Dungeon Squad! + Coin-Op Mechanics Playtest

August 27, 2007 at 3:22 pm (Coin-Op, Dungeon Squad, Sword & Sorcery)

My wife and sister-in-law agreed to play a game with me last night. We played for about 2 hours total, with a half-hour prep time which I believe will shorten in the future. We used Jason Morningstar’s Dungeon Squad! (with some extra stuff from Jim Adams [meepo on Dragonsfoot]) as modified by me with my Coin Op system (previously known as the Arcade Emulator, although I’m unsure if this title will last, either).

First, some background information: My wife and sister-in-law have not had extremely good reactions to RPGs in the past. This was as a favor to me. As it turns out, they liked it and it wasn’t a half-bad game after all.

So, I had printed up some adventurers earlier with the help of RPGClassics’ Shadow of Mystara Shrine and some character sheets from Skathros’ Forbidden Fortress module. I gave them a pair of scissors to cut out their characters and some tape to have them add it to their Character Sketch area of the sheet. My wife chose a Cleric (Joziah) and a Dwarf (Carlos), my sister-in-law chose an Elf (Eneen J.) and a Mage (Magnus).

Character Sheets

I explained what they should place in the top section (Wizard, Warrior and Explorer). An interesting thing occurred – none of them chose an Explorer as their highest or lowest stat. Either I didn’t sell the aspects of Explorer or they just weren’t interested in it. I can see why, maybe – their experience with Sword and Sorcery is limited, and it sure isn’t called Sword, Sorcery, and Skulking, now is it? I then had them buy their equipment. Note: buying two offensive spells is useless if spells aren’t differentiated. I felt that even differentiating different rules for spells was too much for effective buy-in for my wife and sister-in-law. My wife chose her spells on her own (fireball and lightning), but they were also the only two spells I mentioned during the description of spellcasting. We came up with a reason to go into the dungeon (Holy Water from a pool to save the King). I also had them come up with something they wanted their characters to do or get out of the dungeon (but ran out of time to have them pursue them :( ).

Things that worked well: The coins were used widely for extra attacks and dodging attacks. They also came up with it as a use to counter-spell a spell I was casting. I had items (weapons, spells, etc.) cost a nickel for a d6 and a nickel more for a d10. They both instinctively knew that it was a representation of the ‘treasure’ they were collecting along the way. They also instinctively ‘broke down’ treasure if it wasn’t usable (a d10 sword was broken into two nickels because they didn’t need a weapon). Traps seemed to work fine (a one penny trap that tried to hit everybody once was distributed as one penny to all of those that succeeded). When they really needed to do something, they paid the pennies even though it went back to me. When my wife wanted her sister’s character to heal her, she both paid a penny for the extra action and had her character pay the other character. I really like that dualism.

Things that didn’t work well: I went from an easy enemy strategy to a boss fight, and it had a high whiff-factor. A boss (8 to hit) with d10 armor and 40 HP was a long, ugly fight. A seasoned group might have been better, but I’m wondering if an 8 to hit is too much, or if the armor was the killer feature. Something to work out! We wanted to play for two hours. I set my budget at two quarters (one for each player). It would have taken us about another hour to finish out that budget. Also, I think I may require two characters per player, or rework the one quarter per player starting budget.

Now, I know that I’m referencing stuff that hasn’t been written out yet. I hope this post makes sense. I’ll get this written soon.

UPDATE

Some things I forgot:

1. One character will win each session by having the most value of coins. I don’t have a reward for that, though. Also, do you count coins that were spent on self-improvement.

2. Just like weapons that aren’t on the sheet counting as d4 damage, so do spells. Healing was adjudicated to be a d4 as well, and I limited it to once per level (the dungeon had levels …) This was quite arbitrary and I don’t know how I’d rule on it.

3. My wife had an idea for the dwarf to have a Racial Hatred at one point. I ruled that it was just another weapon. She could spend a penny to get a second attack and it would be equal to an extra d4 damage. But, now I’m wondering if just having the attack roll or damage roll mirrored (rolling a second die and taking the best of the two) might have been a better idea. How much would you charge for that? I’d definitely make it up to the player to activate something like that. That is, you wouldn’t declare what sent you into a rage when you bought the aspect. You’d just have to spend a penny to activate it for the encounter.

4. I wanted to implement this but never had a chance: Pay a penny to find a certain kind of item in a room or on a creature, e.g. a Healing Potion, a Scroll of Fireball, etc.