Had another delightful game of Bluebeard’s Bride last night with The Gauntlet… A question for those of you have run it:
How do you enforce pacing? In the two games I have run we have gotten through a maximum of three rooms (plus the final room). They have been 4 hour slots. Do you just remind them early and often that they can propose a truth at any time? Do you point out that it is really in their hands to decide what happened in the room – ie their interpretation could be entirely different from what the Groundskeeper had been thinking?
From my times playing and running, my takeaway has been not to force pacing, and a three Room game is nothing to be concerned about. The players should set the pace of when they feel ready to make an exit move, and the tension kind of disappears if you pressure them to engage with that mechanic faster than they are prepared to.
I have played three times and run once, and we only got up to a fourth room one time.
Vincent Eaton Ah… That makes me feel better. Breaking the tension is something I most definitely do not want to do. I know someone who is going to to run it as a two-shot (two three hour sessions) and I look forward to hearing how that goes – but I just feel like for myself taking a week-long break would really throw the mood off. So much of the game is that feeling of being trapped – so I want to keep that constant.
I will frequently lower the threshold for when the final room is triggered if we’re running out of time. If it’s a con game, I will sometimes remind players that they can propose a truth after they are pretty sure, but only so they can experience the full game.