[Dungeon Squad! + Coin Op] Duh.

[Filip Luszczyk]

I playtested Mark Causey's Coin Op with Magda and Kamil last Monday. The game shows promise – but sadly, in its current state it's still nearly unplayable.

The session lasted for about two hours, including a bit less than half an hour of prep, and was rather loose. Note that Magda has never played Shadows Over Mystara or The Tower of Doom, and the closest thing that Kamil knows is Golden Axe. So, since at this point the game itself doesn't seem to refer to Mystara in any way apart from the author's stated inspiration, I didn't put any effort into staying true to the color of the setting and simply focused on crash-testing the rules.

Character creation

The characters (as well as monsters) are here.

Character creation was pretty simple and fast, but personally, I don't really like the Mage/Warrior/Explorer split.

First of all, Mage basically rules the day in every respect. The only possible merit of Warrior is that extra physicals might be slightly more efficient than spellcasting action adders when it comes to raw damage dealing potential (but I'm not sure if I perfectly nailed down subtle effectiveness differences between those special abilities). It seems the character only needs one of these anyway, as there's no apparent benefit for having the second offensive stat better than d4. Explorer is an underdog either way, and an obvious candidate for the d8 – the extra 12.5% chance of looting and avoiding traps with d12 is simply not nearly as useful as increased attack power. Players are rewarded mainly for killing things anyway, and even taking their stuff is not possible without killing things in the first place.

Next, I think the abilities could be further split into Attack, Defense, Magic, Save and Exploration, with all five basic types of dice assigned to them. I think it could be interesting and arguably more elegant, especially if there was a clear practical difference between physical and magical attacks. With different abilities effective against different monsters more varied builds would have more sense, and the problem of dump stats would be somewhat reduced. Just a loose thought.

However, I'd rather like to see character archetypes taken straight from the Capcom's game instead of this open character creation, maybe with just a little place for customization. Probably with the limit of two characters from the same class per party, for great justice.

As for the special abilities, action adders seem overpowered in comparison with Deadly Strike or Hardy Resilience. At low levels it's a small bonus against two or three potential damage checks, and later it's about 150% maximum damage against six potential damage checks. Maybe if the bonus progression was better, or action adders cost 1 coin per extra action? Also, it's not perfectly clear how exactly the specials work. Do you activate them and pay the coin before or after your action or the roll? Can you use them, or some of them, more than once per turn, paying additional coins? With Arcane Vigor, do you roll for the spell and for the damage only once or once per target? Can it target the same monster more than once? What about Inhuman Alacrity – can it be used to cast the same spell more than once, or do it have to be different spells?

Kamil was disappointed that it's not possible to have and combo multiple special abilities together. He complained about the lack of varied attack options as well – in arcade games there's often a number of fun maneuvers that can be pulled off, but here it's mostly just monotonous dice rolling or repeating the same winning tactic time after time.

The rules for Hit Points were not very clear, too. There's no option for improving one's hit points, and we've been wondering whether loot and spells can be used to increase current HP past 15. Also, it wasn't clear what happens with a character who is out – is he dead, or is it possible to revive him? If the latter, is it sufficient to use any HP-increasing effect to bring him round? A loose suggestion: what if the character started with little or none HP and at the start of every stage the player rolled his Warrior die (or maybe Warrior and Explorer dice together) and added the result to the current total? It could make Warrior and Mage more balanced, and possibly would make having a high Explorer die more worthwhile.

Also, we noticed that the probabilities given on page 4 are incorrect – there's actually 25% chance for success with d4, 62.5% with d8 and 75% with d12. Also, it wasn't clear whether difficulty actually can be different than 4. I don't think there's any instance of a higher or lower difficulty anywhere in the document, and although the “unless otherwise stated” part suggests it could be possible, it's not clear when, how and why it should be non-standard.

Gamemaster's Prep

As for monster creation, I had to improvise – and even though writing up a bunch of nasties took me just a few minutes, it kind of didn't feel right. I'd say the game lacks concrete tools for monster creation or a solid list of pregens ready for use. The main problem is that I had no idea how to assign cost and loot to create a fair challenge with fair rewards.

