The Eighth Sea: Preliminary Playtest
Those who have been watching other parts of the forum may be aware that I've been working on a game called the Eighth Sea, a game about temporal swashbucklers and pirates who know a little too much about quantum mechanics. My aim for this game had been to get it ready for product launch at the first GenCon Oz, this July.

At this stage, things are heading according to plan, with the first playtest session out of the way.

There were some hiccups right from the outset when my printer decided not to work. I'd hyped up my work to my regular gaming friends for a couple of weeks and they were anticipating something special...then my printer stuffed up. I managed to print out character sheets but things that didn't manage to get printed included the character generation system, the pre-written scenario, the random scenario generator I'd been working on, and the quick play sheets that described the core mechanics of the game on a single easy to read page...that bugged me to no end, but everyone decided that they wanted to keep playing.

I have a portable whiteboard, maybe A2 in size and I hastily wrote what I could for the core game mechanics and notes for character generation. The other accessories were also ready; a shell, a deck of cards and plenty of poker chips. 

I began the session with a simple description of the rules, but these didn't make a whole lot of sense at first to a bunch of players who were used to using dice and manipulating dice values to determine successes. I decided to focus on character generation first, that way each player would have a tangible and relevant way to test their skills later. We had expected one or two extra people to show up, but they didn't so we had six players total.

I also explained that there was no GM in the game, but a pseudo-GM role of captain existed to guide the course of play. Everyone agreed that since I knew the rules and would be explaining the rules to them as we progressed then it made most sense for me to be the captain initially. I went on to say that the players could be from any point in history, but had to have some kind of connection to the sea.
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Bill and Philip had been thinking about the game for a week or so and had already decided on their character concepts a few days before even getting near a character sheet. They wanted to create a pair of Irish swashbuckling exorcists (a young priest and an old priest), each with a goal of keeping the English out of Ireland (and disrupting the timeline if necessary to do so).

Freya had a rough idea of what she wanted and decided to create a Spanish maiden based a little on "Inigo Montoya" from the "Princess Bride". A specialist in poisons, wanting to become the greatest poisoner in all the seven seas, and trying to avenge the death of her parents.

Leah and Ingrid didn't really know what they wanted, so I went through a couple of ideas and each took one to heart. Leah decided to become a voodoo witch doctor with an aim to generate a crew of zombie slaves to row the boat wherever it may need to go. Ingrid decided on a French navigator who had worked with the some of the famous English explorers but was never given the rightful credit of discovering new lands because she was female.

Hearing all of this, I decided to fill the void left by the group, and I created a dashing combatant. A Chinese pirate specialised in hand-held pyrotechnics and muskets, but who had a strong opium addiction.

With the character concepts out of the way, an immediate thread became apparent. None of the characters liked the English for one reason or another. So they would instantly become a symbol of antagonism in the tales to be told.

With concepts determined, attributes were allocated. 10 points spread across the four values of Thumpin', Talkin', Thinkin' and Feelin'. Most players had no trouble here once they knew a general outline of their concept. Freya needed a little more help because she's the least experienced of the players and has only role-played two or three times previously.

With 48 skills to choose from (4 per attribute category), people had a little more trouble deciding where to allocate their 10 points. I had to explain that the characters didn't have to choose a skill in order to perform it during the game, and this eased their tension a bit. [I'll have to clarify this in the rules]

Next came the advantages and disadvantages. All players get two advantages and have to buy a disadvantage for every additional advantage gained (these disadvantage points may also be used to buy extra skills or attributes for varying costs).

Since I had only written basic outlines of these on a whiteboard, this was the slowest part of the character generation process as I had to explain quite a few different concepts that could be useful to each character before allowing the players to make their choices. I had expected this to be slow, and I'll have to see how much more quickly this stage is sped up when the rules are properly printed out and available to the players.

