So I'm going to run Lacuna at the upcoming tiny con. (I've already got someone signed up for the con session.  I checked the other games he's signed up for: D&D, D&D, D&D, D&D, D&D, D&D, Lacuna.  Heh.)  Not wanting to go in cold, I test ran the scenario for my Wednesday night gaming group.  The session was awesome but we discoverd a few things that prospective players should be aware of.

The character sheet for Lacuna.  One of the best character sheets I've seen.  It tells you everything you need to know about the game.  But even with the coolness of the sheet, it needs a slight redesign.  I'm thinking it could come from Jared's stated stance of not playtesting his games.  (The second attempt character sheet is at http://www.memento-mori.com/lacuna/agentsheet.pdf .) 

The Techniques column confused everyone at the table.  See, there's text in bold followed by a line.  Under that line are four techniques (labeled things like "Achievement" and "Bulletproof") with yes/no checkboxes, followed by bolded text with a yes/no checkbox, followed by a line.  This led every player at the table to be confused about that last item -- it's supposed to be the header for the next section but it was read as the last item in the current section.  This could be fixed by placing a line above the header for the section or removing the y/n choice for each Technique Tree header.

The entire game is about managing your Agent's heart rate.  However, there's no place on the character sheet to record your Agent's current heart rate.  One of the players said that the bookkeeping required was annoying and suggested a timeline-like track with checkboxes, from 60 (male with training) to say, 210.  Most of the other players thought this was a good idea.  This could be incorporated into the design elements of the sheet, something that's not completely obvious at first glance, perhaps hidden in the text bits on the left side of the page.

Some of the words for Talents don't reflect what they actually do.  "Strategy" should be renamed.  It implies planning, but it's really non-lethal combat.  "Incapacitate, subdue, capture, process" is the description for Strategy.  Likewise, the "Writer" Technique really should be "Reader", as that allows an Agent to read inside Blue City.

Static in our game worked a bit differently than I thought.  We had a very slow build at the start of the game and it ramped up near the end.  I don't know if this is similar to other group's experiences.  We didn't have many die rolls in the beginning (but I had some feedback on when I should have called for rolls and this may have changed things) and this resulted in the static level being at 4 when we got to the endgame confrontation with the HP.  That ramped up to 16 by the time the last agent ejected.  I had a few things queued up for odd outdoor events that didn't occur because the Agents were inside.  In planning for the game, I assumed that at this level of static, the Agents would still be making their way through Blue City.

As I think a reader or two of this board might be playing in the con scenario, I'll leave specifics of the game session for a future AP post.

And an afternoon later, the version of the Lacuna character sheet I'll be using in the convention scenario is up at http://gameworld.thesnakefarm.com/downloads/lacuna_personnel_sheet.pdf .  Changes between the official one at Jared's site and this one include the BPM column for players to track their heart rate, Security Clearance now lists White and a redacted clearance level, the Writer and Documents techniques were changed to Reader and Papers (given the Cold War/Eastern European city setting, I thought "Papers" was a more theme-fitting word), the one Restricted technique has been redacted, the Strategy talent was renamed Takedown, mentors are in alphabetical order, and because this is a one-shot there is no Personal Static.

Nice work Thomas. Although I prefer "Documents" over "Papers", but "Reader" is definitely an improvement. I also like the redacted clearance level and technique.

TTFN,

Yoki