Goodman Games

'tis only the beginning - I ran out of time last night and only got to just before The Boot.

mshensley wrote:[various cover images]

The covers are coming out great. And just WAIT to see the maps.

Both covers and maps are being done by the talented Mr. Kovacs:

http://dougkovacs.com/home.html

It is a luxury that Doug is also part of the design team, so he has an intimate knowledge of the game and adventures. As far as the writer/artist link goes, it doesn't get much tighter than that. (Paul Jaquays, notwithstanding.)

//H

OK, my feedback. Some caveats:
1. I did not see any rulebook or know what the exact details of the system were, beyond my own PC. I was given a worksheet with the basics of the elf wizard on it. I was given a character sheet with the values prefilled and I was given several sheets with spell information on them (5 spells in all).
2. I came in with no real preconceptions. I'd heard some rumblings and some of the old school RPG bloggers that I enjoy reading had enjoyed playtests they participated in, so I was in an open frame of mind.
3. I'm not a very good games design dude, but I know what I like and I play what I like and I like to tinker, so enough with the caveats already!
4. If you add Jeff Rients or kids to any game, the amount of awesome goes up logarithmically. Thus, this game was destined to be a lot of fun no matter what.

I played in the Saturday morning game with Harley Stroh as DM, playing a scenario by which we were off to the frozen northlands over sea and ice to fetch some wazoo that some whoodunit had gone looking for. I was an elf astrologer with 7 hp, it wasn't like I was planning on living a long time!

What worked

* Combat, as HARLEY ran it, was fast. No initiative, that I recall, except maybe during the battle with the group of walrus-dudes in front of the twin black spires. Was this precalculated and kept during the battle?

* Magic was fun to try, almost addictive. I like the success modes. I'd really like to see similar failure modes. Not just failure, but failure with a bang. Not just crits either. If you're gonna have tables for successes, have tables for failures, please.

* Char sheet was clean/straightforward. I liked it!

* Assigning a penalty to casting with armor, forcing me to take off my armor during combat. That was funny! I was Carls'agan, the elf stripper!

* HARLEY abstracted a lot of the system for me. I never was sure what was required for searching, or for doing other things - so I'd just ask and he'd tell me. I like that a good competent DM will be able to run this system this way.

* I never critted, so the dice/table reference from my char sheet wasn't relevant to me. I enjoyed the crits done to me and that others did - that gave each battle a unique flavor.

* It was enough like D&D that I didn't feel totally thrown by anything, but it had some differences that did NOT detract from the game at all. I would easily play this again... as long as you pack HARLEY in the box.


What gave me pause

* My combat was simple, but watching what some of the other guys had to do, the use of many dice could be confusing at first. (use a d20 + a d5. While it's just dice, at an instictive level, I found myself going 'Wha...'? until I had seen it a few times.)

* A lot of modifiers and dicing and dicing and dicing. This is the part where I think how you present the need to dice a lot and how you present the tables of results will be key. I have to admit, HARLEY made this very easy, but it might have a learning curve to what seems to be a key portion of the game.

* The spell sheets - they were cool and at the same time, I'm flipping through them during the game to look at each one to see what is the best thing to do. It's a cool idea and a possible sticky point, which is why I put that aspect here. I'm also not sure if my levels increase the odds of doing good (from looking at the spell sheets and my char sheets, I'm guessing that as I increase in levels, my "DC" should go down?) If that's the case, those handy-dandy spell sheets are going to be tweaked each level? Wow - that's... uhhh... gonna be interesting to see how you can present that. Hehe, why do I see wizard players of DCC RPG toting around REAL spell books of charts? Just teasin'... but that's a challenge.

What didn't work

* Nothing to report here! I came away very pleased by the experience and interested in seeing this game develop. Being the player was very easy. I'd be interested in learning how to run this system, because I think that's where the bulk of the work is at, right now. So I can't speak from a DM's perspective.

