Thanks for running it Gregor, your notes will no doubt help me clear up order and explanation.

There is already some things I want to do with the Nemesis, as that role has changed a little from Scott Dorward's playtest.

Firstly the Pitch scene seems to work well so I will change that over, people seem to like the idea better in general.

Scott got on ok with resources, but he has seen me run it before so any feedback you can give me on order will be most helpful.

Now Nemesis changes. These are possibilities rather than confirmed at the moment:

Taking out the threat switch over between acts and just giving everyone 2, 3 then 2 scenes in acts 1, 2 and 3. There was a problem with my threat math and it made me realise this would be simpler.

The nemesis gets all his threat at the start of the act. He gets:
2x heroes in act 1
3 x heroes in act 2
2 x heroes in act 3

You will notice this is less threat than current. That is because I think the nemesis should only spend 1 threat to get a 3 impact resource. No 1 or 2 impact resources. However he can no longer bolster resources, that can only happen through action.

That solves a couple of problems. Now nemesis entrance into scenes. I think we can assume that the nemesis is always in a scene. He always draws cards for the opposition anyway. However if he wants to use resources or get outcomes from the action he must spend 1 threat.

This will hopefully solve a problem where mechanically it was better to not have the nemesis in a scene.

Threat must be spent by the end of the act it is gained in, this will incentivise the nemesis to spend it and not horde it.

I think that covers all of the nemesis stuff.

Danger: increasing it for one outcome is to little. I think it should cost the nemesis a threat and an outcome. Opinions?

I am working on the next version of the rules over the next few days as I have some time off. What I am getting so far, including your first post here Gregor, is that mechanically it is ok, but my explanation is not good enough and that the text is too dry.

Looking forward to seeing the other notes, should really help me sort the game out. I would like to have it for Games Expo but these playtests are throwing up quite a few problems, so will possibly have to delay.

Cheers

Iain

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I have my notes in Edinburgh (and I'm in Glasgow at the moment) and I'll get to them tomorrow. They're covered in pencil. I don't think it worked mechanically either, we had a few problems with that too. It was playtest version 1.8, which I hope is the latest version.

I guess I can split most of my feedback into four categories: (1) mechanics, (2) wording/order of rules in the text, (3) examples and (4) roleplaying.

(1) For the mechanics there were some stuff that I didn't get, I guess your Threat stuff above might help me for the Nemesis. But I don't know off the top of my head, we'll have to try it out. We were playing 1 evil player and 1 good player (see the note about that terminology below) and I had only 1 Threat to start. And we only have 4 Acts then an epilogue, right? With two scenes in Act 1, two in Act 2 and 1 in Act 3 then the Finale in Act 4? So, why would Cat f*ck about with colour scenes? The scene budget is thin and she can only bring in a new resource once per scene. Again, if you bring something in then I strongly think you can't chop and change (as is written in the rules doc we had). You write it down, you've got to use it. Also the sheets are riddled with errors and inconsistencies, which didn't help (the scenes are upside down, right?).

(2) The order of rules was a total pain and there were duplicated sections that overlapped. I managed to work it out with a lot of head scratching. There's also the fact you have all the Nemesis stuff at the tail as if it were a GM section, when functionally it needs to be with the other player stuff as we're all players sitting round the same table. There was also a real lack of advice for me as the Nemesis player. Cat had loads written on her sheets (relatively), where mine were pretty blank after a while. There's also stuff that just is mysterious for a long time -- we were fascinated by this huge "5" on our sheets for the longest time. Was it to do with our background? Was it some secret sigil? You need to tell me what is what on the sheets totally up front. You need to tell people to collect red tricks and bin black tricks once they've been used for narration. That would clear up a lot. All the jargon about "authorial" and "actor" stuff has to go. It also seemed that if Cat spent outcomes to reduce my Threat, did it just go to a minimum of 1 then back up to 2 on the next scene? Or can it go to 0 then to 1? Or what? Oh, and when you reduce a resource how's that work? Do you cross of the 1 or the 3? That matters, since one is 1 card and one is 3 cards. Anyway, we were scratching our heads a fair but when trying to play.

