Ok, folks, GenCon is almost here. I'm up to my neck in freelance design, with Universalis and octaNe up to bat next. Just finished Trollbable, and Ron's going over revisions (soon, folks, soon!).

So, as I announced very recently, Dust Devils will be on sale at the Forge booth (as well as a PDF download about the same time). I'm rewriting like crazy, and I've already got an outstanding cover pic (and boy do I mean outstanding!), with more interior art on the way. The game will be either a stapled or comb-bound half-letter sized booklet. It will be more than double the material available now on the free playtest version.

First, to make everyone drool, check out the AWESOME cover pic by Jon Hodgson.

Second, a couple urgent pleas . . .

* Who has read Ron's thoughtful review of Dust Devils? His comments really helped me reshape the game, but I haven't heard much feedback from anyone else since his review posted. Any thoughts about the review or just comments about the game itself? If so, let's hear about it in the unanswered(!) thread started by Clinton in Review Discussion.

* Would you pay $10 for Dust Devils as a 5.5" by 8.5" publication with color copy and interior B&W art? Would you pay for a PDF of the same in regular letter size?

* Who has played the game? Obviously Ron and his crew has, as has Clay and I think Sean Wipfli. Anyone else? I'm VERY eager to hear any comments you might have in Actual Play.

* If you haven't played yet, why not? ;) Seriously, is it just a "haven't got around to it yet" or does anyone have hurdles to overcome, like what to actually do in a session!?! Again, I'd love to hear from you, and help out if possible.

* GENCON -- Who wants to play Dust Devils demo at GenCon? I'm hoping to see some Forge regulars, of course, but all are welcome. I'll try to run the game more than once, space and time willing, of course.

The link to the image is broken. As for your questions?

Matt Snyder wrote:
* Who has read Ron's thoughtful review of Dust Devils?

* Would you pay $10 for Dust Devils as a 5.5" by 8.5" publication with color copy and interior B&W art? Would you pay for a PDF of the same in regular letter size?

* Who has played the game? / If you haven't played yet, why not?

* GENCON -- Who wants to play Dust Devils demo at GenCon?

Damn, damn, damn. Ok, the image link should be fixed. Here it is again for posterity:

Dust Devils cover

Great cover, Matt.

I think Dust Devils is one of the finest games ever to emerge from the current design scene. I'd really like to know how other people's play proceeds. Let's see; Sean Wipfli did some play at one point, I think. Anyone else? I'll echo Matt - more, more.

I'm currently writing a shortie demo for Dust Devils for GenCon. (It's one of TWENTY such demos I'm preparing, geared for 25 minute - 45 minute play). With any luck we can get some buzz going there.

Best,
Ron

Whoah...what a fantastic cover. Holy smokes.

My situation is similiar to Jared's I'm afraid. Having just moved to Peoria I don't have a group to play with (unless I want to play 3E or Mech Warrior...which I don't). But Seth is out here now, so hopefully that situation will be changing soon.

The only thing I'd include that wasn't in the pdf (but might be now) is a handful of sample characters with focus on the types of devils that work best (and maybe some mention of what devils would be lame and Ron does regarding Price in Sorcerer). And then a handful of plot hooks for the type of western stories most likely to generate good focus on the devil.

Perhaps, if your feeling ambitious, you can tie the two together and have 1 or 2 sample characters with devils and a plot hook designed for those character's and their devil. Maybe a couple little items like this just to serve as "ahhh...thats what we should be playing" items.

And yeah, I fully expect to play the hell out of it at GenCon

Valamir wrote: The only thing I'd include that wasn't in the pdf (but might be now) is a handful of sample characters with focus on the types of devils that work best (and maybe some mention of what devils would be lame and Ron does regarding Price in Sorcerer). And then a handful of plot hooks for the type of western stories most likely to generate good focus on the devil.

Perhaps, if your feeling ambitious, you can tie the two together and have 1 or 2 sample characters with devils and a plot hook designed for those character's and their devil. Maybe a couple little items like this just to serve as "ahhh...thats what we should be playing" items.

And yeah, I fully expect to play the hell out of it at GenCon

Hi Matt,

I cannot over-stress that you must actually play the game. If your "group" (which sounds like it's not a group at all) won't play, then find someone else. It's really crucial.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote:
I cannot over-stress that you must actually play the game. If your "group" (which sounds like it's not a group at all) won't play, then find someone else. It's really crucial.

Matt...Des Moines is only about 4 hours from Peoria, if you need to play and can't find anyone local...come on over.

Valamir wrote: Matt...Des Moines is only about 4 hours from Peoria, if you need to play and can't find anyone local...come on over.

Matt- You could sell 10 copies for $10 a piece based on that cover image alone.

Don't believe me? Hell, I'LL do it at GenCon. :)

How many pages is Dust Devils going to be? Did I miss this information?

Matt, the cover image is the whip, man. The whip. Bravo to Jon on that.

And if I'm not invited into a demo at GenCon, not only will I be personally offended, I will never remember your name again.

Jason L Blair wrote: How many pages is Dust Devils going to be? Did I miss this information?

Matt, the cover image is the whip, man. The whip. Bravo to Jon on that.

And if I'm not invited into a demo at GenCon, not only will I be personally offended, I will never remember your name again.

