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Once, there was a War. Then...
Shar of the Mulong rises up to reforge his tribe of plantation slaves into cut-throat corporate pirates.
The technicians and scientists under "Mad" Doctor Bones vow to peel away the mysteries that shroud the secrets of the universe... whatever the cost.
Justicar André and his army of penitent monks teach the ways of peace, traveling by way of the fist.
And from the crashed battlecruiser Kingsrook comes wave after wave of Admiral Wargrave's space marines, intent on winning a war already over.
...or perhaps it happens a different way.
Agora is a roleplaying game where you will lead refugees crash-landed on the forgotten planet Agora, the last untouched world left in the wake of a galactic apocalypse. Played from the fiery descent to the surface, through turmoil, suffering, and hard-won victories, all the way to the dawn of a new age of humanity, the game offers an epic experience of unprecedented scope.
The task is nothing less than the rebuilding of human civilization. The story is the reconstruction of the human soul.
I have been working on Agora: how shall we live? for over four years and through many incarnations. Version 3.0.2 has finally reached beta playtest: the game is ready to be unleashed on the world... and vice-versa. In many ways, this is the game that I've always wanted to play and always wanted to publish, and you can help make that happen. Agora needs playtesters interested in pounding out their own future history of humanity on the treacherous world of Agora, and in pounding out the last kinks in the rules of this massive game.
You can download the playtest document here.
Agora is competitive and cooperative, GMless, and procedurally dense. In each of five stages, new game procedures, options, and tactics are introduced to keep players on their toes. Part of Agora's appeal is the challenge of mastering the game's system — and then using it to outwit, outmaneuver, and outplay the other players at the table, all to fulfill your goals in shaping the future of the galaxy.
The playtest opens now and will close July 31st, 2009. Yes, that is a five month playtest window, because Agora is a big, long, epic game. By my best estimates, a full game will take about eight sessions of four hours each, at minimum. That's eight sessions of exploring, exploiting, and fighting over your own Agora, and if everything works, that's eight sessions of awesome. Because this is a pretty hefty social footprint, I'm making sure all of you fantastic souls who'd like to help out have the time to do so. (Just don't put off starting till July!)
All the procedures and mechanics you will need can be found in the playtest document; in addition, you will need:- four to six players
- a pile of dice (10-15 of each size: d4s, d6s, d8s, d10s)
- a stack of about 100 index cards
- a handful of pencils
- eight to twelve sessions of four hours each
Playtest feedback is essential to making a game sing, refining new ideas, and creating innovative play experiences. Which is a lot of big words to say that games need playtesters as much or more than gamers need games. Your help is beyond value. As with my previous games, I will be gratefully including the names of playtesters in a byline to recognize their sizable contribution to the quality of the game. I really can't do this without you guys, and I can't overstate my appreciation.
If you'd like to take part in the next chapter of Agora, the future of civilization, and my latest game, download the playtest document now. -
Exciting! I will check this out soon.
Question: do you think this game has a good or poor potential to appeal to board- and video-gamers that may not be role-playing gamers and are definitely not story-gamers? -
I'm hoping that it will have that sort of cross-market appeal, to sound all technical about it. Folks who like both, I'm wagering, will find it right up their alley. ;)
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Posted By: Josh RobyI'm hoping that it will have that sort of cross-market appeal, to sound all technical about it. Folks who like both, I'm wagering, will find it right up their alley. ;)
Cool. I haven't read it yet, but I've been trying to think of a fun RPG to talk some boardgaming buddies of mine into trying. Based on your description, this sounds like something that could be cool to try. After I read it myself, I might see what they think. -
Hey Josh. There's a lot of design goal similarities between Agora and Blood Red Sands. Competitive, GMless, about 10 sessions or so to play a full game, detailed procedures inspired by board game sensibilities.
I'll see if I can sell my group on the concept, maybe we can swap playtests.
Ralph -
Nice to see this game is still around! I remember some early discussions at the Forge about 20 years ago.
We could playtest this, but it would have to be online, preferably in a non-live manner. Tantalizingly the section dealing with online play is missing from the playtest document. Do you have anything written yet, or some ideas for online play you could share here? -
Ralph — that would be great! I've got a hankering to try BRS, so that would work out just dandy for me. Will see if LAGames is up for giving it a spin.
Mikael — Agora's turn-based structure means it lends itself to online play rather well, whether PBEM, forum, or via chat. The hardest part is keeping track of dice states, and my preferred solution is to include an updated dice state whenever you do anything. So you'd say stuff like "I place a 3 on a d6, leaving me with a 2 and 6 on d6 and a 7 on d8." However, I haven't played version 3 online at all, so there may be better solutions available. If you'd like to pioneer those solutions, I am all about quoting you and your group and giving you guys credit for the clever you come up with. That's one of the reasons I left the (very rough draft) Mastery and Customizing chapters out of the playtest document. I want to develop those two chapters via collaboration with playtesters. -
Y halo thar!
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Hmm. Sounds good. I'll read the rules and see how feasible that would be.
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I'd really love to hear what you guys come up with — whether it works or even if it doesn't! ;)
Also, halo, Eric! -
So, Josh, would you like to know about questions/confusions that arise in the course of reading the text? And if so, how would you like to hear about them?
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Absolutely! My email address is in the Welcome to the Playtest document in the playtest package, or you can drop questions in a forum post, whichever. :)
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Actually, as I continue reading, so far most of my questions are clearing up. Still, if you're interested in comments just from reading the text as well as from playing, I'll send you an email after I finish reading the whole thing.
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questions!
(after reading roughly half the book: through the Survival chapter)
1) are all 1's that end up on goals (from resources rolls only,
correct?) considered wild? this is suggested a few times, but never
(at least in what i've read so far) said outright.
2) what happens to dice lost from fallout or from countering? are
they essentially dead for the rest of the incident? is there no way
to bring them back into a pool?
3) when someone "redoubles" after being countered, assuming they
aren't successfully "re-countered" do both dice (the original and the
second, redoubled die) both end up on the goal?