Finally, each player is assigned a pair of goals with values totalling 14 points. Most of the players picked 7 points each in a pair of goals (indicating a fairly even conflict between the two agendas that dominated their character's lives). Freya picked 10 (Avenge my parents death) and 4 (Concoct the most deadly poison ever invented). Ingrid picked 9 (Discover an uncharted land) and 5 (Visit the true Atlantis).

Next, each player chose a moral compass for their characters, a single object that transforms as the timestream shifts around them (like the photo carried by Marty McFly in "Back to the Future"), and a simple weapon. They were allowed to pick any other items, but these additional items were only flavour and had no game mechanics associated with them.

Finally, each player was given a choice of how much they stood for the integrity of the timeline, or how much they'd be willing to twist it to meet their own agendas. With Aces at one extreme being dedicated to the preservation of the timeline with brute force if necessary, and Kings not giving a damn about spacetime integrity and doing what they pleased. I explained that if two characters had values close together then they'd be more inclined to work together, while if these values were far apart then there would be immediate friction on the ship. The values of the ship gravitated around 9, so I knew that the crew were going to be pretty chaotic in nature. Our two priests had scores of 8, the poisoner began at 9, the navigator began at 7 and the voodoo priestess began at Jack (11). I decided to make the Chinese pirate Captain a 10, to keep a level of continuity between the characters, especially as I could see that he'd have to end up as the mediator as the crew found their feet in the new game.

With characters ready, I gave the players a set of new challenges to learn the basic rules. I asked each of the to choose a specific thing that their character might want to do, and showed them how this sort of thing could be accomplished. The Voodoo priestess tried to create her first zombie, the navigator tried to chart a course, one of the priests tried to haggle for better prices on vegetables. Once everyone had performed a task, the group began to understand the mechanics of overcoming difficulties and overcoming NPCs. We ran a quick combat as a bar-room brawl, and the next stage of the game was ready to commence.
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The senior members of the crew (the PCs) were to hire their first batch of lesser crew members. I asked them how they intended to do this. Naturally Leah wanted her character to raise some zombies, Freya wanted to knock some out with poisons to shanghai them. The priests wanted to recruit IRA merchant seamen. Once the priests decided to work together, the three girls decided to work as a team also. This was good as it allowed me to described the mechanics of teamwork that might be useful in game-play [This was also useful because a quick couple of hands had clarified the ideas I'd had for teamwork and now I had a better way to write them down].

I had the captain find some recruits of his own.

By the time successes had been determined, the Priests had recruited 3 IRA, and the girls had recruited 6 drugged individuals ready to be turned into Zombies. The captain found one more bringing the lesser crew of the ship to 10.

For each of these lesser crew members I drew a single card from a second deck. I realised at this time that there would have to be at least two deck of cards for play to remain manageable with a group of this size. Each card drawn has it's suit correspond to the lesser crew member's highest attribute, while it's face value applies to a skill from that attribute's listing (Ace through Queen), if a King is drawn, then the crew member who recruited them may choose any skill from that attribute group. (No Kings were drawn).

The eventual draw came up with two Clubs (Thumpin') specialising one each in Brawl and Dodge. Two Hearts (Talkin') specialising one each in Interrogation and Languages. Three Spades (Thinkin') specialising one each in Firearms, Repairs and Stealth. And Three Diamonds (Feelin') specialising one each in Awareness, Martial Arts and Psychic Potential. As a group we decided this final character had limited control over the winds. 

A fairly well rounded crew. [I'm undecided whether to keep the random crew generation like this, or whether to draw the lesser crew one at a time to ensure all 52 options are available with every crew member recruited. At this stage I'm thinking I'll leave it like this because it tends more towards a well rounded crew, and then with each new port where recruits are sought, the cards are drawn from a newly shuffled deck].

I had also tried to show players how they could influence the storyline and Bill decided to use his power as the girls were recruiting. He injected a pompous English fool into the recruitment process to see what would happen. Everyone had their go beating him up and he was eventually drugged and tied to the front of the ship as a figurehead.

