Yep,

The game of wizards battling wizards is going to get its first official playtest tonight. In general, I am just going to run a nice villainous game of buttkicking, test out the combat system, and see what everyone thinks. Of course, character creation will get its own look too. I'm excited and figure I will do some sort of "demon" story with it.

For folks who have not checked out the game, you can download it at:
http://www.mysticages.com/eak/eldritch_ass_kicking.pdf

The character sheet is:
http://www.mysticages.com/eak/character_sheet_eak.pdf

Enjoy!

Thanks,
Nathan

Well, I am excited.

The playtest went very well. For one, it showed me the rules really stand on their own and don't require much else beyond basic skill/attribute rolls and determing outcomes. Character Creation is easy, and the players came up with excellent ideas for characters almost immediately. One of them played Tim the Enchanter (Monty Python... *sigh*), another played a wizard with an unintelligible name, and finally a guy who showed up late played Harold the Not Too Shabby. The game definitely had a humorous tone to it, but it served it VERY well.

During the playtest adventure (which I will hopefully post soon), I got to check out combat and basic stuff. In reality, combat is what the game is for, so I am going to figure out some guidelines for other stuff. During the game, one of the main wizards was killed (the unintelligible guy), so I had him roll up another quick character and he jumped right back in. He didn't get pissed off.

The changes that we discussed were

-- changing the neutral target level to 15 when doing something where no one is resisting
A slight change from 12 to 15. A good move, too, I think. Since the average number for a skill or attribute is 5, it seems often that people roll right around a total of 10 points on the dice. 15 seems the norm, so I shall see how it progresses.

-- 10 point starting max on skills
another important change -- wizards can only start out with a max of 10 in a skill. Good stuff - preserves some balance and keeps thing fairly even footed at the beginning

-- Focus is unuseable
Currently, focus has no real purpose. I tried to use it, but since creating things in the game was still a bit strange, it never really did anything. Therefore, I am going to change it, I believe, to a sort of mental hitpoints type thing.

-- Creating permanent objects
In the same tone, in the game, a wizard merely has state to what he creates and beat a 15. The result is the outcome of the roll (i.e. if you roll a 21, the outcome of the object is a 6). This needs to be clarified and eased up in the game.

-- Non-magical creatures
A bunch of Weird Misshapen Beasties attacked the group in the game, so I had to come up with an all encompassing stat for them. I called it Attack, since they don't attack with magick. I may follow the Outcome rules above and simply give all creatures a one stat rule, but I need to think about this first.

-- Describing powers went amazingly well.
I had some real creative efforts to describe the magical attacks, and it was a blast by all.

-- Experience went well.
I need to add a bit to the experience section, but once a wizard has fallen, a point to distribute to attributes or skills is immediately given IN GAME to the wizards. It's cool.

So overall, I was very pleased and had good comments. We will run it again before too long. A new version of the rules should be out later today with all the updates. The website is coming along as well.

And a question to who cares: Is Eldritch Ass Kicking too offensive for a title? Should I change it to Eldritch Butt Kicking? Or something else? I don't want to offend with the title.

Thanks all,
Nathan

Hey Nathan,

And a question to who cares: Is Eldritch Ass Kicking too offensive for a title? Should I change it to Eldritch Butt Kicking? Or something else? I don't want to offend with the title.

Stick with Eldritch Ass Kicking. You're indie for god sakes...you gotta be edgy. Of course, you might consider Eldritch Whup-ass if you're seriously wanting a title change. How about a witchcraft supplement entitled Mama's Eldritch Bitch-slap?

Paul

Offend anyone? For Pete's sake, Nathan, offend away. Sure, someone "might" be offended. They'd deserve to be.

Furthermore, Eldritch Ass-Kicking has a mellifluous quality due to the starting-vowels in the first two words. Don't lose it.

Best,
Ron