Finally got a chance to run this today. Had a blast! My players will always remember the heroic sacrifice of Viney Vinnsauce.
Some mechanics I came up with on the fly included using an oversized MtG spindown to roll with advantage on a sneak attack, repeated checks to climb the walls costing HP for the next encounter, introducing an ally NPC for one fight (I wanted to try rolling too), and for the final encounter as the sun rose, I did a wave-based encounter where each enemy killed before sunrise would restore 1 HP and progress the time, and once four were killed, I summoned a Patriarch, with the dawn initiating as a fifth was brought to 1 block left (remaining alive due to the Patriarch), dealing 1 damage to each enemy at the start of a round.
One thing I've found is that the Spine Gourd is surprisingly strong. Being able to guarantee damage against a 1 block enemy is not to be taken lightly, as the last hit point is otherwise the hardest to take.
These are really good mechanical additions! Progressing the time to sunrise in particular is a really good way to keep tempo during a scenario's finale.
Guaranteed damage I assumed would have a place in a meta, but I did my testing individually for this game, so I might've missed how good it is on a team. I'm not sure I have an idea for how I want to calibrate it yet, but I'll do some thinking about a patch.
Also a saber salute to Viney Vinnsauce! His memory shall remain!
First off, this game is amazing. Secondly, it brought to mind a balance concern I'd never thought of before, because unlike 99.9% of pen and paper RPG it involves physically yeeting dice at things. Different kinds of dice have different ballistic properties! Most plastic d20 are going to behave similarly, but I feel like heavy duty metal ones like I've been privileged to own a few sets of would have considerably more force and momentum.
Every time I read "stacking blocks or dominoes" I mentally find-replaced that with just "standard dominoes", because "stacking blocks" outside of the specific context of Jenga (or I guess Dread) don't have any standardized shape or size.
Two final thoughts, A) is there any particular reason that losing is not possible and is vampire prison by default and that this game is 'play until you win'? I feel like generally speaking the possibility of a TPK/bad ending adds spice and savor and nothing about this gourd-based premise seems to me to clash with that.
B) have you thought about giving the boss vampires the ability to 'play goalie' against (a limited number of) the player's rolls (in a turn)? I feel like this could really spice things up and add excitement. Curious if you tried anything like this in playtesting.
Yep! There's definitely some ways to calibrate the game outside of its current ruleset.
Using different dice materials or dominoes/blocks will affect gameplay. Metal dice feel a little less controllable, but def strike with more force. You could maybe build an advantage/disadvantage mechanic around heavier and lighter dice.
The no-TPK rule is stylistic. It's not essential, although it loosely aligns with swashbuckling fiction.
Goalie rules I hadn't thought about, and might get tricky with metal dice, but could definitely add a level of counterplay to the game.
This is maybe the most fun I've ever had reading a game. The text is hilarious and plays up the game's silly tone. It's actually very inspiring from a game dev perspective - I want to be able to write game text like this someday! It's guaranteed to put a smile on your face.
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Finally got a chance to run this today. Had a blast! My players will always remember the heroic sacrifice of Viney Vinnsauce.
Some mechanics I came up with on the fly included using an oversized MtG spindown to roll with advantage on a sneak attack, repeated checks to climb the walls costing HP for the next encounter, introducing an ally NPC for one fight (I wanted to try rolling too), and for the final encounter as the sun rose, I did a wave-based encounter where each enemy killed before sunrise would restore 1 HP and progress the time, and once four were killed, I summoned a Patriarch, with the dawn initiating as a fifth was brought to 1 block left (remaining alive due to the Patriarch), dealing 1 damage to each enemy at the start of a round.
One thing I've found is that the Spine Gourd is surprisingly strong. Being able to guarantee damage against a 1 block enemy is not to be taken lightly, as the last hit point is otherwise the hardest to take.
These are really good mechanical additions! Progressing the time to sunrise in particular is a really good way to keep tempo during a scenario's finale.
Guaranteed damage I assumed would have a place in a meta, but I did my testing individually for this game, so I might've missed how good it is on a team. I'm not sure I have an idea for how I want to calibrate it yet, but I'll do some thinking about a patch.
Also a saber salute to Viney Vinnsauce! His memory shall remain!
First off, this game is amazing. Secondly, it brought to mind a balance concern I'd never thought of before, because unlike 99.9% of pen and paper RPG it involves physically yeeting dice at things. Different kinds of dice have different ballistic properties! Most plastic d20 are going to behave similarly, but I feel like heavy duty metal ones like I've been privileged to own a few sets of would have considerably more force and momentum.
Every time I read "stacking blocks or dominoes" I mentally find-replaced that with just "standard dominoes", because "stacking blocks" outside of the specific context of Jenga (or I guess Dread) don't have any standardized shape or size.
Two final thoughts, A) is there any particular reason that losing is not possible and is vampire prison by default and that this game is 'play until you win'? I feel like generally speaking the possibility of a TPK/bad ending adds spice and savor and nothing about this gourd-based premise seems to me to clash with that.
B) have you thought about giving the boss vampires the ability to 'play goalie' against (a limited number of) the player's rolls (in a turn)? I feel like this could really spice things up and add excitement. Curious if you tried anything like this in playtesting.
Yep! There's definitely some ways to calibrate the game outside of its current ruleset.
Using different dice materials or dominoes/blocks will affect gameplay. Metal dice feel a little less controllable, but def strike with more force. You could maybe build an advantage/disadvantage mechanic around heavier and lighter dice.
The no-TPK rule is stylistic. It's not essential, although it loosely aligns with swashbuckling fiction.
Goalie rules I hadn't thought about, and might get tricky with metal dice, but could definitely add a level of counterplay to the game.
This is maybe the most fun I've ever had reading a game. The text is hilarious and plays up the game's silly tone. It's actually very inspiring from a game dev perspective - I want to be able to write game text like this someday! It's guaranteed to put a smile on your face.