Final Stand Playtest! (long)

[Bailywolf]

I ran a quick one-shot for my almost entirely non-gamer fiance last night... and let me say, that Final Stand was a brilliant success with few hiches.

I ran only the simplest of game structures, so I haven't tested the session design section of the rules yet, but played out as fast and furious a session as I could manage.  Here are the details:

Setup:

Sarah's character  Lady Mei (a Shadow Mantis Snooty Aristocrat) belonged to the Shadow clan- an organization in Big City one part maffia, one part merchant house, one part martial arts school, one part secret society.  The idea I had was that it was origionaly an alliance of many different schools all of whom followed Ways with a Shadow style, but many Forms.  Their arch rivals is the Burning Clan- a similar organization with different territory but similar origins.

The Shadow clan was founded by Master Wai, and his ashes reside in the clan's ancestor shrine.  Clan legend has it that so long as the ashes remain safe, the Clan will be unconquorable.  

You can see where this is going.

Here are Mei's stats for reference:

Lady Mei
Stereotype:  Snotty Aristocrat (wears expensive brocade robes)
Style: Shadow (Eyes are always veiled)
Thrust of No Substance
Hand of Darkest Night
Form: Mantis (moves with insectile perfection)
Crippling Hold
Praying Hands
Crushing Grasp

Energy  9
Action  11

Punch: 6
Kick: 1
Throw: 4

Skills:  Persuasion; Contacts; Intrusion (2); Perception (2)


1st Stage

Mei is walking past the Clan Shine on her way to he chambers, when she hears something suspicions (perception x2), recognizing the sounds of trained footsteps despite their stealth and padded shoes, yet is unable to tell how many (the skill system at work, used Perceptionx2 to pick out two out of three importiant details- intruders; they are skilled at avoiding detection- but couldn't tell how many.

Sarah was a bit hesitant, until I convinced here to just go with it and chew the schenery with bad acting.  So she flings open the doors, and mantis-leaps (seemed apropriate...I reminded here of Crouching Tiger to get her in the right frame of mind, so the Volume setting ended up fairly Cranked- more Wuxia than video game).

She discovered a mob of balck cloaked Ninja guys- and the Horror!  They clearly were Shadow Style trained!  Betrayal!  She engaged immediatly (I really wanted to tap the mob-rule for combat).  I figured them at about 7 Action and 7 Energy but only gave them Shadow techniques.  

The combat went FAST (I haden't doubled the Energy totals yet)- long and short of it, she ate them alive.  I had to offer a fair amount of advice to Sharah on good moves, but once she got into the descriptions (THANK GOD FOR THE PLAY-AIDS!  They were perfect to help her keep track of Chi and Techniques...).  She beat twelve kinds of crap out of the ninja.  She had plenty of Punches for defense, and used her special techniques to good effect.  A nice intro fight I was happy with.  I htink she took 1 or 2 points of energy damage.   She used some Chi acumulated during the fight to refresh this.

At the end of the fight, she realized on ninja was missing, she looked up and saw a sky-light swinging open... one has escaped with Master Wai's Urn!

Fluff

A chase across the midnight rooftops of Big City.  I got to describe the moonlit vistas of tiled roofs, the crazy patchwork archetecture, and the number of darkness-cloaked figures also chasing, being chased, or otherwise doing their own Flying Wuxia Warrior impressions all over the city...the rooftops get as much traffic as the street in Big City!

Because she lacked the Acrobatics skill completely, I rulled that she lost the Ninja in a particularly difficult series of leaps, but because of her perception skill was able to follow him with her eyes, seeing the general neighborhood where he leaps down to street level in.  


2nd Stage

Mei makes her own time to the street where the ninja escaped to, droppig down to the street and nearly landing on a surly, wine-stained, old drunk who stinks of pee (a Drunken Cobra Street Bum).  He curses at her, then stumbles to his feet, adopting a fighting stance... I had expected this to be a red herring fight followed by a sort of team-up...but Sarah surprised me by apologizing to the old man (Calling him Honored Sir) and using Persuasion to try and convince him to admit the location of the ninja guy... not what I expected (I'm used to playing with boys who look for any excuse to put some smack down... I thought it was kinda neat to see her humble her Aristocrat character in order to get information).  

The Bum indicated where he thought the guy had gone, then hit her up for spare change ("Spare some silver for an old soldier?").  She game him a coin, but as she walks off I had the Bum follow her with a classic "Is that all you've got...I'm might thirsty...er...I mean Hungry!  Your slippers cost more than I've ever had!  Can you spare me a little more?"  

I was trying to irritate her into fighting with the guy, but she refused, so I just ambushed the both of them with a guy in fiery red and orange robes leading a bunch of guys in red karate uniforms- Burning Clan soldiers, lead by Laughing Shen, a hated rival (I threw in a bit here about a failed attempt at reconciliation between the Burning and Shadow clans which would have involved the marrige of Lady Mei and Laughing Shen... just to make it personal)!

While the Bum delt with the Burning Clan student-warriors, Lady Mei and Laughing Shen went to town.

Here I got a really good sense of the combat system's strengths.  I played Shen smart- he was about as powerful as Lady Mei but had no Chi.  I'll second the earlier report that Chi can make all the difference in a close fight.  

