GM: Jacob Segal
Players: Cris Viana, Sophie Lagacé, Tom Lommel, Sean Nittner
System: Asphalt and Trouble
- This was a tight one-shot which was a pleasant relief since that’s not always the case when we do playtests with potential collaborators. Another nice touch was that the main task was to negotiate something and it wasn’t just a smash and bash mission.
- Men weren’t the de facto bike leaders, which is rarely the case – particularly in this genre. It was a nice surprise!
- A big plus this session is that we had named and direct community and threats. We knew about the Diasporans, the Bargers, the Firebreak, Pax Custodia, as well as named characters. This felt like a solid “starting situation” session. Our enemies were LITERALLY our former prison guards. That felt metal.
- That being said, the Enclaves felt a little thin. There is material to generate your own but it’s a section that could benefit from more development and further options to inspire the GM or playgroup.
- Likewise, although there is room to paint a more complex world, it would be nice if the Corps and Badlands/Burnlands/Floodlands were expanded a bit to make the setting breathe more.
- A related issue: it was unclear what resources are in surplus or shortage. (In the Burnlands it was just “food.”) Having a means to specifically define and delineate those things would help give the party leverage and hooks into the world.
- Since this is a game about being in a biker gang, it felt like the role of the bikes themselves should have a tighter/more flavorful integration. Might be a custom set of moves or a mini playbook or something else. As the rules stand, the bikes don’t do much to distinguish themselves on their own or enable unique mechanics or moves in the way the theme suggests they should.
- Setbacks instead of harm were cool. Blades says that harm can be non-physical but lots of folks have trouble thinking of ways to make that work, especially if it’s things that are circumstantial (like “kicked out of the club” which doesn’t really matter after we’ve left the club). By calling them setbacks, removing the Harm Level, and denoting them as short or long term, the game opens up some good options.
- The theme song is a novel concept, but getting everyone to agree on one particular song takes some effort and playing it on repeat for all of the Turn It Up phase gets redundant. (Especially if your group has a wide mix of ages/musical tastes, picking a song could really get unnecessarily thorny.) It might be more fun to have the group generate the title of their unique theme song and a brief description of what it’s like.
- Turn It Up has some terrific simplicity in that anyone can act without having to do the math of assembling a dice pool. It could be further streamlined. For instance, if every roll is Desperate/Great, then the +1 result level seems unnecessary. The concept is solid and unique, there’s no reason to hew too closely to established Blades mechanics so we’d encourage you to innovate here.
- The playbook moves were fun and seemed applicable. As a player you wanted to use those abilities, but didn’t feel like your character was defined by them.
- The Crew playbook options felt a little flat. The concept is post-apocalyptic bikers against the corps, the implementation of the Crew should resonate with that. Example: The Demagogues “convert, ally, [and] subvert.” Could be more evocative or have a more radical implementation.
Overall, we enjoyed this playtest a lot and hope that Jacob keeps working on it!
