A few years back (more like half a decade, but time is meaningless in this sort of Cat & Squid game), my friend Joe got challenged by Ryan Macklin to write a functional RPG in less than 500 words. That challenge turned into Dime Stories, an RPG about cowboy gunfights and cartoon villains in Spaaaaaaace. It got me my second RPG writing credit (after the... underutilized Red Dragon Inn Appetizer) and I've had the chance to run it at GenCon for the last 4 years. Dime Stories has been good to me.
I went through a pretty severe depressive episode over the past week. An utter loss of motivation, a huge upswing in disassociation, and a tsunami of existential dread. I'm sure part of this was triggered by editing some very personal blog entries for a friend, but I knew that going in to the project. Usually, when I'm going in to these sorts of episodes, I focus on the things that make me happy. I talk to my wife, I play with my cats, I read upbeat books, I listen to fast music. None of that really worked well this time around. Eventually, my mind wandered back to my last year of high school and my first year of college. The age when I started going to punk shows.
Punk shows, in that era and in that part of Ohio, were a really weird thing. They usually took place in VFW halls or in someone's barn, because that's where the available space was. There were a lot of skinheads, because it was Ohio and Ohio has a higher than acceptable percentage of racist assholes. There were a lot of shitty bands, because it was Ohio and Ohio's music education programs are about as robust as our Ski Rescue programs. There were a lot of great memories, because it was my first real experience getting out into (what I though, at the time, was) the wider world.
Half-remembered concerts, fistfights, and nights at Tom's Donuts (ordering only a drink and eating Day Old Donuts that were 50c a piece, for five hours, while my friends chain-smoked a pack and a half each) flooded back to mind. Inspired by Quinn Murphy's excellent game Five Fires, I felt the need to put my experience into a cohesive form. I jammed out a bunch of words and something resembling Punk's Been Dead Since '79 happened. It was only afterwards that I decided to try to fit it into the 500 Words framework. (Note: I am aware of the newer 200 Word challenge, but I can't be arsed to edit this down to that level.)
In PBDS79, you're a member of the punk community in the space between cities in the (Late 90s / Early 00s). Your goals? Go to shows, find a place to belong, seek an outlet for your feelings, look for companionship, or just break everything. It's based loosely on the (Apocalypse World / Dungeon World / Monsterhearts) games, because they're fast and easy and full of raw emotion.
Check it out.
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Follow this link to Punk's Been Dead Since '79 for complete rules.
Showing posts with label playtest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label playtest. Show all posts
2012/05/25
D&D 5e Playtest: Combat 1
Yes, I realize that the working title is *still* D&D Next. Yes, I realize that D&D Next sounds like NewCoke or Crystal Pepsi. That's why I don't use it. And technically, if we're counting all of the editions, we're on D&D 10e or something. Meanwhile, here comes the playtesting. (Obviously, spoilers abound for the playtest adventure.)
So let me set the scene. Five players, me in the DM's chair (well, I stand for the entirety of the game, but I think DM's chair is more a figure of speech anyway). First, a little more about the players.
Vicki - Playing the Elf Wizard. Her experience with D&D amounts to two sessions of Pathfinder.
Adam - Playing the Human Cleric. Adam doesn't generally play spellcasters, but really likes this Cleric.
Heather - Playing the Dwarf Fighter. Usually plays fighters. Refuses to play spellcasters.
Mary - Playing the Dwarf Cleric. Has some experience with meaty, hammer-wielding nonsense.
Joe - Playing the Halfling Rogue for two reasons: 1) Everyone else picked their characters first. 2) Joe somehow always ends up playing Rogues.
The session started out with Our Heroes leaving Castellan Keep for the Caves of Chaos. As the PCs crested a small hill, the full majesty and terror of the Caves of Chaos came into view. The party, having been sent to the caves for several different (but complimentary) reasons, set off for the cave entrances.
Adam, being the voice of Cleric, decided that they should go into the cave at the far West end of this tier of the complex. His rationale was that the path to it was lit by the Undying Light of Pelor and therefor nothing bad could possibly go wrong.
In that cave, the party found an Owlbear. Something bad had gone wrong.
The halfling hid, the dwarves tried to sneak into melee, and the other two stayed outside the entrance hoping to blast the hapless monster with lasers. Initiative was rolled and off we went.
Joe, having advantage over the poor giant magical monstrosity, decided to start pelting it with rocks from his sling. A well placed shot and the monster was injured. Cheers around the table.
Heather charged in, Greataxe in slaughtering mode. She swung and missed. A collective "aww" was uttered. That is, until I reminded her that even on a miss she does damage. Cheers again.
Mary carefully positioned herself to better harm the beastie. She swung and connected with her warhammer.
It was the owlbear's turn. Yay. Claw, Claw, Bite. All directed at Heather. All misses.
Adam cast a Radiant Lance at the owlbear, searing off some of its fur.
Vicki cast Magic Missile, because she'd always wanted to do that.
