Autore Topic: [Beta Report] Our Last Best Hope - Fantasy Mission  (Letto 1991 volte)

Ander

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Ho comprato di recente OLBH, e da una mia domanda all'autore riguardo agli scenari aggiuntivi a cui stava lavorando è uscita la possibilità di testare il libretto della Fantasy Mission. Copio / incollo dal report mandato all'autore del gioco, che è in inglese, e dalle sue risposte. Sentitevi liberi di intervenire in entrambe le lingue, tenendo presente che l'autore sarà invitato a leggere il thread se ne uscissero delle cose utili (TM).


Five players:

Kratos the Barbarian
Menion the Fighter
Edward the Chosen One (or rather the Whiny Child)
Temeris the Paladin
Gil Galad (me) the Elf

I was the Captain, Edward was the Supply Officer

We found out that it was better to choose Roles before choosing who was the Captain and who was the SO (the manual does the contrary). Also, I recommend changing these two titles as they seem wrong for a fantasy adventure (but then maybe it's my English).

We started at 2130, started Act I at 2230 more or less (prep took one hour, we had never played OLBH and had to recap the rules) and we ended Act I at 2400. We stopped there as we all have to go to work tomorrow.

The overall impression about the rules was positive; none of us had any problem in understanding them (at least, so we believe) and the system was liked; one player was enthusiastic about it, another one said it was a bit cumbersome. I liked it.


We generated the setting randomly, the Crisis being the sigils that hold Darkness at bay starting to weaken, the Limit being us in the wrong place at the right time. We decided that we were at a once-every-century mass religious ceremony in front of a citadel, built ages before, which contains the Demons of the world; an evil mage  sabotaged the ceremony and the wards went boom, killing nearly everybody. Now only the gates hold the demons, and we don't know for how long. A dying priest set us to the path to recover a special key on top of the Mountain of Agony and come back here to close the wards again.

The Choice was that the Path was already occupied by servants of the mage, so we had to choose whether to go around through a swamp, or go through them. We had a debate and chose to go around. First problem with this scenario: what if there is a disagreement between the characters? There is no ship to hold them together here, they might as well decide to separe or fight among them. In our case my PC did a nice speech, and we convinced the barbarian that it was best to go around, but I am unsure how we could have solved it were he not convinced.

We had three spotlights, all of them involving Sane and Crazy cards, we went through them like we were possessed; this caused some interesting dialogues, but there were no specific issues to point out.

The first two threats were defeated easily (question: the number of successes goes like 1-5 1 succ, 6-10 2 succ, 11-15 3 succ, or is it 1-4, 5-10, 11-15? I was unsure after reading the relevant part) and we went through the swamp and into a mine (think Moria). The third threat (a trap) caused a large problem because there was an even result, and a second threat (a large statue) appeared. The barbarian had the not-so-smart (hey, he is a barbarian after all) idea of playing a Fear here, and we took some Harm and had to spend a lot of resources but in the end we prevailed (it would probably have been better if somebody died).

At this point we had 15 dice in the Event Pool and so we rolled the pool, obtaining the worst possible failure! 3 Harm and all assets lost, nobody died but the situation was dire indeed.  We decided that we ended in a subterranean river which brought us out of the mine but at the cost of a lot of scrapes and bumps, and the loss of equipment. At this point we ended the game because of the late hour.

A problem: 2 of the players didn't have a spotlight in Act I, because we rolled so many sixes that the pool was filled before they had their turn. Is this common? We think that if we had continued we'd have started Act II with their spotlights, rather than starting to the left of the Captain as stated.

A question: we always had the player fighting the threat narrate the result of the roll, including the actions of his helpers, after everybody had agreed on the outcome; one of his players said at the end that he would have liked to state his actions himself, but I move that there is really no difference once everybody has agreed. What do you think about this?

A couple of other points:
in the Chosen One description, it says "when confronting the Threat", you might want to make clear that it refers to the final crysis (it was to me, but I am not sure it was unambiguous);
there is of course no MIMIC in the Fantasy Mission, but we chose to replace it with one of the "things I bring with me", in this case a medallion of one of the PCs, which played the same part; however, we didn't use it in the scenes, for no specific reason (it didn't come up).

Overall, the group had some great fun, even though we didn't finish the story there where a lot of nice and funny moments; no heroic sacrifices however, so there wasn't much drama (but we were very much due for it).

A player said that he'd rather do the hero that overcomes rather than the hero that heroically dies, and he believes that the fantasy setting is more conducive to the former than to the latter; I disagree about this.

The same player found the system very elegant and said he'd like to play this with children because it's very easy to learn; I am not sure however that the theme of self-sacrifice is suitable for children, but I agree about the system.

Finally, a question: one, can I share this with the Gentechegioca forum (the main Italian indie RPG forum)?


