Actual Play: The Spin System

[Brian Leybourne]

This is an actual play report for The Spin System. It's a bit long, sorry about that.

I'm going to start with the "story" of the session, and then follow with some comments and suggestions from the players and from myself following play.

Character creation was done as a group, with the (three) players discussing their characters' backgrounds and motivations before creating them so there would be existing links between them, and several bangs to aid play. Here are the characters as created. (Note, I gave out about some during the session, so these scores are after XP spending)

Tyrone - A young man of small stature and dubious morals. Lived on the street and was taken to prison after being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. He met with an eastern fellow in prison and with his help wriggled his way out of the situation. Now, he flees the kingdom guards whereveer they find him. (Think Phillippe the Mouse, from Ladyhawke).

Climb like a monkey: 2
Squeeze through small places: 3
Flukely evade sharp blades aimed at him: 3
Run extremely quickly from danger: 3
Palm small objects: 2

Titus - Born the sixth child of a merchant family, Titus joined the army to make his own fortune. Went to war. King was assassinated. Part of army rebelled against ursurper. They were defeated, and Titus fled to fight another day. Travelled to eastern lands and plied trade as a mercenary, learning the mystic arts of summoning fire and shaping shadows.

Giants Strength: 2
Hard as iron: 2
Blademaster: 4
Create fire: 2
Shape Shadow: 2

Note: I was pretty loose with his magical traits. If he did too much with them I assigned fatigue, but as long as he kept it reasonable I didn't, worked pretty well.

Hiro - Hiro is from the east after being taught by his master for many years, learning the mystic ways of the martial arts. Unfortunastely, his master went to the west and never returned, so he Hiro travelled to the west to seek him.

Martial Arts: 5
People are afraid of the foriegner: 3
Great mental fortitude: 2

The start of play found Hiro and Titus, who had met in the east, travelling together as companions. Hiro seeking his old master in "the Kingdom" and Titus wishing to learn what had become of his old comrades and the ursurper in the 10 years he had been gone. Along the way they met with Tyrone, who had no real desire to return to the Kingdom but after hearing tales of the old asian mystic he had spent time with in prison, they decided it was probably Hiro's master (funny how things work out in RPG's, espeically one-shots...) and took him along.

Arriving at the city, they had a run-in with the city guard, who didn't like the look of the foriegner or the obvious cutpurse, but were eventually "pursuaded" to let them in. Inside the outer walls, they found a fair in progress, and Titus split from the others to seek information. Moving about the caravans, he found only cold shoulders, until he located one of his old men, now a legless (in both meanings of the term) sot hiding in an alleyway. The gift of some wine loosened the old mans lips, and he heard of the deprevations in the kingdom under the ursurpers rule and that most of the rebels who had been loyal to the old king had been hunted down and slain, but that several were still around, hiding in a cave just outside town. Titus thanked him and left.

Meanwhile, Hiro and Tyrone had located an Asian performing arts group, who were doing street theatre and martial arts displays. Hiro approached the eldest looking man and gave obsequience, asking him for any information about his master. The man considered him, then attacked him brutally, testing his ability to avoid his blows. Tyrone meanwhile watched a small monkey who was soliticing coins from the crowd watching the display, then stealing their purses when they were not looking. As he watched, the monkey entered a nearby tent, and a few moments later a beautiful younf asian girl emerged. The girl approached the old man who was just finishing attacking Hiro (and looking approved) and she whispered something into his ear. The man nodded and told Hiro that he had a mission for him (in return for the information about his master that Hiro was seeking) but that he had to prove himself by catching "that bird up there", pointing to a sparrow flying overhead. Hiro instictively knew that not just any any sparrow would do, and fled after it as quickly as he could, followed by Tyrone who was yelling something about girls who could turn into monkeys.