Final thoughts

I've now been reading more about the game around the Intarwebz and some playtesters have said "what about campaigns, the game's too gonzo for a PC to survive long" and I have an answer for them. Guns. Lots of guns.



No, really. Instead of guns, PCs. If I was playing a campaign using this system, I'd have at least four PCs. This game is going to be deadly, just from watching how things transpired at our table. I think 3 of us died, and I think we all were 3rd level or closeby? Yea... if Harley's game was indicative of the lethality, bring lots of guns. I tried to hire some hirelings, but apparently I blew my charisma roll and nobody else wanted to try. Ugh. Anyway... a campaign isn't going to be about just your one wonder dude and his/her life achievements. You need an army and you better bring one, because the DM ain't screwin' around with this game.

That may require some selling by the DM, but I think it's going to be a must, if the lethality level stays the same and I hope it does. This takes D&D back to a feel like wargaming... you gotta have lots of guns to take on the other side. I like that.

I'm probably not giving the game designers much food for thought beyond "this seems to be working" and "you have your work cut out to make the spells and lots of rolls presentable enough that a DM doesn't go crazy trying to make it all work". I'd be happy to playtest again if there's a game scheduled locally.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this game goes.

Now to specifics of the elf astrologer/wizard dude and spells.

Invoke Patron spell - I like it and I especially like that it's not a "fail and lose it" spell. Since I hadn't cast "bond" prior - HARLEY didn't ask me to, I figured it was pretty much cast till "Copernicus" skeeshed me. Well, that was about 3 times and he told me to beat it.

Invisibility - No issues with it as I used it, my results were pretty much "You go invisible." The 34+ result of an invisibility cloaking uber device is pretty radical. I'd like to see that in play.

Charm Person - didn't use it, although the 12-13 result of target being dazed and confused is "meh".

BTW, just as an aside, do the rules allow me to pick a lower result? If I had rolled on this chart and gotten a 15 where the dude is under my control, but I like him to be dazed and confused so my thief buddy can take him out, can I opt for the lesser result? I like that thought and I'd probably houserule yes.

Chill Touch - didn't use.

General question - do we dice the manifestation or just pick?

Magic Missile - I didn't use this but watched Rients cause holy freaking war on the walruses with it. Wow, that's one jacked up missile spell. I can see why he kept using it. That would make a first level guy pretty powerful - are you scaling the results so that the lower level guys aren't gonna get these high end roll results?

The elf character handout... I gotta be honest, tl;dr at the convention. I sat down, saw "astrologer", thought it said "astronomer", came up with the name, saw I'd screwed up, kept the name anyway and played. Kudoes that my charsheet and HARLEY made reading optional.

Now looking at it... it's pretty dense setting wise. What if my elves are wild chaotic fey creatures that say "screw your cities"? Is the setting info going to be part of the final book? Is there going to be an official DCC RPG setting that all this takes place in? Cause if so, that means I'm going to be strip mining your book liberally and the modules start to lose some value - to me. I'd like to see less setting, just the facts of the attributes, features and required mechanics. But that's me, you'll probably get a zillion people saying it should have setting. So call me the rebel here.

Luck - I didn't use it as I wasn't sure what it was about and in reading the description in the elf handout, it seems pretty meh. Applies to only one 1st level spell? I just became a magic missile gunner. LOL. I'd make this a bit more flexible if I were going to DM... another houserule area. Oh wait, looking at the char sheet, it says that my luck bonus applies to missile rolls? So now I'm confused about luck in general.

The bit about mercurial magic was kinda lost on me, under Action dice. What is the difference between arcane magic and mercurial magic? You might want to make that a bit clearer on the handout?

Charsheet. Awesome as is. I really, really liked it.

So that's it for specifics. I hope this all makes sense, if not, I'll try to clarify.

ChicagoWiz!

Again, my thanks for taking the time to play in the DCC playtests. This applies to everyone at the con. There were so many freakin' cool events being run by the elders of our community that any time someone played in one of our games it was because they were giving up the chance to play with Jim Ward, et al. So a big thank you to all the playtesters.

