Paul Czege posted a very interesting thread about how humbling it is to playtest your own game, which is amazingly convergent, since I just had the exact same experience.

I playtested Paladin last night for two members of my regular game group. It was incredibly humbling - and incredibly broken. I thought my rules were now up to par, but I learned so much last night that I'm back into a serious re-write.

Problems we had:

- My default setting, to be blunt, blows. There's no real conflict in it - the bad guys are all lurking around and kind of weak. Our adventure managed to simultaneously be short and too long - most of it was wondering what to do next, but when we figured it out, it took no time. However, my group and I hashed this out, and I think I have a fix.

- The rules meant to balance Light and Dark Animus don't work as well as they should. There's no real impetus not to use Dark Animus - if you get it, it's just as useful as Light Animus for the same sorts of things. Both of the characters last night garnered Dark Animus for not killing a murderer. One of them decided to go ahead and spend it. This is probably the most thorny problem now, but again, we managed to figure out a pretty good solution by the end of the night.
- Perception is screwed. Of course, perception is screwed in just about every game. I think it's the hardest part of designing a game in a lot of ways. I actually don't know what I'm going to do here.

Good stuff, though:

- The basic mechanic works really well.
- The group action mechanic is interesting, to say the least. I think it works, but it has its pros and cons.
- We did manage to figure out what went wrong pretty quickly.

Hmm.

I've read a draft of your default setting, and see no problem with it. It will require some work on the GM's part, but most settings do. As a time and place, it makes sense and fits pretty well with the game's initial conceit. But that was a draft -- maybe it's changed since I read it.

As for what I'd do with it, I think it's pretty straightforward -- nefarious servants of Evil are using their powers for personal gain, and abusing the innocent townsfolk. The Paladins must stop them. But the Warlocks hit below the belt, and take no prisoners. To defeat the Warlocks, each Paladin must decide how far over the line he is willing to go -- or if, in fact, he will cross that line.

What if a side-effect of Dark Animus use is GM narration? Yes, you hit wicked Count Malvado in the face with your flaming sword, but as you do, he stumbles back into the bound and gagged Lady Vermicella, and steps on her pretty hand. There is a loud crack of bone, and she screams. Each use of Dark Animus causes an unfortunate side-effect. It's something I was going to try during the next game, for the exact same reason -- Jagr had no problem using Dark Animus, and I thought there should be some unpleasant side-effect... Anyhow.

A cure for gamers who wonder "what to do next" that you might employ: random acts of senseless violence. If they're in the woods, a tree bursts into flame, maybe a hundred yards away. If they're inside, someone kicks in the door. A random NPC threatens someone in the group. An arrow flies out of nowhere and hits the wall a few inches from someone's head.

The point isn't to have a scenario ready -- just see what the players do with the situation and react to it. In more cases than I can recall, I've had ideas, cast members, adventure seeds, and maps all fall to the side of the road as the players latched on to an idea and ran with it, preferring to pursue the mystery of whatever it was that happened just now.

If nothing comes of it, well, they don't feel like they're in a world that revolves around them and their decisions -- they feel like they're part of a situation, and they can react or ignore parts of it as they see fit.

But you know, I haven't played in over fifteen years -- I've been GMing the whole time, so I've never seen anyone else GM. I really don't know if this would work for other GMs/players or not.

But I like Paladin thus far. The setting will need fleshing out (when it's like fifty pages long, then worry if it's flat or not), and the Light/Dark thing poses a challenge, but overall, it worked for my Star Wars geek buddies.

-- Rafael

Hey Rafael,

A cure for gamers who wonder "what to do next" that you might employ: random acts of senseless violence. If they're in the woods, a tree bursts into flame, maybe a hundred yards away. If they're inside, someone kicks in the door. A random NPC threatens someone in the group. An arrow flies out of nowhere and hits the wall a few inches from someone's head.

