Session Notes and System Thoughts: N.E.W. Playtest August

[RisTigger]

So I finally convinced my group to play N.E.W. Yay!

This first session was a character creation / get to know the system session. It took a few hours for everyone to get used to character creation but they eventually adapted to it and really liked it.

We're going for a soft sci-fi cinematic game. The players are trapped on an alien ship and taken around the universe to random locations (I totally didn't steal the idea from SGU or Red Dwarf).

Our Cast

• M.A.X. I is a Massive Reckless Tall Android Marine who Watches Action Movies.

• Alerana is a Rugged Forgetful Young Thin Spartan Sniper who knows about Vintage Weapons.

• ? is a Well-Known Anemic Medium Android Super Star who sings.

• ? is a Lame Well-Known Adolescent Corpulent Borian Prodigy who Loves Eating.

And that's the cast. We've got one more player but he hasn't built his character yet. It should be fun because we've got a diverse cast.


My players threw themselves into the system and I got a lot of good feedback I wanted to share.

• Why does ninja hide? (You put a ninja career on the career list and now it's hiding. Help us find it.)
• Change Side-Effect of Drug rules. It feels very unrealistic. I suggest that side-effects stack up to the WIL or END stat.
• Make it clearer how Credits are calculated. This was the biggest thing we all had a problem with. Either add a better example of how this is done or make it clearer.
• Does SOAK stack? We've got an android who has natural soak and battle armor. Does that stack? It doesn't feel like it should and in my game it doesn't.
• Add something else for College II? This career grade feels a little underwhelming.
• Actions for drawing weapons? The action in NEW says drawing sidearm, not drawing weapon.
• More Social Exploits. One of my players is playing someone that sucks at combat. He really wants more social exploits to give him more options. He likes the current ones but really wants more.
• Rules for duel wielding? This might have been us being derp but it might help by being clearer.
• Memory Chip implant, adds +1 LOG or +1 INT. Conflicting attribute bonus.
• Rush Career / Dropout: Gain Attributes, but don’t gain Exploits or Skills. Gain the name of the career for per-requisites. Only gain half the age. (This was an optional rule we thought up during character creation. It would be interesting if the character failed at the career they took but still got some bonuses from it. We didn't use it in the game but it was something we all discussed.)
• Is the Spartan Battle School a Starter career even though it has grades?
• Work on clarity of the system. This should definitely improve over time, but a lot of things just aren't clear.
• Add Attribute chart to Attribute Chapter. This is just a cosmetic thing, but it would be nice.
• Media Star II, define a limit for vehicle choice. Getting ANY vehicle is kind of ridiculous.
• Biopsychic should need a PSI per-requisite.
• What does quality do for vehicles? We could not find this anywhere.
• Keep Starter Careers together even if they’re species dependent. It's really annoying flipping to the back of the career section for a Starting career.
• Give the free items a price for quality and when they’re combined. It's really unbalanced when you can upgrade these items. Either give them a price or a temporary price for these purposes.
• Don't use all Capitals in the bookmarks (also clean up the bookmarks in the PDF).
• Can haz mur stuffs? More careers and exploits please!
• We need a LOC 7! They REALLY liked the attribute examples chart.

Other than making characters, nothing happened. Despite all the flaws, my players said they enjoyed making characters and they think the system has a lot of potential (some like it more than others but they're all excited to play). We're going to TRY and record our sessions and upload them to youtube. We shall see how that goes. I'll post all the new info I get in the thread.

 

[RisTigger]

I'm going to write up the last players character (Still haven't chosen names. My players are weird). He's got a custom race as well.

This player is having trouble thinking of ideas for his character so this is subject to changes...lots and lots of changes. *le sigh*

• ? is an Illiterate Alert Adult Draconian Assassin who plays the Flute.

And here's the custom race, the Draconian. If you've read the core, you'll recognize them as I just re-skinned and modified a race the book uses to show how to make a race. I also added flavor text that would make the dragon race more interesting.

DRACONIAN
Draconians are an alien race originating from a desert planet. They became a slave race and fought in proxy wars across the galaxy. They’re adept survivors and when they were freed from slavery, they adapted into the new high tech society before them. Their dragon like features are why humans gave them the nicknames Draconian.
As adventurers, they usually work as guards or guides.

