[Night and Day] First Playtest, finally

[opsneakie]

So, I finally got to playtest Night and Day, and, long story short, it was great. I was mostly interested in getting the combat mechanics going, so I ended up running three combat encounters. A group of twenty orcs attacking the whole party, a Midnight lion stalking the two members of the party out scouting, and a pair of angels attacking the party members left behind.

Now, the usual strategy game of choice around my group is D&D 3rd, so the expected time to run a combat is looooong. Once people got how the clash system worked, we ran the first combat with the orcs. 20 orcs and 5 PCs took about 15-20 minutes to run, most of which was narration. The combat played out smooth and cinematic. As the system is built right now, players can spend Conviction to make a losing clash a tie, which means they will be able to spend Conviction points to avoid taking damage. I think I'm okay with this, because people who are terrified of taking damage will spend all their Conviction avoiding it, which is okay, if that's what they want to do. Certainly we had some players who burned their Conviction rapidly, which was every bit as effective as I thought, but not something you can do long-term. Meanwhile, just mixing it up in melee proved plenty effective against extras like orcs.

Combat was extremely streamlined, just about perfect. The lion and angels proved much stronger, and the players had an appropriately hard time fighting them. The Human Spark and all the other bits worked out well. There was only one problem with the system: Stats.

As it stood, stats didn't really do much.  They could be spent to boost rolls slightly, but it didn't seem to be enough. I think the way to make them work is as a kind of specialized bonus points, doing something like rolling an extra 2-3 dice when you spend a point. This way, your stat points will be a major boost when you need it most. I don't think they should add to die rolls directly, since you are already adding skill level + item, and I don't want the bonuses to overwhelm the Fortune.

So, long post short, question: how much should I worry about bonuses overwhelming Fortune? i.e. is rolling 1d10+7 a big deal? Do the bonuses make the die rolls irrelevant?

[Ron Edwards]

Hey there,

Let me turn it around on you ... do the stats actually need to be there at all?

Usually, when I ask this, a person gets very frightened and starts talking about how such values help them visualize their character. I don't know whether this applies to you and won't presume it does. However, just in case, in my experience other means may be found to help visualize the character, making such things as Strength scores basically irrelevant unless the system absolutely calls for it.

Based on your post (which may not be the whole story), it looks to me as if you're hunting about for a way to make the stats fit in, and that's often a sign that you don't need them.

Best, Ron

[Abkajud]

15-20 minutes worth of combat sounds incredibly streamlined! Kudos!
I daresay that's how much time those fight scenes might take on film. Good on you!

To add something to what Ron said, by way of giving an example: look at how D&D stats have changed throughout its many editions (we'll stick with the first three). To be fair, I can't speak to what stats were like in AD&D 1st Ed., but in 2nd, you would sometimes roll plain old stat checks on a d20. In 3rd edition, they changed it around: now, your stat number itself only refers to some other value, whose range is much smaller than that of the stat itself.

I know, sounds silly, right? Well, if you want some thematic bonus points for characters players to have as a resource, then just give them that! It'll save you a step.

Ron's notion of using stats as an aid to visualizing one's character, or helping to give it structure, is interesting. Certainly, since so many games have physical, mental, and social stats (or the first two, at least), it's something we're very much accustomed to. What are a character's Human Spark, Conviction, etc, in this context?
If characters are intensely focused on a particular area of experience, then it would make sense to have stats that measure that, even if it's not physical strength and mental acuity, per se. Is that what you're doing? Pendragon measures different virtues and such, in addition to things like strength.
For that matter, are Night and Day's stats more unusual or abstract, or are they fairly straightforward?

[opsneakie]

Hey Abkajud. The stats in Night and Day are fairly straitforward, but I think I am going to remove them. I got to run a couple more combat tests last Friday, and the results were even better than before.

The new change I've made is as follows: instead of rolling a single opposed d10 in a clash, each combatant now rolls 2d10 of different colors, one representing attack and the other defense. The attack die gets bonuses from offensive skills and weapons, while the defense die gets bonuses from defensive skills and armor. This way a clash can end with no clear winner, where either both combatants take damage or neither one does. The players were really happy with the change, since it added a lot of variety to the combat. The game feels smoother without stats, and the character creation process seems more streamlined. I also encouraged my players to break the game any way they could, and uncovered a few things I hadn't addressed, such as having a broad skill that allowed the player to use it for both attack and defense, essentially meaning they could max out one combat skill and be unstoppable.

I think Night and Day is just about done, and what it really needs now is more setting stuff and a more fleshed-out and well-rounded power list. Hopefully I'll be able to get an updated rulebook out shortly for people to mess around with. Thanks again for all the help, everyone.

-John