Comments | gametime: My year of games (2008)

steve_hix in gametime

My year of games (2008)

Feb 03, 2009 14:26

2008 got off to a quiet start for gaming, until Kapcon in mid January.

( You can read the full list of games I played and ran in 2008, here ... )

one-off, actual play, 2008

Comments 3

mashugenah February 3 2009, 02:50:17 UTC

Dead of Night - best one-off I played in 2008.

steve_hix February 3 2009, 03:44:16 UTC

For me, Dead of Night is tied for top place with The Farm. Both gave me much to think about, in terms of situation, emotions and characters. Both really would have benefited from much longer, non one-off, play.

mashugenah February 3 2009, 04:01:21 UTC

TBH, I think every great once-off I've played would have benefitted from being at least part 1 of 3. The only exception I can think of is Dangers on a Train from KapCon 16; because the character arcs were so low-momentum and their situation so confined.

I think the need for multi-sessions expresses in different ways. For example,
DoN:Ellroy would have been a great session 1 of 3 whereas Shelter Me would have benefitted from another session of exploration/exposition to reconcile the ending with the main action of the game (i.e. another session inserted in the middle of the game).

Conversely, and I hate to say it, but quite a few of the longer games I've played could have done with being cut back a bit. Elizabethan SF was front-loaded with 3 or 4 sessions of pretty dull exploration getting our characters into the same "there are aliens" mindset as the players started with... the Space Western II could likewise have comfortably ditched the first three or four sessions where I was still trying to poke players to see what worked rather ( ... )