I can confirm that the quality of the product is phe-frickin'-nomenal.  From the box, to the book, to the card boxes and cards themselves.  You can tell it was a labor of love that Luke and Jared wanted to do right.

The game itself seems really cool, but it presents a bit of difficulty for me, in that I wouldn't want to play it with my usual RPG group.   I really wanna try this out with a group of non/new-gamers and see how it works.  The expectations and baggage that would accompany a bunch of dungeonheads for this particular piece would prove problematic, imho.  (no offense to the 'heads, as i'm one myself...)   I'm not even entirely sure if I can wrap my head around it yet, and the one thing I need to do is read more AP posts.   The feeling that I was left with after my first read was a sense of "now what?", and I know it's not built for it, but I think I would've appreciated a bit of a handholding sample adventure beyond the (admittedly excellent) sidebar gameplay/rule examples.

I have a few friends in mind who are hardcore creative types...artists, writers/bloggers, and academics that I plan to try and get together to play and see where they take it.

Decided to go for it. Looking forward to receiving the game now.

Received the game last evening, and it really is a gorgeous piece of work. So far the rules look very interesting and I'm looking forward to trying the game out. Looks like it'll be really fun. Great job on it. Truly.

Just finished reading up to the current point in the Excramax AP linked to from the Project Donut page, and I have to say it is AWESOME! I am very much looking forward to playing this game. I am a die-hard traditionalist when it comes to RPGs normally, but I don't give a shit, this game rocks. Yes, its post-scarcity transhumanism, but who the fuck cares? It's total chaotic, over-the-top wish-fulfillment gonzo. LOVE it. It almost comes across as tongue-in-cheek stream-of-consciousness. Hell, come up with other hyphenate-able terms and they'll probably fit. Haven't gotten completely into the mechanics yet, but based on what I've read in the AP I'm not very concerned I think I'll start a MRCZ to create hyphenated terms

Suppose I'm just using this thread to talk about this game rather than starting a new one, but fuck, I just feel like it.

Been thinking about a character for the game, npc most likely. He's a character assassin. Rather than being the type of assassin that Deaths folks, he's far more feared. He's a specialist in destroying a freemer's rep, therefore tanking their flow and getting them deported.

Quote from: Sigmund;415027Suppose I'm just using this thread to talk about this game rather than starting a new one, but fuck, I just feel like it.

Been thinking about a character for the game, npc most likely. He's a character assassin. Rather than being the type of assassin that Deaths folks, he's far more feared. He's a specialist in destroying a freemer's rep, therefore tanking their flow and getting them deported.

Thats AWESOME.

Tell us more, please.

Heh, thanks Gotten to the "superusing your first session" section, and loving the game. I mean it's not going to replace D&D, or Traveller, or Star Cluster, or whatever for long-term campaigns. It is gonna be a helluvalot of fun for a good stretch of sessions I'm thinkin though. I'm wondering if anyone with decent experience playing/running Freemarket is lurking about who might be able to tell me if there's anything ya can think of or see that would prevent me from replacing the "donut" setting with a whole city, or even whole world as a setting for this culture. Hell, a small moon base. Just something different... maybe with cars and planes and trips to tropical island resorts. Would the system handle that large a setting?

The game brings to mind a book called Prefect by Alistair Reynolds. It's making me want to read his other Chasm City books.

Quote from: Sigmund;415508I'm wondering if anyone with decent experience playing/running Freemarket is lurking about who might be able to tell me if there's anything ya can think of or see that would prevent me from replacing the "donut" setting with a whole city, or even whole world as a setting for this culture. Hell, a small moon base. Just something different... maybe with cars and planes and trips to tropical island resorts. Would the system handle that large a setting?

There are a number of factors in the game that make problematic.

1) Scarcity of space (contrary to 4chan, you cannot just "make the Donut bigger" and it takes a lot of time and energy to "print a new space station" because you need giant matter printers that don't yet exist... so it's more like making a scale model of NYC out of legos). Being able to expand easily takes away from the game's ideas of compressed humanity working together.

2) The 86,000 people is a specific figure for a specific reason. Again, expansion is something best left to the players and not the basic game setting.

3) No in/outs — once you arrive, you can't just leave and come back. Travel to the Donut is a huge investment of time, energy, resources and willpower. And once inside, you're there until you don't want to be there or are asked to leave. No backsies! Being able to zip in and out would make FreeMarket Station something else rather than the hothouse garden of ideas and culture that it is. It is an alien culture. It is heaven. You can only fall, never redeemed.