I will forward this to my players as well, and see if they have anything to add. I am sure they will.


Regards
Andrea
from Italy
Contro balrog, draghi, miniufo, orchi e paccottiglia varia dal 1987 o giù di lì

Ander

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Re:[Beta Report] Our Last Best Hope - Fantasy Mission
« Risposta #1 il: 2013-02-20 09:28:33 »
La risposta di Mark Diaz Truman:


Andrea!

Andrea!
This is awesome. Thank you. A few thoughts:

On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 7:14 PM, Ander <aungaro@gmail.com> wrote:We found out that it was better to choose Roles before choosing who was the Captain and who was the SO (the manual does the contrary). Also, I recommend changing these two titles as they seem wrong for a fantasy adventure (but then maybe it's my English).</blockquote>

Yeah, they are off a bit for a Fantasy Adventure. We'll look at changing that.

We generated the setting randomly, the Crisis being the sigils that hold Darkness at bay starting to weaken, the Limit being us in the wrong place at the right time. We decided that we were at a once-every-century mass religious ceremony in front of a citadel, built ages before, which contains the Demons of the world; an evil mage  sabotaged the ceremony and the wards went boom, killing nearly everybody. Now only the gates hold the demons, and we don't know for how long. A dying priest set us to the path to recover a special key on top of the Mountain of Agony and come back here to close the wards again.</blockquote>

THIS IS AWESOME. I love hearing this stuff. :)

The Choice was that the Path was already occupied by servants of the mage, so we had to choose whether to go around through a swamp, or go through them. We had a debate and chose to go around. First problem with this scenario: what if there is a disagreement between the characters? There is no ship to hold them together here, they might as well decide to separe or fight among them. In our case my PC did a nice speech, and we convinced the barbarian that it was best to go around, but I am unsure how we could have solved it were he not convinced.</blockquote>

The Choice is actually interesting because of this tension. The group doesn't have a way to solve the problem according to the rules, so they work out their own method of moving through the story. In some games, this leads to a lot of tension and anger over what choice was made... :)

The first two threats were defeated easily (question: the number of successes goes like 1-5 1 succ, 6-10 2 succ, 11-15 3 succ, or is it 1-4, 5-10, 11-15? I was unsure after reading the relevant part) and we went through the swamp and into a mine (think Moria). The third threat (a trap) caused a large problem because there was an even result, and a second threat (a large statue) appeared. The barbarian had the not-so-smart (hey, he is a barbarian after all) idea of playing a Fear here, and we took some Harm and had to spend a lot of resources but in the end we prevailed (it would probably have been better if somebody died).</blockquote>

5 = 2 successes. 10 = 3 successes. We're putting an FAQ in the Expansion book that directly addresses this. 

At this point we had 15 dice in the Event Pool and so we rolled the pool, obtaining the worst possible failure! 3 Harm and all assets lost, nobody died but the situation was dire indeed.  We decided that we ended in a subterranean river which brought us out of the mine but at the cost of a lot of scrapes and bumps, and the loss of equipment. At this point we ended the game because of the late hour.</blockquote>

Also awesome!

A problem: 2 of the players didn't have a spotlight in Act I, because we rolled so many sixes that the pool was filled before they had their turn. Is this common? We think that if we had continued we'd have started Act II with their spotlights, rather than starting to the left of the Captain as stated.</blockquote>

Yes. If you don't make it around, you can start with the spotlights where you left off.

A question: we always had the player fighting the threat narrate the result of the roll, including the actions of his helpers, after everybody had agreed on the outcome; one of his players said at the end that he would have liked to state his actions himself, but I move that there is really no difference once everybody has agreed. What do you think about this?</blockquote>

I like to let each person narrate how he or she helped, but it's really up to the group.


A couple of other points:
in the Chosen One description, it says "when confronting the Threat", you might want to make clear that it refers to the final crysis (it was to me, but I am not sure it was unambiguous);
there is of course no MIMIC in the Fantasy Mission, but we chose to replace it with one of the "things I bring with me", in this case a medallion of one of the PCs, which played the same part; however, we didn't use it in the scenes, for no specific reason (it didn't come up).</blockquote>

Yes! Good note.


A player said that he'd rather do the hero that overcomes rather than the hero that heroically dies, and he believes that the fantasy setting is more conducive to the former than to the latter; I disagree about this.</blockquote>

Ideally... one hero makes it! And overcomes! But, yeah. A lot of heroes die.

Finally, a question: one, can I share this with the Gentechegioca forum (the main Italian indie RPG forum)?</blockquote>

Of course! You might also want to post it on story-games.com.
Contro balrog, draghi, miniufo, orchi e paccottiglia varia dal 1987 o giù di lì

Tags: olbh