Topic: Chthonian Redux playtest - The Festering Cure
Started by: rabidchyld
Started on: 6/29/2002
Board: Actual Play
On 6/29/2002 at 9:02pm, rabidchyld wrote:
Chthonian Redux playtest - The Festering Cure
So we played Zak's Cthonian Redux last night...the same adventure he posted about here.
It went very well overall. The scenario was written well, and the system was easy to understand, once the players got used to it. Here's a brief overview of the players:
Charley - a wimpy computer science student, who's the King of the internet. His fighting all centered on LARP gaming. He's roommates with Justin.
Mark - the quiet History major with his nose always in a book, who is a master of the Joe Corley Karate method. He's in the Martial Arts club on campus with Justin.
Justin - the wisecracking Business major/rich boy. He's the oddball of the group..neat and well dressed at all times, and a black belt in several kinds of Martial Arts.
(there was much chiding between Justin and Mark about the "Joe Corley" thing)
Vyvyan (our NPC) - Yes..it's Vyvyan..the rough and tumbly pre-med student. Complete with empty bottle of vodka and SPG.
They were all members of a role playing club on campus. Charley being the one who brought the group together initially. It was so funny because they created this entire sub-plot about their gaming. It seems that Justin and Mark are new gamers, and the realization that what they were experiencing should have been a RPG plot and really wasn't made several memorable freak outs.
The game started with them walking through the campus at 2am after a rather memorable gaming session, when the window exploded in the biology building and Charley got hit by the icky creepy critter. Zak was really surprised that his group decided to break into the building, so he made allowances for that. Well, my guys broke into the building...ran into the grad student on the 2nd floor calling the police and then decided to wait for the police!! So when the police show up, there's my group, telling the officer they got attacked by a lab animal with the wounds to prove it. Talk about surprising...
After that, I made real use of the "tension and release" that Zak talked about. Every time a bush rustled Charley would take off running, and then it would be just a squirrel. Justin would exclaim, "we're on a college campus fer Christ's sake! Nobody's going to att...OOOOFFF!!!"
After those attacks, whoever got hurt started having weird dreams that hinted at the fact that they were marked.
There were a couple of attacks like that, and they ended up at the campus hospital, where they heard about the doctor's miraculous recovery from cancer. They had just about put 2 and 2 together, but kept wanting to get the police involved(role playing...they wanted something to really get their attention), so to drive the point home, I sacrificed Vyvyan. He was taken out of action, and the guys decided to take matters into their own hands.
They did some investigating, and talked to the doctor's asistant, who was under the doctor's evil influence but resiting it at the time. They broke into the lab again, and found nothing except clues that led them to the doctor's location. Then they had another confrontation with the assistant, which they ran away from (I'll have to run an epilogue so they can tie up this loose end), and headed out to confront the doctor after piecing together information from some journals written by the assistant and a grant denial from the professor's office.
At this point, Zak hadn't finished editing the adventure, but he gave enough info to let me finish it. They went to confront the doctor at his cabin in the woods. They decided to park their car just off the road and walk to the house, which was a mile hike for them..in the mud...getting bitten by mosquitos. That turned into an advantage for me because Charley didn't have anywhere to run to when they were confronted by the doctor's animals. He ended up burning his descriptor plus 3 safety and kicked some ass...writing it off as adrenaline, and the forethought of grabbing the tire iron from the trunk of the car.
They made it inside and to the final confrontation with the doctor..which was rather anti-climactic because the martial arts guys rolled really well and ended up doing some kind of Ninja club duo shit on the doctor and took him down easily...complete with secret Ninja high five at the end. So they got a surprise when they found a 12 year old boy who had been kidnapped by the doctor to do some kind of weird experiment on. They also found all the doctor's notes on his research, which explained everything so they took it and burned it.
They debated for a while, then decided to give the kid a burger and drop him off at his neighborhood, making him promise not to tell who rescued him.
The game ended with the guys watching a news report about the missing child returning home and a police investigation into the doctor's activities...with a special thanks to the "anonymous heros" ...who they figure they'll never figure out the identities of.
We all really enjoyed the game. My group is already waiting for the next installment. They have some questions about the system...mainly about magic and advancement of character. They kindof had a hard time with the combat success rules....but they ended up enjoying it in the end. I think part of it was that they were comparing it with COC percentile rules...
They drew their own map and everything...
Questions? comments?
melodie
*edited a hundred times because I can't figure out BBCode....doh!
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Topic 2439
On 6/30/2002 at 3:55am, hardcoremoose wrote:
RE: Chthonian Redux playtest - The Festering Cure
Melodie,
It warms the cockles of my heart to see a reference to The Young Ones. That show was to my gaming group what Monty Python was to many others. Hard to believe? Check this out:
http://www.cobbcon.homestead.com/guests1.html
Take care,
Moose
On 6/30/2002 at 4:38am, hive wrote:
* is really a ninja star
secret Ninja high five at the end
Ninjas are sweet...and by sweet, i mean totally cool. Especially when they flip out and kill everything.
