The Players- Manu, Shimon, Ian, and Dani

The Plot- A group of people goes to explore a new section of a cave that was familiar to them that was opened after some recent seismic activity, only to find themselves trapped and having to go even further in after another tremor leaves them trapped.

The Cast
"Billy," a childhood friend of Martin's who was there to help him procure any valuable metals or precious/semiprecious stones (Supporting Cast)
"Dash," a geologist who had grown up spelunking. Very driven and talented, he had a relationship with Evelyn that was often strained due to their focus on work
Evelyn (Shimon)
Evelyn, a grad student studying the biology of cave ecosystems, like her boyfriend Dash a very experienced spelunker and driven individual (Dani)
Gemini, Indigo's boyfriend and fellow "flower child" who had apparently cheated on her sometime prior to this trip (Supporting Cast)
George, student in the same program as Dash (Supporting Cast)
Indigo, a New Age woman really into crystal healing who was there to try to find her center again as well as help Martin (Ian)
Martin, ex-military who made his living procuring metals and gems and selling them (Manu)
Jamie, a fellow Ph. D. student in Evelyn's department and Evelyn's rival (Supporting Cast)

After being trapped in the cave-in, our intrepid cast had no clue but to press further in in hopes of being able to find a new way out. They made some incredible finds in the form of ruins of an ancient civilization as well as a new species of fungus. But their joy turned to horror when the fungus began to "infect" members of the group. Eventually all of the main cast made it out to safety and even discovered the cure.

This was my first time playing Geiger Counter. Overall, I think I like it. I enjoyed the set-up process of deciding the plot and Menace and creating the characters. I haven't read it through in some time, so maybe there is some guidance about when the appropriate time to bring in the Menace and roll for a Conflict is. We spent a few scenes without it, which is not a bad thing because it let us get to know these characters a bit and build up the tension.

I believe it was Manu who commented that the Menace starts to seem less scary as you begin to beat it and its pool grows smaller. It starts to become more familiar. I like the way Conditions are used but it was really easy for us to buy them off. My suggestion would be to not let them be bought off for at least a scene. As for the map-drawing aspect, that was pretty cool too. Though we rarely revisited locations. I think that had more to do with the fact that our point was to move forward so we rarely wanted to go back. The dice mechanic was simple and easily understood. We never had any Conflict between players, I would have been interested to see some of that. (There was bickering between some of the characters but nothing that ever called for a roll of the dice. I think next time I might try to bring in some of that as Director.)

I love how flexible the game is in exactly what type of setting you're wanting to explore. There's lots of room here for fun! We also tossed out the idea of childhood friends returning to a now-abandoned location that had meant something to all of them when they were younger. We tried to incorporate that by having characters that were childhood friends and/or had grown up in the area and explored this cave prior to the new section being opened.

We spent a lot of time on set-up, which may be standard for this game? I could see that. Like I said, I enjoyed the process though. There were times when we paused to discuss what we were wanting from the game or a scene but those discussions resolved and we carried on and had a pretty entertaining time! I'd definitely like to play this again and am glad I finally got the chance!

Thanks to Manu for facilitating and to Ian and Shimon for playing alongside me.

- Dani, aka Evelyn Prentiss, Ph. D. (Candidate)

Thanks for the great write-up, Dani! I admit to making a mistake about the rules; it turns out that even when you buy off a condition, it still counts as having a condition for the purposes of death. So you won't have the condition's listed penalty any more once you buy it off, but you're still a step closer to death. I think we would have had at least one more main character death if I'd had this right :)

Overall I like Geiger Counter too, but my biggest problem with it is, as you noted, that once you've cut the menace's dice in half it's really not that scary. Maybe if a couple of characters were also dead at that point it might make it more challenging...

even when you buy off a condition, it still counts as having a condition for the purposes of death

Yep, exactly. Your third condition is always death, even if you healed the previous ones.

If your menace didn't seem threatening, here are a few other things to double-check:

- Until it maxes out at 8 dice, the Menace is invulnerable. If the survivors win a conflict they just escape without harm. Usually this is where the characters get slammed. (EDIT: also, in a tie, both sides take a hit, but if the Menace is invulnerable ties are the same as the survivors losing. Very rough.)

- You seemed to have very few non-survivor characters. We usually have 10-12 characters total. With fewer non-survivors, you might frame more survivors together instead of splitting them up. If they're in a big mob they have a lot more dice and are much safer.

"Infected" is a weird condition, because unlike the others there are some Menaces where it just doesn't make sense. I've been in some games where players have morphed the concept of the menace to make infected work, which is totally backwards. When I’m facilitating I cross it off as a choice unless we agree it makes sense at the start.

Intercharacter conflict isn’t very strongly emphasized in the rules, but from playing we’ve found it’s essential. We’ll often make a premise that puts the characters into conflict even if the menace didn’t come along (“we’re backstabbing outlaws escaping with gold, chased by a posse, coming into a peaceful town”). Even if the characters don't actually fight, they should have enough going on between them that you don't even need the menace to make a good story.