[Elementalia] My first playtest. In story form.

[Altharis]

Hey all, here is a quick recount of my first playtest of my new Elementalia rules, enjoy!
During character creation, Marius Stoneriver the earth elemental was given stats of: Str 4, Dex 3, Per 3, Will 4, Int 2 and Cha 2, the skills of Acrobatics 3, Appraisal 3 and Meditation 2 and he was also given the good trait of "Charming" and the bad traits of "Bad at keeping friends" and "Afraid of heights".

One day he woke up from his stasis cell (designed to contain and help elementals sleep), and went to check his list of chores for the day. Upon finding out that the list of chores upon the wall is still yesterday's, Marius went towards his masters study. When he found it locked, he used a piece of paper and a straw to grab the key, jump up to the doorknob, and unlock it, braving his fear of heights multiple times. As he entered the study he was surprised to see that the study was in a complete mess, papers strewn everywhere, and master was nowhere to be found. However, he did find the outdoor key to master's garden.
And so our hero travelled on to his masters bedroom, but as he prepared to go through the cat flap, a familiar face appeared. It was Faust the cat familiar of master. Faust was at first angry, and suspicious that Marius had stolen his master.
One Charming trait use later, and Faust was quite happy to help our hero on his adventures.

So they went out the door in search of master dearest, and after an encounter with a carnivorous plant and some ferocious quilldebeasts (think a porcupine crossed with a rabbit with rabies), they arrived at the druid's grove where master usually hangs out.
They were duly healed of they're wounds by the friendly druids, who were sad to say however that master was not there. The druid's also lent our group a young very fast talking owl named Errol. Marius duly ditched annoying Errol, and set off on his journey. Along the way a hunter accosted Faust and was going to skin him when Marius, who was hidden, shot a rock towards the hunter's hand, knocking the knife away and scaring off the hunter.

As soon as they arrived at the village, our heroes were confronted by  an angry lynch mob led by the hunter. Again Marius was charming, incurring a point of bad karma, and managed to get the villagers to recognize him as the harmless elemental from in the woods. The villagers kicked the revengeful hunter out of town, with him yelling "I'll get you foul elemental!".  The villagers also pointed Marius in the direction of an old sawmill, with weird magic inside.

So Marius left the kindly villagers and headed towards the old sawmill. As he was about to enter he heard a voice behind him. "Hey little earth elemental, wanna fly?"
Before he could respond, a giant column of air rose underneath him, sending him flying! Braving his fear of heights, our hero turned to face his level 3 airy foe, just in time to be punched in the jaw! All was lost for our hero until out of the blue came a blur of fast-talking feathers, Errol! Errol rammed into the air elemental at full speed wounding it and preparing it for a barrage of rocks from Marius. The airy foe fell after a hard fought battle, and Marius took the elemental shard from it's body and merged it with his, becoming level two! At level 2, Marius put an extra skill point into Meditation and one into Earth magic.

Marius, now bigger and stronger, dragged the cowardly Faust out his hiding place and dragged him towards the old mill. Peeking through the window of the old mill, they saw a scene of horror: Master tied up to the saw mill, saw edging ever closer to him, apple in mouth; with two black robed men laughing at his plight.

Galvanised into action, our three heroes jumped into action. Faust and Errol springing/fluttering towards the black robed men, with malicious intent, and Marius going to help master. As soon as they were heard, one of the men started casting a spell, and the other commanded something unseen to attack. Faust sprang onto the non-caster's back and began to claw and bite said man. Errol headed towards the spellcaster, but was attacked by a bat. It was all up to Marius, heading towards his master he ripped off his gag, only for his master to say "Look out!". Marius nimbly dodged the Lvl 1 water elemental's attack and prepared a counterstrike. A few hard fought minutes later, and our hero managed to get enough leverage to throw the watery foe into the path of the blade! However, the watery assailant discorporated and the saw blade passed harmlessly through it. So Marius used his superb stone throwing action to finish off the liquid fiend once and for all. However, while dying the water elemental used a freeze spell to snap freeze our hero to the spot. All seemed lost, as even though our hero was snap frozen, he was conscious, unlike Errol and Faust. Then suddenly, with a crash of glass the druids from the grove burst in, and saved the day.

Final thoughts:
•   The Nameless system is very fun and customisable.
•   It is also easily broken, as any stat of 4 gives you an amazing success chance.
•   The idea of using shards to improve your character works kinda well, though could be upgraded.
•   I REALLY like the system.

Comments and criticism encouraged.

Cheers,
Altharis

[Altharis]

Hi all, I'm a bit disappointed with the total lack of response, but i'll get over it.
I'm taking it that either I a) did something wrong. b) cheesed off someone or c) posted at a wrong date and let it sink to the bottom of the boards.
I think i misinterpreted the rules once or twice as i did not have a copy of the rules with me.
I'm coming up with a list of variants, which differentiate Elementalia from Nameless, so expect that to come soon.
I've just arrived in germany at the moment and i am so excited, down side is my more limited internet access.
I think i misinterpreted the rules once or twice as i did not have a copy
Cheers,
Altharis

[Jon Hastings]

Hi Altharis,

What kind of response were you looking for?  Instead of asking for general comments and questions, it might be better to narrow things down a little.  Can you talk a little bit about how you and the player used the system during play?  (And maybe show us a little more of what was going on "behind the scenes" - who made up the playtest group, etc.?)  Was there anything that the system did that you weren't expecting?  Were you trying to accomplish something that the system was unable to handle or that felt clunky?  If you focus in on issues like these and talk more about how your system helped to create the fiction, you will likely get more responses (and more useful ones).