4) do you need to track what resources were rolled when burnout
occurred? that is, if i have, say two different resources rated at
2d8 and one of my d8s results in burnout, do i need to know which
resource it came from, or if i have to lose dice from burnout, can i
lose those dice from any resource with matching die sizes, regardless?
5) is it ever possible to end up in situation in which someone cannot
possibly win? this concerned me mostly when i was reading the descent
chapter since paying credits to withdraw had not been brought up (and
is, presumably, not allowed then). -
Thanks for your questions, and I'll be sure to update the document to clarify each of these, but the answers are:
1) Yes, 1s are always wild on goals.
2) Dice lost to fallout and countered dice are gone for the rest of the incident.
3) Only the last, uncountered die goes on the goal.
4) Burnout on a d8 can reduce any d8 resource that you used in that incident.
5) It is technically possible, but I have never seen it actually happen. I'm pretty sure this is one of those "only happens when you're trying to nosedive the game, at which point the designer can't do anything." -
Thanks! I think what this game really needs is a step-by-step outline/reference sheet. It's got the kind of tight, procedural system that boardgames have, and I find myself confused and questioning the same kinds of things I question when I'm reading the rules for a boardgame. The examples of play are quite helpful, though. And entertaining! Were they drawn from real play?
I have a couple more questions. They are things I'm pretty sure I know the answers to, but I have enough doubt that I want to check.
6) The escalation spoils options listed under Escalate the Opportunity Again on page 51 (i.e. Membership spoils) can only be used on the 2nd or 3rd escalation and the options for escalating a third time under Escalate the Opportunity Once More on page 65 (i.e. Removal and Endgame spoils) can only be used on the 3rd escalation, correct?
7) The player of an obstacle receives one credit every time an ideogogue rolls in an Ideal, including the first ideal of the incident, right? This seems pretty clear in the last example of play (when it says he receives 4 credits, one for each ideal) but there were some passages earlier in the text that make reference to players only being able to get 6 credits out of two ideogogues, so I was a little confused.
8) This is a bigger confusion for me. page 50 under Share Resources, the 2nd paragraph. I'm really not sure I understand exactly what happens if an alliance's resource is targeted as spoils. I think this needs an example.
finally, just to clarify:
am I correct in thinking that, in general, any given resource or ideal can only be rolled into a pool once per incident? (in particular, if I take something as spoils, I can't then use those dice myself in the same incident, can I?) But what if an opportunity allows me to raise an Ideal that I've already rolled in? Do I get to roll the new die in? And can I spend credits to add follower dice to a Lieutenant that I've already rolled in?
Okay, this "clarification" is turning into more questions. :) sorry.
Second clarification: in general (or always?) once a dice is taken from a pool for something, whether to put on a goal, to counter (whether successful or not), or for fallout, it's gone for the rest of the incident, correct? -
The examples were sort of drawn from play — they're more me using my compatriots in LAGames, smashing together a lot of play that we've done before into something that fits what rule I need to illustrate next.
6) Yes. Escalate Again spoils can only happen on second and third escalations, Escalate Once More spoils can only happen on third escalations.
7) Obstacle players only earn a credit if they are playing an obstacle when the ideogogue player rolls in an ideal. If you jump in late, you don't get what's already been rolled in.
8) If Adam and Betty are in an alliance with the resource Medical Infrastructure 2d8 and Carl assigns that resource as spoils on an opportunity, both Adam and Betty roll in that 2d8. This is the one big exception to the "any given stat is only ever rolled in once per incident" rule. This definitely needs an example.
9) Yes, any given stat is only ever rolled in once per incident. You cannot use spoils until the next incident (except in Endgame, which is the small exception to this rule). If you bump an ideal up a die, you get that benefit the next time you roll in that ideal. You cannot augment a lieutenant after he's been rolled in; however, you can create a new lieutenant at any time and roll those dice in.
10) Once a die is used (placed, countered, fallout), it's gone for the rest of the incident. -
I think it's starting to gel in my mind. :) Thanks for answering all my questions, Josh.
Posted By: Josh Roby8) If Adam and Betty are in an alliance with the resource Medical Infrastructure 2d8 and Carl assigns that resource as spoils on an opportunity, both Adam and Betty roll in that 2d8. This is the one big exception to the "any given stat is only ever rolled in once per incident" rule. This definitely needs an example.
But, if Adam had already rolled in Medical Infrastructure earlier in the incident, just Betty would roll it in when it's added as a spoil, right? And except in a situation where it's targeted as a spoil, a given Alliance resource can only be rolled in by one person in the alliance per incident, correct?
Also... what happens if I win an opportunity whose spoils were resources from an alliance I'm in? Does that mean I take them out of the alliance and move them to my own character unless I choice to put them back into the alliance?
edit: another alliance question: if all the, say, d4 resources are taken out of an alliance when they're taken as spoils, does it affect the corresponding tenet at all? -
You've got it. ;)
And the tenet is not affected. -
Posted By: Josh RobyYou've got it. ;)
And yet I know that when I try to play more questions will still arise. :) but that happens every time I play ANY game (both boardgames and RPGs) even ones that are supposed to be in their final form.
i think i ought to make myself an outline/cheat-sheet before i try to play. there's a lot to remember. -
Posted By: fnord3125i think i ought to make myself an outline/cheat-sheet before i try to play. there's a lot to remember.
There's a reason the procedures are introduced in stages in play. You actually don't have to remember a lot to play Descent, and once you've done Descent the basics of position-or-place are pretty down pat. That's when you introduce identifying goals in Survival, and so on. -
Posted By: Josh RobyThere's a reason the procedures are introduced in stages in play.
Oh! This is the biggest thing I wanted to comment on just from reading the text. Descent feels kind of like the tutorial level in a video game. I feel like this game, if the text is written for this purpose, could probably be played "out of the box" without any of the players having read all the rules before hand. However, I had a lot of confusion when I was reading the Galaxy rules because I didn't have any idea how the dice mechanics worked. I tend to assume, until told otherwise, that rolling big numbers is good and rolling small numbers is bad, so I kept wondering why I would want small dice and why I would want to, for example, pair my Lieutenants with other resources if that meant their d10s got treated as smaller dice. I don't think you need to go through ALL the incident rules at the beginning, but I think it might be good if you explained a little bit so that first time readers/players would know that different die sizes have different advantages and disadvantages.
