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Well I had the initial playtest of a work in progress which I simply call 'Empire' (shorter :D) last night. The indie rpg post is here: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=15273

Things I learned:

1.) Some of my players had slight problems with conflict resolution.
2.) The D20/Action! Framework with which I wrapped the core mechanic doesn't fit.
3.) The game has a lot of potential.
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All those (seemingly) negative things aside, the game was a blast. I'm not sure if all 3 players had the same level of fun, and I think one of them kind of shutdown a bit. I'll get to that in a bit.


Things that really worked: The push system. Once everyone got onboard and understood how to use color, sympathy, and corruption to gain dice the game really picked up. We never really got a chance to test the setbacks and hardship system, though that should rear it's head next session :) Onto some details!

The one of the three players created a trule unique Noble, the other two took a very literal copy of villains they liked. I had no problem with that, though if it wasn't the initial playtest I would have asked for more creativity. I had the characters:

Clive Claypool, a commander of a small fleet with a menacing cybernetic red eye. His command ship: The Dominator.
Steel jack, the captain of a tender ship with steel skin.
Darth M, the captain of a scout ship that hunts rebel scum. He is an alien with horns and all, just like the infamous Darth M. His ship's name: The Never.

I decided early on when working the game up that I wanted to do a short introduction segment, one-on-one with each PC. I wanted this short segment to define their limitation (a small amount of nobility left in them) so that the characters wouldn't be just all 'kill rape and pillage'. This did seem to have the proper effect of setting the tone. I also found it fun to take their limitation and put it in conflict with the empire itself (where I could). I find it's always good to setup conflicts at the start. Here is an example:

Clive Claypool has the limitation: Compassion for women. The player and I had discuss earlier an illustration of that limitation. In this case, Clive had let a rebel commander go because of her gender. I opened his one-on-one scene with a complication of that choice. I told him that 2 of his captains had been witness to the release. I also suggested that perhaps, he sent a tracker with her when she went to create the illusion of "I'm only letting her go to find someone higher up." He agreed and we began the game with him getting a message about the tracker having panned out. They had discovered a meeting of rebel leaders on a distant planet. Clive's player decided that of course, he must pursue.

I think that set a good tone of the fine line that these Nobles walk, and did give some good buildup later. We'll get to that :) Let get to the next introduction, because it illustrates the mechanics.

Steel jack has the limitation: Honorable. In this case, we illustrated it by establishing that Jack had defended the positions of his crew. They has been given a low efficiency score and were to be summarily dismissed. He stood up and said 'No' when told to do so. In response he and his crew were assigned to a supply ship at the rim. I opened the play with a rather tough scenario. The three destroyers escorting the supply ship were called away suddenly. Then, not 30 minutes later, a rebel cruiser and 4 destroyers appear. Initially Jack sends all his crew out in the 20 shuttles they have on the ship. Then he discovers that the low-efficiency crew hasn't maintained them properly and only 3 of the 20 actually have working jump-drives. The remaining 17 will be destroyed or captured by the rebels! He decides to stay on the ship and ram the incoming cruiser that is spear-heading the attack.

Ok, so now we've got to the first point that the mechanics really came into play. The player declared the intent and method, "I'm destroying the rebel fleet, by ramming their cruiser with my ship." From there the mechanics took over. The player made a base roll and added a stat + skill, for a total far less than that was needed.

Clive's player now builds up some color for his action. He declares, The ship's rattling like she'll fly apart. That earns him a color die. He draws a blank on color so he moves to sympathy. I'll use my shen ability to interface directly with the ship via some kind of ghost in the shell action. Alright, that earns him a sympathy die. He rolls and it succeeds. Jack's player continues with, I've got the ship's thinking machine (like R2 as he describes it) hooked up to help guide the attack. He rolls another valid sympathy die and adds it. Not quite happy yet, he does one more: The ship will launch dummy loads like it is firing missiles at the incoming ships to distract them. That gives him one more sympathy die.

The total of the roll was high enough to not only beat the target, but break the cliche (a 40+ in this case- Rebels often lose but always get away)! He ends up fleeing at the last moment in the remaining shuttle he set up, and the impact of his ship obliterates the incoming cruiser and all 4 destroyers. The emperor is pleased... earns him a promotion and reassignment.

Ok, so let's get back to the things I learned. On point number 1, I found two of the players always jumping the gun on color. They'd lay down all this cool stuff before they started a roll and I'd have to remind them about the procedure- Intent and method first. Point number 2 is that the stat + skill part of the game mattered little to the final outcomes. I need a better framework that fits this style of play. That was pretty much expected though, so I'm not surpised at all. Point 3. Well after playing the initial playtest session, I really think the game is heading where I want and the play was fun. I'm actually looking forward (and that's rare for me) to running it again and seeing what happens.

Finally, I come back to the player shutdown which I mentioned at the start. This isn't the first time I've seen it happen with this player, and I think it's the result of a specific factor. This being: A lack of concrete facts. The game relies more on from-the-seat-of-your-pants thinking that carefully layed out character design. The player (Darth M's) generally enjoys min-maxing and building a character with well known abilities and limitations. This is something the game doesn't really offer, since anyone with decent creativity and a little luck can overcome the steepest odds.

Well, that's all for now. When I get a chance to run the second session I'll post more!

Sounds like a good first playtest.  I'm not surprised that the stat + skill stuff mattered very little to the final outcome, as you say.  If I understand the rules correctly, they're just there to provide a baseline from which the addition of color, sympathy, and fire dice get you to the effect level you need.  Have you considered jettisoning stat + skill completely and instead allowing players to define particular "schticks" that give them, I don't know, bonus color dice when they can be applied to the current situation?

So, for example, maybe Steeljack's player starts off his character with the schtick "Hardened against vacuum."  So he's always trying to figure out a way to get blown out of airlocks and so forth, because it gives him extra dice.  So when he tries to ram the rebel cruiser, the player gets to narrate the bridge of his ship getting peeled open by close-range rebel fire and Steeljack strapped in at the controls, keeping her nose-first at the rebel cruiser until the last second when he unstraps and fires his rocket-pack to get clear of the explosion.

So that's color, but it gets a bonus die because it's directly connected to an attribute possessed by the character.   This may help your Darth Maul player, too, because he'll be able to draw upon what he understands are his character's abilities directly in play.

But it sounds very cool so far.  I am particularly intrigued by the shen system, which may make for some interesting play.

Bill

Pure enthusiasm:  This game looks excellent and I can't wait to play a finished version.

Have you read Dogs in the Vineyard?

yrs--
--Ben

P.S.  There is no greater good!  Oh, man...