Chgowiz wrote: * Combat, as HARLEY ran it, was fast. No initiative, that I recall, except maybe during the battle with the group of walrus-dudes in front of the twin black spires. Was this precalculated and kept during the battle?

We had a couple of initiative rolls, but once the party split up (at some point during the walrus-man episode) I reverted to "call on players in the order to best sustain cliff-hanger" initiative. But that was Judge's caveat; rules as written, we'd roll for every new combat.

Chgowiz wrote: * Magic was fun to try, almost addictive. I like the success modes. I'd really like to see similar failure modes. Not just failure, but failure with a bang. Not just crits either. If you're gonna have tables for successes, have tables for failures, please.

Heh. Noted. We do have the corruption table, as Jeff found out, but I'll kick your thoughts to Joseph.

Chgowiz wrote: * HARLEY abstracted a lot of the system for me. I never was sure what was required for searching, or for doing other things - so I'd just ask and he'd tell me. I like that a good competent DM will be able to run this system this way.

Yes. Intentionally a lot of the skills, searches and what not, are dictated by the player explaining what he or she wants to do. So it is less of a:

Player 1: I step into room. I rolled a 23 on my Spot check. What do I see?

But more of:

Player 1: I step into the room? What do I see?

Judge: Tell me how you are searching the room.

Player: Um. I run my hands over the far wall, looking for cracks.

Judge: Okay, you feel the faintest hint of cool air along the base of the wall, and condensation on the floor.

Chgowiz wrote: * I never critted, so the dice/table reference from my char sheet wasn't relevant to me. I enjoyed the crits done to me and that others did - that gave each battle a unique flavor.

Again, Mushmouth 'Agan was *awesome.*

Chgowiz wrote: What gave me pause

* My combat was simple, but watching what some of the other guys had to do, the use of many dice could be confusing at first. (use a d20 + a d5. While it's just dice, at an instictive level, I found myself going 'Wha...'? until I had seen it a few times.)

This is fair. The warriors are not "straight d20 rollers." With a bit of experience, they can be just as strategic/complex as spell casters.

Chgowiz wrote: * A lot of modifiers and dicing and dicing and dicing. This is the part where I think how you present the need to dice a lot and how you present the tables of results will be key. I have to admit, HARLEY made this very easy, but it might have a learning curve to what seems to be a key portion of the game.

Yes, layout will absolutely be key to presentation. The more we run playtests the better we are able to refine how the rough tables should look, and what makes the most immediate sense to someone playing it cold.

Chgowiz wrote: * The spell sheets - they were cool and at the same time, I'm flipping through them during the game to look at each one to see what is the best thing to do. It's a cool idea and a possible sticky point, which is why I put that aspect here. I'm also not sure if my levels increase the odds of doing good (from looking at the spell sheets and my char sheets, I'm guessing that as I increase in levels, my "DC" should go down?) If that's the case, those handy-dandy spell sheets are going to be tweaked each level? Wow - that's... uhhh... gonna be interesting to see how you can present that. Hehe, why do I see wizard players of DCC RPG toting around REAL spell books of charts? Just teasin'... but that's a challenge.

We've considered that, having a esoteric "grimoire-like layout" for each spell, so you'd come to the game with your weird 10 page spellbook. I'm not sure where Joseph is on that final call. However the layout goes, we are definitely headed towards the "one spell per page" layout, like you saw at the con. For me, it sounds like fun - I'd be the player sewing together his photocopies into a tome of eldritch knowledge, but I can see how that might not appeal to every gamer.

Chgowiz wrote: I've now been reading more about the game around the Intarwebz and some playtesters have said "what about campaigns, the game's too gonzo for a PC to survive long" and I have an answer for them. Guns. Lots of guns.

