Premise: non-romantic; cyberpunk; different branches of a network of allied gangs are trying to recruit an awesome cyberteched-up freelancer, as a gang truce slides back into war.

Beloved: Ruka Glass (Martin): cyber martial artist, persuasive, wry, impeccable style, unfeeling, honourable. Opportunity: the collapsing truce. Obstacle: dangerous fame (it makes her a target). Dream: many zeroes in her bank account.

Suitor 1: Zimbardo (Matt). Sophisticated but criminal, hard-boiled but hates lethal violence, widely trusted but untrusting. A corporate social climber, in charge of the body-enhancement chop-shop The Gene Pits. Conflict: our gang is broke.

Suitor 2: Fugue (Sam). Plain but chameleonic, compassionate but inconstant, opportunist but generous. A small-time leader of the Zynga Street Cutters, a bunch of jack-of-all-trades turf-warriors. Conflict: a record of failure.

This was probably the worst StM I've played; it wasn't painful or anything, just kind of flat. We didn't really see our characters grow or learn much new about them over the course of play; there were lots of repeated-information traits. (Some repeated-information traits always happen, but there were a lot here.) We had an action-y premise, but didn't do a good job of parlaying action scenes into interpersonal issues. We had two Suitors who didn't have much occasion to interact, and when they did they were heavily power-imbalanced. And... well, one of the things that makes StM awesome is that the Suitors have two motivation tracks: get the Beloved, and accomplish whatever else is going on in the foreground. Here, we set up something where getting the Beloved was really more of a means to an end, which... you could make it work, but it's harder. Particularly since two out of three characters were Emotionally Inaccessible Selfish Lone Wolves.

And, hm, I keep feeling that StM doesn't have enough by way of setting tools. It works pretty well in a sort of sitcom-type setup - a limited environment that forces the characters together and doesn't need much broader worldbuilding - but often I feel that we're piggybacking on a bigger story in a bigger world, and it's difficult to develop that well when it's freestyle and not the focus. I'd say that slapping a bit more of a worldbuilding phase into setup might help, except that Shooting setup is pretty damn involved anyway.

Also, it was too loud, I wasn't drunk enough, Ben's dice smell funny and my socks were the wrong size.

Here, we set up something where getting the Beloved was really more of a means to an end, which... you could make it work, but it's harder. Particularly since two out of three characters were Emotionally Inaccessible Selfish Lone Wolves.

Yeah, that's a bad recipe. I mean I could see intentionally using Shooting the Moon for a scenario like that -- heck you could make a situation where both suitors were really coercing or threatening the "beloved" and the mechanics of the whole thing would still work. But you'd definitely have to have everyone on the same page and gear up for that shift.

And, hm, I keep feeling that StM doesn't have enough by way of setting tools.

I've been thinking the same thing about a whole host of games.

Ben's dice smell funny

Wait, you didn't want the smelly ones?!? Dude, total miscommunication.

I flinched when someone tried to put "Sociopathic" down as a Beloved trait, though fortunately we managed to haggle it down to "Unfeeling". I was trying very hard to escape that for the whole game. Ruka certainly wasn't an emotionally unavailable selfish lone wolf. She was an aggressive, emotionally volatile, flagrantly egoistic thug who left nothing but smoking wreckage in her wake, but she did actually like both suitors and want to work with them, initially. The problem was, all of our scenes were either combat or talking about combat, so none of that came out. That is one of the biggest fail conditions of Shooting the Moon to me- if you keep picking 'Goons attack!' for all your hazards, and if you interrupt all the roleplaying scenes with that, the game becomes incredibly shallow.

Agreed on the setting business, though. StM works when you say, "Pick a cliche you're all familiar with, and set a romance in it." But it gives you no tools for getting on the same page if you weren't already. There isn't even time to talk about it in the chargen process.

<i>The problem was, all of our scenes were either combat or talking about combat, so none of that came out. That is one of the biggest fail conditions of Shooting the Moon to me- if you keep picking 'Goons attack!' for all your hazards, and if you interrupt all the roleplaying scenes with that, the game becomes incredibly shallow.</i>

Yeah, I set up a couple of action-y scenes because they were genre-appropriate, but I was sort of expecting them to be twisted into more character-y conflicts - which, in retrospect, was a totally unfair thing to expect out of a first-time storygamer, particularly since I didn't make that expectation explicit.