WOW What an auspicious beginning! Thurs night 8 players (had to send away 3 others). Fri night 7 players (all but one of whom were repeat players). Sat night 4 players (one of whom called the adventure "
The best game I've played at TC this year").
The first and second night players, during a break, learned I'd already written the third adventure, and offered to bribe me to switch the Sat night adventure from a replay of Episode 1 to Episode 3 (so they could continue playing). Was asked at every single session what other cons they might be able to play. Handed out half a dozen guildofsanmarcos(dot)net cards to prospective players. AND it looks like backgrounds were even more popular than I thought. Three players expressed interest. One even began writing at the table so as to have it ready when he got back to internet access. Hopefully, we'll see some action here soon.
All this doesn't include the fact that the two people outside my regular group who love 7th Sea the most (and whom I expected to be at one or more of the adventures) were unable to come to TC this year. No worries though, they connived me into running more games at OGC (
http://www.ogc-con.com/) in late August.
Overall review
The "give out the special, xp generating, dd then giving more dd for heroic actions" (so players can save up the first two) seemed to work out real well. I was giving out an average of nearly 1 per player (so everyone got the hint) some even noticed and gave me reasons to give out more dd (like the player who rolled low on an important roll. He loudly (and humorously) lamented the fact that he'd brought food for everyone and didn't even get a dd out of it, so he could use the dd to add to the roll...)
Pacing for the adventures as written is VERY tight. If running either of these in the future, keep in mind that getting through the whole thing will be quite tough. HOWEVER, I found a couple of good shortcuts that can help out quite a bit (I'll post them in the GM Forum). That said, I made sure there was at least an hour for the last scene or two so the heroes could go up against the bad guy with plenty of time for heroic actions.
Frank, Sal and others were right about character generation time. I'm gonna need more experience doing that as I tend to pontificate. We were right on time all three nights but that was because at each session we had several who'd already made characters (on Friday, everyone had).
Secret Society interest is (at least for now) decidedly one-sided. Its far easier for the heroes to get R&C or LV interest than IC or ES. As a matter of fact nearly everyone got R&C, most got LV, and I'm not sure that I gave out even a point of IC or ES interest. But, as they say, chance is lumpy. And I only ran three adventures. So its entirely possible I have skewed results.
Everyone seemed to get into the spirit of things. The HEROES in Heroes of Altamira seemed to do its trick as I got out of it exactly what I expected. We even had a player with a scoundrel (played the Montaigne Thief template) who eschewed the reputation for more money but did a terrific job going right along with the plot (even if for selfish reasons). It was wonderful.
Favorite moment - I don't think this gives away anything but just in case, SPOILER ALERT!
The heroes confronted the talkative villain and not only got him talking but used the "Free Villain Wile Activation" card to ensure he blabbered. It was stupendous. Fight scene while talking about all the bad guy's secrets...
I think thats about it for now.
Mark
EDIT: Apparently that's not it as I thought of several more things to add.
1. Personal Agendas - Both the people expressing interest in doing the backgrounds and those who seemed keen on getting the Secret Society interest (and ESPECIALLY those who got a certain cape and mask...) wanted to know how they could play more. So it looks like I better get ready to do Personal Agendas. Worse, it seems that many are planning to attend several cons in order to play more, which means PAs are going to have to have different 'adventures' at each con. So I guess I better get to work.
2. Drumming up interest - at TC there were several panels and podcasts with the Guests of Honor. AND it turns out I was on a panel (Writing Great Adventures, yea, I know what the heck were they thinking asking me...) and was interviewed for the podcast (where I hyped HoA). Not exactly sure where to find them yet, but I'll give you all the web info when I know more.