Post originally by unterhund at 2005-01-24 07:44:32
Converted from Phorums BB System

We just had our first regular session of our new CoS campaign on Saturday. (We spent one day just creating characters before that.) It went well, but as GM I ran into a couple of issues.

The skill list simply isn't long enough for my taste. Once in a while I had to bend the description of some of the skills to determine which applied in a given situation. It slowed play down a bit and occasionally got annoying.

The character sheet problem with

More drastic were problems with the goon rules. Even a high-caliber goon with 4d6 has a hard time holding his own against a PC. And if the PC had an appropriate Descriptor that applied, the goon was toast. Not just in combat, either. Negotiation, intimidation, rope-typing -- goons lose to PCs. That's nicely heroic, but hardly horrific.

You'll see my review linked to the right of this one. I complained about the character sheet there. You know what? My players complained, too. Especially that Relationships/Resources switch from the tables. Memo to Bob Goat Press: an alternate sheet that has that fixed, and that you can just write numbers on, would be a welcome download.

On the plus side, the free downloads at the Bob Goat website are invaluable. The revised cell creation rules got a serious workout during character creation a couple of weeks ago. The switch to Asset points from Relationship and Resource points makes the bookkeeping so much easier.

Advice to GMs contemplating a CoS campaign: I've never needed a campaign bible more. I have five players. Thanks to cell creation, they helped create the background of the game. This includes an apothecary, an inn, a parish and about a dozen NPCs associated with these. Plus they invented at least two demonic influences wholly unrelated to what I'm using. And I have to track all this when determining what happens next.

It's wonderful that they did all this work for me. It's just not always easy integrating it into the work I've already done.