Titus emerged from the alleyway to find Hiro and Tyrone running past him, towards the centre of the city. He could not risk being recognised by any guards, so he headed in the opposite direction but was quickly accosted by two guards anyway. After a brief battle, he fled, leaving one dead and one badly wounded. At the same time, Hiro did an acrobatic leap from a persons head to a haycart to a building roof (think Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon wire work) but missed the bird anyway and slammed into a wall. Tyrone however, acrobatically followed him and managed to snare the bird for him. Surely there's no way the old man could know who really caught it, right? They headed back to the asian troupe, meeting up with Titus on the way. The old man took the three of them into a tent and explained that he knew Hiro's masters whereabouts, and that he could be released only by killing Tamioshi, the sorcerer to the king. He also admitted that Tamioshi had raped and killed his other daughter, so he had a personal stake in this. Monkey/Girl came in (his first daughter) and vowed to help them. They agreed to help out, but Titus wanted to meet with his old comrades first. The companions headed out to the cave...

... only to find that they were there too late, someone had overheard the old drunk telling Titus about the cave. As they got there, they found the rebels dead, and they were ambushed by three guardsmen. Tyrone fled (quickly) while Titus snapped one guard in two and threw him into a second, killing him as well. Hiro took a crossow bolt to the head and died instantly (more on that in the comments below). Finally, Titus caught up to the third guard just as he fired his crossbow a second time (but he slapped the bolt aside with his giant strength) and killed that guard too.

At this point, the monkey/girl turned up, so Hiro's player would have someone to play. It seemed she had decided to help them. Her stats were as follows:

Not be there when blows hit: 3
Be distractingly attractive: 3
Martial Arts: 2
Turn into monkey: 4 (generates a point of fatigue each time)

(as a monkey)
Cut purse: 4
Move swiftly: 3
Jump on someone's head and confuse them: 2
Climb stuff: 2
Turn back into a human: 3 (generates a point of fatigue each time)

The three decided to sneak into the castle, kill the sorcerer and free Hiro's master as a matter of principle. Tyrone and Tatu (the girl) snunk in through the sewers he had once fled from, and climbed the inner walls from the inside, Tatu used her skills at being distractingly attractive to get the patrolling guard to come to her, where she crushed his throat and tossed him over the wall, while Tyrone grabbed his torch and continued his marching so onlookers wouldn't know anything was amiss. Tatu threw a rope over the wall for Titus, and she and Titus headed off to sneak into the main castle to find the sorcerer (and also the ursurper, who Titus wanted to kill). Tyrone gave them a few minutes, then dropped the torch and slipped off, heading back into the sewers to enter the prison to find the old kings daughter who was apparently also captive there.

After this, things went downhill pretty quickly. Tyrone snuck into the cells pretty well, but got discovered by the guards there as he tried to sneak around, and having no appreciable fighting prowess was captured, beaten and thrown into a cell (this time without a sewer drain to escape through). Titus and Tatu made it as far as the sorcerers chambers, and had a pitched battle with the demon he summoned to stop them, but Tatu had her face torn off and her body dragged screaming down into hell, while Titus did eventually manage to off the demon, but was then slain by the ursurper since he was too low on spin dice (more on that soon too).

All in all it was a fun, if ultimately deadly session.

So, comments from me and the players (in no particular order):

* It's too hard to get spin dice back. Even revovery rolls only ever give you a few, but you need to spend so many to succeed at anything (especially when it comes to combat).

* Additionally, the disparity of only being able to get back one more than you spent also means you lose far too many and totally rely on refreshes.

* Having to spend dice to initiate actions when wounded or fatigued blows chunks, especially since it's so hard to get/keep spin dice. Even minor wounding combined with a low pool means you're screwed.

* Damage is too deadly. In both Hiro and Titus' cases, they were unwounded, missed their defensive rolls by only one, and got 7 and 5 wounds respecively. Attack successes should be minus defensive successes rather than all-or-nothing defense. The players indicated they wouldn't play Spin again without this modification because once your spin pool gets low, there's no way to quickly refresh it and that means you have fewer dice for defensive actions making them worthless if you can't beat the attack successes.

* Low skill is too hard, high skill is too easy. Whenever the players attempted anything they didn't have a trait for, it was just too hard needing a 1 on 1d6. It meant that they had to blow 4-5 spin dice just to have a chance to succeed, and they would either fail or get one success which means they're still down 3-4 spin dice. On the other end of the scale, with a 4 or 5 in a trait, you could almost always guarantee getting all your spin dice back (and often, gaining one) so you could always throw plenty of dice into all actions.

