I played session #2 with the crew referenced here: https://plus.google.com/109896206941346348750/posts/11JSxdSVw26…

I played session #2 with the crew referenced here: https://plus.google.com/109896206941346348750/posts/11JSxdSVw26  We were using the GenCon draft still, since I didn’t want to spend time re-allocating everyone’s Action dots.

Notes and feedback:

* It feels like a lot of the Entanglement options repeat. Twice in the last session, we rolled some variant of “someone you know got nabbed; they either spill details to the Bluecoats or you pay 2 Coin”. On one of those occasions, I substituted “The Inspectors” instead of “The Bluecoats,” since the crew was already at war with the Inspectors.

* The abstraction of Effect and the factors that weigh in on it is handy, but takes some getting used to, and a lot of trust between players and GM. Our Cutter had a habit of wading into mobs with his big leviathan maul. With a successful roll, there’d be some quick tallying, followed by an “eh,” and a number of wedges filled. “Well, you’re brutal, and it’s a fine heavy weapon, but you’re outnumbered, so the heaviness doesn’t really matter, so … three wedges? Yeah, three wedges.”

(Thankfully, the Cutter took whatever ability lets him ignore mob scale with his advancement, so that’s one less factor I need to worry about)

* Realizing the “Controlled / Risky / Desperate” spectrum was my easiest way of dialing difficulty up or down was the biggest eye-opener for me.

* I couldn’t find anywhere in my version of the QS that explicitly says “when a crew’s Heat fills up, erase it all and give them a level of Wanted.” Is that how it works? Some other way?

* I still love Devil’s Bargains. “Half of your notes are Devil’s Bargains and complications!” one player lamented.

* There’s no Stitch in the latest version of the rules, which led our players to wonder how the Whisper could help the Cutter recover from his severe harm. We settled on Tinker (stitching is stitching, right?).

As for the actual events of the session:

– To prevent the Inspectors from burning down the glazier they were extorting, the Blackstone Outfit brawled them in the streets, summoning a demon in the process. That demon later showed up (Entanglement: Demonic Pact), asking the Whisper to get it a child, since apparently demonic possession ages a body unnaturally fast. The Whisper snuck a child out of an insane asylum (“it’s no WORSE off!”) and led it back to the demon secretly, since the Cutter and the rest of the gang would have nothing to do with it.

– To ease off the coming war with the Inspectors, the crew decided to break into the house of the corrupt Inspector who was hounding them and steal something personal – her heirloom saber. A series of escalations too numerous to list led to the Whisper going catatonic through ghostly hallucination (severe harm), the Cutter murdering the Inspector he meant to merely stun (serious complication), and her house being set on fire (serious complication).

– The Blackstone Outfit tiered up (tier 0 to tier 1). While laying low from their misadventures with the corrupt Inspector, a lot of local thugs and miscreants were talking them up in the street. They emerged from hiding to find a few more young toughs at their disposal. Nothing helps you keep a low profile like thugs who want to murder more cops.

– Coming up: the Red Sashes’ “Find The Blackstone Outfit’s Secret Hideout” clock is one wedge short of completion, the Inspectors look for a subtler way to deal with this murderous new gang, and that bone carving in the shape of a cresting leviathan that the Cutter nicked has to come up somehow …