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Unfortunately, the ones who need playtesting the most are the most daunting games to play. You know from the heartbreaker contest I'm down to play in or run anything. I still don't know what the gently caress with Intersector or I would've run it by now, and I'm in school so I just don't have the time to run Arenaball unless I played it very short. If anyone wants to play anything, show up today or Friday in IRC. I will find a way to get this poo poo done.
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Sep 6, 2012 00:43
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I have also been making an effort to show up in irc to see if there's games I can help with. I'll continue doing so tomorrow and maybe friday.
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Sep 6, 2012 01:18
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Intersector is actually really straightforward. I was going to make a character but my printer isn't cooperating to print out the character sheet. I'm gonna write one out later tonight, though, so I'm ready to play at some point this week. FlakyBiscuit did a great job laying everything out. I think part of the confusion probably stems from the order they were presented in - if you save the first document about the Praxis for last until you read everything else, it makes way more sense and is actually very easy to follow. The only question I had from reading his (her?) documents was that there was a mention of "the ending of a session is special and will be explained elsewhere" that never seemed to be explained.
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Sep 6, 2012 01:21
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Nah, it's very well put together, but I still have the names for stuff as a stumbling block. RBH's latest review says everything I could about why this is still difficult to me. And how do you make simulacra? What are anchors, mechanically? Do you find the anchor when you overcome all obstacles in a given sphere? What does the GM do in their own sphere, narratively? gnome: Even if your players thought their session of Nothing Amazing was nothing amazing; I laughed at the characters and their quirks so they were doing something right. They got the gist of things better than they thought from where I'm sitting. The Moves thing has come up twice now, so that's definitely a problem.
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Sep 6, 2012 02:06
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Also you guys should post in the recruitment megathread, you might get more bites!
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Sep 6, 2012 02:16
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MadRhetoric posted:
That's exactly what my take on it was too. Like, they complained about it and said it didn't fit how they play but honestly, there was a lot of laughing and we did have fun coming up with silly situations and things. Really, the main issue is the game took forever to start up and, in one player's words, "didn't have any crunchy bits to work towards," which I really think is a case of D&D poisoning the mind. I think most of the issues came from things being slow due to us not understanding how to play, as well as the system being a little clunky in places. If that got smoothed out and I roped them into another round, we could probably have a lot of fun with it, but I'm not sure they'll give me the chance to test that. It was really a mixed bag.
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Sep 6, 2012 03:15
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I don't think I'd be able to put together a playtest for Disarmament in time. If someone else does one that'd be cool, but no sweat either way. Also, I forgot to post about the Ministry of Heaven playtest I participated in. It was fun! I think the previous comments hit most of the points but here are my two cents: Mechanically, I like the idea of the metagame surrounding blackjack and poker though I agree the bidding felt sort of unweildy. It was little tough to figure out what to do with scenes sometimes, particularly since there doesn't seem to be a mechanical link between what happens in the scenes and what problems are solved 'officially' by the blackjack phase. Likewise with how talents and flaws are used, unless I missed something. Naturally everything took longer since it was our first time, but it seems like it takes some team effort to keep the game moving, which is necessary due to the number of rounds. All in all though I think the game gives a good framework for creating scenarios which makes for a nice self-generating story, and the theme lead to a lot of humor.
