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DUNE 2019 PART 19: WRAPUP While we’re here, let’s polish off Dune 2019. This wrapup post will cover everything I forgot to talk about in the previous sections of the review. BIDDING The auction phase is the longest phase of the game turn, and most of it you’re just waiting for someone else to move. In online play, people tune out while the bid goes around the table, which means that you have to remind everyone when it’s their turn, which makes it take even longer. The treachery dev recently introduced an optional bidding clock, which auto passes anyone who takes longer than the timer allows. Silent Auctions are a mechanic that some people use to make the auction phase move faster. I first saw this on the Matt Coleville show when they did Dune night. This houserule was probably the inspiration for the Richese special treachery auction mechanic, which works the same way. Rather than going around the table and bidding one by one, everyone holds out the amount of spice they’re willing to spend in their fist, then reveals at the same time. Whoever bids the most gets the card, with ties going to the first person in storm order (or possibly going to a second tiebreaker silent auction between those players). This is a cool houserule, but does have some gameplay effects. It means Atreides can’t spoof people by bidding or not bidding on a card, since they reveal at the same time as everyone else. It can also affect the Emperor’s overall income, since it makes bidding wars rare or impossible. I didn’t mention it at the time, but I think this is also the real reason why players aren’t allowed to trade cards outside of special faction mechanics. If they were, every auction phase would immediately be followed by a second informal auction phase, where players tried to optimize their hands by reselling the cards they just bought. Effectively doubling the time taken by a phase that can already take longer than the rest of the turn combined. TEN PLAYER GAMES Ten player Dune was possible before any of the expansions dropped, if you were willing to play with homebrew factions people made for the game. With the release of the second expansion, you can now play with ten official factions at the table. There are no rules for this in the book, it’s up to you how you want to handle it. I have not played a ten player game, and don’t want to. Eight player games are already drawn out affairs, adding two players would only going to increase playtime further. At bare minimum, you’d want to use the stronghold shield wall houserule, but even with that and the Ixian stronghold on the board, that’s ten players chasing six board spaces. Tech tokens are even less likely to matter for victory points because you’ve got even more players fighting for control, reducing the odds of anyone amassing all three. Some people add an additional sietch in the Ceilago region of the board, which grants a victory point. The Long Dune variant, which predates expansion two, adds a Southern hemisphere to the game, expanding the game to encompass the entire surface of Arrakis. Long Dune, as the name implies, is run asynchronously or as a play by post, because of how long it would take in a single session. CHOAM might actually be more powerful in a ten player game. Their guaranteed income is bigger the more players are at the table, and it doesn’t depend on other players manually harvesting. The Emperor, Tleilaxu and Guild ultimately still depend on players picking up spice off the board to inject money into the economy. Anecdotally, I’ve heard Hark is the toughest faction to play in a 10 player game. You’re the only manual spice gathering faction that doesn’t have an alternate means of accumulating wealth. ALLIANCE COMMUNICATION One of the biggest differences between playing Dune at a physical table and playing it online is communication between alliance members. When you play Dune online, unless you agree not to do so, everyone has the ability to send messages to the players they are allied with. They can instantaneously communicate information about their cards, which traitors they hold, whether to bid on a specific card in the auction phase, where to move, how to lay out a battle plan, or anything else they want to discuss. This increases the game’s playtime once alliances form, because every player turn in every game phase can potentially trigger a frantic discussion between two allies about what to do next. At a physical table, it doesn’t work that way. Traditionally you get an information sharing and strategy discussion phase on the turn where alliances form. Anything after that depends on how the group prefers to handle alliance communication. Players might be allowed to pass notes, or allowed to privately confer with their allies before each game phase, or not allowed any secret communication whatsoever. The biggest impact is when you’ve got players of different skill levels. You get less quarterbacking, but also less genuinely useful discussion and advice that helps new players learn the game. THE FUTURE OF DUNE 2019 I’ve heard that there’s a third expansion coming, eventually. I’m not sure how I feel about this. I do like some of the expansion two content, but they introduced an entire faction (CHOAM) that feels like they’re already out of ideas. There’s still a ton of stuff you could add, but you have to be careful how much bloat you introduce to areas of the game that already have lots of expansion content. Expansion one puffed up the treachery deck to larger than it needs to be. Expansion two made the right decision by adding new treachery cards through a faction that parcels them out sparingly, rather than increasing the size of the overstuffed treachery deck. If I’m still interested in the game when expansion three drops (in like a year or two), I’ll re-open this review to cover it. If not, this is the end of Dune 2019. Thanks for reading!
