Inspectres w/ Clinton & Justin

[Zak Arntson]

Okay, just played Inspectres last night with Clinton (of the Forge) and Justin (2nd time playing an RPG ever, and he's good at it!) ...

Setup:  Character creation went smoothly, setup went well.  I played a socially-inept psychologist w/ a strong interest & belief in Fortean events who has a theory that paranormal activity is caused psychokinetically by stress.  Justin played a skeptical ex-military guy with a business degree, who saw good money in the Inspectres business.

Game Play: Inspectres is an extended improv game, which I love.  It's hard, though, with only three people, to bounce off each other continually and consistently.

There were times when we were all on a roll, like when Justin was schmoozing with the frat, while I was busy decapitating and setting fire to the body of their frathouse's poor dead dog (it had a vampire bite).  And gadgets are way fun.  I think I had too much fun with my Encephalostress Meter.

But then, there were definite lulls.  Where we'd all be sitting there, like "what happens next?"  Or, "how do we get out of this jam?"  Getting picked up by the cops is tough when you aren't FBI.

In retrospect, I think that there needs to be a concerted effort for continuity.  Or possible mechanics to that effect?  Clinton and I weren't quite grokking on our perception of events, so the story seemed a little jerky.  I'm wondering what could be done to smooth this out?  Maybe one other player would've been good?  Or out-of-character discussion, or suggestions?

In any case, fun was had by all.  The rules were simple and good.  And the game is set up to be real episodic.  I am running it next weekend, with Clinton as a player (and hopefully we can get one more person to show up).

[Ron Edwards]

Hey Zak,

Two suggestions:

1) A third player is probably a good idea. In InSpectres, the GM relies on player-riffs to define a lot of scenario content. I think that kind of creative riffing works best in a three-cornered situation (personal call; could be wrong), and so the GM with only two players, for this game, may be under-powered, so to speak.

2) Spend a lot more time on descriptions: what something looks like, the overall space in question (how big, what's the air like, any details at all), etc. Everyone should be doing this, GM and players alike. It provides two things: it keeps a running line of communication open among everyone at the table, and it provides a hell of a lot of raw material for actions and "bits." Both of these make scene transitions smoother and within-scene material clearer to everyone at once.

Best,
Ron