I was lucky enough to be a play tester for Fastlane and in spite of my doubts about using the roulette wheel, I can strongly endorse it's use.
It added a surprising fun element to the game and although most of us were not familar with the rules for roulette, we all caught on fairly quickly. The wheel added excitement to a curvy mountain road car chase that I'll always remember.
With our without using the wheel, the game was totally enjoyable and I can't wait to play it again.
Ditto in all respects. Roulette is a fun game, and playing with your character's life is much more fun than playing with your own money. :)
Thanks!
And you both played in the IRC playtests, where handling everything roulette-related was super-super-SLOW, so it means even more that you liked how it worked. :) NikkiN's playtest, in fact, is the basis for the examples that appears throughout the book - the GM and players sitting around and playing the game. That car chase in particular just rocked. :)
Of course, the names and faces and who-said-what were changed to protect the innocent, as well as to incorporate later rules.
Cool, I had a fun car chase myself on IRC....
(almost went over the edge)