A playtest of John Harper's Stranger Things (a development of Trollbabe, set in the City of Forgotten Gods - a place where demons and men coexist, not always peacefully).

The Strangers:
Cerberus (aka Fluffy), a three-headed dog demon, a monster of a stranger, towering just over 8 feet tall. His carried human item - a dog collar. His demon item – a bone. He fighting style is "tooth and claw", his demonic magic "howling terror," and his social style, "gruff and uncouth." His number is 9.
Grumio Swampbait, a withered old man with a long beard that is alive and independent from him (and in play, the beard was more of a character than the old man). His human carried item is a staff, the demon item is his beard. His fighting style is clumsy yet effective. His magic is human, specializing in summoning. His number is 3.
Ezzillia, a child-like waif, with very little color – grey or white all the time. Her supernatural power is to become transparent and unseen. Demon item is her gossamer gown, which ensnares others and steals their memories. Her sorcery is divination, and her social style is quiet and inconspicuous. Her number is 4.

The game started with players choosing and examining tiles, where they gleaned some neat ideas.  They all like the tiles, bus I made a point not to include the tile with heartbreak square, as I had read about a play test there already.
I started with Grumio, who didn’t mind going first:

Grumio decided that he would establish a scene to cast a spell, and so determined that he was in his tower preparing a ritual to find out who was trying to kill him.  A good idea, so I went with it.  At this point, Fluffy entered the scene, as it was suggested that he be caged in Grumio’s wizard lab, but needed to be released to have the spell work.  A lot of good description and dialogue between fluffy and Grumio ensued, so… we left it there with the spell to be completed in the next scene and went on to Ezillia.

Ezillia determined that she was at the Hint Shop, which she ran and was doing a divination for a client.  We ran with this a bit, and determined that she would see the client’s death, but then she decided not to tell them about it, as he was a powerful demon lord who would not look highly upon this.  She lost the conflict to not tell the client, but used a re-roll and then won the conflict, so she kept this secret.  The client knew something strange had happened, as the player narrated Ezillia feeling weaker and winded, and so left.  (I wasn’t really happy with this scene, as I thought I should have introduced more of a hook).

In the next scene, Fluffy and Grumio fought a battle of wills as the spell was being completed.  Fluffy won and foiled the spell at the last minute, hoping to free himself, which he did.  I don’t recall the details, but the players determined that Fluffy was not actually an enemy of Grumio – I think that Fluffy established a sort of friendship with Grumio.  They ended up deciding to go to the Hint Shop for more information.

At the Hint Shop Ezzillia told them that the demon lord who had just left was the one trying to kill Grumio (we never established if she was telling the truth here).  The scene didn’t have much going on, so Fluffy ended it and cut to him trying to enter the Demon Lord’s stronghold – Dreadstone.

Fluffy successfully fought his way in and confronted the demon lord, who turned out to be his father.  This was sort of strange.  The conflict was “ I look closely to see if I can recognize my father” or something like that.  (It was a bit of a stretch, but it was interesting so I let it go).  The two then hatch a plot to betray Grumio and kill him.  Fluffy established a relationship with the Demon lord.

Fluffy then returns and gets Grumio to come with him to the tower, but Ezzellia brushes against him with her cloak, determines he’s lieing and steals the memory of the plot (took a couple of re-rolls, but it was worth it).

Cut to Grumio and Fluffy confronting the demon lord.  Ezzillia enters the scene as she has followed them unseen.  Grumio tries to ensnare the demon lord and fails, but then Ezzellia steps in before the demon lord can slay Grumio which triggers Fluffy to act and he decides to betray his father for his friends.  (Pretty cool final conflict, which I didn’t describe well here).

With that, we decided to end.

We discussed the game a bit and I had further discussions with the players individually over the next couple of days.
Everyone had fun and said that they enjoyed it as a change of pace.  The map-tiles were well received, although in follow up discussions, two of the players said that they didn’t really hit the setting as they imagined it, lending a bit more of a light tone then they thought the game would have.
Our game went a bit free-form at times, with everyone tossing ideas around.  We enjoyed that, but the players thought that we might not be “playing it right”, as there was not a lot of rolls.  Perhaps they are right in that regard, as I am basically new to this style of gaming.

