I ran an exciting game of GHOST/ECHO for Robert, Tim, and Paul this afternoon. We went over the simple rules, chose characters (just names, really) and went over the starting situation, then dove in! It's nice to have a game that doesn't require any prep-- totally different than a game which requires an hour or more of character creation and very nice for convention or meetup group situations. It was also nice that Paul, who showed up a bit late, was able to jump right in without having to worry about making a character.

Our protagonists were betrayed by one of their crewmates, who was trying to sell out their boss to a big-timer in the ghost world. They got in some early trouble and Robert's character got stuck outside the ghost world, so he had to ask the boss for help getting back in. "Sure," said Mr. White, "but only if you bring me... a wheel." Aww, man! We established that a wheel was a particularly rare bit of machinery and it would be a pain to get it. Meanwhile the other characters were trying to track down the traitor, trying to avoid wraiths (as usual), and generally trying not to get killed. Vixen, the traitor, threatened to use her "switch" on them- an item which would banish them from the ghost world unless they got "switched" back. They managed to avoid her and followed her to the "carnival" which was basically a huge black-market trading post, and discovered that she was working for Bear, who wanted to control traffic in and out of the ghost world with his new machine--- powered by one of the rare wheels! Eventually the party got back together but they pissed off just about everybody when they started intimidating and attacking people, trying to fight off Vixen and get information out of her new employers. After attracting and fighting off some more wraiths, they ended up at a big showdown at the factory where the machine was being created. We ended things with a "to be continued" -- they accidentally broke Vixen's switch and all of them got kicked out of the ghost world, just barely losing the wheel that they were supposed to get. Mr. White decides to give them one last chance to get it for him... or else...

I feel like I was able to run the game a bit more smoothly this time, but it was still a bit "bumpy." I think we did a great job establishing the setting and flavor of the world, which may not be reflected by the post above, but were able to flesh out a lot of details about wraiths, loot, and the environment. Unfortunately, although we were pretty satisfied with the "to be continued" ending, I think we all would have preferred to have a more conclusive conclusion, as it were. The dice were landing fairly consistently in the "middle" results, which didn't allow us to definitively say "you got the wheel and got out!" or "man, you guys totally get killed!" The odd thing is that this happened last time I played as well. I'm not sure if it was a time thing or what, but I'll have to think about how to better bring my games of GHOST/ECHO to a good conclusion.

All-in-all I think it was a good game and I was glad we were able to accommodate everyone who showed up. Great turnout!