After Action Report: Jailbreak
The notes in the back of Unknown Armies' 2nd Ed rulebook calls Jailbreak 'a convention standard'. It's easy to see why. The large number of players means that someone will almost always be doing something, and the characters' different personalities, obsessions and hangups, to borrow a line, "all fit quite nicely together, like furious, bloodstained sticklebricks". The plot evolved very organically, needing only the occasional nudge from me to keep the tension high. Guns were fired, life changing revelations were covered up and a thing escaped from a chest that everyone, in retrospect, wished hadn't. In fact, I realised (at the point where I had a character's mobile battery fail while she was desperately trying to dial 000) that I was taking a lot my pacing cues from Funny Games. I'm a bad, bad man.
My players, on the other hand, were great. I guess it turns out that if you schedule your game for the late session, the people who turn up will be the people who really wanted to be there, rather than the folks who are just killing time before something else they want to do. It also means that, if you finish a bit early, there's time for some very interesting post-game commentary. This gave everyone an opportunity to go into bits of their character that had been informing their actions, but which didn't ever become obvious to anyone besides me. Anyway, if any of you read this (hi lordriffington! Also,
d_fuses, several of them play Shadowfist with you), thanks again.
Some further observations:
My players, on the other hand, were great. I guess it turns out that if you schedule your game for the late session, the people who turn up will be the people who really wanted to be there, rather than the folks who are just killing time before something else they want to do. It also means that, if you finish a bit early, there's time for some very interesting post-game commentary. This gave everyone an opportunity to go into bits of their character that had been informing their actions, but which didn't ever become obvious to anyone besides me. Anyway, if any of you read this (hi lordriffington! Also,
d_fuses, several of them play Shadowfist with you), thanks again.
Some further observations:
- UA is a very easy system to teach. From memory, I had one player who had some hands-on experience with the system and another who'd read the first section of the rulebook some time back. By the end of the game, everyone was rolling the right things, flip-flopping, telling me their damage rolls and so on like they'd been doing it since the game came out.
- With a game like this, where most of the action comes from the players riffing on each other, having the GM not take a seat and keep roaming around the table seems to work well. When people aren't constantly looking at you waiting for the next bit of plot, they feel a bit more free to have side conversations, make plans and so on. It's possible that having someone constantly moving around is distracting. Again, if you were playing, let me know what you thought of the approach.
- I had a few handouts, but one thing I should have had was a map of the house in which most of the story took place. I think all nine people around the table had a different idea of how the house was laid out. Whoops.