This knowledge would also help when it comes time to name resources. I know that, legally, you can give whatever name you want regardless of die types, but it seems like it makes sense, thematically, to give your d4 resources names that reflect things that are easily broken or depleted, but very precise, similarly to how your "delicate" ideals are given d4s. -
oh another concrete rules question:
Can you have incidents without obstacles besides the endgame incident (in which you're not allowed to have an obstacle)? -
Posted By: fnord3125it seems like it makes sense, thematically, to give your d4 resources names that reflect things that are easily broken or depleted, but very precise, similarly to how your "delicate" ideals are given d4s.
Ah, this one I've got you on. ;) Page 13, section Assign Dice to Resources, third paragraph. You are absolutely right. Ideals or resources, small dice are precise and delicate while large dice are robust and awkward.Can you have incidents without obstacles besides the endgame incident (in which you're not allowed to have an obstacle)?
No. As a result of the incident-framing procedure, no incident begins without at least one ideogogue and one obstacle. In Agora, there's always opposition, no matter what you're doing.
Even if you set up your incident as a nice, polite tea party between you and another player's character, there will be an obstacle. Of course, that obstacle can as easily be a treacherous socialite who sits down at your table as a machine-gun-toting mecha that stomps your tea party to bits. -
Posted By: Josh RobyPage 13, section Assign Dice to Resources
You're right! It might be good to have a mention of this earlier, however. Because, while it's probably best to pick factions and cultures based on what makes sense for the character, some people are bound to look at it mathematically, eying the dice each group gets and making a decision based on that.
A question about obstacle sheets:
I believe in the text it always talks about obstacles' ideals and resources, just as though they were ideogogues, but on the obstacle sheets it has spaces for stances and complications. these are the same, right? -
Posted By: fnord3125but on the obstacle sheets it has spaces for stances and complications. these are the same, right?
Crap. That would be a versioning issue. I apparently packaged the last version's obstacle sheets in the new playtest package. =P Stances and Complications are identical to Ideals and Resources — so identical that I stopped using a different name. Must fix. -
Posted By: Josh RobyI apparently packaged the last version's obstacle sheets in the new playtest package.
ah! so are there newer obstacle sheets marked with Ideals and Resources? -
Yes; I've updated the playtest package.
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sweet!
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the Descent sheets still have Stance and Complication on them, btw.
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oh... and i also just noticed the numbers on the Descent obstacle sheets are different from the numbers in the book. On the sheet it shows 2d4, 2d6, 2d8. in the text it says that they all get 2d6, 2d6, 3d8.
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Will have to fix when I have the opportunity. I doubt using either set of dice will break anything.
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CommentAuthorjackson tegu
- CommentTimeMar 7th 2009
Oh My God Your Sheets Are So Beautiful!
really inspired design... haven't read the text yet, but i can't wait to strew these around the table.
Whew. -
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Thanks, Jackson! :D
Also, updated Descent sheets to match rules text. 2d6 2d6 3d8 is the law of the land! -
Posted By: Josh Roby2d6 2d6 3d8 is the law of the land!
Good to know! Thanks! -
...coming out of a whisper
So, I'm on page 23. I've just learned what I'm actually trying to do with these dice: making a 3-dice straight. Now I have to go back to page 9 and re-read from the galaxy section onward, because I now know enough to start to make informed decisions on what the different dice breakdowns of the different cultures mean, what the value is of positioning versus placing is, and so on. I'll have to do this all again once I figure out what credits are. -
You warn against wishy-washy goals, but then you use this in an example:
“Kingsrook fusion core is destabilized in the aftermath of the fighting.”
That's very wishy-washy there. Nothing is happening. Nothing is even being threatened to happen. It's destabilized... and? An automatic system restores equilibrium? Someone pushes the "restabilize core" button? This is pretend tech, so we can't even have a common sense of what might happen. I think something like this would be more evocative:
"“Kingsrook fusion core is destabilized in the aftermath of the fighting and explodes with the fury of an angry god.”
edit: that said, the example that begins on page 27 is good. Probably better rules text than the rest of the chapter, actually. I think I'd learn the rules more efficiently from reading this well-written example and reverse-engineering them than from the rest of the chapter text. In other words, props on a good example section. -
...page 29 and I still don't know why I want credits, or how to weigh giving my opponent a credit versus gaining dice**. I am not empowered to actually play the game intelligently as of the start of the Survival stage.
**page 14 implies that 2 credits might equal 1d10 in general rather than just during character generation, but it also seems clear during Galaxy and Descent that they do other things, so I don't feel like I can count on that. -
Wow, Eric, thanks!
You are absolutely right about the Kingsrook example, and I believe I will just be borrowing your 'explodes with the fury of an angry god' line wholecloth. Sweet!
With a game like Agora, it's hard to know when to explain what. There are lots of levels and moving parts, and you can't explain it all up front. However, I think you're right that 'you are building a sequence' should appear earlier, probably around page 17 where the "position or place" decision is highlighted. On the other hand, credits do different things at different points in the game, so that's a tougher nut to crack. I will have to consider that one; it may be that I just say at an early stage that credits are currency that has many uses later, and it's in your best interest to maximize your credits while minimizing everybody else's. The truly curious can jump to the index and read ahead, I suppose.
I am starting to think, though, that Agora is not written like most other indie games — it's simply not designed for the reader to comprehend the whole thing immediately, but to guide players through actually running the tutorial stages and learn it that way. That difference should probably be highlighted (probably in the "Learn in Stages" section) to make that clear to readers. If you are used to getting the big picture and then the specifics, it would be easy to get frustrated reading Agora, where the big picture is withheld so that it can be built out of the experience of play.
Thanks very much for the feedback, and I'd love to hear more if and when you have it! -
The credits didn't bother me much when reading. When it said I could cash in 2 credits for an unused follower die, I assumed I'd be able to buy followers eventually. Then other sections of text implied and eventually explicated other uses of credits.
