[God-king] Playtest Release

[wicked.fable]

God-king

Hey Forgers,

I have put up a playtest release of my game, God-king. It is a game that is focused on collaborative storytelling and, as such, offers mechanics to provoke interesting story paths. God-king follows a group during their journey to a continent that they had previously believed to be mythical. Each member of the group is integral to the journey in some way (the Scholar can translate the continent's native language, the Healer can revive incapacitated characters, and so on) so they have to work together to survive - losing a member penalizes the group. To complicate things, everyone has an ulterior motive for coming along which will likely put them at odds with the other characters.

This playtest release is focused on gathering playtest reports and feedback on the game. This means a bit of content has been removed so you can get into the heart of it and start playing. I hope that, after a quick session or two, you might be willing to provide me with some information on how you feel the games plays. If you do this, I am would be willing to credit you and your group in the final version of the game.

You can download the game at my site here. Please feel free to email me with your playtest reports at static.veil@gmail.com or post them here if you like.

Thank you,
-Daniel

[stefoid]

I like the setup, love the 'truths', although it might be more interesting playing from the moment the players step onto the beach.  That seems like a big moment.

[wicked.fable]

Hey stefoid, thanks. The introduction provided in the Journey is definitely meant more as an adventure guideline kind of thing rather than background for what happens before the game starts. I have been trying to figure out how to avoid making it sound like it needs to be followed completely, though, so I will likely be revising that section. So, yes, I do mean for the players to start on the beach. Although, as the text does say, the Narrator certainly has leeway for the specifics of the Journey so one could start it wherever they like, in actual play.

[storyteller]

this is really interesting, I like the group nature and preset roles, I think it would be well served by a board or map of some sort, It feels more like a board game than an RPG. I see a basic map of the land that is very abstract, possibly made or some sections put together each game randomly, possibly through play, the characters go such and such way and a large cardboard section is placed that creates the next area of the map, with some miniatures or tokens for each character to move about. Maybe thats just me, but this seems like a fun game, if I had a group Id do some testing but all in all its very fresh and streamlined.

[My Precious]

My experience with the game Umlaut is that drawing cards and seeing who got more of a certain color is really fun for some reason. It's suspenseful as cards are laid down in a way that dice are sometimes not.

I love the Trusts and how they can work to augment the hand of a trusted character.

I agree that a map would be nice, and randomizing it is a cool idea.

[wicked.fable]

Thanks for the comments, My Precious and storyteller. I definitely agree about the suspense that can be had when using cards as opposed to dice. That's actually one of the aspects that I tried to focus on in terms of how the resolution mechanics are played out.

@storyteller: I actually really like that idea but it is not the plan I had in mind for the game. I wanted to focus more on the story aspects of roleplaying rather than bog it down with too many extra bits to keep track of. It's not that a map couldn't be made to be elegant or work as a storytelling device, it's just a different path from what I envisioned is all. I do appreciate your input in trying to help me make a better game, though. I always like unique ideas like that!

I should note that the game is now finished and is available from my website http://spiffup.org/godking for $5 USD as a full color, 40 page, PDF, immediate download. I would love to hear what you guys think of the final version.