[Hell for Leather] German playtest with non-gamers

[Sebastian K. Hickey]

I got an email from my chief playtester in Germany. Sounds like a fun playtest. To keep things open, I'm posting it here (Daniel is not a member of the Forge).

Happy Chrimbo,

Sebastian.

------------------------------------------------------------

Hey Sebastian,

very quick mail since I'm on my way out: played a prelim session last
night, rather shit-faced and confused, but very good. Great fun! Chars
were: Richard Brownman, Texan oil magnate, head of a failing oil
empire, who wants the Network's brute force / influence to kill a few
pesky MIT technicians working on alternative energy sources, Rahmida
somethingsomething, a girl who grew up in a Delhi slum and rose to
become the most influential choreographer in Bollywood (lots of
seduction, dance-fighting, plus all her wounds were disfiguring so she
could Never Dance Again--got her fucking face burned off by nuclear
fuel rods), and Jason Mueller, a German student of the "'09 movement"
(apparently there was a very failed attempt to have a '68 revival here
this year; that was an injoke I didn't quite get myself). Jason thinks
this show is horrible and needs to be taken down, which he wants to
achieve from within. NB: this was before I explained the storming the
gauntlet rules to the guy, so that's Good.

Play was quick and fun, although we did have a little trouble finding
good conflicts every now and then. Checkpoints were Raise Median
Temperature in the Saarland by 4 degrees (achieved by dumping nuclear
fuel into a river source--hilarity ensued when stealing the rods from
the French nuclear powerplant was a hundred times easier than dumping
them into the WELL GUARDED source of this inconsequential German
creek), Steal the Transsiberian Express, and Infiltrate the Chinese
army. Safe house / target was Laos, which we wanted to enter as part
of the Chinese Army. We all got killed in Moscow, trying to steal the
keys to the TSE from its main conductor. But good fun! The guys (my
sis and her BF) really loved the system.

Quick mechanical point: things were TOO EASY in spite of our
inebriation at first, with every single roll a success. Then I screwed
up badly with a three star felony and gave out two wounds: one to
myself, on to my sis. Offhand, we toppled the stack every single time,
her bf got a few wounds too, and we died. Maybe it was the alcohol +
off hand thing, but once we had wounds, everything went downhill in no
time. Died with 3 VP toward Checkpoint #2.

A few notes I took:

* narrate risks. Not sure if this is in the rules. Encourage people to
narrate how they narrowly failed to achieve their goal. Good fun.
* do we still increase heat on stack topple?
* if you're off hand and you risk, do you throw the risk die with
offhand or normally?
* can you risk after felony?


Aaaand I gotta go. Will play again soon, laughed our asses off and had
great craic.


D