Scarlet Wake: Official Play-Test Release

[Kirk Mitchell]

Just wondering, is this the new and updated version that I have been waiting for or is it just the same one that we were discussing on the Scarlet Wake playtest forum? I sort of remember the discussions running a bit dry there after a while. I'll have to playtest this again during the holidays, maybe getting an ongoing campaign. (not now, I have exams in two days).

Also, I just want to say, the system as it is already is easily one of the slickest and easily understandable yet also one of the most powerful. As you said, without changing a single rule you have almost unlimited creative freedom. As an example of the freedom allowed:

In the vein of Brian Jaques' Redwall books my brother has made a psychotic anthromorphic badger with a massive butterfly edged sword, while I have made a character similar to a cross between Kain (in the Legacy of Kain computer games, just think an anti-hero out for blood) and one of the three musketeers. All I need now is to get some of my friends over and we can start up a crazy cross-dimensional blood fest!

One suggestion that I do have is that you change the rules to place shared bosses on whatever level you require. As it is you can only have a shared level 5 boss if you have 5 players sharing that boss. It would be nice to be able to place the bosses wherever you like no matter how many players you have.

Bring it on.

Kirk

[Ben O'Neal]

Hey Kirk,

Yeah, this is the new shiny improved updated version with cupholders. It's the complete play-test version, and the next "update" will be the release of the final game. Which makes it very important that any and all bugs/quirks/inconsistencies/ambiguities get ironed out. Perhaps you have brought up one I haven't seen before:

One suggestion that I do have is that you change the rules to place shared bosses on whatever level you require. As it is you can only have a shared level 5 boss if you have 5 players sharing that boss. It would be nice to be able to place the bosses wherever you like no matter how many players you have.

I'm not sure how you got this impression, but I hope it is clarified in this current version. Here's how it stands now:

-The number of players who share a Boss only influences the Name score for that Boss.
-Any shared Boss can appear at any number on the Lists, so long as that same Boss is at the same number on all Lists (it would be chaos if a #5 Boss was #1 on someone else's list; would it be weak or strong? would the PCs compete to kill that Boss at #1 or at #5? etc)
-Basically, in computer terminology, an instance of a Boss must be identical for all players sharing it, in List number, stats, name, Peons, everything.

But a group with 3 players can have two of them sharing a Boss a #2, and a Boss at #5, or any other combination you can imagine, so long as the Boss's Name score is always equal to the number of Lists it appears on, and it is identical on all Lists.

Does this make things clearer? If not, I apologize, because I've not slept in 26 hours (exams!).

And I can definitely see a character hewing her way through scores of peons, boss after boss up the ladder, until she finally faces the person behind all her misery... and realizes she can either unleash her wrath to kill both him and something essential in herself, or let him go, let her anger go, and save herself. {EDIT: Actually, just killing the guy is almost anti-climactic; the climax of a story should be when a character changes, not when she keeps on doing the same thing only more so.} "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who tresspass against us" -- what people often forget is that Part 1 of this prayer can only be granted if we perform Part 2.

[Mind boggles audibly]

Holy ...

So does this mean that Scarlet Wake is at least potentially a Christian RPG?

Suddenly, I'm intensely interested in reading about any play-test experiences you have with SW. :)

Thanks,
-Ben

[Kirk Mitchell]

Cool. As I said I'll play it during the holidays. I would absolutely LOVE to sit down and chew through this game, but it will have to sit on my hard drive for a moment (I have exams starting tomorrow <sheepish grin>).

I'll try to pick up everything I can when I do playtest and will have more than one sission. I'll also send the playtest version to a bunch of my friends for them to read over and see what they think. Otherwise, aside from maybe a couple of confusions with the wording, grammatical or formatting errors (if the previous version is anything to go by) there shouldn't be any problems with the rules (it was damn near perfect).

...For starters, you could simply use avant-garde timelines and have the death of the Sexy Beast PC occur after that PC's player has completed their List, in-game, but treating them as a Boss for the fight (or if you are game, treating both PCs as Bosses), by replacing their Fuel with Karma.

