My French friend Ben was in town for a night so we assembled some likely faces for a game. Graham W kindly offered to give us a run of Darker, his English Roach vairiant.

Ben gives his view of the proceedings here (en français).

It was a big group, six of us, and we didn't have time to get through the full sequence of events but we did manage five. We demolished a large indian meal just after character generation which took a good hour and a half. But chatting about our characters over dinner did help with the mood I think. It was also helpful, at Ben's suggestion, to write down who all the other PCs were and what they did - there was a lot to remember.

Graham has created some delightfully English events to frame the game, the hunting the hares and throwing hot pennies to the poor put one right in the mood.

It was a jolly evening and this reflected on our play. We were lounging around the sitting room with drinks and this added to the convivial atmosphere. Perhaps had we played at the more austere dining table, with the lights low, our tale may have been truly darker.

So, we played cruel tricks one each other sticking sometimes to our likes and dislikes. Ben got a roach card every turn but rolled hopelessly, he finished on 0 Greatness. JD and Paula had neither roach nor luck and also finished on 0. Lucya managed to get her pipe and philosophy into every conflicty and finished on about 10. I struck into an early lead but was whittled down by other jealous types but recovered at the end to 12 but roached. Graham managed to lose the roach on the last turn and had a big stack by then, around 18 I think. You need to bet big to stand a chance.

I couldn't possibly remember all the incidents but a few stick. I was ordered to eat until bursting when roached so undertook to swallow a little girl whole, shoes, socks and alice band. I also set fire to the poor to defeat the socialist leanings of some of our more red fellows. Ben's don was tied up as a mad man for some spurious reason and the socialist student was fought over by the socialists and the homosexual. The engineer came up with many crazy experiments but religion won out at the Festival of Science and Technology when the great Steam Robin was burned by fanatics. And the Philosophy fellow was at first ridiculed and them ganed some notoriety as the author of potboiler roman a clefs.

It was all rather chaotic but worked and was very enjoyable.

It's good to hear that the slightly more focused setting of Darker pays off.

Cold comfort now, but there's a character sheet available (just) that lists events, Darker notables, and so forth.

Thanks, Steve, it was a very pleasant evening.

It took a while for everyone to warm up, I think: at first, I thought it wasn't going to go well. I explained the rules very badly, forgetting to mention NPCs being incorporated into scenes. I'm glad people enjoyed it: honestly, I wasn't sure whether they had or not.

Ben's right to say there wasn't much horror, as such. It was more epic stuff, with armies of choirboys and huge Victorian war machines. I was very glad when you burnt down the slums.

The more specific Events and Enthusiasms worked well, I thought.

It was very useful, too. I made some changes to the text after playing...

1. The original instructions, on Enthusiasms, were: choose one Enthusiasm from the original Shab al-Hiri Roach rules, plus one of the new Victorian Enthusiasms. On a hunch, I changed that for our game, so that everyone had two Victorian Enthusiasms, and the original Enthusiasms weren't used. It worked fine, so that's now the rule.

2. When I read out the Little Girls Enthusiasm, I was rather embarrassed by the reaction. Man, everyone thinks it's about paedophilia, straight away, even though I make it clear it's not. So...with regret...I've changed Little Girls to Children. Same Enthusiasm, basically, but now it's boys and girls. It has the advantage that it includes the whole Scouting movement, which is very Victorian. Still, I didn't really want to do it.

3. Also, when I read out Women's Rights, I was embarrassed to read out one sentence, with women present (the original text said "...you wouldn't deny a husband's rights over his wife", which was a bit much and I'm slightly embarrassed about). I've toned it down to "...and women shouldn't worry their pretty heads about voting!", which is, um, offensive in a less offensive way.

Thanks again.

Jason, shall we put this on the back cover?

I was ordered to eat until bursting when Roached, so undertook to swallow a little girl whole: shoes, socks and alice band. I also set fire to the poor.