Length of game

[Jeffrey Straszheim]

The rules point out that it takes and average of 27 experience rolls to complete the cycle of a character, and the fast game option roughly halves that.  The folks I game with tend to perfer shorter campaigns to longer ones, so I'm considering recomending the fast game option.  I'm wondering about how many experiences occur per session per character.  I realize this will vary quite a bit; you don't need to tell me that.  I am hoping that some of you can tell me about how many experience checks you have experienced in your own games, and I can judge based on that.

Jeffrey Straszheim

[Ben Lehman]

Hi!

Paul Tevis's group just finished up their Polaris game.  I think it was 7 sessions or so.  I'm sure he'll be along to talk to you about length shortly.

The short game option is... actually not very well written (some of the "variant rules" didn't see playtesting as much as I'd like.)  If I were to write it now, I would say "make frequent use of 'but only if (you/I) roll an extra experience check' during gameplay."  That's a nice way to speed things along.

The slowest sessions have no experience at all.  The fastest I've played in had one character at Veteran at the end of the first session.  If you really push it (humanize your demons, villify your people, call for extra experience checks) I bet you could finish a game in two sessions.

Other folks!  Report on your lengths of game.

yrs--
--Ben

[Frank T]

We have been pushing for experience and using the "short" option. We had one experience check per scene (six scenes played up to now). Come to think about it: There could be more than one experience check per scene, couldn't it? Because since we only had one "it shall not come to pass", we normally just reviewed the scene after it was over, and agreed that it was worth an experience check. I think it'd probably be better to roll experience straight away.
- Frank

[Ben Lehman]

Frank --

Yes!  You can emphatically get more than one check for Experience per scene.  My personal best is six.  As far as I know, Kat Miller holds the world record at seven.

yrs--
--Ben

[Frank T]

Very well. I accept the challenge. ;-)

- Frank

[GreatWolf]

Well, we're three sessions into our current game, and I'm estimating about two more before we are done.  Time will tell, obviously, but that's my gut feeling.

As part of my "Be a Jerk" policy for playing the Mistaken, I have taken advantage of tagging on additional experience checks (e.g. "But only if your heart melts with despair.  That will be an additional experience check.")  As a result, the protagonist for whom I am Mistaken was the first to cross into Veteran status.  Yay!

Also, Experience was a little bumpy during the first session.  If we had been playing it correctly from the top, we'd probably be further along.

[Frank T]

I will be running a one-shot of Polaris at GroFaFo Winter Rally. Ben, would you recommend starting at, say, Zeal 2 in order to give the players a chance to reach Veteran status in play?

- Frank

[Ben Lehman]

Frank -- Nope!  I recommend just playing the game from a standing start and going as far as you get.  You'll most likely get 4 or so scenes per player if you push things along (don't let people dither with lots of "in-character" posturing and posing and cut straight to conflict, blood, and guts.)  That's fine for a short game!

yrs--
--Ben