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Jun 29, 2022 22:33
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megane posted:I think a lot of works (including, pointedly, its own sequels and prequels) forget why shields etc. work the way they do: Dune is supposed to be a sci-fi opera with swords and weird transhumanist secret societies and magic vision quests through the desert. Shields block guns because they're an excuse to have the fate of worlds decided by a knife fight. Sandworms react to vibrations but can be ridden anyway because it helps paint the fremen (and later Paul) as sharp, hard-bitten masters of the desert, in contrast with the clumsy outworlders (see: racist undertones). Spice is vital to every aspect of the empire because it's an excuse for everyone to fight over an otherwise-useless ball of sand. Space travel is relegated to "hire a heighliner at ruinous expense" because that way everyone has to fight on the otherwise-useless ball of sand. There are no computers or robots or whatever so that we can see the transhumanist theme - people turn themselves into computers. It's got a lot of flaws, but it's a tour de force in designing your setting to enforce the stories you want, and it's a bit of a shame that all the games and such it spawned don't really follow through.
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Jun 29, 2022 23:07
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mellonbread posted:THE FUTURE OF DUNE 2019 Expansion three adds later-book factions like.. [checks] Honored Matres and Space Jews.
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Jun 29, 2022 23:32
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PurpleXVI posted:Expansion three adds later-book factions like..
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Jun 29, 2022 23:41
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Your little illustrations were delightful.
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Jun 29, 2022 23:46
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  Drive-Thru RPG Page. This product is actually part of a larger collected work that I do not own. It’s also a tad on the lengthy side, so if I were to review it I’d likely make it its own thread. The World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game: the Game is an Inception-level metanarrative, where you play as players playing a game of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. The player-PCs of the 5e PCs have Apocalypse World-style playbooks reflecting a common type of gamer, such as the Actor or Optimizer, and they can use their moves to give in-game benefits to their 5e PCs. The session is otherwise a typical game of 5th Edition D&D rather than being its own RPG. There are nine playbooks, eight for PCs and one for the DM (Master of Dungeons). Four of the playbooks roll an unmodified d20 to trigger relevant moves, and are considered to be death saving throws for the purposes of interaction with other rules even though they don’t have to be used when a PC is dying. Rolling a 9 or less causes the intended move to backfire in some way, a 10-19 is a success, while a natural 20 has a success which goes above and beyond. The other four PC-facing playbooks don’t require a d20 and typically interact with Inspiration in some way, shape, or form. The Master of Dungeons is its own special case. The Actor merges player and PC skill together by granting the opportunity to auto-succeed at a Charisma skill check by role-playing it out. And by roleplaying it out, I mean roll a death saving throw! A natural 20 grants Inspiration, but a 9 or less backfires and imposes disadvantage on Charisma-based rolls against the same targets. The Explorer is played whenever the PC is seeking out something. 10 or above grants some kind of hint or clue, but 9 or less causes you to roll with disadvantage on the relevant check. There is no natural 20 result for this playbook. The Instigator move is played whenever the PC does something against the better judgment of the rest of the party. This automatically grants their PC an additional bonus action that can be held onto to use for later. But further uses of this ability during the same session cost Inspiration. The Warrior can trigger only if the PC spends their action, movement, and bonus action and successfully causes damage to a target. In such a case, Inspiration can be spent to cause maximum damage. The Optimizer is unique in that the 9 or less d20 roll imposes no negative conditions. It triggers whenever two features of a PC (feats, spells, magic items, etc) are used in concert with a single action. A 10 or above allows one to ignore a condition of the feature, such as requiring a short or long rest to recharge, while a natural 20 increases one effect of the action by 50%, such as dealing one and a half times as much damage. quote:On a 9-, you must abide by all conditions as normal. What? We’re not gonna punish you for choosing such a great combination. You’re the Optimizer! The Problem-Solver can be triggered whenever the PC fails a skill check or saving throw. A 10 or above allows them to temporarily avoid the consequences of failure, being able to retry the roll again with disadvantage or find some other way to circumvent fate up to their proficiency bonus in rounds. If used, the PC needs a long rest to do so again, and 9 or less forces the PC to deal with the consequences of failure. The Storyteller can be played whenever a new NPC is introduced, spending Inspiration to create a piece of backstory or personality for them. Furthermore, the PC and their allies have