I ran my first session last night! My players created a Cutter, Leech, and a Slide organized into a Hawker Crew. The Cutter encouraged connections with the Red Sashes, who gave them a task: infiltrate an art auction and steal a famous portrait, the “Brona Misa.” It was a quick Score (only about an hour) but they didn’t get away without plenty of stress and a few entanglements.
The session was really fun but we found the game to be surprisingly procedural and gamey, especially considering the regular “fiction first” reminders in the book. We were able to get snippets of roleplay, but the lion’s share of gameplay was very technical. Is this something that will become more balanced as we become more familiar with the rules? We all like gamey games but we wanted a strong narrative experience as well.
Huh? My sessions are the complete opposite: We have story, story, story and only few rolls + mechanics. BUT: I’m blessed with a group of people who know the rules like the back of their hands and therefor we don’t explain anymore and discuss only a little bit.
So: Yes, this will be more balanced when you have players who are willing to invest prep time into the game.
I think this is an example of the difference between players who say:
“I’ll roll Tinker to pick the lock”
and players who say:
“I sneak up to the door and peer through the key hole, “coasts clear” I whisper as I motion the Leech forward to pick the lock”.
The difference mechanically is small, the Leech rolls tinker in both cases. But the player actually roleplayed to get to those moves. There’s a rule of thumb called “If they do it, then they have to do it”. If someone says “I prowl to get past the guard” ask them to describe how. Players shouldn’t name moves, they should describe what theyre doing to tackle an obstical and only then make a roll that’s appropriate to what they describe.
Tl;Dr Fiction first; roll when the outcome of an action is uncertain.
Thanks for the tips! Another thing that may have been a factor in our game was that I wanted to get through a Score/Downtime cycle but we were running out of time. We’ll have more breathing room in the next session, which will almost certainly allow for more roleplay.