The sequence thing, though? I actually think that should be mentioned at the very beginning of character creation. If I'm looking at the factions and cultures with any kind of a gamist/munchkin's eye, trying to maximize my mechanical advantages, I need and want to know how the dice are going to work. Saying "Small dice are precise and fragile while big dice are awkward and robust" but I'd rather hear, "In play you'll be trying to assemble sequences of dice from your resources. 1's are wild, but can also cause the dice to be lost afterwards." -
Happy to be of service.
Posted By: fnord3125The sequence thing, though? I actually think that should be mentioned at the very beginning of character creation. If I'm looking at the factions and cultures with any kind of a gamist/munchkin's eye, trying to maximize my mechanical advantages, I need and want to know how the dice are going to work. Saying "Small dice are precise and fragile while big dice are awkward and robust" but I'd rather hear, "In play you'll be trying to assemble sequences of dice from your resources. 1's are wild, but can also cause the dice to be lost afterwards."
ThisPosted By: Josh RobyOn the other hand, credits do different things at different points in the game, so that's a tougher nut to crack. I will have to consider that one; it may be that I just say at an early stage that credits are currency that has many uses later, and it's in your best interest to maximize your credits while minimizing everybody else's. The truly curious can jump to the index and read ahead, I suppose.
You could also reference a table. Like, "the curious may reference table 5.1 on page 103 for a summary of what credits may be used for during the game's various stages." All I want is a basic notion in my head of how valuable it is. Otherwise, I have no way to understand the example that begins on page 27 when the player ponders whether gaining a 2d6 resource is worth giving away a credit. It's an unknown trade.
As an aside, is any random combination of culture and philosophy supposed to be mechanically balanced against the rest? If so, have you run the numbers, and may I see them? It would save me some time if it's already been done. -
Posted By: EricOtherwise, I have no way to understand the example that begins on page 27 when the player ponders whether gaining a 2d6 resource is worth giving away a credit. It's an unknown trade.
Okay, yeah, this I see. I didn't jump out at me while reading, but you're right. I'm guessing when I try to playtest this (and I really, really want to) someone is going to want to know what all a credit can be used for and when, because it's hard to know how much they're "worth" when it comes to trade-offs like Eric mentions here, or in terms of hiring someone on as a lieutenant. -
Posted By: fnord3125The credits didn't bother me much when reading. When it said I could cash in 2 credits for an unused follower die, I assumed I'd be able to buy followers eventually. Then other sections of text implied and eventually explicated other uses of credits.
Actually, if you extended this to establish a minimum - "credits are always worth at least this much, and sometimes a lot more" - that would work for me, too. -
Posted By: EricActually, if you extended this to establish a minimum - "credits are always worth at least this much, and sometimes a lot more" - that would work for me, too.
That's not really a good way to say it, though, because they're used for such very different things. It's hard to say whether one is worth "more" than the other. This is off the top of my head, since I don't have a copy of the text readily available now, but you can use credits to buy new follower dice, to buy a withdrawal from an incident, to hire a player to play the role of a lieutenant, to pay for the difference in ideals pools to add a new goal... and... that's all i can think of now. So, for example, normally paying a credit to get out of an incident is probably not worth "more" than a new follower die, but if you're totally getting hammered it might be. The values are very situational, I think. -
Posted By: fnord3125
Posted By: EricActually, if you extended this to establish a minimum - "credits are always worth at least this much, and sometimes a lot more" - that would work for me, too.
That's not really a good way to say it, though, because they're used for such very different things. It's hard to say whether one is worth "more" than the other. This is off the top of my head, since I don't have a copy of the text readily available now, but you can use credits to buy new follower dice, to buy a withdrawal from an incident, to hire a player to play the role of a lieutenant, to pay for the difference in ideals pools to add a new goal... and... that's all i can think of now. So, for example, normally paying a credit to get out of an incident is probably not worth "more" than a new follower die, but if you're totally getting hammered it might be. The values are very situational, I think.
Good point, I retract my earlier comment on this. -
- CommentAuthorcommondialog
- CommentTimeMar 11th 2009
We're really looking forward to playtesting this in a few weeks. -
Hey Josh, in re-reading the rules to try to get this PbP game going, I've come across a couple more things I wanted to ask. At least, I'm pretty sure I haven't asked them before. if I have, i apologize.
One, If I have a lieutenant that isn't paired with a resource, can I pair him with a resource that has no lieutenant later?
Two, why would I ever want to position Ideals without adding a new Ideal to the pool? Ideals are always rolled when countering, right? So wouldn't positioning your Ideals without adding a new one just give you another chance to roll fallout without any benefit? -
Brian, with respect to your ideals question.
Usually you would roll new ideal. You wouldn't if: you already have enough Ideal dice to hit a good range of numbers so that adding more is just increasing your fallout without significantly increasing your effectiveness at canceling (whatever the actual game term for that is). Also you wouldn't if you don't want to give your opposition any more Credits. -
Hey, Ralph. I get why you wouldn't want to roll a new ideal at all. What I don't get is why you'd bother "positioning" ideals without adding a new one. There doesn't seem to be any point, because the numbers showing on the dice in your Ideals pool is irrelevant - they're rolled when you attempt to counter. Is it that you can't "pass" your turn, so positioning Ideals without adding is a way to skip without doing anything else if you don't want to?
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Are they rolled when you attempt to counter...I thought you used the number that was showing...maybe i'm confused...
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let's see here...
Posted By: Agora 3.0.2 Beta Page 21To counter, pick up your ideals pool and roll it. If any of your ideals dice match the die that was placed, you may place your ideals dice on top of or next to theirs. Narrate how your ideals render their action meaningless . . .
Which all sounds fine with me. but...
.
. . .
Whenever you roll to counter, you may add one of your ideals to your ideals pool.Posted By: Agora 3.0.2 Beta Page 18You may also position your current ideals pool without adding a new ideal to the pool. When you do this, simply pick up your current ideals pool, narrate a further elaboration on what has gone before, and roll the dice. . . .
