Originally shared by Adams Tower
We playtested Raiders of the Weird last night, my AW hack for Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventures (I talked a little about it here: https://plus.google.com/112012711273049238248/posts/AJXANjfDwdf ).
It was fun, and I’d love to be able to use the “What worked… What didn’t work…” structure to write about it, but unfortunately what didn’t work was so big and fundamental to the rules that it’s hard to tell what worked.
So, each PC had 3 Wit Dice, which are rolled for almost every move. When you roll a 6 on a Wit Die, it gets removed from your pool, and for future rolls you have one less Wit Die. This looked good on paper, as a way to represent dwindling ability, but absolutely didn’t work in play. One PC lost 2 Wit Dice on their first roll. The others lost them fairly quickly as well, far more quickly then I thought would happen. What’s even worse, though, is that there was really nothing you could do once you got down to 0 wit dice, except wait for some monster to come and eat you.
It also led to a chilling effect on the “ask a question” move, since they could still make it, ask 1 question and be prepared for the MC to do worse, but they were never willing to risk the MC doing worse.
So, I’m going to have to get rid of wit dice, and replace them with something else. Currently, I am strongly leaning towards 2d6+level-highest opponent level, for every move. I’d like this to be a game where you have the description “3rd-level fighter” and from that you have everything you need to know about the character. We’ll see if that works.
One thing that absolutely did work, though, were the possible results of the run away move. Here’s the Run Away move, as written:
## Run Away
When you *run away from someone or something,* make a WD roll, and have your pursuer do the same. They add your TD to their roll.
* If your total is greater than or equal to theirs, pick one:
– Keep Running
– Take a route they wouldn’t expect
– Hide, but they’ll catch up to you after you do
– Do whatever you like, but they’ll catch up to you after you do.
* If your total is less than theirs, pick one:
– Keep Running
– Do whatever you like, but they’ll catch up with you as you do.
If there’s an obstacle in your way, you’ll have to deal with it before you can keep running.
The chase is over when they catch you, or when they don’t know how to follow you.
If, after you’ve picked your options, the chase isn’t over, roll again.
That’s not quite how we played it, though. When PCs rolled high, I said “You get to the intersection ahead of everyone else, and the monster. You’re not in it’s sight. What do you do?” Every time I asked that, they “Took a path they wouldn’t expect”, even when they weren’t looking at the list. When PCs rolled high, I said “You get to the intersection with the monster hot on your heals. What do you do?” Every time I asked that, they “Kept running.” So, I’m thinking that in the next version, I’m just going to remove the lists, and have something like this:
## Run away ver. 0.2
When you Run Away from someone or something, roll 2d6+level-Treasure. After rolling, but before acting, you can drop treasure to improve your result:
* 9+: You get to the next location ahead them. You can keep running, or do something before they arrive.
* 6-8: You get to the next location just in front of them. You can keep running, or do something as they arrive.
*2-5: They catch up to you, and be prepared for the MC to do worse.
A little about how the game went, aside from the system. (SPOILERS FOR MY PLAYERS, DON’T READ PAST HERE.) I was running the God that Crawls, transplanted to the Netherlands. I started the PCs right outside the door in the side of the hill. They went up to the church, and spoke with the priest, one of them snuck behind the curtain and found the pit. The priest was all like “Oh, no, please don’t go down into the tombs. Adventurers never return from there, but if I can’t stop you, I’ll be glad to help! Sure, I’ll give you some lumber and get some village boys to help you repair the hillside entrance so it won’t cave-in.” They still don’t suspect him, or the villagers, even though one of the village boys sawed write through their repairs, and collapsed the entrance almost as soon as they got in. They think that the reason the other village boy was following them around singing because he touched some magical goo. I’ve now got the hard job of explaining how replacement PCs get down there next session, since two of them were eaten by the God. Probably a wizard did it.
https://plus.google.com/112012711273049238248/posts/AJXANjfDwdf