A Tale of Two Play Tests

Yesterday, I was involved in two play tests. 

The first was my own game, Flying Swordsmen 2E. It was a focused affair, and I think I received some valuable feedback.

The second was for Jeremy's new Supers game that he's been working on. It was my third time testing out his system and while there is progress on that system, the session was a bit...meh.

So first off, for my Flying Swordsmen play test, I had four players: Flynn and Steven (my boys, age 17 and almost 11), Denis, and Charles. They've all played in my Star Wars campaign, so they're familiar with the basics at least of the Open d6 System. 

My goal for the session was to have the players each make a PC using a template, then have them each make a PC using custom design. I thought it would be a quick session. Turns out, it took most of the time to get the template PCs completed mechanically (we didn't create NPC Sifu, organizations, or important NPC relationships since I don't have my starting campaign setting ideas worked out yet). And instead of then turning to custom PCs (which we wouldn't have had time to finish anyway), we ran a practice combat, two-on-two. 

Denis had gone through the character templates the night before. He even called to tell me that he found around seven of them really interesting. That was a good sign. He hadn't read through the player rules packet, though. He ended up using the Beggar template.

Charles had at least skimmed the player rules, and had a few questions about them when we started. I don't think he had looked through the templates yet. He went with a Drunken Boxer template.

My boys were given a basic overview, and I explained the templates to them before we left to meet up with Denis and Charles. Flynn chose the Demonist Shaman template, and Steven went with the Street Fighter template. 

Denis took a bit of time to understand the difference between the suggested skills on the template and the skill dice that could be distributed. Charles had lots of questions about taking specializations of skills. There are a couple of skills that I might need to rename. I went with "Stance" as the name of what Star Wars calls Dodge, and this was confusing for them. I'll probably edit it to Dodge so it's easier to notice...but I like the flavor of the name Stance. 

Denis suggested that instead of walls of text, I could make a visual diagram of character creation, and that's a good idea. I'll get to work on that soon. Color coding a character sheet and putting notes in a sidebar with number references on the sheet should be fairly easy to do. 

My boys didn't have many problems. They've each made multiple Star Wars PCs, so they picked their templates, selected their skills, and were ready to go. 

In the combat, we found that for novice martial artists, it's fairly easy to get knocked out or wounded. Denis' Beggar went down first, then Flynn's Shaman was wounded. Charles' Drunken Boxer took a minor wound, then Steven's Street Fighter knocked him out, ending the combat. I want to run more combats like this, and put them up against some NPCs and monsters as well, at different power levels to see how things go. They had fun with this fight. Everyone had good things to say about FS2E afterwards. 

Later, after dinner, Flynn and I logged on to Jeremy's Discord to play test his Supers game. This was the third time, and I decided just before we joined the game (well, about 30 minutes before) to make a new character with different powers just to try out a few things. Most of the powers I chose weren't really relevant to the adventure he had us play through, but that's alright. He had no idea I was going to switch from a magic sword-wielding Thor/Warlord/Black Knight type to a technomancer. 

Flynn played Nova, the plasma-wielding hero from the previous session. Dustie played Maya, the gravity-manipulator she had played in the previous session. Jeff and Scott couldn't make it.

Jeremy has been struggling with a few elements of the design. In particular, he wants Stunts -- special or unusual uses of a power -- to be a big part of the game. But he's been struggling with how to model them. I still find the resolution a little unsatisfying, and I think Jeremy is starting to see where I'm coming from. He also has a very slow and painful advancement mechanic, but I can't seem to convince him that it needs to change. He did add in a new way to gain points towards advancement, but is keeping the glacial pace. 

Mechanics aside, the session was dull. In the first game, we had a mystery to solve (although it was mostly just RP, and didn't involve much mechanics), then a bunch of monster fights. Session Two was a bit of exploration (again mostly RP, a bit of mechanics for that), and a bunch of monster fights. Session three was ONLY a series of monster fights. 

The good thing about that was, as we mopped up all of the monsters except for the "Level 4 Psychic Entity" that was only there to monologue, Jeremy seemed to start to realize that 2d10 plus an ability score that is probably going to range from 30 to 60 (and could be more) isn't the best mechanic. Unless we roll snake-eyes, we're not going to fail much. Or the difficulties are going to be so crazy that a character like Jeff made, who has a lot of powers in the 10 to 20 range, is going to find it impossible.  