advantage on skill checks against that character whenever they take advantage of that trait against them. The Rules Lawyer move triggers whenever they correct the Master of Dungeons about some rule in the game, but must spend Inspiration for every additional use more than once in a session. However, the Rules Lawyer’s PC takes disadvantage on all rolls related to any house rules in play, but gains Inspiration if both of the disadvantaged d20 rolls manage to beat the DC. The Master of Dungeons is a specific DM-only playbook. Whenever a player uses any of the other playbooks to do a successful move, the Master of Dungeons can give +5 HP to any monster or NPC of their choice or increase the next skill check DC by 2. Thoughts: These are pretty simple rules that can be bolted onto 5e games without much hassle. Some of the playbooks are more narrowly focused; the Actor only interfaces with a narrow range of d20 rolls, and the Warrior can only affect damaging abilities. Optimizer and Problem Solver are incredibly broad in what they can be used on, and while I do like the Storyteller’s ode to collaborative story-telling common to PbtA games, for dungeon-crawling fantasy I can see a player falling into a repetitive rut of “the NPC is cowardly/overly trusting/underestimating my PC’s race/class/etc” or something similar to justify advantages on rolls. Instigator and Rules Lawyer I can see taking special care to employ, given that their moves can more easily generate adversarial playstyles in disagreeing with the other players or DM. I also like how the DM gets something when moves are successfully triggered, which can help temper PCs from overusing their moves beyond the limitations of Inspiration and rest. I’d like to note that the hacking of the “2d6 Apocalypse World” resolution system into a d20 death save provides for some interesting effects. In being a death save, Bardic Inspiration can modify the roll, and Bane and Bless’ 1d4 modifiers can do so as well. Same with the Lucky feat’s luck points. Those are what I’ve been able to find via a quick Googling, but I’m sure there are CharOps folks out there who can cook up more innovative combos.
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Jun 30, 2022 00:03
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Pvt.Scott posted:Your little illustrations were delightful. They really were.
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Jun 30, 2022 15:42
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Pvt.Scott posted:Your little illustrations were delightful. Angrymog posted:They really were.
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Jun 30, 2022 18:47
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Btw Mellonbread thanks for linking to your blog earlier—as an Unknown Armies fan who will literally never get to play it it was fun reading your campaign’s recap
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Jun 30, 2022 20:10
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Pretzel Rod Stewart posted:Btw Mellonbread thanks for linking to your blog earlier—as an Unknown Armies fan who will literally never get to play it it was fun reading your campaign’s recap Part of the intent for Special Orders is to create something a little easier to pick up and play than the base Unknown Armies 3 game. By clearing the decks of 2e's exhaustively detailed lore and mythos, the devs inadvertently erased a lot of the framing that told you what the players were actually supposed to do in a UA game. Players brand new to 3e are faced with a campaign creation system that demands they come up with a strong premise for what their game will be about, while also denying them 2e's best examples of what the game can be about. Special Orders will hopefully provide a framework that both new and experienced players can iterate on, by providing a well supported premise backed up by lots of table-ready content that both the GM and players can add to the board. The best Unknown Armies 3 blog and splatbook is still Oddities and Endlings. It's what convinced me to return to the game, after I convinced myself I would never get to run or play it.
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Jun 30, 2022 20:34
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I’ll keep an eye out for it! (As the kid of a non-practicing Jew and someone who’s been to Salem I liked those bits a lot too, haha. Did you know the area has its own pirate history?! The people who run the Witch Dungeon Museum, charmingly low-rent as it is, also run a Pirate Museum.) Appreciate the O&E link too—clicking through a bunch rn
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Jul 1, 2022 02:06
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If you wanted to post a link to the blog again or just a reminder of where you posted it before, I might know a guy who’d like to read more of your stuff. It’s me because you write well
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Jul 1, 2022 02:59
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megane posted:It's got a lot of flaws, but it's a tour de force in designing your setting to enforce the stories you want, and it's a bit of a shame that all the games and such it spawned don't really follow through. Destination: Void and its sequels are another excellent examples of this at work. From the forlorn attempts to keep an analogue spaceship from killing crew and passengers, to the desperate attempts to keep up with the successive layers of revelation about the world, the ecology, and about people in the sequels the setting drives the story like an engine. Or an Ox.
