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A Good Week (for Betrayal!)

Obviously the question of people working together (or not) is a pretty fundamental one which I think makes it great material for examination. As a game designer, that’s something that interests me: looking at core issues or social dynamics that we all deal with. Cooperation is a universal issue. Where it isn’t, it should be.

It has been a good week.

As all my lovely playtesters know, the new and improved version of Follow went out Friday. The big change is in character creation. The old method was okay, but it didn’t whack the nail quite the way I wanted.

The new method? I’m pretty darn happy with it. I already talked about the excellent Hackers & Homework game we played testing the new rules on Monday. But then, shocker, we had an even more amazing game Thursday. It was so hot I can’t even talk about it clearly yet. The drama got so real we had to take breaks to walk around and cool down. So real that players who weren’t in the scenes said they felt like they were intruding on the privacy of the characters who were. No joke. These players brought it. We played until the store closed and then finished out on the street, because we needed closure.

We also hit peak-betrayal and really embraced its potential to drive excellent fiction. I feel like the lotus flower of the betrayal mechanic is opening. More about that later.

Suffice to say, after that session I pulled the trigger on the new release with a song in my heart.

What’s next? Go Play NW is this weekend and I’ve scheduled a Friday night game of Follow, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I played a wee bit more during some of the pickup slots too. And don’t tell anyone, but I’m also working on a booster pack with more quests for playtesters. Build a thriving colony? Play gods and make mortals worship us? Oh yeah.

    Ben Robbins | July 3rd, 2016 | , | show 2 comments