Just ran this tonight with me on GM and 4 players! A really easily prepped two hours of game, though I did get some sounds effects ready before which really added to the atmosphere, and because I let people choose characters in advance the player on Laconicus Strong could prep some appropriate awful poems to drop into dialogue when appropriate.
Overall thoughts:
- It's a great introduction to some of the basics of the system; dice, effects, guts, and clocks. It's linear OVERALL so to get the most of the system I'd recommend keeping the encounters quite high level so they can really craft their own mayhem within them.
- Make sure the difference between Dice and Effect are clear, and be clear the verbs under each attribute are how they're used.
- I was too lenient with harm and guts spending, I absolutely should have been throwing more questions and tests at the players, tests on their worse stats (which alternatively forces them to push themselves burning their guts) and just generally more harm. I think the second part of the scenario can be stretched or shortened depending on how beaten up they are, but I think I would err on the side of desperation for a really cinematic climax.
- Great advice from a later module: get the players to name any NPC they meet as it makes the inevitable messy death feel more personal (RIP in peace, Timothy Oliphant).
- A personal highlight: the player on Trode took to the game like a hog to mud, the ability for bonus effect by being disgusting lead to ever escalating displays of depravity (at one point he leaned in an started sucking an NPC's outstretched finger to assess his mental stability).
Blood Cottilion is next on the list, super excited for that!