Playtesting My Life with Master for Gamicon 2013

Yesterday I playtested the prewritten adventure, The Snakes of Dr. Oserlinde (by Steve Hickey), for Paul Czege's My Life with Master.

The playtesters were: Jimmy S., Brooke, and Jason. 

My Life with Master is a roleplaying game in which Players take on roles as Minions who are torn between doing horrible things for their Master and wanting to be free.

This adventure was written as a guide to help play My Life with Master in general as well as at conventions within a 3-hour game. And I have to say after finally running the game, I feel like the guide does a good job of bringing My Life with Master to the table.

The guide includes a few things that the main game does not, but which other games have released with their rules. It includes advice on how to talk to gamers new to the game who may have problems with the game's premise as an exercise in exploring dysfunctional relationships about power.

The guide also includes a nice simple relationship map showing the Player Characters and their pre-established Connections -- which are required to use as part of the Endgame mechanics. This map was a very nice tool to use for both the Players and me as the GM to move things along.

The guide also has good suggestions on how to start and continue play with the included pregenerated PCs.

Overall, I think that the playtest went over well. I botched some of the rolling for a bit, but the Players were gracious about that.

The one main challenge that I encountered in this game as I have in prior games was coming up with a way to get the Players more motivated on calling scenes, specifically with Connections to gain Overtures for their Minions.

My next challenge is to make a shorter version of this guide to use at Gamicon to help people get a sense of the game in about an hour.