[Verge] Need help with a new cyberpunk game

[Adam Dray]

My layout will be done by a graphic artist I work with at my day job (information technology).

My editing will be done by Paul Tucker, a friend of mine who used to work for Mongoose.

[Adam Dray]

I don't mean to "bump" this thread. I just wanted to follow up on some comments posted before.

I have posted an updated PDF that weighs in at around 55 pages. It incorporates many of the changes that matthijs recommended: the restructuring of sequence of information , some more talk about design goals (still needs more, I'm sure), an example of play that is already out of date (but does show off some of the play structure), a complete glossary to help with terminology. At Mike's suggestion, I also rewrote the Life/Drive/Experience/Volume rules that make the game go (and haven't updated the example of play to match).

I'm swamped with another project for the next two weeks (60-character LARP due for a con over Memorial Day weekend). After con, I'll do more work on Verge.

I do get to playtest Verge at the con with a group of 6 players for 4 hours. I'm excited about that. I also have two friends on the net with RL play groups who will be doing some independent playtesting (one of them is coming to the con playtest, the other is not). I'm also holding a house-gamin-con over July 4th weekend (Baltimore-DC-area; PM me if you're interested) and will be playtesting more then.

[Mike Holmes]

Do post how the playtest goes. I think that'll give a lot of things to talk about.

Mike

[Adam Dray]

Yep! I do promise an Actual Play post.

AP posts are a new thing for me. I can handle the writing part of it but the during-game note-taking is the challenge. I don't remember the details after the game when I try to reconstruct. I did take good notes for the "My Life with Mr. President" I played in, but haven't written that up yet. The challenge with the Verge playtest will be handling a new system (even though I wrote it, it's still "new" to me), fixing rules as I play, and taking notes at the same time.

[Mike Holmes]

Does writing notes down after play work for you? That's what I'd suggest. You don't want to stilt play by taking notes during it, IMO. What you do with a playtest, optimally, is to take fifteen minutes to half an hour after the game is done, and talk with the players about what they thought worked, and what didn't, and why. General impressions. Get whatever feedback you can. Then give them your impressions (wait until then), and get their feedback on your impressions.

Take notes of all of this. This is where you get your best data from which to work on bettering a game, IMO. Basically you want to get your game to the point where people, when done, feel good about playing to the extent that they recommitt right then to come back and play the next installment. So getting feedback, just post play, is the perfect place to guage.

Mike

[Adam Dray]

If I wait till post-play -- even immediately post-play -- I lose a lot of details that are useful.

I think Verge games will partially self-record though. I just realized that. The reward mechanism requires players to record their dice and Volumes after every action scene. I can ask players to record some additional information for their development scenes and then collect it all post-game.

Or I can do it. I think there's not much to record about the mechanics. I can add the larger-scale issues to that post-play as I interview the players.