(3) The examples are abysmal when there and mostly absent. This really didn't help us. One of the hands has the Nemesis and the player both drawing the 7 of Spades. Do you have a magic card deck? I hope not! And you really need to have something better than 6, 9 or 12 Question Marks as a character name in the examples. What's so bad about Black Bob? Or Bluebeard? Or Coleton? Or anything? C'mon, man. And if you could show me where Molly uses the cutlass in the scene where she "has an action scene to highlight her Cutlass" that would be great. I mean, she drinks, a lot, she throws a single headbutt that creams a "couple" of thugs (how big's her head?), jumps out a window, stamps on people, mounts a horse and rides away. No f'in cutlass! C'mon! I also thought that Molly had closed off the scene when the Nemesis didn't reply (and she automatically won the last trick) but then the Nemesis opens the door back up with the King's Men (winning unopposed). Can you do this when you see Molly only got a black or red card. That matters, right? When can you make the decision to match or not? Anyway, I thought that was a strange rule that Molly had to respond but the Nemesis apparently didn't. I really wanted a blow-by-blow example of a scene for sure.

(4) Which leads into the roleplaying... is it happening in the action scenes? Colour scenes? For us, it was like "Umm, talk a bit freeform and then, umm, one of you talks a lot setting up your scene then we'll move on since it was colour. Or, um, we'll play a hand of cards, and spend the Outcomes." Examples won't kill you to write them and they'll help me a load. It seemed like the only role-playing we were putting in was on us and wasn't supported or encouraged by anything except us as players. I think the framework could be there in the exchanges (a bit like when you push in Best Friends, say). But it needs spelled out and more advice than there presently is.

It seemed sparse and incomplete overall. You've been playing a fair bit so I can only assume these are more like notes that you can use/refer to, while we need something we can use from scratch.

Oh... THE NOTE ABOUT PLAYER TERMINOLOGY
You have to come up with some way to describe the various roles better -- the text hops between players, Nemesis and Heroes, Evil Players, Good Players and so on. You need to be clearer on describing them and flagging up who the "you" in the text refers to. At times Cat thought it was her, while I thought it was me. (For anyone keeping count, Cat was right and I was wrong!) In the fiction we have the Nemesis and the Heroes. At the table we have players, most of them play a Hero, one plays the Nemesis. We also have a player in charge of a scene and other players in the scene, who don't have the same responsibilities or control. That needs to be crystal clear.

Ouch, but I have no doubt fair comments. I will reply in the same manner, splitting up the sections.

1) The threat amount would be different now that you start with, but you would only get 1 threat under current rules. Each hero should get 2, 3 then 2 scenes in Act 1, 2 and 3, there was a mistake in my threat math for 1.8 which meant it was 2, 2.5, then 2.

Colour scenes: these are there to have those downtime moments that happen in action films. You can introduce a resource in them so I don't see the problem with them personally.

Your comment about 'the scenes being upside down' is that a reference to the script sheet?

2) You are right on the nemesis front, I really need to bring that into the body of the text rather than hanging at the end like a gm section.

The 5: Will explain that upfront, maybe summarising on the sheets as well.

Threat and resource reduction: Yep, that needs clarification. It would seem most logical to tick of the largest value box as that would actually reduce its usefullness.

Tricks: Getting rid of the black ones is a good idea, will add that in. Certainly make the table less crowded.

3) I really need to rework, and finish, the examples, Neil was commenting on those as well.

4) It has happened differently with different groups. Some have more told a story than roleplayed with it, some have got into their characters for a bit before finding the action in a scene and going to the cards. More guidelines and examples will no doubt help there.

I was struggling with terminology as I wrote it up I will try and clarify that as best I can for the next version.

I think what I will be doing over the next few days, some time off work thankfully, I will start with a blank page and lay out the game from the start looking at what needs to be explained when and where. When I decide what goes where, I will try and write the plan up for the book and put it up here for further comment. I think it would be useful for people, inluding me, to get advice on layout and explanation of rules.

Thanks again for taking the time gregor, this is all very helpful.

Cheers

Iain

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I'd say we told a story, we were in that camp. But as Cat was pointing out to me at the time, the story was just coming from us going back and forth rather than from the game. We did get some stuff coming in the exchanges, so that's something to get people into.

I think a plan for the sections from the top would be a great idea.

On the good side I have a lot of questions that if you can answer then you'll have a much stronger text. That's all good to me.

Oh, while I remember I thought when playing that declaring what the scene type was at the outset was the way to go. I don't know how this affects the Nemesis-player's ability to jump in, but it seemed to stop the waffling pre-amble that was at the start of scenes as written currently. Otherwise, scenes seemed to me to be directionless until they were to be declared one thing or the other (which is very un-movie like).