* Because of that, you need too many traits and 10 sarting points is not nearly enough.

* When your spin pool gets low, having a high trait becomes meaningless because you don't have dice to be able to roll against it. A swordsman: 5 with no spin dice is not nearly as good as a swordsman: 2 with even 3 spin dice.

* No spin dice + 2 or more wounds = no actions possible. You're screwed.

Suggestions from the players to improve the system:

* Damage = attack successes - defensive successes, then add weapon damage rating. This way being hit is not so immediately deadly if you only just miss on your defense roll.

* When wounded, difficulty of actions increases instead of spin dice expendature required, or all trait levels get a penalty (all traits considered -1 at 2 wounds, etc). This way you can still act when your spin dice are low and you're wounded.

* The curve is too harsh with D6's, a trait of 1 (default) is too hard, a 5 is too easy. The players' suggested fix? Make it D10's. The default trait becomes 3 and the range is 3-7. That way, even with a default trait you have a 3/10 chance per die rolled, and at the top end you always have a 3/10 chance to fail per die even with a maximum trait.

* With a D10 system, make the damage track 10 points instead of the 6 in the D6 system, so at 2 wounds you have -1 to all traits (or +1 difficulty), -2/+2 at 5, -3/+3 at 8, unconscious at 9 and dead at 10. Something like that.

The players thought those first three fixes would go a long way towards making the game more playable (and the fourth just as a suggestion), and are keen to try the game again (with those fixes) this weekend.

All in all, we really enjoyed the game, but the enjoyment was marred slightly by the flaws, such as it being too hard to get dice back once spent (even refreshes weren't fantastic), and that combined with the fact that you had to spend so many just to succeed in anything, especially if you didn't have a relevant trait, made it all just too hard.

Any thoughts/comments?

Brian.

[Jeph]

First off, a huge THANKS for trying out my game, Brian! In the short playtest I did, I encountered the same problems--spin goes down t6oo quickly and comes back up at a snail's pace, damage too deadly and too much, too granular. I used 12 starting traits in my short test, I think I'll make the default 15, with high powered games reach a max of 20 points.

I like your fix ideas, a LOT. The damge idea was considered from the start, but tossed because subtraction added an extra step to the process--I think the extra step is necceccary, now.

A 3-7 range on a d10 would also be good. Maybe, 2-7, with a 0 counting as two successes? Spin Modifier would default to 2 or 3, +1 per unspent Trait point (max 6-7, whatever).

I designed the damage system with 1-hit kills in mind: I wanted them to be possible, even likely. But maybe that's a bit too gritty for most players; I know mine didn't like the superharsh penalties. Going off of the 10-point track . . .

Damage    Penalty
01            no penalty
02            no penalty
03            no penalty
04            -1 to all Traits
05            -1 to all Traits
06            -1 to all Traits
07            -2 to all Traits
08            -2 to all Traits
09            -2 to all Traits
10            Unconcious
11+           Make a roll, Difficulty = damage minus 10. Failure indicates death after a little while (the more successes rolled, the longer you have before you bight the bullet), success indicates mere unconciousness.

The problem of regaining Spin too slowly, and loosing it too quickly: Perhaps, you always start the scene with a number of Spin equal to your Modifier +2 or +3? (which would be 5 Spin for the average person with a modifier of 0, if you're using d10 stat range.) Durring scenes, the higher probability of rolling successes should help, along with the possiblity of a roll of 0 granting 2 successes.

I just want to say thanks one more time!
-Jeph

[Brian Leybourne]

OK, you had me confused for a moment there, with your talk of zeros, until I realised that you're talking using the D10 as 0-9, where as I was talking about 1-10 :-)

Right, so the default (and thus minimum for a purchased trait) is 2, and that means you can still succeed with a roll of 0,1 or 2 (and 0 counts as two successes). Not bad. At the top end, your maximum trait is 7, and you can still fail by rolling an 8 or 9. That still makes traits top heavy (with max trait you can only fail with a 1-in-5 chance) but that's OK because we're talking Princess Bride with the strongest man in the world, and the smartest man in the world, etc.

I like gritty damage too, but Spin was even deadlier than TROS and similar games. With the defensive successes subtracting from the attack successes I think it's right now. I like your new damage track too.

