04-08-2011, 02:29 AM
Played a game of this this evening when our usual Heavy Gear game was called off. It was great fun, being a pretty simple mechanic and gives a great feel for the original film.... though it does require a fair bit of input from the players.
We start with the party, each of one particular class and each having a particular ability that makes them useful to the team. After that, it plays a lot like the traditional heist movie, but with far more tension. It's a diceless system, instead using a Jenga tower to represent the stability of the dream and how close you are to being kicked out of it and the whole thing being failed. It's also possible to go deeper down to three layers or more of dreaming. If you do something which could possibly destabilise the dream, or inform the Mark that he's in a dream or being attacked, you pull up to three blocks from the Jenga tower depending on how bad the destabilisation was. If the tower collapsed, you were either kicked out of the dream, or kicked up to the previous level.... and in general, bad stuff happened.
The game we played, was pretty basic. Just find the information about a hidden stash of money from a son about to ship off to Afghanistan. What we had was everything from bootcamp involving grannies, a zombie apocalypse and the Bundeswehr, and just to add some bite, one of the PC's had been paid off by the Mark. PC was able to let set up a prior signal which informed the Mark that he was in a dream..... and caused it to destabilise just that little bit..... while not going so far as to be caught by the other PC's.
In the end, the party lost as the dream destabilised and they hurried out before it collapsed, bringing out some information.... but not all the information they needed to win. And the traitorous NPC managed to not be discovered.
The Jenga tower however, was awesome. It gave a real sense of both the stability of the dream and tension as more and more changes destabilised the dream, forcing us to move faster and faster. It really is an excellent mechanic, though it also requires some common sense on the part of the players. After the game, the GM informed me (Was playing the traitor) that he specifically let me draw blocks from the tower so I could topple the tower without it being suspicious.... I realised that I could've done it on my first pull. Which would've ruined the game for everyone.
Still, it's something well recommended. It doesn't require much preparation (We ran it over the space of 3 hours or so) and it's great fun provided the group are into it. And best of all, you don't have to have seen the film to be able to play the game.... It'd definitely make a good one-shot con-game and I know I'm not doing it justice with this short post.
More details available at the link below: http://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/index.php/archives/2058
P.S. For added tension, play in a pub when you have drink taken....
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
We start with the party, each of one particular class and each having a particular ability that makes them useful to the team. After that, it plays a lot like the traditional heist movie, but with far more tension. It's a diceless system, instead using a Jenga tower to represent the stability of the dream and how close you are to being kicked out of it and the whole thing being failed. It's also possible to go deeper down to three layers or more of dreaming. If you do something which could possibly destabilise the dream, or inform the Mark that he's in a dream or being attacked, you pull up to three blocks from the Jenga tower depending on how bad the destabilisation was. If the tower collapsed, you were either kicked out of the dream, or kicked up to the previous level.... and in general, bad stuff happened.
The game we played, was pretty basic. Just find the information about a hidden stash of money from a son about to ship off to Afghanistan. What we had was everything from bootcamp involving grannies, a zombie apocalypse and the Bundeswehr, and just to add some bite, one of the PC's had been paid off by the Mark. PC was able to let set up a prior signal which informed the Mark that he was in a dream..... and caused it to destabilise just that little bit..... while not going so far as to be caught by the other PC's.
In the end, the party lost as the dream destabilised and they hurried out before it collapsed, bringing out some information.... but not all the information they needed to win. And the traitorous NPC managed to not be discovered.
The Jenga tower however, was awesome. It gave a real sense of both the stability of the dream and tension as more and more changes destabilised the dream, forcing us to move faster and faster. It really is an excellent mechanic, though it also requires some common sense on the part of the players. After the game, the GM informed me (Was playing the traitor) that he specifically let me draw blocks from the tower so I could topple the tower without it being suspicious.... I realised that I could've done it on my first pull. Which would've ruined the game for everyone.
Still, it's something well recommended. It doesn't require much preparation (We ran it over the space of 3 hours or so) and it's great fun provided the group are into it. And best of all, you don't have to have seen the film to be able to play the game.... It'd definitely make a good one-shot con-game and I know I'm not doing it justice with this short post.
More details available at the link below: http://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/index.php/archives/2058
P.S. For added tension, play in a pub when you have drink taken....
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?