In the second of the Warpcon XX playtests, I talk about a two player session of Hell for Leather.

After running the game for 6 strangers, it was nice to flip it around and play with the minimum compliment (2 players). Here’s a quick brief to the game, followed by a short discussion.

Setting: World War II, French resistance
Adversary: Nazis
Gore Threshold: 5
Connection: Family (brothers)
Drop-Off/Objective: Bordeaux/Reichstag
Checkpoints: Get to Germany, Kidnap General Scheiffer, Steal the Maus Tank

Playing two brothers in the second world war who are trying to reach Berlin to murder Adolf Hitler? Absolute gold. I haven’t enjoyed a game of HfL so much since I started writing the game. There were some silly antics (in which Jean-Pierre Francois seduced both a male and, later, a female SS operative), some serious antics (in which both brothers were horribly gunned down by the Nazi troopers) and some gems (in which the Nazi sergeants were seen giving reports on a new “rebel threat”).

Result: Maybe it was because I enjoyed playing the game so much, but when both our characters died I felt cheated. After some discussion, we realised that the game is significantly harder with two players. It all comes down to the way wounds are distributed. Nevertheless, after some considerable thought, I have decided to leave the rules as they stand. Losing HfL has yet to be proven dull. If the game is too hard with two players, that’s no problem, as long as it’s fun.

Rule Revision: Also, the Spotlight rules work amazingly with the new Setting customisation. Confused? In the old days, you played a game about contestants running for their lives on a TV show. Nowadays, you get to come up with your own setting. Some of the game’s old rules (Spotlight, for example), used the TV show as a way to tell some of the story. You would get cutaways to the TV show, and so on. With the new rules, Spotlight changes depending on your Adversary. So if you’re playing a game in WWII, you get cutaways to Nazi officers. Awesome.

New Rules: We tried out a new rule. You know the situation I mentioned yesterday? About stutters in the narrative? To fix that, I’ve included the “Aftermath” phase of an Event. After you determine the results of the Event, you must nominate another player to take up the Challenge (if you scored a Fail) or to describe a new Backdrop (if you scored a Pass). With two players, it shouldn’t have made a difference, but it did. How would it work in a larger group?

(Tomorrow…Hfl Steampunk: Start a Lightning Storm)