{"id":38,"date":"2014-11-16T21:04:54","date_gmt":"2014-11-17T02:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dodecahedroid.com\/blog\/?p=38"},"modified":"2018-04-14T08:05:52","modified_gmt":"2018-04-14T12:05:52","slug":"metatopia-2014-report-part-2-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dodecahedroid.com\/blog\/2014\/11\/16\/metatopia-2014-report-part-2-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Metatopia 2014 Report – Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a continuation of my convention report for Metatopia 2014. \u00a0(See Part 1<\/a> for more general thoughts about the con.) \u00a0While Part 1 covered the people and games that I had particularly set out to see, Parts 2 and 3 will cover the designers I met for the first time and the games I hadn't known about prior to the convention.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer (again): It bears repeating that the games\u00a0mentioned here are\u00a0currently in development, and so everything I describe about them is subject to change. \u00a0It also means that as of this writing, none of them are yet on the market. \u00a0If anything here interests you, I highly recommend that you keep an eye on the designers' media outlets to keep up-to-date with the latest news.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Medias Res<\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\nVivian Abraham<\/strong>
\nThis is a card-based storytelling game, something in the vein of\u00a0Once Upon a Time<\/em>. \u00a0As the name implies, it's not so much about\u00a0building<\/em> a story, as the game is meant to play out a fight scene, presumably in the middle of some other (irrelevant) tale. \u00a0Each player is a combatant in some massive brawl, and that's about all you know going into the game. \u00a0Before the main action starts, players contribute cards toward the setting and circumstances of the fight, and they even play cards that outline the victory conditions for that session. \u00a0Once all that is set up, it's game on. \u00a0It's definitely wired for fast play; you pretty much just get one action, and that's it. \u00a0You can attack, or you can set up a defense for later use. \u00a0(There's no reactive defense component, either, so each turn\u00a0is\u00a0really<\/em> fast.) \u00a0Both attacks and defenses have \"types\" that play off each other, and there are some other mechanics that might come up to modify the strength of your attack. \u00a0The strength of your attack dictates the size of your dice pool, and a \"count the successes\"\u00a0mechanic tallies up some scale of effect. \u00a0Rather than reducing a health counter, attacks result in various \"effects\" (like \"stunned\" or \"entangled\") which have mechanical impact on your future actions. \u00a0Actions, like attacks and defenses, come out of each player's hand. \u00a0Damage effects come out of a common pool shared by all players. \u00a0You keep going around until the game is over, and as I mentioned, the conditions that end the game are also cards that were played, so they can be different each time.<\/p>\n

This game was pre-alpha, so I imagine what it ends up being will be very different from what I saw. \u00a0It so far seems like a tough game to balance from a design standpoint, not because of card power, which is actually elegantly symmetrical, but because turn order seems like such a significant\u00a0deciding factor. \u00a0In particular, the lack of reactive defense means that first turn order is a really big deal. \u00a0The game plays a bit short for my personal taste, but I can see it being a delightful fight mechanic in a larger game, or even an add-on to an existing system\u00a0-- something that let's you quickly narrate fights scenes that aren't of real consequence to an RPG scenario. \u00a0Take the classic old-school tavern brawl, a mainstay of so many beginning adventurers' careers. \u00a0You want to play out the fight, but you don't want a wayward barstool to take out your 1st-level wizard, right? \u00a0I could see something like this game fueling\u00a0a fun and fast way to go through those fight scenes where you know that, win or lose, the people involved\u00a0will just end up with bumps and bruises, but you don't just want to handwave the whole thing, either. \u00a0But as a standalone game, I don't know if I could really sell it.<\/p>\n

One side note just for my personal joy is that in this playtest I sat next to Fred Hicks of Evil Hat<\/a> fame! \u00a0He had zero\u00a0qualms zombie-hunting me into oblivion.<\/p>\n

