testing
Welcome back, dear reader. I’m revitalized and rearing to go so lets get straight into it. I spent 2 weeks exploring Scotland’s Highlands and the Lake District in England and it makes me yearn for adventure even more. Lovely to finally get to see the bens and lochs of the highlands, I even got to drink some frighteningly crisp unfiltered stream water up in the Cairngorms. You will certainly see the Scottish influence in Nemora throughout Auster, Cardenbree, and Shepham. At the end of issue 000 I promised some thoughts on the playtest so we’ll start there.
the playtest
To my fellow designers out there, playtest playtest playtest. If a design were a painting, you might get right in there working away at the details and it all looks great…. until you step back and look at the big picture and realize you got the fundamentals wrong. That’s what happened in our playtest for a couple of elements and man was it scary. But some elements hit exactly the right spot, and some only needed a little kneading to get in the right direction.
So what hit the spot? Nemora as a setting was pretty much a delight for everyone at the table! (PHEW😅) The game is finally beginning to settle into its adventure genre and produced some moments and fun at the table which I haven’t been able to get out of D&D particularly with…
tracks
Adventurers in Nemora have three tracks that represent their ability to keep adventuring. Exhaustion measures a characters reserves of extra energy, Morale measures a characters mental fortitude and willpower to continue adventuring in the face of adversity, and Resolve measures an adventurer’s physical sturdiness and ability to shrug off harm. All adventurers have the same amount of exhaustion, morale, and resolve, and each track can be marked to achieve different effects or as consequences and requirements for adventuring.
Using 3 separate tracks which all serve different functions creates meaningful choice for players, and gives the Sage better tools to create tensions that aren’t the “mortal peril” you face so often in heroic games. If you run out of tracks in AGTN the worst thing that happens is that you’re going to have a really miserable time if you keep adventuring without taking a good rest to recover.
rests
And speaking of rests, they worked wonderfully. Rests in D&D have always frustrated me: particularly the concept that “a nights rest almost completely refreshing a hero”, and yes, this reinforces the epic heroism of the characters, but it doesn’t serve the narrative and tension of the adventure genre, that slow building exhaustion and wearing down of down a character’s resolve and morale over their adventure.
Adventurers in Nemora can take 3 types of rests.
Breather. on days in which you don’t travel you spend a short while to catch your breath and tend to your wounds. Clear a pip from a track of your choice
Nights rest. whenever you choose to spend a mostly uninterrupted night of sleep. Clear a whole track of your choice.
Days rest. a mostly uninterrupted complete day of rest and recuperation, as well as moderate activity such as training. Clear all of your tracks and regain used talents.
While adventuring —especially while travelling— adventurers find the need to clear their exhaustion each night in order to cover distance. Because of this their reserves of resolve and morale creep steadily down. This creates that desired tension of being worn down while adventuring and makes the game aspect of resource management that much more important. To my pleasant surprise we found that adventurers travelling through the outlands and wildlands they can only keep going for about a week at a time before needing a days rest. This was a good sign as adventuring outside of the fairlands is supposed to be difficult and taxing on a person.
seeing what sticks
I have to be careful not to detail every aspect of AGTN in these newsletters so I’ll quickly summarize everything that went into the dump as a result of our playtest:
The character creation system — although its collaborative bones were good, I’ve scraped the meat from those bones, and turned them into a nicely cured and concise salami. Characters didn’t feel like adventurers, they needed more “adventurer” injected in, and overall it needed simplification and more guidance.
The inventory system — I played with implementing a slot based inventory.. it didn’t work…at least not in this game. Its replacement is wild, the two bounding rules for what you can carry are essentially: “does it make sense for the world” to ground you in the world; and “does it make sense for game design” to give you a good experience at the table.
The Travel Rules — While the basic rules were fine, they were bookkeeping heavy, and needed to have a little more depth. You’ll now see “adventuring locations” and “local aspects” mentioned, which is tech I developed for Aeinora (formerly Murkwell) in my first Nemora campaign, and it’s proved itself worthy, at least in the short term.
Combat — Our first combat was way too difficult, and later combats were way too easy. I also found people were defaulting to “I attack the enemy” a lot when it came to their turn… which I personally find quite boring. I’ve rewritten the actions in combat and am playing with ways to make attacking one of the least interesting things you can do. I also found that with the new resolution system there was way too much rolling in combat, which I’m trying to curb out.
