The Forge Archives

My fledgling group played its second session of Dust Devils tonight. If you recall my earlier posting on it, I said that the group was having some problems with getting into play.  I am happy to say that those problems have been overcome.

I followed the advice Julie mentioned earlier, to make the story about the characters, not my "wonderful plot".  I concentrated on what the players had indicated in their kickers. By having carefully tied my plot into their kickers, the three characters, previously isolated and uninvolved with each other, and now thicker than thieves and wholly engaged in the plot structure I created.

The players saw the kicker based carrots I dangled in front of them and dove in immediately. They were fully engaged, and happily arranging what scenes would play out and how they would play out.

We had a minimum of actual in-game violence. Exactly one fight, just to prove that people were serious.  It was a close thing for our hero, who nearly had his brains bashed out on a piano to the tune of Ultraviolence in C major.

All in all, a very satisfactory session, even if there was a lot of room for improvement.  Most of that improvement is in greater organization on my part.  I felt that cutting between the bangs was very good, but I don't feel that I was always clear on where people were going after those scenes played out.

Sounds like you had a great session, Clay. Good to hear it.

Did any issues come up that you think I should address in the next DD revision?Sounds like play for your group is going pretty smoothly, so even if you don't have rules considerations, how about other material, like playing "advice" I might include? Any suggestions are welcome!

Thanks for playing the game, and I'm very pleased your group's having fun with it.

Matt

Quote from: Matt Snyder
Did any issues come up that you think I should address in the next DD revision?Sounds like play for your group is going pretty smoothly, so even if you don't have rules considerations, how about other material, like playing "advice" I might include? Any suggestions are welcome!

We did get tangled up about how to handle "difficulty". We were basing it on the number of cards exceeding the opponents cards, and combat was slowed terribly. A re-read of the rules shows that difficulty comes from the number of cards in the winning hand, and devil take what's in the losing hand (i.e. it isn't a mitigating factor).  Not a problem with the rules at all, just our understanding.

Some text addressing what it takes to be a protagonist would be helpful. In particular, "saving my character's life" is a good deal less important than getting yourself into trouble so that you can have a heroic adventure getting out of that trouble.  We had some trouble with that initially, but we probably had it in hand in our last session.

My concern is that because this game relies so heavily on the players to make themselves into protagonists, the necessities of the role should be laid out explicitly.  I suspect that somebody who grew up in a gamist environment isn't going to naturally think of getting themselves into hot water as the path to glory.

Hey,

I agree with Clay about the emphasis on characters doing things. The game is about dealing with your devil, and not so much about surviving another day, or saving the town, or getting the gal or whoever. Those things may or may not happen along the way, but the devil, you can bet on being there.

Best,
Ron