Hello Everyone,

This is basically my first blog post on this site and also a quick re-cap of my tremendous experience at Dreamation in Morristown, NJ. I ran my first public play test of my new RPG Headspace to an overwhelming positive response. I’m in a general state of shock at how well everyone took to the ideas and thrilled the game is generating some early buzz.

I really want to thank my play testers, you were a joy to GM and made the entire experience wonderful!

The Good:

The mechanics reinforced the teamwork in the party. Everyone was working together in a dystopic future, one player even called the game “Shadowrun meets Leverage” and I’m certainly OK with this comparison. The core “Professional” and “Headspace” moves worked accordingly, in fact my design has clearly moved all the GM’s “soft” moves into the players hands.

The Players basically succeed and created their own complications and in the end the GM just has to ask questions, nudge the agenda and provide a the “hard” moves when required. I’m beginning to think there will be a lot less GM moves in Headspace.

The Middle:

The stress track feed-backing on a value of 7 was way too high. So high that we only hit it in the morning because everyone just wanted to see what happened. In the evening session I made feedback happen at a value of 5 and that seemed to work/threaten the players as it was intended too.

The Bad:

The Memories didn’t really come into play at all. Everyone agreed they needed to be there and would have value in play, they just need more meat.

Also Improvised Moves while good on paper never really came into play. It is possible it has a greater effect on small player count games?

If you are interested  in the continuing development of my game, the current draft and the scenario/character sheets used for the convention are available on this site.

– Mark Richardson