STATISTICS
Size: Large
Attributes: STR +1, END +1, WIL +1, PSI -2
Skill choices: Survival, Climbing, Intimidate

EXPLOITS

• The cold-blooded Draconians suffer from Vulnerability (1d6) cold.
• Draconians have a ion breath attack; this targets one creature adjacent to the Draconian and is an END vs. DEFENSE attack. On a successful hit, it does 3d6 ion damage.
• A Draconian's tail makes it extremely stable. Any attempt to knock down a Draconian suffers a -2d6 die penalty.

Height: 6’5”
Weight: 300 lb.

AGES
Adolescent: 3-6
Young: 7-14
Adult: 15-29
Middle-Age: 30-35
Old: 50-64
Venerable: 65

 

[Morrus]

Cool! You reskinned the Saurian?

 

[RisTigger]

Cool! You reskinned the Saurian?

Yep. My friend loves the dragonborn from D&D and asked me to make them in NEW. I saw the Saurian and thought it worked perfectly, though he changed their breath weapon to "ion" to give them a little more uniqueness. I just slotted in the dragonborns weight, height and age from 4e. I also tried writing a story for the race, as I wanted them to be an underdeveloped race that's never discovered FTL or space flight but were integrated into modern society because of their past as slave soldiers. My friend was very happy with the results.

 

[Morrus]

Thanks for the feedback, BTW!

Is the ninja missing? Yikes. I wonder how that happened!

That credits rule has been reclarified a pile of times. I guess I'm striking out on that one!

SOAK stacking is a big ticket feedback item. As written, it does. But that's very subject to Playtesting.

Drawing weapons is free.

The dual wielding rule us under double weapons, I think. I'm not sure offhand where I put it and I'm on my phone right now.

Vehicle quality is as yet unwritten. Likely speed, luxury, maybe toughness.

 

[Pixel]

SOAK stacking is a big ticket feedback item. As written, it does. But that's very subject to Playtesting.

I'm a player in the game (I play as M.A.X. I). How would the stacking work with multiple armors? I figure it wouldn't, and I'm having a hard time trying to figure out if the SOAK from the android would OP my character, as he's size large, got the armor exploit and is a star marine, so he's got the added basic battlesuit for a SOAK 20 then. It would take something along the lines of a heavy weapon to reliably damage him. A Gatling laser deals 5d6 damage, which averages to 18, which is still under SOAK, but I think I will try to convince my GM to make it count for the sake of playtesting, and if it seems OP we can just remove the stacking on the fly.

Otherwise, I like the system, it's got a whole lot of potential so keep doing the awesome work ^^

 

[Morrus]

I'm a player in the game (I play as M.A.X. I). How would the stacking work with multiple armors? I figure it wouldn't, and I'm having a hard time trying to figure out if the SOAK from the android would OP my character, as he's size large, got the armor exploit and is a star marine, so he's got the added basic battlesuit for a SOAK 20 then. It would take something along the lines of a heavy weapon to reliably damage him. A Gatling laser deals 5d6 damage, which averages to 18, which is still under SOAK, but I think I will try to convince my GM to make it count for the sake of playtesting, and if it seems OP we can just remove the stacking on the fly.

Otherwise, I like the system, it's got a whole lot of potential so keep doing the awesome work ^^

It's important to remember that the base damage of a weapon is minimal. You need to increase it by exchanging attack dice in order to be effective in combat. Lots of attack dice means more accuracy and more damage!

 

[Pixel]

It's important to remember that the base damage of a weapon is minimal. You need to increase it by exchanging attack dice in order to be effective in combat. Lots of attack dice means more accuracy and more damage!

Ofcause We haven't had a play session yet, so I have no playing experience yet. But looking at it that way, it actually doesn't seem that OP. Playing it will really be interesting

 

[Morrus]

Ofcause We haven't had a play session yet, so I have no playing experience yet. But looking at it that way, it actually doesn't seem that OP. Playing it will really be interesting

Be sure to let me know! As I said, SOAK is very playtest-sensitive right now; one of the most so, right now, in fact. It's one of those tiny tweaks which will have enormous ramifications.

 

[Pixel]

Be sure to let me know! As I said, SOAK is very playtest-sensitive right now; one of the most so, right now, in fact. It's one of those tiny tweaks which will have enormous ramifications.

I'm very curious too as I built my character to be a sturdy melee, fighting with sword and shield (oversized longsword and large duranium shield), so hopefully he'll take some punishment.