Check out my post on the difference between hooking the player and hooking the character. Narrativism isn't produced by flinging a chaos of uncoordinated adversity at the characters. Check out Ron's post in the Hero Wars forum about how he'd handle a player who'd given up a pint of his blood to a powerful Troll sorcerer. Narrativism is produced when the game mechanics and the GMing provoke the player to step up to the plate and demonstrate the protagonism of the character.

You know this. Your comments about putting the characters in the position of deciding how far across the line they're willing to go are right on target.

Paul

Paul Czege wrote: Narrativism isn't produced by flinging a chaos of uncoordinated adversity at the characters. Check out Ron's post in the Hero Wars forum about how he'd handle a player who'd given up a pint of his blood to a powerful Troll sorcerer. Narrativism is produced when the game mechanics and the GMing provoke the player to step up to the plate and demonstrate the protagonism of the character.

I'll chime in here, as one of the playtesters who was in last night's game.

Clinton R Nixon wrote: My default setting, to be blunt, blows. There's no real conflict in it - the bad guys are all lurking around and kind of weak. Our adventure managed to simultaneously be short and too long - most of it was wondering what to do next, but when we figured it out, it took no time. However, my group and I hashed this out, and I think I have a fix.

- The rules meant to balance Light and Dark Animus don't work as well as they should. There's no real impetus not to use Dark Animus - if you get it, it's just as useful as Light Animus for the same sorts of things. Both of the characters last night garnered Dark Animus for not killing a murderer. One of them decided to go ahead and spend it. This is probably the most thorny problem now, but again, we managed to figure out a pretty good solution by the end of the night.

- Perception is screwed. Of course, perception is screwed in just about every game. I think it's the hardest part of designing a game in a lot of ways. I actually don't know what I'm going to do here.

Good stuff, though:

- The basic mechanic works really well.
- The group action mechanic is interesting, to say the least. I think it works, but it has its pros and cons.
- We did manage to figure out what went wrong pretty quickly.

DaR wrote: The group combat produces some very interesting results. To expand on the pros and cons: it can simultaneously be both a help and a hinderance to use it. It increases the chance you have of getting initial successes, increases the number of dice you'll be able to reroll on your first Animus invocation, and gives you a larger number of Light/Dark traits to choose from in order to do further animus spending for rerolls. At the same time it decreases the overall number of success you could have potentially gotten by working seperately as the overlap dice between the people in the group basically get dropped. So a group becomes more consistent and better on the average, at the expense of being able to "get lucky" and have multiple people roll well at once for a large total sum of successes.--
Dan Root

quot;Valamir]
This isn't actually all that unreasonable of a tradeoff. "group" combat to be truely effective should involve coordinated attacks and defenses and alot of "by the book" kind of fighting (shield walls, skirmish formations, waiting for orders) that sort of thing. It really *should* be more reliably successful while sacrificing the opportunity for individual heroics to provide magnificent results.

I think it would be interesting to allow an individual to opt out of the group roll and go individual and then see whether his personal heroics that save the day outweigh his abandoning his position in the formation etc...especially if part of the code is discipline and obeying orders.

The same logic would hold if applied to non combat also. Projects handled by committee are usually a more reliable way of ensuring the project progresses, but are hardly known to produce spectacular results.

Re: No chance to use poorly picked Attributes.

I'd suggest nailing down the Attributes before character creation begins. Perhaps each setting receives its own Attributes? That way you can tailor your Paladins to the setting, and the Attributes give a firm example of what your PC does.

Or you offer "hard" Attributes, and the Player can change one per category. Like everyone has the same three Light Attributes, but they can each change one of 'em to his liking.

Lastly, the Player-chosen Attributes cover EVERYTHING under the sun for that Strength/Light or whatever combination. It's just that the combination works better for that PC in a certain circumstance (i.e., the Attribute chosen by the Player). Chthonian Redux works similar to this, and I've had good results so far.

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Re: Default Setting

Dude, I love your default setting. So much that I've already done 4 sketches and I'm 2/3rds done with one of 'em as an illo. Having the good guys as the an uncorrupted organization is refreshing. The badguys are awesome, too. The whole animus thing is unique the way you have it. A neat solution against even justified murder.