The bad thing was, we were just going through the motions. Jeremy started us out with the NPC bosses telling us to guard the area monsters would appear. Then he seemed to be fishing for us to do something else, but when we tried doing other things, we were discouraged from that. Then, when we had a break in the monster fighting, we tried doing something unexpected, and Jeremy had us quickly returned to what we had been told to do by his "Dr. Alchemical" NPC. And a few more monster fights took place. 

So yeah, a railroad adventure. 

Now, since it's a play test, I don't mind the railroad so much. What bothers me is that Jeremy was still trying to give us an illusion of freedom, then yanking it away. I'd have been happier if he'd just straight up ran us through the series of monster fights without pretending we had a choice in the matter. 

That's less a problem with the rule set, and more with Jeremy's skills as a GM. I know there are plenty of monsters in supers comics, but when I think Supers RPG, I want to face villains. Street-level bank or tech lab robbers. Teams of colorful weirdos like the Sinster Six or Flash's Rogue's Gallery. Organizations like the Brotherhood of Mutants, Lexcorp, Hydra, or the Injustice League. 

Sure, throw in a few monsters here and there. But where are the ticking time bombs in school buses? The choice to save your girlfriend or the group of civilians from certain death? The pair of nuclear missiles aimed at opposite ends of the country and only time to stop one of them? The crazy non-linear fun-house gladiatorial combat for an extra-dimensional TV personality? The choice between going out to stop crime or attending Grandma's dinner party? Having to make ends meet at a day job while constantly getting pulled away by villains causing chaos? 

OK, had to vent. Three sessions of nothing but fighting Lovecraftian monsters (if you know Jeremy's OSR monster/art books, you know what I mean) gets old.  

Gearing Up for a Play Test

 I've got the Flying Swordsmen 2E rules in what I think are playable condition. So, after today's Star Wars d6 game, I asked the guys if they'd be willing to try out these rules next time. They said OK, although Flynn, my older son, still wants to play more Star Wars while he's here for the summer. I can manage both of those things. 

 This evening, I copy/pasted the player facing rules into a new document, and edited it a little. I saved it as a PDF, but now I'm thinking, even though it's just a play test document, maybe I should add some art to it. Not all of my players have a lot of experience watching wuxia movies. Art could help. 

This will be mostly art taken from movies, because this document shouldn't be seen by anyone but my players. When I am closer to ready to publish, I'll have to make the decision to stick with public domain art like in 1E (probably recycle a lot of the art I did use there), or maybe try to run a Kickstarter or IndieGoGo campaign to fund some original art. I suck at self-promotion, so I'll probably save myself the stress and just use the PD art again. But we'll see. 

For now, I'm excited to share these rules with the group, see what sorts of PCs they come up with, and then form some adventures and test the rules in play.  

Gaming Swag from Japan

Over the weekend, my family took a little trip to Fukuoka, Japan. My wife currently has a broken toe, so she almost didn't go, but decided to go anyway. It wasn't easy managing things, as there was a lot of walking involved, but we got through it. [And the doctor exam yesterday showed no problems.]

The last two times I'd been to Fukuoka, my mother-in-law was with us. That meant a lot of the things we did were focused on her desires. This time it was just us, so the boys and I got to do a few things that WE wanted to do. One of them was to visit a geeky resale shop called MANDARAKE which was sort of like a vintage geek Mecca. Steven, my 10yo, is already planning to save money for our next trip so he can purchase a used gaming console. They had a SEGA MegaDrive (J-version of the Genesis), PS2 through 5, an original X-Box, and a few others. Plus games, of course. He wants one...not sure if he'll get his wish, but we'll see. 

They had manga, US comics trade paperbacks, old CD/DVDs of music, anime, etc. Lots and lots of toys: action figures, cars, model kits, and so on. Oh, and books. 

I finally, after years of (not very extensive) searching through used bookstores in Japan, found a copy of Sword World RPG. 

 So far, I've only had time to skim through it. My Japanese is pretty rusty, but I did read through the "What is an RPG" section. Luckily, the few kanji I didn't remember were easy to guess from context. That is probably one of the most straightforward, concise, and effective explanations of what RPGs are and how they play I've ever read. I took notes for my revised Flying Swordsmen game. 

When I get more time to go through the game, its mechanics, and what not, I'll probably have more to say here. 

Also at the shop were three boxes of vintage Grenadier Star Wars metal minis! The first I noticed was a Bounty Hunters set. Then there was one with the Heroes of the original trilogy (plus Vader). And the third was an Imperials set. I ALMOST bought them. My boys were encouraging me to get them. I wanted them. But all three sets together would have been close to $100 and my wife would not have been happy. And at 1980s 25mm scale they would be so tiny next to my 54mm plastic SW minis from my previous time in Japan. So I didn't get them. 

