Author: Blake Hutchins

Ran UW with my experimental group yesterday–used the pregens from the website and the Jump Point from the main book so as to get play moving quickly. Worked like a charm. Everyone was new to this system, but the players had a great time and embraced the game. We’re going to run a mini-campaign with everyone crafting new characters and factions from scratch.

After playing Apocalypse World, FATE, and several mini-games like Sorcerers & Sellswords, they picked this one for our first extended run. Kudos!

My observations as GM: much easier to dig into quickly than other PbtA games I’ve run. The special abilities offer the right mix of fun and allow for players to set up their own niches easily. The default Firefly setting makes for easy entry, and the players frequently referenced TV tropes when describing actions. The moves were intuitive and felt genre-appropriate. Bracing for Impact and the injury rules are potentially pretty brutal, so I’ll use more Face Adversity rolls before I move to damage. Everybody got a chance to shine, and by the end of the game, there were definite high-fives all around.

The Jump Point’s questions and set up really drove play, and offer a textbook example of how to construct interesting scenarios that are fleshed out on the fly.

So yeah, this was a great debut, and I look forward to an extended run using this.