I finally got a chance to playtest my game Messengers (a draft copy is available at http://www.mediafire.com/?9mwqm4zjmlc). I was the GM and there were two players. It took about twenty minutes to create characters and it was interesting to see the different tact's they took.

The first character is Brad Mercury, an amnesiac (yes that old cliché) with an army tattoo and numerous burns (including burns on his fingers that prevent identification). He spent most of his character points taking his attributes close to the maximum (allowing him to be strong, swift, quick witted and charming) but took no qualities (representing his lack of memory of any skills). He took only 1 rank in insight and spiritualism, using the medium psychic to give him a +3 bonus on his message checks.

The second character was Dave Spectrum, working in a pizza shop he took qualities that gave him a talent for spotting when people were lying and allowing him to handle himself in a fight. He took at least 5 ranks in all of the available gifts but only one medium, electronics.

In the first game both Messengers receive a vision of a young blonde woman standing on a cliff top at night. She cries out "Dad!" before plummeting to her death. They meet up to discuss what they've seen and searching the local paper. I had them roll Mind checks and both rolled high so they found the same story, a Kate Foster had been found dead and the police suspected she had become lost while hiking and fallen, the death ruled accidental.

Once Dave had finished his shift at the pizza shop, and blown of a co-workers invitation to go drinking, both Messengers headed to the cliff. They each used their gifts, receiving a +5 to their rolls for being on an important location. This was the first time I had to look through my list of prepared clues for each of the categories (vague, trivial, minor, major and critical) and select an appropriate clue for their location and the gift and medium they were using.

Brad was at the top of the cliff and suddenly had a vision of a cars headlights blinding him while a man approached, shovel in hand. In his panic Brad almost falls off the cliff. Meanwhile Dave has driven his car to the bottom and uses his postcognition gift and electronics medium. Suddenly he finds himself driving along a highway leading out of the city just as a hitchhiker steps out in front of the car with a sickening crunch. Dave gets out of the car only to find himself at the bottom of the cliff. Although he knows the event he just saw didn't happen at this location he knows it is connected.

Both messengers gained trauma for what they had seen, Brad ending up with the most. The two swapped information about what they had seen and headed home, disturbed about what they had seen. With a chunk of trauma providing negative modifiers on their rolls they realised they should have invested in contacts, if only as a means to shed their burden. They also regretted making their characters loners with no friends of family.

The next day Dave decided to share his trauma with his co-worker Greg, claiming he had become disturbed by what he had read in the paper about Kate's death, suspecting it was foul play. He managed to remove all his trauma and Greg only gained 1 trauma point for listening to Dave. They decided to go for a drink after work.

Meanwhile Brad had headed to the local library to see if he could find any record of the dead hitchhiker Dave had seen. The librarian took pity on the badly burnt Brad, showing him the archives but Brad took advantage of her attention by getting rid of all 6 trauma points, babbling about his nightmares and dark thoughts leaving the librarian quite shaken.

Brad found a news report from 10 years ago indicating that the hitchhiker was called Peter Swanson and his family had reported him missing but his body was never discovered. Spending a few more hours Brad searched for more information about Kate and found out her dad, Daniel Foster, had died 10 years ago, around the same time that Peter had gone missing. Brad headed to the bar where Dave had got rid of his last point of trauma by spending a relaxing evening drinking with Greg. After Greg left Brad told Dave what he had learnt.

The next day they both went to city records and Dave used his gifts again, While Brad just saw text on the computer screens Dave saw police discovering a burnt out car, a charred corpse inside. One of the few things left intact was a drivers license for Daniel Foster. They assume this must be the person in the car.

Both Messengers suspect that Peter was accidentally killed and that Daniel had burnt his body in the car to fake his death. The question was why and how did it relate to the apparent murder of Kate. They sent an unsigned letter to the police to urge them to re-examine the body in Daniel's grave.

They then went to visit Kate's mother, Beverly, getting the address from the phonebook. This was the first time we used the influence tables. I told them that Beverly was apprehensive, sad and neutral towards them. They claimed they were writing a book on grief and made personality checks. Between them they managed to roll well enough to make two shifts on the influence tables so decided to move her from neutral to friendly.

Beverly welcomed them inside and they were able to subtlety ask her questions. They learnt Daniel had been a travelling salesman, sometimes spending months away but when he died Kate took it very hard. Beverly goes on to say that recently Kate had become happier and Beverly suspected she was secretly seeing someone as she had started going out late and lying about where she was going. Beverly had just been glad that Kate was getting out of the house. With some convincing from the Messengers she gave them the phone number of Kate's best friend, who might have more information for them.

That's where we left it for the first session. It seemed to go well as the players really got into the mystery, positing scenarios and try to put the pieces of the puzzle together. It had a good balance of good old fashioned detective work and when they got stuck they could use their gifts. They also realised that with all they had learnt they still needed hard evidence before they could bring it to the police (aside from the mysterious letter they sent).

It didn't take them long to realise that there were benefits to having a life outside of just carrying out the Message. They needed to interact with other people, either to transfer trauma or just take part in a social activity to get rid of it. I'm pleased with how the Influence tables were used and the players took the time to think about how the NPCs might be feeling or react and adjust their interaction with that NPC to match. With Beverly they were very understanding about her loss, Brad playing up his burns to get sympathy from her.

As the GM I think planning is the key. You have to know everyone involved and have a good selection of clues so no matter where the Messengers use their gifts, what gift they use and through what medium you can give them something appropriate and satisfy their desire to learn more. I'm sure the longer you play and the more familiar you become with the groups tactics the easier this will become.

At the end of this first session the response was positive. The players said the system was easy to understand and they thought the mystery aspect of the game was something different from the usual d&d sessions they usually play. They also kept detailed notes about the mystery which is unusual for them as they usually just play by ear.

We're looking forward to next week when we hope to continue the investigation.