Along with gaming with Edinburgh and Glasgow hippiegamers, I have a small group in Stirling. We got together yesterday and played Contenders for about four hours. The players are Calum, Jenny, Alasdair, and me.

The only prep I'd done was 'maybe we could set the game in the 70s in Vegas'. Calum suggested sailors on a WWII aircraft carrier. Someone suggested American. I suggested the Pacific theatre, so we'd have sweat, palm trees and endless blue skies to use in scenes. This was a *fun* setting. I've played Contenders a few times, and the setting threw up surprises for me.

We got four characters in 15 minutes. Traits were all immediately obvious, in-ring traits took a few seconds longer to explain. Both Calum and Jenny took over the rulebook early on. I'd forgotten to print characters sheets, and their rules summaries would have helped a lot.

We discussed how some Connection scenes would take the form of letters and telegrams to the folks back home. My own connection was my superior officer, unimpressed with my cowardice. Calum's connection was his dad, who'd won boxing competitions back in the day. Jenny's first connection was a half-sister back in Pearl Harbour, but she developed another connection through play - the half-sister's fiancé, a hotshot pilot. Alasdair's connection was a girlfriend back in the US.

In four hours got about 25 good scenes in. I opened with a faltering Connection, then encouraged the others to look at what they were lacking on the sheet for guidance. We had some fun Works and Connections. The system pushed us into dagerous situations, and two characters ended up coordinating smuggling. Another set up an illegal radio station. The carrier was in dock at a small Micronesian island, but had not yet allowed shore leave, so the crew were seething and stressed. We ended up with great imagery describing conditions on board, work and maintenance, hideyholes and illicit rum.

Our first match took place onshore, on a beach under a full moon with screaming locals surrounding the scratched-out ring. The second was in the backroom of a nearby bar, with corrugated steel panels and chicken wire falling down as the exhausted fighters wavered this way and that. The third was supposedly a friendly onboard the carrier's deck, until my character brought the pain. The fourth was a gripping rematch on the beach. All bouts were brutual, bloody, and felt *long*. But not protracted. And the system was quick, even though we had a few rounds where both contenders did damage.

We didn't have any particular problem with the system, though we found a few gaps. It wasn't obvious what happened in Connections when neither Cash nor Pain earned a success. And can you burn hope to restore a point of Conditioning? During prolonged fights, that would be an important tactical choice.

So, everyone enjoyed themselves. The system pushed us in interesting ways. The setting was very cool. Scenes were challenging but not difficult.

Joe.