I'll probably be kicking myself for that decision years down the road, just like I sometimes kick myself for not spending $100 to get the Japanese Basic Set shortly before I left Japan for Korea. But such is life.

Additionally, at the 100 yen shops Seria and Daiso, I picked up some dice (two sets of 4 d6s at Seria), and some condition counters for RPG or board/card games (4 sets of 8 counters at Daiso). 

At Daiso, I also found two copies of the Werewolf game, with really cool art. There are some common cards in the two sets, but each also has some unique characters. 

Next to the Werewolf cards were these cards called "Biology Card Game: Cell". I had no idea what they were, but they looked like a CCG. My wife said to go ahead and get them, since they're only a dollar each. The cards are themed around viruses, diseases, organelles, medical tech, and various biological fluids each illustrated with a cute anime girl. 

The QR code on the box and on each card leads to a video tutorial which I haven't watched yet. Because I'll probably never play the game. But a fun curiosity for $2. 

Finally, in the books section of Daiso, I found this book about yokai. A lot of my players aren't familiar with them, so this is something I can use in my Jade Campaign to show off what some of the creatures they encounter look like. 

That's the extent of the gaming related stuff I picked up. Other than that, we met my friend Keita, bought some clothes, lots of snacks, saw a few touristy things (finally went up in Fukuoka Tower, rode swan boats in Ohori Park again), and ate a LOT of good food. 

All in all, a fun trip!

Daegu One-Shot TTRPG Extravaganza

As I start to type this, the Daegu One-Shot TTRPG Extravaganza is just wrapping up (according to the schedule). I wasn't there today, but yesterday Flynn and I woke up early and drove up to Daegu for some gaming. It started Friday night with one game session slot, then three on Saturday (we were there for two), and then two more game slots today (Sunday). 

We arrived at Cafe Panoplie in central Daegu at around 8:45am, and they let us in at around 8:50. The first game session was scheduled from 9am to 1pm, but of course people were gathering, buying their first drinks, saying hi to old friends, meeting new people, and all of that. We probably didn't actually start to game until after 9:30. 

My first game was my 2nd choice game for that time slot, a whimsical heist adventure (5E D&D). The DM, Tabi, let us roll up some slightly overpowered 3rd level PCs before the game started. I made a Dwarf Fighter (Noble) who was gruff and a bit pompous. Another player, Rachel, had rolled up a Fairy Barbarian (Gladiator), who acted all nice and sweet until she started to kick ass. The third player, Kimberlee, was new to RPGs, but had played in a 5E game on Friday night. So she used her 1st level Halfling Rogue (unknown background) from the night before, and bumped up to 3rd level. The 4th player didn't show up. 

The adventure was to steal a magical gauntlet from the Magistrate. Using our various skills and backgrounds, and coming up with an intricate plan that we botched the most important part (we paid for a counterfeit gauntlet to be made, but forgot to pick it up before infiltrating the Magistrate's mansion), we bumbled through the mission and succeeded, just at the last minute (real time).

Flynn played a Traveller game called Death Station in the morning slot run by a GM named Nicole who I don't know (this was both of our #1 pick for the slot). He said it was a mission to explore a ship that had been wiped out by a contaminant and they had to science their way through the adventure. He enjoyed it, and was wondering if there is a computerized version of Traveller for solo play. I'll have to look that up. [Or someone in the comments, please give us a link!]

We had found an American style Chinese restaurant on the map and wanted to go there for lunch, but it was closed. Korean style Chinese food is very disappointing compared to the American fare (or Japanese style Chinese). Since it took about 15 minutes to walk there, and there was only a 1 hour lunch break, we ended up going to Lotteria (Korean fast food). 

When we got back, I chatted with my friend Scott a little about the organization of the event (he was an organizer), and he said he's willing to pitch in to help Justin and I if we organize something like this in Busan later. Nice. Then we went to our game tables. We were both in our #1 picks for the afternoon slot (2pm to 6pm), thanks to Scott. 

My afternoon game was Dragonbane, run by the GM Amae. I knew Amae online because he's the admin of the TTRPG in Korea Discord group. He had five pregens  for us. I got the Human Magician. Lem was the Wolfkin Warrior. Lexi was an Elf Archer. Abi was a Halfling Thief. And the fifth player, whose name is escaping me at the moment, was a Mallard Knight that we nicknamed Duck Tank. I didn't know any of these players before the game started. 