In our follow up discussions, two of the players and me thought that GMing this game was not near as fun as playing it and that maybe we could try it with no GM, and see if we could make it work.  I found it interesting that almost from the start the players worked their characters into scenes together, something that I noticed didn’t happen in all the other play-tests.  It might just be my players and what they are used to but I thought it was kind of neat that they wanted to interact with each other, not the NPCs.  I basically threw all my pre-planning out the window and let the players play, which was cool, but not especially interesting for me, as I was more a referee (like a sports ref) calling for conflicts etc, or a spectator.  One of the players said that I should have just played the demon lord as a character.  The only other issue the players had was with endgame – they felt that they needed more direction on what the point of the game was and weren’t totally satisfied with my answer that it is about exploring conflicts.  I think it is mostly a matter of taste, and not a problem with the game itself but thought I should mention it.

The mechanics of the game took some getting used to, and based on what I have read from the Actual play of other groups, I think I let them establish a bit too much with cleverly worded conflicts, although this was an aspect that the players enjoyed, so I’m not really upset about it.  The numbers seemed to work well for the most part, but Fluffy having a 9 meant that if he could make the conflict blood related it was a virtual lock, but anything else and he was pretty much hopeless.  It fit with the character but it took away the element of chance for the most part.

Hi Roger,

Thanks for playtesting. And thanks a lot for posting about it here.

First, love the Strangers! What a great mix of characters. Devil dog?! I mean... wow.

Second, you had a tough job. The "How to run the game" part of the book wasn't written when you did your playtest, and you hadn't run Trollbabe before. So, I basically left you hangin'. Sounds like you managed a fun game anyway, but I have some faith that exposure to the GM's-side of the system will help future games go more smoothly and/or be more fun for you as the GM.

What you call "free-form" play, with everyone tossing ideas around, is perfectly okay. The game has a very strict system for deciding when you get to say something authoritative in the game, so all other kinds of talking are automatically treated as kibbitzing and suggestions. In my experience, it's pretty freeing, since you know you can talk all you want and speculate and embellish and never have to wonder if "it's really happening" or not. The game tells you exactly when your contributions become game material.

You also say something about "cleverly worded conflicts" which are definitely part of the gameplay. Since the GM narrates successes, though, you can be clear during "free and clear" about what you are and are not willing to narrate with a successful roll. Anything and everything are not up for grabs all the time.

Now some questions:
How many scenes did you have? It sounds like the players were requesting scenes from the beginning, which is very good.

Did you have a conflict roll in every scene? This is the thing to shoot for, but it doesn't happen every single time. Who called for conflicts, usually, you or the players? Was one Pace used more than the others?

Did anyone become Incapacitated and did anyone run out of re-rolls? Any recovery scenes?

How did Stranger vs. Stranger conflict go for you? I think the current system is okay, but I haven't tested it enough to have a good feel for it.

Thanks again!

John,
First, I agree with your take on my GMing, but this was why I thought it would be good to play-test.  I am sure that the "how to run the game" section will be a big help.  The game actually ran very smoothly, almost too smoothly perhaps, and I had fun GMing it.  I just think that the players had even more fun!!  I would do a better job with "free and clear" next time I think, to get a better handle on the game - although I agree it was very freeing and fun for the players, which was what was most important to me anyway.

How many scenes did you have?
- we had 8 scenes in all, although a couple of them were over pretty quick.  The players seemed to get the idea of using the scene requests to steer the game right from the beginning.

Did you have a conflict roll in every scene?
- every scene except one (can you guess which one).  The last scene had 4 conflicts, which I thought was pretty neat!
Who called for conflicts, usually, you or the players?
- the players called for about half if memory serves me correct.  Most of the time the conflicts called were pretty obvious to everyone, so I think I probably could have called for a few more.
Was one Pace used more than the others? - whole conflict and exchange by exchange were used the most.  Only the last scene, I think, was action by action.

Did anyone become Incapacitated and did anyone run out of re-rolls?
-no, Fluffy kind of kicked ass - I think he lost one conflict the whole game.  There were a few re-rolls, but most of the time, the players just went with it in the early going - the re-rolls were saved for the end (the last scene in particular)

Any recovery scenes
- no
How did Stranger vs. Stranger conflict go for you?
- well, we didn't really have any rules for it to be honest (maybe I missed them), so we decided to go with whoever beat their target number by the greatest amount won that round of the conflict (does that make sense - it did to us anyway, but I would like to know how we were supposed to do it, for future reference).  It was the simplest thing I could think of on the spot, and typically only one of the two strangers would roll a success anyway.