Joe hid again to regain advantage. Heather swung and hit with her axe. Mary cast Crusader's Strike on her warhammer, turning it into Warhammer 40k. The owlbear hit Heather for a grand total of 6 damage. Adam cast Searing Light on the owlbear, doing significant damage. Vicki tried to cast Ray of Frost, but missed the attack roll.
The combat went on for another three rounds, with the PCs emerging victorious. I let them know that the Owlbear was supposed to be sort of a sub-boss for this complex and they'd gone in a totally different direction than the module designers had planned. Most of the players thought this was bad game design, but Joe and I countered that they probably just used the original Caves of Chaos/Keep on the Borderlands adventure with updated monsters. That means random crap happens. I'm not sure how much I like that, but the point of the playtest isn't to check for story.
High Points/Things We Liked: Overall simplicity, the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic, and at-will spells for the Wizard/Clerics. All of the fire-and-forget spells seemed to really be worth casting. Spell descriptions were to the point and simple enough for a complete newbie to understand on first read-through.
Low Points/Things We Disliked: The fighter seems a bit too simple compared to the other classes. Not enough options for Heather during a round. Also, our dice didn't want to roll well all night. I don't think the playtest will address that particular issue. Monster design is rather basic, hopefully there'll be a fix to that during the next round.
So far, D&D 5e is looking pretty sharp. 4 / 5 d20s. Later today (or possibly tomorrow), I'll have more on our playtest for your reading enjoyment.
So let me set the scene. Five players, me in the DM's chair (well, I stand for the entirety of the game, but I think DM's chair is more a figure of speech anyway). First, a little more about the players.
Vicki - Playing the Elf Wizard. Her experience with D&D amounts to two sessions of Pathfinder.
Adam - Playing the Human Cleric. Adam doesn't generally play spellcasters, but really likes this Cleric.
Heather - Playing the Dwarf Fighter. Usually plays fighters. Refuses to play spellcasters.
Mary - Playing the Dwarf Cleric. Has some experience with meaty, hammer-wielding nonsense.
Joe - Playing the Halfling Rogue for two reasons: 1) Everyone else picked their characters first. 2) Joe somehow always ends up playing Rogues.
The session started out with Our Heroes leaving Castellan Keep for the Caves of Chaos. As the PCs crested a small hill, the full majesty and terror of the Caves of Chaos came into view. The party, having been sent to the caves for several different (but complimentary) reasons, set off for the cave entrances.
Adam, being the voice of Cleric, decided that they should go into the cave at the far West end of this tier of the complex. His rationale was that the path to it was lit by the Undying Light of Pelor and therefor nothing bad could possibly go wrong.
In that cave, the party found an Owlbear. Something bad had gone wrong.
The halfling hid, the dwarves tried to sneak into melee, and the other two stayed outside the entrance hoping to blast the hapless monster with lasers. Initiative was rolled and off we went.
Joe, having advantage over the poor giant magical monstrosity, decided to start pelting it with rocks from his sling. A well placed shot and the monster was injured. Cheers around the table.
Heather charged in, Greataxe in slaughtering mode. She swung and missed. A collective "aww" was uttered. That is, until I reminded her that even on a miss she does damage. Cheers again.
Mary carefully positioned herself to better harm the beastie. She swung and connected with her warhammer.
It was the owlbear's turn. Yay. Claw, Claw, Bite. All directed at Heather. All misses.
Adam cast a Radiant Lance at the owlbear, searing off some of its fur.
Vicki cast Magic Missile, because she'd always wanted to do that.
Joe hid again to regain advantage. Heather swung and hit with her axe. Mary cast Crusader's Strike on her warhammer, turning it into Warhammer 40k. The owlbear hit Heather for a grand total of 6 damage. Adam cast Searing Light on the owlbear, doing significant damage. Vicki tried to cast Ray of Frost, but missed the attack roll.
The combat went on for another three rounds, with the PCs emerging victorious. I let them know that the Owlbear was supposed to be sort of a sub-boss for this complex and they'd gone in a totally different direction than the module designers had planned. Most of the players thought this was bad game design, but Joe and I countered that they probably just used the original Caves of Chaos/Keep on the Borderlands adventure with updated monsters. That means random crap happens. I'm not sure how much I like that, but the point of the playtest isn't to check for story.
High Points/Things We Liked: Overall simplicity, the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic, and at-will spells for the Wizard/Clerics. All of the fire-and-forget spells seemed to really be worth casting. Spell descriptions were to the point and simple enough for a complete newbie to understand on first read-through.
Low Points/Things We Disliked: The fighter seems a bit too simple compared to the other classes. Not enough options for Heather during a round. Also, our dice didn't want to roll well all night. I don't think the playtest will address that particular issue. Monster design is rather basic, hopefully there'll be a fix to that during the next round.
So far, D&D 5e is looking pretty sharp. 4 / 5 d20s. Later today (or possibly tomorrow), I'll have more on our playtest for your reading enjoyment.
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