Meg, Emily, Julia and I played Psi Run last night. I GMed.

Meg's character, Charlotte:

What's in the box that's handcuffed to my wrist?
Who is Donovan?
Where are my shoes? [answered in play: I don't wear any - my feet are lethal]
Why am I afraid of cats?

Why can I light things on fire by looking at them?
Why won't this dog leave me alone?
Why don't I recognize what I look like? [answered in play: because I was burned horrifically and rebuilt surgically]
Why can I sometimes predice what will happen 10 seconds down the road?

Why can I breathe underwater? [answered in play: because I'm not human]
Why is my skin turning blue?
Why can I communicate with water animals?
Why do I have a picture of a giant octopus in my pocket?
Who is Sean?

I *LOVED* this game. The character generation really contributes to discovering my character in play. I liked being able to bring in details, like my name and apperance and clothes, as they emerged instead of trying to nail them all down in the begining. I watched all three of us players immerse into our characters effortlessly. I havn't spoken in first person in a game that much in *ages*, and it's been maybe years since I've said "Out of character, XYZ?". I can't wait to play it again. We're all really invested, right now, in each other's stories. I really like the Chase mechanic, because it keep sthe pressure on, and allows us to gauge how 'hot' it is. We could decide to suck up a wound or not get a reveal if we needed a breather, or get a reveal or achieve a goal, but know the next thing was Them right on top of us, which was just he right amount of fore knowledge.

Thank you so much for giving psi run a shot.  I'll have questions in a few minutes because I'm still in a bit of shock.

Chris

Wow!  Okay!  Here are some questions:

We played with Chase its own category, separate from Goal. I'm not sure why you'd combine them; I wouldn't.

Also - when the characters split up, it was easy to maintain parallel chase tracks for them. They reconnected pretty soon, but I would have been comfortable separating them. The key, I think, would be that when the chasers make progress, they make progress along every track. I can say more about that if it doesn't make sense from just this paragraph.

I have opinions about endgame but we'll wait and see how we actually do it.

I'd also love to hear from the other two players; even just general impressions.

Chris

We used your original chase:
5-6 pursuers make no progress
3-4 pursuers make 1 scene's progress
1-2 pursuers make 2 scenes' progress

Multiple rolls per scene, with every player rolling for her own character's actions. Like, here's an example, abbreviated from actual play of course. Our heroines have just spotted a boat they want.

"We steal it!" Julia says.
"Roll," I say.
Julia rolls and assigns. Her character's hurt but they succeed and no chase progress, also no memory.
"So I start up the boat," she says -
"And this guy comes up from below. He shoots you."
"SHOOTS me?" Julia says.
I point at her safety die.
"I kick him overboard," Meg says.
"Roll for it," I say. She does. "Hey how about that. He shoots you too."
"SHOOTS me?" Meg says.
"You -" (Julia) "- he shot right ... here ... he shot a piece of your ear off."
"My EAR?" Julia says.
"That was some close shit," Meg says.
"You -" (Meg) "- he shot in the foot. Through and through."
"No way," Meg said. "It's only a for-the-rest-of-the-session hurt. If he shot me through the foot it'd last as long as the game."
"Fair. Throught the meat of the calf?"

Like that.

Since as GM I don't have any prep or NPCs or die rolling or anything to do, I took it as my job to pace the scenes: balance their progress from location to location with the amount of rolling they did. Especially, it feels natural to turn the low die in one roll into a next roll, for the same player or some other player - so natural that, as Meg did in my example, the players will often do it for themselves.

One more thing!

Chris, if you have any thought of going to GenCon this year, sign up with Paul and Matt. If you aren't going to GenCon, make an ashcan for GenCon anyway. You can talk to Paul and Matt about absentee representation, and if that doesn't work out you can send a few copies with me and I'll make sure they get around.

-Vincent

Color me curious, Chris.  Do you have play test rules available anywhere to look at?

I totally enjoyed playing. I asked for 10 more minutes of play because I didn't want to stop.

