TechNoir

I just finished reading Tech Noir (was the title 1 or 2 words?). Technoir. I dunno. It has been on my radar for a while, but my first scan through did not give me much interest. Someone on the internet was singing its praises, so I thought I'd give it another, more thorough read through. The game is not that long. I read a few chapters last night, and finished everything off on my morning commute.

First, there is some solid advice GM advice in this book. The plot mapping mechanics make sense, and I wish I would have done that with my Dwindle game. I may start it, and retroactively draw in details from notes and memories. The best part of this mapping, in my opinion, was linking the character creation to the plot map via character contacts and favors. The Contacts available at character creation are few, so the players will probably have some overlap. Then they can pull favors during creation to pay for their items. Basically, putting the PCs in debt, and linking the contacts deeper into the plot web.

I also like parts of the Verb and Adjective system. I think it is both impactful and narrative. But I'm also afraid the negative Adjectives might be punishing. And the whole venture of creating, applying, and removing the adjectives might be a little cumbersome for my group.

As for the base system, I don't like games where you need handfuls of dice in specific different colors. It is an annoyance with Year Zero Games, and it is in full force here. Admittedly, part of this is  because I live in a region where procuring speciality dice can be difficult and/or expensive. For this game, you'll need 5 main dice for your skills, up to 3 push dice for players (maybe more), and probably 5 negative dice. So 3 colors, probably 5 each to be safe, for a total of 15. In my experience players generally want to have their own set to roll, just sharing dice when they need to fill out a pool.

Also, the push dice full mechanics seems a little complicated at first. I think I grok it now, but I can see players forgetting a lot of the nuance of the system. There is also a lot of charging and discharging of Push dice. I'm sure once you get the rhythm it's fine, but I need to play it or watch an actual play.

Next, the game...well, source books, campaign settings, adventure packs, addons, dlc, whatever you call it. Here they are called Transmissions, and they are an excellent concept. They each present you with people, places, things, factions, threats, etc in a single city. They are built to get a improv game flying off the ground. The main book mentions moving the campaign to a new city, if you've used about 1/2 of the starting Transmission. On top of this, the main book gives you 3 Transmissions (and when I checked today, there was a 4th as a free download at the website). That is a lot of plot hooks. 

Finally, the rules do a good job of simplifying a high tech world, and would be great for a Shadowrun style campaign. Objects, including cybernetics, gain adjectives, and the abstract pricing scheme is priceless. er. I mean it is really slick and useful.

This is a game, I would love to play, or to find a good quality actual play. It may not be a long term game for me, but I would love to give it a short campaign. And like I said, I LOVE the plot mapping mechanic, and the game starting mechanic.

Unrelated Aside

Google keeps messing with the Blogger interface. The labels used to have super useful checkboxes that made reusing Labels super easy. Just scroll through your list and check away! Now it is a comma seperated mess. They just reinstated clicking (which is better than yesterday), but it is still not as streamlined as it was.