Sunday, July 11, 2010

Play-testing time




Today, assisted by some kind souls, I ran a play-test for a soon to be published adventure for Trail of Cthulhu. Set in a field hospital during World War 1, the adventure asks the players to investigate some recent unexplained deaths. Overall I think the game went OK, but running a play-test presented me with some interesting challenges.

Probably the biggest challenge was not modifying the scenario before hand. As the game was a play test, I deliberately decided not to modify things in order to provide the most effective feedback. This is something I have taken for granted in my recent gaming life and, to be honest, something I wasn't aware I did so much. I guess it's only when I didn't have the ability to do this, that I realised I really appreciated it.

This made the game being a little more messy than I would have normally preferred, as there were aspects that didn't sit totally right with me. The adventure was also designed with a real 'sandbox' approach to the setting. The players found this good in that it gave them a lot of freedom to investigate different leads, but I felt some of the scenes were a little 'messy'. There were also a large number of NPCs to juggle which was a little draining and quite a shift in tone towards the end of the story.

This meant some aspects of the game didn't really 'pop' as well as I would have hoped, which is a little disappointing, as I was the GM for a new bunch of guys who I respect as gamers. I am also fighting off the beginnings of a cold, which didn't help matters much. However it did remind me of the importance of scenario familiarity, especially when you can't make changes, and I think the feedback generated will be very useful for the publishers. Next up is Thursday's regular New York campaign, so hopefully I'm feeling better by then.

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