Bluebird

I had an amazing time in Nancy's game. The setting/storyline required her to be highly adaptive and able to create on the spot based on what players came up with during various minigames. She came up with really colorful, round characters, with stories that weaved into the life of the town and our PCs in ways that made perfect sense. She also did a fantastic job empowering us to participate in the fiction and creating the world, not just reacting to it. This was a cozy game, but the relationships and stakes felt as real as high-intensity action. I would definitely play another of her games.

One of my favorite systems to run - it does place a lot of responsibility on GMs to know a high amount of mechanics and lore. However, the load on players is really light, which helps make it simpler to run. There are multiple options for how you run this game. You can focus on the historical, steampunk, scrappy crime of it all and your players will have a great time. You can focus on the grimdark, supernatural, spooky portions and your players will have a great time. You can focus on the economic, bustling factions and interworkings of a city and your players will have a great time. Coming up with complications on the spot for when players rolls go poorly took some practice. It does get easier to roll with the punches after just presenting your players with a situation/score. Player actions fill in the rest of the blanks. This is one of those games that just SPAWNS GMs. Once someone has played it, they fall in love. One bit of advice. You WILL need to put tabs in the book.

Jinx is an incredibly gifted worldbuilder and story teller. I joined one of his VtM games weeks after it had begun and he took the time to fold in my character and her goals, and created hooks and connections for her in the story that made it seem as if she'd been there the entire campaign. I repeatedly get lost in his descriptions of settings, clothing, and the looks and schemes that your character might notice if you have enough dots in insight and politics! The story feels alive and big, like there's a whole world happening outside of what your coterie is doing, and that what you're doing effects things (and has consequences...).