Buying traits. OK, so we're talking starting with 12/15 points, and buying up from 1, that's a bit messy IMO. Better to assume all players will have an average of 4-5 traits and so start with +4/+5 and they buy from zero. So if you start everyone with (say) 18 points, that's enough to buy 6 traits at 3 (40% chance per die) on average, which sounds about right to me, so 18 or maybe 20/22 for a higher powered game? What do you think?

Spin dice. We found it wasn't so much starting scenes that was a problem (although it was, since refreshing wasn't all that easy, but with 3 + unspent trait points as yourt refresh mod difficulty that'll be better I think) but it was actually getting them back during the scene that was problematic, especially if the scene involved a lot of rolling, such as combat. It should be better with the D10 die system (and especially the chance of roilling 0's and getting 2 dice back per 0 rolled), we'll try it out this weekend and see how that goes. It might still be a tiny bit slow, only one way to find out though.

Hmm.. oh, just noticed something. Are you saying that you see the spin mod as 2/3 + unspent traits, spin pool as spin mod + 2/3 and refresh as always going back to top spin pool rather than a roll, or am I getting confused again?

No need to thank me, we can't play our regular game at the moment as we have a couple of people away, and Spin is a nice narritivist-heavy alternative for quick pick-up sessions. Hell, character creation only took about 10 minutes and then we were straight into it with no prep needed on my part, I just sat back and responded to the players bangs and kickers and off the game went. It was a blast, right up until I started spewing blood and had to be taken to hospital (but I'm pretty confident that was the meal we ate and not your game *grin*).

Couple of other things I forgot to mention:

* I allowed players to blow a spin die to target past armor (aim for the weak spots etc). Very useful for the martial artist with no weapons.

* Overnight or with any substantial rest period I refreshed spin pool totally

* On occasion I gave bonuses in the form of non-refreshing spin dice. If an action was really well narrated or the player had more than one relevant trait or had assistance in some form, etc, I would give them 1-3 extra dice on a roll, but those were rolled with different color dice which would not refresh spin. That worked pretty well.

Brian.

[Mike Holmes]

Damn, Brian, nice analysis.

Mike

[Jeph]

I was thinking that characters would no longer have to buy assumed Trait points. I.E., if you spend one point on a Trait, it's at three; two points is at four, etc. Probably should have that included from the beginning, too. =)

I'm considering completely redoing the Spin Modifier thing, having only one specified Trait doesn't seem to make sense. Maybe, your SM is equal to 12 minus your highest rated Trait, and you always have your Modifier in Spin Dice at the beginning of a scene. Or something. This would also simulate the unskilled character's Dumb Luck better (i.e., before you could have a maxed out Trait and still have a maxed out SM), and help to encourage a bit of diversification (as if you clump all your points into one or two Traits, your SM will be lower). If the average character has their highest Trait at six, one below the max, that would make the average Spin Pool six . . . seem okay? Of course, it would no longer really a modifier, so maybe it could be called Base Spin.

I like the non-refresing spin dice as a bonus idea. Could you elaborate on that a bit? F'rinstance, can you roll more than 5 dice total when you factor in Bonus Dice, or are they included in the limit?

Speaking of the cap of 5 dice, how did the players feel about that? Did it seem like a positive, unneeded, or nuetral aspect of the system?

Sorry to drill you like this, but I want to make the game as good as it can get. =)

-Jeph

[Brian Leybourne]

Hmm... So the max trait is 7, which means those people will have a spin pool of 5 per scene.

Hmm.. I kind of like it, and I see your reasoning with "dumb luck" etc, but it does tend to reinforce what the players thought a flaw, which was that the most skilled people (i.e. highest traits) weren't really the most skilled if they didnt have dice to back that up. This is more an issue in combat where the number of successes is important; outside of combat where you usually only need 1 or 2 it's not so much a biggie.

IMHO it would still be better to base it on unspent points. Something like 4+unspent to a maximum of 10 with 6 unspent, and that's the total that you always refresh to each scene, but you can increase it later with experience (still a maximum of 10). Something like that?

