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Over the next few days, I'm doing a lot of travelling by train. This gives me time to read through games, which I like doing: I learn a lot by giving feedback on games.

Do bear in mind that I know little about RPG theory. My feedback is mostly from the point of view of "if I had to run your game, what questions would I want to ask?", mixed together with any worries or gripes I have. It's layman's feedback, in other words.

Today I read through Time Traitor. I'm rather excited about this game: mainly because it's basically a Dr Who RPG. It's come together very well and is clearly and elegantly written.

Here's the notes I made, Brian. I realise that picking holes in your rules is a little unfair, considering they were written so quickly, but I hope they're useful.

1. The Laws are wonderful. They remind me of Isaac Asimov. Fantastic.

2. Some of the roles seem to overlap. So, in the example on page 9, could the Seer object to the fog, on the grounds that it might be a useful object? Equally, could he object to the engines?

3. Do you feel the role of the Maker is less exciting than the others? The Connector, Seer and Sensor get to set the scene; the Speaker gets to be the protagonist; but the Maker just gets to make objects.

4. Isn't there a temptation to object to everything, on the grounds that it takes away the other players tokens, which will come into play in the second half?

5. The nodding is nice: it gives a way to consult the other players without interrupting the flow. How would you feel about additional hand signals for the person to respond to the nod, meaning "Sure, go ahead" or "No, I object"?

6. On page 13, could you clarify how the three "Traitor" conditions interact? I think the Traitor is the first one to fulfil any of the three conditions (at which point the game ends). However, it might be that the Traitor is the player who satisfies condition 1 or, failing that, the player who satisfies condition 2 or, failing that, condition 3.

7. Since we're playing this second bit competitively, isn't the best tactic to ruthlessly gun for one player? You could just keep accusing one player of stuff until they either accumulate Traitor points or run out of tokens. Or have I missed something?

8. On false accusations: Who judges whether the explanation about an action falling within a character's function is satisfactory? Is it always a good idea to try to come up with an explanation as to why the action was within your function, however implausible?

Thanks Brian. I enjoyed reading that a great deal. Good luck with it.

I'll read a couple more games on the train tomorrow. If you'd particularly like me to look through your game, get in touch.

On the train to Cambridgeshire, I read through Hubris.

Hubris is a lovely storytelling game: the concept of Gods controlling player characters comes off really well. Some great stories could come out of this game.

The rules are very interesting, which means that there's lots of rules questions below. It took me a while to understand the rules: there was a lot of flicking back and forth through the document. Here are the notes I made as I went through.

1. To clarify, when you say "The first player to have a character in a scene is the one on the dealer's left", this means that the player to the dealer's left is the first active player?

2. The procedure of dealing cards to each player until everyone gets a face card - and then dealing cards but rejecting any cards of the same suit as a previously dealt card - could take a while. After a while, I think I'd get bored and start looking through the pack for cards that matched.

3. The idea of the rank of the card identifying the player and the suit identifying the God is great.

4. When you say "the character card counts as the highest in its suit", does that mean that the character card always wins or that the character card counts as a 10? For example: if one player uses a Nine of Hearts in a conflict, and the other player uses his character card, can the first player add Petras to his Nine to beat the character card?

5. I'm worried that the Petras don't get refreshed. It could mean that the players play cautiously, saving their Petras for a final conflict, which may never come about.

6. Oh, wait, no, I had a question but it's answered later on.

7. If I was running this game, could I use 10 minute scenes rather than 9 minute ones?

8. Again, to clarify, the characters rotate between players, but the Gods don't, right?

9. In your example where the Princess says "At the height of the King's climax", does this depend on the King's player first narrating that the King sleeps with the concubine?

10. What happens if it's your turn to start a scene but you have no Petras?

11. When you're rotating the players, you give an order "1, 2, 3, 4". Is "1" the first active player or can it be any player? I think it's any player.

12. I find the seat orders a bit complicated. Could I just do this? After the first phase, one player swaps seats with the player on his right. After the second phase, the same player again swaps seats with the player on his right. Would that do the same reordering?

13. In the example in "Phase 1: The Past", you say:

"The Queen had been waiting for her husband, the King, only to see him dead by her own hands".

To me, this means that the King is already dead. Do you mean to say this instead?

