We playtested this game I'm working on last night and it was really fun. Carolina Death Crawl is a competitive game about four soldiers abandoned deep behind enemy lines during the American Civil War. It is based on Potter's Raid, which was a Union raid on the Tar river valley in July, 1863. The characters are southern locals who, for their own reasons, signed up with the Federal cavalry.

So we had these guys, who are assembled Chinese menu style:

• Bugler Penbroke Eager, youngster and criminal


• Private Henry Dunham, swamp rat and impostor


• Corporal Isaac Shanks, intellectual and deserter


• Sergeant Lemuel Maybank, veteran and aristocrat


The game is structured in a prologue and three acts. At the end of each act, a character dies. You're competing to not be that guy. The game is structured to veer toward either savage violence, dreadful destruction, or shameful disgrace. We played a pretty disgraceful game, which isn't to say we didn't burn down a few farms and kill a mess of people.

My favorite thread in the game was Sergeant Maybank's. He was the only good man. Dunham died early, betrayed by some Rebs we'd bought off with money stolen during the raid. Shanks was an untrustworthy murderer, and Eager was a rapist. But Maybank, well, he was a man of the people. He did his level best to keep his unit alive and moving, even after getting bit by a water moccasin.

At one point we stumbled onto a rice plantation and several hundred contrabands - escaped slaves. They saw our uniforms and figured they were saved. Shanks argued forcefully (and correctly) that helping out a slow-moving, loud train of civilians would just get us all caught, but the Sergeant had his own issues - in the past he'd abandoned a party of contrabands who had been butchered. We were helping these people. Of course that didn't go well, and Eager got ignominiously shot at the end of act 2, and the Contrabands were scattered in a swamp, to be rounded up or drown. So it was down to Sergeant Maybank and Corporal Shanks.

After a series of misadventures and a visit to Shank's ancestral home and furious wife, the two hid in a barn with another family of contrabands - a mother and her five children. This time, however, they were all within spitting distance of Union lines and the game was drawing to a close. Robo, playing Corporal Shanks, said "Don't you get that fuckin' look in your eye - you get on that horse and go, don't fuckin' help them this time." Cards were laid, it was close but the result was Maybank's death - Steve put two and two together and described how the woman was a survivor of Maybank's original failure, the shame that made him try so hard to save people, and she burned with vengeance, and shot him in the back of the head. So Shanks alone survived.

Everyone was like "this is pretty dark, even for you." It went very well for a playtest, and I'm itching to run it again at Go Play Northwest for people who aren't my boon companions and top-rail possums.

They provide adversity and still frame scenes for the survivors. Any cards remaining in their hands become negative values they can inflict on survivors, so one strategy is to hoard your cards and die early. Since there are two dead guys in act 3, the pressure on the survivors gets pretty intense.

Here's a copy of the rules as of last night.

There's nothing specifying how people at the table will interact. Last night the dead guys were laying down cards that were thematically appropriate and sort of drove the game in interesting directions, not really focusing on how that impacted the point spread. I got a -5 played on me that was heartbreaking (it pretty much doomed my guy) but was perfect for where he was at.

But you could play tactically and be a kingmaker if that's what excited you. Or you could be like "entertain me" and punish the boring dude.

Well it certainly sounded like you had a very decent game and that it worked well in your group.

I suppose my concern isn't so much that players of dead characters have influence on what happens, that's a really good idea, it's more than people will stop to think, "who do I want to win?" If they have some framework for deciding then I think it's possibly more entertaining than if they didn't. It's a situation that crops up a lot in board games where who wins depends upon the actions of a player who can't win. It's great if they can justify their move in terms of what happened in the game, in the fiction, but less great, I find, if it's done in terms of what or who the player is.

Of course what actually happens is some kind of horse trading mixing in and out of game elements which is quite fun but detracts, I find, from making the most satisfactory game.

So, for example, if my character stiffed yours, but they're brothers, then I like to see the decision based on those elements rather than whether the players are friends or who brought the best snacks.

Bit of review, if'n you like it, in the order I see 'em:
* Wouldn't it be Tar River Valley (or at least Tar River)?

* Rocky Mount is in Edgecombe and Nash counties (prolly just the latter, in 1863); so why is the Pitt County Fair being held there (and not, say, Greenville, it's current home)?

* It's just me and my typesetter's eyes (and I know this isn't a final by any stretch), but when you do two-column and the column break isn't on a heading, try not to start the first column with a heading. It's lose-lose: either you have the "lopsided top" of your current pg 1, or the second column text seems to "creep above" the first column heading, due to it usually being a full-column-width line of text, not a partial-width heading. You could easily throw in a blurb or quote to "knock down" the first heading ("INTRODUCTION").

* It'd help to know what the "action card types" are--I presume you've got mock-ups and they make it obvious by name. And I bet you'll spell it all out in the text as if the cards weren't in the reader's hands at the moment. (You like custom cards, doncha?)

* Is there a mechanical benefit to being the higher-ranked characters, to offset the scene-end tie-breaker killing the highest-ranked character?

* Act 2, Step 2 - What if the player who drew the Rocky Mount guide card is the dead one--how does he "set a scene for [his] character?"