What do you want from an adventure? Depends on how you want the game to play. But my strongest suggestion is this: Start with an explosive and dangerous hook, and loom danger over the PCs' heads. To get them busy you want Hook + Pressure. Make them remember that their jobs are hard, both morally and physically. You know the advice, when things wind down, pump a few bullets into the door.

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Re: Perception

What do you mean by this? Is it Perception of surroundings? Tie perception into Flesh, Light and Dark. Flesh is simple things, like hearing a waterfall. The more evil you are, the quicker you are to perceive evil intentions, wicked goings-on, etc. The more good you are, the more you see generosity, etc. That means your Paladins will have to be on the edge between Light and Dark to fully see both. Retired, very holy Paladins will have trouble seeing the wicked with the jaded Paladins in the trench fighting a battle against the evil and the blissful eye of the Sword.

Zak Arntson wrote: Re: No chance to use poorly picked Attributes.

I'd suggest nailing down the Attributes before character creation begins. Perhaps each setting receives its own Attributes? That way you can tailor your Paladins to the setting, and the Attributes give a firm example of what your PC does.

Or you offer "hard" Attributes, and the Player can change one per category. Like everyone has the same three Light Attributes, but they can each change one of 'em to his liking.

Zak Arntson wrote:
Lastly, the Player-chosen Attributes cover EVERYTHING under the sun for that Strength/Light or whatever combination. It's just that the combination works better for that PC in a certain circumstance (i.e., the Attribute chosen by the Player). Chthonian Redux works similar to this, and I've had good results so far.

Zak Arntson wrote:
Re: Perception

What do you mean by this? Is it Perception of surroundings? Tie perception into Flesh, Light and Dark. Flesh is simple things, like hearing a waterfall. The more evil you are, the quicker you are to perceive evil intentions, wicked goings-on, etc. The more good you are, the more you see generosity, etc. That means your Paladins will have to be on the edge between Light and Dark to fully see both. Retired, very holy Paladins will have trouble seeing the wicked with the jaded Paladins in the trench fighting a battle against the evil and the blissful eye of the Sword.

Hm. I've not fully read the rules, but I think that Zak has something with his ideas about how to do Perception..

I would say that any Perception tests be divided, on a case-by-case basis, into Light, Dark or Flesh. Then use a number (perhaps the average of the 3 attributes under each) to determine the results of the test.

This could even be taken further, and simply have generic Light, Dark and Flesh ratings, based off the average of the three sub-ratings. These could be used for any check which does not directly fall under "What protects?", "What gives Strength?" or "How do you relate?".

This is simply a suggestion, based mostly off of what I'm reading here. I'm interested in what happens with this game, but I'm not delving too deep into it, as such things have a tendency to divide my focus.. and I have enough trouble there already.

DaR wrote:
By the same token, what attribute do I choose if I'm going to pick a lock? The interaction of Flesh/strength? Flesh/protection? Flesh/relating? None of those really capture the essence of picking a lock in most situations. Now in certain scenarios, they could all make sense, such as if you're chasing a villian who closes a locked door behind him, running through a locked door away from a threat, or doing sneaking in somewhere for purposes that would assist in a personal negotiation. But in a typical "just skulking around, looking for info", none of those three interactions screams to me as being the obvious choice.

You know, it's funny -- newbies never hesitate with stuff like this, but I find myself staring at their character sheets, wondering how they came up with that.

Specifically: During a game of Paladin, this guy's character (Jagr) is in a fight. I say, pick your appropriate Flesh attribute. He says Flash. I say, no, it's Flesh. It's on the page, right under --

No, he says. My appropriate attribute in this case is Flash. I am a flashy dude. Swing my saber, hypnotize their ass, weave in and cut 'em up. They don't know what hit 'em. He rolls, then talks about how his flashy Paladin zigs and zags through their midst, stunning them with his weapon-mastery and sheer bravado.

This probably seems elementary to other people, but I was like, damn. How'd he come up with that? What's really funny is, it wasn't his highest Flesh attribute, it was just the one that he found appropriate at the time.