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Jul 1, 2022 04:17
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Pretzel Rod Stewart posted:I’ll keep an eye out for it! (As the kid of a non-practicing Jew and someone who’s been to Salem I liked those bits a lot too, haha.  The one thing I did come up with on my own was Judith and the Milk and Honey truck. That was a leftover from the second Esoteric Enterprises campaign I ran. The players began one of the sessions at the city's surface level, congregated around the kosher BBQ truck at midnight. I mentioned in a throwaway line that his wife ran a milk/pareve truck during the day, so that they never had to interact with each other. Pretzel Rod Stewart posted:Did you know the area has its own pirate history?! The people who run the Witch Dungeon Museum, charmingly low-rent as it is, also run a Pirate Museum.) Xiahou Dun posted:If you wanted to post a link to the blog again or just a reminder of where you posted it before, I might know a guy who’d like to read more of your stuff.
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Jul 1, 2022 07:06
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Soulbound: Champions of Destruction Move Fast, Break Things So, you've decided you want to run a Destruction game. It's good to think about what's going to happen in such a game and what it's going to be like! After all, the Mortal Realms are huge, and while Soulbound of Death and Order have bosses that, to varying degrees, tend to provide them with missions, a Destruction Binding is likely to be left entirely on their own to figure out how to do stuff and even what to do. The peoples of Destruction are rarely good at taking orders, especially from anyone they can beat up, and don't like established setups. They obey their whims much of the time. This is exciting, to be sure, but can also mean a lot of choice paralysis. Therefore, the game wants to discuss themes and efforts that are likely to come up. First, it is important to understand that most of Destruction operates on the basis of might-makes-right, though rarely in a fashy way. Rather, they occupy hierarchies enforced by violenceandwhich are easily upended. To remain in charge, a leader must succeed in battle, and failure is going to invite challenge. Even once someone else is in charge, little changes - that boss is now the target everyone below them is aiming for, after all. This is true even though the PCs bear divine sanction - no one is going to listen to them just because of that. They will need to prove their strength against challengers. An Order Binding might be able to earn the loyalty of local forces just by virtue of their status, but that is not true for Destruction and never will be. This means that to solve a problem by getting an orruk clan to follow you, you probably start by picking a fight with their leader - and that's going to leave them resentful if they survive, and may end up fracturing the clan into infighting. Dealing with this kind of problem and fallout is a big thing for Destruction Bindings. Most Destruction Bindings aren't going to be the sort that are at home in cities, and they're unlikely to do well dealing with intricate conspiracies or politics-heavy problems unless they can solve said problems with violence. This can be much easier for mixed Bindings, though it's important for the GM to give Destruction PCs stuff to do in these scenarios - no one likes sitting around doing nothing. It's important for a GM to figure out how these PCs can interact with intrigue and diplomacy - they might be able to track a fugitive in the wilds to get information, or a grot might be the only one small enough to fit in an area to get a vital clue. This keeps them involved even if they aren't the best at actual etiquette and so on. For this sort of scenario, you want to play up the fish-out-of-water aspect and the fact that these characters are dealing with things they never would if they hadn't joined a Binding. Frequently, a major theme of Destruction games is the anarchic fun that the PCs have dismantling the complex "civilized" world around them and making it simpler. Order wants to build more and more and spread their rules and ideals. Death wants to kill all living beings and create a perfectly sterile eternity. And Chaos? Chaos wants to corrupt, consume and unmake everything. And all of that is complicated and, frankly, stupid in a lot of ways. It's all weird plans and arcane maneuverings and complex rules. Destruction needs none of that and knows it. A Destruction group is going to spend a lot of time deciding something is boring and therefore should be disrupted, and this is something to encourage. They live well on their own, existing out in the wilds and focusing on what they enjoy. You can get a lot out of that - an entire adventure might revolve around deciding you want to throw a party and going to violently acquire all the stuff you need for a good party. The PCs should be encouraged to pick fights for the fun of it, and to deal with the consequences of their actions later. One of the big unique traits of a Destruction Binding is that it has a Boss - but while this means an in-character hierarchy, it should probably not mean an out of character one. (For one, everyone should at some point get to enjoy being the Boss.) It is important that everyone be clear from the start how the Boss rules work, and if anyone doesn't want to use them, it's probably best not to. Everyone should understand that the Boss is going to be a title that changes hands in play, possibly frequently. When choosing the initial Boss, they suggest either randomizing it or choosing via the challenge rules for downtime. If the party has