
Ron Edwards:
Double-yes, what Callan said.
Best, Ron
randomeric:
Great feedback, thank you very much!
I will post here shortly a bit on why I took the direction I did and how the larger product is intended to be different. I hadn't thought of the "fiction" part in that way. Good insight.
Thanks!
Eric.
Fred Brackin:
Okay, this is an after play report from Eric's personal playtest group where I hope to address some comments made previously.
The possibility that the players might go awol on the mission turned out to be a needed subject in our first play session. Our group ended up trying to take hostages during our initial briefing.
Our GM did not resort to harsh measures but instead just talked and played through the situation and eventually got things back on track after some diversions involving butter knives, electric cords, a chair or two and a tobacco shop.
This is not to say that we agreed that the situation was ideal and it was suggested afterward that not combining the PC's awakening as amnesiac super-spies and their first mission briefing might be advisable.
Anyway, this ended up being far more like a wilderness expedition than any sort of railroad train.
For example, we discovered that there were two mosques and two terrorists groups fairly directly. When confronted with the two "contacts" one of our group members did a lot of fast-talking and we split the group and half went with each of them.
When the two halves ended up at different mosques this actually constituted progress of a sort.
The politically sensitive will be glad to learn that while we eventually decided that terrorists were bad, fights in mosques were also bad and fights between Westerners and terrorists and possibly the Uzbek military in mosques were double-plus bad.
So we lured the terrorists out of both mosques and to a mostly abandoned Soviet-era apartment block and then notified the Bureau where they were. We didn't even try to dispose of them ourselves. The Power of 12 narrative system would not necessarily have been unusually bloody (or difficult) when conducting close quarters combat with AK-47s and RPGs but just as a roleplaying thing avoiding such a thing seemed so sensible.
So, after actual play, I would mostly recommend no more than a tweaking of the opening to address specific concerns.
As a general matter of this particular implementation I might suggest some change in the concept of Modus Operandi. While I understand that these were supposed to be stylistic choices of how to play the character (do you want to do it like Bond or the Martin Landau character from the original Mission:Impossible TV series?), I seemed to notice all the players treating their MO ratings as defining their skill sets instead of their play style.
Still, there's no doubt that this was a very successful pair of game sessions and fun was had by all..
Callan S.:
Quote from: Fred Brackin on September 10, 2011, 04:13:50 PM
The possibility that the players might go awol on the mission turned out to be a needed subject in our first play session. Our group ended up trying to take hostages during our initial briefing.
I think I need to know more before that moment. How was the game set up? Just hooked people in saying "Hey, here's a game!? Sit down and get your dice out!"
It sounds like the premise wasn't described (or was missinterpreted) and the "Either focus on the premise or, it's cool, you don't have to play (subtext: You don't get to play)" choice wasn't presented? I'm not trying to say that with a wagging finger or anything - it's not a moral issue I'm refering to with consent/denial of play, but a practical one in focusing the group.
How would you describe what happened prior to play begining?
Fred Brackin:
Quote from: Callan S. on September 10, 2011, 04:47:47 PM
Quote from: Fred Brackin on September 10, 2011, 04:13:50 PM
The possibility that the players might go awol on the mission turned out to be a needed subject in our first play session. Our group ended up trying to take hostages during our initial briefing.
I think I need to know more before that moment. How was the game set up? Just hooked people in saying "Hey, here's a game!? Sit down and get your dice out!"
We're Eric's regular gaming group. In the past he's been a player more than a GM but when he asked if we'd help him test his new stuff we said "sure!".
We did read the player parts of the download before we played.
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