[Playtest] My views

[Voice of God]

Ok. I still haven't had the chance to actually GM this thing, but I give my own views of the rules, so that I'm not completely useless.

General
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-I think the game needs a world. With just the basic rules, it's too... umm... narrow (for the lack of a better word). You have general rules, that only able the players to play pre-1600's scenario with no magic, no fantastic raceS/creatures, etc. Of course experienced players can make these themselves, but for the novices at least include a chapter about GMing and creating worlds.

-More examples everywhere. Especially parts of the combat chapter were kind of hard to understand without any concrete examples.

-The attacker strength vs. armor rating stuff could use a table.

-I know this is a draft, but in the final version when referring to a rule elsewhere in the book, please give a page number.

-There are rules I wouldn't use (like the load checkrolls when travelling), but I know people who would, so some of them are just a matter of playstyle.

-I would move character creation before the skill lists. Also the "Basic Concepts" part could use a short description about skills and statistics before the tests bit. Inexperienced reader might be confused with the tests part without knowing what they exactly mean.

My criticism
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-Random difficulty levels for "static" tasks. IMO it should be up the GM to decide how hard e.g. a wall is to climb. The +D6 makes it way too random, at least make the dice smaller or let the GM decide the whole thing. The failure or success should occur from the actions of the character (=dice roll). The opposing roll is understandable only if the opponent can be considered doing something to prevent the character. For example, the wall just is there, it doesn't move around or shake or anything, so the climbing difficulty should be static. It also makes it very hard for the GM to think up challenging-but-not-impossible tasks if difficulty level 3 task can suddenly triple to 9 (or more). This is something me and our gaming group would change with a house rule immediately.

-The names of the statistics. This is minor detail and whiny whiny, but I don't like the word "health" representing how strong my character is. I'd change it to something like "Vigor". Also "Cheat" brings me a negative image, although I can't come up with anything better than "Fate Point", but that's from WFRP. Oh, and the term statistics itself is confusing as it could also mean all the character stats (skills, etc. included). Why not use one of the golden oldies: Characteristics, Abilities, etc.

-Skills and Statistics have no relationship whatsoever. Being the fastest and most nimble-fingered guy in the world won't help you with sleight of Hand?

-Combat: I find the mechanic a bit confusing. The skills phase roll has no use IMO. I don't see the point why a character must use "wrong" skill when he's using different kind of weapon himself. Just cut to the chase and make one opposing roll each opponent with appropriate skills and apply the damage from there. One roll per hand-to-hand combat turn, fast and simple.

-Weapon doesn't have anything to do with the damage?



Positive
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-I like the healing system. Sounds deadly, which is always fun.

-Most of the other things I didn't whine about. System seems mostly fast and simple.

 

[Jim LotFP]

Ok. I still haven't had the chance to actually GM this thing, but I give my own views of the rules, so that I'm not completely useless.

You are a role model that should have everyone following in your footsteps. All hail you!

-I think the game needs a world. With just the basic rules, it's too... umm... narrow (for the lack of a better word). You have general rules, that only able the players to play pre-1600's scenario with no magic, no fantastic raceS/creatures, etc. Of course experienced players can make these themselves, but for the novices at least include a chapter about GMing and creating worlds.

I am totally re-writing the GM and Player responsibility sections. I'll see if world building could become part of that. Because the game won't actually be in stores initially (distributors like to see a history of support and activity from new publishers before taking on a new company), it's questionable how many real novices will be running across the game anyway...

-More examples everywhere. Especially parts of the combat chapter were kind of hard to understand without any concrete examples.

Will be done, I'm just hoping people tell me where they want to see them (like you just did) so I know where to put the bulk of them instead of putting a bunch in where a bunch isn't needed. 56 examples of being caught on fire!

-The attacker strength vs. armor rating stuff could use a table.

Noted.

-I know this is a draft, but in the final version when referring to a rule elsewhere in the book, please give a page number.

Definitely.

-There are rules I wouldn't use (like the load checkrolls when travelling), but I know people who would, so some of them are just a matter of playstyle.

Honesty: The only time I would ever use these rules is when players insist on being buttheads and pretending their characters have no need for rest or sleep and will march 30 days straight because the rules don't say they can't... OR in instances where overland travel has some sort of time element involved (like Strider, Legolas, and Gimli chasing down the orcs who have a days' start on them).

It's more a safety net against ridiculousness than it is a hard and fast rule I'd ever expect anyone to be anal about. I've never played any game using any system where the GM gave two shits about any sort of encumbrance rule... until players started trying to carry back the jeweled throne, dragon hide, and 15 chests full of jewels back across the wilderness.

