SoY: First Impressions thread

[Andy Kitkowski]

Damn, been wanting to start this thread since Monday, but it's been one Hell of a busy week for me.

Anyway, SoY was waiting for me on Friday, I was working last weekend so I read bits and pieces of it between runs of work.

I quite enjoy it. I've read all the rules and races, now I'm eating my way through the "setting". My first random impressions were:

*Damn, this system could be used to build a fast-playing "Final Fantasy" style "Mix tech and magic at random" (One person swings a sword, the other fires dual pistols, etc), "Grow strong, fast" games.
* I like the resolution system. It's overall pretty simple.
* I LOVE the idea behind Character Endgame (sorry, the book's in another room: "Transcendence", is it called?). Very cool idea, saves the game from being bogged down with "high level characters".
* I like the variable experience rate, plus the experience conditions.
* Health and recovery needed a play example. Overall, there were lots of examples or play examples, which is needed in a game with non-standard ("Here's attributes, here's skills, here's what you roll for them, Go. Ho hum.") rules. I would not have minded some more.
*Minor grammatical mistakes, not bogged down or anything, which is excellent.
* I eventually got used to the slanty hyphens. Took a bit of time in some sentences to realize that's what they were, but I took a liking to them. There was some weirdness with quotation marks (the left and right quotation marks were both "Endquote" quotation marks), but nothing major.
* Would have loved to see a third example character, and some more examples of player-player interaction.
* Would have loved to see another full example of the System in Use (like the stalking/fight, but with another realm of action, like social conflict).
* Interesting, how it works as it's own "Dungeons and Dragons 3E Style Do-It-Yourself kit" when it comes to Secrets.  Secrets are basically a DIY Feats system: Some are simple and basic, some are elaborate and based on race. Overall, LOTS of examples of these, which really sells the game.  If the Secrets section was "Here's 2 secrets for examples... Now think of your OWN!", I would have dropped it like a hot potato (same with abilities, which there were plenty of as well, thankfully).
* Pools: I haven't had a chance to get a second runthrough on that section yet, still trying to understand exactly how they work. I like the idea of refreshing them through in-game actions, but would have liked to see more Racial Secret style options for Refreshing (like the humans, where sex=instinct recharge).
* Would have liked to see more basic options for in-game actions to refuel the pools. Not that I've played the game yet, but it looks like many of the Secrets and Spells and the like require some to a moderate amount of Pool points... That's a lot of recharging to use them even once per session. Also, would have loved to see an in-game example (script) on a player recharging the character's pool ingame.
* Keys are very exciting. Though after reading them, I can't comment on them at all until I see them in action through play, to see how they really work.

Overall, great job!  Though my first act with this game will most likely be to strip the rules from the setting and run my own fantasy (heartbreaker) world with it (Elves with GUNS! Kung-fu Dwarves!),  I'm looking forward to giving it a play in th next 4 months.

Let's see some more feedback!

-Andy
* Would have loved to see a blank sheet in the back of the book, but I assume that there are some downloadable ones, too.

Edit: SOY.  Makes a nice acronym.  Well, technically it's TSOY or TSY, but SOY works for me. Then again, I'm a big UnMeat/SoyBurger/Fake Chicken whore, and drink Silk all the time.

[Andy Kitkowski]

So, c'mon, like 110 people read this and have NOOOOOoooooothing to say? :-)

I didn't rattle my jaw-box to hear my own voice, I wanna hear some first impressions from others, too!

-Andy

[ScottM]

Generally, I liked it.  I'd been stalking the game since it had been a wiki, so there was a little less surprise.  Still, there were several.

Like the vanishing of the Wulfen (Lupen?).  I liked the discussion about (paraphrased) "well, I had more races and places, but took them out- I'll add them back as supplements if you really want them, but I did it so you'd have plenty of world to mark."

The World of Near was big to me- I'd been following the mechanics, but didn't really get into the website's "Part 2", so a lot of the presentation was entirely new to me.

Bringing down the pain's different than I remember, though I remember Clinton mentioning the old version was broken, so I wasn't too suprised.

I liked the explicit: I stole this. Here's the range, my reasoning, etc.  It was jarring a time or two (like his "like trollbabe scale" aside), but typically well handled.

Anyway, those were my first impressions,  a day or five later.
--Scott

[John Harper]

I swear that I wrote and posted a long response in this thread on Wednesday. Now it is gone. I am confused.

[James_Nostack]

Quick question: how different is the final version from the HTML version posted for free on the Anvilwerks site?  (At the moment, the free version is the only one I've seen.)

I haven't given it a thorough reading yet, but it seems like something I'd love to play sometime.  

One of the things I like best is the use of Love as a theme, affecting the various races.  There's probably neat stuff that might arise in play, since if you ask 100 people what Love means, you'd get 100 different answers.

As noted above, the changing Keys stuff is neat, and really empowers the player--you can come up with all kinds of crazy goals.

However... I noticed that some of the Keys are driven more by the GM than the player.  For example, some things reward you for having your loved ones in a scene, which is not always under the player's control.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

How did I possibly miss this thread? Weird.

* I LOVE the idea behind Character Endgame (sorry, the book's in another room: "Transcendence", is it called?). Very cool idea, saves the game from being bogged down with "high level characters".

Thanks, especially after my recent experience with a guy who just didn't get it on RPG.net.

* Health and recovery needed a play example. Overall, there were lots of examples or play examples, which is needed in a game with non-standard ("Here's attributes, here's skills, here's what you roll for them, Go. Ho hum.") rules. I would not have minded some more.