OK, so if 1 point buys 3, 2 buys 4 etc then we're back to 12 or so being the usual number of points, with 15 being a higher powered campaign and 20 being really high powered. Sounds good. That's cool, I was just thinking that buying from 0 (but saying that you couldn't buy lower than 2 per trait anyway) would be easier for some folk to work out in their heads :-)

Brian.

[Brian Leybourne]

Sorry.. forgot to answer the rest of your questions :-)

I like the non-refresing spin dice as a bonus idea. Could you elaborate on that a bit? F'rinstance, can you roll more than 5 dice total when you factor in Bonus Dice, or are they included in the limit?

Speaking of the cap of 5 dice, how did the players feel about that? Did it seem like a positive, unneeded, or nuetral aspect of the system?

Non-refreshing dice. The limit of 5 didn't come up when I assigned extra dice, now that I think about it. I guess my gut is that I would assign them on TOP of the maximum of 5 dice you could add from spin, otherwise you're arbitrarily saying "you can only add 3 dice this time" (because you gave them 2 extra). I dunno, that just seems wrong to me somehow :-)

So yeah, I would say on top. I'm happy with a 5 limit though, that keeps pools manageable (you'll never roll more than 6 except with GM bonuses) and prevents those with really high spin pools from totally dominating others with pool-envy. The players were happy enough with the limit, pool dice were so precious it was very rare toi see them using 5 in one roll unless they had to because it was a no-trait roll and they had to succeed.

Grilling is fine, I like mine medium/well done thanks :-)

Brian.

[Jeph]

Just wanted to say that Spin System v1.3 is up on the original thread. A brief outline of the new version:

• The system is now d10 based. Traits default to 2, and max out at seven. A roll of 0 (or 10 on some dice) counts as two successes.
• The damage track has shifted to a 10-points cale, instead of 6-point. Pnealties from damage and heavy armor now come in the form of reduced Traits, not extra Spin costs.
• Starting characters have 12 points with which to purchase Traits, and do not have to purchase the assumed points. Ex, a Trait at three costs one point, a Trait at four costs two points, etc.
• A section on Supernatural Powers has been added, covering magic, psionics, and superpowers.
• A clause on rewarding Bonus Dice for being cool has been added.

[Brian Leybourne]

Sweet. I have another Spin System game in about 3 hours... I'll let you know how it goes.

[Brian Leybourne]

Actual Play report #2: V1.3 of the Spin System (the D10 one). LONG.

Once again, I'll start with a description and follow up with comments etc.

The Game:
Given that this is a fairly genre-less system, the players decided to shift away from fantasy for the second playtest and instead try something different. After a discussion ranging from Space Opera through Murder Mystery to World of Darkness (and one vote for Romantic Comedy... I always had my suspicions about that player) they decided on a Deadlandsish wild western with magic and wierdness. All agreed that one major strength of the Spin System is that you can do pretty much any type of game you like. The characters were:

Johnson Brown - An old sprightly man who watches a bar brawl from his seat at the side, mysteriously always ignored by the participants. One man goes for his gun but gets pushed back and just happens to trip over the old mans foot, his head hits the table and he's out. The gun is kicked back under the chair as the old man sips his beer. An unlikely guardian, but one who is as old as the hills. Johnson Brown has always had a knack for blending in, and being in the right place at the right time.

Just a face in the crowd: 5
Right place at the right time: 5
Tough as old nails: 4
Everyone respects their elders: 4
Putting the boot in: 3

Caleb - A young card shark that has travelled across America making a quick buck and then a hasty departure. Fast with his hands and his tongue. Has learned how to get out of a spot or a cell if it comes to it. Over the years has developed the ability to read minds and assert some mental power over others.

Ace up the Sleeve: 5 (gambling skill)
Shoots like Billy the Kid: 6
No cage can hold me: 3
Dodge a bullet: 4
Dead Mans Gaze: 4 (Supernatural trait)

Jeremiah - Wanders the west in search of adventure. During one such adventure he encountered a weird creature that bit him. He hunted it down and killed it, but later discovered he had taken on its abilities to heal/regenerate wounds quickly and to shapechange into many different forms. He is very fond of his magnificent six-shooters and is a dab hand with them.

