Have-Not Game

Cyber Eye (Santiago)

We hit a major milestone in our 2-year Have-Not game last night when we exited a major series of "dungeons" which had taken us maybe eight or so play-sessions to close out. The adventure was a culmination of a number of threads bringing us closer to the probable conflict between us and ... the rest of the world. At this point, having gotten around 1 level per "dungeon" (with a few extras) we are around 104 AP characters--immensely powerful having come from 8 AP to start with and well above almost anything else in the world.

The game was never meant to be completely open ended--we knew it would end and that we'd move on and play something else: it's pretty clear we are on the back-nine of the game-world. Our next game will likely be a super-hero game designed to stress-test the existing rules and while I'm looking forward to that it's bitter-sweet to see the current game which I've greatly enjoyed winding down.

Our general mode of play (these days, anyway) is to have pretty lengthy games--but I think our more regular pattern (over the past, say, 10 years) is to start games--have them run a few sessions--and continue them if they "catch fire" or dump them for something else, if not. Our last three games, a moderate-length Psionics game (we were students at a school for telepaths where some of the students were a-moral children of the conspiracy that ran the world), a lengthy Cyborgs game (we were cybernetically enhanced US Marshalls living in an age where "the singularity," or, more appropriately, several possible "singularities" were about to happen), and then Have-Not (2 years+) seem to be beating that spread.

I'm not sure if this is because our limited play-time (2.5 hours per week) makes it harder to start new games or because we're getting better at hitting winners. I think it's the latter--but a high barrier to entry suggests that could be responsible for the track record. I'm not sure how to objectively test this (although it feels like while the Psi game had some weak points, the Marshalls game and this one are certainly home runs).