I’ll try and be clearer with an example…

At Consequences I ran a session of 3:16 with 7 players, a lieutenant, two sargeants, a corporal and three troopers. So 35 threat tokens. We had to end the session early because the hall was closing and it was last slot of the Con which can be an odd one.

At the point I decided to announce a ‘cliff hanger’ ending to the game, (to be concluded at Conception) we’d played for a little under 3 hours and I’d used 15 threat tokens, so around four firefights with aliens.

This was because the party had chosen to split up with one sargeant and two troopers trying to do the mission as given (take some macguffins and set them up using balloons that had to be filled from the air tanks in the soldiers own armoured suits to float them in to the dense unbreathable atmosphere). A trooper and the Lt were floating high above the ground on jetpacks with a third jetpack attached to a bomb on a vaguely random countdown. The remaining corporal and sargeant were on the deck watching everything through an enhanced sensor rig the sargeant had requisitioned through stores while patching it all back through the displays on everyone elses armour.

Pretty much none of that, or the briefing, the other stores requisition, the almost failed drop pod landing and the shenanigans that had led to the bomb being attached to a faulty jetpack that was also attached to the Lt without his knowledge had involved any actual interaction with the alien threat. In fact, I’d just thrown in the odd alien attack to remind the players that they weren’t in their own little bubble.

Now, I know as a Con slot game I ran a bit of a mare here. My pacing was out and I’d probably let things get too fragmented. I’d like to think in a different situation (not last slot of the Con when everyone is a bit tired and other things are intruding on the game) I’d have run it tighter. Fortunately the players all had a great time with what they did and will be around to finish the game off next time, but hopefully it sheds some light on what I mean by ‘it’s not about the combat’ the bit where they were blowing the aliens away was a very small part of the game. A part that had its place and did some useful things, there was a lot of damage taken, it fleshed out a number of the characters and some weaknesses had already been triggered, but really not the meat.

These are absolutely beautiful mate. Top effort. I’m a total amateur with this sort of thing, but an enthusiastic one. Now I’m thinking, my writing + your design = win?

Baz

My hope is that the text either (a) excites you to play, and in a way that you and your group will be happy with, or (b) it won’t excite you to play but you will at least understand how the game works.

Regarding looking at the book in play, I wrote it so that I could have it on the table as a reference for me and my friends while playing. Which is unusual for most RPGs as they are terrible at being referenced in play. Anyway, it’s written in the order that rules come up in play with reference material at the end. So it’s great to dip into when you’re playing. Also the amount of info on each page is nicely “bite sized” and the book is short enough that’s it’s not overwhelming.

There is an awesome thread on RPG net where a poster reads the book, sight-unseen, from the start to the end. It’s very comprehensive.
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=477145