[Scarlet Wake] Review

[Roger]

(I started a new thread since this is fairly long, and I didn't want to hijack the review thread with reviews of this review, if you see what I mean.)

My impressions, more or less chronologically:

Page 1:  Hmmm.  Looks good.  This is Play-Test Version Revision 1, which is always good to know (lack of versioning of this sort of thing irritates me.)

Page 2:  The artwork works.  Evocative without being overwhelming.  

Page 3:  The Introduction... doesn't.  It doesn't Introduce me to the game.  It gives me a bunch of marketing cliche's.  The first paragraph should be cut entirely.

The second paragraph actually DOES Introduce the game.  Hurray.  Well, mostly.  The stuff about how many game sessions, how many players, etc, is all handy stuff, but I wouldn't front-end load it right in the start of the Introduction.

If I wrote or edited the Introduction, it would probably look something more like:

"In Scarlet Wake, you work towards killing those who have wronged you, and all who stand in your way.  The game ends when all players have killed everyone on their List.  The coolest badass wins."

But that's just me.

The generic "blah-blah-blah this rulebook is a book of rules" stuff in the 3rd paragraph isn't really helping anyone either.

The Playing Scarlet Wake section -- aha!  Here's the real meat of the Introduction.  This gives me an immediate feeling of the shape of the game, which is what I want to know at this point.  This entire section is excellent

The What You Need To Play section is more "blah-blah-blah you need an pencil and an eraser" type crap.  If you can't figure out that you need a pencil for this game, or if that sudden discovery significantly inconveniences you, you really shouldn't be playing Scarlet Wake.  The bit on dice is possibly useful, but I doubt you need much more than "You will need 5 or 6 each of d4, d6, d8, d10, d12."

The Disclaimer is... well, ehh.  If you feel you need it, go for it.  You could at least make it funny or put some Colour into it.

I guess this page gives me the impression that you figured, hey, every other RPG wastes a page telling the reader what polyhedral dice are and not to hack up the neighbours, so I guess I need to too.  I probably wouldn't even care that much except that it's in the first real page of content you have, which is too precious to waste on deadwood.

Page 4:  Character Creation.  A whole paragraph describing what a character sheet is.  Again, hey, maybe some people are unclear that a character sheet is a sheet that describes a character.  I'd be inclined to cut, cut, and cut some more here, though.

This is just me, but if I were writing this section, I'd skip straight away to the List.  It's the most important part of the character sheet, possibly the most important part of the game, and it's pretty darn cool.  Your readers can probably figure out what the Notes section is for, and what he should write under Character Name.  But the List actually needs some explaination.  I'd put it first.

I might also suggest that, as an example on pg 5, that you use a filled-in example character sheet.  If you're feeling especially clever, use one of the characters that shows up much later on in your example.

Page 5:  A game issue:  you're using Name to basically refer to two separate things.  The first being the actual "John Doe" name of the character, the second being a numerical score.

I'd recommend renaming at least one of them.  E.G., "John Doe" could be the character's Moniker or Alias.  The score could be the characters Renown or Fame or Infamy or Bad-Assedness.

Also note that a lot of this section isn't really properly Character Creation at all -- it's the fundamental System mechanics.  Yes, I know it's a chicken-and-egg problem when it comes to RPGs, but I thought I'd mention it.

Page 6:

Style Note:  For the old-school typewriter look, go to straight apostrophes and non-smart (straight) quotes.

The parenthetical example of the sniper rifle under Weapon doesn't really help clarify things for me.  I'd be inclined to just leave it out.  I think players will figure out that the Weapon score is the mechanic and the actual form of the weapon is just fluff.

"A score of 1 means that your character is barely lucky enough to be alive"  -- I just wanted to mention that I thought this was worth a chuckle, in the good way.

Grudge.  Hrm.  Is the character ever going to be rolling in a situation where something *isn't* between them and a List target?  And is it really thematically pure for a character to be sorta blase' about killing off the List?  Maybe this will reveal itself in actual playtesting, but my hunch is against it.

Fire.  It's not entirely clear what happens if you get all Fired up and then decide to let the person you're fighting live.  I mean, it's clear enough thematically, but the actual letter of the law implies you could stay Fired up forever in that case.  Maybe replace killed with defeated, or some such.

Page 7

Fuel:  Is it really calculated by adding up the scores of all your traits, or is it calculated by adding up the scores of all your OTHER traits?  More rules-lawyer weaseling on my part, but it's a loophole I'd plug.

Aha!  We finally actually *really* get to Character Creation.

Hmm.  If you have four traits and 8 points to distribute and the minimum is 1, one could also say that you start with 1 point in each of them and have 4 points to distribute.  I know, tomato, tomato.  You'll note that in the second way of expressing it, though, you don't even have to mention the minimum OR the maximum.

