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In Acts of Evil Playtest Board

12/3/2005 John Kirk: AOE Analysis
Paul recently asked me to perform an analysis of Acts of Evil from a design patterns perspective.  If you are unfamiliar with design patterns, a discussion of using them for…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: John Kirk, Victor Gijsbers, Paul Czege.

12/2/2005 Paul Czege: the tragedy of the commons
A major design objective for me with Acts of Evil is that the non-occultist NPCs have a chance to emerge via play as characters of interest, protagonists to the relatively…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege, Eero Tuovinen, Remko, Victor Gijsbers, Mike Holmes.

11/29/2005 Paul Czege: post-Utrecht reformulation
To recap, the Utrecht playtest focused my design attention as follows: On a need to make Teachers more effective as antagonists in the early game. On a need to increase…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege, Victor Gijsbers, Remko, Eero Tuovinen.

11/18/2005 Victor Gijsbers: [Utrecht Evil] Second session
Using the updated rules, we had a second playtest yesterday evening. Was it better? Certainly. Was it good enough? Not yet. We did manage to play the game to official…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Victor Gijsbers, Remko, Eero Tuovinen, Eva Deinum, Paul Czege.

11/17/2005 Sean: Randian Occultists?
Does anyone else see in this game a pretty nice critique of Ayn Rand? Heroic individualist business leaders as grasping occultists committing mind-numbing horrors in search of personal power? I…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Sean, Victor Gijsbers.

11/14/2005 Paul Czege: edits have been made to the Acts of Evil playtest rules
Edits have been made to the Acts of Evil playtest rules: With the goal of resolving the adversity (lack of uncertainty to dice rolls) issue reported by the Utrecht group,…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege, Eero Tuovinen.

11/6/2005 Paul Czege: the dice mechanics
It seems I need to consider alternative dice mechanics. The Utrecht group has demonstrated that the endeavors of beginning occultists lack drama due to an absence of mechanical adversity. I…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege, Remko, Victor Gijsbers, Mike Holmes.

11/5/2005 Remko: Rules suggestions based on first playtest [Utrecht Evil]
These suggestions is based on the playtest here. One of the problems which arose on playtesting, was the lack of feeling with NPC's. NPC's were no more than a…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Remko, Victor Gijsbers, Paul Czege.

11/4/2005 Victor Gijsbers: [Utrecht Evil] First session
We played our first session of Acts of Evil yesterday evening, using the first beta draft. How did it go? Well enough to say: this game has potential! Badly enough…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Victor Gijsbers, Paul Czege, Eero Tuovinen.

11/4/2005 ejh: "fetishizing"
I could use more detail on "fetishizing" your character.  I think I have some intuitive grasp of what it means but I'm not sure.  The example given in the text…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: ejh, Paul Czege.

11/3/2005 Eero Tuovinen: Planning a playtest?
Paul: you just dumped me on the forum here, so I don't know what plans you exactly have going forward. Should I, like, playtest Acts of Evil? Because I certainly…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Eero Tuovinen, Paul Czege, Victor Gijsbers.

11/3/2005 Victor Gijsbers: How I plan to win the game in one round
I start the game with 1 Resistance, and no Used Capacity, as per the rules. When creating my occultist, I will put 12 dice in Ambition. When it's my turn,…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Victor Gijsbers, Paul Czege, Eero Tuovinen.

10/31/2005 Victor Gijsbers: Small questions
[For small questions to Paul that do not deserve a seperate thread.] What happens when the dice pool contains no dice or only one die?
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Victor Gijsbers, Paul Czege, Mike Holmes.

10/31/2005 Victor Gijsbers: On circulation
Hello everyone! Paul, in your sticky you state: Please don't circulate What it the preferred procedure with my playtesters? Circulate the rules to them anyway, or ask…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Victor Gijsbers, Paul Czege, Eva Deinum, Remko.

10/31/2005 Paul Czege: Welcome to the Acts of Evil playtest forum!
Welcome to the Acts of Evil playtest forum! Here's what's up: Although this is a hidden forum, participants and observers of the playtest I ran at this past GenCon are…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege.

10/30/2005 Paul Czege: Acts of Evil (playtest rules)
[size=13pt][b]Acts of Evil[/b][/size] a roleplaying game of occult ambition by Paul Czege [color=Maroon][b]Introduction[/b][/color] Player characters are new initiates to an occult tradition devoted to aggressive and competitive pursuit of personal…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege.

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In Acts of Evil Playtest Board

1/6/2006 Paul Czege: the epistle of an occultist
On Eero's advice, I've begun focusing on color text, written as advice from an occultist to his magickal progeny. Not being an occultist myself, it hasn't been an easy mindset…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege, ejh.