No, really. Instead of guns, PCs. If I was playing a campaign using this system, I'd have at least four PCs. This game is going to be deadly, just from watching how things transpired at our table. I think 3 of us died, and I think we all were 3rd level or closeby? Yea... if Harley's game was indicative of the lethality, bring lots of guns. I tried to hire some hirelings, but apparently I blew my charisma roll and nobody else wanted to try. Ugh. Anyway... a campaign isn't going to be about just your one wonder dude and his/her life achievements. You need an army and you better bring one, because the DM ain't screwin' around with this game.

Ah ... and here ChicagoWiz drives to the heart of the matter, and is 100% correct. If we had played a 0-level game you would have seen this in action, with each player bringing 3+ PCs to the table and seeing them whittled away, one by one.

You were absolutely right to try to raise a crew of hirelings; with a little more support from your fellow party members you might have pulled this off. The aid of just a handful of 0-level henchmen can make all the difference, buying the PCs an extra round or two to formulate a counterattack, which – with crits and the madness of spells – can make all the difference.

In this light, the game can be pretty grim. Experienced PCs aren't golden heroes atop their chargers, but rather demon-haunted wizards and scarred warriors. I predict that a lot of the playtest feedback from the beta will be fine tuning the lethality of the game, balancing grim violence (and heroism that matters!) against player enjoyment.

Thank you for the thorough feedback, and again, for taking the time to play at GaryCon. I'm looking forward to GaryCon IV!

//H

Chgowiz wrote:I'd like to see less setting, just the facts of the attributes, features and required mechanics. But that's me, you'll probably get a zillion people saying it should have setting. So call me the rebel here.

I'll be your retainer on this one. +1 from me on less setting.

Thanks for your review, Chgowiz.

Chgowiz wrote: Invoke Patron spell - I like it and I especially like that it's not a "fail and lose it" spell. Since I hadn't cast "bond" prior - HARLEY didn't ask me to, I figured it was pretty much cast till "Copernicus" skeeshed me. Well, that was about 3 times and he told me to beat it.

Roger. The assumption is that at some point in your caster’s prior career he had struck a bond with a patron. Invoking that patron, then, was ‘Agan calling upon his patron.

Chgowiz wrote: BTW, just as an aside, do the rules allow me to pick a lower result? If I had rolled on this chart and gotten a 15 where the dude is under my control, but I like him to be dazed and confused so my thief buddy can take him out, can I opt for the lesser result? I like that thought and I'd probably houserule yes.

This came up at GenghisCon, too. Presently, RAW do not permit selecting a lower result (Joseph, please correct me if I’ve missed it), but I do think there is a case to be made for choosing a “lesser” manifestation.

Chgowiz wrote: General question - do we dice the manifestation or just pick?

When you acquire a spell in a campaign, your personal manifestation will be specific to the caster. There aren’t mechanical implications from the manifestation, so I’d be fine with the player picking his caster’s theme with manifestations, but you can also roll.

Chgowiz wrote: Magic Missile - I didn't use this but watched Rients cause holy freaking war on the walruses with it. Wow, that's one jacked up missile spell. I can see why he kept using it. That would make a first level guy pretty powerful - are you scaling the results so that the lower level guys aren't gonna get these high end roll results?

A really good spellcheck, combined with a huge spellburn, could allow for a low-level caster to pull out a phenomenal result. However, it is fairly self-limiting in that spellburn comes at great cost and has implications for days. This, along with the risk of corruption (a much bigger deal in campaign play) balances the power of spellcasters.

Chgowiz wrote: Now looking at it... it's pretty dense setting wise. What if my elves are wild chaotic fey creatures that say "screw your cities"? Is the setting info going to be part of the final book? Is there going to be an official DCC RPG setting that all this takes place in? Cause if so, that means I'm going to be strip mining your book liberally and the modules start to lose some value - to me. I'd like to see less setting, just the facts of the attributes, features and required mechanics. But that's me, you'll probably get a zillion people saying it should have setting. So call me the rebel here.