The section on naming your character is a repeat of previous information -- it probably belongs here moreso than elsewhere.

The remainder of this page, from "Finally, you need to start..." down through and including all of the Tips for Character Creation, is, in my opinion, not needed.  It just sounds like a lot of uberNarrativist preaching.  There are a number of absolute statements ("your character's coolness is all that matters","Creating your character is the most important part of playing Scarlet Wake") that put me in an argumentative mood.  If it were up to me, I'd severely cut or rework all of this.

Page 8

The List!  Aha!  On my first reading, the first time I got a handle on what this game was really about was when I read the first sentence on this page.  It's great.  But I shouldn't have to wait this long to get to it.

Thought:  What if the shapely lass on page 2 had a list in her hand?

"The number 5 name on that list belongs to the most vile of the 5, the one who you will chase to the ends of the earth to bring justice to" really reinforces my earlier misgivings about the role of the Grudge trait.

The trait of Crime has a name that isn't quite evocative enough for me.  I'd be inclined to go with something more melodramatic, like Sin or Transgression or something.

I'm not entirely happy with the way Name trait wrapping works.  I was expecting something more like starting Name 3 + Boss Name 4 = 7 = 5+2 = Name 2 + one permanent Fire.

But then your permanent Fire is still counted as part of your Name score.

I haven't actually playtested it, but this feels all kludgy and tacked-on in an otherwise elegant system.

I'd be inclined to just make a player's Name score equal to 1 + the number of Bosses they've killed.  The objection, if any, is that this is insufficient game reward for killing a Boss.  I suspect that won't be a problem.  It's not really a problem in terms of scoring, since every player is going to kill all of his bosses, because that's the only way the game ends, so the net effect cancels out.  Excepting, of course, character death.  Presumably if the only characters left with unkilled Bosses are themselves dead, the game is still over.

Aside:  If you made the scores run from 4 to 12, stepping by 2, you'd end up with the same net effect, but the score would automagically tell you what size of die to use.  And it bumps up the resolution a bit, so you could have a score of 5, which probably rounds down to a d4, but is marginally better.  If you wanted to do so.

Peons:  In game terms, Rank is an awful lot like Name.  Just a thought.

Rigid List Creation:  This looks promising.  However, I will suggest that this is the wrong place to first mention that Bosses can show up on more than one player's List.  It's a fairly major point, and a somewhat surprising one, and also clever, so don't hide it away!  At least mention it earlier on.

pg 9

Boss Traits:  This may dog you --  "Bosses higher in the order are tougher, while those lower are weaker."  For a while, at least, players will be wondering -- wait, is #5 higher or lower than #1?  Also, physically on the Character Sheet, #5 actually is *lower* than #1, which is at the top.

You seem to be consistent in the numbering scheme, which is good.  But it's the sort of thing that might sneak up on a player.

It also seems a bit weird that Crime is not inherently tied to Boss Rank.  It seems like, by default, the person who did the worst thing to you should be the person at #5.  Streamlining the Boss-creation process would be a nice side effect, too, since every player needs to iterate this loop a lot.

And we run into Grudge again.  Should you really have the same Grudge (which might be low, I remind you) towards everyone on the List?  What if a player's effective Grudge was directly related to the specific Boss-in-question's Crime, which was directly related to his Boss Rank?  Just a thought, but that seems to make sense.  On the other hand, if the net game effect is that Grudge and Crime always cancel each other out, that could be a problem.  (But they don't always cancel each other out, since one of the Kick effects can remove the Grudge trait for a while.)

The example is very appreciated.  It illustrates some hidden assumptions -- the most important one being, in my opinion, that the Boss is shared between Lists right at the beginning, before he's really created.  Just how that process actually occurs is something worth mentioning in the manual, I think.

Page 10:

The Boss Action Pool -- does he always get to use these dice, or only when appropriate, or do the two answers amount to the same thing?  The Character Traits section seems to imply that they are only applicable when within the theme, but it may well be that the Boss is always going to show up within those themes.  (This is, in fact, clarified later on, but it could be clearer here.)

Flexible Boss Creation: Like you were reading my mind, you provide some good rules that flesh out Boss sharing (which isn't really related to Boss Creation, per se.)

Well, they sort of flesh it out.  I really like the concept of Boss sharing, but I'm having troubles seeing how it would actually work around the table.

Page 12:

Kicking Ass:  Woo hoo!  Now we're cooking with gas.  You might want or need to touch on how to resolve disagreements about which Character Traits apply, since the game does have a competitive edge to it.  Or just let the players work it out themselves.  (You broadly cover this later on.)

The Wave:  This is also cool.  As for the finger numbering:  Can a Protagonist request zero Peons?  Can he ask for more than 10?  If so, how?  Might be worthwhile clarifying.