I would much rather have other players determine the answers to my questions. I think there's a tendency to have preconceived ideas of what the answers are. If you have less of a chance of giving your own answers, you're less likely to have a preconceived answer. Besides, if you're playing a character with amnesia, the answers to your questions wouldn't necessarily pop into your head by themselves. Something would trigger the answer.

So for example, my question, "Why can I breathe under water?" Since I asked mostly water related questions (only because I was talking about octopus tattoos earlier in the day), it was hard not to have a vague idea of the answers. The answer (given by Vincent), "You were born under the water and you lived under the water....You're not human" was very different from even my vague idea.  I liked someone else knowing my answers. I let go of my vague ideas, and my character feels more like an amnesiac. Having someone else give the answer felt more like a revelation than if I had fleshed out the vague idea.

I can't wait to play again!

Julia

Caesar_X:  coming soon.

Julia, Vincent, Meg:  Do you think that other players should always narrate the characters' revelations?  As in, narrating one's own character's revelation shouldn't be an option? 

Chris

I like making your own memory on a 6. I think a) it's good to leave it as an option, for certain, and b) it makes more sense to me to put it at 6 than at 4 or 1.

-Vincent

Yeah, I like have the occasional option to answer your own question. If you don't want to, you can always put the 6 somewhere else.

Ditto what they said. We're playing session two tomorrow night, and I'm really hoping I find out why I'm afraid of cats. I like that there's no control over what question gets answered in the Reveal; we played that it had to make logical sense that something triggered the memory, but nobody got to say what question they wanted answered (unless they were narating their own Reveal).

I can't wait to hear how session #2 goes! 

Michael (my co-designing buddy) and I were chatting, and we have these ideas for your consideration:

Vincent wrote:

Oh! We want a way to add questions to a character sheet. We want to add questions to our own character sheets and we want to add questions to each others' too.

I think it might make sense to just say "write at least a few questions. Over the course of the first session or two, add questions until you've got 6. Your fellow players can suggest questions too."

I super like the idea of fewer questions answered = your fellow players have more say about your character's epilogue, but who knows what actual play will require.

My crossroads thinking this minute is, for each question you've answered, you get to cross off one of the crossroads as a possibility. (I have 7 paths here, so 6 questions is the right number.) The other players choose which epilogue you do get, from the ones you haven't eliminated.

Adding a question as a reveal option is very good. What numbers are you thinking?

I think that the idea of "person X narrates" doesn't suit the game. Everybody should talk all the time. As GM, I took it upon myself to make sure that the bad outcomes were actually bad, is all. Often I inserted more badness in, but occasionally I didn't have to.

I have more to say about GMing and narrating and "final say," but it's slippery. I haven't figured out how to say it yet.

-Vincent

My crossroads thinking this minute is, for each question you've answered, you get to cross off one of the crossroads as a possibility. (I have 7 paths here, so 6 questions is the right number.) The other players choose which epilogue you do get, from the ones you haven't eliminated.

Adding a question as a reveal option is very good. What numbers are you thinking?

I think that the idea of "person X narrates" doesn't suit the game. Everybody should talk all the time. As GM, I took it upon myself to make sure that the bad outcomes were actually bad, is all. Often I inserted more badness in, but occasionally I didn't have to.

I have more to say about GMing and narrating and "final say," but it's slippery. I haven't figured out how to say it yet.

Where were we? Oh yes. Charlotte, Lorraine and Meredith fell in with some oceanographical-type researchers on a rented fishing trawler in San Francisco Bay. They snagged one of them, a PhD student named Thomas, and had him take them back to his little grad student office cube at Berkeley. He traded them a little downtime and internet access for an interview with Meredith. I liked Thomas. They talked him into taking them to his house for better downtime and to plan their next moves - they'd kept the agency comfortably behind them through three of four good rolls - but on the way there they stopped to buy new clothing and the agency came crashing in on them.