* AND Act 2, Step 3 is the mechanical stuff you ask about above; more on that below....

* I'm not sure--would a guy back then even say "f__k?" I know the word was in currency back then, but it at least READS like it's a genre-breaker.

* OK, don't have time just now for the history stuff; I'm sure they're all real quote, properly transcribed and worthwhile for setting mood and genre. And I've see how you build games early, from such notes, so I suspect these will serve as sidebars and intro text in the final.
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So now... an idea or two out about deadman card play, while still admittedly in the dark about the card text and points distributions:

* You can't provide adversity to the same guy twice in scene or twice in a row, between scenes. This might also mitigate card-hording behavior, as folks come to know that they can't rely on being able to dump all cards in Act 3 (or, put another way, they'll have only two chances to dump).

* Maybe a circle of death structure, where you can only play adversity on the living player to your left? or even alternate it: left in Act II, right in Act III?

The friction is between the resource being of benefit to you ONLY while alive (and ONLY to you), then really only of use (in a Step On Up) way to kingmake, being ONLY an adversity source. So:

* You can play a deadman card as adversity or as benefit. Still doesn't prevent kingmaking or OOC considerations/dealings--nothing really can, unless you force the allocation with structure, as the two ideas above.

Hmmm. Maybe let there be a way to "buy in" using remaining cards, with the cost of being higher rank than any survivor (i.e. dead, in tie breaks) AND not being able to play cards in a particular way--maybe a bought-in re-lifer has to play face-up? Keeping the turn order would mean that it's not automatic that folks will play cards to guarantee surrvival, assuming they have the right-sized one. But it's got a cool feel, to me: "Look'e here! If it ain't Lieutentant Piss-'Is-Pants! I'd'a figured we see your high-tail up ahead on the road; you was always the one to lead from the rear, first to retreat. C'MERE!"

Anyhow... it's a cool-looking thing, and definitely in your "Historical Line of High-Structure Games." As such... what do you think it's replayability is going to be like? Do you see, maybe, expanding it with alternate routs in warfare? There's gotta be similar situations for Vietnam, the Revolutionary War, or even Iraq II--or do you not like the idea of taking the basic structure, mechanics, and cards as a generic system for which you provide several scripts?

...Or is that EXACTLY your plan, with mini-game releases in mind (I'm thinking of some of your ideas about Medical Hospital, now).

...Or is it even really going to be finished for market? Might it be a Lady Blackbird?

Thanks for the replies. No thoughts about the deadman card play allocation fording ideas (two bullets in second unordered list)?

Posted By: Jason MorningstarI used their surnames in the game.

MIGHT want to see if that sort of thing is cool. It's been over 100 years, but some folks might object anyway to their kin being used in a "game" (especially if ignorant of the hommage elements and seeing only "emo torture porn").

Posted By: Jason MorningstarI have a feeling this will be tremendously replayable, although once you've memorized the content of the 4- and 5-point cards the suspense will be gone in end of act reveals.

Perhaps you could decouple the points from the card contents? I can see how you have "heavy" actions and locations earn more points (and that's fitting, in one view) but perhaps you could just have a points max on action cards, a points deck, and work it that way?
EX) I draw from the points deck (deck of cards, minus the faces?) every time I draw a game card.
When I play Simmon's Plantation, I can play any point card UP TO its 5 value.

HEY! And, so, like, when I'm deadman, I have to play a card higher than the action card I activate, for a negative/adversity value.
EX) I have a 3- and 9-point card and Simmon's Plantation (and some other remaining action card)
* If I play the 3 and Simmon's, it's beneficial to my target, to the tune of 3 points (played as "up to Simmon's 5 value"). It's just like I played it on myself when alive.
* If I play the 9 and Simmon's, it's adversarial to my target, to the tune of 4 points (played as "X over Simmon's value"). My ghostly influence is too much; it's overwhelming, costing my target in total points.

No! No, hey, you make that the rule, flat out. You're play can be "plus for me" or "minus for you" whether dead or alive, based on whether you are playing "up to value" or "X over value." And if I get the fewest total points at reckoning, when a deadman, then I've helped to spare one of my band of brothers! You get this whole vibe out of low point card draws by deadmen where their influence (playing for their own tiny total) can stay the hand of death for others; but it won't happen all the time, because of the luck of the draw and the fact that EVENTUALLY they'll either be forced to play high enough cards not to be lowest total or they'll be dragging down others with their REAL high cards' adversity and negatives to totals.

Hmmm... for that to work, though, means that a zero or negative final total for a deadman is not considered as "sparing" a liveman. Otherwise, forcing me to play "X over points" negative adversity means I won't get a value played on myself. Yeah, OK, needs some testing/math crunching.

So then maybe you need action cards up to 10, so that some cards are never adversarial. Hmmm... and I realize that 1-point cards would be hard to play as anything BUT adversarial. But all that's monkeying with the math a bit--could be you just need to "shift" the action card values (i.e. the points card thresholds" to the 3 to 7 range, if you're currently in the 1 to 5 range and think 1 to 10 range points cards is the way to go.

OK, ok, I'll stop. I'm picking out the whole rug to make a quilt. But maybe these ideas will help, and I work for "Special Thanks" credit. ;)