If you mess with Name and Boss Name in the ways I've suggested, the effects of the Screw You manouever might need to be changed.  Them's the breaks.  Or you could deal with a successful Screw You in some other novel way (a free Trait gain in any Trait the Protagonist wants, for example.)

You might want to touch on how numerous Antagonists might want to think about sharing the stage during a Wave.  Maybe not.  (And indeed, you do, later on.)

Step 3 is apparently trying to compensate for the possibility of more than one Protagonist, which is good, but Step 1 didn't at all, which is probably not so good.  Clarification may be required here.

page 13:

The damage description makes sense, and sounds like fun.  The obvious tactic which seems to leap out to me is Maim the Wave: deal at least 1 point of damage to every Peon, then if you have any left over, deal some more.  Is that a valid tactic?  Is it a game-breaking one?

(This would also be the right place to give an example of using Fire, if you feel so inclined.)

I'm starting, at this point, to feel a bit antsy over every seeing rules regarding losing your Weapon or your Lucky Charm.  It seems clear that they SHOULD be coming up, any moment now.  Some forward reference in the text might be useful to assuage my concerns.

"Honour: Are you NOT trying to overcome a Dilemma? If so, you should use your Honour in your AP."

This doesn't make any sense to me.  A capital-D Dilemma?  What's that?  The description of Honour back on page 5 doesn't offer many clues.  (This is eventually described, but it could stand a passing mention earlier.)

Aha, so these rules DO apply to Bosses.  Glad that's cleared up.  However... "Sub-Bosses"?  What are those?  First time the term has been introduced, as far as I can tell.  (Clarified later, but quite a bit later.)

page 14:

Hrm.  These examples deal with Binds right from the start, but I don't even know what a Bind is yet.  It may be unavoidable.  Then again, to be honest, this has all been pretty straightforward -- maybe I don't need an example yet.  It could wait until after Binds are explained.

The Amber Ghost example didn't make it clear to me why she was using her Name (because the people who tied her up knew who she was?) "grabs a crowbar from the tool box in the ute next to her"  The what?  Ute?

Onyx Dragon:  This is the Gamist in me, but letting someone pick a part of their own body as their Weapon seems to scream out Cheese.  I'm inclined to think that it should be the same rules as  Lucky Charm -- no body parts.  Unless you want to encourage Bosses to practice amputation.  But since that requires explicit PC approval, I'd dodge the whole issue.

Also... letting someone roll the same stat that they're trying to improve strikes me as being slightly inelegant, although I don't strongly object to it.

The Onyx Dragon example also doesn't make it clear which Antagonist he's competing against -- I'm guessing it's the one who abandoned him in the middle of nowhere, but it could be clearer.

Fire and Fuel

This section hangs together.  If you explicitly cannot burn Fuel to help yourself through a Bind, you might want to mention that for clarity.

page 15:

The Bind in a Box is a good idea (I'm all for sidebars in general).  Screams for some examples, though.  Like the examples back on pg 14, actually, except more focused on the Bind sections.

I know this sort of forward-reference is very hard if not impossible to avoid in an rpg manual, but the term and concept of Binds has been tossed around an awful lot in these 15 pages so far, and I haven't seen any sort of definition for it.

The three steps or phases of the Bind are appreciated.  However, now I understand the Onyx Dragon example even less.  What was he escaping from?  How did punching cacti and the ground help him?

Page 16:

It might not hurt to clarify that you can't kill another player for his Weapon.  Just a thought.

Aside:  The twin concepts of Present Narration and Historical Narration are also quite clever.

Page 17:

Ah, now Dilemma gets introduced.  Hrm.  Rolling against the Boss's Luck is, well, weird.  Why his Luck?  Any particular reason?  I just don't understand, is all.

(pedant:  It's "receive" not "recieve".  I before E, and all that.)

Fluke Rolls:  This seems unnecessarily complicated and tacked-on.  I guess it might serve as a sort of "critical hit" mechanic, but I'd be tempted to cut it in the interest of elegance.

page 18:

Now we really deal with Binds (which, again, are cool.)  (Also, I just noticed/remembered that you don't explicitly deal with how injured Peons show up in subsequent Waves following the one that they sit out.  Some clarification might be helpful.)

The limits on Antagonists narrating a PC's actions in a Bind are a very good idea -- bravo!  It's exactly the sort of thing that a game designer might not mention because it seems "obvious", too.

(Pedant: "conceivable" not "concievable".)

This is the section I'd expect to see some explicit discussion on whether you can take away the PCs Weapon, or Lucky Charm, or whatnot, and what that actually means mechanically -- if the Bind is that the Antagonists take away your Cool Katana and melt it down into slag, what happens?

page 19:

Ah -- it's up to the Protagonist to assign ACs to Antagonists.  Interesting.  Worth mentioning earlier, I think.

