GMed my first game with the QSv3 (Gencon draft) yesterday. I may post a more narrative write-up on a blog later; for now, my system-related notes.
– The players struggled with the flow of teamwork at first, in part due to my failure to articulate it. Next time, I may say, “Think of it as ‘initiative for a game with no NPC die-rolling” and see if that helps.
– The act of answering questions to fill in the setting produced some gems! I hope that the final version doesn’t spell out too much more of the city.
(E.g., the Whisper asked, “how does anyone do medical research, if bodies have to be seized and cremated within hours of death?” Our answer: “illegally!”, and the Whisper’s Vice of “dissecting corpses to learn anatomy” was born)
– Both players were familiar with and comfortable with the idea of escalating danger as a drive to narrative. So they took a lot of devil’s bargains and suffered consequences without bothering to resist.
– I’ve seen guidelines elsewhere for how many clocks to give the players to challenge them. For now, I can say that 4 segments per player (e.g., two 4-clocks for two PCs) is a cakewalk, especially if they get one controlled roll.
– For Overindulgence costs, neither player could ever see themselves pawning off every item they own save one as a cost. They were happy to Overindulge and temporarily lose access, as they immediately set out a Long Term Project of finding a new supplier.
(The Cutter’s vice was Obligation: his wife and kids elsewhere in the city. When he got kicked out for coming home with stolen goods – again – his LTP was to get back into his wife’s good graces)
– I struggled to explain resistance under the new rules. “Okay, so you take an action, and it may or may not succeed, and even if it succeeds, you might get reduced effect or suffer a consequence, and if you suffer a consequence, you have the opportunity to resist it …” Eyes glazed shortly before that part.
– I didn’t find the engagement roll useful. They rolled 2d and got a bad result, meaning … the score would be hard? I’d already planned to make the score hard for them; this told me nothing.
– I ran into an issue others have noted, in that the ubiquity of ghosts and electroplasm make Attune very broadly useful. Thinking on ways to bound it.
– Are NPC project clocks meant to be public? Otherwise, I don’t see much point to them.
As for the game itself: our crew took Baszo Baz up on his offer to rob the Red Sashes. The Whisper led the crew into their hideout through a ghost door. The Cutter cracked the safe and looted as much as they could carry. They escaped thanks to their gang of shadows infiltrating the Sashes’ masked membership (a 2-stress flashback) and the Cutter bowling his way through the rest.
After downtime, we had time for one quick score, so the crew smashed up a nearby glazier’s and demanded protection money (+1 hold). They both completed their long-term projects to get back in the good graces of the Vice suppliers they’d tapped out last time.
We ended with an entanglement roll: the Inspectors, who already disliked them, asked them to step off the glaziers or it’d be war. The crew decided to fight it out, having already pissed off the Red Sashes, the Rail Jacks, and the Gondoliers. So that’ll be a fun Session 2.