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The Game Report: [GenCon Prep] RPG Book a Day?

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  1.  
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      CommentAuthorThunder_God
    • CommentTimeJul 31st 2007 edited
     # 1
    So, I've had a rough year reading RPGs: it felt so much like work and I didn't manage to read a single RPG aside from my Game-Chef five.
    So in prepartion to GenCon, I'll try to read a bunch of RPGs, including ones I'm rusty on, let's see what I have on my shelf, that is SG-relevant:
    1. Sorcerer.
    2. Sorcerer and Sword.
    3. The Shab-al-hiri Roach.
    4. Under the Bed.
    5. With Great Power...
    6. Shock: 1.1.
    7. The Mountain Witch.
    8. Truth and Justice.
    9. Beast Hunters.
    10. Mortal Coil.
    11. Legends of Alyria.
    12. Hierarchy.
    13. Cutthroat.
    14. Contenders.
    15. Perfect.
    16. AGON.
    17. Ganakagok.
    18. Spirit of the Century.
    19. Reign

    Sadly, I only have 14 days, and that counts the 14th, when I take flight.
    Also, some of those books are a bit bigger, like the last two.

    I'll try to read a book a day, and will give you my blurry impressions here.
    Maybe I'll also give birth to strange half-breed creations, heh, but don't bet on it!

    Cheers and Jeers are welcome.
    •  
      CommentAuthorAndy
    • CommentTimeJul 31st 2007
     # 2
    Honestly? Instead of reading them all, why not just read five?

    Also, what would you be reading them for? To run them? If so, give up and stick to 3-5 that you can learn and run well, rather than 20 games that you won't know what to do with.

    I have every game in your list above, save Under the Bed (sold), Shock: (will buy later, but I have run it a number of times), Mortal Coil (gave away), Hierarchy, Cutthroat, Perfect and Ganakagok. Out of all those, I can run Legends of Alyria, Beast Hunters, Shock:, With Great Power and Shab al-Hiri Roach easily and well. From now to GenCon, I too was thinking of "boning up" to run some stuff at Games on Demand, but since those people are going to be spending Generics in hopes of getting a GM to run a game she knows and can run well and is enthusiastic about, I dropped my ambitions of Being Able to Run Every Game Well, to Being Able to Run, Say, TWO More Games Well. I'm going to bone up on Spirit of the Century and Dogs in the Vineyard before the con.

    So in the next 14 days, I'm going to learn only two games, maybe three. And those are games that I've already played at least 4 sessions of each.

    -Andy
  3.  # 3
    No, I am uncomfortable not knowing all the rules of a game while playing it, so I'll read up on them in case I'll play them, also, I need to read all the games I own, and this is a measure to get ahold of the beast called my RPG book library.

    I probably won't run anything, because I have a fear of crowds thing, and if I will run something, it'll probably be one of my creations, which I know.
    •  
      CommentAuthorKat Miller
    • CommentTimeJul 31st 2007
     # 4
    If it helps I can teach you the rules of With Great Power... at the Game on Demand Table.
    •  
      CommentAuthorThunder_God
    • CommentTimeAug 1st 2007 edited
     # 5
    Under the Bed is a bit uncomfortable to read, my fingers cover the margins and a bit of the text.

    End of page 2 and beginning of page 3 miss a sentence each.

    Dude, according to the rules you immediately stop playing. You begin with 1 Favouritism token in the hat, and when the round begins you remove a token from the hat, leaving someone with zero tokens in the hat(pages 4-5)! (upon further reading, I surmise a Toy is lost when they have no more Tokens, not just no more tokens in the hat)

    Page 7 says you need 6 tokens per player, page 10 claims you need 4.(later instances show it to be 4)

    Page 21, "The player who owns that token puts that die in front of themselves." What die?

    Page 27, last sentence on the first paragraph lacking the word "use".

    Game seems fun and light natured enough. Text is in need of some editing.
  6.  # 6

    This is a monumental undertaking. I wish your eyes to never water and your comprehension to increase.