The advice about keeping your Scenes short enough is good, but I'm not entirely sure I've got a good grasp on when a Protagonist's Scene (or "turn") is supposed to end.

page 20:

Ah, Kick.  If Kick is *really* this important, it might be worthwhile mentioning it earlier.  You're walking a tricky line, with Protagonists and Antagonists.  I think you've decided to mostly give all the rules for Protagonists, and now you've begun to give the rules for the Antagonists.  Which is one way to do it.

Oh, and Sub-Bosses are introduced.

page 21:

Can't Run, Can't Hide:  I don't think I've seen any rules about when a PC *can* leave an encounter. Can they run away pretty much any time they want?  Some clarification might be in order.

The Sub-Boss is a neat idea.

The PC Killing mechanic is interesting.  I wonder if some sort of martyr effect -- if you get killed, your Name score (or Honour) doubles, or some such -- would be useful.

There's no mechanic for Boss Runs Away.  I wonder if maybe there should be... particularly used in conjunction with Sub-Boss.  Seems like the genre is full of masterminds slipping away at the last moment.

The Co-Operation angle is neat (but every part of Shared Bosses is neat.)  When one PC fails and gets into a Bind, does the winning PC get to narrate that Bind just like an AC?

Page 22:

I see that under failed co-operation, the winning PC can narrate the Bind.  Just wondering if a failed fight without co-operation works out the same way.  

The Troubleshooting Rule is... interesting.  Worth leaving in, sure.

page 23:

Ah, now we get into definitions of scenes, turns, etc.  I wonder how well "you only get one scene per turn" would work.  Particularly right in the beginning of the game -- giving everyone a chance to churn through *something* soon might work well.

The Organizing-the-Levels bit seems to have quite a lot of hand-holding in it, though.  Which isn't such a terribly bad thing, but I think a lot of it could be cut.  

page 25:

The Scene Locations list is a nice touch.

page 26:

"Antagonists can spend Kick to introduce new Peons or Sub-Bosses to begin an encounter with a PC whenever they want."  Woah.  Really?  *Whenever* they want?

page 30:

When Jodi succeeds against the Bind, she improves her Style.  Can she just sorta do that whenever she wants, or should she declare that before she rolls, or something?  Or is it obvious from the Present  Narration or Historical Narration or whatever?

pg 31:

Some Styles:  You coy dog.  Here I thought you were wink-wink, nod-nod avoiding mentioning "Kill Bill".  I think this section is good, but a "this game is sorta like these movies" section helps most near the beginning, when a player is still trying to get a feeling for the shape of a game.  

All in all, there's a whole lot of potential here, and a lot of it has been well-realized.  There's a few rough corners, but I'm inclined to give this a shot with some of my friends.

I'm pleasantly surprised by how the mechanics of the game seem to lead to Hero's Journey sorts of stories, without explicitly requiring that structure.

As an aside... based on reading your forums, and seeing some of the comments, and seeing the current version of the rules, I'm inclined to think that you're possibly *too* responsive to reviews and commentary.  Maybe not.  By that I mean it seems like sometimes entire sections have been added based on only, as far as I can tell, one person's comments on one particular playtest.

I've made quite a few organizational recommendations.  In terms of "new things" I'd like to see:

1)  How to take someone's Weapon and/or Lucky Charm away, and how to get them back, or replace them.

2)  More explicit rules on Shared Bosses -- how to set them up, that sort of thing.

3)  Start your big example further back -- at the character creation, boss creation, boss sharing stage.  You could also trim down a lot of the exposition in the example in order to make room for more crunchy mechanical bits.



Cheers,
Roger

[Roger]

A couple more ideas:

1)  Pseudo-Ensemble Play.

I was thinking that it was unfortunate that all the PCs need to be "lone avenger" types.  Then I thought -- that isn't true at all -- a PC could just as easily be a team of people.  Each person typically representing one trait.  Some traits are shared by the group.  So, for example, we could have:

  Name [0]: The Eh! Team
   Style [2]: Pretty Boy Jenkins, male prostitute.
Weapon [1]: Big-Ass Black Van with Useless Spoiler
    Luck [3]: Mad Cap Magoo, wild-and-crazy dude.
Grudge [4]: Frank "The Tank" McNamara, one bad mofo.
Honour [1]: These guys saved a bus full of nuns once.

You get the idea.  I think this opens up the conceptual range of Scarlet Wake a fair bit.  It also sheds some light on the whole point of an ensemble cast -- every member has a specific strength, and there's rarely any sort of overlap.


2)  Advanced Scoring

Rather than just totalling up all the scores, compare each PC by trait.
Whoever wins the most traits is the winner.  In case of a tie, resolve using the sum of scores as before.  So if Frank has ridiculously high Style score and is the Coolest, he might still lose to Lucy if she is the Luckiest and the Most Honourable.

Just a thought.  I think it might encourage people to work on some of the traits that are more mechanically difficult to raise and/or use.




..Roger..