Empyrean Ex Mortis

A big hearty thank you to a J. Dettman for laying out my document into a much more readable format! Thank you very much, ma’am or sir, I owe you!

Playtest Document

I have put out a call for playtest on the Forge.

I left a vital part out of the document: The Coin Economy.

To those of you who have already read the document, please go to the bottom and read the part about the economy. Thanks!

Feel free to playtest my game! I know I will!

I have also opened a call for playtesters at Story Games.

Coin-Op had a very successful playtest on Sunday. We even had a six year old in attendance, although her interaction was limited by constant notes and suggestions from the other players. We used the map (see attached). I have enough information now to write up a playtest document and am doing so here. If you find a version that states , then, guess what, it won’t work. If Google lets you change things, please don’t.

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.

What I like to do when it comes to ideas like this is to go ahead and sign up to do it. My sense of guilt about canceling usually means that I won’t back down and I’ll bring something fun to the table.

So, that’s what I did! I’m signed up to run Shadow Over Mystara Arcade Emulator using the 1st Edition (Rules Cyclopedia) ruleset. Here’s hoping that someone wants to play!

So, I have this obsession with the D&D arcade games. They’re just plain good.I have them both emulated on my PSP and enjoy them pretty often. I bought the Rules Cyclopedia just so I could have the rules that the game was based on. Imagine my surprise when the rules were barely even used. Nothing in there about Level 1-3 swords, nothing for combos, nothing for special maneuvers.

So, I was talking with my friend Rich Miller (Cthulhu’s Librarian, if you only know him via ENWorld and Eighth Deadly Sin at CM) about the upcoming ENWorld NC Gameday. I was pondering what to run (cuz I love to run game for Gameday):

Me: You know what would be neat?

Rich: whats that?

Me: I was going to set up a game just like the arcade. Game runs along pace. If you die, you’d give up your spot or something.
I might do something with extra lives.

Rich: Hehe buy the gm a candy bar for more life

Me: We could play with a pot. Nickle ante. Winner takes all. Or, penny ante.

Rich: Not nickels, QUARTERS.

Me: I can’t make people pay real money :P

But, what if the money were part of the game? What if I brought it with me?

Ignoring system for now, check this out:

Enemies

Goblins – 1 penny
Gnolls/Skeletons – 2 pennies
Owlbears/Hellhounds – 3 pennies
Ghouls/Dark Elves – 4 pennies

So, that pretty much crovers the gamut of regular enemies, right? What if it costs me that much to put those creatures out? And what if you get that much treasure when you beat them?

So, you’ve just killed a group of goblins (worth a penny per player in your group). What do you do with that penny?

Fighter – Add 1 hit to your current hit chain – 1 penny
“Take that!”
Thief – Sneak up on an enemy that knows you’re there – 1 penny
“Sneak, sneak, sneak …”
Mage – Ignore an attack because you cast Mirror Image – 1 penny
“Now you see me …”
Dwarf – Knock ‘em down! – 1 penny
“Har! Get up, ya ugly thing!”
Elf – Make one creature attack another for one hit – 1 penny
“Can’t you keep up with me?”
Cleric – Your battle vigor renews you – 1 penny
“By Cuthbert, this is fun!”

Nickels would be generated from bosses and from hoarding pennies. Nickels get you really special abilities.
Quarters would be generated from hoarding nickels. Quarters get you another play when you’re knocked unconscious.

Don’t forget treasure chests as a source of coins, too. But here’s the fun part!

If you use a coin for your own ability, it goes back to me for further creatures! If you use it to activate someone else’s ability, they get to keep the coin. Teamwork at its finest!