The Core Resolution system— WAIT THE CORE RESOLUTION SYSTEM?!
drama in core resolution system land
Throughout the early playtest I couldn’t shake this feeling that the core was somehow wrong. It had the theory to back it up but something just felt off about it. Everything seemed a little too difficult and there was a massive emphasis on skills being the be all and end all of competency. It also suffered a little from overcomplication since I built it from my favourite parts of PBTA, John Harper’s Blades in the Dark, and Call of Cthulu.
Now compare it to the new system which uses a D8 by default.
So what does the new system have over the old system. First of all shoutout to Nathan Russel the creator of Freeform Universal and fellow Aussie, the theory behind Freeform Universal 2’s Beta is a continual inspiration. The main difference is the two named dice, the Approach die of the Adventurer and the Action Die of The World. The battle between these two dice turns our flat distribution into a lovely triangle centered around zero, this means all you have to do to know you succeed is have your dice+number higher than the Sage’s die+number. Simple! In practice this means no more pesky subtraction or chart referencing.
And this is where we start blending our literary analysis into our game design and talk about conflict and tension. Adventurer vs The World is the core conflict of the Adventure genre. This is true for whatever “The World” represents: nature, other people, society, inner conflict, magicks, or even the whims of fate. Having this core tension baked into the resolution mechanic makes it instantly readable and narrative rich. This is perhaps a topic for another month though, we still have to get to the magick.
the magic of Magick
Every denizen of the fairlands worth their salt knows that magick is spelled with a k. What they don’t know however, is what magick is or how it works. My approach to Nemoran worldbuilding is diegetic and mildly anti-canon. I know only so much as the collective peoples of Nemora do, maybe less. So here’s the question: “What is magic and how does magick work?” Lets ask the people of Nemora:
“I’ve got no time for such ponderings when the fields need tending sir”
~ Aulyn Wilani of Shepham
“its not much, but I reckon the most magic I’ve seen is in the ‘wyrms breath’, I suppose it comes from The wyrm of lake Auster right?… Well no I can’t say I’ve seen the Wyrm! You’d better talk to Grace Auster for questions like this.”
~Erathil Rivner of Auster, speaking on the daily fog and wind that settles over Lake Auster
“I’m not an expert by any means, if you want an expert rumour has it that the diviner Mag Nathair has returned to the observatory atop Mt Pyerie… oh well yes I’ve seen the wyrm: truly magestic, eyes like the stars and scales of pure mist. You’d do well to make an offering to Auster if you’re aiming to sail on calm waters that is”
~Grace Auster, Ranger of Auster Fief
“You’ve come a long way seeking answers young one, unfortunately I have few to give. What magick is? Well I suppose its all around us isn’t it, in the earth and sky, the water and clouds… How does it work? I just know it does little sprout. I feel it in my bones, I see it in the Illium, and I hear it in the rain… ah not the answer you wanted is it? Go see a witch if you really want answers. “
~ Mag Nathair, Diviner atop Mt Pyerie
…. and so this quest for an answer for a simple question brings you all over the fairlands, outlands, and shallow wilds. You speak to witches, cryptkeepers, delvers, rangers of the Great Grove, everyday wisewomen, even a real life magician or two. You witness great acts of healing, magician’s tricks, you bear a hex from a witch, you hold a token of the Iyani in your very own hand. And you make offerings to every wyrm whose domain you enter…. And you’re full answers, but still fuller of questions. So much magick in the world and yet even the magicians don’t know what it is. You feel defeated, and inspired.
The only way we can preserve the magic of Nemora is by not knowing. That real visceral magickal feeling is in the mystery, the beyond-ness, in that first time you see frost on your breath, in awe inspired by the heat of a natural hotspring, in the mountain reaching beyond the clouds, in the flawless beauty of a riverstone, or the raw power of a storm.
However a unique trouble comes with this kind of visceral and esoteric magick, how do you present it to the readers or players in a way that is gameable while maintaining its mystery? This is something I’d like to expand on next issue, but simply put, the players don’t need to know how magic works, they just need to know the magickal patterns observed by their adventurers. If you have a lucky pendant, and while you wear it no great ill-luck befalls you, who’s to say there isn’t magick in it.
Well this one really got away from me. If you’ve read or listened this far.. Well done! and thank you! If I have this much to say then perhaps publishing monthly is too infrequent. Next month (or sooner?) I’d love to expand on the Magicks and Esoterics of Nemora, and I’ll probably find a way to sneak in a map or two so keep your eyes peeled.
Bye for now,
Felix
Yay! Loved this read, especially loved the photos of Scotland and the Lake District. I think whoever you brought on that trip besides you needs a special treat!