The premise of the system itself is interesting and encourages curious play. The execution...not so much. A group of friends and I gathered for a 4-session game of this, as the book recommends. We chose to have one DM (myself) rather than rotate as the book recommends. I doubt rotating DM's would have saved it from its faults.

The positives first. The Fugue system created for this adventure is very interesting. My group was most intrigued at the possibility of creating characters from complete scratch (due to amnesia) and having a lot of sway over how their stories intertwined and came together. The tarot element was also fun, although I made the mistake of not using a standard Ryder-Waite deck. Mine was stylized and much more difficult to utilize for flavor on the draws. My mistake. I do wish there was a printable PDF for the cards in the book - they are on-theme and look great.

As for the negatives, the cracks became apparent as I read through the book. I'm not overly familiar with TTRPG writing, having most experience with several PbtA systems and D&D5e. However, the style this book was written it was at best self-indulgent and at worst absolutely horrendous. The author goes on long asides about his process of writing, how he thinks things should turn out, even admits at several points that sections of the game are likely to be boring (see: coyote quest early on). It is also aggressively unkind to its players. I've not come across a book so disdainful towards its players, and so dedicated to "no, but"ing them. It encourages refusing to give characters (or players) ANY information unless absolutely necessary, I assume in an effort to build tension. All it did at my table was cause frustration.

Also, there's this line at the beginning: "That doesn’t give you a licence to make shit up. This isn’t one of those indie games. Improvise by all means, but this is guided storytelling not a freeform bullshit session". As much as it tries to convince you that you're the DM, you're in charge, you can be flexible with the story beats...this is the most on-rails experience I've ever had. I know that many folks like this style of game. My group and I very decidedly don't.

I have plenty of other complaints that would take me hours to put to paper, so I'll just say this: Alas Vegas should have been a novel. It is practically written like one in many instances, which isn't conducive to storytelling gameplay. It's a game that doesn't care about its characters (necessarily, as they can permanently die with just a few unlucky draws in combat), and altogether FAR too much about its story. All in all, a memorable experience if only for how frustrated it left all of us at the end. Would not recommend unless you are VERY into 1960s Vegas aesthetics and don't mind a railroad game.