So yeah... umm... I get that this is allowed and stuff, but I don't get why I'd ever want to do so, at least from a mechanical standpoint. I guess I can imagine wanting to make some kind of narrative statement about an ideal that I've already rolled in, but I'm not sure I'd want to do so so badly I'd do this when it seems like it doesn't do me any good and has the potential for more fallout. -
Clearly I misremembered. We started a playtest but its been on hiatus for about three weeks due to birthing babies, a scheduling problem Josh understands intimately.
So ummm...I got nothin'... -
Oh well. Explicit permission in the text to do something that doesn't seem to have a use is less of a concern to me than my other question. And that one isn't a huge concern. And neither are exactly time critical. I'm kinda hoping to start a real-life playtest tonight, but I don't actually expect it to happen. My gut instinct on the Lieutenants question is that you probably shouldn't be able to, because otherwise I can't imagine why you'd bother pairing any lieutenants with resources at the beginning of the game.
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Posted By: fnord3125Two, why would I ever want to position Ideals without adding a new Ideal to the pool?
For escalating.
To escalate an opportunity, you need to place matching dice from both your resources and your ideals pools — so a 4 from resources and a 4 from ideals. You could position resources to get a match, but you risk burnout doing so. By positioning ideals, you are "just" risking fallout. Or in other words, risk burning through material resources, or risk exposing a weakness in your ideology. Your choice. ;) -
Ah, got it. So it's one of the things that's mentioned in the Descent Stage chapter but that doesn't make sense until later. Okay, cool.
What about the Lieutenant question? Can you take a Lieutenant that isn't paired with a resource and pair them up later, do do they have to be paired when the Lieutenant is created? -
Posted By: fnord3125What about the Lieutenant question? Can you take a Lieutenant that isn't paired with a resource and pair them up later, do do they have to be paired when the Lieutenant is created?
You can pair them whenever. I believe there is an example somewhere in the playtest doc where a player creates a lieutenant to pair him with resources he gets later in the incident. But I should make this explicit, yes. ;) -
Okay, huh. I didn't expect that! In that case, I kind of wonder why, from a tactical perspective, I should pair any of my Lieutenants up with resources during character creation...
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Tactical? Meh.
It is, however, more entertaining, evocative, and faster at point-of-play to pair most of them in character creation. -
Posted By: Josh RobyTactical? Meh.
Yeah, I agree. But for me, at least, the way the game works makes me want things to make sense both from a tactical, mechanical kinda-board-game-y perspective, and from an RPG perspective. Just takes a little getting used to. :)
It is, however, more entertaining, evocative, and faster at point-of-play to pair most of them in character creation. -
Absolutely, and those are my goals as well. I just don't find much, if any, real tactical advantage in not pairing up most of your lieutenants until right before you roll them in. If you can figure out an "exploit" for that practice, man, I'm all ears — that's what playtesting is for. ;)
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Oh, you're probably right. Even just thinking about, I'm not sure there's much advantage. It's just that if you do pair them up they're more or less "stuck" and if you don't, well you've got some flexibility. But yeah, it's probably nothing major. But maybe for shits and giggles I'll not pair any of my resources and lieutenants in the pbp game I'm trying to get going and I'll see what happens.
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Hey Josh, SGBoston started our playtest run of Agora last night. Our biggest problem was navigating the text to figure out which rules worked which ways in the early sections of the game and, especially, what exactly 1s did and what it meant that they were "wild." Eric has audio tracks which maybe he'll be able to send you. The fictional content was okay, but by the end we were all frustrated and decided to maybe run it from the top next time now that we actually understand the rules. I spent the whole time wishing for a one-page outline of procedures for each chapter of play (preferrably on the character sheet), because the text was just way too long to consult at the table.
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Interesting. We had some issues around the way 1s work, but there was only 1 rule we actually wound up playing wrong (we were neglecting to reroll our entire pool EVERY time we added dice to it). Other than that we found the programmed rules text to work pretty well.
Since there are only a limited number of rules in the Descent Stage, there are only a few pages you need to consult during that stage. Each stage adds a few more but is pretty self contained. The only thing we've had to take on faith so far is that Credits are useful...since the early stages introduce a number of ways to earn them but only a limited number of ways to spend them it isn't immediately obvious just how valuable (or not) earning them actually is.
What parts were tripping you up? We should compare notes/ -
Posted By: ValamirOther than that we found the programmed rules text to work pretty well.
Except...Posted By: Jonathan WaltonI spent the whole time wishing for a one-page outline of procedures for each chapter of play (preferrably on the character sheet),
This I agree with. A lot. The rules shift from Stage to Stage, which is okay. However, it's hard sometimes to know where to look in the text for a given rule, and if that rule has been superceded in the current stage.
Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf -
That's great, Jonathan! Thanks for putting the time and effort into setting up a playtest.
Needless to say, I would love to get my hands on that audio. If Eric needs a way to get it to me, I can set up a quick ftp account on kallistipress.com or something so he can boot it my way. I've also had folks use getdropbox.com to get files to me.
As to your feedback — yeah, absolutely some good one-sheet summary play aids would be a benefit to the game. It's a very complex thing, with lots of moving parts to tame and master for your own purposes, so getting a good idea of the beast is a good first step. I have toyed with the idea of actually building a flowchart linking all the steps together, but I worry that it wouldn't be very reference-handy. And then there's the ever-present issue of making play aids referencing rules that are in playtest and may very well change. ;) But as I'm hearing this feedback repeatedly, I'll be sure to put some focused attention on creating something useful.
One word of advice: the Descent stage is your arena for making mistakes and figuring out how things work. You can't lose anything more than two dice, so it's low-risk, and you always come out of it with your shiny new ideal. Assuming you all still have some enthusiasm for the characters you've made, I would encourage you to play on rather than start over. The game is very much a slow-boil accretion-of-play sort of thing, and I think you'll find more enjoyment moving forward than stepping back to the beginning. On the other hand, you're the ones at the table, so if a reboot feels right, go with it. ;) -
(Cross-posted with Josh.)
