Cradlethorn (pre-playtest draft)

[C. Edwards]

Hey all,

Here is the pre-playtest draft of Cradlethorn and some cover art  I cooked up in between bouts of frantic typing.

There are a couple specific issues I’d like feedback on, though comments on any aspect of the game are definitely welcome.

1) Resolution relies on rock/paper/scissors and resolves how a scene is framed and who narrates, as well as deciding the general course of events in a scene. Are there any obvious problems, break points, etc. that I’m just not seeing?

2) The game is centered around a specific scene structure and how it shapes play. A great deal of the text handles narration and scene framing because they’re the cornerstone of the game. Do the scene structure and the instructional text concerning scene framing and narration seem to go far enough to promote the style and flavor of play that I’m pushing? If not, any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Oh, and if anyone can think of a better term than ‘fetch’ that hasn’t been used to death I’d certainly like to hear it.

Thanks much,

 Chris

[Mike Holmes]

On point two, I see some problems in that the transfer of narration from one player to the next seems to be fuzzy. For example, does the Anchor simply interrupt the player narrating if he thinks that the body of a scene is dragging on? Even if that's so, it would be good to note that the Anchor can interrupt so that people understand that this is part of his job.

Nail down some of these things, and give examples of them. With that done, I think it'll be playtest ready.

For Fetch, why not use Ghost. It seems to me that people avoid that term for some reason. But it seems particularly appropriate here. I mean it seems to me that the game is about haunting people.

Mike

[Christoffer Lernö]

Looks kinda neat, but to get a feel for the game I suppose one should have played some solid narration-based games before. So, can't say much about it other than I hope we can test it on indie-netgaming.
-And I like the touch about the winning result determining stuff like success. Makes it possible to weigh the odds better.

Any particular reason as to why the .doc format? I can do the PDF conversion for free if you want to (you know, the "print and save-as-PDF with OS X"-trick).

[C. Edwards]

On point two, I see some problems in that the transfer of narration from one player to the next seems to be fuzzy.

Thanks for pointing that out. It's easy to overlook that kind of clarification in the text when the particulars of play are so clear in one's head.

As for using 'ghost' in place of 'fetch', I most likely will be doing that. I think it may help make the the ideas presented in the text more digestable.

Looks kinda neat, but to get a feel for the game I suppose one should have played some solid narration-based games before. So, can't say much about it other than I hope we can test it on indie-netgaming.
-And I like the touch about the winning result determining stuff like success. Makes it possible to weigh the odds better.

Thanks for the comments Christoffer. We need to tie you down and make you play Universalis, SOAP, of Shadows. :)

There didn't seem to be any particular reason for me to convert it to PDF at this point. Thanks for the offer though.

-Chris