Eyes in the back of my head: 3 (alertness)
Heal/Regenerate wounds: 4 (Supernatural trait)
Shapeshifting: 5 (Supernatural trait)
Quick hands and eye: 4 (Combat)
Shift body away from weapons harm: 5 (Supernatural trait)

The characters got together through a common desire to get from Salt Lake City to Nevada. Jeremiah was secretly a lawman, who had heard that "Dan the Man", a notorious villian he had been seeking for years, was in Reno. Caleb was heading for the $25,000-per-entry special poker game that was going to be held there (I think the player watched Maverick last week), and Johnson was trying to manipulate the others to go there anyway so he could get them to clear out a nest of vampires who had occupied Dead Mans Pass, which was along the way.

The characters spent a fair bit of time in SLC, gathering provisions for the trip to Reno etc before heading out. On the road, they encountered a farmer family who were travelling to SLC to sell their produce. They stayed the night with the farmer and his kids, and helped repel an attack by bandits (who they hanged the next morning). Moving on, they got most of the way to Reno before encountering the (in)famous Dalton gang, who they had been warned about. They had a brutal gun battle and killed two of the three Daltons before sucumbing.

This was a shortish session (since they all died again) but we had had a lot of rolling before the deadly combat, and that was the second (extensive) combat, so we thought it was a good time to stop. And in fact, when I say shortish, it was only short for us, it was still about 5 hours, which is probably longer than a usual session for many groups :-)

Why did they die? Well, I'm still learning the system too, and made a few mistakes, plus I wasn't in usual GM mode, I was instead just doing everything strictly by "the book" and rolling in front of everyone because we were all in experiment mode.

The breakdown:
The players (and I) all agreed that the system is vastly more playable than it was before. The more generous difficulty numbers, and especially the double-success for a zero meant that everyones Spin Pools fluctuated up and down instead of just collapsing after the first few rolls. That part of the game worked really well and the 0-9 with 2 as the default works perfectly.

There was a spot of discussion at one point about refreshing, since if your pool is above 10 you never get a refresh, and one player was commenting that his max pool was 13 but he could never refresh back to that (unless he got very lucky with zeroes). That led to a discussion as to whether the "10 minus current pool" was arbitrary and the fact that with it all pools graduate to 10 regardless of spin mod. One option floated was that on a refresh you always get a minimum of one die. In the end though, we decided that it worked fine the way it was. Although anyone with a Spin Mod > 4 would technically start with more than 10 spin pool dice and would have a hard time getting back there after spending down, we were happy that you didn't get refreshed if your current was above 10 because you still have the benefit of having a better chance to refresh per die when you were below 10 (so spin mod > 4 is still useful). Also, pools above 10 were quite possible with the zeroes rule anyway, and in fact one player reached a spin pool of 14 at one point, even though his spin mod was only 3. So we kept it as it was and it actually worked out fine. We also questioned if you could refresh above your "max". I.E. if you have a spin mod of 2, you start with a spin pool of 5. Can you refresh above 5? We decided you could, for all the reasons above, there's no reason to limit your pool because you're already limited by having a lower chance per refresh die of refreshing.

The magical traits worked well. I used the system I floated in the Game Design thread that all failures rolled generated fatigue, and if the spell itself didn't work the fatigue was instead wounds. I floated the idea to the players of very powerful effects generating automatic additional fatigue, but it was pointed out that this was already coped with by increasing the difficulty, making you more likely to fail and thus take wounds instead of fatigue. It seemed to work really well and we were all happy with it as the way we'll do supernatural traits in future (broad ones, narrow ones work as normal traits as covered in the rules).

The zeroes rule worked amazingly well and totally saved the spin pool mechanic. Peoples pools fluctuated instead of just dropping and all was cool. At one point, one of the players rolled 5 dice and got 0,0,0,0,1 thus gaining 5 spin dice as well as succeeding rediculously well, so he was a happy man. Unfortunately, one of the players was killed by a similar GM roll for one of the Dalton boys (the roll was on the table as I explained earlier, so no fudging) but that's just the luck of the dice, certainly not the systems fault.

Keeping track of multiple opponents' spin pools, stats and wounds got a bit tricky in a large combat. We eventually decided that one of two systems were in order for mooks (for major NPC's tracking everything is the only way to go of course).