I'm thinking of starting a wiki for the game. Maybe more examples there would be a good idea.

Overall, great job! Though my first act with this game will most likely be to strip the rules from the setting and run my own fantasy (heartbreaker) world with it (Elves with GUNS! Kung-fu Dwarves!), I'm looking forward to giving it a play in th next 4 months.

Please write this up.

Quick question: how different is the final version from the HTML version posted for free on the Anvilwerks site? (At the moment, the free version is the only one I've seen.)

I haven't given it a thorough reading yet, but it seems like something I'd love to play sometime.

One of the things I like best is the use of Love as a theme, affecting the various races. There's probably neat stuff that might arise in play, since if you ask 100 people what Love means, you'd get 100 different answers.

As noted above, the changing Keys stuff is neat, and really empowers the player--you can come up with all kinds of crazy goals.

However... I noticed that some of the Keys are driven more by the GM than the player. For example, some things reward you for having your loved ones in a scene, which is not always under the player's control.

There's not a lot of changes between the printed and free versions. There was some last minute writing I haven't gotten on the site yet, but I'll be doing that soon. There's obviously a lot of art in the printed version.

Love is to TSOY as Humanity is to Sorcerer. Make of that what you want.

As for your Key issue - I see your point. On the other hand, in the games I play in, the player's just as likely to bring his character's family into a scene as the GM (excuse me, Story Guide.)

[James_Nostack]

Thanks for the reply!  For what it's worth, I think the transcendance thing is really cool!  I'm running a campaign now that Just.  Won't.  End. It would be a relief to simply say, "Hey--you guys kick all kinds of ass.  Finish up your stories, and let's remember to turn off the lights when we leave."  And then I  would have the time to play a game of Paladin, Donjon or TSoY!

PS.  I believe my first character will be named "Rat Bastard."

[Judd]

My copy of SoY was waiting for me as well as the copy of Sorcerer I'm giving RobNJ for the holidays both from Indie RPG Revolution.

I can't wait to dig my teeth past the intro.

More to come.

[Keith Senkowski]

Hey,

I don't remember my first impression for it, but I do remember my impression to playtesting it.  I got the albino ratkin magician (Whitey) and as I was polishing him up with Keys, I just thought, "This is so fucking cool, my Keys have essentially created everything I will ever need to know about my character."

The best part was I had a full fledge character in my head right as we started playing and he was a pre-gen we got to flesh out.

Keith

[joshua neff]

I got my copy in the mail yesterday. Unfortunately, I'm thick in my end-of-the-semester projects, so I won't be able to devote a lot of reading time to it for a couple of days. But my first impressions...

It looks really, really nice. Great job, Clinton, and all the artists as well.

I've raved elsewhere about the Gift of Dice, so I won't go frothy about here. But I love it.

I love the map of Near. I liked the one that you had online originally, but the one in the book looks very old-school, in the best possible way. And I love that you left some of the original stuff out (even though I rather liked the Vulfen and the horse nomads) in favor of encouraging groups to add to the world themselves. I've been pretty vocal in the past about my preferences when it comes to setting-heavy versus setting-light. Eberron is pretty cool as far as settings go, but there's way too much given. I would have rather seen the flavor in the main Eberron book and a lot of the actual game world up for grabs. (But I understand, from WOTC's point of view, that a lot of D&D gamers would've gone nuts if they'd done that.) I really want to run TSOY and I really want my gaming group to add to the world.

Basically, TSOY, like Sorcerer and Burning Wheel, has a major old-school RPG vibe to me. It inspires me to run mad & enthusiastic weird fantasy games that create emotional and colorful stories.

Great stuff.

[Brennan Taylor]

I just finished reading up on it myself. I am very impressed, Clinton. I have too many games going right now, but this one is tempting me. I really like what you did with necromancy in Qek. I do note you did your research on African traditional and Caribbean religions.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Brennan,

Thanks. All my ideas for Qek necromancy came from, of all things, Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, where he uses the terms sasha and zamani to refer to the history we've lived through and the history we didn't. A bit of Googling on the origins of the terms and to figure out roho and walozi, and I had some good stuff. It's one of my favorite parts of the game as well, and I can't wait to play a character who dies and is re-bound.

[Rorimack]

My first impression?

"A game called The Shadows of Yesterday? Hmm... interesting name... let's find some links." (Navigating to the Anvilwerks homepage, and examining the cover) "Wow, a cyberpunk fairy tale with romance and happyend!? Plus it is under the CC license?  I need this!"
(Start reading the rules/setting online while waiting for IPR to stock it)

So far, this was the first (and only) game I bought solely for it's name and cover.

After reading it through I realized that my first impression (from the cover) wasn't exactly right, but I've got a wonderful game.

It was good to know (from the introduction) that there is an actual living person behind the game.

However, the Bringing down the Pain was (is) hard to me to understand.. I need more examples, but thanks to the wiki (and hopefully with the forthcoming actual play examples) I'll understand it sooner or later.

[Andy Kitkowski]

Hey Rorimack, you might want to bring your copy to the next general meet at JIGG ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jigg ) if you're anywhere near Tokyo.  I know a bunch of the guys in that group, like Cam, Mike M or Yuji would love to give that game a shot, or at least see it in action.

-Andy

[Rorimack]

Thank you for the information.
I'm on JIGG, but also in Hokkaido, which means the next time I'll be in Tokyo will be in the spring. Until then, I hope I could lure some Japanese players to Near.