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Sep 6, 2012 05:03
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I managed to get in a short playtest of Intersector today, after some hearty games of Battle Beyond Space, Glory to Rome, and the longest 300-point Heroclix game ever (unfortunately, we didn't get to play Netrunner quite yet). At only 10 minutes, I don't feel that it's enough of a playtest to really give me an idea of how a session will run (though it was still quite enlightening). As such, I will attempt to run a fuller session on IRC sometime before the final deadline. sc4rs posted:The only question I had from reading his (her?) documents was that there was a mention of "the ending of a session is special and will be explained elsewhere" that never seemed to be explained. You're right, it never did get explained. Like a lot of us, I ran too close to the deadline to include everything. Basically, the seventh and final session is a conflict directly against the spheres themselves, and each player would have their own obstacle that they controlled. Other things that I didn't have time to expand upon: MadRhetoric posted:And how do you make simulacra? Each simulacra is akin to a premade adventure in other systems. Basically, there are descriptions of the environment and the people of the sphere, and when a player acts, the other players decide what happens. To get to the anchor, though, they must come to a conflict, which are described in the simulacra. In conflict, the obstacle actions are decided by a deck of cards that are flipped over whenever they need to be. MadRhetoric posted:What are anchors, mechanically? Anchors are an entirely narrative device. They are the goals or win conditions of the players during the session, and are the impetus for getting into conflict. Narratively, they are things in each world that do not belong - a silent clearing in a busy jungle, an obsidian sphere in the middle of the desert - things like that. The only rule that should be followed with the anchors is that there needs to be some way to remove them or alter them. MadRhetoric posted:Do you find the anchor when you overcome all obstacles in a given sphere? It depends on the GM's discretion. You could, say, find the anchor and have a conflict to puzzle out its interlocking gears that hold it together, or you could have the players enter a rite of passage conflict in a empirical sphere that allows them access to the bizarre message-whispering stone that the emperor covets. MadRhetoric posted:What does the GM do in their own sphere, narratively? They are there as a helper, mostly. They could point out paths or pull another character out of harm's way, but they can't actually affect the world in a meaningful manner.
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Sep 6, 2012 07:04
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I did it! WOO! Here is the pastebin! WOO! A lot of views were said in the log, and I have my own opinion, but I will allow my players to post theirs first before I post mine. Also, read it! READ IT!
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Sep 7, 2012 03:09
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gently caress you, Errol Widget GM: Drugged Dwarf Players: Radioactive Bears Flaky Biscuit Gorbash Error 404 First thing, I'm sorry I had to cut out right before the end. I played Prince Albert. This game has a lot of potential for a fun casual game. The rules are fairly simple in layout, but could have used a bit more clarification, such as more examples of play. Many of us in the test felt that the setting could have used a lot more fleshing out. I personally am unfamiliar with the Amber series that this game is apparently set in, and so I feel like that unfamiliarity contributed to the clashes in tone that others had issue with. The Favor points also had problems, The only way you can gain them is to succeed in contests vs other players. you start out with very few, and when they're gone, you're out of the game (which almost happened to 2-4 of us players in the first couple contests). This puts players into more of a competition with each other (which isn't really very fun) versus a co-operative story. Suggestions:
Final thoughts, I liked this game, it was silly, and and relatively easy to pick up. The voting mechanic is problematic, but with some more work, I could definitely see myself running this for my group or even a party of non-gamers. 6/10
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Sep 7, 2012 06:26
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gently caress you I'm disqualified but I'll still respond to feedback if I want Thanks for playing this, for starters. Second: it's not actually set in Amber, and if it were polished up it would definitely use different names - the Amber/Pattern/etc. names are all just placeholders lifted from Amber Diceless rather than the books themselves. Basically, the only thing you need to know about the setting is that there's a realm at the centre of the universe ruled by a King, the King has X spoiled children as their Princes, and there are an infinity of alternate realities and fantasy realms that the Princes can go exploring. Thirdly: it is designed to be an adversarial game, not a co-operative game - this is why you can't concede contests for mutual benefit, incidentally. You start with 3 Favour to make it easy to be knocked out, as I wanted the game to play fairly fast. I think the problem is mostly that 10 Favour is a lot - it would work better with the target as 5 or 6 Favour. Keep in mind, you're supposed to always be on the lookout for flaws in the other Princes' stories that you can exploit for your gain (this is why the Princes aren't allowed to write anything down). e; also, I did actually write an example of play: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/15337665/FYEW3%20-%20%28Not%29%20Actual%20Play.pdf I'm looking forward to any feedback on how to improve the game, though! Thanks for posting it.