"The Queen had been waiting for her husband, the King, so she could kill him with her own hands"

14. Conflicts are nicely done!

15. ...but I'm not sure I understand them. How do deactivitated cards work? I think it's something like this:

a. To bring a card back from deactivation, I place a Petra on it.
b. To activate that card in a scene, I must then place another Petra on it.
c. These stones don't add to the card's value in a conflict.
d. I've now got a card with two stones on it. Is this right, given that the rules say "only one Petra may be placed on an aspect at a time"?

16. I'm not sure about the free Petra rule. What's the thinking behind it? It looks as though it's there to make sure every player is challenged at least once. If so, do you need it, given that players will probably challenge each other anyway in order to win?

17. Given that I'm playing to win, should I always a make a challenge when I see that my aspect card in an appropriate suit would beat the Narrator's card? Is it worth my while to challenge everything the Narrator says?

Hope this helps, Per. There's lots of questions but only because I'm interested in how the rules work. Greek gods are cool.

Pinnacle Empty Quiver next. (Eric, I promise I'll get to yours...)

Graham

On the way back from Cambridgeshire, I read Pinnacle Empty Quiver.

Oh, good God, this game looks fun. Comments and queries follow. Lots and lots, because I really liked the game.

1. When it says "The players may ask the GM questions" and the GM must answer truthfully, what sort of questions?

2. Are the PCs all drawn from one squad (Air, Boat, Mobility, Mountain, Sniper)? If so, will other squads apart from the PC squad come into play? Will Sniper ever come into play?

3. When it says "All characters acting under his [the Commander's] direct orders receive a +1 to their skill rolls", how specific must those orders be? "Shoot that guy"? "Secure the perimeter"? "Do whatever you have to do to get to that bomb?"

4. I love the idea of a Nickname.

5. Won't the squad type dictate the insertion method? "Boat" will always use "Kayak" or "Scuba", "Mobility" will use "Vehicle".

6. Instead of separate Threat Tracks (which all need to be altered every time the team's Threat Level changes), why not use one Track with one marker for each team member? Then, if they're acting as a team, you move all the markers together. If someone goes rogue, you move that marker separately.

7. Going rogue is interesting and I'd like to know how it works in playtesting. Some guidance on how to frame scenes when someone goes rogue would be nice.

8. It looks to me as though there's several situations where a skill might never fail. It just needs one trait at 3, one at 2 and the +1 bonus for basic skills. Have I understood this right? If so, is it OK?

9. Cinematic combat. Nice.

10. How much do you care about getting your cinematic language right? I think "Wide Angle" should be "Long shot" and "Close-Up" should be "Mid Shot" or similar.

11. That +1 bonus for rolling under the skill in Close-Up. Is it cumulative - +1 for every Mook defeated - or does it stay at +1?

12. Can I lose the Steel Points I've picked (1 to 3) in One-on-One?

13. Who decides whether the description of the attack was creative enough to warrant a +1 bonus? Equally, in Laying Down The Law, who decides if it's satisfying?

14. Perhaps I missed this: but what happens if the Threat Level isn't 7 and the GM has no Steel Points?

15. To clarify: that +1 bonus from Recon can only be used once, for one roll, right?

16. Do we need to keep track of where the players are in the base, using a map? I'd like to, but the problem is: what happens if you reach the hostage room without Threat Level being 7?

17. What's the last time I can go rogue? I mean, I'm assuming I can't go rogue at the last minute and decide to rescue the hostages rather than detonating the nuke?

18. The whole thing about the choice between the bomb and the hostages doesn't quite seem to fit. I get a sense that the whole game should have been building towards this choice. Not quite sure about this, just a worry.

19. If I was running this game, could I do this instead of using the event track?

Use a time track, counting down, instead of an event track, with times from 2:00 to 0:00 marked. Have cards for the events (with three cards for Event One). Put the mandatory event at 1:55. Shuffle the others up with two blank cards. Deal one of those cards for every ten minute interval between 1:30 and 0:10 inclusive.

Then, when the timer reaches each time, turn over the card. If it's blank, there's no event; if not, the event on the card happens.

That saves me keeping the Event Track hidden from the players, which could be difficult, and also adds a sense of drama, since the GM doesn't know which event will happen either. Any good?

20. I love that thing with the loved ones being interviewed, and then repeating what the GM says. Great.

Thanks, Bryan. It's a superb game. If you published it, I'd definitely buy it.

Another long train journey tomorrow, so I'll take a couple more games and try to get through them. The three in my bag are Colourless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously, Liquid Crystal and Terra Nova, so it depends whether I'm in the mood for dreams, robots or polar explorers.