System one: All mooks are 1,2 or 3 die figures. Therefore you always roll the number of dice indicated for all of their actions and don't track a spin pool. All similar mooks have the exact same stats. Wound penalties subtract from the number of dice they roll as well as their traits.

System two: All similar mooks have the exact same stats. Ignore wound penalties but they only take 4-5 hits to drop instead of 10. The mooks have a common, shared spin pool that they all draw from and refresh to.

We tried it both ways and System 2 was the winner, worked really well and we think that System 2 should be added into the rules as the "official mook rule" if you like it.

Minor note - when a zero is what you need to roll (because you have a -2 wound penalty and you're using a default trait) we decided zeroes should only count as one success since the zero is the only way you can succeed anyway. Minor point though.

Combat. We had two big combats, so we tried your round-less system for one and my round-ed system for the other. This is of course a matter of personal/group preference and not a reflection on the rules at all, but we all liked the system with rounds better. One of the players suggested that there are probably at least as many groups out there would would prefer the structure of rounds as those who would like roundless and suggested that you present both systems in the rules so groups can choose. Your call.

Anyway, the way I/we did rounds was this: Each round, all characters roll initiative using whichever skill makes sense for them (gunplay, swordsmanship, speed, etc, anything that fits or default if nothing fits). They spend or not spend spin dice as usual. Highest initiative gets to go first but can defer to the next person, stepping back in whenever they like etc. Each round, all characters get two free actions, one is a dodge/defensive action, and the other is a general action that can be used for anything (attack, defense, etc). Extra actions after that can be bought for a cost of 1 spin die for the first extra action, then two spin dice for the second, and so on. Everyone gets their first action(s) before anyone can buy second attacks etc and those all happen before anyone can buy third ones and so on. It seemed to work really well.

Having played the system twice now, the players are learning the kinds of abilities you really must cover with traits, but it wasn't obvious early on. They suggested (I don't necessarily agree with this one but anyway) that you should mention somewhere in the rules that it's useful to have a dodge/get away kind of trait, an attack trait and a perception-based trait. Those are the three they see as core. A possible fourth is a "toughness" type of trait that can be used to soak wounds (although that wasn't applicable with gun wounds anyway).

Did we enjoy it? Yeah, we had a fucking blast. The player with "just a face in the crowd" and "In the right place at the right time" was having excellent fun making the NPC's not notice him, and then just happening to be in the right place to "put the boot in" when he needed to. And when he got really stuck, folk would suddenly remember that they're supposed to respect their elders and not hurt him. The other two were more traditional gunfighting characters, but the shapeshifting one had a hoot shifting around, and although he took more damage over the course of the game, I allowed him to use his "regenerate wounds" trait once per scene to convert one wound to fatigue per success and it worked really well. Our only disapointment was that his name was Jeremiah, but he never shapeshifted into a Bullfrog. Oh well.

The players love the freedom of being able to define almost anything as a trait. Over this and the previous playtest they had a lot of fun coming up with useful but suitably narrow traits and you can see the evolution of their thinking from the last game to this, where they're clearly better used to thinking in the system.

Long term playability? We didn't really think the Spin system could ever be used for a long term campaign, but it's excellent as a quick pick-up game if not all players turn up for a session and you just want to have a few hours of roleplaying without needing much (/any) prep work etc. We envision it being used by us for this purpose fairly regularly and they're all keen to see V2(.1?), especially if it incorporates some of their suggestions above.

And so am I. Cool game, well done.

Brian.

[Jeph]

I'm soo glad that you're having fun. The fact that someone is actually playing my game (and liking it!) still kinda shocks me. Now, time to shuffle the rules again. :)

OK, seems that the system's last major quirk is that it's still sooo damn vicious. I'm thinking that tossing the roll-vs.-death mechanic after 10 wound points, and just assuming that the characters have been K.O.ed and are at their adversary's mercy, might be a good idea. In many cases, they'd still be dead, but in others, they might find themselves in an interesting position--perhaps the Dalton gang sold them as sacrifice material to a satanic cult posing as mormons and using the temple in SLC.

Good thought on the zero counting as one success if it's all you can get.