    (Also, I've fixed the errors you mention except the first, which doesn't seem to actually be a problem with my original, oddly enough.)

  7.  # 7
    Go Guy! :) Some of the games are shorter, and some are more easy to read than others. So maybe you can focus on those first and get fired up that way.
    •  
      CommentAuthorThunder_God
    • CommentTimeAug 1st 2007 edited
     # 8
    Mortal Coil makes me wonder how much of it is "Second generation" Universalis, but since I don't yet own Universalis, I am kept wondering.
    I also wonder that about Shock: and Adam Dray's Verge, if you're curious.

    Notes and Thanks always look better on the credits page, I think, for there, you can say you've been given "Credit", the way it is in Mortal Coil, all you receive are Brennan's pitiful "Thanks" (I am joking, to those who need it said bluntly, but I do think it should be on the credits page).

    Page 11, "No one player has the authority to make a sweeping decision about any character or the game world at large without the input of other players", not exact, because they have control of their own character. It is made clearer with the following paragraph, which talks about the specific instances of introducing new elements.

    I believe Social Contract is the next new grounds of RPGs(especially mechanics designed to interact and create SC themselves), and Mortal Coil makes references to the Social Contract, mainly in its suggestions, but also some rules.

    Page 13, you take the time to point out Magic Tokens belong to the player, this is also true to a degree with Power Tokens where you do not note it.

    I like the summary at the end of each chapter, good job.

    Page 18, under "Setting Scenes", it's either/ or both, for the first two bullet points. It can do one of the two, or both, or at least, that's what you claimed in the chapter body.

    "Lovelorn", and I've learnt a new word.

    Page 22 tells us not to define in the theme document set-up phase of the game things that can be defined by Magic Token expenditure, this is a (gross) case of future-referencing, in a section that could otherwise be "Set the game up as you read the book". It bears noting.

    "Avocation", another new word (I feel I've known this one before though).

    Page 35, I'd have listed a number in parenthesis next to the title description, "Competent (2) dueler" for instance. You do it in page 36, but I think the double example is redundant, and it is odd he should describe his aptitudes with those words before they are introduced (page 35).

    Page 39, where discussing the GM's Power Token pool, you state he gains 2 tokens per player, including himself. Does this mean that his Magic tokens, where he gains X, +Y per player, he is included or not, as a player (an example later states that it does not include himself, but this bears noting as unclear text)?
    This is made clear in the chapter summary section.

    Pages 44, 54 are empty. This is done to ensure the full colour picture is on the right-handed page.

    Page 62, Offensive and Defensive actions came out of the blue, we previously had two sides in a conflict, we never said anything about one being offensive and one being defensive. This also hints that you need in a conflict to have at least two actions, one offensive and one defensive, which I'm sure is not correct.
    Please clarify this.

    Page 63, reallocation leads to one token being spent after the action ends, so when do you get it back?
    (this is explained later, future-referencing without saying this is done)

    Page 65. Last paragraph, "if he had, he would have spent one action token, and then he could have then committed extra action tokens to resist", that hints you can't begin by committing more than 1 Action Token, and must first commit 1 and then add more, whereas earlier writing led me to believe I can begin by allocating more than 1 (and thus, the reveal).
    (This is also further suggested by "All in", as being the only way to initially invest more than one Action Token to a conflict.)

    Page 72, need a mention how this is mostly about a non-opposed conflict (makes sense, and see note about "0, qualified success").

    Page 76, where do you list the items a character has, if they're not magical? This is the first time the issue is brought up!

    Page 78, under "Reallocating Tokens", the word "one" should be erased once.

    Page 84, 4th paragraph, "Ancient characters may only change one faculty, and ancient characters may not...", second instance of "ancient" should be changed to "ageless".