The final table of contents is still a work in process, but I’m doubting there will be much room for setting in the final presentation, whether we want it or not. I look at the current rules set, the insane art coming in, and the pre-order price looks like a steal. I'm not a layout guy, so I could be way off, but ... man.

Chgowiz wrote: Luck - I didn't use it as I wasn't sure what it was about and in reading the description in the elf handout, it seems pretty meh. Applies to only one 1st level spell? I just became a magic missile gunner. LOL. I'd make this a bit more flexible if I were going to DM... another houserule area. Oh wait, looking at the char sheet, it says that my luck bonus applies to missile rolls? So now I'm confused about luck in general.

It wasn’t terribly apparent from your pre-gen, but every PC has a luck bonus specific to that character. So a warrior with a great luck score, say +3, might have a randomly determined luck effect that applies that bonus to all melee attacks. Or he might have a terrible luck, and have that apply to his AC. And so on.

Chgowiz wrote: The bit about mercurial magic was kinda lost on me, under Action dice. What is the difference between arcane magic and mercurial magic? You might want to make that a bit clearer on the handout?

This one falls on my shoulders. When we started seating more and more players for the session, plus kids, I opted to gloss over mercurial magic for getting the game moving.

In rules as written, every arcane spell has an effect unique to the caster, above and beyond the spellcheck result. So your magic missile might also create a ring of cold around the caster, or a nimbus of magical silence, or set the target on fire, or a dozen other results. Not a huge deal in an ongoing campaign where you learn one spell at a time, but a time sink in a loud convention setting.

As I’m sure folks have realized, the goal of the playtests is slowly shifting. It’s pretty clear that we can bang out a fun one-shot adventure. But how those rules hold up over multiple sessions, run by different judges with different styles and levels of experience, will be telling. Hopefully, enough of you are enthusiastic enough to run home games when the beta is released, because *that* feedback will be the most valuable of all.

//H

Spellburn being sacrificing your attributes to add to your roll? OK, that makes sense... when you positively, absolutely gotta whack the bad guy and you're willing to lay out the mage over a period of days of recovery just so he can do it. That makes sense, and does make for an interesting choice. Cool.

Thanks for the responses!

If you are going to have an official setting, that would be sweet to release as downloadable content.

You know... there are some things here that really run close to my imagined Sumerian setting I keep pissing and moaning about. I may need to take a really hard look at your beta when it comes out...

smathis wrote:

Chgowiz wrote:I'd like to see less setting, just the facts of the attributes, features and required mechanics. But that's me, you'll probably get a zillion people saying it should have setting. So call me the rebel here.

I'll be your retainer on this one. +1 from me on less setting.

Thanks for your review, Chgowiz.

<stormtrooper>
You rebel scum!
</stormtrooper>


Put me down as +1 for a reboot of Aereth with a book or box.
EDIT: Separate from the main rulebook, naturally.

Chgowiz wrote:Spellburn being sacrificing your attributes to add to your roll? OK, that makes sense... when you positively, absolutely gotta whack the bad guy and you're willing to lay out the mage over a period of days of recovery just so he can do it.

Exactly. Just don't roll that one, right?

//H

dkeester wrote:

smathis wrote:

Chgowiz wrote:I'd like to see less setting, just the facts of the attributes, features and required mechanics. But that's me, you'll probably get a zillion people saying it should have setting. So call me the rebel here.

Put me down as +1 for a reboot of Aereth with a book or box.
EDIT: Separate from the main rulebook, naturally.

I think you guys might be on the same page.

Nominal Setting: Áereth.

In the core book? I can't imagine how.

But again, I'm not calling the shots. I'll leave this one to Joseph, input from the fans, and the layout magicians.

//H

Harley Stroh wrote:

Chgowiz wrote:If I had rolled on this chart and gotten a 15 where the dude is under my control, but I like him to be dazed and confused so my thief buddy can take him out, can I opt for the lesser result?