Yeah, the script had the finale at the top working down to the opening scene at the bottom, I think. Some of the sheets had names for things that weren't consistent with the text and the equations for the Threat were wrong (2, 5, 5 rather than 2, 5, 8) but that might now be superseded by your new scene switching rules.

Oh, and Cat wondered if these sheets were pretty much the finished style (give or take) or whether they'd be jazzed up to look more "filmy".

I think I made a note of the inconsistencies as I found them on the sheets at my flat. I'll bring them along this week.

Regarding colour scenes -
In the game when I read it, using a colour scene always seemed to be suboptimal, since you could have an action scene that had no risk to you (as long as you didn't invite the Nemesis in) and had a chance to grind the Nemesis down. You could do everything (mechanically) in an action scene that you could do in a colour scene, and more besides, so there was no mechanical reason not to choose an action scene.
Now that a nemesis can spend threat to give you consequences, there is some potential cost to having an action scene, so it's not quite clear cut. That being said, it seems like a colour scene is a way *not* to do anything, rather than a way to do accomplish something, which I'm not too fond of.
One idea is that rather than being able to spend consequences to regain resources, heroes use colour scenes to regain resources. Thus capturing the whole 'getting a chance to breath' that colour scenes are often seen to be. It does mean that there is a solid mechanical reason to choose a colour scene, and will naturally occur after several fight scenes.

Which reminds me, in your second email, you referred to the nemesis only being able to bolster resources through action. Certainly in the version that you sent to us, the nemesis can't bolster his resources using consequences, or at least that wasn't listed as an option.

Edit - I'm Seana, from Scott's group.

I could see that Colour scenes allowed me to introduce a Resource, with no fear of any Outcomes since we don't go to the cards. So, useful. But... the problem was that the Nemesis could make it an Action scene anyway if my intention was for it to not be one. Hmmm. Does that cost the Nemesis though? Who is in that scene? Anyone brought in during the free play? Only those that want to be there? Who says yes or no to inclusion?

So could anyone drag me into their scenes against my will? Since I'd be risking getting an Outcome against me by taking part. And if I say no what does that do to the narrative? Can I be there in the fiction but not mechanically? And the flipside, can I force my way into someone else's scenes to help? Who says "No!" the person who controls the scene? Or can the Nemesis veto if they've called the scene?

Also, who spends the Outcomes if the Heroes team wins? I can't remember if that was clear, was it just the Scene Framer or the person with the most Tricks?

If you have 2 scenes, 3 scenes and 2 scenes before a (shared) finale. Is that a number of scenes each? Or is that the total number for the whole group? If you can only introduce a Resource once per scene that only gives you 2 scenes (and the finale) "free" from inventing a Resource. If you end up not being in three scenes then you're under-strength in the finale. That can be fine, as it'll force everyone to be in every scene, but is that the intention?

I'm a bit wary of the scene economy as written and from the skeleton notes in the playtest draft you don't seem to have settled on anything yet. I found it a bit muddy and also very wooly in it's advice on scene framing (or whatever you want to call it). The suggestion in your post above is worth trying. Maybe it's the answer?

Hi Seana thanks very much for helping out with that playtest. Both yours and Gregor's have thrown up a lot of issues that I need to address. That is what they are for after all.

I really like the idea of colour scenes being used as a way to bolster a resource, that is neat. Will try it out in the next game I run to see what happens with it.

Scene economy would be per player, with each one directing that number of scenes.

It is clear to me that I have done a pretty bad job of explaining scene framing for the game and that there are some issuses I have completely failed to address. I think what I will do is split that off into a seperate discussion before this discussion branches out and gets a bit unwieldy.

The nemesis role sits in a weird position at the moment. Originally they had a scene on their own after each player had directed a scene. That sort of worked but wasn't always appropriate, so I am trying to put them more in a GM style role, creating adversity for the players. I think going with spending threat to allow them to be in a scene may be the way to go, and that if a scene is defined as Colour or Action before it shoots the Nemesis could be banned from the former as it is all about the heroes.

Oh, outcomes are spent by the director of the scene. That is another thing I need to make clearer. I think the director should have veto over elements in the scene unless a majority of the players overturn that. I will be making this crystal clear in the next version.

Thanks for all this folks, it really helps me see where the problems are.

Iain

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