NUNA Playtests, The Silver Machine, Christmas Gifts Oh My!

Did my 2nd playtest at Rain City Games in downtown Vancouver on Saturday. Thanks to the staff for the awesome gaming space!

(The first playtest was online last week with Vancouver Film School (computer games specialization) students. Thank you for all the feedback my lovelies!)

Definitely drop by and give Rain City Games some love (and buy or play some games!) if you are in Vancouver.

(There is also a smaller satellite shop out by my place in New Westminster).

We had two gaming couples and a refugee from a Call of Cthulhu game come out and play The Silver Machine, the introductory scenario of Nuna. The Inuit hunter Tutuak, the shaman whisper Kaubvick, the Maori whaler Silvia, the Rigger roughneck Gonzalo, and the Scientist Synth made their way overland to find The Silver Machine in the Torngat Mountains. The sessions was filled with psychedelic happenings and weird monsters, so very in keeping with the Moorcockean themes I have outlined on this blog. 

What I learned from the latest playtest with normal players:

1) Math be hard. Even those with degrees struggle with it nowadays. Which is why modern Chaosium uses batches of points in chargen at the expense of making attribute scores meaningless. Still, I am basing NUNA on older Chaosium with an infusion of Mork Bork aesthetics, so I have a line in the sand I will not cross.

2) There is a huge appetite for an indigenous game about the arctic that deconstructs the concept of frozen wasteland but instead leans into the reality of a living, bountiful land where life and adventures are bound by the seasons and by the needs of communities. Players were especially excited by the Community Needs rules, where individual experience is replaced with fulfilling community needs to access better NPC support and materials.

3) D&D really has a heavy footprint on the expectations players bring to a table. The two biggest ones that stand out are the Something For Nothing and Give Me A Win tendencies. With Something for Nothing, players will ask things like, "Can I move in such a way that I can hit him but he can't hit me?" Honey, that is what every person in a boxing match or karate dojo asks! I don't see the joy in winning a fight with no risk, and so I politely refuse such entreaties, but I do give advice on actions that might give a higher chance of success.

As for Give Me A Win, players will often say, "I missed 3 times, can I just hit him the 4th?" Once again, I don't see the fun in getting a freebie, as opposed to the thrill of getting a solid hit in after rounds of whiffing. I remember reading D&D 3E with its rule of take 15 instead of rolling an action, and I see how this has become ingrained in gaming culture. Instead, I gave advice on how players could better support their compatriots who were doing damage, making combat victory into a group success.

The verdict from both playlists was that NUNA is solid as a setting and in storytelling possibilities, but that the rules need some polishing. Which is exactly what I was thinking.

So unless something earth shattering comes up, I will be putting the NUNA QuickStart (basic rules + Silver Machine scenario) up for sale on RPG.now (Drive Thru RPG whatever you want to call it) before Christmas.

Nuna basic rules PDF and POD will be out by summer.

Based on the success of that, I will consider Kickstarter for an Expanded edition with a campaign book.