    This is a relatively short book, and I feel like it could be considerably shorter. In addition, the Conflict chapter is inadequate, and I don't think I can play the game till the above questions and issues have been answered.
  9.  # 9
    Posted By: Thunder_GodMortal Coil


    Whatever its weaknesses might be, Mortal Coil is beautiful. Jennifer Rogers' art is fucking great. I can't let that pass unmentioned!
  10.  # 10
    That is very true :)
    I'm doing running commentary on content. In a way, because I can't not do it, I can do it in my mind and be silent, but then again, if I already go through the mental hassle of doing it, why not share?
    I may come to regret it with longer books, but I can hope they just won't have things for me to mention (I'm mostly bringing up the bad stuff).
    •  
      CommentAuthorThunder_God
    • CommentTimeAug 3rd 2007 edited
     # 11
    Shock: 1.1 is not out yet, but I have a PDF copy to peruse! :)

    The PDF at least kept the orange red, so where does the stark white come in?

    It took me a bit of time to understand "Vacuumorphism", cute.

    I find the rules at the sides of the short story distracting, and decided to skip the short story and read it, and the sidebar, after reading the game rules.

    Page 13, I think it'd also apply to all future sidebars; this is an escape. You don't want to put it before or after the paragraph covering roles the players fulfill (and yes, it is needed in the middle of it), so you put it at the side, where it will probably be read before, pick one or the other, or put it further down, until after both *Tagonists are covered.

    Page 20, what if no one puts their name next to a specific Issue, will it be left unaddressed in the game?

    21, last paragraph, page 32, first paragraph, Page 35 first paragraph, "affect" and not "effect".

    Page 21, that's a very good place to use an example, based on the example grid provided at the beginning of the chapter, to show what you mean when you say "Your shock and issue", especially considering you actually own a shock or issue.

    Page 22, "Two opposed pairs of opposites" is both redundant and confusing. "Two pairs of opposites", "Two pairs of antonyms".

    Page 23, how do the numbers say they're better at X than Y? How do I set the numbers, I assume future referencing, which didn't happen till now.

    Page 24, nifty, I assume you roll a d4 due to the more likely being 1 and 3 from the previous page, this would have been a good place to note which die type you roll.
    (page 25 leads me to believe I roll a d10, and also that what I thought of as a "1" is actually a "7". Oops, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who would make this mistake)

    Page 26, you may actually be interested in the Antagonist having near equal chances of doing either of the Praxis and thus give it 5/6.

    A note here, you've updated the sheets between the two editions, and looking at the old character sheets while reading the new book had been confusing to me until this point, but no more, now I actually checked and all things are in order once more! (There were plenty of confusing things about the old sheet)

    34, I like the dice system, simple and elegant. I especially like how both *Tagonists can win their Intent too, especially in the two example cases (one example, and the throne).

    Page 35, "another" and not "anther", an "O" is missing, 5th line.

    Page 35, tenth line, "As in normally works", should probably be, "As it normally works".

    Page 36, if two minutiae dice are the same, but I thought we solved this case a page ago, with another roll of the dice, to see whose die stands?!

    Page 45, "Less than 3 or more than 10", I assume the 10 should be an 8?

    What are the purpose of the Antagonist's Minutiae, colour only? Are they used in narration if the Antagonist wins? Or do they "Draw on it" to mean they get one free die per Minutiae? If it's so, it's only from the play example that I got it (at page 5 he spends 3 Credits for 5 dice, so two Minutiae?)

    Jumped to Playing the Audience now, the story will be read after all the rules-material.

    Who narrates a scene? The Protag or the Antag? There should be some more talk about Scene Setting.

    Page 67, why won't this give me features, if I fail?

    And now to the story.

    Page 5, what are the Praxis themselves? Knowing just the Fulcra is not very useful.

    Page 6, we don't know what Vincent rolled. Just that he failed, it'd be more useful if we got told what he rolled, especially we even get told Joshua's D4 results.

    Page 9, what minuita did Vincent invoke?

    Page 49, "Which he thought like the eyes of God", an awful sentence.

    Page 51, Vincent uses his 4d4 on himself, and wins? What exactly is going on in this conflict?

    Page 57, 4th paragraph, "They will give other work other you".

    Is it supposed to go for so long with no Conflict?

    Page 62, is it Vincent's goal to kill Father, or Thorium's, because Vincent wins and Father dies, but not by the hand of Thorium.