Also, it wasn't clear how much damage monsters should deal. I assumed that damage die is the same as ability die, but it feels kind of bland. I wasn't sure if it's possible to give the monsters some protection, spells, special abilities or the like – and even if it was possible, I wouldn't know how it should affect the cost or how to pay for their use. In the end, I didn't give them anything special, and they came out not only completely random but rather boring as well.

I didn't include any non-combat characters – and frankly speaking, I couldn't see any real purpose for them. Since they're just pieces of talking color, they seemed like a rather tacked on way to slow down the action to me. I'd say they could be incorporated in some more meaningful way – maybe if the interaction could affect player's resources somehow?

Regarding traps, there are currently no concrete rules for setting their cost, as with monsters. It's not very clear how to choose which characters are affected, too. What if the whole party had to roll their Explorer dice and the trap affected the characters starting from the worst result? Also, what constitutes defeating a trap for the purpose of earning coins? Is it sufficient to survive, or does the character need to actually avoid it? Why there's no loot attached to traps – what about trapped chests, caches of treasure hidden behind dangerous barriers and the like? An option of setting a trap by player characters is mentioned, but how should it be played out – why should the monsters actually wonder into the trap and how to determine whether they do?

Another thing I wasn't sure about is whether it's legal to throw the boss against the party right away. Also, we couldn't tell whether the stage is finished when the boss is defeated or when the Stage Value is reduced to zero. Anyway, both bosses in our playtest were rather wimpy – the main problem is that they couldn't compete with the party in terms of attacks per turn – and as mentioned earlier, I wasn't sure if it's fine to give them some special abilities, so I didn't. Both bosses fell quickly. In the second stage an accompanying group of Deep Ones and shamans was more of a challenge than the Hydra itself, due to the number of attacks.

Killing Things and Taking Their Stuff

I've been a bit confused by the paragraph about the players taking a quarter out of the pile of coins to set the Pacing and Reward Pool, but I figured out it must be redundant and went with the suggestion about setting Stage Value at 5 per player plus 10 for the boss.

I narrated how the party's ship got smashed by a monster and how the heroes wound up drifting on a raft, and I just threw a bunch of razorfish at them. Basically, we came across many gaping holes in the rules in this first combat, and we had to jury-rig the system a bit to make the game running at all.

First of all, we couldn't find any rules for initiative, so we assumed the heroes act first (as in the example). However, we didn't know how to determine the acting order for the heroes – and it seemed important, as whoever starts first has the first chance to collect the coins. We wound up arbitrarily setting the order and stayed with it for the rest of the stage. However, it soon became frustrating.

During the first stage, monsters had nearly no chance to attack. They were usually perishing in the very first round, before they could act. With 20 coins, 10 of which I reserved for the boss, I simply wasn't able to pay for a large enough group of monsters to create a real risk for the party.

Kamil suffered from extremely bad luck for most of the session (like, he failed almost every single roll during the first hour). It kind of spoiled most of his sound plans of abusing the rules with Invisibility and multi-attack combos. Magda, although she didn't really try to twink her characters or use abilities efficiently, managed to fry the vast majority of opponents with fireballs. Her sorceress amassed quite a lot of coins quickly, while other heroes had trouble gaining any.

Two characters per player are an interesting and fun twist, but in practice, it kind of diluted and the players were visibly falling into the “now, my two actions” mode. All in all, there was a noticeable pattern of one primarily offensive hero who collects most of the coins and one supporting hero who collects little or none (as was the case with Kamil's mage, whose sole purpose was lagging behind the party and unsuccessfully trying to cast Invisibility).

We had some problems with loot. We weren't sure whether it's possible to loot monsters killed by someone else and if more than one Explorer check per body is necessary or one per character is enough. The 1C loot type was a riddle for us – does it stand for coins, or is it another type of items? We assumed the former.

All in all, the players were irritated by the narration requirement when it came to finding and using loot. In fact, thinking up loot descriptions felt bothersome, as it was effectively just meaningless color. I recognize some potential here, especially with loot like “a sense of outrage” possible – however, given that the core of the game is basically killing things and taking their stuff, coming up with such descriptions (or maybe rather just the requirement to do so every time) seemed rather pointless. It doesn't really affect gameplay after all.

