April 2, 2006
OK. Good, good week. I?m very happy with things.
First of all, SM Quarterly. I finished it and turned it in. There are some editing hiccups, naturally (I?m terrible at proofreading myself), but Heike had only one major question and I answered that easily. She even seemed to leave the verb grepped inside. I thought for sure I?d get a question on that. Evidently unix lingo has pervaded more than I thought.
So that?s good. I suggested a new title for it and Heike liked it so it probably won?t be called the quarterly. I?ll let them announce the new name if they decide to go with it, though.
I got the concept for the cover, after all but rejecting the logo. The full color version of everything won me mostly over. My business partner, Scott, asked for a change. That?s been done and I haven?t heard more. I?ll talk to him on Monday and find out his final position.
After that, I sacrificed my newly granted day off, Thursday, to Ep 4 of the campaign. Of course, by day off I mean that I only spend 5-6 hours on writing-related activities that day, so it might be a misnomer. At any rate I spent a whole lot of that sleeping, but managed to write a good bit of Act Two of the adventure. Friday night at work I finished all but the last physical location of Act Two (which the characters have to earn access too, so they can?t get there at the beginning) and about half of the events. That way, they could do anything they wanted this weekend and I wouldn?t run out of material. I didn?t get to Act Two, but I?m glad we had the option.
Because of the LDS general conference, we didn?t start until about 8:30 and ended about 11:30. We did three encounters tonight, but the middle one probably took two and a half of those three hours.
So let?s talk about fate points and total party kill.
I?m probably recommending that people playing with these adventures in RM use fate points (Channeling Companion.) I started using them after we lost two characters in Ep 2, both off of single lucky attacks. The first one was kinda the characters fault (sorry Ang), at least she purposely put herself in the risky situation (and didn?t parry, although I can?t say that was the worst decision, considering the Obs involved at the time). The second one was all but a vengence kill. It came out of nowhere and the player had little warning. Everyone failed their sense ambush maneuvers.
Anyway, I use Fate Points now. I don?t tell players how many they have and I don?t tell them when I use them, but basically, when I fudge a roll to save a player?s life, it isn?t arbitrary. They are losing an asset that they must earn back through noble deeds.
I have three house rules that I use, despite the fact that this is a play test. I already talked about parrying multiple foes. The other two involve how I handle Background Options (I do it a little differently, but when I converted talents to the real rules for the demo, only one character lost any real power and I?m pretty sure he fudged his rolls a little). The third house rule I use is in fate points. I would drop this one, but I actually need it
more in a play test. What I do is in addition to the normal fate point rules, I use a fate point to stop a character?s death. Basically, when a character is bleeding to death or being eaten by zombies or whatever, I spend one of their fate points, the character stabilizes, and the foes leave him for dead. That way unless the whole party wipes, they?ll make it. I need this in the play test because when I misjudge a battle?s difficulty, it?s the character?s action that save them (their past actions, earning their fate points) and not me just claiming a do-over at the end of the battle.
So. Tonight?s battle. A 12th level party with high offensive power and very good magic up against three times their number in wolves. Yep, just plain old wolves. Should have been a cakewalk. I sent them against a slightly tougher battle last weak and the use of Spell Mastery on a elemental ball spell basically ended the whole thing in one round (the battle went on but the bad guys were stunned and reeling and the rest was mop-up.
So, you think that this would be an easy battle, but tactics can so change a situation. First of all, they had the blind girl on watch. Sounds like a bad idea, but actually with her Spatial Location Awareness, she might be one of the better people. Still, I penalized the roll -20 to see the wolves before they attacked. Even if I hadn?t, it would still be a Sense Ambush or a Situation Awareness (Watch) which it?s unlikely a party has very high, so that?s probably where I?m adjusting the difficulty of the encounter. She got a partial success, just enough to convince her she had indigestion.
So. A battle where the total enemy levels is some 75% of the total party levels, you?d expect an easy fight, but that all changes when the first attack comes while everyone is naked and sleeping. Three attacks on a prone character with little or no OB. Suddenly everyone has 3+ rounds of stun. It went down hill from there. The only thing the Healer did the entire battle was take all the wounds off the spellcaster twice. Even then they probably all would have died if the wolves weren?t corrupted, allowing the paladin?s aura spells to work. (Ulcer wolves).
So. The person on watch lost no fate points. I think everyone else lost at least one (except the henchman, a street urchin who rolled high enough on his alertness and made it into a tree for the whole fight, shouting helpful top-down advice like, ?Clear the circle!? and ?Ball spells!?). The bard, the healer, the dwarven paladin, and the gnome spell-user all lost two fate points. The bard spent one to stop dying and let the wolves deprioritize her and another when the gnome called in close air support on her position. The dwarf and the gnome spent both of theirs on 96+ crits from random wolves. There?s a highly-technical military term for this situation. It?s ?Charlie Foxtrot? and it means, in polite translation, ?Weren?t we just taking a nap a moment ago??
Anyway. They stopped one or two no-fighting encounters away from Act Two. If any of the play testers are reading this and wonder why I looked like arguing when Amanda called the game to an end, it?s because I was weighing the odds that those last encounters would only take five minutes. At the end I decided the odds were only fifty percent. We might have an argument about the best course of action.
So we ended there.
Tomorrow: Act Three. Should be easy to write and if not I?ll finish it Monday. Then back to the gazatteer and one entry a day.
Plus I think I picked up a new concept artist last night. I?ll find out more this morning. Either way, I?m gonna do our last concept art push over this last two weeks so we can have two months to do the art for the first product. Hopefully a month for the art and a month to put out art related fires, ?There are no cheerleaders in the Echoes of Heaven! It?s not that kind of fantasy.?
Bets on how many fate points we burn next week?