1/10/2006 Paul Czege: updates to the playtest rules
The playtest rules have been updated. Important new passages are in dark red. And deprecated passages are crossed out. Mostly, the changes are what I laid out on the beyond…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege.

1/21/2006 ejh: Brief Gesture In The Direction of Playtest
OK, I got the boys to give it a spin tonight. Not ideal conditions, I had only kinda scanned the rules and kept flipping back and forth through them during…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: ejh, Paul Czege.

1/26/2006 Paul Czege: fun with evil
This past sabbath day we kicked off a planned multi-session playtest of Acts of Evil. And what can I say...I like it. We only had time for two scenes with…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege, Victor Gijsbers, hardcoremoose, Calithena.

1/30/2006 Paul Czege: cover experiment
Have a look. What do you think? (Eero, your brother Jari did the covers for your translations of My Life with Master and Dust Devils, didn't he? I'd be very…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege, Calithena, Victor Gijsbers, Eero Tuovinen, chris_moore.

2/19/2006 Paul Czege: needed: situation to start
After two sessions of playtest, I've been thinking Acts of Evil needs some kind of collaborative situation fabrication prior to play. (And Michael S. Miller's Arthurian enthusiasm post…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege, Eero Tuovinen.

2/19/2006 Calithena: My Hangup/Grist for the Mill
I was just reading Paul's starting situation stuff and I see the problem he needs to solve. Every time I think about this game, I imagine the characters are all…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Calithena, Paul Czege.

3/13/2006 Paul Czege: playtest at Forge Midwest
Anyone planning to attend Forge Midwest and interested in playtesting Acts of Evil during one of the Saturday slots? Paul
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege, Ron Edwards, chris_moore, c, John Kirk.

4/12/2006 c: Actual play Anvil-Con. (Forge midwest)
Hi guys, This is late. It may end up long. It's my recollection of the Acts of Evil playtest we had at Anvil-Con. (A Forge is where you prepare the…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: c, chris_moore, Paul Czege.

4/21/2006 chris_moore: more setting?
Paul, how much setting have you decided on providing for players?  Maybe by describing a bit more specifically what the occultists do  would give players and GM's more material to…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: chris_moore, Paul Czege.

4/29/2006 Paul Czege: Acts of Evil, the new evil (revised playtest rules)
Alrighty, what we obviously need as basis for conversation and further playtesting is a game text as plain instructions, complete with all current rules in as few words as I…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege.

5/1/2006 Paul Czege: the evolution of evil
I'm interested in some conversation about the changes I've made to the rules. Of course I think they're improvements, that they make the game tighter, but I'm interested in doubts…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege, chris_moore, c.

5/3/2006 chris_moore: Clarity vs. Teachers
Clarity is defined as: "your mastery of the occult worldview, and also your status among occultists.  The more confidently immersed you are in thinking like a cthonic god, the more…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: chris_moore, Paul Czege.

5/5/2006 Paul Czege: character sheet contest: out sephiroth the designer
So I've been messing around with character sheet designs, taking graphical inspiration from the kabbalistic sephiroth and other occult and astrological sigils. And though I'm pretty pleased with how it's…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege, chris_moore, c.

6/12/2006 Paul Czege: a scene of evil
Voyeurs of evil, I offer you this scene from the second session of the ongoing IRC playtest. The player character is Alexander Cherry's Heqa, who Alex has cast as the…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege.

6/16/2006 Eero Tuovinen: Some improvised playtesting
So, a gaming friend of mine was visiting, and we were hot to play lots of indie games. In practice it was rather difficult, with all the local teens in…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Eero Tuovinen.

8/3/2006 Paul Czege: what the non-occultists need
Playtesting has shown that non-occultist NPCs (Nobodies and Victims) don't emerge to capture our interest as protagonists in the narrative of play. As this was a primary design goal for…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege, c.

8/5/2006 Paul Czege: Acts of Evil, revised new evil playtest rules
[size=13pt][b]Acts of Evil[/b][/size] a roleplaying game of occult ambition by Paul Czege [color=Maroon][b]Introduction[/b][/color] Player characters are new initiates to an occult tradition devoted to aggressive and competitive pursuit of personal…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege.

8/5/2006 Paul Czege: an attempt to deliver what the non-occultists need
I have posted a revised playtest rules text, with the following key changes: 1. Setting creation is streamlined, and no longer includes the creation of any NPCs. And the term…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: Paul Czege, Michael S. Miller, Victor Gijsbers, Remko, hardcoremoose, timfire.

8/26/2006 c: AP: Acts of Evil August 25th 2006
This is likely to be very long so I'm going to make three posts. Pre-game Clyde questions, actual play, and post-game thoughts/positions. So here's some stuff I noticed while rereading…
In Acts of Evil Playtest Board
Participants: c, Paul Czege.

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