[Review] Committee for the Exploration of Mysteries...

[Eric J. Boyd]

[Matt Cowens]

[MikeSands]

[Matt Cowens]

[Graham Walmsley]

[nyarly]

Okay, well I feel like the Grumpy Judge now. Hrm.

REVIEWER NAME: Judson Lester

1) CREATIVE AND EFFECTIVE INCORPORATION OF RULES (1-10): 5
Feedback: It's more like a Society than a Committee, it's more an egg timer
than an hourglass, and ancient is hardly guaranteed, although I do grant the
use of glass in terms of something to drink out of. As far as time went, I
liked the cliff hangers very much, and they make good use of three sessions,
although I'm not sure about the three hours part. On the other hand, where
the ingredients appear, they are fairly integral to the game, and I like to
see everything mixed up so well.


2) CLARITY (1-10): 6
Feedback: The game text is nice and clear (apart from a couple instances of
grandiloquence, which was pretty appropriate to the subject), and individual
concepts are clearly explained. One notable exception was the explanation of
changing tactics - why not say something like "roll enough extra dice to
bring your total up to the new stat, plus one for surprise"? All in all
though, it stands out because the rest of the text is clear.

On the other hand, concepts appear in an extremely confusing order.
Resolution and Acclaim needs to appear much sooner. There's this weird gap
in the first Hazard example because we skip over the Hazard being resolved.
This is always a challenge in any rules text, but leaving basic mechanics
until last was kind of chewy. Maybe a quick example, or thumbnail sketch of
"roll dice, narrate, don't let the timer expire," would give us enough of a
taste to keep us going through the rest of the text.


3) COMPLETENESS (1-10): 9
Feedback: Honestly, I think this could probably play pretty smoothly with the
current text. There are a couple of little quibbles about how the dice work,
and the balance of sportsmanship and storytelling in a competitive game, but
it seems like you could get people together and go with it as is.


4) ESTIMATED EFFECTIVENESS IN PLAY (1-10): 4
Feedback: Contrariwise, I'm concerned by a number of details. Fundamentally,
I come back to the concern that, in a game where we're trying to win, by
having the most Acclaim at the end, we also trust the players a lot to just
be good sports the whole way through. Why not veto everything but my
opponent's worst stat? Why not spend an Acclaim to interrupt with a long
winded complication every time the leader has a scene, so that he loses an
Acclaim? Why praise other players narration? All of those seem to be losing
strategies, if the aim is to win.

Another quibble I have is with the first session. You want 4 to 5 people
to each come up with a neato pulp hero, and a place to go explore, and the
trip there. I can see some groups coming together and knocking that out in
half an hour of really concerted effort, but most people I play with take 90
minutes to create a Dog, when they know the rules for Dogs. On top of that,
I need to come up with 20 Hazards I want to face, and 20 to inflict on other
people, and they all need to be cool. Three hours is really conservative
there, I think. But that's mostly speculation.

It kind of seems like the whole game is laid out by the end of Hazard
Creation. All that remains is the order that the Hazards come up. Except
that, I suppose, I get to surprise everyone with my clever other-character
Hazards.

Finally, I wonder about the longevity of a game that's just overcoming
Hazards for six hours until the final Hazard and then somebody wins. I think
it might be fun the first time, but I don't know where this game goes.

5) SWING VOTE (1-10): 6
Final Feedback: I really dig the setting, and the cliff hanger idea is
grabby. The whole Republic Serial bit is awesome, and I'd love to see that
played up. I'd love to see more of the high adventure, and less of the
telling tall tales aspect. I'm not sure how well the Dogs-flavored resolution
works, but I wonder if something more in line with the action and tension
angle couldn't be found.

TOTAL SCORE (add items 1 through 5, above): 30

[Eric J. Boyd]

[Eric J. Boyd]

[Eric J. Boyd]

[Eric J. Boyd]