The fight went fast, with plenty of fantastic descriptions.  When Sharah learned to milk the chi-accumulation rules, it was fantastic.  She also (on my suggestion) used a Power Up here, and laid some massively potent smack down on Shen  with something like 11 punch moves and a very good roll... she nailed him with a couple of her special techniques, crippled him, and then wasted him.  All told, the fight lasted 2 rounds, but it was extremely fun and quite detailed... I took enormous relish in describing how Shen's blows burned like fire, and how he danced and hoped like flames hop and dance... supercool.  

She took some punishment here, taking her down to only 3 Energy.  She burned some Chi to take this back up to 5.  In the aftermath, panting and breathing hard, the Bum comes up and offers her a hit from his rice-wine goard, and she accepts.  Fantastic image here- two fighters, both radically different, but allies through circumstances sharing a drink.  It was so cool, I told Sarah that the wine- though cheep and bitter- was remarkably restorative, and returned her Energy to 9 (not quite to full).

 
Fluff

While the Bum holds him in a hammer lock, Lady Mei interogated him (with the Bum occasinoaly twisiting his arms painfuly)- she used her Perception to try and tell when he was lieing.  They learned that the Lord Fire of the Burning Clan planned to use a mystical ritual that very morning- when the first light of day shown like fire into the Burning Clan's dhrine- to absorb the strength of the Shadow Clan's founder.  

Lady Mei promptly offered the Bum a thousand pieces of silver, a barrel of the finest wine, and the gratitude of the Shadow Clan if he would aid her in attacking the Burning Clan's compound.  He of course agreed.  

The Plan:  while the Bum raised all sorts of hell at the main gates, pretending to be a roaring drunk maniac (rather than just a roaring drunk street bum), Lady Mei would use her excelent Intrusion skills to enter the Shrine from the roof.

3rd Stage

The plan went off well- it was so basic, it had to work- and Mei droped with near silence to the floor of the Burning Shrine.  It was filled with red and orange stained glass windows, painted in fiery motiffs, and contained the clan's Eternal Fire into which its dead were fed in ritual cremation, where their ashes mingled with their brethren.  I described this in some detail- taking pains to point out how sacred the flame was to the Burning Clan...

When she droped into the shrine, there was no where to hide- too well lit- so she took the initiative.  She fell right in front of the clan founder, and made a snatch for the Urn of her clan's founder.  Instant combat with the Heavy.

The Burning Master was significantly more powerful than Mei, and he had Chi to spend.  I ruled because of the attack, she was able to snatch the Urn with a successful Thrust of No Substance.  Then combat began in ernest.  

Mei was getting fairly pounded- the Master was playing with her though, taunting her and saying that he would feed her energy to the Sacred Fire along with her clan's founder.

She kept her Chi up by using several descriptive techniques- she used Massive Damage twice to describe all the shattering stained glass and such.  

I had to tell her that she really didn't have a chance against this guy (she was using all her Punches on defense, and still getting taped), and she had recovered the Urn and could flee.  Which she did.   In good time- she burned all her Chi to heal, and still only got out with 1 energy!






Wrap Up

Sarah and I both had a ball.  The Stereotype was a great help in letting her get into the game fast without much role playing experience.  Character creation was also super fast, and by the end of the game, the character had fleshed out more.

We barely touched the complexity of the game system- there is so much you can do with this!  With a more experienced group of players, this thing will have wings.  


I'm sure I've missed something, but if you haven't played this game yet, then you have got to.  

More than anything else, it proved to be FUN.  A winner in my book.

[Tim Denee]

Awesome, awesome. Thanks again. So, what were the hitches?

Edit: I wish I had more to ask, but at this stage you know more about the game than I do... (seeing as I've never played it)

[Bailywolf]

Most of the hitches had to do with Sarah's inexperience... and yet, things still went swimmingly.

Combat seems simple...but turns out to be really complex!  I like that...so many options...

Like I said, I didn't give the campaign structure elements a run... and I ran fairly simple combats.

The only real hang I can see is (as a GM) managing all those dice for multi-npc fights... a big GM friendly play-mat would come in handy laid out like a grid... roll three big piles of dice (the total for all the NPC's in the fight) then shove them into the right squares (lined up so in the first row you pencil in the npc's name, his combat stats, and moves), then in the next three rows, you have Punches, Kicks, and Throws, then in the final square you have a place for keeping track of Energy (perhaps using the pile-o-beans method).  With a two-column per sheet arangement on standard printer paper, it shouldn't be hard to make one... I can see trimming the margins from several, taping them together, getting them laminated and writing on them with a dry-erase marker.  



Now, you have any idea where I can get collored d6's in bulk for cheap?

[Bailywolf]

Here we go!

http://www.abookorgame.com/cgi-bin/unclesgames.storefront/en/catalog/1586?pa=abg

[Colin the Riot]

You should try finding this game called Stack!  I found it in a game store here.  It's a dice strategy game, and came with four sets of 14d6, each set being a different color.  I got it for only $10 at the FLGS! (Online it's about $15-$20).  I use these dice for everything now.  Plenty of dice, low price, and it's a really cool game as well.

They have it here:
http://www.abookorgame.com/reviews/hidden-gem-dice/stack-dice.html

That same store also sells "bricks" of d6 by color.

[Paganini]

Now, you have any idea where I can get collored d6's in bulk for cheap?

Chessex sells them in blocks. I got a block of 36 13mm d6 for around $5. You probably want larger (16mm?) ones, which are a bit more expensive, and come in a smaller block, but are still pretty cheap. :)