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Sep 7, 2012 10:50
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Gentle posters, you now have just under six hours.
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Sep 7, 2012 19:02
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I was also in the FYEW playtest, and I've got a few thoughts on the things I found unappealing or bad about the game. First off, never ever ever ever ever make a game with player elimination! There's a reason board games as a whole have gotten rid of that concept, and I think you'd be better served without it, too. Kicking players out of the game because their stories weren't good enough does not engender a fun time. Second, voting does not work with so few players. As I said in the playtest log, any given vote is your number of players minus 3 (the two contesting Prince(sse)s and the King). The average gaming group is maybe a GM and four or five people, leaving you with two or three votes, which i just don't feel is a meaningful amount. Now if this was a party game where you had up to eight or so players, that would be better. Third, I kind of see the King as a peripheral character. I didn't really feel that they were important to the game (besides the tie breaking duty), and could be safely removed without changing anything, which would allow a smaller group to tell more stories. All in all, I'm just not sure what this did that Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen didn't do better.
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Sep 7, 2012 19:13
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I liked trying out FYEW. The idea of an adversarial story telling game is really interesting. But I feel like there are some rough edges. It's less that objections and favor don't work, and more that the way they work is, frankly, not that much fun. Because it's so easy to get knocked out, it discourages risk taking. It would probably be better if you got knocked out of the Phase instead of the game, or gained some other penalty. Also, the objections feel too much like nitpicking, when I think the idea is to get everyone to be creative in the midst of each other's stories. Rather, maybe when someone makes an objection they add a new fact that the story teller has to incorporate into the tale? That could combine with the issue of getting knocked out so easily by making it so the story teller has an increasing number of ideas to fit into the story, and if they don't do so successfully they lose favor. If they lose all their favor, then they lose control of the story. There's a card game called Once Upon A Time with a similar goal - its competitive story telling where you try to guide the story to a particular end. It might be worth checking out to give you some ideas.
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Sep 7, 2012 19:21
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I just realized I didn't talk about my experience running Retrocausality and playing in TH/UD Retrocausality - Unfortunately, roll20 ate the chat log, so I can't post that. Running it was a lot of fun. The second play through, the players didn't end up killing themselves in the past, but they ended up going to the future in or to look for Dr. Martin, whome the house belong to. We got to use the individual skills of the characters and the time skills. These systems seem to work really well together being distinct enough to matter, but similar enough to make sense. It really is a good system. Deathrow Live - I played the skater guy who grinded the Vietnam Memorial. My comments will be fairly similar. The setting and the fluff are great. The system probably needs a few tweaks, as it kind of broke down with only 3 PCs, and I'd like to see more reason to downvote someone. Part of this is probably a problem with playing over IRC, and not being able to see facial expressions of others and pick up on social queues.
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Sep 7, 2012 20:19
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Ulta posted:Deathrow Live - I'd like to see more reason to downvote someone. Thanks for the feedback, Ulta! I keep thinking about the part I've quoted, because I've heard it from several people. It's actually a rather difficult problem to solve, because you're (likely) going to have more upvotes than downvotes just because of social norms; you're playing with friends, and you don't want to rag on your friends too much. So far, this is the best solution I've come up: The GM character will now always vote, partially addressing the problem of four players being too few. If you, as a player, vote the same as the GM does, you get an experience point. So basically, as long as the GM is being objective, it encourages all the other players to be objective in their voting. That said, I'm not sure it's the right solution in the least; it could just encourage votes to be more one-sided, which is not what I want. I'm just curious, for the people who've played it, what do you think would be a good incentive to downvote?
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Sep 7, 2012 20:48
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alakath posted:Thanks for the feedback, Ulta! Maybe a Fiasco-esque approach? You only have so many up votes and down votes? Or you can only up vote after you've down voted or something like that.
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Sep 7, 2012 21:02
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Flaky Biscuit posted:All in all, I'm just not sure what this did that Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen didn't do better. To be fair, Munchausen is the once and future king of storygames.