4) You wouldn't be playing FreeMarket, and we can't have that, can we?

5) Seriously, trust us. We tried it. The game doesn't work in a different context.

Thanks for your enthusiasm though! Luke and I are extraordinarily proud of our accomplishment and hope that the right people get ahold of the game and incorporate it into their own experiences and memories.

EDIT: Oh, and we hope you DON'T put away your other games and just play FreeMarket. Without those other games as contrast, FM isn't quite the same experience.

Quote from: Jared A. Sorensen;405538I can totally see the RPGsite crowd getting into this game.

LOL!!! Jared, that's awesome.   Irony and sarcasm just had a baby!

Freemarket looks interesting.  A post-death, post-scarcity transhumanist society is a fascinating concept.  Not sure if I would enjoy playing in that world, but it certainly is fresh and new.

And thanks for writing SPHEAR.  That was a terrific fun!

Quote from: Jared A. Sorensen;415665There are a number of factors in the game that make problematic.

1) Scarcity of space (contrary to 4chan, you cannot just "make the Donut bigger" and it takes a lot of time and energy to "print a new space station" because you need giant matter printers that don't yet exist... so it's more like making a scale model of NYC out of legos). Being able to expand easily takes away from the game's ideas of compressed humanity working together.

2) The 86,000 people is a specific figure for a specific reason. Again, expansion is something best left to the players and not the basic game setting.

3) No in/outs — once you arrive, you can't just leave and come back. Travel to the Donut is a huge investment of time, energy, resources and willpower. And once inside, you're there until you don't want to be there or are asked to leave. No backsies! Being able to zip in and out would make FreeMarket Station something else rather than the hothouse garden of ideas and culture that it is. It is an alien culture. It is heaven. You can only fall, never redeemed.

4) You wouldn't be playing FreeMarket, and we can't have that, can we?

5) Seriously, trust us. We tried it. The game doesn't work in a different context.

Thanks for your enthusiasm though! Luke and I are extraordinarily proud of our accomplishment and hope that the right people get ahold of the game and incorporate it into their own experiences and memories.

EDIT: Oh, and we hope you DON'T put away your other games and just play FreeMarket. Without those other games as contrast, FM isn't quite the same experience.

Cool, I get ya. The coming/going restriction would be a serious obstacle to changing the setting. I'll keep it in the donut and just roll with it. I think ya'all have done a fantastic job, love the game. I don't regret the $75 bucks for the box set one bit either, the game is gorgeous. I even picked up the pdf as well so I could print out selected sections for quick reference and to stuff in the slots of my landscape customizable GM screen. Great job ya'all. I'm nowhere near as awesome or creative as the whole Excramax AP series and it's participants, but I'll try to come up with stuff and post it here if any of ya'all are interested in checking back every once in awhile. I'm gonna create a profile for my character assassin and post it once I'm done reading the book.

Quote from: Spinachcat;415711LOL!!! Jared, that's awesome.   Irony and sarcasm just had a baby!

I agree, very slick, although I'm trying to do my best to make the statement true in a literal sense instead or ironic and sarcastic I don't see why many folks here wouldn't enjoy the game for what it is.

I recently got a copy at NeonCon, and it's really a lovely set.

Any suggestions for setting it up as a demo/convention game, Jared?

How necessary are the cards and other stuff that comes in the box set?  I've been tempted off the pdf cause I thought the game demanded the cards.  Can it be run without them?

Quote from: gonster;418390How necessary are the cards and other stuff that comes in the box set?  I've been tempted off the pdf cause I thought the game demanded the cards.  Can it be run without them?

It's a bit specific to the cards as they're listed, but if you wanted to, you could probably grab a bunch of MtG commons (like, lands mostly) and use them as substitutes for the cards the set comes with.

Bonus if you find a nice common bug-monster to stand in for bug cards, I think?

Quote from: jcfiala;418597It's a bit specific to the cards as they're listed, but if you wanted to, you could probably grab a bunch of MtG commons (like, lands mostly) and use them as substitutes for the cards the set comes with.

Bonus if you find a nice common bug-monster to stand in for bug cards, I think?

We made four "suits" of challenge cards so users without official decks could cannibalize standard playing card decks.

Diamonds - FreeMarket
Hearts - Geneline
Spades - Hazard
Clubs - Experience

...or whatever. And the tech deck could be any two suits, one point-scoring, one not.