The Mushroom Press Design Blog

Did the playtest last night. Whew. Some thoughts:

1. I still haven't nailed the time structure of the game. We found a really good "zen" between turns organically as we played, so that's become the new standard. Writing it down in comprehensible language, as a process, is going to be the trick (that and internally balancing it)

2. The game lends itself to displays of horror. Once again, the players painted a tapestry of terror with their portrayal of the characters. It was a thing of dark majesty.

3. We had a "false start" in the beginning: I had stripped their characters of everything but their character mechanic (no minions or resources) believing this would make things simpler; oh how wrong I was. It left the players rudderless, without direction. I immediately gave them back their stuff, and they dove right in.

4. NPCs have like, no hope in a contest with the PCs (this was intentional). Its not just the power disparity either (although yeah, its a pretty big gulf): its that the NPCs don't understand that they're in a horror game. I'm curious what a savvy NPCs could accomplish.

5. Player feedback; the character sheet could use a "notes" section

6. I had XP as per the amount of souls you claimed (by killing fools). I'm reconsidering this; I want to incentivize players to build up territory and power structures, not just kill a ton of people. I'll need to put my thinking cap on to create a better incentive structure.

7. This attempt is leagues closer than the previous test. And that test was homing in on what I wanted.

I'm considering this test a solid stepping stone. Now for some thinking, design and re-writing for test #3.

Character sheet