The adventure was called The Sinking Tower. We were after treasure, and the tower that rises out of the sea once every 20 years was slowly sinking back down. We managed to bumble our way through most of the puzzle/traps, and a couple of combats. We managed to loot a few small treasures and also got one of the great green emeralds from the top of the tower, with a tense last minute scramble by Lexi's archer. It was a blast, and I'd love to get a chance to play Dragonbane again. 

Flynn's afternoon game was Cyberpunk Red, run by a fellow Busan gamer named Keith. Flynn told me they were a low level street gang, running deliveries of drugs and bootleg chips for Razor, their boss. They got into a deal way over their heads, but somehow managed to charm one of the criminal syndicates, who helped them defeat the cyberninja that was pulling the rigged deals. Flynn's character was a street rapper, and Keith had him use ChatGPT to come up with lyrics for his rap songs during the game, which Flynn enjoyed. 

Keith running his game. Flynn is in the NASA shirt. I don't know the other players.

The Cyberpunk game went down to the wire (6pm). We went across the street to Shake Shack for dinner. Even though we had burgers for lunch, my Dragonbane group had gone there and invited me along. I waited for Flynn, so we showed up a little late and had to sit at another table because another gamer had joined them. 

After that, we headed back home. All in all, a really fun day. And we got to meet some cool new people, and play some games we probably never would have gotten a chance to play if we hadn't gone. I definitely want to run something like this here in Busan in the near future.  

Chintzy Magic Items (And a Game Con!)

 Tomorrow (Saturday, June 7th), Flynn and I are headed up to Daegu for their One-Shot Extravaganza TTRPG event. It actually starts this evening and goes through Sunday afternoon. But honestly, the games we wanted to get in the most were Saturday morning and afternoon. So we'll drive up tomorrow morning (about an hour's drive on the expressway) and come back tomorrow evening after the games. 

 Flynn prefers sci-fi to fantasy, so he's got a Traveller game in the morning (called "Death Station" and honestly, this was my first pick for this time slot as well), and in the afternoon will be playing Cyberpunk Red. He's been playing the Cyberpunk 2077 PC game, and loves it, so he's hyped for this game. 

In the morning, I'll be playing in what looks to be a sorta whimsical D&D 5E game. The DM seems much more focused on "telling a story" than running an adventure...but more on this in a bit. In the afternoon, I'll finally get a chance to try out Dragonbane (my first pick, Cyberpunk being my #2). I've been curious about it for a while now. The DM for this game sent a list of pre-gens, and I'm torn between the shifty human wizard and the wolf-man monster hunter. There's also a duck-man knight that could be interesting, but may be too similar to my morning character so I'll try to get one of the above two PCs. 

 For the 5E game, the DM has some pre-gens, but said we could also make characters and submit them for approval. I considered playing a Sorcerer, which along with the Warlock are the two classes in 5E that I've never tried to play. Or a Druid, which I did try once, and had fun with. But in the end, I went with a classic Dwarf Fighter, Level 3 (Battle Master archetype). Since it's a custom point-buy system, of course his physical abilities are really good (although I didn't go so far as to give myself a 20 in Strength...merely an 18). He's got the Noble background, and I had fun filling out a short list of titles he bears that would make Lwaxana Troi proud. And that's why I'll try to avoid the Sir Duck character in the Dragonbane game.

The DM said we each have 250gp to spend, so plenty of normal gear or a small magic item or two. But looking through 5E's selection, I was reminded of just how chintzy a lot of the magic is in 5E. Many of the cheap magic items listed online seem to be mostly cosmetic. And the few useful ones mostly refer to spells, which reminded me of just how unimpressive a lot of magic is in 5E. 

A potion of growth in old school D&D makes you giant and doubles your damage (I just checked 1E, though, and it only makes you big, no damage bonus...)! In 5E, it makes you giant and gives you +1d4 damage on your attacks. Helpful, but not impressive. 

A potion of climbing in old school D&D gives a 95% chance to climb sheer surfaces (99% in 1E!), but in 5E it only gives advantage on your climb checks and lets you move at full speed. 

And I'm sure I don't need to rehash how many magic effects that used to be instant effect (sleep), save-or-die, or at least save-or-be-out-of-combat in old school games are now make-a-save-each-round-until-you-escape-it. 

Old school magic users may not get as many spells, but it sure is a lot more fun to play one when the spells you do prepare pack a punch!  

Anyway, to end on a positive note: I'm looking forward to my first face-to-face game convention. And I'll be taking notes to see how easy it will be for me and a few friends to put on one here in Busan.