Dying magic; cargo cultism; isolated colony; failed terraforming/stabilizing.

An isolated colony of humans in space has reverted to tribalism - the old methods that keep the terraforming machines running and the regular drops of condensed energy from orbiting satellites have become superstitious rituals. And ten years ago, they stopped working. And women stopped being able to have children.

In this time - will humans adapt to the alien world that is resurfacing around them - no matter how it changes them - or will they stick to the old ways and remain what they are?

Tinker and Carver - played by Jamie & Ben - priests of the old, true ways - struggle to understand magic and why its failing them. Carver nearly brings the orbiting satellite down on the tribe. Tinker succeeds in unraveling the mysteries of magic, realising that its not gods but science, but is only further convinced that the old ways are correct.

Quartz - played by HB - tried to solve the mystery of birth - his cure in the water supply merely made the villagers sick. He never got to try a stronger cure - the tribe abandoned his crazy experiments when they renewed their vows to stick to the old ways.

Shepherd - played by Jerome - is a ranger in the wilderness who gets infected by the alien life. She struggles to understand it, but never does, as she becomes one with the plants - the last 'human' to survive.

And there was a bratty kid, an upcoming marriage, and some priesthood infighting in there too.

My favorite scenes were the color scenes: Shepherd and Tinker and Shepherd's infection; the trouble with Rose; Carver and Dew and their pillow-talk ... discuss.

Perfect timing Jamie. I just dropped a comment on the story-games.com forum talking about the mechanical issues we talked about last night.

Mechanically I think we've hit on an underlying weakness of the rules: you roll in isolation. There's no input from other players that has any impact on hitting/failing goals, which is bad because it causes players to drift more and more towards solo narrating scenes rather than role-playing. Scenes wind up a lot less involving than something like Shock, where another player gets to add trouble.

I think the rules definitely encourage solo narration over interaction. There were notable exceptions (like the excellent Shepherd & Tinker not-married chats) but that was us beating the system. Of course we have the relationship map to thank for those nuggets in the first place, so that's part of the rules that did help.

Also, a rule I missed: when you fail and hit a Fear, you get a free relationship token. Which is nice and helps move things along faster, but doesn't address this issue.