[Threads] Competitive/Cooperative Story Interaction Game, Open Playtest v 1.0

[Filip Luszczyk]

I have finally finished the first English draft of my game. I'd be grateful for any comments, and if anyone tries to playtest the material, more so. Bear in mind that it's still a draft - I think most of the text will be reformulated and reorganized in the final version.

Links to the document and character sheet will be placed in the next post, since I want to include the link to this topic in the text (I hope it's all right to double post in such instances). Do not answer until the links are posted, please.

You can find the Power 19 of the previous version of Threads here (note that I have dropped the working title - which was lame anyway ;)). Some things have changed, but most of that still apply.

Also, this discussion influenced out of conflict structure of the game in a great extent.

In short Threads is a prep-less competitive tactical RPG in which players create dramatic and engaging stories as a product of a gamist driven gameplay. Rules are pretty generic and can be used with practically any kind of setting serving as a stage - but they don't try to model the qualities of any specific reality. So, as long as you are satisfied with a given world working only as a background of the story and providing its color, you can use it (it is possible that the final version will include some campaign models). The game has been designed mainly with comic books, Anime, jrpg and arcade games in mind, but it is not genre specific and theoretically it could be used with just about any setting. But for the same reasons they might not work well with a given setting, though.

As I've already stated, I'd be grateful for any Actual Play - I really need to see the game played outside of my group.

Things I'd like to know the most:

1. Is Background Animator's mechanical potential well balanced against that of the PCs? Does he provide a worthy challenge in terms of conflict difficulty? (given that both the BA and the PCs are comparably good players and try their best to win, do the mechanics favor one side more than another?)

2. Is there much competition outside of conflicts? Do you feel that players (either BA or PCs) get too aggressive in any case? Is there any incentive to try to completely crush the other side outside of conflicts? Does the competition thwart the story development?

3. Do the veto mechanics and voting work fine? Is there any strong temptation to overuse it against the BA, or abuse in any other way? Or is there no problem with the 'emergency only' usage?

4. Does an actual play proceed according to the basic assumptions? Are there any problems with the division of tasks between players or shifting from competition to cooperation?

5. How does the resource economy of the game work? Are there any problems with BA's or PC's resource pools?

6. Do the Threads take too much or maybe not enough time to complete? Aren't their mechanical effects too powerful? Do they help in developing the story?

7. Does the system provide enough tactical options? Are they well balanced or are some tactics inherently better than others? In short, are the conflicts fun to play? Do they provide enough opportunity for engaging, intense tactical thinking?

8. How long does an average conflict last? How long does it take to set up a conflict an average (I'm aiming at 20-25 or so minutes total at most) How much of the session time do conflicts tend to consume in relation to the rest of the gameplay?

9. Do you feel that there should be some additional layer of character generation and advancement? Maybe more options for the Edges? Additional characteristics influencing the effectiveness of different actions during conflicts? (In previous versions of the rules I had those things, but I decided to drop them in order to simplify things)

10. Do you find anything not working well, or impractical, or too cumbersome, or too overcomplicated? I'm especially curious about the mechanical workings of the Edges.

11. Do you feel that BA is somehow discriminated in relation to other players? Doesn't he need more narrative control? Or maybe he should have opportunities for advancement more similar to that of the players (Traits, Edges and so on)? Does he get enough options during conflicts? (It looks like he works an different agenda than the players after all: he will be busy with the whole world and all the NPC's instead of just one character, but his mechanical options are significantly simplified to speed things up and take some burden from his back)

12. Do you find the game lacking anything? Endgame mechanics maybe?

13. Is there any incentive to play more than one session?

14. Actually, any comments could prove useful ;) Throughout the file there are some notes in italics. These indicate details (mostly minor) on which I could use some suggestions. Most of those things probably need to be adjusted according to the playtests results anyway.

[Filip Luszczyk]

Sorry, it looks like I messed up the links one more time. So once again, the main document:

http://lameriada.bloog.pl/i.html?k=MTk2NzExNjEsODYzMjM%3D&f=Threads_open_playtest_v1.doc

And the character sheet, for convenience of those who would like to playtest the game:

http://lameriada.bloog.pl/i.html?k=MTk2NzExNjEsODYzMjM%3D&f=Threads_character_sheet.doc

[Filip Luszczyk]

Some things that I have apparently omitted in the document:

-It is possible to reduce the strength of Bonds by winning conflicts. Pay 1 Drama per 1 point of strength of any Bond you want to reduce (yours or of any other player). If you win, reduce strength of Bonds according to those stakes. If you lose, nothing happens, but you have already spent the Drama.

-BA starts with 7 levels in Threads. No Thread can be lower than 1 or higher than 3. At least one must be Negative. At least one must be directly connected with each of the protagonists (e.g. one Thread connected with all 3 PCs, or one connected with 2 PCs and another connected with the last one, or any other mix).

And one big change of the rules. Players dice pools in conflicts don't work well.

First of all, no additional dice for colour - it's only a temptation to veto narration if by any chance you don't want another player to succeed. That way, you can only veto the description, but it's not possible to affect mechanical aspects of play that way, and vetoed player can simply adjust his narration.

Second, PCs have too low dice pools in comparisons with the BA. So now, there is a dice pool connected with every Trait. You roll that many dice for actions of the same colour (e.g. roll Daring pool for Spades action or reaction etc.). The pool's size depends on the relative strength of Protagonist's Traits. To determine the pools, rank traits from highest to lowest (if Trait level changes for any reason, pools change accordingly):

-Any 0 level Trait automatically has pool of 2 dice.
-If by any chance all your Traits are equal, all of them have pools of 3 dice (unless they are all at 0, in which case see above).
-If you have single highest Trait, it has a pool of 5 dice.
-Otherwise, your highest Traits have pools of 4 dice.
-Your lowest Trait or Traits have pools of 2 dice.
-Every Trait in-between has dice pool of 3 dice.

I'll include this changes in the next version of the document, when I have time to prepare it.

Still looking for anyone willing to playtest the game, though.

[Filip Luszczyk]

Version 1.1 can be downloaded now:

http://lameriada.bloog.pl/i.html?k=MTk2NzExNjEsODYzMjM%3D&f=Threads_open_playtest_v11.doc

I fixed some issues with Score, added a way of decreasing your own Debt (by spending Drama on a one for one basis) and improved card effects a bit. I also corrected some language mistakes.