Graham

Wednesday's train trip was to Southampton. On the way there, I got through Liquid Crystal and Colourless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously.

Liquid Crystal first.

This is a superbly well-written game and, in fact, I have very little feedback on it. One major reason for that is that the rules are so clear that I have few rules questions. I'd be very interested to try playing this game.

Here's what I've got.

1. I like the dual emotion thing. Absolutely superb.

2. To clarify the bonuses associated with Emotions and Qualties: it seems to me that these bonuses will encourage players to work their way up to 5 in Virtue, to gain a quality, and then to work their way up to 5 in Sin. Or vice versa (Sin, then Virtue). Is that the intended behaviour? It sounds good to me.

3. With extended actions: I'd like some GM guidance on how to set the maximum number of fails and successes.

4. In Mass Opposed Actions, what happens if, for my action, I take an action that targets a specific player? The rules don't provide a way of making it more likely that that player be eliminated. (There's no particular reason why they should - and the fact that they don't makes the rules very simple - but it does restrict actions a bit).

5. Similarly, what happens if I declare my action as "I try to restrain Player X so he can't attack anyone else"?

6. I like the "No PC dies" rule.

7. The free emotion point that you can gain from a Quest: do all the other mechanics apply to that as usual? For example, if I have 5V 0S and get a free Sin point, do I have to give up a Virtue point?

8. I love the idea of the emotions showing on the robot's faces. However, you don't really seem to use it in the game. The flashcards at the end look fantastic but you don't do much with it other than suggest that players hold them up to reflect the emotion on their robot's face.

You could, for example, insist that players have one flashcard in front of them at all times and they can only change it when their emotion score changes. That's not a great idea, but perhaps something like that? What I'm really saying is: the emotions showing on the faces is such a strong idea that I'd like to see it reflected in the mechanics.

That's the rules feedback I've got.

Really, though, the feedback I'd most like to give is completely subjective. You should absolutely feel free to ignore this. But how would you feel about cutting out all the fiction at the start, cutting out the NPCs, cutting out the equipment, cutting out all the alternative rules and reducing this to a 10-page, streamlined game?

Thanks very much: it's a superb, very tightly-written game and, if I ever see it at a convention, I'll definitely play it.

Graham

Next, I read Colourless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously.

God, this game was fun to read. It has a huge amount of absolutely superb ideas.

That said, it took me ages to get my head around the rules. Don't get me wrong - it looks like a good set of rules - but hard to understand.

So that's my first bit of feedback. The rules are hard to understand. This is often to do with the order in which they're described. For example, the phrase "Consider the Anchors the Dreamer currently has in her possession" occurs before the rule about giving Anchors to the Dreamer. There's a section on "What can a Dreamer do on her turn?", then "What can a Loa do on her turn?", but then the rules go back to describing what happens after the Dreamer's turn.

So here's some questions and comments.

1. That thing about "Tomorrow will be the most important day of their life" is great and it would be nice if it was used more.

2. The identity of the Dreamer coming from the Anchors is excellent.

3. And as a wild thought...shouldn't the clock be an alarm clock, which beeps when the Dreamer wakes up?

4. Why a "terrifying bland and tedious" environment? Can't I have a dream in an endless landscape of volcanoes and earthquakes?

5. You seem to use the term "phrase" to refer both to a word ("Write the 3 phrases, both on their own line") and the phrase made up of those words ("Much like the phrase, 'Colourless Green Ideas'").

6. The ten points that you divide between the three words: are they, you know, ever used for anything? I can't see where they fit in.

7. Can I divide 10 points among my Chain Cards in any way I like? Can I divide them 8, 1, 1? Or 10, 0, 0?

8. The 3x3 board of cards gets me genuinely excited about this game. So many possibilities. Is it meant to physically represent the dream landscape?

9. To be clear, when you say "the pawn must away from any available Nightmare", what happens if there's a Nightmare one space diagonally away from the pawn? Should the pawn move away and, if so, which way? Or do we ignore the Nightmare and move towards the highest numerical value?

10. The rule about naming N other Loa to participate in a subdream: what's the thinking behind this? It's going to exclude other players for a while.

11. In "What if Loa disagree?", do the Loa have to be presently in the scene to object?

12. In which order are turns taken? Who takes the very first turn?

13. I'm really lost on the order of moving the pawn and creating the scene. Is the pawn moved at the beginning of the Dreamer's turn or the end? When is the scene narrated?

