[AP] Newer Playtest

OK,
Dan and Jon helped me playtest this time, we used the 14-day version of the rules.
I did not get a good test of the Antagonist campaign setting mechanics. Both of my playtesters made characters before the session.

I had planned on usign another Antagonist, but Jon wasn't feeling him, so I fell back to the Baron from the previous playtest. This proved a bit of a mistake.

So, I forgot to mention about half of the prequel info about teh Baron, how close he was to the characters' friends and family and a few other things.

The freeform part went awful. I am in the process of fixing that now.

Dan did manifest vampire powers and I got to use a weakness. It worked as I expected and it was really fun. I think that there is an odd tension around narrating in the weaknesses. Maybe there needs to be a code or something to identify which are controllable by the player, their opposition or the mechanics (like the character is defeated, etc.). But, it is still close to how I wanted it to work.

After everyone got a scene, I stopped play and we talked about the mechanics. the general feeling was that the Conflict rules were fun and not tedious, and breaking them out 3 or mkore times a session would be more fun than the freeform rules I had been using.

[AP] Early Playtest

I was playing with Nate and Shane. The version was pre-7-day Release.

I made a mistake and forgot to setup the Protagonist ahead of time. IT worked out in the end though.

But, it worked out, I madfe a villain, Baron Krueger. An actual Baron from the old country who is kicking people out of their homes in Chicago in order to fulfill his Goal of building a railway from Chicago to San Fransisco.

I established that the Baron has been causing trouble in neighborhoods in order to get people to sign their deeds over to him. He was using thugs and never seemed to appear to be doing anything wrong. His lackeys had just cleared out a tenement about 1/2 a mile away from where the characters' friends and family live.

So, up to this pojint, it was chargen na dme talking. Once play started, the freeform resolution mechanic was pretty awkward. At the time, I had chalked it up to my inexperience with freeform. Once we got to a point where the Conflict rules took over, it was fun.
I forgot to tell the players how easy it was to manifest vampire powers, so no one did that.
The Conflict was a nail-biter and if I had played a little hard, I might have won.
One aspect that is so great is that whenever I discuss conflict strategy, it inevitably devolves into if you had played X, I would have played Y and canceled it. That is exactly the feel I was going for so, that was awesome!
Dave M