Faceless hordes . . . my favorite aspect of Feng Shui. Another possible option is, instead of treating a gang as a bunch of weak characters, it could be counted as one average to strong characters. Non-drones that are along for the ride would be seperate, of course.

If the round system works, then there's no reason not to include it as an option. It seems simple and elegant.

Looks like your players had a lot of fun with their Traits, and used them effectively. Respect Your Elders appears to be a claok of invulnerability, I love it! When I ran my half-hour cuberpunk mini-test (back in the d6 days), the players found the same things about necceccary Traits. Definitely a defensive one, maybe a good attack. They didn't take any perception Traits, and that proved to be a bad idea. I'll write up a couple of little advice blurbs and alternate rule sidebars.

Hmm, I wonder if I can convince the players in my Star Wars game to convert from Feng Shui to Spin System for a session? They're generally anti-homebrew, though, and the d6 version of the system gave them a bad impression . . . ah well, I'll try, at least.

-Jeff S.

[Brian Leybourne]

If it's vicious, it's mostly because you can't soak any damage other than bashing without wearing armor, and of course in any setting except medieval armor is not common (modern could have kevlar vests perhaps). This means that if your defensive/dodge/whatever roll fails you're dead meat in many cases.

Maybe if you say that characters can always soak damage but armor and the like gives a bonus to soaking traits... hey, I like that. Light armor gives +1 to your "tough as old nails" trait (or whatever) and medium is +2, heavy +3 (Max is still 7). In other words, whatever penalty armor gives to physical traits, is the same as the bonus it gives to your soak trait. That would reduce the lethality greatly. Hell, even without a soak trait heavy armor would give you a trait of 5 to soak, that's in line with how tough a suit of heavy plate or whatever should be.

Mook groups as a single opponent? Hmm.. maybe, although if you're facing 10 guys with guns, even mooks, that should be potentially more deradly than one really tough guy with a gun. If/when you get a chance to playtest, try our Mook suggestion #2, we found it to be quite elegant and it worked really well.

Brian.

[Jeph]

Good thoughts on the armor. I'm noticing that in the old d6 version, bonuses/penalties came in the form of extra spin costs/reduced spin costs, whereas in the new d10 version, they come in the form of Trait adjustments.

However, that kills the system's main distinction between lethal and fatigue damage . . . I guess the new distinction will be that fatigue fades at the end of a scene, following the trend set by Supernatural Traits.

Oh, one more thing: In your rounds system, does soaking damage count as a defensive reaction (like dodging an attack does)?

[Brian Leybourne]

However, that kills the system's main distinction between lethal and fatigue damage . . . I guess the new distinction will be that fatigue fades at the end of a scene, following the trend set by Supernatural Traits.

Yeah, that's how I was playing it. Fatigue = easy to get rid of, wounds = takes time to recover from, but botyh have the same actual effect and stack together.

Oh, one more thing: In your rounds system, does soaking damage count as a defensive reaction (like dodging an attack does)?

No, I made it that you have to spend an action etc to dodge (or parry, or...) but the soak is more of a "lets see how well your frame handled that hit" rather than an active action. Also, that would mean you need two actions every time someone hits you, which would slow down combat as people with low spin pools can only expect to HAVE two actions a round. So to be far more brief, no, soaking is a roll, not an action.

Brian.

[Jeph]

Okeydokey then, I think we're ready for v2.1! Here's what'll be in it:

• Optional Round Rules, for a slightly more sim-like combats.
• New Armor and Fatigue Rules, to decrease the system's brutality another step.
• New Supernatural Trait Rules, where each failure is a fatigue point, and if failures outnumber successes, some of the fatigue is instead damage.
• Faceless Hoard rules, the exact nature of which has not yet been decided.
• Modification to the Rule of 0s, wherein if a roll of 0 is the only time you can score a Success, a 0 doesn't provide two successes.
• A few player and Gm tips, such as reccomended traits.

But first, a bit more hammering out of mooks: Should I use the Feng Shui system, where mooks are either hit-or-miss targets? In other words, an attack either puts them out of the fight, or does nothing. Maybe a mook is out of the fight when you score two more Successes than them? Or just one more?

Additionally, when you say that all mooks have the exact same stats, do you mean that they share Spin Pools, or is each mook's spin tracked seperately?