I wanted to emulate the Indiana Jones feel - puzzles, fights, travel, 'exotic' locations, bad baddies. Want everything big and heroic. Want everything exotic and purple descriptions. Wanted it to be fast
I think I've got the pieces, but not the feel.
Things are pretty big, and some bits of heroic stuff, but it doesn't feel that way.
I haven't done nearly as much 'exotic description' stuff as I would have liked.
Definitely not fast! Always ended up throwing too much in the way of players so they couldn't just solve the thing. Sometimes tried too hard to give everyone something to do, which added to this.
This is a technique for building scenarios that aren't railroading, and allow both discovery and mystery without relying on dice rolls to solve problems.
I really tried to do this, but my clues failed, I didn't have enough nodes/transitions and I think people felt railroaded even though there were actually options - they just didn't see them.
(And of course people found nodes that I hadn't created/prepped...)
This kind of genre I feel to be leaning towards Narrative rather than Simulationist. Though if there was a third axis, then it should be dominated by Emulation (of the Indian Jones Genre)
I want the players to add as much to the story as I do (and to feel that way, too)
I did a lot of the talking! I would describe what was going on, but I'd also describe the consequences of people's actions - rather than them describing it themselves.
We had a few moments of players suggesting things (with a 'pretty please') but they were notable because of their rarity.
I didn't leave space, let alone encourage, people to add there own to the story.
The motivation behind the new dice system was to encourage interpretation of the dice.
The results are almost exactly the same as the Apocalypse World approach (2d6, 7+ weak hit, 10+ strong hit), but by having the GM roll a 'negative' dice the intent was to show how awesome the character is, but how difficult the circumstances were to overcome. This could then play into the interpretation of the result (to which the players should contribute, but didn't often get the opportunity to)
Our super competent heroes shouldn't often screw up, they should find their task too challenging... maybe this time it was easy, but when it goes wrong - that's when it gets interesting.
In real stories, it's people that make the drama. So there should be lots of NPCs and they should 'mean' something.
I've put in a few, happy with that, and even connected some PCs to the NPCs, so that's ok, but I would have liked more. :thinking really not sure where I would have done that though.
Woudl have been awesome to make Richter even more evil and Bwa ha ha ha.
I read these a lot, but am just not that familiar with them, and some of their intent is perhaps missed in the translation (originally Italian).
I have totally screwed up the luck points/debilities thing. I've not done something like that before, and having a bit of both and not much guidance means I'm not happy with what I've done at all (Actual plays would be good, to see how it should be done)
I found the dice mechanic a bit dumb (I thought that before playing, but tried to stick to it). I think I'm too mathematical to not find it frustrating, and too fiddly.
The books are fun, though! well worth a read :D
I was painfully aware that often two people would be sidelined during any bit of action. So then I'd adjust things and they'd then rush in, and a different two would be sidelined.
In narrative story telling, 5 PCs is too much for me to handle. Indeed, it seems likely that 4 would be too, but 3 feels a little sparse :shrug