Oh, there's too much to tell. It was great. Charlotte got serious pain-and-memory-loss from tampering with the box handcuffed to her wrist, but failed to open it or remember what was inside. We met Sean from Meredith's character sheet. He and Meredith were old friends who couldn't really remember each other, and he had two prosthetic arms, which he hadn't had last time she'd seen him, and he couldn't remember what had happened. This was nice and frightening. We learned something about the pursuers: they were operating out of Pepperdine, backed by who-knows-who, and they'd been injecting cell matter (we called it "DNA" but I wince) from Meredith's undersea people into adolescent kids to get them to develop superhuman abilities. Then there was an explosive encounter with the pursuers and while they kept hold of Sean, they lost Thomas, and they took Sean to the nearest doctor's office. Also, we didn't find out why Charlotte's afraid of cats, but we did find out that she'd been on the agency side back in the time of the glass rooms. Then Lorraine died taking the box off of Charlotte's wrist, and Meredith gave her rescue breathing until the air transport team took over and now she's gone. To the hospital? Yes, and back into agency hands.

I was right - in the second session, the game really kicked in. Good stuff.

More rules talk!

1) Adding questions is essential ("which side was I on?"), but should it go where it does in the dice rules? Here's my reservation: a) It matters how many questions you've answered, relative to the other players. You don't want to fall too far behind. b) Adding a question replaces answering one.

Maybe that's okay. I don't see any other good place for it. But at the end of the second session, Julia's answered 4 of her 5 questions, while Meg's answered only 2 of her 5. We all figure that Julia's going to end the game earlyish in session 3, with Meg not having much chance to catch up.

On the other hand, Meg also played it safe with pursuit, passing up opportunities for revelation to keep the pursuers off their track. That certainly contributed.

I guess the solution is just to give everybody lots of opportunities to roll, and for the GM to especially give lots of opportunities to the trailing player. Then if they aren't putting good dice into reveal, it's on them.

2) Killed! Emily put a 1 in safety and her character was killed by the mystery box on Charlotte's wrist. Wicked.

2a) What does Emily do in session 3?

When we started the game, I offered anybody to be a co-GM instead of playing a character. My first thought is, cool, now Emily's a co-GM. The problem is, GMing the game has gotten super easy, as the game's picked up momentum. There's hardly anything for ME to do, let alone a co-GM. I don't think this'd be a problem if there'd been two of us to begin with, but it feels awkward to add a co-GM now.

Could there be a way for Emily to keep in the game, like a dead character's player in The Mountain Witch, still holding Trust? Especially, could there be some way for her questions to get answered even though she's not making any rolls?

2b) When Emily killed Lorraine, Julia immediately jumped in with Meredith's rescue breathing to bring her back, as a goal, and won it by the dice. I think that's fine, I wouldn't disallow it by the rules - but what do you think? You might even specifically require it: on a 1, the character dies if no one provides medical care, or is permanently injured if someone does.

We all agreed that even if it works, she should suffer (at least) a permanent injury.

You could also add "captured" into the mix. If you were to just copy our actual play, a 1 in safety would be "the character dies, unless someone else wins a medical attention roll, in which case the character suffers a permanent injury and is captured."

3) The pursuers got ahead. Now first, obviously the players can't avoid them from now on by pushing them further and further ahead, right? We played it that until the pursuers fall behind again, I can bring them into any scene I want to, but I don't have to bring them into every scene.

The only reason that's okay is because by now as GM I've got little enough to worry about that I can manage making that decision. It might be better to have a rule. Having the agency be there in every single scene is too much, but knowing for sure when an ambush is coming is too easy. Maybe there should be some little subsystem for when ambushes happen when pursuit is ahead - the GM rolls a die at the start of the scene, something like that.

4) I still mean to talk about the GM and final say. When I get more time I will. For now, I'll give a teaser: consider, instead, that the GM and the players have different responsibilities for first say, and final say belongs to the group as a whole.

I'm excited for session 3!

hi all. this is Chris'  co author, Michael.  i'd like to say thanks for playing the game. and  for giving us such great feedback & feedforward.  it is great reading how other folks have done with Psi*RUN. i'm glad that you're having fun! 

