For the love of dog
For the Love of Dog
Our Travelers left Littleville, continuing their Journey to the next Stop. Bruised, distraught, but feeling a spark of Hope, that light in the dark that keeps them moving forward...
So ends the first play through of The Electric State. An alpha pdf, so a fair few sections are missing and those that have been delivered are subject to change.
The starter scenario, Into the Dust, has only a single stop but sets the PCs up as if they are undertaking the complete Journey.
This is Free League's attempt to create a fast passed, narratively driven RPG. No skills just attributes and equipment. Focus is on your Hope in a desperate and grim setting, manufacturing Hope as you resolve Tension with your fellows, losing Hope as the horrors of this near apocalyptic landscape assaults your senses.
Combat is at most one to two rounds, with a high chance of serious injury, death slightly less so, but in a world breaking down, infection, broken bones, any simple injuries can become deadly.
So what did I enjoy? I've no real nostalgia for the 90s, by then I'd just left college and was deep into career and relationships, so much of that decades' zeitgeist passed me by, but I can see that being a big pull for Millennials.
The Journey for me, as a forever GM, is the crux of interest. I also love a road movie. Relaxing as the landscape changes, compressing on the outbound, decompressing on the inbound. A satisfaction of an objective achieved when the destination is arrived at, it could take a day, a week, many months or years - this allows an episodic, campaign like feel. For a one shot, just play out a single Stop but everything is possible in the Stop, an isolated adventure or a continuation of the overall theme.
So all good? Sort of, it follows Blade Runner in being a very structured and specific RPG, the PCs are constructed to encourage them to move from place to place, they are not going to setup a home on the way, they're driven to meet their Goal, resolve their Flaws and avoid Threats. Goal ahead, Threat behind, move along the straight line...
Some GMs may find this restrictive.
Hope and Tension are something else problematic for me, perhaps an initial resolving of Tension to gain Hope, but will players begin artificially generating Tension in order to resolve diminishing Hope in the future? This feels like it is not thought through from a design perspective and could result in a repetitive and odd outcome, hopefully there is still time to adjust this.
Overall, it's been a lot of fun to run this Stop, memorable scenes and player actions and I can see myself coming back to complete this Journey but beyond that? The repetition of the Journey structure may not be for me. But it's an alpha, I definitely want to get my hands on the full release before deciding if this will be travelling around the country with me or left behind on the shelf.