We just tried to run creation + Descent, but we ran the conflicts for Descent differently each time, and they made more and more sense as we went along and got closer to what we were actually supposed to be doing. The whole 1s thing was especially confusing, as was being able to place a die right after your initial roll (to create a goal) but otherwise not being able to roll and place in the same turn (is that right?). Also, if you're supposed to re-roll every time you bring in another trait, we didn't do that either.
Calling 1s "wild" was weird, because we didn't know what that meant. In straight-making games, typically that means that 1s could substitute for any other number, but that didn't seem to be the case here (though we played that way for two different Descent conflicts). It seems to mean that you hold 1s and can place them any time you want, but only as long as that's a valid play. Honestly, I'm not sure what that does, really, aside from make the mechanics a lot more complicated. Doesn't really add anything as far as I can tell, at least to Descent. I get needing the 1s to be a blocker that prevents you from endlessly rolling more traits, but the "wild" thing just seems unnecessary.
Also, my biggest problem was that the traits only seemed to be pure color, tacked onto dice that didn't actually represent anything. For example, in Dogs, if I have a shotgun that's 2d8+1d4, I know it's big, high-quality, and gets +1d4 for being a dangerous gun. If I have, uh, Desperation 3d6, the 3d6 doesn't really tell me anything about the Desperation or how it will ultimately be characterized in play. This also means that changing die sizes (which happens a lot, especially when you recalibrate your beliefs) doesn't really mean much, narratively. Like, the dice shift around but nothing really seems to change. Rewording beliefs was cool, but I wish there was something that actually made you change the descriptors of resources when the dice changed, because the dice themselves don't really indicate much. In the end, even once we got the conflicts working smoothly, they seemed mostly like dice games with some narration vaguely attached to them. There wasn't much roleplaying happening at all and, even in Dogs initiations I've never had that be a problem, so I think it's something beyond just not connecting with the mechanics. There should be a way to learn the rules while still experiencing the fiction in a gripping way.
Creating goals was also weird. There seemed to be barely any reason why you would risk your own dice instead of risking someone else's, so we always chose someone else's dice. Also, if you can declare a goal and place dice after the first roll (but otherwise can't place dice in the same turn you roll) I don't really see any reason why you shouldn't just create the goal before the conflict begins (like setting stakes in Dogs initiations) and then have the mechanics work consistently across the conflict. That would make things much, much simpler. Then you could have a universal rule like: you roll or you place but you can't do both.
Anyway, those are just some of the things that stood out for me.
ADDITION: Josh, I honestly don't care if you make a reference and then all the rules change. Without a reference, the game is 10x harder to play. Whatever effort it takes to update the reference as the game changes (and honestly, I'd imagine that such a reference would be really useful to YOU as well), it's worth it. -
Descent is not short. It is over 7000 words long. It is longer than the entire first act of "Hamlet," including the speaker attributions and set direction and everything else. It is longer than all the dialogue combined in "Alien." It is longer than reading Poe's "The Raven" 7 times in a row. It is completely and totally too long to play-as-you-go for new players, and it is far too obfuscated to consult easily when one player has read it and is trying to teach it.
In contrast, making that one-page procedure summary? It's not particularly hard for Descent. My wife made one last night out of frustration. It took her less than an hour, and I know that because she started during "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" was still on when she finished. We could just, you know, email it to you. Then she started doing word counts. Actually, this entire post should probably just be attributed to her. That made her giggle as I typed it, so let's lock that in. -
I definitely agree with Eric that the text seemed 10x longer than it needed to be, at least for a playtest document. But, then again, the kind of playtesting I'm used to starts with as lean and mean a document as possible and only fleshes that out once all the groundwork becomes locked in, so maybe there's a differerence in writing / playtesting style here. It seemed like Josh has written something close to what he expects the final text to look like, which is not really what I expect or typically want at this stage in the playtesting process. So maybe it's not surprising that there's a disconnect.
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FWIW, the dice DO represent something. Its described in the creation stage but since you don't know what it means yet its easy to miss.
Resource Dice currently work like this. 1s are ueber but damaging. Yes they go out immediately, and yes they substitute for ANY number, and yes that means you can position (roll) and place at the same time if you roll a 1 (I actually am not a huge fan of the ways 1s work but that's a different topic).
What this means then is that d4s are SUPER powerful and super fragile because they roll alot of 1s. So if you want your Traits to tie to the dice, assign d4s to to your really hi-tech stuff...stuff that is powerful because its advanced, but prone to breaking down and disappearing because your on a primitive alien world. d8s on the other hand, roll fewer 1s, BUT can make runs of high numbers where 4s can't go. So put your d8s on stuff that is reliable but not partcularly potent.
For Ideals, d4s are beliefs that are narrowly applied but not firmly held. There is no 1s power for Ideals so the d4s are limited to only countering low dice (although they are good at that)...but they are still prone to generating lots of Ideal changing Fallout. d10s on the other hand are broadly applied (fictionally, they drive your every action...mechanically they have a shot at countering any number) but don't generate much fallout and thus aren't as likely to change.
(I think these effects would be reinforced if Burnout and Fallout effects were restricted to only losing dice / changing Ideals that match the die size that generated them. I don't think that's the case currently).
Also, all (I think) of our Resources were actual...you know, resources...so we don't have any abstract concepts like "desperation". We have things like Zero Point Energy Fields, and Razor Drop Ships, and Data Bases of All Knowledge. So how exactly you can use a Razor Drop Ship to fight off a computer virus is actually much fictional fuel.
Not starting with a goal in play is a HUGE part of the tactics of the game. It results in the rather klunky patch of the On Deck circle, but I think there's probably a good fix for that. Here's the thing: You can't start a new goal unless you have the most Ideal dice in play. You can't set a goal on the same turn as when you roll the dice. When you set a goal you need to be able to place a Resource Die. So...in order to establish a goal, you need to roll both Ideal Dice and Resource Dice. If you roll 1s on whichever you roll first you won't get to roll the second set so you won't be able to establish an opportunity on your next turn. If anyone who comes after you rolls more Ideal dice than you did, you won't be able to establish an opportunity on your next turn. So if you really want to establish an opportunity, you need to roll a bunch of Ideals to ensure you'll have the most when it gets to you again. This doubles your chance of Fallout. Because when you finally use those Ideal dice you'll have to roll them all again to counter, where as if you don't roll them until you counter you only have to roll them once.