This gave me the opportunity to explain the stacks on rules, as ten lesser crew members pummelled the poor Englishman. [Despite this, I'll have to clarify in the rules when players may twist the storyline and when they may not, I was trying to get past this point of the game to actually get things started]. 
[hr]
Ship details hadn't been printed, so we began the game as well as I could...

To be continued...   

Part 2: Getting into Play
[I should preface this by saying that Leah had a long and hard week at work, she was getting tired by the time we'd finished generating characters. Add to this the fact that Bill had been getting into character by using an obnoxious Irish accent and interrupting people whenever he could. As mentioned earlier, Freya was still pretty new to the whole role-playing thing. Philip is our resident critic (and some would say muchkin) and he had already started trying to pick holes in the rules set, or at least min-max things so that his character would be all things to all people. None of us had properly roleplayed for a few weeks, and Ingrid was really in the mood for play. With this many conflicting agendas, it was a recipe for disaster but I really wanted to see the rules that I'd developed in action.]

Play began with each player being dealt two red cards and two black cards from a deck that I've called the wind (a reference to the fate and destiny of the crew being controlled by the winds of the sea...), as well as these each player was handed a number of poker chips equal to twice the total number of players (Six players, so each of them got 12 chips), these are referred to as "Pieces of Eight". As captain, I got twice as many Pieces of Eight (24).
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Act 1 Scene 1

I've established the idea that the captain always goes first to explain the mission/journey that is about to unfold. This is done by either a random draw of cards or by spending the Pieces of Eight. Since the printer wasn't working, I spent six pieces of eight on six storyline elements that I wanted to bring into play as the captain. I had explained the idea that each piece of eight could be used to introduce new storyline elements while each red card made the current circumstances easier and black card made the circumstances harder. Everyone was happy to let the mission be set up as they didn't really want to rock the boat too much as this stage. Bill often moaned in his dodgy-irish accent that he'd never free his people from the english if the crew kept heading off to foreign lands, but he didn't want to put his pieces of eight where his mouth was when he was pressured on the issue. [In the process of this I decided that I'll have to incorporate clearer rules about how the captain can set up the storyline, and how the other players can interact with this goal setting stage].

My six Pieces of Eight give the following:

• A Map from the late 16th Century
• An island in the North Pacific
• A treasure of arcane value (hoping this might attract the attention of our voodoo priestess)
• A creature from the deep (hoping this would draw in the exorcists)
• Atlantean Script (knowing that this would attract the navigator)
• A legend of a ghost ship

We hadn't decided where we currently were, except for the fact that the crew recruitment rolls earlier had occurred during a modern day setting (since the IRA are a relatively recent phenomenon in the grand scheme of all time and space). The question arose, and I asked the group if they had any ideas. Since no-one wanted to spend one of their pieces of eight to influence the storyline on this point, I said spur of the moment "Fine, we're in Barbados, in the Caribbean"

Leah wanted to keep playing but had fallen asleep in the corner as the description of the upcoming journey was laid out, so I sent her to bed. As captain I said that the crew would have to ensure suitable gear and provisions were gathered while he prepared the ship with the gathered crew.

The crew decided to split into three; where Freya and Philip looked for food, Bill looked for suitable cold weather gear and exorcist lore about the island from a nearby catholic church and any weapons that might be needed for such a journey to a desolate and distant island. Ingrid made sure the temporal drives were working and wouldn't malfunction during the trip. The captain gave 4 provisions of gold to the crew to get as much as they could (basically equating to four skill attempts to earn the necessary items). 

Cards were drawn for scene initiative during this first act. Freya and Philip went first, Bill went second and regardless of the draw Ingrid went last because her first action was going to be transporting the group to the island using the temporal drive.

Scene Ends
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Act 1 Scenes 2 and 3

Freya began by haggling with some local fruit vendors and market stall owners for foodstuffs. Ingrid and Bill got into the play and took the roles of competing fruit vendors, I told them that the player who gained Freya's business would earn a piece of eight. This upped the ante considerably. Eventually Ingrid won out.

