There wolves

Finally had time to revamp Werewolves of London and bring it out for testing.  Biggest change coming from the previous playtest was that I added rules for border skirmishes with other players - reducing their investments in the contested territories or preventing them from scoring those territories at the end of the game.  I also changed some rules for scoring, for where you can invest money, and for what happens when the police investigation progresses.

Overall conclusion from today's test is that it's moving in the right direction but still has plenty more moving to do.  It does feel more wolfy now, but needs to also feel more businessy, and find the right balance of the two aspects.  The test players gave me some good ideas based on what they were expecting from the pitch, and how that differed from what I actually had, so that gives me a really good sense of what to aim for with the next round of revisions.  We also talked a lot about building around the day/night contrast; I'm kind of kicking myself that I hadn't thought about that more explicitly before since it is rather central to the whole concept of werewolves but again, it does give me some ideas to play with.

And it also led one of them to come up with a new tag line that I'm definitely stealing - "outbid them during the day, outbite them during the night"

Neon Knights - revisiting the basic stats

Recurring feedback that I've gotten from readers is that, since I'm pitching this game as "heavy metal," they want to feel that in the rules.  And in particular, in the PCs' core stats.  The knightly virtues that I have there right now do the job well enough for covering different kinds of actions but not for conveying the desired tone of the game.  After a lot of back and forth, and a lot of beating my head against various proverbial walls, I've maybe finally solved this one.  Here they are:

You act with ...
Passion when your emotional intensity is front and center
Restraint when you carefully collect information and balance risks and rewards before taking action
Instinct when you go with your gut and don't bother waiting for confirmation
Sleight when you use stealth, subterfuge, or misdirection
Accord when you act on your understanding of others around you
Force when you rely on the raw strength of your body or mind

I don't think it makes to continue calling them Virtues.  I could go back to Approaches, which is the default term from Fate Accelerated, but that also lacks flavor.  Maybe this will be the next big annoying thing for me to resolve?