RE: Death of a Runner in play~ unlike your group we haven't had a Runner die. so we haven't dealt w/ the contingency in play.  also i don't believe that the  sample of  rules that Chris gave in the First Thoughts Forum mentioned this difference  -but- our group has always had the # 1 result in the Harm/Safety Catagory idicated that the  "Runner dies in this session".

the understanding was that the exact scene where death occured  was something which  could  be  determined through open debate & the preference of the one who controlled the Naration. we had thought that in having some fluidity in the timing of deaths the players could craft death scenes which fit into the story in a more graceful & fitting way. 

that might be a bit fuzzy -but- that was the way we had been funtioning.

~Cloud

Should characters be able to die?  I mean, it makes sense on one level, but the game is about being caught, not dying.  On the other hand, I like people being able to choose death over being caught. 

We all figure that Julia's going to end the game earlyish in session 3, with Meg not having much chance to catch up.  ....  On the other hand, Meg also played it safe with pursuit, passing up opportunities for revelation to keep the pursuers off their track. That certainly contributed.  ....  I guess the solution is just to give everybody lots of opportunities to roll, and for the GM to especially give lots of opportunities to the trailing player. Then if they aren't putting good dice into reveal, it's on them.

<> that has been the assumption that we have always played under.  we roll then choose where to best place the dice to create the story that we are aiming for.

2) Killed! Emily put a 1 in safety and her character was killed by the mystery box on Charlotte's wrist. Wicked.  ....  2a) What does Emily do in session 3? ...  Could there be a way for Emily to keep in the game, like a dead character's player in The Mountain Witch, still holding Trust? Especially, could there be some way for her questions to get answered even though she's not making any rolls?

<>honestly i hadn't give that kind of thing much thought.  the way that i had assumed  that things go w/ Life (character involvement) Beyond the Grave as a possiblity within the game was~ if we had a Runners who psi included Asteral Travel or some other Out of The Body Phenomina & that this fact was established within previous play. in such a Runners death there could well be a Conflict roll to see if they stay among the living in a new way. much like the CPR Conflict roll that happened in  your  2b) example of play. this roll may well  have to be repeated a number of times for said Discorporial Runner to remain in play.

2b) When Emily killed Lorraine, Julia immediately jumped in with Meredith's rescue breathing to bring her back, as a goal, and won it by the dice. I think that's fine, I wouldn't disallow it by the rules - but what do you think? You might even specifically require it: on a 1, the character dies if no one provides medical care, or is permanently injured if someone does.  ...  We all agreed that even if it works, she should suffer (at least) a permanent injury.

<> i love how you all handled the situations in 2b) it made great sense.

You could also add "captured" into the mix. If you were to just copy our actual play, a 1 in safety would be "the character dies, unless someone else wins a medical attention roll, in which case the character suffers a permanent injury and is captured."

<> your suggestion above is very much like our the first version of  our play  where the  category of  SAFTY was pretty harsh.  # 2 = doomed (You die or are "captured*" in this session), # 1 = gone (you die or are "disappeared**" in this scene) (( * ~  this could indicate 'controlled' -or- 'influenced' -not just- 'taken hostage')) (( **~ character becomes an NPC never to be a Runner again))

3) The pursuers got ahead. Now first, obviously the players can't avoid them from now on by pushing them further and further ahead, right? We played it that until the pursuers fall behind again, I can bring them into any scene I want to, but I don't have to bring them into every scene.

<>that is very much the way we have handled it so far. if the pursuers gain & pass the Runners they can, at this point [lest they fall behind again],  make any scene a trap for our Runners. this ambush was up to GM discression. i like the idea of trying out a subset of rules like the one you mention below.

...  It might be better to have a rule. ..<snip>... Maybe there should be some little subsystem for when ambushes happen when pursuit is ahead - the GM rolls a die at the start of the scene, something like that.

<> once again, wow.  i love that you folks are enjoying this game so much. sorry this has taken so much space i don't know how to reduce the quote size.  ~Cloud