I had a chance to run the Night Fears Module at a local Convention (Keycon Winnipeg) not once, but twice. In both games, I had a combination of people I didn't know mixed in with one or two people I did know. None of them had played Dresden Files before, and before I get into it, the summary of this is that I found Night Fears to be an EXCELLENT teaching resource for how to play the game, and it's great for Con games where time is short and there are competing events of interest going on.
In the first game, I ended up with 7(!) players. Every kid got used, and though I was worried that people would feel a little forgotten in the very loud and energetic table, it actually turned out to be quite fun. The players were enthusiastic and interested, and they bought into the premise of kids exploring a haunted house. I'll call this Team Alpha.
The second game had far less players (4 in total), and far less energy around the table. They were very quiet, and the enthusiasm seemed quite low, and I had the sense that they didn't really like the initial premise. This is going to be called Team Beta.
The questions at the beginning did a great job of establishing initial characterization of the very broad characters. For Team Alpha, they jumped on the questions, and had a ready answer for everything I asked them, and even began a series of excited connections from those questions. The interplay between the three girls was great, because they worked out that Dani and Nicky were friends, and Dani and Jaimie were formerly friends. Jaimie thought that Dani was just social climbing, but the truth was that Jaimie was creepy and codependant, and it was making Dani really uncomfortable. This added some nuance to the session. In game, whenever Nicky was trying to be super nice to Jaimie, Jaimie's jealousy kept her surly and distant. This was all talked about after a single question!
Team Beta had to be poked and prodded to get any kind of response. There was a lot of "deer in the headlights" moments with Team Beta, and I had to really hand hold them through the process. Their responses focused on the pictures of the characters. Dani was a popular girl and bitch because "the picture makes her look like that". They kept wanting to know what the right answer was, even after I repeatedly told them that they were supposed to make it up.
Interestingly, Team Alpha and Team Beta both had very different responses to their questions, which led to very different characters. In Team alpha, Terry was Zealous and harshly Judgemental to his fellow teens. In Team Beta, Terry was much more awkward, struggling with temptations of the flesh and guilt ridden that he's spending the night with... gasp... girls!
Team Alpha took everyone, and I got a chance to see what kind of stuff Chris could come up with. Chris is a neat character, and the player decided it was his mission to get the other players to run out of the house in fear, and then record the whole thing on his little camcorder "For Youtube!". He told the other teens he had to "use the washroom", and then set up all kinds of noisemakers and other fear based pranks. In fact, for the first little bit of the game, Chris was doing the Ghost's job for them! What made it even more funny was that when the ghosts started to make their move later in the night, they kept rolling their eyes and saying "nice try, Chris". ("Nice Try, Chris" ended up becoming a scene aspect when they discovered some of Chris' traps)
Team Beta took Dani, Nicky, Jaimie and Terry. Because Terry was the only boy in the house, the player took a "Lead me not into Temptation" aspect, and it was compelled like crazy, leading to Terry holding Dani a little too long when she slipped on some floorboards, and him stealing a glimpse when the girls were cleaning off the disgusting mold that coated their legs in the basement.
One of the questions that tended to come up in both games is "what does my character have on them?" I handled this pretty loosely and hand-wavey (you have teen stuff!) but it actually led to a disconnect that ended Team Beta's game on a sour note (Dani pulled out a .45 revolver and started shooting).
In Team Alpha, they actually wrote down what they had on them. For example, Terry had a Bible, Nicky had a whole list of stuff (one of her aspects was Level Headed, another was Voice of Reason) ranging from power bars to pencils (and a pencil sharpener!), Andy had a six pack of smuggled beer from his dad's fridge (Whenever I addressed Andy, it was either in a voice of his Dad, or as John Madden. "Student of Madden" and "Screw You, Dad" were two of his aspects), and Dani had a bottle of Vodka, stolen from her dad's liquor cabinet ("Daddy's too busy to care" was one of her Aspects). I was uncertain how to handle alcohol, so I just used temporary aspects.
I would advise adding a question of "What are you bringing with you to the Cranston House?" to avoid some of the issues that cropped up in my game. I also advise that you make very clear that these are (fairly) normal kids, and that they would pack in a manner that would match young teenagers. I found that with a specific list of what they did and did not have, it went a lot better.
At any rate, all the players said that they had a great time, and were really enamored with the system. I quite enjoyed running Team Alpha, and found parts of Team Beta to be ok. That being said, this game really requires the players at the table to participate, rather than just kind of sit there and expect to get spoon fed the plot. Though Team Alpha had 7 players, it had 7 players interacting with me and each other and enthusiastic about the premise. Team Beta's lack of energy and shyness to interact really caused the game to drag considerably. Again, something else to think about.
All in all, Night Fears is a great first game of Dresden Files for those looking to try it out, and makes for a really great Con game. The module is highly configurable, what was happening in the house for Team Alpha was very different from the House for Team beta. The Replayability is pretty high, and I highly recommend trying it out!
