The Forge Archives

The Nighttime Animals Save the World

I've only playtested with 2 players (one being the GM), so I don't know if the mechanics will get weird with more.  With 4 players there's the possibility that the GM will hold out a nickel and the player will have 3 nickels in her hand, which the existing rules don't account for and offer no guidance on, but there might be more subtle quirks with 3 or 4 players that I haven't seen.

For the same reason, there are no rules about whose actions happen in what order.  My instinct is to treat timing issues as dangers same as any other, as follows:

Seb: "I jump from the treetop onto the package store's roof!"
Meg: "I jump up and down on the main branch to distract the cats!"
GM: "Okay, Seb, the danger is that Meg's shaking the tree will mess up your jump and you'll fall short..." And we resolve that before we go on to "Meg, the danger is that the cats will get mad and attack you..." and possibly "Seb, the danger is that you'll slide down the wet rooftop and wind up in the raingutter..."

I'd welcome other suggestions.

The final text will also have more stuff about cats, dogs, people, other animals, the something bad that's happening, the PCs, and whatever else comes up in playtesting.  More text, I guess I'm saying.

The constraints on mechanics for a game you can play while you're strolling around town with your kids are severe.  It took me forever to find some that both work and are portable.

-Vincent

"...with mechanics influenced by the Valedictorian's Death"

Good God...Red, White, and Blue has himself a grandchild! Them's some powerful procreatin'.

"Convos with Paul Czege got me thinking about danger."

What did I say?

Paul

You said:

Black Licorice!

And I said:

The more dangerous, the more likely you are to succeed!

But it was a while ago.

I'm working on another game that'll be even moreso.

-Vincent

Suppose that the game worked in a ring - each player had a Danger pocket and a ...another pocket, and you were always Danger to player X, who was Danger to player Y, and so on in a ring.

Then you'd escape the problem of a player having 3 nickels or whatever.

Vincent:

I think you've created a game that my gf would actually be willing to play.

Quote from: SheFun idea - very appealing to those of us enjoying the nonthreatening type of threat.

That is incredibly cool. A better game to introduce your hobby/profession to a gf by I can't think of. Michelle would love this.

Shreyas, probably for that particular prob I'll just make the GM put the nickel back and choose a different coin.  My real concern is that with 3 or 4 players the GM will always have a quarter, or never have a quarter, or something like that.  With 2 players there's a nice rhythm to play as the high coins flow back and forth between the players.

The mathematics of the coin-trading thing are beyond me; I can't predict what the game's pacing will be like with more coins in the mix.

Playtesting will tell, though.  The strolling season's young yet.

-Vincent
Girlfriend-compatible gaming since 2001!