Second Playtest (with actual people!) Part 1, 2, & 3
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 1:16 pm
Our playtest consisted of Dan, Chris, Bill, Me (Jork), and Bob, our DM. Bob’s been running Goodman modules for Dan and I for years, and this game is all the way inside his wheelhouse. The module we played was familiar, a zero-level number that was not the one I posted about previously, so that ought to barrow it down quite a bit, but I’m too lazy to go look it up.
Chris and Bill had a lot of previous experience with 2nd and 3rd edition D&D, Chris still actively runs a 2E game. I missed most of their initial character gen, as I had previously rolled up and run my characters with Dan in a previous session. Dan rerolled his zeros to start fresh, and as it stood, we only had one first level character through the first half of the session (Old Dale, Wizard and swordsman).
There is quite a bit of strategy involved in having 25 characters at the table, and not just the who’s out in front part of it either. Each player essentially could be his own group within the party, and as it worked out that wasn’t so much an issue, but I could see that maybe getting to be onerous if a player became obstinate about plans he or she wasn’t willing to go along with.
The first encounter involved only two of our characters, Bill’s stupid elf (INT 4), and Chris’ human weaver, and they fought an orc to the death as they scouted a route around a skull shaped hill. Dan pointed out that all of the back and forth and single points of damage inflicted by all three combatants was more like an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess, or Kevin Sorbo’s Hercules than a proper gritty combat. The orc killed the weaver and tried to flee, and the elf gave chase, missed on the charge and was also slain by the orc, who at that point had only 1 hit point left (after a full turn of hits and misses). No one else saw the orc, and the remainder of the group was forced to assume that the trees and bludgeoned to death those slain. Though unsuccessful, I think everyone enjoyed the combat.
Personally, I think that’s what sells this game for me: how much fun it is, even when I’m not directly involved. There is a lot of tension in combat, so much so that the bad outcome of a fight could mean that those not directly involved will have to get involved, and that the width of a tunnel is key in effectively nullifying the advantage a zero level party has in numbers. Old Dale cast his first spell fighting a chained dire wolf, Magic Shield, which caused members of his party to believe he’d become possessed (esp. since his manifestation of the shield was a black tear in reality and his face took on the terrible visage). The role playing here was pretty good considering how many personalities could have been at play, and each player had a good grasp on what each would or wouldn’t do. The greater number of players really helped with some of the nebulous moral gray areas, since the lawful guys could take a back seat while the neutral or chaotic ones could do what they felt needed doing. Which, for what I’m used to experiencing with 3rd edition, is something of a revelation. It might be the group I played with, the Chaotic Evil Drow Ninja Assassins, but it was nice to have folks worry less about what was good or evil and what was lawful or not. It made the moral arguments a lot easier to conclude satisfactorily for everyone.
I’ve got more to say, but I have to work, so I’ll post part 2 soooooooon!
Chris and Bill had a lot of previous experience with 2nd and 3rd edition D&D, Chris still actively runs a 2E game. I missed most of their initial character gen, as I had previously rolled up and run my characters with Dan in a previous session. Dan rerolled his zeros to start fresh, and as it stood, we only had one first level character through the first half of the session (Old Dale, Wizard and swordsman).
There is quite a bit of strategy involved in having 25 characters at the table, and not just the who’s out in front part of it either. Each player essentially could be his own group within the party, and as it worked out that wasn’t so much an issue, but I could see that maybe getting to be onerous if a player became obstinate about plans he or she wasn’t willing to go along with.
The first encounter involved only two of our characters, Bill’s stupid elf (INT 4), and Chris’ human weaver, and they fought an orc to the death as they scouted a route around a skull shaped hill. Dan pointed out that all of the back and forth and single points of damage inflicted by all three combatants was more like an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess, or Kevin Sorbo’s Hercules than a proper gritty combat. The orc killed the weaver and tried to flee, and the elf gave chase, missed on the charge and was also slain by the orc, who at that point had only 1 hit point left (after a full turn of hits and misses). No one else saw the orc, and the remainder of the group was forced to assume that the trees and bludgeoned to death those slain. Though unsuccessful, I think everyone enjoyed the combat.
Personally, I think that’s what sells this game for me: how much fun it is, even when I’m not directly involved. There is a lot of tension in combat, so much so that the bad outcome of a fight could mean that those not directly involved will have to get involved, and that the width of a tunnel is key in effectively nullifying the advantage a zero level party has in numbers. Old Dale cast his first spell fighting a chained dire wolf, Magic Shield, which caused members of his party to believe he’d become possessed (esp. since his manifestation of the shield was a black tear in reality and his face took on the terrible visage). The role playing here was pretty good considering how many personalities could have been at play, and each player had a good grasp on what each would or wouldn’t do. The greater number of players really helped with some of the nebulous moral gray areas, since the lawful guys could take a back seat while the neutral or chaotic ones could do what they felt needed doing. Which, for what I’m used to experiencing with 3rd edition, is something of a revelation. It might be the group I played with, the Chaotic Evil Drow Ninja Assassins, but it was nice to have folks worry less about what was good or evil and what was lawful or not. It made the moral arguments a lot easier to conclude satisfactorily for everyone.
I’ve got more to say, but I have to work, so I’ll post part 2 soooooooon!