Love to hear your opinions. I know the designers, so I can make sure to mock them for you if there are any problems...

Initial opinions: great "curb appeal." I got so engrossed in reading all the quotes from the show that I didn't bother to actually read the rules the first time through the book. Also, insanely flexible: I've already got a ton of ideas for games set in earlier times/different places with previous Slayers.

Also a plus: I bothered to read the rules and learn them. It's been a long time since I had the patience to sit down and learn a new game system. (Computers have made me lazy).

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, of course, so I'm going to have to round up some players and give it a shot...part of the game is that players get points for snappy dialogue, and I'm interested to see how that works.

I bought the book a while back, but haven't played yet.

I agree with everything Raquel says, and would add that I like the way the game system is designed to help balance out the fact that the players have greatly varied power levels.

One thing I'm not so sure about is the combat. It's a very simple system, which might be good for the genre, but could be confusing or boring.

Hey for chrissakes when is the next Fray coming out? Anyone??

Dark Horse now claims April 23rd, but I'll be shocked if it actually happens.

In the new Buffy magazine, in an interview with Joss, he says something like "Fray is really going to be out soon -- your grandchildren will love it."

Bwah! Good to know they at least forsee its publication before the storyline's events are proven historically inaccurate.

The last I heard was that Karl Moline had most of Fray #7 and part of #8 pencilled, but they were waiting until he had #8 finished before they would make the big push of promoting the final two issues. I have heard that Karl had some health problems recently, and I did notice that his last issue of Route 666 (which I think is a pretty good horror comic, BTW) had shared pencilling duties with Cliff Richards (who is the main penciller on Buffy comics at this time).

Rob, what do you think of the magic system in the Buffy rpg? I'm cool with the loose-and-fast combat system (I tend to prefer faster-paced combats, and I think it will capture the feeling of the show), but, as we've all learned from Willow, playing loose and fast with magic is often a very bad idea. I can't quite get a feeling for the magic system.

I have one player rounded up - any folks here who live in Northern Virginia and want to play, let me know.

Raquel, where are you in NoVA?