Terra Incognita<\/em><\/span><\/strong>
\nVivian Abraham<\/strong>
\nYes, that is the same designer from\u00a0Medias Res<\/em>, above. \u00a0Two things were significant about these two playtests I had with the same designer. \u00a0One, I had these two slots back-to-back. \u00a0Two, I didn't realize when I was registering that they were run by the same person. \u00a0So, though it was a happy coincidence that I got to check both these games out, I'd like to state for the record that it was not actually some weird stalkery thing that had me following the designer around that whole morning.<\/p>\n

Terra Incognita<\/em> is an RPG with a system based heavily on the\u00a0D&D<\/em> and\u00a0Pathfinder<\/em> models. \u00a0The setting is likewise based in familiar fantasy ground, but with some key differences between it and\u00a0the standard Tolkienesque mold. \u00a0Firstly, there are no non-human fantasy races. \u00a0Certainly not PC-playable, anyway (I realize now that I don't know\u00a0the status of sentient humanoid enemies). \u00a0Secondly, where the classic fantasy setting is fueled largely by European mythologies,\u00a0Terra Incognita<\/em> draws more from North, Central, and South American native mythologies as well as cultural impact from European colonialism. \u00a0I very much liked the concept of it, but I realized afterward that it put me in a strange place trying to put the setting on a timeline.<\/p>\n

The playtest I was in focused largely on challenge resolution, but pointedly\u00a0not<\/em> combat resolution, which is fine by me. \u00a0If there's anything that\u00a0D&D<\/em> and\u00a0Pathfinder<\/em>\u00a0systems (and their ilk\u00a0--\u00a0what Ken and Robin<\/a> have referred to as \"F20\" for \"fantasy D20\") already pay attention to, it's combat resolution. \u00a0We were presented with two major scenes to resolve. \u00a0One was an immediate crisis, certainly something that needed attention and action, but didn't require the fine-grained action economy native to D20-style combat time. \u00a0The second was more of a slow burn; things needed doing, but it was somewhat open-ended exactly how we went about it, and time wasn't nearly the factor that it was in the crisis scene or that it would have been in a combat scene. \u00a0The crisis scene plays a lot like combat: initiative order, actions per turn, and like that. \u00a0I think the real difference was just the scale of game time per turn. \u00a0It was an undefined amount, if I recall correctly, but it was decidedly longer than a combat turn. \u00a0The latter challenge had a very interesting mechanic. \u00a0For overcoming an extended challenge of some kind, rather than repeated skill rolls and accumulating successes, group members instead would take turns pooling skill points against a challenge. \u00a0For example, our group was trying to find water, so I contributed one point of \"Survival,\" another character contributed another point of \"Survival,\" I eventually threw one in for \"Geography,\" and like that. \u00a0Points could be applied with the narration of the contribution, and as the turn would go around, we would get updates from the GM on how we were progressing. \u00a0I enjoyed the skill point pool mechanic for the non-combat challenges. \u00a0(Vivian called the non-combat challenges\u00a0\"downtime,\" but the name met with a little resistance, so we'll see.) \u00a0I'm largely in favor of mechanics that, while still taking the \"skill level\" of characters into account, nonetheless remove the randomness factor when there's no immediate danger or drama.<\/p>\n

Special character powers and maneuvers and such had a strong\u00a0D&D4<\/em>\/13th Age<\/em> kind of feel, with a collection of abilities that you could access as an action on your turn. \u00a0If I recall, I believe pretty much everything in that vein was at-will? \u00a0I might be wrong about that, though. \u00a0There was also another category, though (feats, possibly? -- my memory is failing me) which granted characters some constant bonus or benefit, but which could be \"activated\" (I think these were once per scene, but again, not positive) for a one-time bigger buff. \u00a0Similar to the latter were also add-ons to your ability stats. \u00a0These could be positive or negative, and would either give some constant bonus or penalty to your character. \u00a0They could both, though, also be \"activated,\" and both positive and negative characteristics would still give you some kind of bonus, which I thought was an excellent design point. \u00a0(For example, the character I played had the negative aspect \"Illiterate,\" and so as a constant penalty, couldn't read. \u00a0If I \"activated\" that aspect, however, I could perfectly memorize something I was perceiving. \u00a0Neat!)<\/p>\n

