Running "tremulus" - Mixed Feelings

My latest one-shot game, "tremulus", was a blend of two of my most familiar gaming worlds. The system is based on "Apocalypse World" and the setting is Lovecraftian horror. I decided to try it out, this time with a small group of three players.

I brought a lot of energy to this one, fresh off "Monster of the Week" which had ran like a dream. "tremulus" has many of the same conventions. The players have playbooks, containing instructions for character creation, moves, attributes and levelling. It has a sanity system as well, a nod to other "Cthulhu" games. The GM (in this game the "keeper") doesn't roll any dice and has an agenda, a list of moves, and moves for the various hazards in the game, such as town elders, townfolk and locations.

The game also comes with a questionnaire about the town, the people and weird rumors. The players pick a few responses and this corresponds to a framework in the back of the book. This gives the keeper two story threads to combine into a unique framework. The threads have two descriptions, one for the players and one for the keeper. The various combinations are fascinating and give lots of story ideas, definitely a highlight of the game.

In actual gameplay, there were some issues that emerged very quickly that I hadn't seen in "Apocalypse World", "Dungeon World" or "Monster of the Week". For example, the "Lore" skill rating was very easy to exploit and accumulate by the character playing "The Chosen" playbook, and could have led to heavy imbalance in a campaign. The Lore moves didn't seem particular inspired either.

The were several times where the characters would do actions that are commonplace in this type of game, but didn't seem to logically map back to a move. The trickiest piece was that "schock", which is really the sanity mechanism, requires two rolls. First to see if you pass the test, and then another to determine damage, even if the first check was passed. It felt awkward at the table.

I will also say that I think games based on AW are at their best when the group is very engaged and active, one of the reasons my "Monster" session flowed so well. In that case I was really like another player in terms of the number of moves I made. In this session I felt like I was having to call on a lot more moves and do more to move the story. I would definitely try "tremulus" again, there's a lot to like in there and potential for great atmosphere, though I would do a preprepared setting and houserule some of the mechanics.