I believe loot descriptions could be incorporated in a more effective way and actually add a lot to the game, possibly becoming one of its strongest points. However, no good solution comes to my mind now. Maybe if coming up with an interesting and original loot description increased its bonus?

A related issue is that the option to freely transfer loot between the characters and using items to help others further diluted the sense of controlling two separate characters. Narration requirement probably should have solved this – the thing is, the narration itself still felt more like a chore. Again, maybe it would work better if interesting narration could grant an improved bonus?

Anyway, after two or three quick encounters I've been left with 10 coins, so the boss appeared. It disappeared equally fast, as Kamil, who finally managed to gain a coin, demolished it with multiple attacks in either the first or the second round. The heroes finished the first stage completely unscratched.

Up to this point, nobody spent any coins for development yet. We weren't sure whether it's possible to improve specials and stuff between the stages, so I assumed that the coins go to the GM for the next stage. This time, I disregarded the suggested budget and started with about 30 coins, plus whatever I got from player's advancement (so, it was something between 40 and 50, I think).

The second stage was a tropical island, where I subtly railroaded the party to a ruined temple (as in “There's nothing of interest but the ruins on the island. What do you do?”).

I started buying larger groups, and the monsters had a bit more HP, so this time there actually was some risk. Magda's less effective character even got damaged a bit. Also, this time Kamil started rolling well and as opposed to the previous stage, the vast majority of coins were his.

I used a trap once, paying 2 coins per (randomly determined) target to deal 1d6 damage. However, it had basically no effect on the party, as the same character got hit multiple times and passed his Explorer checks. One thing I noticed here is that (if beating the trap equals evading it), using traps extensively might result in bleeding a lot of Stage Value on basically not very fun challenges. Everybody just loves GM's bombs he can't even hit back.

In the final fight against Hydra, I gave the support of a couple of weaker monsters to the boss. This combat actually lasted quite long. Kamil's mage finally managed to cast the damn Invisibility this time, making both his heroes effectively invulnerable for six rounds. The boss was killed by Kamil's multi-attack special on the second round, before dealing any damage to the party. The remaining monsters, not being able to do anything to Kamil's heroes, managed to kill Magda's secondary character, but soon her sorceress was Invisible as well. For the rest of the fight, the monsters stood confused and waited patiently to be slain.

Now, Kamil was repeatedly using his multi-attack special, spending coins to improve his character round after round. I in turn, although I wasn't sure if it was legit, dropped in more monsters to the fight, for the coins I've been getting back. Then, Kamil was harvesting these coins, improving his hero and giving them back to me again. We could have continued this cycle indefinitely, or until his mage failed to cast Invisibility again. Finally, Kamil started spending the amassed coins to advance his second character and gave some to Magda's sorceress as well, so my budget ran dry and the remaining monsters got slain.

And we wrapped things up. I wanted to ask Kamil to run another stage and see how it plays from player's point of view, but it was already getting late.

[Filip Luszczyk]

Coin Economy Issues

Coin economy is problematic, I'd say. First of all, the whole helping thing makes no real sense if one spends all the coins for one's second character, and it wasn't perfectly clear if giving the coins to another player's characters is legit. Either way, nobody really has any interest in emptying GM's pool of coins until the stage actually starts getting boring. I think this creates a disincentive to help other heroes.

What if it worked the other way, and it was helping others that replenishes Stage Value and helping oneself that bleeds it? Possibly, instead of bleeding out of the game, the coins could be transferred to something akin to Audience Pool from PTA and awarded for engaging narration. There might be a problem with the general predictability of currency flow, though – it's possible to create infinite loops, basically. So, the bleed might be a good thing in a way as it brings the end of the stage closer. Introducing some randomness to produce a natural bleeding of currency could be beneficial here, possibly.

Also, coins spent for activating special abilities are basically always lost for everyone, currently – I don't really know what to think about it, but I'm not sure if that's a necessarily bad thing. This could could be a good point to attach the natural bleed to, but it would probably have to be stronger to be effective (spending one coin per turn for Blurring Speed, Kamil was still able to produce steady returns).

Spellcasting Issues

Spellcasting was fuzzy, and the spells don't seem to be well balanced at this point. We weren't sure whether one has to make a Mage check for every spell, or only for attack spells.