-
h
random...i know
On 7/1/2002 at 11:11pm, rabidchyld wrote:
RE: Chthonian Redux playtest - The Festering Cure
Moose,
My hubby and his roommates were the Young Ones when they were in college. Complete with the crappy house and insane landlord. For the love of all that is holy, they had mushrooms growing in their bathroom...I am not kidding.
The Young Ones is to us as it is to you.
And they were so tickled to actually meet a woman who could quote Young Ones with them.
On 7/2/2002 at 3:04am, Buddha Nature wrote:
Donde esta?
Hey is Cthonian Redux available anywhere?
-Shane
On 7/2/2002 at 7:49pm, Zak Arntson wrote:
Re: Chthonian Redux playtest - The Festering Cure
rabidchyld wrote:
It went very well overall. The scenario was written well, and the system was easy to understand, once the players got used to it.
...
They were all members of a role playing club on campus.
...
The game started with them walking through the campus at 2am after a rather memorable gaming session, when the window exploded in the biology building and Charley got hit by the icky creepy critter.
How did the forceful nature of preparation go? My design goal is to move certain things into pre-game, like "how your Characters know each other" and "what is your motivation to work together."
rabidchyld wrote:
They made it inside and to the final confrontation with the doctor..which was rather anti-climactic because the martial arts guys rolled really well and ended up doing some kind of Ninja club duo shit on the doctor and took him down easily...
Hmm ... you can increase the tension by upping the Difficulty (to 6E3 or something) or increasing the successes required. I'm still debating which is the best choice. I like upping the Difficulty, because the Players will KNOW what the difficulty is and start burning Safety and Descriptors and using Disorders and what-not. Rather than a secret number of Successes.
On the other hand, a max Difficulty of 6, but X successes to beat the thing means that ANYONE can take it out. Now I'm waffling ... more playtesting and philosophizing to ensue.
As the game stands, you have Players modifying their effectiveness by adding more dice. The game, as presented, provides two "difficulties" to overcome. A Difficulty and a number of successes. Number of successes is kept constant for RESULTS (0 = no, and; 1 = yes, but; 2+ = yes, and) but variable for COMPLETION (4 successes to defeat a monster). Not to mention the Difficulty of rolling over 4, 5, 6 etc. Yikes. It's a little convoluted.
(Note: I did switch from variable Difficulty scores (4,5,6) to (5) and the Players complained. They preferred to have a changing number to roll against)
Oops. Maybe I should head over to Game Design. I will ponder this and probably visit it later.
rabidcyld wrote:
We all really enjoyed the game. My group is already waiting for the next installment. They have some questions about the system...mainly about magic and advancement of character.
What a great thing to hear. We already chatted privately about your next adventure, so I hope it goes well. Magic is something I haven't tackled yet, but I will soon. Advancement in the conventional sense doesn't happen. You get Disorders which can increase your effectiveness. Typical advancement in the form of levels/points/experience isn't a part of Chthonian Redux.
If your Players want advancement, just let them modify their sheet as they see fit. The changes should reflect in-game history. For example, if a Character had a Shoot 1 (Screams in fear and shoots wildly), and they do a lot of shooting at monsters. Well, maybe by the end they've gotten a bit better. So they get a Shoot 2 (Nervously and shakily fires).
Alternately, if your Players ever play younger/older versions of their Characters, have them again modify their sheet or, preferably, write up a new sheet.
---
Buddha Nature,
Chthonian Redux will be available soon. So far, it looks like people are having fun. Expect to see a shareware "beta test" version soon (as in July-September timeframe) replaced by a commercial pdf version later this year.
If you can't wait, there's a kludgy character sheet at http://www.harlekin-maus.com/chthonian/charsheet.html that uses the Chiller font, tables, stylesheets and JavaScript willy-nilly, and an embryonic form of the rules at http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2267.
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Topic 2267
On 7/3/2002 at 11:12pm, rabidchyld wrote:
RE: Chthonian Redux playtest - The Festering Cure
How did the forceful nature of preparation go? My design goal is to move certain things into pre-game, like "how your Characters know each other" and "what is your motivation to work together."
The players I had didn't mind the preparation at all, in fact, they greatly enjoyed it. They spent almost 2 hours making up their back story, which included Charley and Justin being roommates, and Justin and Mark being in the Martial Arts club together. Their commonality was the role-playing club on campus, which Charley turned the others on to.
Know also, that the forceful preparation is not for everyone. I did have a player that was totally against the whole concept and decided not to play in the game, for that reason among others. His loss....
Their motivation for working together was: 1. A basic protectiveness of Charley, who is a complete wimp. That was there at the beginning of the game, and 2. The knowledge that nobody else would believe them..once the weirdness started.
Hmm ... you can increase the tension by upping the Difficulty (to 6E3 or something) or increasing the successes required. I'm still debating which is the best choice.
I'm going to try both in my next couple of games, and let you know how that goes.
(Note: I did switch from variable Difficulty scores (4,5,6) to (5) and the Players complained. They preferred to have a changing number to roll against)
That makes more sense anyway..everything is not the same size or strength.
If your Players want advancement, just let them modify their sheet as they see fit. The changes should reflect in-game history.
I'll be doing that...with me having the final say as GM, of course.
I guess that's all for now. I will be posting on the Indie Games forum for a little help on my next adventure.
Thanks, melodie