This weekend I played Beast Hunters with Christian Griffen GMing. I had a blast! The game provides the best action-adventurey ass-kicking fun I've ever seen.

I played with David, who Christian and I have been playing Shock: with, and Tim, who I've never played with before. David had made his own character from online materials, and Tim and I picked from Christian's pregens. David was Coldoqh, a gentle giant with a berserk streak and old-fashioned flint-dagger fighting. Tim was Iaqhari, a cat-like and self-assured born leader, daughter of a Matriarch. And I was Olor, spirit-talking, spear-fighting mystic. Christian had the whole thing set up like a demo, ready to plunge right into action. We all had a tattoo to start with, and began mid-adventure so we could move to a big finish.

So we were tracking a giant spider-thing worshipped by a cult, to end its gruesome cycle of human sacrifices. We kicked off with a Social conflict to get us used to the system: we're ambushed by the cult, and they'll kill our guides unless we can talk them out of it. Christian tweaked the rules to make it simpler, making it a one-on-one contest between our leader and the cult, the rest of us narrating assistance to her maneuvers. It was actually more confusing to me than playing by rules-as-written, 'cause I had to get my understanding straight between the real rules (which I found straightforward and elegant) and the special ones. I think Christian would've been better served by simply rolling with the regular rules.

Anyway, we discredited the cult leader and started a revolution, and secured the release of the hostages. We dealt Incapacitating damage, not Fatal, so Christian decided the cult leader and her Hill Tribe thug escaped.

We followed the guides to the spider's lair in an underground village, where we were set upon by a horde of little spiderlings and the Cult priestess with a fresh horde of followers. Iaqhari set about fighting back the spider babies with fire, while Coldoqh charged the ranks of the cultists (having a grudge against that hillfolk dude). That left me facing the big mama spider when she crawled (with just the right dramatic flair) out of her pit.

This climaxed in pulse-pounding action with style, flair and grit. David had Coldogh barreling like a Herculean linebacker to his rival, swinging him into a wall by the ankles, lighting the cult leader on fire and hurling her at the spider swarm, standing atop a ruin and hurling masonry at the encroaching cultist, then diving into them with flint dagger to finish them off. As Iaqhari, Tim set the dangling roots and webs on fire, made a flaming sword and whip for herself, and set about burning and crushing huge swaths of spiderlings at a pass. And I, playing Olor, had the honor of doing a bullfight routine with a 12-legged mega-spider, leaping onto its back, stabbing out its eyes, tearing open its carapace, then finally lighting my spear on fire and plunging it through the chink in its armor, slaying it and pulling out its heart on the end of my spear.

* * *

The whole system drives very well toward exciting, fast-paced, imaginatively-choreographed action. No wasted motion. And the tactical choices are simple but rich. Posturing and preparing gets bonuses for later maneuvers, but at the cost of acting NOW. You can aid a comrade, but at the cost of your own turn. Or you can choose to "deny resource" (e.g. disarming, shredding armor, etc.), in place of maneuvering for advantage (like when I leapt atop the spider mama to deny her "Mandibles" resource). All very slickly done. And the Offering mechanic encourages colorful narration: the GM awards you a flat total of Advantage Points for your maneuver, based on how cool and creative he finds it—you can take his offer, or roll and try to do better. Mostly we took his offers, either because they were generous, or our odds weren't good otherwise. David played around with the gambling aspect, though. He rolled for it several times, and did pretty well, then decided to quit while he was ahead. At the end he went back to gambling, risking it all for a deathblow on his opponent—which he got, and then some!

I also liked how BH divides between Maneuvers and Strikes. It does the whole "Hitpoints are an abstraction of an attacker whittling down an opponent's defenses" concept one better: you accumulate Advantage points through Maneuvers, then spend them on Damage Dice for your Strike, dealing a wound of severity appropriate to your damage roll. You can accumulate a buttload of AP to spend on hopefully a killing blow, or you can attack early and often, whittling your foe down with smaller strikes. By separating out the maneuvering and attacking, you can do all the cool jockeying around before you strike home, whether the furious parrying of swashbucklers, or the tumbling, leaping and pouncing of jungle fighters.

I enjoyed the game a lot just for what it was, but I also couldn't help but think how well BH would serve for D&D-style action adventuring. The whole thing goes quick and exhilarating and gonzo, just what you'd want out of a dungeon-crawling monster fight. We had a Spider God, a gazillion spiderling offspring, a gaggle of fanatical cultists, a big dude with a mace, crumbling buildings, burning webs, great fissures rending the floor, the whole place collapsing. . .and we wrapped it up handily and grippingly in about an hour and a half. All the excitement with none of the bogged-down HP-wrangling, AC-checking, square-counting, power-referencing inertia that D&D would have created. Also, the three conflict types (Physical, Mental, and Social), map elegantly to the main challenge types of the D&D paradigm: Combat, Puzzle-solving and funky spell effects, and Bluffing/Diplomacy. And gaining magic Tattoos from defeated monsters is an easy translation to the clasic Macic Item loot. At least for what *I* want out of D&D, Beast Hunters is a perfect fit.