Also, since there doesn't seem to be any limit for casting the same spell over and over again, and spellcasting out of combat was mentioned in the text, why not use Heal after every single fight until all the damage is removed?

Regarding the remaining spells, they seem mostly broken:

I don't understand how Bless works – when does the re-roll occur? Is it possible to cast it in advance and store multiple re-rolls for later?

Invisibility appears to be completely overpowered, and Kamil would happily abuse it for the whole game if not for his crappy rolls (although we weren't sure whether the Mage check was needed in the first place). It can grant the party a virtual invulnerability, unless the monsters use non-physical attacks. But how to determine whether their attacks are physical or not, and specifically, how to be fair about it? The lack of monster creation rules was painful here.

Mirror Image is not clear as far as its application goes – what's the effect of having those images around, exactly, and how long do they last?

Summon opens wide a whole new dimension of rules abuse. Combined with an action adder it gives the character a steady increase of additional attacks per turn. Or, almost completely covers the need for an Explorer in the party, as you can use the summoned companions to clear the area of traps and to loot monsters. Or, if the companions can have Mage ability, they probably could summon more companions, who would summon even more companions, and in a blink of an eye, there's a whole army on your command. Or, maybe none of these things is possible – the problem is, the text is ambiguous. Also, it's not specified how many HP the summoned monsters have.

Both Shield and Summon work for one Scene, but it's nowhere explained what exactly constitutes a Scene in this game. A single encounter? A number of tightly connected encounters? Something else?

Hmm, actually, why doesn't the game emulate the source material's fire & forget spell system at all? I think some limitation for spellcasting might be in place – there could be a limited number of spells per stage or encounter, or they could cost coins, or there could be a special type of loot that would have to be spent to fuel magic, or whatever.

Final Thoughts

So, I think I covered all of the problems that emerged in our game, as well as potential issues present in the text that didn't surface. One more thing needs to be addressed, though.

The game comes with a promise of being an arcade fighting games emulator, and Shadows Over Mystara is pointed at as the main inspiration. I think it's possible to make the game work as such with some additional design effort. However, I'd say that at this point the game still fails to fulfill these goals. It's very tricky, though, as arcade experience and tabletop experience differ substantially by their very nature.

Coin Op is basically a simple dungeon crawl – and its simplicity is both its strength and weakness. It won't provide as tactically rich play as D&D 3.0+ can, but at the same time it avoids its complexity. However, repetitive dice rolling without having varied tactical option is rarely enough to keep players at the table engaged for a few hours. Repetitive pushing the buttons on the other hand is enough to keep one entertained for a long time by the screen.

Arcade games engage the players with sight and sound, but they also provide purely tactile stimulation.   In a way, the combination of these factors produces a visceral experience. Score accumulation is a part of it all, too, and Coin Op already includes it – but it would be great if it could cover the remaining factors, too.

Imagination and narration are the most obvious equivalents of graphics and sound effects. In fact it would be tough to find a different equivalent that would be practical.

The tactile part is tricky, though. D&D uses miniatures and maps to provide the tactile stimulation and enhance the visuals – but it doesn't aim to emulate Arcade games specifically. Now, rolling the dice itself doesn't really feel like struggling with the pad to fend off monsters and pull off all those maneuvers. But maybe reaching to games like Jungle Speed, Jenga or real-time card games for inspiration could be the right direction to take?

[Redone]

Filip said about the mechanics, so i will say about my feelings after playing the game.

It was fun for a moment, than it turned into a bit boring hack&slash. Making up the rules that weren't clear enough was a pain in... you know what. From time to time we had to stop the game for a while to figure out some rules. And when we finally managed to understand them, it was like: why the hell it should be that way? So until the rules are better written, I don't want to play the game again. It has some pottential and as Fillip said there are things that can be changed. After that, it can be playable.

Another thing is narration. There was none really. And we came to conclusion that the GM is not very necessary! For most time of the game Filip had nothing interesting to do. He tried to add some narration but it felt weird and unsuitable. The game is to much about unthinking killing, it's good for an hour or so, but after that it's boring.

[Mark Causey]

Wow! This is an immense report! Thank you!

I am running around right now and can't get to read it and respond, but I will soon. Thank you both very much!