LucasC
First Post
NOTE: This game used the original playtest packet, not the revised rules.
Tuesday night we ran a very short encounter and then made characters.
The game is set on Earth, present day. Each of my players is playing themselves and responding to an invasion by aliens. If you’re interested in reading about the game, the characters and what-not you can do so at my blog.
You can find the character sheets here.
1. General Good
2. Questions
I may have just missed these but here are some questions.
3. Prerequisites
I found many of the prerequisites for careers annoying. In most cases we ended up ignoring them outright.
Some of the things that stood out to me:
Much of this ‘wonkyness’ was derived from attempting to emulate our own real-life experiences inside the boundaries of the N.E.W. game. Here’s one example.
Aaron (real life)
Aaron (N.E.W.)
4. Career Gaps
There are some gaps in the career choices. Again, our approach of attempting to emulate our rather dull (by RPG standards) backgrounds aggravated this no doubt.
Missing from the starter careers:
Missing from the after-starter careers:
We quickly created the following two partial careers to use:
5. Speed
I think you need to reconsider how you get to a characters Speed. Two of my six PCs have a speed score of 3. This is not because they did anything to lower their Agility, but rather because nothing raised it.
We use a miniature board and in actual gameplay, a 3 Speed is going to be crippling. I would be willing to bet that, once we make characters the normal way, no one will consider playing a character that doesn’t get to at least 5 in speed. This will then have to come at the expense of choosing non-physical career choices.
6. Age
I won’t say much here as you’ve already stated that you’re working on alternatives but I like the concept but not the implementation.
7. Variance
I don’t know yet if this matters, but I have observed some very large discrepancies in fundamental parts of the character sheet between these characters.
8. Miscellany
Hope some of that helps! We'll be back at it next week. If there are any particular sections you'd like tested just let me know and I can write my adventures around that.
Lucas
Tuesday night we ran a very short encounter and then made characters.
The game is set on Earth, present day. Each of my players is playing themselves and responding to an invasion by aliens. If you’re interested in reading about the game, the characters and what-not you can do so at my blog.
You can find the character sheets here.
1. General Good
- Without exception, everyone enjoyed the process and likes the way a character evolves through selection of different life events
- The ‘process’ checklist on page 16 is very helpful and I used it to guide everyone through the steps of making a character
- The guidelines for creating custom content are great, this is the first game I’ve seen them with and I’ve used them several times already – in regards to the career guides, some specific targets for +/- would be helpful. I was pretty hesitant to hand out +2 to a stat for fear of breaking something, but that left me with 2 custom careers that total just +2 overall.
2. Questions
I may have just missed these but here are some questions.
- Can a stat be reduced to 0 (presumably no, but what happens if it should be)?
- Can Reputation and/or Credits fall below 0? Any consequence if they should be?
- Can a Career offer a choice in ability bumps? Such as +1 Str, +1 Agi and +1 Int OR Wil? I know that none do, but is that intentional or just you didn't happen to have any you thought should?
- Should a custom-built career try to get to +3 overall?
- During character creation, when are detriments chosen? At the end, or during the process each time a score becomes 1?
3. Prerequisites
I found many of the prerequisites for careers annoying. In most cases we ended up ignoring them outright.
Some of the things that stood out to me:
- Humans are ineligible for a number of starting careers due to the restriction that states you cannot select a career that lowers a stat to 1, this includes:
- Genetic experiment
- High school jock
- Wealthy upbringing
- I suppose they could use their floating point to offset that reduction but I’m not sure that is the intended use of that point.
- A human High School Jock that doesn’t put his/her floating point into Int is ineligible for College since the Int prereq is 2. College is actually a likely next step for a high school jock however.
- That same jock, now college education cannot join the Priesthood since it requires Will 3. In fact, I note that only one starter career grants a Will bonus (monastery) but lots of people go to college and then become priests.
Much of this ‘wonkyness’ was derived from attempting to emulate our own real-life experiences inside the boundaries of the N.E.W. game. Here’s one example.
Aaron (real life)
- Played sports in school (high school jock)
- Went on to college where he studied business (college)
- Completed his Bachelors and became a youth pastor (priest)
Aaron (N.E.W.)
- Ineligible for High School Jock as it would force his Int to 1. (I told him to pick it anyhow)
- Ineligible for College as it requires Int 2 and High School Jock drops you to Int 1.
- Ineligible for Priest as it requires Wil 3 and none of his choices thus far grant a Wil bonus.
4. Career Gaps
There are some gaps in the career choices. Again, our approach of attempting to emulate our rather dull (by RPG standards) backgrounds aggravated this no doubt.
Missing from the starter careers:
- A ‘normal’ life (we ended up using Street Kid for our ‘default’ but the description of this suggests a bad childhood which isn’t the case for most of us)
Missing from the after-starter careers:
- Skilled trades such as carpentry, electricians, plumbers, etc.
- Computer work
- Teacher (there is an academy instructor but that has a military feel and my player who is a teacher thought the politician better captured his day-to-day)
We quickly created the following two partial careers to use:
Skilled Tradesman [repeatable] [1d6 years]
Stats: STR +1 END +1 CR +1
Skills: Skilled Trade (electrician, carpentry, plumbing, masonry, etc.)
Special: You begin play with a set of tools for your trade worth $750 credits.
Stats: STR +1 END +1 CR +1
Skills: Skilled Trade (electrician, carpentry, plumbing, masonry, etc.)
Special: You begin play with a set of tools for your trade worth $750 credits.
Computer Jockey [repeatable] [1d6 years]
Stats: Int +1, Will +1, Cr +1
Skills: As teenage hacker
Special: Undefined
Stats: Int +1, Will +1, Cr +1
Skills: As teenage hacker
Special: Undefined
5. Speed
I think you need to reconsider how you get to a characters Speed. Two of my six PCs have a speed score of 3. This is not because they did anything to lower their Agility, but rather because nothing raised it.
We use a miniature board and in actual gameplay, a 3 Speed is going to be crippling. I would be willing to bet that, once we make characters the normal way, no one will consider playing a character that doesn’t get to at least 5 in speed. This will then have to come at the expense of choosing non-physical career choices.
6. Age
I won’t say much here as you’ve already stated that you’re working on alternatives but I like the concept but not the implementation.
7. Variance
I don’t know yet if this matters, but I have observed some very large discrepancies in fundamental parts of the character sheet between these characters.
Health- Aaron 8, Chris 8, Matt 9, Chance 11, Dan 12, Jeremy 30
Defense- Dan 16, Aaron/Matt/Chance/Jeremy 19, Chris 25
Defense- Dan 16, Aaron/Matt/Chance/Jeremy 19, Chris 25
8. Miscellany
- High School jock could use more skill choices
- It doesn’t seem to me that Traits should have prerequisites – these don’t offer an in-game bonus and are roleplaying opportunities – they do grant XP but again that is when you roleplay them.
- The skill list for College seems highly restrictive, when I would expect it to be the exact opposite. Excepting a short-list of restricted skills, you can just about learn anything in college.
Hope some of that helps! We'll be back at it next week. If there are any particular sections you'd like tested just let me know and I can write my adventures around that.
Lucas
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