Presently, RAW do not permit selecting a lower result (Joseph, please correct me if I’ve missed it), but I do think there is a case to be made for choosing a “lesser” manifestation.

...Perhaps 1 step down per level? That'd model learning the finesse needed to 'bend' the effect...

GnomeBoy wrote:

Harley Stroh wrote:

Chgowiz wrote:If I had rolled on this chart and gotten a 15 where the dude is under my control, but I like him to be dazed and confused so my thief buddy can take him out, can I opt for the lesser result?

Presently, RAW do not permit selecting a lower result (Joseph, please correct me if I’ve missed it), but I do think there is a case to be made for choosing a “lesser” manifestation.

...Perhaps 1 step down per level? That'd model learning the finesse needed to 'bend' the effect...

GnomeBoy, I like your thinking.

Chgowiz wrote:OK, my feedback.

Gaaaah. Michael, I should have guessed you'd be there. Makes me even more bummed that I missed the Mt Prospect game session.

Fantastic information in your posts. Gives me a good feel for what the game session was like without giving away too many spoilers for folks who may still play this scenario.

You think HARLEY can be packaged with each rulebook? I'm thinking we need to ponder the logistics of this.

finarvyn wrote:You think HARLEY can be packaged with each rulebook? I'm thinking we need to ponder the logistics of this.

You'd be amazed at the life like photo-copiers on the market these days!

JediOre wrote:

finarvyn wrote:You think HARLEY can be packaged with each rulebook? I'm thinking we need to ponder the logistics of this.

You'd be amazed at the life like photo-copiers on the market these days!

With nano-tech, anything is possible!

Back to the source: here's a fun pic from our trip to Gary Con. That's me, cover artist Doug Kovacs, and of course the adventure maestro Harley Stroh.

I love how Doug is "Free and Accepted."

What a fantastic convention. Great times and a wonderful tribute to the giants that laid the foundation for our games.

//H

Harley Stroh wrote:I love how Doug is "Free and Accepted."

...And that you, apparently, have a large yellow Jaycees beer can looming dangerously over your left shoulder.

But a Sisters t? You, sir, are a man of obvious taste and refinement.

If we ever meet, I'll try to be wearing my Bauhaus t.

smathis wrote:

Chgowiz wrote:I'd like to see less setting, just the facts of the attributes, features and required mechanics. But that's me, you'll probably get a zillion people saying it should have setting. So call me the rebel here.

I'll be your retainer on this one. +1 from me on less setting.

I fear you're both quite insane. I'm in dkeester's Imperial Star Destroyer on the topic of the setting.

Chgowiz wrote:if the lethality level stays the same and I hope it does. This takes D&D back to a feel like wargaming...

Or, y'know, the Call of Cthulhu rpg. Wasn't Lovecraft in Appendix N?

Chgowiz wrote:HARLEY

Err...OK, I love Harley and he's unquestionably a Game Master Deity and King of All Time and Space. And he smells nice, too.

But even your homeboy God only merits a single capitol "G" in the literature.

Are you founding a new religion? (Harleyism? Strohianity?)

What's with all the capitols?

Ogrepuppy wrote: What's with all the capitols?

Heh. Everyone knows I'm just a shy dork that likes to play rpgs. But my name (Harley Davidson + Stroh's Beer) happens to be at the confluence of ChicagoWiz's two great muses. And they must work because Wiz runs a great game; if you catch him at a con, don't hesitate to jump in.

//H

Ogrepuppy wrote:

Chgowiz wrote:HARLEY

Err...OK, I love Harley and he's unquestionably a Game Master Deity and King of All Time and Space. And he smells nice, too.

But even your homeboy God only merits a single capitol "G" in the literature.

Are you founding a new religion? (Harleyism? Strohianity?)

What's with all the capitols?

LOL. +1 for this post. But wouldn't it be HARLEYism?

It sounds like I am going to have to make a point to go to Gary Con in 2012. It sounds like I missed out on a killer weekend.