Tonight Louise, Raf, and I playtested "The Hammer Falls: A Game of Dystopia", a game-in-development by yours truly. This is in addition to the playtest I organized at Conpulsion last weekend - which was positively received.

There were only three of us in the game this time, so the dynamics were a bit different. Plus, I found myself playing a game I designed. I have to say, this is a very odd feeling, and as a result of thinking about my game very regularly for nearly a year I felt like the character I created was forced somehow - though still enjoyable! I know that Louise and Raf enjoyed themselves however, and despite some problematic definitions of terms or character qualities we eventually really got into the game.

As a group we decided on a Technological dystopia, largely because Raf wanted something dark and Bladerunner-esque. I suggested we roll again on the dystopia type list, and we ended up with Temporal. So we hashed out a setting in the future, where the world is on the verge of collapse due to widespread shortage of every resource: fuel, water, food, everything. To combat this imminent destruction, the government has drafted any person with a genetic trait that allows them to, with use of a machine and chemical cocktail, travel in time. Thus far the furthest they've managed to send anyone into the past has been one month. They are often sent to perform seemingly innocuous acts, like clapping at a certain moment or being in a place at a certain time, and then leaving. They have sent "pilots" into the future, but they come back immensely damaged and usually absolutely insane. The only common theme of their incoherent speech is that there is NOTHING in the future. Nothing.

Raf came up with Mike "The Spike", the doctor at the internment camp responsible for concocting the chemical triggers for time travel. He worked his "bar" and distributed the chemical cocktail "Slingback" to pilots going on missions. His Ideal was "Everyone deserves a chance" and his Hope was "I hope the brass don't catch me" as his daughter is in the underground resistance, and he's funneling Slingback to her.

Louise was playing Matilda, a drafted time-pilot. Her Ideal was "I want to fix the world" and Hope "I hope I don't crack under the pressure." She joined the camp voluntarily, in order to help pay for a friend's medical care. She is drafted for a mission into the future, and has to sign away her rights - and the lives of her close loved ones, should they not agree to total non-disclosure.

I played Carl, a young conflicted man who ended up employed as a guard at the camp, mostly due to paternal pressure - his father is top brass. Ideal was "Social Order" and Hope was "I hope I don't kill anyone." He was immediately thrust into a situation where the commanding officer expected him to use lethal force against food rioters that had broken down a gate and flooded into the camp.

It was a good game, and we had to stop after The Turning Point scene, where Slingback-aided time-shifting rebels broke Mike out of the Brig, and he left to help his daughter (now revealed to be the result of an incestuous affair between Mike and his sister) and the rebellion. Matilda took her Slingback and prepared herself for a potentially deadly trip to three months in the future - with a picture of her terminally ill best friend Becca in her shirt pocket, even though taking pictures and other items from the past is strictly illegal. Carl watched as, after the rebel assault, hungry homeless people started to come into the camp in order to raid for food, and members of his unit brutally set upon these weak, starving people. Carl knocked one of the guards from atop his victim and beat him into unconsciousness, then ran out of the camp and into the dark streets of the city.

Anyway, fun. I've recorded an AP of it as well, and will post that in this thread in the next day or two.