I finally got a chance to play Agon. I was a bit nervous since I'd never run it before and the game requires a strong bit of improvosation. Still, I think it went well in the end. I started out describing how the heroes came upon a volcanic island and Zeus commanded them to find the pelt of Leo. (I only prepared one quest, but we only had time for one anyway, so that's ok). There was some initial friction because the players, N and D, felt that they had nothing to "go on". I explained to them that it's expected that the quest goal is on the island and that they just had to explore a bit.
So they did, and they came upon a generic town. I probably could have made it a bit more interesting. Next time. We had a few simple contests of Lore and Athletics to find more information. N and D had a little trouble getting their heads around how things worked in these first rolls of the dice, but by the time that they had trekked across the island to the camp of the invaders (who were supposed to have the pelt) they had a handle on simple contests and even had a battle under their belt (wolves and "vikings").
At this point, N and D had figured out Advantages and how to get them. A couple of contests later, and they had poisoned the camp's well, gaining the Advantage of "Poisoned Vikings". They snuck into the leader's tent and fought him and took the lion-skin that he was wearing only to have that skin come to life and attack! I think that the pelt was supposed to be a monster, and thus invulnerable to normal weapons, but the heroes had no magical weapons nor enough Divine Favor to bless their own, so I decided that the pelt was a "beast" instead. I guess I could have had the heroes run away and come back prepared, but I panicked (and didn't have much time left anyway).
Now, during the two big battles, N was using positioning to his advantage to make himself more effective than D, which is part of the game. D wanted to counter that, but didn't have any Oaths to use. Neither player really took advantage of the helping rules and resulting Oaths, though I think they might next time. Similarly they didn't use secondary abilities much either, except when I suggested it.
There was some confusion, of course. I think there's still a question of who moves first when both guys have the same weapon at the same distance at the same skill (a tie). The players forgot for a while to suffer penalties for armor. I totally cheated and unleashed like, 30 Strife on them when I only should have had 15 after NPC creation. Oops. There was only one Interlude, but the quest was kind of short. N used Divine Favor to increase his roll to regain Divine Favor. That felt broken. If it's not, then so be it, but it just didn't feel right (since you fully replenish DF after the roll). There was also a question of how positioning bonuses are handled when you've got more than one type of opponent on the mat with you and also regarding Glory rewards when rolling against an NPC's bigger dice.
Still, it felt invigorating to play and I think it was successful. We're playing Deadlands: Reloaded for the next few weeks, I believe. Maybe we'll get another game of Agon in after that or maybe we'll try out Shock: Social Science Fiction.
Oh, and for those keeping track, N "won" the Agon with 4 Legend to D's 3 Legend as of the end of the first quest.
"If you fudge dice rolls, your system is failing you!" -Sons of Kryos
"I genuinely think that some people measure their free will by reading how unhappy their GM is." - TonyLB
[dice type=fudge]3dF[/dice]