I mean, when he said Flash, I thought, okay, this isn't really appropriate at all. But he explained it pretty well, and it worked perfectly. Go figure.

DaR wrote: I'm not entirely sure I follow you here. As it stands now, the player picks his own 9 descriptors ... None of them are defined by the setting. Are you suggesting all the paladins in a group should have the same ... A slow but powerful warrior should have different Flesh traits from a nimble acrobat.

DaR wrote: A couple of times we both looked at our sheet and said something to the effect of "well, I don't really have any trait descriptors that are appropriate to activate in this situation, do you?".

DaR wrote: The first case where this came up in the playtest was when the two paladins rescue a woman from her husband who has been possessed. ... Do you roll once for each type of trait, to determine if you notice any things that might be perceived by Flesh/Light/Dark?

By the same token, what attribute do I choose if I'm going to pick a lock?

I was the other player in Clinton's playtest. I think our perceptions of the playtest would have been more positive if we had all been less tired that evening.

I thought the setting was fine. The PCs are members of an order appointed to wander about the countryside, rather independently, to root out takers of life, witches and the undead. Instead of just a series of minor confrontations, there could be a wide spectrum of corruption to discover and defeat: villages, provinces, religious and secular institutions could all be threatened, infiltrated or conquered, secretly or blatantly, by witches, fallen paladins and other evildoers. The small incidents are a great way to start introducing the players to the setting and the paladins to the presence of larger threats. I can appreciate the order having one central HQ, but it might be nice to have locations related to the order throughout the country (outdoor shrines, safehouses, caches, etc.) to help the players feel more connected to the setting.

Dan has mentioned the need for players to be extremely careful about choosing attributes because some choices can make play difficult. (How do I use innocence to defend myself against a band of pitchfork wielding ghouls?) I think it would be a mistake for the game to require players to choose all of the attributes on the basis of practicality. I think it's more interesting for the PCs to discover how they can make use of their innate strengths and flaws, whatever they are.

My suggestion: Let the flesh attributes be interpreted very loosely as styles for strength, protection and relations. If my PC's protection draws from "evasion," he can still prevent the opponent's advance by darting back and forth as he parries with his glorious fiery sword. It's his style of defense, but it doesn't mean he always gets completely out of the way. Interpretations of the light and dark spiritual attributes could allow for lots of cool, metaphorical ways of interpretation, even supernatural effects beyond those listed for the setting. If the light attribute for protection is innocence, maybe the PC can use light animus to erect a shield of innocence that can prevent an unthinkably evil attack to occur. Maybe an attribute can even be allowed to be contagious due to the paladin's mighty presence. In this case, a PC with the dark relation attribute of detachment could spend dark animus to cause a merchant to lose interest in making a profit during a bartering session.

Perception, or any action (or inaction) can be related to the triad of Strength, Protection and Relations if those categories of action are very abstractly interpreted (or misinterpreted). Strength could represent the paladin's active force, performing an action that is applied to something/someone else, from picking a lock to driving a hovercraft to stabbing a villain with a holy icepick. Protection would be the passive force, ways that the paladin relates to input. This would include literacy (reacting to the letters on a page), listening, resisting poison and parrying an unholy chainsaw. Relation would be the mutual force, where the action only exists because the paladin and the other are both acting on and receiving from each other. This could include riding a horse, bartering, seduction, serving in a jury and controlling a runaway jetski.

Perception, or any action (or inaction) can be related to the triad of Strength, Protection and Relations if those categories of action are very abstractly interpreted (or misinterpreted). Strength could represent the paladin's active force, performing an action that is applied to something/someone else, from picking a lock to driving a hovercraft to stabbing a villain with a holy icepick. Protection would be the passive force, ways that the paladin relates to input. This would include literacy (reacting to the letters on a page), listening, resisting poison and parrying an unholy chainsaw. Relation would be the mutual force, where the action only exists because the paladin and the other are both acting on and receiving from each other. This could include riding a horse, bartering, seduction, serving in a jury and controlling a runaway jetski.