[Coming of Age] Squires of Sword and Sorcery

[Wormwood]

Last night I held another playetest of Coming of Age. This time it was for somewhat veteran players, Zach had played the first playtest of the current incarnation, where we had Galaxy Police Cadets taking their final exams and defeating space pirates, at the same time. Lia had played an earlier incarnation, in that case we were Bollywood actors looking for their big break and working in a French restraunt. Both of those lent themselves towards the silly, so as part of the genre testing I tried to push towards a more serious game. We took a middle road, basically a sword and sorcery setting with squires and apprentices trying to prove themselves and perhaps saving the day.

The setting took some discussion, but afterwards we started assembling our characters and buying some antagonist dice. We ended up with two squires and an apprentice wizard. We also decided to play on pace 1, since we wanted a one-shot game for the night. Zach, being a student, heads home for the summer in a few days, so there wasn't time for a multi-session game - as much as I'd like to vet with a higher pace.

My character was Deborah Shale, one of the squires:

Titles:
Wise Advisor d20
Captain of the West Marches d12
Mother of Princes d12
Gifted Singer d8
Hero of Koarg's Den d8

Opposition:
Self-Conscious
Scrawny
Unfocused

Lia's character was Squire George McClain:

Titles:
Knight of the Realm d20
Well-Respected d12
Always Chivalrous d12
Land Owner d8
Traveler of Many Lands d8

Opposition:
Female
Naive
Quick-Tempered

Zach's character was the apprentice wizard, Kellin:

Titles:
Archmage of the North d20
Member of the Council d12
Book-wise d12
The Many-Tongued d8
Seasoned Traveller d8

Opposition:
Sophmoric
Irresponsible
Frail

If recollection serves, our starting antagonist dice were:

Fixed: (Callain eventually went to a d10)
Callain, Knight Instructor d8
The Librarian d8 (eventually he was named Spock, he was Kellin's teacher)

Goal:
Festival Competitions d8
Courtesans d6
Jealous Pages d6

I paid for half of Callain and Festival Competitions. Lia paid the other half and for Courtesans and Jealous Pages. Zach paid for the Librarian.

To get things going I started and we had a few rounds of actions the evening and night prior to the festival. During that time, Deborah failed to impress Callain, Kellin was stuck working on a spell until late at night, and George won an practice archery competition. When Kellin finally cast his spell correctly, Deborah made sure he was still able to eat by distracting the jealous pages and George had a run-in with the Courtesans during her language lessons, with mixed results (she had multiple actions here due to the "I'd like to hear more" use of one of my story points). As the festival day dawned, George had the most story points, but Deborah had reduced the most opposition dice.

As the festival dawned, we bought rival squires (definitely a group effort) as our competitors. We had a series of competitions: a foot race which Deborah lost in spite of multiple tries (and her opposition dice dropped further), two magic competitions (one of which Kellin won), a few unofficial confrontations, a chess tournament (which Deborah won with her Wise Advisor), and some sparring (George did well on these).

During this time we expressed some distress that Lia wasn't losing as often as she might, which was keeping her oppositions low. This would end up being handled in the new phase of the game. Interestingly I was losing very often, so I ended up with no opposition dice before we finished. I'm considering adding an optional rule for that eventuality, but it may be unnecessary.

As the tournament continued, we talked Lia (who had the most story points) into making a Black Knight as the focal antagonist of the game. After a few actions, feeling him out and dealing with the courtesans who had fallen for him, we bought him up to a d10 (he was "defeated" a few times, and then returned using the buy-back rules). After a particularly spectacular failure on Kellin's part to determine the nature of the Black Knight's eldritch influence, the Knight challenged poor Kellin to a duel, Deborah used her wise advisor to shift the duel to a champion, but the only champion who would stand up for Kellin was George.

What followed was a double extended fight between George and the Black Knight. She defeated him at first, but was thrown back when he revealed his demonic nature (and was bought up to a d20). Kellin then attacked the knight with a sudden magical attack, apparently destroying it. (He defeated the die and removed it from the antagonist list.) As it was my turn next, I decided that Deborah noticed the rival squires trying to take the castle in the confusion.

After a little while, we shifted the questionable plot by the rivals to a case of demonic possession, the knight hadn't been defeated, he'd been split apart. This means we could bring back the other antgonists, as possessed by the demon, and added a new antagonist die for the demonic possession. Deborah found herself over-run by both the rival squires and the jealous pages, who had her surrounded. Only quick magic from Kellin and George's skill at stopping the more experienced Callain (also possessed), enabled her to escape the fight.

With her wise advisor title, Deborah realized that the Black Knight's armor was the key to the possession, and as her allies fought the possessed, she fought and banished the demon just as the squires were defeated. Retroactively, I decided that the castle was named Koarg's Den, and hence Hero of Koarg's Den fit together.

After that we sat back and realized that the game had ended. Lia was a little concerned about this, pointing out that she still had story points, as did we all. So we had a discussion about end games for Coming of Age. The two I was considering: someone loses all their opposition or one d20 goal die is defeated per player both actually happened - and the later would have ended the game exactly as we did. We also discussed the possibility of an epilogue or the like, but no concrete suggestions surfaced.

Presently I like the idea of a loose end, the players will generally know it when they see it. But I intend to offer optional rules of the sort to encourage that identification. Especially as the ideal of every roll nets you something ends when you run out of opposition dice. As far as an epilogue, I have some ideas forming, perhaps telling the future of your character in broad strokes, of your deeds (based on titles), and what flaws you retained - from the opposition dice remaining.

They also pointed out that after playing you end up with a character you'd enjoy playing in another game. Zach compared this with Deja Vu. I think that's in interesting effect, and in retrospect I wonder if that would further enhance Coming of Age for use in a full course of RPGs. That was a publishing goal at one point, and it may become one again, depending on how small the game ends up being.

At the moment it's 6 pages that apparently produces consistent, concentrated fun. But I still need to vet larger paces and I desperately need third party playtesting, before I'm confident of it being ready.

   - Mendel S.