to make a tough decision, the players should discuss it and come to consensus out of character, which can then be roleplayed in the game as the Boss giving orders, thus allowing them to be in charge in-character while not forcing people to do anything they don't want. If a consensus can't be reached or people don't w ant to listen to the Boss, the game should not be brought to a halt. Rather, it's better for everyone to enjoy the rebellion, maybe encouraging rivalry or leading to a leadership challenge - but everyone has to buy into this. The game also makes clear: if two party members get in a friendly brawl, don't break out the full combat rules. Those can be quite lethal. It's much better to just do some simple opposed rolls and move on, ensuring the game flow isn't stopped dead by detailed PVP combat. Likewise, the game encourages the GM to mix up the problems the group has to face to highlight how useful different Boss abilities are and encourage Boss-changing. In downtime, remind people they can challenge and check in if folks are happy with the current Boss. This is especially true if they've been a Boss for more than one adventure in a row. Even a temporary shift can be a lot of fun, after all, and it's good to embrace the chaotic nature of Destruction. No matter what, though, if the Boss rules end up becoming a problem for the group, talk it out out of game and, if necessary, alter or remove them based on what everyone wants. The rules do not take precedence over respecting and caring for your friends, after all. Next time: Marvel Team-Up
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Jul 2, 2022 22:27
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I kind of want to play a game in this setting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acnWy-tl3ng
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Jul 4, 2022 04:18
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Everyone posted:I kind of want to play a game in this setting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acnWy-tl3ng New Jersey?
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Jul 4, 2022 04:42
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Xiahou Dun posted:New Jersey? Sounds good. Dibs on playing a literally trashier version of Snooki.
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Jul 4, 2022 16:43
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Anyone who listened to the MegaDumbCast, note that the caster will be removing everything from the internet in the coming days so if you wanted to archive it get to downloading.
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Jul 5, 2022 02:03
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I am about 10 pages away from finish up reading the Mage the Ascension 1e core. I have 97 pages of notes, including tables! My god so many tables...... Then the assembly of thoughts and review will happen. Short version: It's an extremely frustrating game with equally frustrating mechanics. It has its moments of being hilarious and great but the tables 
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Jul 5, 2022 02:20
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I genuinely thought most of the WoD games were pretty similar in their original incarnation up until their ends, mechanically and such(excepting the nWoD jump). But swarms of aggressive tables? That sounds more like a 1e D&D thing.
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Jul 5, 2022 02:22
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joylessdivision posted:I am about 10 pages away from finish up reading the Mage the Ascension 1e core. I have 97 pages of notes, including tables! My god so many tables...... You have no idea how ready I am for all this.
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Jul 5, 2022 02:38
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PurpleXVI posted:I genuinely thought most of the WoD games were pretty similar in their original incarnation up until their ends, mechanically and such(excepting the nWoD jump). oMage is very big on its tables because its design space is just a big ol 'clusterfuck. Rubix Squid fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Jul 5, 2022 |
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Jul 5, 2022 02:58
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PurpleXVI posted:I genuinely thought most of the WoD games were pretty similar in their original incarnation up until their ends, mechanically and such(excepting the nWoD jump). Did you know wizards need guns? Because they do and that's a table. Magic effects? That’s a table. Oh, except for sphere X,Y and Z because those each have their own tables There's a table for health levels! And a table for XP spending! THERE'S A GOD drat FLOW CHART FOR MAGIC!  It's so, so stupid. And yet I kinda love parts of it? July 5th edit: The notes/reading are Done! Clocking in at 104 pages, I'm probably going to take a day or two before I start to actually assemble my chapter by chapter review because I need a little time away from the material, and I'll probably spend some time this weekend going through the PDF and pulling art/tables. joylessdivision fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Jul 5, 2022 |
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Jul 5, 2022 03:15
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I don't believe MRH had much to do with Mage's creation (to hear some talk he didn't have THAT much to do with Vampire or Woof's, which I would probably buy) which might explain it.
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Jul 5, 2022 20:17
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I always enjoy a good clusterfuck review.