-I would move character creation before the skill lists. Also the "Basic Concepts" part could use a short description about skills and statistics before the tests bit. Inexperienced reader might be confused with the tests part without knowing what they exactly mean.

Noted.

-Random difficulty levels for "static" tasks. IMO it should be up the GM to decide how hard e.g. a wall is to climb. The +D6 makes it way too random, at least make the dice smaller or let the GM decide the whole thing. The failure or success should occur from the actions of the character (=dice roll).

The added random factor of the opposed die roll is in reality no more or less random than a flat percentile over/under roll. That's what that last chart in Basic Concepts was supposed to show. If your Climb skill is 5 and the wall has a difficulty rating of 4, you have a 58.33% chance of outright success or a 72.22% chance of an equal roll. Simple as that. The opposed test roll in such situations is just a of adding a bit more tension and excitement than just rolling percentile dice hoping the get 58 or under.

Cheap thrills built in.

-The names of the statistics. This is minor detail and whiny whiny, but I don't like the word "health" representing how strong my character is. I'd change it to something like "Vigor".

I'll take a look at it, but all cosmetic changes like this of course will wait til after the system itself is hammered out.

Also "Cheat" brings me a negative image, although I can't come up with anything better than "Fate Point", but that's from WFRP.

It lets you change your die roll. It's cheating!

At one point I was feeling sarcastic and thought up the idea of a 'drama queen' point which PCs could use to simply remove themselves from situations they didn't feel like participating in.

Oh, and the term statistics itself is confusing as it could also mean all the character stats (skills, etc. included). Why not use one of the golden oldies: Characteristics, Abilities, etc.

I'll take a look at that.

-Skills and Statistics have no relationship whatsoever. Being the fastest and most nimble-fingered guy in the world won't help you with sleight of Hand?

The disassociation of skills and statistics are valid, I think. My favorite example is the farmer who's as dumb as a pile of rocks, not special physically, but he knows the land and knows how to feed his family and tend to the livestock. Sleight of Hand is not just natural ability... there's a million little tricks street hustlers or stage magicians use, it takes a lot of practice and training, far beyond what people can do just because they have great hand-eye co-ordination.

-Combat: I find the mechanic a bit confusing. The skills phase roll has no use IMO. I don't see the point why a character must use "wrong" skill when he's using different kind of weapon himself.

-Weapon doesn't have anything to do with the damage?

I wanted the rules to generate respect for *any* skilled combatant, whether they carry a knife or a big frickin axe that takes two muscled arms to carry. The skilled knife wielder will kill you just as dead. But using a knife does have tactical disadvantages against weapons with longer reach... how do you represent that in a combat system that is not a blow-by-blow tactical simulation?

The skills test was my way to do it. If that knife guy gets inside your swing, combat is going to go a lot differently than if you're keeping him at the end of your reach. If you've got a battle axe and the knife guy does get inside, you're not fighting an axe battle, it's a knife fight on the knife fighter's terms. Same thing if you're unarmed and rushing a guy with a sword... You're either going to get in close and fight on your terms, or the guy with the sword is going to have his way with you.

Making it just one roll seemed to me to give encouragement to players to just stack a bunch of points in one combat skill to have as much advantage over every opponent as they can. In that case might as well scrap all the combat skills for just one Combat Skill! Sure, that becomes simple and rules lite, but it also seems against everything I've enjoyed playing as a gamer and against every book or movie I look at as inspiration.

I think it could also turn the game away from being character based (where the character's skills and player's decision during combat are important) into being equipment based (as long as I have this type of weapon I am invincible!). I didn't want that.

Does that make sense and shed a bit of light on why the rules were constructed as they were?

-I like the healing system. Sounds deadly, which is always fun.

I honestly expect a billion house rules to pop up around this process when it comes to PCs... but I think the basic mechanic is valid. People don't just automatically recover when they are out of imminent danger, especially in the days of primitive medicine. Being wounded as often as not meant a slow death from infection even if it didn't kill you outright or cause you to bleed to death.

And how many games, let alone stories, feature people passing away after being unable to recover from injury, long after the battle has passed? My game has a mechanic for it, dammit. If people want to fudge around it, fine, but it's there if anyone starts whining, heh.

And PCs and major villains have cheats to work around sharing the fate of the common folk anyway.

-Most of the other things I didn't whine about. System seems mostly fast and simple.

yay!

Feel free to argue if you think I've missed a point you were trying to make or if I've presented my viewpoint in a weak way. Just because I have an opinion and had a reason for doing things doesn't mean it's for the best.