I got to play for a few hours last night with Carly. We only played one on one, so apologies if that makes the playtesting less useful, but that's how I play a lot of games that I get immediately enthusiastic for! And really it didn't seem to change the game at all. Oaths were pointed at NPCs and that's it. It also made drawing the map super fast and simple.

Be sure to tell me your favorite part, your least favorite part, and the most surprising part.

My favorite part was establishing details about the troll-killers land and allied NPCs. It ended up being an ancestral farmland, passed down by the Old Blood from mother to daughter, so his older sister (second eldest sibling) is set to inherit it while he runs around becomes a legendary warrior and monster slayer. So the setting building stuff, and the details already provided and the way they get filled out in play.

My least favorite part was keeping track of all the hanging +1 forwards. It may be my imagination but it seems like there's more in this game and we kept losing track. I think this is something that we'll remember in time, though, so consider this a frustrated grump more than a request that it be changed. We both forgot a few as we were playing, and then I remembered some more that we forgot while I was showering this morning.

The most surprising part was how much mental overhead I felt that I needed to put into tracking genealogies. Keeping track of who's relative to who and who has what rights based on which inheritance system only came up slightly, but I immediately realized that I am going to have to put some serious work into family trees in order to make it something that's relevant and interesting and if I don't want to step on my own feet.

If there's other details you'd like to know, let me know. The only other thought I really have is that I was itching for was something similar to threats and fronts. I introduced some playbook inspired stuff (there's a dragon cult and a mysterious wood witch) and while I don't need some between-session prep guidance I sure would appreciate it.

"When you use something on your character sheet, mark it for experience. When you mark the 7th, improve and erase your marks."

This seems kind of vague (when exactly am I using something?) and also a bit fussy, like I'll be marking 3 or 4 things all at once.

For Oaths in particularly, is "using" it when you follow it, or when someone else determines you've followed it at the session's end?

Yeah Faceless!

The easiest choice for this is a worse outcome. Success with consequences, as others have pointed out.

Trying to get away from that gang? Okay, you get away, but you took a bullet in the leg. Make the harm move.

Diving into a river to get away from the explosion? Okay, but now you've been swept into the tide and there are some nasty rocks downstream.

You're trying to shut one of those psycho weirdo Mad Kings out of your mind? Okay, you succeed but you wake up in a strange place. (On a miss they would have been covered in blood).

Running away from a guy with a pickaxe? You made it and now you have a brand new pickaxe. Sweet! It's buried in your shoulder though.

I think my games have been fairly not-weird, with the only actual game weirdness coming from the Psychic Maelstrom and interactions with it.

Don't get mad at me for asking this. It's not a trap. I don't have an answer.

What is system for?

This is probably already answered somewhere in diagrams or essays. If I am being uselessly vague let me know and I'll think about what I'm asking. It is kind of abstract though.

These are great!!

"The children of the hardhold are all getting sick. Their eyes are puffed shut and their tongues are so swollen they can't speak. What do you do?"
"I shoot everyone in the room."