I asked the players what the goals of their characters were. Freya's primary success condition was to buy the food, with any additional successes increasing the amound of food bought for the same total cost. Ingrid's goal was to sell sell only worthless and rotten food with one success, or to drive off the crew altogether from the market with two or more successes.

There are Seven levels of difficulty in the game (Automatic, Routine, Straightforward, Tricky, Hard, Very Hard, Legendary, and Just Plain Stupid). Unless otherwise indicated, all skill attempts in the game are considered Straightforward.

Bill played a card to up the difficulty of the challenge to Tricky (probably being a bit sore at missing out on the Piece of Eight). Freya tried to get the best deal that she could out of the market vendor and failed, but since Ingrid only scored one success, she could try again. This morphs into Scene 3 as Philip takes the lead, and tries his luck with the market vendor. He succeeded well enough with two successes to get two week's worth of food. But two provisions of gold had been spent.

Scene ends.
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Act 1 Scene 4

Bill is at the local Catholic Cathedral talking to the resident priest. No-one wants to take on the role of the priest, as Ingrid and Freya have just done a heavy roleplaying session interacting with one another, and Philip has other ideas in mind...so it defaults to me. I do my bad Jamaican/token-caribbean accent, and Bill does his bad Irish accent. It turns into a contest of who can make the other laugh and break out of character first.

A few people throw some red cards and black cards into the mix to show their appreciation of our voice work. After a bit of roleplaying, I ask what Bill's agenda for the scene is, and explain the agenda for the local priest. Just as we are about to describe these, Philip says out of the blue..."Now that I've finished helping Freya, I show up at the Cathedral"...I instantly think to myself that this is exactly the kind of thing I was trying to avoid by splitting the game up into scene with different active players.

[Note to self....work on this bit of the rules to stop a single player from railroading the group, or derailing a storyline that is otherwise building nicely...]

Bill's primary aim was to gain cold weather gear from a sailor's mission near the church, his secondary objectives were to gain occult lore about the island, and a batch of bibles translated into "Inuit" or some other language spoken by the islanders of the Alaskan archipelago. I made sure the goals were in this order, because that was the general level of difficulty that each would incur. If anything seemed out of the ordinary, it could always be used as a loose end in a future game. I decide that the local priests agenda is to get some donations from the Irish priest, and any other successes will be used to give Bill a secondary mission for the game that will prove a conflict of interest at some later stage.

The balance of black cards raising the difficulty and red cards lowering the difficulty is slightly in the red's favour (4 to 3). So the skill for this works out to be a routine check and Bill passes admirably with 3 successes.

He gets all three.

("How did they get those translated bibles in Barbados?" "Oh Crap!! We'll have to go and get some from Alaska, and then use some careful temporal navigation to hide them in the storage shed of the cathedral at a time just before the priest goes to look for them.")

Scene Ends
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Act 1 Scene 5.

Everyone returns to the ship. Ingrid is in the middle of a discussion with one of the crew members about a worn flux capacitor and a oscillation overthruster that might need repairs sometime in the near future. But the captain decides that these can wait until the treasure has been found. Once they sell it off, they'll be able to afford a new ship which won't have these problems.

The navigator flips the switch.

Temporal jumps have a difficulty based on how far the jump is going, time-wise and distance wise. A few quick calculations show that the whole challenge is roughly equivalent to being "Very Hard". Ingrid's first success condition is the right time, the second victory condition is right place, and the third victory condition is the right version of reality. The standard failure conditions are no jump, jump to wrong time, jump to wrong place, random jump to anywhere in timespace.

Miraculously, despite playing with less cards, Ingrid gets the three successes. The ship jumps through time and space and the island is seen in the far distance.

Scene Ends.

Act Ends.
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It was getting late at this stage as things had progressed slowly with the explanation of the rules along the way...and the complications of having no pre-printed sheets for handouts. We broke for dinner from the local indian take-out, and discussed the way the game could possibly be improved.

Everyone is excited about the way the game seems to be heading, and while we all agree that there are a few finer details to be resolved, it seems to be a fairly sturdy framework for future expansion.

V