A few weeks ago, the Spodley Grange weekend playtesting event saw the first ever playtest of Okhrana, a game I initially wrote for the 24 Hour Espionage RPG competition hosted by the Modus Operandi website. The pre-playtest version of the game text can be found here.

I entered into the playtest with a certain amount of trepidation: would the game actually work? Would it provide the kind of experience I was aiming for? In addition, this was the first game I had ever created that did not have a traditional GM role, with the role being distributed throughout the group (in the manner of Contenders, for example).

This is quite a long playtest report, so I'm breaking it down into smaller posts. I'll post questions at the end of each post which you can reply to as I go along or wait til I'm done - I'm interested in hearing everyone's feedback!

Saturday afternoon at Spodley Grange I got to run a playtest of Six Bullets for Vengeance, I think for the 5th time. Each time it’s been with a subtly different set of rules and a different group of players, and this outing would be for the first time since I made the changes that arose from the Conception playtest.

Setup

There were 4 of us playing – myself, Malcolm, James and Janos. Everyone except Malcolm had played before, although only me and James had played with anything approaching the current version of the rules.

So over in the Spodley Grange Aftermath thread, Graham raised an interesting point about games discussion intruding on a playtest, and it got me thinking about the etiquette when playtesting a game.

When you're playtesting a game and a rules quirk or design flaw rears its ugly head, how is it best dealt with?

Should it be noted down for later and skipped past, playing the game as written and discussion saved for the end?

Or should the game be halted, discussion held then and there and a rules fix implemented right away?

Not only was Spodley Grange a triumph for games design and playtesting, it was also a triumph for cuisine! Every single meal was outstanding - far better than the usual convention fayre!

So, this is the much requested thread for recipes! I'll post the recipe for brownies later, but I want to know how to make Scott's infanticidal baby meal (and his tasty nuts - ooh err! - and cabbage). Oh, and Malcolm's tasty burgering too!

OK, anyone who volunteers to cook something, please say so here!

Claire and I are providing food for Friday evening. I will also cook breakfast each day (although I'm not sure I can do 9 breakfasts without help). I will lay in supplies of eggs, beard for toasting, bacon, sausages and baked beans for this purpose.

There are therefore 4 meals needing to be constructed from somewhere:

Sat Lunch
Sat Dinner
Sun Lunch
Sun Dinner

(I have to admit that I like the idea of going for a curry for dinner Saturday night, but that's just me)

If you're awesome enough to volunteer to cook one of these meals, please do the following:

OK, only 5 days to go, so I better actually post some updates as to exactly what's going on.

The cottages can be found here:

Map

They are collectively called Meadowview Cottages.

One of the cottages will be open to us from 1pm. The other is available from 6pm. This is great because we're not really supposed to have them at all until 8pm. I will do whatever I can to get there for 1 and be there for the next person who arrives. I think I have all your email addresses and will email you all my mobile number in case you have problems*. You might want to do the same so I can get hold of you if need be.