I really liked Lords and Ladies. It takes Dust Devils and, very successfully, transplants it to a Jane Austen-ish setting. It also blends immersionist LARPs with Dust Devils' conflict resolution: I have some doubts about that, which I'll explain below.

(By the way, I'm English, so I'm going to refer to the setting as a "Jane Austen setting", because that's how I understand it. Hope that's OK.)

The choice of Dust Devils is inspired. It works because of Dust Devils' emphasis on relationships to start play, which transplants well to a Jane Austen setting.

I like the idea of the Passion, but it doesn't feel like the deep-seated, gut-wrenching obsession that was the Devil in Dust Devils. Perhaps it's the example given: "Protecting our family name" sounds like a mild character objective, not a deep-seated motivation. I'd prefer Passions to be more passionate: "Is terrified of our family going to ruin", say.

I'm also interested in why the level of the Passion is unalterable (at 3). I like the idea of altering the level of the Devil. It would be nice if this could be carried across to Lords and Ladies.

Lords and Ladies' relationship map is a good addition to the system. One worry is that it's not rich enough: each character is linked to only one target and complicative character. Would it be possible for each character to have two target and complicative characters? That way, there are two things to follow up in the LARP.

I'm not sure about the blend between immersion and conflict resolution. The Dust Devils system is treated like a last resort: something to be used only when immersionist techniques have failed or when the game falls flat. It does raise the question: why use it at all? Surely it's too complex for a last resort system? Why not use a simpler system or the skills of the GM?

And how do the two interact: what happens if, say, there's an immersionist scene which ends in family members shunning the character? Should the Family rating reduce? What happens if an immersionist scene changes the relationships that were specified on the relationship map? Should someone spend a chip?

Blending the two styles is a good experiment, but it doesn't entirely work for me. Personally, I'd like to see either an entirely immersionist game or a game which uses Dust Devils for resolution.

Having said all that, the use of Dust Devils for this setting is superb, and it's very well done.

Score: 7

Graham

I don't know that I want to reveal exact scores (there's going to be a second round of judging, after all,) but of the four games I was assigned to judge, I thought this one had the most problems, specifically because of the clash between the freeform and the conflict resolution system. It seemed almost as if Sami wanted a pure freeform system with total immersion and was "stuck" with fitting Dust Devils into the game somehow, which I think is actually the opposite of what really happened. Maybe it's overcompensation, trying to appeal to the LARP scene.

I'll mention layout here, too, since we're not judging that, anyways. There's some nice things about the basic layout, but in later versions of the PDF, the colors should be handled differently. Anything with overlayed text should be very light, so we can read the text; a slightly heavier font would help, too. Also, don't use red text, because it vanishes on top of the red illustrations. This combination of color problems forced me to highlight several paragraphs just so I could read them. If this had been a printed product, I wouldn't have been able to read all the text and wouldn't have considered using it at all.

Otherwise, it's an interesting setting and holds promise.

First of all, thanks to both of you for your comments and critique. As said, this is a lot better feedback than mere numbers. And then some answers and explanations.

Graham wrote:
I like the idea of the Passion, but it doesn't feel like the deep-seated, gut-wrenching obsession that was the Devil in Dust Devils. Perhaps it's the example given: "Protecting our family name" sounds like a mild character objective, not a deep-seated motivation. I'd prefer Passions to be more passionate: "Is terrified of our family going to ruin", say.

I'm also interested in why the level of the Passion is unalterable (at 3). I like the idea of altering the level of the Devil. It would be nice if this could be carried across to Lords and Ladies.

Graham wrote: Lords and Ladies' relationship map is a good addition to the system. One worry is that it's not rich enough: each character is linked to only one target and complicative character. Would it be possible for each character to have two target and complicative characters? That way, there are two things to follow up in the LARP.

Graham wrote: I'm not sure about the blend between immersion and conflict resolution. The Dust Devils system is treated like a last resort: something to be used only when immersionist techniques have failed or when the game falls flat. It does raise the question: why use it at all? Surely it's too complex for a last resort system? Why not use a simpler system or the skills of the GM?

Graham wrote: And how do the two interact: what happens if, say, there's an immersionist scene which ends in family members shunning the character? Should the Family rating reduce? What happens if an immersionist scene changes the relationships that were specified on the relationship map? Should someone spend a chip?

t wrote: because of the clash between the freeform and the conflict resolution system. It seemed almost as if Sami wanted a pure freeform system with total immersion and was "stuck" with fitting Dust Devils into the game somehow, which I think is actually the opposite of what really happened. Maybe it's overcompensation, trying to appeal to the LARP scene.

Apologies to Sami, but I'm going to have to do my report and scoring tomorrow.  There's no more left in me tonight.

yrs--
--Ben

Since the formal judging for round two is almost over, I figured I'd do a more formal judging of the games I was assigned from round one, starting with Lords and Ladies. I judged the games based on 0-3 points in eachof the four areas.

- How well is the game system integrated? How well does it seem to fit?
As I mentioned previously, I felt the Dust Devils infrastructure was clashing with the freeform part of the rules. In fact, the rules seem to suggest players should avoid using Dust Devils at all. 1 point
- How will the game presumably work in play, especially with regard to how the setting facilitates a certain kind of play?
Again, based on the internal conflict between rules, I didn't feel the game would work as well as others. 1 point
- How complete, accessible and well presented is the material?
I didn't give the game maximum points, because I felt a few things were missing, but it's very close. Enough is here that someone more familiar with the source literature would be able to wing it very well. 2 points
- How interesting, original, stylish and “juicy” is the setting?
Higher points for originality, since this era and style is underused in roleplaying games. I didn't give it maximum points, though, because it didn't grab me as much as othr settings. 2 points

Total: 6 points