Another Art of Story Through Gaming meetup. This time for my Fallout Shelter RPG. Four entered, most lived to tell about it. Including:

Harry as Major Jones, the Ex-Overseer
Charlie as Carl Davidson, the Wasteland Explorer
Wale as Bucket, the Immigrant (the first time anyone has chosen this role in all the times I've run this!)
The kid as Nova, the Scientist

Harry and Charlie have played in my prior games (Charlie was probably 11 years old the first time with my Lego dungeon crawl). Everyone had played in my Star Frontiers game last year as well. I was also excited that Wale made it, because I have a lot of respect for her as a player and gaming collaborator, and wanted to get her thoughts on this game. And this was the kid’s 3rd time playing!

Basically we ran about 4 hours, or just over. There were a few changes I wanted to make prior to the game, per suggestions from my last table at Gateway convention, but just didn't have the time.

That said, the pace was decent, and although I had that GM feeling that things aren't nearly where I want them to be, the players were happy. I got some good constructive feedback as well, including to make the questions on the character sheets more relevant. I.e. I should reduce them so that as a GM I can actually make use of the fewer answers, instead of getting overwhelmed by too much information for this already heavy game and system. At least that's my interpretation.

Mainly thought, had a great lunch with these people, a very pleasant game session where everyone participated equally and together, even when they were playing against each other, and Major Jones even sacrificed himself at the end for the sake of the party.

Wale, Harry, Charlie, the kid... most survived.

I've got a few tweaks before bringing it up to Big Bad Con in October, where I'm running it as part of the "teen" track.

And speaking of which, Harry and I made sure to register for our first two games for BBC at noon, while everyone was eating. The excitement is palpable... that is an event I am very much looking forward to.