Thanks, Christian, for walking us through this mega-fun game. Even with a pre-gen it was cool and engrossing. I'd love to play again with my own character.

Peace,
-Joel

[Edited to spell Christian's goddamn last name right.]

:)

Thanks for writing this up, Joel, and thanks to you, Dave and Tim for playing. I had a great time, too. We definitely should play with your own characters at some point. And Matt, you'll be in it too, of course :)

As a note, we used the lower Strike cost hack (4 AP per D6), which worked out very well for a short game (thanks to dyjoots for coming up with it, if I don't misremember--I can't find the post for that now). I think I might use it from now on when I demo the game, even as I don't have enough data yet to see how it would work for longer-running games. It does speed up the challenge, but it also leads to more damage to the Hunters (the Spider-God inflicted incapacitating damage on Olor with its first Strike).

I was sick most of the week, so I only spent half an hour on preparations. BH is thankfully a low-prep game (or no-prep if you're really spontaneously creative). For those who are interested, here are the stats for the challenges.

First Challenge: Save the Hostages

Norrin (cult leader), Hyelgufar (Tarrag bodyguard), cultists
Initiative: S4
Traits: Charismatic and in Control SO+8, Fanatic SD+9
Resources: Hostages SO+6, Cult Followers SD+4
Damage: 1/1/1/1/1

What really impressed me here was how the three Hunters got into their characters and the setting (aka the "character-heavy, setting-relevant context"), as they ultimately appealed to the cultists' tribal roots, that is, the pride of free men who only follow true leaders, and only as long as the leaders are strong and sane. It gave me a bit of a chill, because it felt like they really understood where these people are coming from. And I totally didn't expect our heroes to liberate the cult and have them start a new tribe, so that was great.

The Hunters also denied a resource for the first time in this challenge, recognizing that impact, which led to four resource denials in the next challenge. That's one of the differences of playing one versus several challenges: the players understand the tactical options better.

Second Challenge: Facing the Spider-God

Garaqhin
Initiative: P1
Traits: A Dozen Clawed Legs PO+8, Weaver PO+4, Massive yet Swift PD+4
Resources: Claws and Mandibles PO+7, Carapace PD+6
Damage: 2/2/1/1/1
Special: Garaqhin and the Offspring can aid one another like Hunters can

Offspring
Initiative: P5
Traits: First Wave PO+4, Second Wave PO+3, There's More? Why Yes PO+3, Erratic PD+4
Resources: Enough Small Bites Kill Anything PO+3, Can't Kill Them All PD+8
Damage: 3/1/1/1/1

Norrin and Cultists
Initiative: P3
Traits: Fanatical Charge PO+8, This Is Our Turf PD+4
Resources: The Will to Kill PO+5, Solidarity PD+4
Damage: 1/1/1/1/1

As with most challenges with several Threats that I've run, the players split up evenly and only aided one another once before one of the Threats was defeated. They denied both of the Garaqhin's resources (as Joel explained), including Olor using his spear as a lever to pry off a chunk of carapace. They denied the Offspring's defensive resource by herding the evil spider babies together right before pushing a temple wall on top of them. They also denied the Cultists' Will to Kill. Good stuff.

Hopefully Dave and Tim can chime in with their thoughts. I believe this was Tim's first indie experience.

Posted By: xenopulseAs a note, we used the lower Strike cost hack (4 AP per D6), which worked out very well for a short game (thanks to dyjoots for coming up with it, if I don't misremember--I can't find the post for that now). I think I might use it from now on when I demo the game, even as I don't have enough data yet to see how it would work for longer-running games. It does speed up the challenge, but it also leads to more damage to the Hunters (the Spider-God inflicted incapacitating damage on Olor with its first Strike).

Oh, I almost forgot to address this bit. Yeah, I had forgotten that you were tweaking the Strike cost (not being familiar with the regular rules, of course). I can see how the normal cost (what, 6 AP per damage die?) would lead to a more drawn-out, give and take sort of fight, which is pretty cool for long-term play. What we got instead was pretty to the point, and it was also nail-biting as hell. Yes, I took an Incapacitating wound pretty early in my Spider-duel (Christian said that for the final battle in an adventure, combatants can stay conscious and "push on" through Incapacitating damage. Not sure if that's RAW or a hack). ANd as the battle raged, I could see ol' Garaqhin charging up the AP for another massive Strike, which if it hit for Incapacitating again would go straight to Fatal. You can bet I was sweating it, and eager to fisnish the hairy bitch off before she did me in. Which I did! Spider-heart, Raaaaagh! An exhilerating victory to be sure.

