Last night we did the first session to Age of Paranoia, an espionage game based on Chris Lehrich's Shadows in the Fog. We did the character introductions and ran two missions to establish a bit of background.

The missions have been summairzed on the wiki.

I'm a little disappointed with myself over the character introduction part. I don't think I was anble to engender enough pollination between the players and thus we lost a lot of potential linkages. Not sure yet how to improve on that.

The Mission play, on the other han, was wonderful. I walked away with a major part of the oppositiond efined, a history with many of the players, some wonderful plot dieas, and decided where the plot was going to go for quite a few sessions.

Jere

I think the main problems with getting character intros going were:

1. Jere had to leave the room smack in the middle, because of the kiddies. Nobody's fault, but an important gap. Bryant did a lovely job of trying to keep the ball rolling, but somehow it all seemed sort of flat.

2. At least at the start, it wasn't clear why we were getting together. The UKUSA Working Group on International Economic Policy (UWGIEP) was clearly a professional, not a social, occasion. So it was difficult to get chatting. I also think several players weren't really clear on what we were doing this session, or why.

3. I think Jere gave up too quick. I would like to have seen -- and maybe we will see next time -- the crew getting together at a fancy restaurant in London, to drink and be sociable and have a good time. If you read the histories, these guys were very hard drinkers, and this is 1971. So we should be able to get some good yammering under the influence going.

4. We still don't really understand how non-Mission play is going to work. So I think it wasn't really clear what we were doing or why, from a meta-perspective.

5. Jess's character seems oddly non-integrated. I really tried to think how I could incorporate her into the discussion, but all I could think of was questions about what the hell she was doing there.

6. Rob and Susan were absent for the session.

So I think it's working, but it's going to take a bit.

And the Missions rocked!

Re: Character Intros

I *thought* I was the most junior member there. And in fact, I've probably spent the least time in the CIA (although Jess's character may have less practical collection/analysis work). So I didn't feel comfortable speaking up. In fact, I've probably got very few ties to anyone else in the organization (maybe Susan and Rob will fix that up).

Also, the first mission had little to do with my expertise and I was running opposition in the second. So there was a missed chance to get in on things.

But next session, I'm totally tearing into it. I've got about six ideas for tackling the "current" problem.

And there's that Two of Cups sitting in a forgotten file somewhere...
Tom

I am a big fan of the KPFS tactic: "So, how do you know the guy sitting next to you?"

I think that the lack of clarity on how non-mission play will work was a minor issue as well. While you were gone, we spent a little while fumbling around trying to figure out why the varied lot that we are would be necessary. Guy's speech cleared that up a ton -- if we'd gotten that at the beginning it might have helped. It wouldn't have had the bravura nature that one gets from dancing without a net, of course. ("What the hell happened in Birmingham?")

It was lots of fun, however. I can feel my roleplaying interest keening again, which is very nice.

I'm a big LeCarre fan. Did the feeling of those books come through in play?

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: I'm a big LeCarre fan. Did the feeling of those books come through in play?