Matt,

I've played, and I loved the game. I hope to be able to run a game for my regular group, once they get over their Star Wars infatuation. I'm a huge western fan. I nearly failed English in Jr. High because Louis Lamour was a lot more interesting than diagraming sentence structure. To be honest, I still think that I've gotten more real value out of the novels than I ever did out of the classes (and I've published).

Will you be selling the printed book off your web site? I won't be going to GenCon, but I'd like to buy the book. $10 is a very good price, even for a slim volume.

Matt Snyder wrote: I admit my own Sorensen-syndrome -- fear I'll run the game poorly in such good company!

Clay,

I'd greatly appreciate any comments you might have on my review of Dust Devils. Not of, you know, my scintillance as a reviewer, but rather on the points or features of the game, and whether your experience matches or doesn't match with my observations.

Best,
Ron

I think that your notes about GMing a game like this are dead on. So dead on that I printed them out and read them at work today (boss is out and I'm short on tasks to do). It is my hope that Matt will put a lot of work into this section, because the conceptual leap from traditional gaming promoted by the D20 system and others to this style of gaming is huge.

I suspect that some of your experiences with letting go of scenario control are due to your group being very accustomed to driving the show. The group I played with was not (two of the three had never gamed before), and the group I want to run Dust Devils with next is not. I found that at first I really needed to guide the players heavily to get anything to happen at all, especially when we first started. In particular, I found that it was still very necessary to go through all of the prep that I outlined in my entry under advice for new GMs. If I didn't set up encounters, they certainly weren't going to. A more experienced group might not suffer from this, but I haven't had a chance to try it out with such a group yet.

I agree that considerably more information about handling the Devil and building stories around it is needed. I'd like to see some explicit examples with Devils and how the author recommends constructing a story that uses the Devil. It's not that I couldn't figure it out on my own; I'm paid to solve logic puzzles for a living (i.e. programming). It's just that I don't have all that much time outside of the weekly sessions to puzzle these things out any more. Work, house and family conspire to take that time up. Add my fundamental laziness to that and I'm a big fan of a guide to send me down the right path.

I didn't feel the need to change the card mechanics. Since we weren't actually playing poker anyway, we didn't have a problem with the fact that a player might sometimes only get three or four cards to draw. We didn't look at it as an issue of fairness so much as a sign that the player might have chosen the wrong battle. Actual play also showed that a pair was often the winning hand, so a decent hand could be made with four cards. Again, I played with a very different group than you did, so it might just be that the mechanic worked well for our group and wouldn't for another.

Matt Snyder wrote: Who has played the game? If you haven't played yet, why not?

I'd have to disagree that there's no story there, especially the comparison to the Hogshead line which I've never felt were worth actually being printed into a book, being IMO, PDF games well short of being ready for release...but that's another thread entirely.

The thing with Dust Devils is, is that its very genre specific. If you are already a big fan of B-grade western movies (like "A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die") you don't really need anything more than whats in the book. If you aren't, than I don't think there's away of putting together a book that will convey it for you.

Valamir wrote: The thing with Dust Devils is, is that its very genre specific. If you are already a big fan of B-grade western movies (like "A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die") you don't really need anything more than whats in the book. If you aren't, than I don't think there's away of putting together a book that will convey it for you.

Hi James,

I think there's a bit of a mileage issue here, but on the other hand, I certainly agree that your question is a valid one.

My concern is where the answer is supposed to come from: authors or role-players (by which I mean any human, GM, "player" alike). Clearly, a game text without a "do this" in there somewhere, however vague as long as it's inspiring, is missing something. That's what I call Premise, in the most general sense, in my essay.

However, how much is needed? Let's look at both sources.

In terms of text, I agree that All Flesh Must Be Eaten is on the short side in this sense (see my Dead Meat review for some comments about that). I think that Hero Wars, by contrast, is awesomely supplied with this quality, perhaps overwhelmingly so because it provides so many options. All right, I think it's not hard to see that games vary in terms of how much they provide. Dust Devils is certainly somewhere between these two extremes.

In terms of users (players), I think it's reasonable to expect that people must bring something to the table themselves. When we played All Flesh Must Be Eaten, we had to bring a lot to the table in order to enjoy the game; when we played Hero Wars, even though the game provides so much, we still had to bring proactive "Premise" to the table - it's a basic requirement of the activity. (In HW, it was a matter of focus and willingness to develop the issues that the game raises; in AFMBE, it was a matter of simply inventing something emotionally-interesting from the ground up.)

So here you are, a fan of spaghetti westerns and so forth. It strikes me that Matt wrote a very good introduction to the game, right there on the first page. I'm thinking, Hang'em High, and maybe No Name on the Bullet, and certainly Django. Is it really that hard to see "what to do"?

I agree that some GM-help is called for, and I said as much in my review. But the game can't do it all for you. A person must bring something of his own to the table, in regard to the western - Dust Devils makes it possible for that "something" to get rolling in play itself.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: My concern is where the answer is supposed to come from: authors or role-players (by which I mean any human, GM, "player" alike). Clearly, a game text without a "do this" in there somewhere, however vague as long as it's inspiring, is missing something. That's what I call Premise, in the most general sense, in my essay.

However, how much is needed?

Jared Sorensen wrote: What is the game ABOUT (really about)?
How is it about that?
What does the game reward?
How does it encourage that behavior?
What do the characters do? What do the players do?