Which actually brings me to the big takeaway I had from this system, which unfortunately I didn't get to witness firsthand, but of course was affected by: character creation! \u00a0There was a very slick, very cool mechanic for allocation of stat points\u00a0and<\/em> stat add-ons during character creation. \u00a0Basically, the number of positive and negative aspects you can have on a stat isn't\u00a0necessarily<\/em> tied to how high or low that ability is. \u00a0For example, I could have a perfectly average dexterity\u00a0rating, but I might have the aspect \"Sprinter\" or \"Perfect Balance\" or \"Light-Fingered.\" \u00a0That is, it is still possible for a character have pretty individualized strengths and weaknesses\u00a0without<\/em> affecting (or being affected by, really) their overall ability ratings. \u00a0I found this to be a very exciting aspect (heh) of the system. \u00a0If for no other reason than that, I'm eager to keep an eye on the progress this game's development.<\/p>\n

A note on design themes that excite me<\/span><\/strong>
\nI wanted to pause the recap for a moment and talk about the interesting experience of testing two different games from the same designer. \u00a0These games were very different from each other in broad category, setting, mechanics, you name it. \u00a0Medias Res<\/i> was a quick-play, card-based story game, and\u00a0Terra Incognita<\/em> was, though enhanced, at its heart an F20-style RPG. \u00a0What the two games had in common, though (besides being named for common phrases in Latin) was that they were both an attempt to marry the old-school tactical gamer with the new jack narrative gamer. \u00a0Although it is seldom a marriage made anywhere close to Heaven, it is still a cause near and dear to my own heart, and I appreciate the effort. \u00a0(As an aside, my personal feeling is that the greatest triumph in this area to date is the astoundingly cool\u00a013th Age<\/em><\/a>, but that is a\u00a0whole<\/em> other blog post.)<\/p>\n

It was very interesting (and cool!) to me to see two very different approaches to this situation taken by the same designer. \u00a0I believe (though I admit that this is pure speculation) that the intent is not so much to make a game that would appeal to those different kinds of gamers, but to make a game that would bring those gamers together. \u00a0As a GM, one of the more tiring challenges is to keep different kinds of players happy in the same game. \u00a0This generally means a kind of round-robin style of appeasement, but I'm of the opinion that more, consistent fun in a group is a whole greater than the sum of its parts. \u00a0Which is to say, I believe that games are more fun when everybody is having a good time at once. \u00a0(Is that super-obvious? \u00a0Sometimes I can't tell when I'm being smart or just figuring out something that everybody already knows.) \u00a0For that reason, I'm very interested in games and systems that can keep a mixed group of narrative-heavy players and tactical-heavy players interested for long periods of time, and I feel like\u00a0Terra Incognita<\/em> has a lot of potential in that area. \u00a0And for\u00a0that<\/em> reason, I'm excited about and very interested in the future of this game. \u00a0I hope to learn more about it soon!<\/p>\n

To be continued...
\n<\/strong>These always seem to end up being longer than I plan on. \u00a0We should be nearing the end, though, with the upcoming Part 3!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a continuation of my convention report for Metatopia 2014. \u00a0(See Part 1 for more general thoughts about the con.) \u00a0While Part 1 covered the people and games that I had particularly set out to see, Parts 2 and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-con-report","tag-metatopia-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92GDP-C","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dodecahedroid.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dodecahedroid.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dodecahedroid.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dodecahedroid.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dodecahedroid.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dodecahedroid.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39,"href":"https:\/\/dodecahedroid.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions\/39"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dodecahedroid.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dodecahedroid.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dodecahedroid.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}