I think it's hard to get a feel for the potency of the "challenge" aspect of the game on only one demo-style session. That is, is the challenge truly robust, likewise the tactical options, or are we not truly in a lot of danger, and/or not really possessed of a sufficient tactical palette to lend battles variety and enable us to switch up for optimal strategy of different foes. Given that I came so near to biting it on this one sample, it would seem so far that the challenge itself is up to snuff. Tactics-wise, I'm not sure. it seems that we explored about all the tactical options the game offers, and hit on an optimal strategy pretty quickly. There was some variety to players' actions--I went for activations right off, Tim coasted along with no defense activations for some time as he aggressively ferretted out the little spiderlings, and David gambled a lot while most of us took Christian's offers--but the basic pattern we'd all happened on by the end wa spretty simple: Activate, Maneuver a bit, Deny Attack Resource, Maneuver some more, Deny Defense Resource, Strike! Are there enough variety of challenges that we'd have to refigure that strategy to match our foe?

I hope you don't mind my getting all criticall--minded; I had a lot of fun and I'm just taking some guesses at how sustainable that fun may or may not be.

Peace,
-Joel

You're right, Joel, that was impressive both from the fictional and from the rules usage standpoint. If I was going to describe all of the cool moments, though, I'd be here all day :)

Posted By: MelinglorChristian said that for the final battle in an adventure, combatants can stay conscious and "push on" through Incapacitating damage. Not sure if that's RAW or a hack

That's RAW; page 48, first paragraph.

Posted By: MelinglorAre there enough variety of challenges that we'd have to refigure that strategy to match our foe?

It's like this: the tactical choices, mechanically, are limited. They have a sufficient amount of variety for different challenges (depending also on how the Challenger builds the adversity). If I put more options in on that end, however, the focus of the game--the creative maneuvers--might be overshadowed. Most of the actions should be offensive maneuvers, so that the tactics play out vis-a-vis the fiction, not the mechanics. That said, there are a couple of other layers of long-term tactics that come in once you play whole adventures. For example, picking your own challenges to use up the Pool on social or mental threats in order to remain physically unhurt for the final fight. Spending your reward points wisely. Using secondary goals and special effects to establish fictional elements that you can then use in later maneuvers or even challenges. If you use the Karma rules, picking a social fight with your fellow Hunters to load up on Karma before a fight. And so on.

Dave, Thanks for chiming in :)

Posted By: MaedhrosHad it not been a demo game there probably would have been more of this

Yeah, I'm glad I fit in at least one social challenge. The physical ones are easier to get into when you first learn the system, so they're the ones I tend to demo. In a full adventure, there'd definitely be a lot more social challenges. Plus, you could pick your own and drive the game in that direction.

Posted By: MaedhrosOne potential hack I've been mulling is the possibility of switching conflict types.

First, you can always give up on the social challenge and move to physical. That means the hostages would have died, but then again, if you're drawing your weapon and obviously attacking them, I figure that's what would have happened :)

Aside from that, I've been pondering the obstacles in actually switching conflict types. On the Hunter side, it'd be pretty easy. You just need to activate your social traits in the middle of battle and make social maneuvers; there's nothing here to keep you from even switching back and forth at will. The tricky part is the opposition, because the Challenger has already paid for a particular type of adversity. Would the Challenger have to pay more to add social traits now? Would she use the same damage boxes or a separate track? There are certainly ways to work this out, but it would require some reworking of the budget economy.

Posted By: xenopulseIt's like this: the tactical choices, mechanically, are limited. They have a sufficient amount of variety for different challenges (depending also on how the Challenger builds the adversity). If I put more options in on that end, however, the focus of the game--the creative maneuvers--might be overshadowed. Most of the actions should be offensive maneuvers, so that the tactics play out vis-a-vis the fiction, not the mechanics.

Fair enough. The biggest reason I'm probing this issue, actually, is that I'm trying myself to put together a mechanical system for meaningful tactical choice but with speed of play and encouraging colorful and exciting description. So I'm keenly interested in how you did it and how it might inform my (at this point, pretty rough) solution.

Peace,
-Joel

Well, it's the grid-boundness of current D&D that doesn't work for my purposes. I set about thinking how you could offer meaningful tactics withOUT the grid. I'm gonna have to dig up my work and start posting to develop it more, and soon.

Peace,
-Joel

The Spider-God communicates mentally with the Offspring; they can aid each other during the final fight just like Hunters can. The tattoo gained from its heart blood taps into that power and allows an instinctive connection between the Hunters. They gain a +2 bonus to aiding each other in future challenges.

I just wrote to Judd about that here, incidentally. There are 20 beasts with tattoo powers in the game, already balanced. This one I created in addition, mindful of the other powers that exist. It's the first one of a bunch I'm going to make and put together in a free supplement, along with a section detailing how to do that on your own.