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Sep 7, 2012 21:19
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Flaky Biscuit posted:Now if this was a party game where you had up to eight or so players, that would be better. It's supposed to be, which is why the rules state the game is designed for six people and a GM! The original goal was for this to be played in under an hour, hopefully with less than three "rounds." Flaky Biscuit posted:Third, I kind of see the King as a peripheral character. I didn't really feel that they were important to the game (besides the tie breaking duty), and could be safely removed without changing anything, which would allow a smaller group to tell more stories. This is why the rules include a suggestion to have the tiebreaker/word-picker stuff rotate among the players every turn. Flaky Biscuit posted:All in all, I'm just not sure what this did that Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen didn't do better.  I'm not sure either.Some good feedback and suggestions, though. Thanks! 
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Sep 7, 2012 22:06
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And so we close the contestants' portion of this contest. It has been a hell of a ride. From every insane concept to all the finished products, I have seen a kind of creativity and resolution to not repeat the same old concepts of RPG design which went far beyond my expectations. Though of course a wall of shame shall immortalize all the fallen, know that you took the steps and expanded your horizons. It has also created lively discussion on game design, and what is possible to do with this hobby of ours. Come by #Tradgamesdesign on SynIRC to talk with contestants, chat about design or prepare for Red_Mage's upcoming Octobertest. Three contestants shall receive prizes. One contestant shall receive a special secret prize. The decision of what games will be recognized and which game pulled ahead will be made public on September 14th. Be ready.
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Sep 8, 2012 01:00
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Congrats to everyone for your efforts, and thanks to those that gave me encouragement and kind words. I'm sad that nobody besides my friends got to play my game, but I'll work on making it less daunting and maybe someday I'll get some random internet strangers to try it out!
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Sep 8, 2012 03:57
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While we wait, have JurassicCentralPark.avi! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prgm4eKq6d4
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Sep 12, 2012 09:39
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Oh god. I'm super nervous. We're now LESS THAN A DAY away from the conclusion to this epic contest. I just want to congratulate everyone who completed an entry. I'm super impressed with everything that was put out, and pretty much any contestant could end up winning this thing. Get psyched people. It's almost over.
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Sep 14, 2012 02:20
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 Time to announce the winnersIn this post, I will post the winners only. More personalized reviews for all the other games will be posted over the weekend until I completely hand off the contest torch to Red_Mage. Three games share the highest score I gave for the playtest: Deathrow Live!, Jurassic Central Park and Retrocausality. Each earned a whopping 9. (Don't be surprised if nothing earned a 10. That kind of score is reserved for Jurassic Central Park was a shoe-in for this score. A combination of charm, clever concept, situational comedy, food and dinosaurs was sure to win people over, and it did! The game proved to be a favorite among the contestants and audience of the competition, which certainly helped it along. The playtest was fun, but had some mechanical shortcomings which, to the game's credit, in no way detracted from it. (And what a mess this game is in play. I'll have to try it out myself!) Retrocausality, on the other hand, was more of a personal favorite of mine. I freely admit that! I wondered how it would perform in play, but perform it did! What tipped the scale in Retrocausality's favor in particular was how well the mechanics seemed to perform in play, translating smoothly from conception in the outline document to play at the table. Aside from slight confusion involving special rules for the cardboard royalty, it seemed to be a mostly smooth ride enhanced by the mechanics prodding the action along. It's also hilarious. Finally, the simplicity, humor and excellent play-aids of alakath's Deathrow: Live turned what could be a fun game into a fantastic one. The cards and their combinations are a great tool for a GM looking to create a fun evening, and as a system it will only get better as more players are added! It is also the most marketable game of the bunch in its current form, and I'd say it only requires some tweaking (hint hint, Funhavers and Fun Tyrants). So it should be a simple matter to decide which one won, right? Count which game earned the highest amount of bonuses and give that game the reward! Well, no! Every one of these games earned every available bonus. So I resorted to the second tiebreaker, which is the total score earned overall for the contest. Only then does a winner emerge (and take note, future contest runners: plan your systems better). So, in order: Ulta takes Third place for Jurassic Central Park! alakath takes Second place for Deathrow Live! And finally, in First place, winner of the contest and receiver of a Special Secret Prize, Ettin for his game Retrocausality! Unfortunately, due to circustances which spiralled entirely too far out of my control, the special prize will not be revealed (except to its winner) until Monday. At that time I will also perform last-minute contest cleanup, hopefully gather all the finished games into one post/file and so close out the longest August of my life. Because it is delayed, I promise to make the reveal as special as I can make it. Congratulations to everyone who entered, everyone who finished, everyone who placed and to Ettin! Now go post your adulations and retrospectives. The winners should contact me at a time and manner of their choosing and pick their choice of one Forum Upgrade.