Plus, even if you do qualify to establish an Ideal, if your opponent has some 1s on deck and a bunch of straight friendly Resources showing, they may be able to instantly achieve the goal before it gets around to you again (which is where the strategic selection of Lietenants and Opponents will come in handy in the next stage). So their's a real cat and mouse game over who is establishing the Opportunity that would be lost if you just set it up, up front. In fact, having a few sessions under our belt now, I'd say for certain setting it up up front would be decidedly less fun.
As for risking your own dice...I have to admit we have yet to do this. It is the only way to get more Ideal dice, but since Ideal dice are not lost the way Resource Dice are...I'm also not sure of the benefit of doing so.
I'm not sure what you mean by changing die sizes, however. Unless I'm misremembering the only time you change die sizes is if you suffer Fallout but pass your Fallout roll...so you don't have to change any Ideals. You can then swap dice around your Ideals if you like. If there's something equivalent for shifting Resource Dice around, we missed it. -
Thanks for all the feedback, Jonathan! Most of the things you guys have highlighted, my response is "Yeah."
Posted By: Jonathan WaltonWe just tried to run creation + Descent, but we ran the conflicts for Descent differently each time, and they made more and more sense as we went along and got closer to what we were actually supposed to be doing.
Seriously, that's exactly what's supposed to happen.The whole 1s thing was especially confusing, as was being able to place a die right after your initial roll (to create a goal) but otherwise not being able to roll and place in the same turn (is that right?).
That is correct, and will almost certainly be streamlined between now and book. The Peoria playtest has come up with some solid suggestions I'm considering.Also, if you're supposed to re-roll every time you bring in another trait, we didn't do that either.
Turning out to be a common error, and I'll have to word this stronger in the text.Calling 1s "wild" was weird, because we didn't know what that meant. In straight-making games, typically that means that 1s could substitute for any other number, but that didn't seem to be the case here (though we played that way for two different Descent conflicts). It seems to mean that you hold 1s and can place them any time you want, but only as long as that's a valid play. Honestly, I'm not sure what that does, really, aside from make the mechanics a lot more complicated. Doesn't really add anything as far as I can tell, at least to Descent. I get needing the 1s to be a blocker that prevents you from endlessly rolling more traits, but the "wild" thing just seems unnecessary.
Your initial gut reaction is the correct one. A 1 can stand in for any other value. That's the benefit that balances with the drawback of the die going to burnout.Also, my biggest problem was that the traits only seemed to be pure color, tacked onto dice that didn't actually represent anything. For example, in Dogs, if I have a shotgun that's 2d8+1d4, I know it's big, high-quality, and gets +1d4 for being a dangerous gun. If I have, uh, Desperation 3d6, the 3d6 doesn't really tell me anything about the Desperation or how it will ultimately be characterized in play.
There used to be a section on what dice meant, but it got cut because the set-up chapter was too damn long. ;) I'll add it back in, or something similar, in the Mastery section.
The short form: smaller dice are precise and delicate, larger dice are awkward and robust. Medical tools are d4s; mining lasers are d8s. The more dice, the more powerful and useful the thing is; the fewer dice, the less powerful and useful (or the more beat up) it is.Rewording beliefs was cool, but I wish there was something that actually made you change the descriptors of resources when the dice changed, because the dice themselves don't really indicate much.
This will be talked about in the final text in greater length. Short form: whenever you change the dice on a resource, you may reword it. Lose dice to burnout? Make your shuttlepod a dented and laser-scarred shuttlepod. Add dice from resources you won? Make the shuttlepod into a titanium plate-armored shuttlepod. And so on.In the end, even once we got the conflicts working smoothly, they seemed mostly like dice games with some narration vaguely attached to them. There wasn't much roleplaying happening at all and, even in Dogs initiations I've never had that be a problem, so I think it's something beyond just not connecting with the mechanics.
There is a sort of perception shift that is required to play Agora that is odd to some roleplaying brains — instead of portraying an individual, you are portraying a people. How you present and develop the character of a people is similar, though different, than how you present and develop the character of an individual. How a people acts and reacts is subtly different than an individual. Apparently I should write up a section on this. ;)There should be a way to learn the rules while still experiencing the fiction in a gripping way.
I know from long playtesting experience that frustration over learning rules can kill the fiction dead. Hopefully a good play aid will help grease the wheels here.Creating goals was also weird. There seemed to be barely any reason why you would risk your own dice instead of risking someone else's, so we always chose someone else's dice.
About 90% of the time you target other players' dice. So you're doing it right. ;) There are some big advantages to defending your own dice, though, so sometimes you put yourself at risk to prove a point and shore up your people's faith in your ideals. And again, a good example in Mastery is probably in order here.Also, if you can declare a goal and place dice after the first roll (but otherwise can't place dice in the same turn you roll) I don't really see any reason why you shouldn't just create the goal before the conflict begins (like setting stakes in Dogs initiations) and then have the mechanics work consistently across the conflict. That would make things much, much simpler. Then you could have a universal rule like: you roll or you place but you can't do both.
In Descent there's only one set of goals in play at a time. Outside of the tutorial, there can be more than one — a big part of the game is multiple things happening at once and choosing what is worth your attention in general and in the specific right-here-right-now.
And yes, the general rule should be "you roll or place but you don't do both." The rolled-1s-immediately-placed seemed like a nifty exception-based benny to me, but playtesting away from my table is proving me wrong. ;)Anyway, those are just some of the things that stood out for me.
And thank you for enumerating them! :DADDITION: Josh, I honestly don't care if you make a reference and then all the rules change. Without a reference, the game is 10x harder to play. Whatever effort it takes to update the reference as the game changes (and honestly, I'd imagine that such a reference would be really useful to YOU as well), it's worth it.