14. How is it possible to move on to an empty space? Won't it always be Glass?

15. Am I right that you always have to Pushed on to a Nightmare - that that's the only way you can land on a Nightmare card, given that the Dreamer automatically moves away from them?

16. If the Dreamer always moves away from Nightmares, and then the board recentres itself around the Dreamer, won't that mean that Nightmares almost always disappear when the Dreamer moves?

17. The thing about falling through Glass on to an empty space. If the Dreamer takes the first turn, won't that always happen? Won't it happen quite a lot anyway?

18. When you say "If the Dreamer steps on to a normal card...", what's a "normal" card? Is it a Chain card?

19. When you say that the GM holds on to the Loa cards "so that he has a record of what a player's goals were", could you clarify "goals" for me?

20. I really prefer the optional Endgame rule, so that the players get to brainstorm the ending.

Thanks, Dev. I'd very much like to try playing this game - but I'm a bit unsure of the rules at the moment. I'd be interested if you could explain the thinking behind the 3x3 board rules.

Graham

Oh, and just a quick word about this thread. To the three people who've asked me to review their game: I will do them, I promise, but I haven't had a chance yet, due to rushing about the country.

After those three, I'll concentrate on the games I have to review, and I won't post the formal reviews here. I might post a more informal review for those games, though, in the same style as those above.

After that, I'll see how sick I am of reading through RPGs. If I still want to do more, I'll write some more of these informal reviews. I'm quite enjoying them at the moment.

Graham

Today's train journey was to Reading, where I'm staying for the weekend. (I hope it adds colour to this thread when I describe where the train was going to). And I read Mississipi Steel.

This game has so much potential. I love the idea of a game where there's a fast, furious racing mechanic, almost like a board game. And then there's an between-races session where you get to roleplay the drivers' rivalries. Nice.

Some quick thoughts.

1. Those toy cars should be compulsory.

2. I'm confused about the rules of actually going around the track. For example, how often can you roll to pass someone?

3. The idea of running the whole thing in real time is a really, really strong idea. I'd like to see that as compulsory too, not just an optional rule.

4. When do you make a Taking Turns roll? Every time you go round a corner?

5. Likewise, when do you make an Avoiding Accidents roll?

6. When you say "lose 1d6 seconds", what difference does that make in terms of cards passing you? In other words, how does that 1d6 seconds affect the rest of the game?

7. Could you give some more guidance on the between races section of the game? At the moment, I think you're just leaving it to the players to make up what happens. Could you put some mechanics in there so that, for example, if you make someone angry before the game, they drive more badly in the next race?

I'd really like to see this game developed, especially if the race rules were really tightened up, so it was fast and furious, almost like a board game. That's what I'd like, anyway - other people might feel differently.

Good luck with the game.

Graham

And on the tube, I read The Path.

I like video games, and I especially like first-person shooters, so this game appeals to me. It's incredibly simple, too, and there's something very powerful about a simple mechanic.

Tad, here's some questions and comments.

1. I really like the hand-to-hand combat. There's something very tactical about it: as a Defender, I can choose how I defend myself, and that affects which Stats the Attacker can reduce. But then I have to second-guess how the Attacker's going to attack. Nice.

2. Having said that: could you explain how you chose which type of Attack / Defence pair produced which kind of damage? For example, Health Damage is more likely than any other sort of damage, and I think that Health will almost always go to zero first.

3. With combat with a weapon, the Attacker always uses Assets. That means the Defender can virtually choose which Stat he'll take damage on (if I want to take Assets Damage, I defend myself with Persistence or Talents; if I want to take Health, I defend myself with Assets or Health). Are you happy with that? It seems much less tactical than Hand-to-Hand.

4. Do the players know the Stats of the NPCs they kill? If so, it gives them a a tactical advantage.

5. And does the GM play the NPCs as if they know the Stats of the PCs?

6. Does the GM go all out to kill the PCs: picking one of their stats and driving it down to zero?

7. I like the idea of resets. However, I'm a bit worried that knocked-out characters only get their Stat set at 1. Does that mean they're more likely to be knocked out again? Does that worry you?

8. At the beginning of the document, you mention puzzles and traps. How do they work in the game? Would it be worth explaining them in more detail?

Oh, and I like the setting, by the way.

Thanks! And good luck.

Graham