[Conquer the Horizon] First Playtest

[Josh Roby]

Conquer the Horizon is a microgame of four pages in which the players portray members of an exploratory team from the Old World discovering the wonders of the New World.  For the rules and design notes, see the link.

Last night I got to testdrive these rules in a short and somewhat late game.  I played with my married brother (24yo), his wife (28yo), my younger brother (21yo) and his friend (22yo guy).  We started at 10:30 and played until midnight; the game was not played very seriously -- we were explorers from a united USA and Mexico where Steve Jobs was worshipped as a god.  We travelled to a South Pacific island where an impeached Bush had fled and set up his New World Order that somehow involved princesses with magic powers. I'd still like to try it out 'straight' to see if it works in that mode, as well.

World Creation (15 minutes) --
This worked really well really quickly.  It took one round of the page going around the table and then everyone caught on and things moved quickly.  Because of the completely open and unregulated nature of the suggestions, and the players not being used to so much control, and it being relatively late, things got silly very quickly.  Which was okay.  It was plainly clear that the World Creation determines the tone of the ensuing game.  One side note of particular interest was the suggestion that the New World was in the past -- thereby opening up the possibility that the PCs were time-travelling explorers.  I was pleasantly surprised because, while I never thought of that, it fits into the game perfectly well.  Said suggestion was not, however, ratified.

Character Creation (30 minutes) --
Explaining the Roles and picking them took a little more time than I would have liked; I did read off what each Role was good at, could not do, and their goal, though, so that dragged things.  Next time I play this with a new group, I'll probably just lay out the archetypes and tell them the game-effect once they've picked one.  Next time I play this with these guys, we won't need to do either.  In any case, I took Governor, my brother took Anthropologist, my sister-in-law took Merchant, her husband took Missionary (preaching the word of Steve Jobs), and my brother's friend took the Naturalist.

Competencies took a while, mostly because we got a little muddied on what a 'Competency' was and so things like 'Colorblind' and 'Peg Leg' got thrown around the table.  Strictly speaking these are not Competencies as defined (Things you are good at) so next time they'll be axed.  One player, my married brother, decided to collect as many Competencies as he could; he ended up with five before everyone had their minimum two.  So it's a good thing that you can only use one Competency in any roll.  Suggested competencies of interest were "has a tree frog pet" and "has telekinetic powers" -- I hadn't considered that people might suggest props or powers.  I'm not sure if I like that or not, and I may rule next time that those are not "Thing you are good at" either.  The sole use of the telekinetic powers was amusing, however.

Discoveries and "Actual Play" (45 minutes) --
Then we started in on Landfall and making Discoveries.  I took the Governor role, so I narrated leaving the American port of Cabo San Lucas, a sea voyage, and then approaching a bay that looked good for landfall.  The first round of qualifiers were pretty hesitant, which is to be expected -- the Anthropologist qualified "there is a pier in disrepair" and the Missionary qualified "there is an old man at the end of the pier".  Because I was demonstrating the game, I accepted the pier but rejected the old man so we had an example of both.  The Anthropologist then discovered a kayak house (one of his Competencies was kayaking), which was qualified with "the kayaks are in disrepair" (from me, being an ass), "there is a deadly fungus spore infesting the boathouse" (from the Naturalist), and "the boathouse is a big mess" (from the Missionary, who had a Competency 'clean freak').  The Anthropologist's roll, however, was a whopping three, so he was forced into the position of accepting two qualifications or else the discovery would be rejected entirely.  He took the deadly fungus and the big mess.

Since he had rolled lowest with his three, he got to make the next discovery as well, so he Discovered a path behind the kayak house leading towards a lit-up horizon.  He was qualified with "the land is graded on either side of the road and would be suitable for building houses" (by the Governor), "there are ewoks on the road" (by the Merchant), "the ewoks remember the original Mac" (by the Missionary), and "the ewoks are amazed when I use my telekinetic powers to levitate the Missionary" (by the Natualist).  All of the Qualifications were accepted, leading to a lot of people writing down a lot of details.  Of note, the Anthropologist had no game-reason to accept the ancestral memory of the Macintosh or the levitation bit; he did accept them, though, simply because he liked them, the narrated details made him laugh (the Missionary did a C3PO impression), and it sounded like a good addition to the developing world.

