I ran Fort Lemon for the third time yesterday. This run was a Consternation in Cambridge for first time players. I didn't use the fort time because we only had about 4 hours and I've found that the presence of the cavalry adds too much complication for a short game. So I ran the version set in the mountain pass as the Dogs go to see what happened to the Wagon Train in the winter.

I won't go into every detail but on the whole the game went well. Nobody had any trouble with the background (3 English, 1 German player), the accomplishments got everyone up to speed on the rules and we had about 6 conflicts in the game, two of them between players.

One player, Graham, had decided that his maxim was to be that people should stand on their own two feet, and live or die by their decisions. This went as far as harshly reproaching hungry children for looking at this food with envy (I'm using player names as I can't remember character names).

The most interesting conflict was when two of the Faithful, a husband and wife, are revealed to be cannibals by one of the Dogs. Another Dog, Steve, is informed of this and shoots the wife out of hand. She dies but the husband runs off. A conflict ensues. Steve uses his anger to get a bead on the husband and just as he is about to shoot, Graham says, "Don't shoot him out of anger". Graham is easily winning this contest, he's a much better talker than Steve who's a gunfighter. It get to the point where Steve is about to give when Graham says, "I just wanted to make sure that you properly considered what you are about to do", and gives. Steve then shoots the fugitive. All the fallout he gets goes into increading his anger.

Had we had more time, the next conflict would have been Graham challenging Steve that with his anger he was unworthy of being a Dog because of his inability to control his anger.

Very neat.

GB wrote: It get to the point where Steve is about to give when Graham says, "I just wanted to make sure that you properly considered what you are about to do", and gives.

Wow, summary execution is a player choice that brings out the old-skool GM in me.  Because I know that Hannah Lutz is a kickass NPC, it is a shame to see her put down like a diseased animal.  That's the game, though, and the missed opportunity opens other doors, like the PvP conflict that was surely brewing.

--Jason

jasonm wrote: Because I know that Hannah Lutz is a kickass NPC, it is a shame to see her put down like a diseased animal.