Discussion 52: Psi*Run Review
A short but sweet review of Psi*Run.
Relevant Links
- Psi Run
- Meguey Baker
- Jason Pitre
- John Harper
- “Hands of Blue” in Firefly
- Agents in The Matrix
- Jank Cast
- Marvel Heroic
- Apocalypse World
- GURPS
Crunchy Bits
- Intro by A Flock of Seagulls
- Outro by Pink Floyd
Podcast: |
This was the perfect timing. I just bought the book last week to run a con and I’m set to “playtest” it today!
Thanks! Can’t wait for the interview. Meg seems like a fascinating person.
To me, it seems like a good idea for the “Your powers go crazy” die to not have an impact mechanically. It encourages crazy fun stuff to happen in the fiction, and makes it so you aren’t so punished for rolling one bad die.
There is a difference between “finding where my brother is” and REMEMBERING anything about it. It happens to people who suffer from amnesia when they are given photos of loved ones whom they don’t recall, even thought they know (intellectually) the facts of their past.
Yay, this review!!
Update on my recent Psi*Running I mentioned above and adding my critiques:
I also encountered the psi-dump-stat problem a bit (although it might have been one player in particular trying to troll me by forcing me come up with creative ways for his super senses power to kill people, haha).
A couple bigger concerns I had were (in order) being too scared of the chaser, not knowing what to do, and pvp.
–During the whole 3.5 hours of the game, the chaser only moved once or twice. At one point, they were 4 locations ahead of them. I felt that kind of hurt the tension, but there’s no mechanical way (that the GM has access to) to help them catch up a bit.
–Several times I described something and asked the players what they were going to do (a la ApoWo) and they would just kind of shrug. I got the feeling Kevin was having similar problems (“Where should we run to?”)
–Around 2/3 into the game, one of the players decided that he must’ve been a chaser before he lost his memory. Then he split from the group and started working against them. Thankfully we ran out of questions before that came to a head. This is probably a pretty unique situation, but I don’t think this game is equipped to handle this kind of turn at all.
Anyway, despite the above, I loved the game too. Can’t wait to run it for strangers at MegaCon. Thanks for putting up these recordings!
We coulda used those concerns before the interview, David! 😛
Listening to that interview reminded me that I never posted these.
(AKA: I’m a failure. Haha.)