New Playtest Report: Prophecy of the Priestess

[Scholar & Brutalman]

New Playtest Report from Greg Bilsland.

 

[Reaper Steve]

Hmmm...
Not much to go on, there.
Although it did seem like he was providing a narrative of the social encounter resolution.
The first two 'challenges' were 1) realize that this is a lawful execution, not a mob, and 2)the priestess needed the noble's approval to light the fire.
I say we don't need rolls for that, as it was immediately obvious from the description of the event. Not impressed so far.
The third task, discerning the emotions of the key nobles, was decent.

I have high hopes for the social challenges, but if I am inferring correctly from what what presented, I don't like the path they are going down. I followed Robin Laws' development of GUMSHOE, an RPG in the vein of Call of Cthulhu. He identified the problem in CoC--that if die rolls are used to determine if necessary clues are found--the the game is hosed as soon as a bad roll is made. The GUMSHOE system ensures the necessary clues are found, but how and at what cost (and any bonus clues) is what is decided by the tests.

In this playtest, what would have happened if the PCs failed task one and thought it was a mob action? Or failed task two and thought the priestess was in charge? Or failed task three and misread the nobles?

 

[DandD]

Hmm, quite nice. I do wonder if the woman that escaped was either some kind of Harpye sorceress... or an Erynies.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

There's actually a half-elf PC, which we haven't seen before in the playtests. But they were mentioned elsewhere.

 

[Celebrim]

I concur with RS. I also noted this bit:

"Having just played through 3.5 battles this weekend, the difference was noticeable. I found myself infrequently referring to the stat blocks, for I was able to remember, even with three creatures, what the monsters were capable of."

The three creatures in question are human commoner skeletons, zombies, and some presumably poorly armed or even unarmed goblins. Not exactly creatures that are overrun with combat options even in 3.5. It's hard to imagine that they'll get more stripped down from 'between zero and one' come 4e.

I really hate the 'gotta mention the talking points' nature of so many of WotC's posts for 4e. You'd think that they were Presidential candidates or something.

 

[FireLance]

In this playtest, what would have happened if the PCs failed task one and thought it was a mob action? Or failed task two and thought the priestess was in charge? Or failed task three and misread the nobles?

Hilarity would ensue.

And after the DM has stopped snickering, he can insert more clues for the PCs to find in the next adventure (and the next, if necessary, and so on), and wait for the Kodak moment of slowly dawning realization that should eventually occur.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Hmmm...
Not much to go on, there.
Although it did seem like he was providing a narrative of the social encounter resolution.
The first two 'challenges' were 1) realize that this is a lawful execution, not a mob, and 2)the priestess needed the noble's approval to light the fire.
I say we don't need rolls for that, as it was immediately obvious from the description of the event. Not impressed so far.
The third task, discerning the emotions of the key nobles, was decent.

I have high hopes for the social challenges, but if I am inferring correctly from what what presented, I don't like the path they are going down. I followed Robin Laws' development of GUMSHOE, an RPG in the vein of Call of Cthulhu. He identified the problem in CoC--that if die rolls are used to determine if necessary clues are found--the the game is hosed as soon as a bad roll is made. The GUMSHOE system ensures the necessary clues are found, but how and at what cost (and any bonus clues) is what is decided by the tests.

In this playtest, what would have happened if the PCs failed task one and thought it was a mob action? Or failed task two and thought the priestess was in charge? Or failed task three and misread the nobles?

I think you might be reading too much into this... As the writer said, this was a session filled with exposition and plot introduction, not normal gameplay. There is no reason to assume that this was supposed to be a series of social challenges. After all, we know already that social challenges involve interacting with NPCs, and here, the PCs were not given the time to actually try to debate with or perusade the various NPCs at all.

Nothing here is outside the realm of basic stuff like "Make a sense motive check" or "Make a gather information check".

If you are looking for crunch details, the only thing we have to go on are the vague class descriptions and a few sentences on how the party wiped did different things to tkae out a minor threat.

Oh, and horses apparently withstood certain magical effects. Since that surprised the playtest DM, I am suddenly confused about the supposed static save vs. variable attack thing that has been laid out as the model of 4E.

 

[Tharen the Damned]

Quote:
"Having just played through 3.5 battles this weekend, the difference was noticeable. I found myself infrequently referring to the stat blocks, for I was able to remember, even with three creatures, what the monsters were capable of."


The three creatures in question are human commoner skeletons, zombies, and some presumably poorly armed or even unarmed goblins. Not exactly creatures that are overrun with combat options even in 3.5. It's hard to imagine that they'll get more stripped down from 'between zero and one' come 4e.

Yeah, this battle is not so difficult to run.

 

[FadedC]

I have to agree that it's not a social challenge, just a few skill checks being made to pick up tidbits of information. Really not at all different then what you would see in 3.5. If the PCs had missed the information it's unlikely much would have changed unless they barged in to stop things, which I suspect the DM was prepared for.

 

[Cadfan]

I have to agree that it's not a social challenge, just a few skill checks being made to pick up tidbits of information. Really not at all different then what you would see in 3.5. If the PCs had missed the information it's unlikely much would have changed unless they barged in to stop things, which I suspect the DM was prepared for.

emphasis added

I believe that was the point.