And you're totally right and that's why I've got Illustrator open and blocks of text shifting around right now. -
Posted By: EricIn contrast, making that one-page procedure summary? It's not particularly hard for Descent. My wife made one last night out of frustration. It took her less than an hour, and I know that because she started during "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" was still on when she finished. We could just, you know, email it to you.
I'd love to see what your lovely wife (hello, Eric's wife!) came up with. -
Okay, then. I took the six core procedures that you will encounter in a given turn and wrote quick bullet-point summaries of them, then did a little ghetto-hypertexting via text color, and came up with the following Agora Turn Guide:
At some point I'll make an Incident Guide that handles Creating Incidents, Audience options, Burnout, and Fallout — but it's my impression those aren't critical right now, whereas the turn flow certainly is. The Turn Guide is in the playtest package, as well.
Love to hear your thoughts, guys. -
Posted By: Josh Roby
Okay, I haven't played (though I want to) but I still feel the need to chime in here:Creating goals was also weird. There seemed to be barely any reason why you would risk your own dice instead of risking someone else's, so we always chose someone else's dice.
About 90% of the time you target other players' dice. So you're doing it right. ;) There are some big advantages to defending your own dice, though, so sometimes you put yourself at risk to prove a point and shore up your people's faith in your ideals. And again, a good example in Mastery is probably in order here.
You can defend your own dice without purposefully risking your own dice, right? I'm guessing this is something that came up because in Descent there can only be one Goal? Because in later stages, it's quite likely that you'll have multiple Goals, and someone'll probably hit one of your resources when they set up that goal. -
Oooh, I think that turn guide looks pretty nifty. I dig the color-coding. You should do something like that in the final text, as well, I think.
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Ha! Seth I knew I was right. When you counter an escalation the Ideal Die protects the Resource Die...
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Page 37 of Agora 3.0.2 saith:
The other players in the incident may attempt to counter your dice as normal. However, they must counter your resource placement before they can counter your ideals placement. If you have additional resource dice showing the same value, you may redouble your efforts as many times as you like. The countering player must exhaust all of the resource dice you place before they can even attempt to counter the escalation — and if you have more ideals dice showing the same value, you can pump those into redoubling the escalation, as well. If the counter succeeds and you are not able to redouble, your proposed escalation does not occur.
Emphasis mine.
Ergo, one of these documents is incorrect.
Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf -
Posted By: fnord3125You can defend your own dice without purposefully risking your own dice, right? I'm guessing this is something that came up because in Descent there can only be one Goal? Because in later stages, it's quite likely that you'll have multiple Goals, and someone'll probably hit one of your resources when they set up that goal.
Yes. Following the guideline that the rules should never say "nothing happens," when you successfully defend your dice (whether you put them at risk or another player), you don't just get them back, you get them back and bump an ideal up a die.
I like the color coding too, Fnord, but I don't know if I can really stretch it beyond six colors (the magenta for Completing was stretching) and putting across multiple pages would vastly decrease its utility, I think.
And Ralph, Seth — Seth and the rules document are correct. Counter the resource placement first, then the ideals placement. (Otherwise you can get into a weird situation where, if you counter the escalation but fail to counter the placement, the goal may complete in the unescalated state — which generally disappoints everybody at the table.) I'llneed to updatehave updated the Turn Guide. Thanks for catching that one! -
So I don't know if Eric's sent you any info about the second playtest we ran or not. We replayed Descent, partially because we had two new players with Dev busy (so a total of 5). We nailed the rules this time and the dice game aspect of play worked a lot better. However, we still had a devil of a time getting the dice game to interface with the fiction in a meaningful way that felt compelling. I'm not sure if it's the meta-level of the narrative (about an entire faction, rather than individuals), the way that the dice don't seem to signify anything in the narrative (how 4d6 doesn't feel different than 5d6 or 4d8), or just the nature of the 1-on-1, limited conflicts with depersonalized opposition in Descent (where you make up antagonists that are not persistent and don't interact with the factions controlled by other players). I mean, I would feel disappointed in Dogs too if we just played through Initiations, but character creation and Descent took so long that we didn't really have time for anything else and afterwards we decided we weren't really interested in struggling through playtesting the game anymore.
By the end of Descent, nobody felt especially interested in what was happening fictionally. The most interesting aspect of play definitely seems to be the transformation of ideals over time, but it wasn't clear to me that the other mechanics fully contributed to making that happen. As far as I can tell, there appear to be two real strategies, with different outcomes:
1. Overwhelm The Other Players Ideals: Push them to roll their ideals and, therefore, to risk changing them and (on 1s) becoming more like you.
2. Overwhelm The Other Players Resources: Destroy all their resources while growing your own so they can't really challenge you at all.
Eric was definitely pushing for #2, rolling "8d8 Thousand Legions" by the end of Descent, which was often a near-instant win, playing multiple 1s on the first roll. Even if those 1s led to a weakening of that trait, he could risk it in conflicts to grow it back up to an intimidating large pool. Basically, the conflict over resources doesn't seem to lead to more ideals necessarily being brought in or more transformations happening.
It also seemed like it would take a long, long time to significantly change another faction's ideals, far longer than the amount of time I'd be willing to play this game. With only one or two words of an ideal changing at a time, dramatic changes only happen when the play intentionally decides to make them; otherwise, shifts seem to be very gradual. As it currently stands, I feel like 5 sessions would probably be my absolute max, though I'd lean more towards 3 (Descent, Tensions, Final Conflict), meaning that in the amount of time I can imagine playing the game, ideals are likely to have only seen moderate shifts.
In any event, it's quite possible that this just isn't a game for our group and/or some of the individuals that compose it, including myself. Dev made a recent blog post that offered some of his thoughts on making the dice game interface more strongly with the fiction, but he wasn't there for the second game and was more enthusiastic about the premise and structure in general, I think. So I'm sure what various circumstances converged to make this not work for us, but hopefully our reaching that point can still be useful to your playtesting and revision process, Josh. I'm definitely willing to talk more about our experiences if you have any questions, but I don't expect we'll be playing it again any time soon.
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