However -- we had qualifications that depended on other qualifications.  It's nonsensical to accept "the ewoks remember the Mac" but reject "there are ewoks on the road".  Two options that I can think of: (a) suggest, accept, and reject qualifications serially, so I have to accept or reject the ewoks before I even hear about their ancestral memory, or (b) rule that qualifications must elaborate the discovery and cannot elaborate other qualifications.  There's also (c), I suppose, leaving it 'as-is' which makes it possible to 'link' qualifications so if you want what I add in, you need to accept what she added in.  I don't like (a) because it would slow down into 'okay, now your turn' clunkiness, and I liked the situation in the second discovery where he had to choose two of three to keep his discovery.  I like (b) better; it's cleaner and more 'pure', but I must admit that the qualifications-on-qualifications did accelerate the articulation of the world.  Lastly, (c) introduces an element of strategy, but I'm not sure how much it really forwards the "let's create an interesting world we can exploit."  Point to consider.

Next the Merchant made the discovery "at the end of the road is a refrigerator", qualified by "the ewoks worship the refrigerator as a god" (Missionary), "the refrigerator is out in the wilds" (Naturalist), "the refrigerator is losing power" (Governor), and "the refrigerator has no visible power source" (Anthropologist).  You can really see the players making qualifications that they can later use for their own purposes.  When the Missionary qualified with the worship bit, the Merchant laughed that that was what she had been thinking herself; it and the "in the wilds" were accepted.

The Naturalist then decided to try and make an Exploit, so he returned "down the road, to the kayak shed, jury-rigging a face mask from native foliage, to harvest and contain the deadly fungus in the kayak house".  I threw in the throwaway "my pet tree frog goes, too"; the Anthropologist went, too, to see if he could use (with his Herbalism competency) the fungus in some way to help the ewoks and garner favor with them. I'm afraid I don't remember if there were other qualifications; if there were, they were not accepted.  It's pretty plain that Exploits generate as much or more detail than vanilla Discoveries, and need to be written down separately rather than just signified with an underline.

I won the next discovery with the lame "my frog goes, too" and so I tried for an Exploit, myself: I narrated that the ewoks were the survivors of a slave-race that once served masters who built the regrigerator out in the wild, and that the Governor was going to masquerade as one of these lost masters to get the ewoks to provide labor to build the colony.  The Missionary immediately riffed on that and threw in a qualification to try to convert the ewoks from refrigerator-worship to Mac-worship.  The Anthropologist jumped in and qualified that the ewoks split into two factions, one for serving the explorers and another refusing to bow down.  The Merchant (who had 'Gourmet Chef' as a competency) set up a kitchen based around the refrigerator to feed the ewoks in the work camp.  I accepted the schism and the kitchen, but rejected the conversion for purely strategic reasons.

And then it was midnight, and most of us had work the next morning.  I didn't suggest we tally points with only two exploit attempts (I would have won).  We had halved the pool of Supplies (I didn't count; I grabbed a handful), which seems about right.  The start of the game would pull lots of supplies, replaced later with players who already have die pools and don't want to end the game yet.  The experience seemed to be a success, with much laughing and strategizing and collaborative creation -- one player kept repeating, "I love this game" which, you know, felt pretty good.  More than once someone said aloud, "That qualification doesn't get me anything, but it's so much fun I'm taking it."  So the twinned goal of "let's create an interesting world that I can exploit" seems to have been fulfilled.

We had no General; it was the only role not taken.  We didn't get far enough into the New World to come across the princesses or Bush's outlaw regime -- I actually may tone down the World Creation a bit, so it stipulates fewer details, although this didn't really seem to be a stumbling block.