-Jon

[Altharis]

Hey, sorry if I've been annoying in any way, as i'll say again this is my first game.
Though that's absolutely no excuse so here goes:
1) Well, at least one comment about something from the people who've read my earlier thread.
2) Me and my friend, who shall be henceforth known as Marius, loves to roleplay and has an innate gift, he gets into character well, plans ahead and separates player from character perfectly. I told him I was working on a game, so he said he'd help me playtest. I explained attributes, skills, talents and flaws to him (though somewhat sketchily as I didn't have a copy of the rules with me). We used a simple rule of thumb to remeber most things, "If you have a skill, use it and an attribute; if you don't, use double the one attribute." That's basically it. (I'm sorry if this didn't answer your question fully, as i didn't fully understand it.)
3) Behind the scenes, eh? Well as for the group it was just me and Marius and behind the scenes was mainly just explaining karma. (see above)
4) How easy it is to succeed with a doubled attribute of four, most cahracters just can't fail at some things.
5) Clunky list: Lack of advancement rules, no loss of anything but health for wounds, no used based skill system and modifiers. though i guess that's all because it's designed  be simple.

Does that help?
Cheers,
Altharis

[Jon Hastings]

You aren't annoying me.  However, it is easier for me (and probably anyone else) to make comments or suggestions about something specific.  Did anything that happened during the playtest session stand out in terms of needing further work? 

It also might help to take a look at some of the other threads in the Playtest forum and the Actual Play forum: this will give you a better sense of where I am coming from when I ask about how you and Marius used the system during play.  For instance, were there elements of the system that you ignored?  Overall, you want to look at how the choices you made as a designer affected how the game was played.

And here are some more specific comments/questions.  Feel free to take your time with them or ignore them.  But the important thing, I think, is to figure out where you want to take the conversation.

1. You started by saying that you wanted something like the Magician's Apprentice: do you feel that you achieved this during the playtest session?

2.  In your original thread in the First Thoughts forum, you were talking about a "tech tree" of powers.  Did you feel that this worked well in the game?

From your playtest account, I get the sense that combat and conflict between elementals is a big part of the game.  So, a possible use of the "tech tree" is to set up interesting combinations of techniques and abilities.  Is this what you are going for?  If so, could you go into more detail about the interplay of the different elemental abilities during play? 

3.  Also from the original thread, you talked about the elementals being ripped from their home dimension.  This theme - being trapped someplace against your will - doesn't seem to have come up during the playtest.  Is this a theme you'd like the game to focus on or is it meant to be the set-up for adventuring?

4. It seems like twice the PC was rescued by NPCs (first by Errol and then by the druids).  Did the PC need this help because, by the rules, he was overpowered by the opposition?  It kind of seems to fit with the vibe of the game that PCs will get in over their head and need outside help.  However, I would be concerned that this takes a lot away from the player.  What was Marius' reaction to being rescued by the NPCs?  Did he contribute to the description of how the NPCs came to the rescue?

[Altharis]

Hey, well in terms of specific things, I'd like to make Elementalia a slightly more complicated and detailed version of Nameless, a setting that actually has its own rules instead of being well... Nameless!
So my plans are to include at least these two things: Extra difficulty for being wounded and Use-based skills.
These stem from my two great annoyences with DND namely, "I'm on 1 health, butr fighting like I'm on 300!" and "How come you gained cake-baking expertise from slaying a dragon?"
If anyone has any suggestions as to ways to implement these or other cool variants..... you know what to do.

Due to my lack of rules with me (smacks forehead) I have missed out on at least Karmic Kredit, Motivations and Philosophies, but maybe more. Lack of Motivations and Philosophies help to give a touch of ambiguity to Marius's personality..... something that i don't really like.

And now for some questions :

1) Not really, as although Marius was questing to help master, there was no anti-master vibe as in the magician's apprentice. (This may be because I like the master and elemental to have a nice relationship)

2) Ah, funny you mention that, my tech tree idea was incomplete at the time so I didn't use it for the first game. (the one written about in the first post) Using the tech tree was like putting a saddle, reins and full set of tack on an ameoba. (you can tell I hang out with horse and science geeks) Any thing you want to do with powers, you can do with a magic skill or trick and with Karma.
The nameless system is just too darn flexible.

3) Well, as I said for my first playtest I'd rather not have the master and elemental in a duel of wills, plus some elementals get bored on their homeplane....

4) Ah, the classic deus ex machina.... I love to use it as it ties the players to an organization and helps the player out. I have two good rules that have served me well with this: If the enemy is meant to die then, the PC deals the deathblow. If not, have te PC get revenge to prove to himself and the deus ex that he ain't weak. I meant there to be deus ex in both situations for the reason that the PC needs help with asingle aspect of the opposition. For the airy foe, even though he was higher level, Marius, who is a smart player, would defeat him. Only problem was that Marius hates heights, and Errol was an easy solution. By making him seem childish and weak-willed, Marius knew that the only reason Errol was useful is that he can fly, and so Marius doesn't feel weak. With the sawmill encounter, I knew that Marius wouldn't be able to take on two full mages by himself. So the druids came, and although they struck the killing blow, Marius didn't feel weak because he defeated a higher level elemntal and saved his master from the saw by himself. (Marius is also a good team player, and doesn't feel weak if npc's and other players pitch in.)

Does that answer your queries?

Cheers,
Altharis

[Altharis]

Another thing I found interesting was my mis-interpretation of counterattacks.
I forgot that counter-attacks cannot be countered and rolled dodging into them.

Example:
I succeed with a 3!
He gets.... 5, beats you.
What's his maximum again?
8
Cool, mines 9..... I get 7!
He gets.....3, he fails to dodge and gets hit.

I liked the fact that the combat quickly escalated, and I'd like to put some kind of "The more you succeed by the more damage you do" thing.

I'd also like to differentiate losing by going over and losing by not having enough to beat.

Cheers,
Altharis.