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Jul 5, 2022 20:35
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PurpleXVI posted:I always enjoy a good clusterfuck review. Especially one with charts. Many, many charts. Perhaps even a chart of charts.
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Jul 5, 2022 21:41
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joylessdivision posted:1993 game design that is not helped by the god awful loving layout. Fyi I have full intentions of trying to make you do the free casting rules for novel spells by the book.
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Jul 5, 2022 22:15
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I never thought the charts in mage were ott.
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Jul 5, 2022 22:32
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Midjack posted:Anyone who listened to the MegaDumbCast, note that the caster will be removing everything from the internet in the coming days so if you wanted to archive it get to downloading. aw man this super sucks, megadumbcast was the best. hopefully poo poo starts going alright for him soon.
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Jul 5, 2022 23:21
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Xiahou Dun posted:Fyi I have full intentions of trying to make you do the free casting rules for novel spells by the book. I think you might have a different edition of Mage in mind. I am heavily debating actually attempting to create a character using the rules because as the book says "Making a Mage Character is easy and should only take about a half an hour 
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Jul 6, 2022 00:44
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joylessdivision posted:I think you might have a different edition of Mage in mind. I am heavily debating actually attempting to create a character using the rules because as the book says "Making a Mage Character is easy and should only take about a half an hour Every time you have to look something up more than 20 pages away, take a shot.
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Jul 6, 2022 01:00
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Xiahou Dun posted:Every time you have to look something up more than 20 pages away, take a shot.  are you trying to kill me?
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Jul 6, 2022 01:05
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A shot only serve to numb the pain, completely in opposition to the spirit of the review. Have someone kick you in the shins instead.
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Jul 6, 2022 07:06
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 DM’s Guild Page. From the same creators as King of the Road, Wizard Sleeve Studios has reimagined several popular franchises as minigames for 5th Edition. Amongst Thou is obviously based on Among Us, a one-shot that takes place on an airship where the PCs are adventurers en route to their next destination. But one of the PCs is actually a monster in disguise known as the Deceiver who seeks to murder the other PCs. In this adventure, the Dungeon master is basically the referee/arbitrator and the majority of conflict is between players. There’s a lot of advice for running this in both online and offline games, offering advice in keeping the rest of the group in the dark about the Deceiver’s identity given that foreknowledge will ruin the point of the adventure. Using mobile devices, private messaging, subjective lighting and fog of war effects for virtual tabletops, and private rooms for things like Discord are suggested for online games. For in-person games the classic “pass note cards to the players” and “take each player into a separate room” are suggested. The adventurers must go about the airship doing maintenance and repairs in order to ensure that they reach their destination, and Captain Frocktor (who’s the sole NPC who doesn’t do anything else) assigns individual PCs various tasks to perform which take the form of ability or tool proficiency checks. The Deceiver, in addition to hunting and killing the other PCs, can also sabotage tasks which can impose negative consequences for the survivors. We have a gridded handout of the ship map for both the upper and lower decks, and the game is separated into combat rounds for the purposes of movement and time. Rolls for tasks (or sabotage) normally take an action, although the DC of the checks start at 10 and increase by 1 every round (the starting DC is higher at other Tiers of player). There’s no negative consequences for failing a check besides time wasted. There are six forms of Sabotage the Deceiver can do, each with their own complications. For example, breaking an engine part in the Engine Room means that a PC must first repair the broken part in the Blacksmith room as its own task before being able to work on the Engine Room task (repairing the engine as a whole) on its own. Poisoning food in the kitchen gives the Poisoned condition to any PC who eats the snacks prepared during an Urgent Assembly. The Deceiver, in addition to sabotage, has the ability to murder a PC by taking an action if they’re both in the same room. The Deceiver’s nature is vague although a few monsters are suggested for the DM (lycanthrope, possessing ghost, doppelganger). But instead of resolving it as a typical combat, the murder attempt auto-succeeds with no means of resistance. PCs who die come back as ghosts, and can continue performing tasks on the ship albeit with disadvantage, and they’re also incapable of interacting with or cluing in the other PCs as to the nature of their murder.  