The dice worked seamlessly.  The Missionary gobbled up the d20s very quickly, with the result that he never got to initiate a discovery or exploit.  Most of the qualifications that won the next discovery were d4s and d6s.  There was very little thinking about the dice, however -- everyone seemed to jump right in and not worry too much about which dice to choose to roll.  How many dice you got to roll was pretty simply done by narrating your piece and rather deliberately placing a die in front of you when you touched on a competency or discovery.  The focus was pretty unwaveringly on strategic collaboration.

In conclusion, a very solid success, with some very useful notes for revisions.  Does anybody see anything that I don't see?

[TonyLB]

Wow, that sounds like a trip!

I'm not exactly sure why you want to create the New World before folks get there.  Isn't that destructive pre-play?  It sounds like your refrigerator Ewoks were a lot more fun than rogue Bushies... and knowing that Bush was in charge might have restrained folks from (for instance) deciding that a furry reincarnation of Martha Stewart was in charge of the island.  That would have been a shame.

In short:  Why pre-create the New World at all?

[Josh Roby]

The World Creation bit is to decide if you are Cortez or Buck Rogers, to give the first basic context about where you're coming from and where you're going to.  I think the initial 'seed' of context is vitally important -- otherwise the players will flounder at the start of every game as some try to make it silly while others go serious and still others want, I dunno, noir film.  World Creation is very intentionally placed before Character Creation of any sort for this reason -- in our testdrive last night, the Missionary wouldn't have known what creed he'd be pushing if we hadn't already got 'Steve Jobs is God' in World Creation, for instance.

[Emily Care]

Fantastic, Joshua.  Sounds like you've got a system that unlocks group creativity.  What more can we hope for? 

However -- we had qualifications that depended on other qualifications.  It's nonsensical to accept "the ewoks remember the Mac" but reject "there are ewoks on the road".  Two options that I can think of: (a) suggest, accept, and reject qualifications serially, so I have to accept or reject the ewoks before I even hear about their ancestral memory, or (b) rule that qualifications must elaborate the discovery and cannot elaborate other qualifications.  There's also (c), I suppose, leaving it 'as-is' which makes it possible to 'link' qualifications so if you want what I add in, you need to accept what she added in.

Aren't the Qualifications given in order? Or are all suggested and then accepted or denied as a group? If one after the other, it seems logical to have them build up on one another, but I might just not be catching the flow of the game.  Also, I am reminded of Components in Universalis, and their modifying traits.  You make a nested structure with descriptions listed beneath the Component they apply to.  If you haven't played Uni already, it might be of use to you. 

Other stuff: having little cards of the roles would probably make it easier for people to choose them.  I'm sure you thought of that already if you wanted to, but then people could look them over at their leisure and choose them.  This would make a great little game like Under the Bed, which is packaged as just a set of cards & a booklet with rules, if you wanted to publish in print.  Do you want to add Props or Powers? They seem like natural, fun things people would like to make up for their character.  Presumably they could be used instead of a Competency. 

The Anthropologist's roll, however, was a whopping three, so he was forced into the position of accepting two qualifications or else the discovery would be rejected entirely.  He took the deadly fungus and the big mess.

Hee! That's the best.  Great job.

best,
Emily

[Josh Roby]

The rules as written are vague on turn progression on Qualifications.  It doesn't say if each qualification is suggested and then accepted/rejected, or if all qualifications are suggested before the discoverer picks and chooses.  I find, though, that I prefer the pick-and-choose decision, where one balances which qualifications to take over others, rather than a one-by-one determination, so I'll be making that step-by-step explicit.  It's got less suspense (do I need to accept this to weather what Joe will qualify next?) but more of a negotiation feel (well, I'll take yours and yours, so I can safely reject yours...), and for this game, I'll take negotiation over suspense.

As for actual manufacture and publishing, I don't really find it feasible.  I've got seven roles if I count Native Guide, and limiting Competencies to a finite pile of cards seems to hijack a lot of the bartering fun of suggesting Competencies and seeing if anyone will take it or it'll be dumped back on you.  I suspect I'll find some public domain art and do it up as a pdf -- perhaps with an extra sheet that can be cut out into Role cards (I had thought of it, but didn't think it'd be necessary).