23 May 2009

Book reports

I've decided that I'm no longer going to write something about every book that I read, as that was becoming a drag. I'll just write something about books that stand out, instead.

Actual play report: GHOST/ECHO

Last game night there were only three of us, and I decided to try out John Harper's mini-game GHOST/ECHO. You might as well go read it before the rest of this report - it's only two pages long.

It was a good game - taking the starting situation "your crew is sold out in the ghost world," we established that they'd been on their way to score some metal (drugs), specifically one that was used when channeling the ghost field. They fought back, were captured, escaped and then tooled up and started tracking down whoever had sold them out for revenge. By the time we'd finished, Grip and Vixen had left quite a trail of bodies behind them and were basically sorted. There's an outstanding question about whether their fixer Venom was in on the betrayal or not. That is something that will be established if we go back to the game, I expect.

The very basic resolution system was enough for the game, so if the text seemed interesting on a read through, I'd recommend you take it for a spin some time. Not sure how well it would go for a longer term game, but there's enough inspiration for a one-shot or short run in there.

The system also seemed to encourage crazy action and filling out more details about the world. The way that things in the world are specified also brings out a lot of good stuff as you fill out details in play - as GM, I mainly did this by asking what things were rather than deciding myself.