    The game was influenced by Universalis, which is not mentioned in the mediography.

    I get how to play from this document, and the playing seems fun, but I think I'd grok it more after an actual play experience. The game could have used my editing run ;)

    Post script: There is no credits page, where you write stuff like Copyright 2007? There is a credit page, it's orange, and I mixed it with the back-cover.
  12.  # 12

    Some answers:

    • Page 20: Yes. If no one's interested in an Issue, it's not played. That's pretty straightforward.
    • Page 23: That's explained on page 25.
    • Page 36: The roll-off is the real rule. This is a fucking version control issue. Dammit.
    • Page 5: That's on page 4, sidebar.
    • Page 9: The communication by vibration through objects.
    • Things can go on for a while without a Conflict. Sometimes, a Conflict is complex and needs a lot of setup to make the Intents clear. Sometimes you just don't know what you want yet.
    • Page 62: It makes no difference.
    • Page 67: You only gain Features when you fail your own Intent, not when your Antag gains theirs.

    I can never understand a game text without playing it. The sole counter-example might be Mechaton.

  13.  # 13
    Good lord, man. Reign alone will take you a few days to digest!
  14.  # 14
    Yes, you'll notice I have 14 days and 19 games, I'll probably leave SotC and Reign out, because, let's be practical.
  15.  # 15
    I asked game authors, but now I'll ask you, dear readers, is this sort of feedback of any use to you, considering you probably don't have the book and thus it's out of context, or have the book and can find those problems on your own?

    I'm considering just reading the book, takes a tad less time than collecting my thoughts.
  16.  # 16
    Cutthroat finished, a small simple game, a short manual. A breeze to read, not to my personal taste.
    Game manual is very DIY, and it shows.
    •  
      CommentAuthorThunder_God
    • CommentTimeAug 5th 2007 edited
     # 17
    Hierarchy is much more contect packed than Cutthroat, same DIY sentiment, but it looks several degrees sharper.
    Troy, you may want to add Stats to the Character Sheet, they are sorely missing. The Precious is also not listed on the character sheet.
    Page 21, Fight, cross-bow and then hand-to-hand fight?!
    Page 22, if there's a tie both suffer a hit, when on page 23 it is said that in case of a tie, nothing happens.
    Page 27, if someone runs out of dice, why do we go back to the Stakes phase? How does someone win? Through scoring enough hits, how many hits?
    How many Fortunes do you go over during a mission? How many you can manage before the Daimyo calls you back?

    The game is unclear in parts, but is definitely an intriguing design. I guess for a large group there's nothing to do but break it up into smaller groups, but I'm a bit worried about the loss of information across the bridge, where other players don't see the potential awesome you were just involved in.
    •  
      CommentAuthorThunder_God
    • CommentTimeAug 6th 2007 edited
     # 18
    The Mountain Witch is a book that I should have read ages ago, instead, I flipped through it and read only several sections, most notably the Trust mechanic.
    Text is a bit dense on the page, editing is mostly top-notch, with a slight deterioration towards the end of the book.
    The game is a basic manuscript, it is an important thing. The game tells you what are the steps you go through for an action, for a conflict, and thus serves as a good gate-way RPG. It teaches the skills you need to play it.
    The section on Abilities is a bit vague. Especially considering the example, you could say that it's a two-stage conflict, and the ability lets him automatically climb!
    Page 82, if the abilities do not have a mechanical effect, how can they aid in healing from being incapacitated?

    A solid book, a solid game, but it demands quite a bit from players.
  19.  # 19
    I'm, for now, retreating from my challenge.
    Today I've been sick, and unable to concentrate on reading. I then realized that I have no wish to read two RPGs tomorrow, it feels just too much like work.

    I also realized, with some help, that just prior to GenCon is a bad bad bad time to get burnt out on RPGs, so I'm putting this on hiatus. Especially as I want to finish reading A Feast for Crows before I take flight.

    I'll prolly read another game or two before GenCon, but not 8.

1 to 19 of 19

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