The West That Wasnt - Sundown

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Two men and a lady entered a St Louis mansion on a warm May afternoon in 1881. A slender, sallow complected man, Horatio Carrington, led them into his study. What followed, was the beginning of the Arizona Territory branch of the DTI.

Intro

"Sundown, you better take care if I find you been creepin down my back stair."

Gordon Lightfoot

Playtest Results

As fun as the scenario itself was as a gaming experience, we also had an ulterior motive. The system of TWTW was under scrutiny this afternoon. Some systems, such as Initiative and Action Speeds, where being tested for the first time (in essence it was a proof of concept). We also tested some play aids such as the newly designed character sheet. And, of course, the previously tested but updated systems such as action cards and their resolution mechanics were also on display.

The Questionnaire

Before the game, Bruce and I prepared a set of questions to give the players after the game. They were aware we had questions for them, but not what they were. We felt it would keep them more focused on the game and their impressions if we did not present them until after. Some players took notes on things they noticed during the game.

Responses

Everyone liked the character sheet. They felt that it provided a lot of value by having the information they needed readily available. There were some items that should have been on the back (the combat section). These included CT (Concussion Threshold) and the Reflex trait value (for initiative determination). They found the list of common actions with their speeds to be the most useful. The back page was very well regarded.

One potential issue is that players felt the sheet should not be two sided. It should be two pages laid side by side. The reason is we were using counters to move on the weapons and note what states the items were in. This would increase the necessary items from a deck of cards and a sheet for each player to a deck of cards and two sheets for each player. That might be ok, but the optimizer in my head is rebelling. One other idea was to keep it double sided, but have optional item cards that can be used for tracking. We will be testing this next time. This frees up even more of the character sheet.

They also liked having skills organized by die type, but they did not think the arrows pointing to the card spot was worthwhile enough for the real estate it used. They and I agreed that the design with the card in the center has some value the first few times you use it, but it shrinks to zero very fast. This means that there is an opportunity to have a beginners sheet that is a separate item, and that after a couple of uses players can move on to the full sheet. Some players may never need the beginner sheet, but having it available will be helpful to new players.

Another statement on the sheet is that it is in two worlds according to design. In the world of functionality, it is great. Players found it useful and easy enough to follow. In terms of look and feel, it is crap. I just copied and pasted from excel and filled in on a psd and printed it. The thing is a design abomination in terms of look. Rumi thinks she can clean it up to look very nice, though, once we have a final version.

Players liked the initiative system. They felt that it made their choices matter, but it wasnt deterministic. There were multiple times where characters performing slow actions went in Phase I, and times when characters performing Fast actions went later than others doing Normal actions. But generally, doing faster things made your character act faster, and this brought challenging but rewarding decision making to the forefront. It still has some wrinkles, though. For one thing, they suggested that some of the wasted real estate on the character sheet needs to be repurposed for more default actions and their speeds, as well as a section on how to combine actions. Combining actions did not happen enough during the session, the combats tended to be fast and deadly. Some of the confusion regarding combining stuff might have contributed to this, also.

Overall the feedback on the initiative system was positive. Since this was a first test on this system, I would say it is worthwhile and will be part of the game going forward. More extensive testing will be upcoming.

The cards just worked. They basically stayed out of the way. The goal of 30 seconds or less for all actions was met the vast majority of the time. There were occasional questions, and a time or two when we had to go over how to use bumps, but the players took a couple of flips to get them and then they became second nature. The cards are well tested, and mostly what was being explored here was the new version. The last time we did playtesting we were on version 4, the new ones are 5.3. We identified some issues such as the 53 does not have the Shuffle result and icon, and there is a potential problem with how Damage and Reduced Damage are implemented (because exceptional results in damage are no longer the entire grid, but are column based), but a workaround was proposed immediately. It will be tested in the new version.

On the subject of being different, this game does a lot of things differently than most games. The cards, the initiative, the weapon attributes, it is a beast unto itself. The players did not feel that it was a hindrance. For the most part, they liked what was being delivered. I suspect that a lot of this was due to the character sheet. Had we tried to play this, and learn it, without the appropriate play aids it would have been a struggle.

Because of time constraints none of the players made their characters, they are all pregens. The players felt there was enough differentiation, but since we have not had anyone who is not one of the two designers make characters, I expect that we could still have many challenges ahead in terms of balance. We have no idea if exploits exist, but we do have a level of playability at the 125 points, and the characters are not copies of one another and stood out in ways that personalized each one.

Some Specific Questions

These came from my notes:

Can speed load be used to cock a weapon? The speed load skill needs to be explained better.

What happens when you fast draw an item that is not a fast item like a pistol or a knife? Does it go from normal to fast, then fast to free?

Speaking of knives, if you get a bump on a fast draw of a knife, what bonus is gained? Do only items like guns get special bonuses?

Should fan firing be a skill, or just something you do with your pistol skill?

What happens when you do initiative as a group (the standard rule) and multiple players get exceptional results? My intuition is that each exceptional result draws its own subsequent cards, since it is a different die exploding.

How is fire damage calculated? Should it be a continuous action? I had to default to the Future Imperfect fire rules. We need an environment chapter like we had in that game.