There's no doubt a few other workarounds you could use, but in the default basic assumptions of the rules, the short answer would be "nothing would explicitly prevent you from doing this, but it will take a bit of creativity".

Interesting idea though. I'd like to see how you choose to pursue it.

I think you should probably include something like this in the text (if you haven't already) to encourage players to realise that they can do whatever they want with the game without changing the rules (this is one of the best selling points of the game in my opinion).

Got to go.

Kirk

[Sydney Freedberg]

Suddenly, I'm intensely interested in reading about any play-test experiences you have with SW. :)

No playtest experience, sadly. Just me talking from instinct (or out of me arse, depending on your perspective).

Though this does correlate nicely with the "Cameo Appearances" concept (box on p. 31) that old PCs, in their quest for vengeance, killed somebody important to a new PC and show up on the new PC's List. If you wanted, you could use relative Grudge and Honor levels to give guidelines to endgame narration -- too much Grudge and your PC becomes a bad guy....

EDIT because the baby stopped crying so I don't have to finish this as fast as I thought: I'm specifically thinking of My Life With Master here. Yes, MLWM is hard-core Narrativist (well, in theory; I've read at least one Actual Play thread where people started competing to be the most evil man standing at the end), and Scarlet Wake is hard-core Gamist (except you have a built in narrative arc), but both are games with a clearly defined storyline and endgame, so some concepts may well work in both.

[Jonathan Walton]

Reading this game made me want a bumpersticker that says:

"Scarlet Wake: When you really must kill every muther****er in the room."

[Kirk Mitchell]

Or maybe:

"Scarlet Wake: When you have a sudden urge to kill every muther****er in the room!"

I'd buy that bumper sticker (along with "Horn broken, watch for finger" and "Keep honking I'm reloading").

Just printed it off and reading through the rules (I found some spare time, hence this post).

Kirk

[Kirk Mitchell]

Alright, here is my official analysis, as written while I read through it.

Awesome art, the layout is fantastic. The elegant simplicity of the character sheet is amazing, not at all daunting (compared to the average D&D character sheet which most players will be familiar with). In character traits just say that you set it as # etc. Don't talk about increasing from the beginning, it is just confusing. Instead of "Once a trait has been increased to 1, it cannot be reduced below 1 from then on." Try "After you have added to your traits in character creation, they cannot be reduced below 1." I was confused when you wrote that, I was thinking "What the, you can't reduce when you increase? Huh?". "Chase them into the pits of hell in order to wear their skin as a hat." I like that. It would be nice to have examples of some of few occasions when honour does not apply. Sorry my mistake I saw where you put the honour stuff. The optional rules are presented well I think (I'm glad you introduced the "Troubleshooting Rule", I think it would go a long way to encouraging groups to increase their narration quality). I question the organisation of the examples. Are you sure you want them all in one place?

Sorry if it is a bit rambling. Otherwise, after a bit of playtesting I think that Scarlet Wake will most definately be ready for commercial sale. Oh, and I think that the pre-made campaigns would be good. All you need are some pre-made characters and a couple of locations and you would have an entire campaign ready to be played out. For example, you make a campaign for five or less players, so you make five character sheets with notes, assign a couple of locations for the bosses and let the players run loose! That is the brilliance of the game, you have an entire game RIGHT THERE ON THAT SINGLE PIECE OF PAPER! RIGHT THERE!

Hell, even without all that, you could probably sell it as it is. It would be a little bit rough, but it would be quality.

On the subject of no colour, I sort of liked the bloody pages. If you plan on taking out the colour, I would sort of "scratch" the pages a bit, make them look rougher. At the moment the sides look like blood. If they are meant to look like blood, I would leave the colour in, at least for the sides. Otherwise, I would take out the colour and scratch it up a bit. Maybe offer two versions, a black and white and a colour version for printing, both in PDF. I really liked the front cover as it was in colour.

Oh, and thanks for putting our names in the credits. My brother is extremely pleased that he is now "famous". He also is badgering me to run another playtest session in the holidays, so it is almost ensured that I will playtest it at least a couple more times ;)

Kirk[/u]