So at the June 2, 2007 JiffyCon, I had the pleasure of playtesting Ben Lehman's Adventures in the Land of 1,000 Kings, and it was really wonderful. This is an innovative, cutting-edge game and I had almost no feedback to give (in the good way).

First, a precis of the game. 1KK (Maybe I have coined the SotCization of this game right here and now) is a game where you play yourself. Not a version of yourself, not a fictionalized self. It's you. The guy or girl who's sitting at the table. Fiction starts where the virtual-you gets up from the table and walks through a door visible to the real you, and walks through it into a fantasy world. One of the players stays behind, holding the door open, and tells the others what happens.

Your stats are based on your own recollections of yourself, and that of others. For example, Ben said, "Rob, I remember when we played Misspent Youth at Dreamation and there were really serious problems and you didn't get defensive, and you were smiling at the end of some pretty heavy criticism. That's how I know you're Strong." Bang, I get a dot of Strong. The stats are Strong, Brave, Kind, Sharp, and Beautiful. Each person may only ever give you two rememberences, and you may never start the game over with a new character. You can't be a new you, you are always you. You may also give yourself a single rememberence, once ever.

This memory thing carries into the game too. Let's say I need some extra dice for fighting the carnivorous vegetable. You can say, "I remember the first time when I saw this really ugly vegetable and I was grossed out and didn't want to eat it, but I did, and it was delicious." I can then help you by saying, "I remember one time I was walking down the street and this dog jumped at me, and I freaked out until I realized, hey, I have hands, and I shut the gate and watched the dog bark fruitlessly." You now have two more dice.

This sharing stuff is the core of the game and since you can only ever get 2 permanent points from somebody, to advance your character you have to keep playing with new people.

The resolution works this way: 2d6, plus an appropriate stat # of dice, plus 1 or 2 dice for equipment, plus helping dice from yourself and other people. You roll your pool and so does the opposition. Set aside any 1s or 2s, and compare the highest die to the opposition. If you have higher dice, you win. If you are tied, you take the number of dice at that level (usually the number of sixes) and reroll. So does the opposition. Repeat until there are no longer any ties.

Whoever wins says what happens first, and takes all the 1s and 2s rolled on both sides to narrate what happens. That's a little too complicated to get into here.

Ok, next post is on to the fiction for this particular playtest.

As far as feedback:

Players in cooperation dominate. I would suggest allowing only one person to throw dice on each side per throw, and that other players only be allowed to give helping dice.

I really really really feel that there should be a wiki for everyone to use and populate, not just with their characters but with the world-stuff they create.

I am wondering how broken it will get when you get a game-slut (playing with everyone) with enormous stats .

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This is one of the most innovative and exciting games I've ever played.

This game has a way of sticking with you. My vegan conscious has me feeling guilty for my part in the battle against the Empty-Heart Vegetables. I want to play again soon, so I have a chance to find what remains of them and offer some sort of atonement. And the best part is, because of how the game begins, I can be sure I will be able to do just that.

Also, the sharing of memories aspect of the game is glorious. When I sat down to play, Rob was the only person there I had met before that day, and I only barely knew him. In no time, I felt a kinship to everyone at the table. It wasn't just because we had to share random tales from our lives, but because the memories we were sharing were all tied together through common themes reflected in the conflicts we were having in the Land of a Thousand Kings.

And of course the fact that character creation is based on complements didn't hurt.

Posted By: Colin_FredericksYour vegan conscious is sad because you destroyed vegetables? I see something deeply wrong with this. :)

Sentient vegetables who I had a conversation with. While it was a hostile one, and they did threaten to eat all the animals, it definitely played into that age-old conundrum that omnivores like to toss at me when they first discover my diet: What if plants have feelings, too?

Of course, these were specifically Empty-Heart Vegetables, and it was distinctly possible that they don't have feelings. Which would leave me off the hook. But I don't know that for sure...

See what I'm saying? This game sticks with you!

It seems like this game would be impossible to play at a convention, where most of the players don't know each other. It would start looking like the second episode of the Clerks TV series (which was a flashback episode to the first episode, and sometimes to earlier in that same episode).

There was a bit of that going on, which is how I earned my point of Beautiful, but it isn't terribly important that you start with any points in the five traits. And the memories you share during the game are your own of yourself. So it worked out quite well for me at a table full of strangers.

More enthusiasms:

Emily's Artifact is her "thinking cap," a Lulu baseball cap she was wearing.

Emily is so goddamned cool. She was also Brain Girl all day.

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Oh, another neat thing are the Rights you have:

Right of Friendship: You always know everything that your friends are doing. There is no OOC/IC divide: you magically know in the fiction what you know in real life.

Right of something-like-hospitality: Everyone has to treat you nice as long as you obey the King's law for the domain you're in.

Some-other-right-I-can't-remember

Fateright is the best anti-railroading tool I've ever heard of. Kudos to the designer.