When a dead body’s discovered or a PC calls for one by visiting the meeting room on the third round or later, an Urgent Assembly can be gathered where all tasks are stopped and every living PC puts a vote as to who they believe is the Deceiver and thus thrown overboard. Votes can be openly cast or tallied in secret. If the Deceiver’s correctly chosen, then the surviving PCs “win” the adventure. If an innocent is selected, they come back as a ghost. The PCs can also win the adventure if every task is successfully completed, at which point the airship reaches its destination. The Deceiver wins if they either murdered all other PCs or avoid being thrown off the airship. There’s also a mention that the Deceiver technically wins if there’s only one other PC alive, “as they won’t have enough votes to vote the Deceiver off the airship.” This raises the question, then, on what happens if the votes result in a tie? There’s also no mention of what happens if all the tasks are completed (adventurers win) but the Deceiver’s still alive (Deceiver wins). Wouldn’t that be a draw, then? A short epilogue is given, which can differ if done as part of a larger campaign rather than a one-shot. In such a case, the captain can give the party a Monocle of Revelation as a reward, a new rechargeable magic item which can expend charges to grant the wearer truesight (no duration specified) or gain advantage on their next Insight check. Additionally, less-lethal alternatives for losing are given, such as accused PCs being put in a magical dream-like state or correctly identifying the Deceiver allows the PC to be turned back to normal from whatever state which caused them to become a monster. Thoughts: Although I haven’t played Among Us, the inspiration and mechanics of that game are quite clear in Amongst Thou, albeit reflavored for a fantasy airship setting rather than a sci-fi spaceship. I will say that it cleaves a bit too heavily to the game, and while the handling of secret information for games is useful, the adventure fails to discuss or consider the myriad ways 5e PCs have of discerning the murderer. A Zone of Truth cast during an Urgent Assembly can put the Deceiver in a tough spot, although on the other hand one can argue it encourages clever wordplay for the monster’s player. Additionally, a PC with a familiar can have it shadow another PC and use telepathic communication to keep each other aware of their surroundings. Furthermore, monsters aren’t exactly brimming with skill proficiencies, so unless the DM has everyone make die rolls in secret (a tall order) an observant player might notice that the Deceiver pretending to be a Wizard is rather lacking in tool and lore-related proficiencies. Of course, none of these things can break the adventure on its own, but it would’ve been nice to see the book touch upon such subjects.
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Jul 6, 2022 09:25
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By popular demand posted:A shot only serve to numb the pain, completely in opposition to the spirit of the review. I was admittedly vaping weed throughout my reading/notes taking and I can assure you, it did not at all ease my suffering of trying to wrap my brain around some of the bullshit the game threw at me. I think I had to read the section on the Telurian twice to make sure I was actually understanding it and not just extremely high.
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Jul 6, 2022 14:57
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Libertad! posted:the adventure fails to discuss or consider the myriad ways 5e PCs have of discerning the murderer. A Zone of Truth cast during an Urgent Assembly can put the Deceiver in a tough spot, although on the other hand one can argue it encourages clever wordplay for the monster’s player. Additionally, a PC with a familiar can have it shadow another PC and use telepathic communication to keep each other aware of their surroundings. This is something I've seen over and over again in published campaigns that writers attempt to write a detective module, but completely fail to account for common spells like Zone of Truth and Speak With Dead that will shortcut much of the investigation phase.
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Jul 6, 2022 17:50
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Robindaybird posted:This is something I've seen over and over again in published campaigns that writers attempt to write a detective module, but completely fail to account for common spells like Zone of Truth and Speak With Dead that will shortcut much of the investigation phase. It's almost like D&D is loving terrible for mystery games.
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Jul 6, 2022 17:57
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oh it definitely is, though writing mysteries in the fantasy genre can be very tricky unless you explicitly lay out some ground rules.
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Jul 6, 2022 18:05
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Robindaybird posted:This is something I've seen over and over again in published campaigns that writers attempt to write a detective module, but completely fail to account for common spells like Zone of Truth and Speak With Dead that will shortcut much of the investigation phase. While the adventure and setting for it are generally pretty terrible and ungameable, thinking of this kind of stuff is something the old Exalted 1e Invisible Fortress or whatever it was called did an amusingly meta job at. IIRC* all or most of the puzzle-traps work along the lines of if you figure out the password encoded in the environment to try to pass the magic gate, you get crushed by a boulder, because why would a paranoid god-king with magically perfected memory leave a bunch of sticky notes with his secrets on them lying around. Not all that useful as a game supplement, but a little funny. * I never ran it and haven't read it in possibly over a decade.
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Jul 6, 2022 20:38
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