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Sep 14, 2012 21:22
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I'm incredibly honored to have finished second. Thank you to Rulebook for running the contest, to everyone who playtested, and to anyone who even read this thread. My congratulations go out to Ettin, whose Retrocausality was clearly the class of the field in my own estimation of this contest. Going into voting, I was just hoping to finish second behind Ettin. I can't compete with cockney rhyming slang. And props to Ulta, as well, for coming up with a hilarious RPG and a great mechanic I thought was going to win hands-down at the start of this contest. Whenever I eat a hot wing, I will think of you and dinosaurs. And to UberJew, I'll say that my friends are still bugging me about playing Dis?Unity again, so you're definitely doing something right. Keep at it! I could keep going, but I'll end my post with this: Thanks again for reading all this, and I immensely appreciate everyone who took part in this contest.
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Sep 14, 2012 21:41
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Its feels really nice to be in the company I'm in, especially having played both Retrocausality and Deathrow Live!. Its fine coming in third when its so close and the competition is so good. Ettin and alakath, congrats on your victory, you definitely deserve it. sc4rs, thanks to you and your friends for my official playtest. Its really a cool feeling seeing people play something you made. Rulebook, thanks for running a tight ship, thanks for writing all those reviews, and thanks for providing challenges. Sometimes its just what a person needs to spark those creative juices. Really, I wasn't going to write a game about eating chicken wings on my own time without something at my back. To everyone who made it, and everyone who tried, there isn't a bad concept in the house. I'm looking forward to seeing what pops up in October. I'll have something to show too (and its forming out to be really good in my head at least)
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Sep 14, 2012 22:05
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The good guys won. Props to Ettin, who not only had this thing in the bag from day one, but managed to do the impossible and make a time travel game that makes sense. Props to alakath for taking an elegant resolution system nobody else saw and running with it, and Ulta for making eating chicken wings a legitimate entertainment venture that doesn't involve schadenfreude or masochism. Should've taken bets on this; would've made bank predicting the win place and show accurately. Could've made so much Goon money.
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Sep 14, 2012 22:53
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Absolutely no surprises here. Congrats to all and thanks very much to RBH for running this!
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Sep 14, 2012 23:06
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Hahaha, the top three were all games that I playtested. Congrats you guys. I had fun playing all your games; all very deserving in my mind.
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Sep 15, 2012 00:28
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oh man what  I am pleased just to get into the top three alongside Jurassic Central Park and Deathrow Live, first place is amazing. I was expecting Deathrow to win, you guys are almost too nice. Only almost, though.  Seriously though, I am happy I made something people want to play! I will definitely work on this game and fix it up when I can. Maybe even try a pbp! Props to you guys, you deserve it! Also Lemon Curdistan (for "helping"), Comrade Gorbash (Ministry of Heaven still owns), Druggeddwarf (because why not), UberJew (ps Dis?Unity is cool) and Error 404, sc4rs, my non-goon rpgnet pals and anyone I forgot who playtested. Also everyone else who playtested anything, you also rule for helping out. Now I just need to find out what this secret is. 
