Sunday Play Test Unreport!

Once a month (when we can find the time) we try to organize a geekout.  It’s a full day event where a slightly different group from my bi-monthly D&D one gathers together to eat junk food, watch some anime and/or movies and play games.

This month, my friend and dubiously trustworthy lieutenant PM proposed to play test the D&D 4e adventure I wrote for Goodman Games.  I graciously accepted.

Now the thing is I can’t write about the content of the adventure so this post may seem self defeating.  However, that session brought enough insights into various subjects that seem relevant enough, regardless of the adventure, that I decided to share it with you.

First off, the group was made up of 5 players.  Three of them were from my current gaming group:

Yan played a fighter (same class he plays in our main campaign) but made it into a different build.  He chose a dual wielding Dwarven fighter called Cylindrix and he gave him an annoying French-German accent.

Franky, who plays an Eladrin Fey Pact warlock settled for a Eladrin Star Pact Warlock nammed Urasam (i.e. his main character’s name, reversed).

Mike decided to stick with his Dragonborn Tactical Warlord named Takeo.

The other two players were not D&D 4e veterans. PM played the character he played for some time in Yan’s game, which is a Dragonborn Inspiring Warlord.  Finally, Vince who played  D&D once with us before (a one session Pathfinder game), played a longbow wielding Elven Ranger.

Okay, so that was 1 fighter, 2 warlords, a warlock and a ranger.  That’s not your average party and I was worried a bit.  To make up for the lack of controller, Yan equipped both his fighter and PM’s warlord with lighting weapons which allowed each a daily burst effect each should minions be a problem needing to be dealt with.

Turns out the character mix worked fine enough.

I already mentioned that my adventure was a short side quest.  It was supposed to interrupt whatever the PCs were doing when the events in it occur.  That’s why I wanted to at least establish some sort of story frame to set the adventure in. Having no clear idea what to make of it, I decided to play some free association with my players.

Chatty: “Okay so you are currently in the free city of… Yan?”

Yan: Flustered, looking at his character sheet and going with the only piece of background he had (the whole germanic voice thing) “Hmmm, Bavaria?”

Chatty: “And your adventuring company is called…Franky?”

Franky: “Hum…. Lupus Fundis!”

The others laughed and the group decided that they were lycantrophe hunters.

Chatty:” All right, you all have silvered weapons should you need them over the adventure then.  Lastly where are you headed next….Mike?”

(I usually asked the question to whomever was talking last.  Also, the silver weapon thing was a bit of a red herring as there were no were creatures in the adventure).

Mike: “Strasbourg!”

In for a penny, in for a pound… A note to my German and/or French readers, please disregard the gross misuse of your geography, our game was set in a very fictional and fantastic version of western Europe.

Chatty: “Okay so you are going to go from the Bavarian free-hold, cross the Black Forest to to get to Strasboug.  It’s about 2 days for walking travelers, mostly civilized and you are expecting to stop at an Imperial Hostel halfway through your journey”

The adventure started somewhere in that forest.  I can’t say more…

This little trick I used up there, James Wyatt did to us at Gen Con for the Press D&D game Wizards of the coast hosted for us.  It’s the same I used in my campaign’s first session and the one I use whenever I tell my son an interactive story (which I should start doing again methinks).  Once the players recover from the shock of being put on the spot, it’s surprising to see what can be built with just a few questions.

Mangled European geography aside, in 4 questions we already established that the party were werewolf hunters going from a City-State to some other city in another Duchy/Kingdom/region. Plus I plunked a big forest in the middle.

Bam, instant campaign starter.  Try it, it works!

The adventure’s first scene was a skill challenge. It was an average one (8 successes vs 3 failures) that simulated something the rules aren’t all that good to do: a Chase.   The scene went well although players failed it.  Going over it with my players after the scene, some of their insights are worth sharing here.

Franky, who’s our group greatest storyteller, finds that skill challenges, at least the ones I DMed so far, put too big a burden on the shoulders of each player.  Each failure counts for 33% of the total allowable failure and he finds this a steep cost.

Mike, who rolled 2 of the 3 failures, mentioned that on paper, skill challenge require that the party strive to obtain the biggest possible bonuses for each key skill check.  However in practice, when it’s your turn to roll the dice, you just want to go for it damn it all!

Yan mentioned that skill challenges were an awesome mechanic that allowed to make pretty much any situation not directly covered in the rules into a fun mini-game.  However, he said that building skill challenges were a lot harder than it appears (and I agree).

From these, and my 3 sessions testing Kobold Love (Yeah, I’ll return to it soon enough), I got a few tips for future challenges.

• When it can apply to the situation, make it possible to buy back failures in a skill challenge.
• If you build a skill challenge that can move your story/scene forward:
  • Have each successes move one element of your story forward
  • Don’t hinge the story’s conclusion on the sole success of the challenge
  • Make failures as setbacks that can be surmounted (or bought back).
• Apply generous bonuses to players who try to describe more than the mere skill he/she uses.

The last two scenes of the adventure were combat encounters.  Those who have grown used to my style when designing encounters know that I love adding interactive  elements (which I still call Action Zone, a term coined by Mike Mearls in Iron Heroes) to fights.  I did it too in this adventure.  However, I noticed that I forgot a few key lessons (which I’ll correct in the post play test manuscript)

• If your zone needs a standard action and an attack roll to work, the effect needs to have an impact that is at least, on par with any of the party’s encounter powers.  Otherwise no one will use it.
• Don’t string too many success rolls to achieve an effect, this will just make the zone unattractive. If you want PCs (and monsters) to push a wall on their enemies, don’t have a Str check vs a fixed DC followed by an attacks vs the enemy’s Reflex defense.  Go directly for a Str vs Ref attack and decide if the wall falls or not on a failure.
• Mixing traps, zones with waves of enemies works, but a few tiny details can spell the difference between a cakewalk and instant PC doom.  That’s why there’s playtesting in published adventures.

The players managed to beat the adventure without too much sweatting.  In fact they aced the final encounter and had an easier time than in the second scene.  Yet, the group played without the same degree of synergy that my Friday group shows and some players had some serious streaks of bad luck.  This tells me that the adventure is probably a bit on the easier side than I initially anticipated.  I’ll see to it to make it more challenging.

On the whole, the players had fun and the whole thing was played and done with in about 4 hours.  I think people will enjoy playing  it and I look forward playing it at a Con or something.

There you have it.  A game report with a big hole in the middle.  I so look forward to tell people about it (and should start thinking about writing another one).

Cheers