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Sep 15, 2012 02:31
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This was the most interesting contest yet, and not much can be said about the winning entries that wasn't said already, other than hell yes a playable time travel game.
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Sep 15, 2012 03:54
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So what is this mystery prize? When I originally decided to do a contest, I immediately started thinking about what I could possibly give back to a community of prospective hobbyist game developers. What could I offer up to a bunch of RPG nerd elfgamers? Then I was struck by that word: Elfgames. Something elf related! So I went to Amazon, input that as a search term and...  What, no, this is a terrible prize. I mean it is an elf book for elfgames, but it's also the worst possible elf book, and possibly one of the worst in the category of elfgames ever (aside from unironically and blatantly horrible books by genuinely bad and ill-meaning authors). This one is so bad that its author apologized for writing it. How could I possibly offer something like this? By making it better, of course! As I state basically half the time I'm on the internet, I am Icelandic and thus have access to Icelandic natural resources.  Like this one. I would call upon the supernatural itself to improve what could not otherwise be improved, and so I had my goal: An elf elfgame book, signed by an elf! Perfect! Wait, drat. Elves are fictional, aren't they. This could present a setback. Well, I suppose a good enough fictional elf will do. Now, There is a certain entertainment property in Iceland. It began as a simple children's play, and involved the fat, lazy, chain-smoking inhabitants of a small town whose self-destructive habits were spiralling them towards oblivion. Anyone who has read posts in E/N will be familiar with the types. Enter "Iþróttaálfurinn", or "The Athletic Elf". He sprung forth from the traditional elf-rocks and proceeded to swole up the place through sheer energetic insanity. This play was wildly successful by stage standards and went on to produce a sequel, complete with changes and adaptations to the character - for one thing, The Athletic Elf now began descending on the town from a hot air balloon for no reason easily determined besides "this is awesome pass me some more performance enhancers". This all led towards the character's most well-known incarnation, and the first one the wider world would become familiar (and possibly annoyed) with. Oh yes, I am indeed talking about him, the scourge of the early phases of this contest. That he is an elf who encourages people to not be fat lazy nerds who stay indoors and play games all the time was a big bonus.  Yes. How did I do this? I asked his personal assistant and that was that. Turns out that this is easy when you live nearby and speak the same language. So here it is, in all its glory.  I am assured that those scribbles on the lower left are Sportacus-speak and that he is now in the habit of translating his name to English when he signs things. On the right is the signature of Magnús Scheving, the actor portraying Sportacus, and the entire thing is in his handwriting. This is totally worth the minor delay. So Congratulations Ettin! I hope you are very proud of your latest elfgame acquisition. (Oh and I'm also giving you a gift cert for a site or something but that's not as cool.)
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Sep 17, 2012 21:46
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Holy poo poo.
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Sep 17, 2012 21:59
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Sportacus is the best elf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1nMY9pdaGY
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Sep 17, 2012 22:01
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Man, that is The Best Prize. I feel really badly for finishing second now 
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Sep 17, 2012 22:12
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And here I thought I was done being amused/impressed by this contest, this is one hell of a cherry on top.
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Sep 17, 2012 22:16
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Also, I would like to note that Sportacus is basically a Traceuse character in that video.
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Sep 17, 2012 22:27
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Rulebook forgot to tell the tale of how he "misplaced" the prize last week, though.
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Sep 17, 2012 23:24
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Okay, so Rulebook had this to say when prompted:quote:[23:24] <LemonCurdistan> RulebookHeavily I am calling you out So I'm doing it. I'm going to post the definite proof that Iceland is literally insane or something: quote:[16:02] <RulebookHeavily> this is going to be one of those days where literally nothing goes right Or in plainer terms: quote:[17:41] <RulebookHeavily> basically I left a certain book with the production crew of Lazytown to be signed as the secret contest prize (shh don't tell anyone)
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Sep 17, 2012 23:34
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Holy poo poo this is a real thing you did RBH What the christ
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Sep 18, 2012 00:04
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