DD12 Cataclyzm Playtest Diary

I've been playtesting Cataclyzm to get a feel for how the game flows well, as its not a traditional roleplay and has moments where even I as GM get fazed and left wondering if I'm making a fun game or forcing an idea. So I decided to blog my thoughts..

DD12 Cataclyzm Playtest Diary #1

A Typical Afternoon in Cataclyzm.

Cataclyzm has alot of great ideas, but alot of crummy ones too, so I've decided to play test them out, and see what works and what sucks.

First Characteristics: Most games start with long sessions to create characters, but the draw back is, long character creation = far less desire for players to lose their character. Also, rolling vs choosing, both have their draw backs, but what about situational voting?

So what we do in Cataclyzm is give the group the choice.. Here is the situation.. who is going to volunteer to solve it, why are you volunteering, because you're the best at it, group votes if they should be "the best" or "just good", if they are "the best" they should also choose something their 'not so good at' to balance..

i.e. The Players awoke in darkness, tore the membrane/cloth that covered their face and looked around, the first thing they saw was some insane crossbred horse/turtle with a mouth of teeth. The first to get up and go towards it, would likely be the most courageous, the group votes him "most" courageous, a 21 is assigned as his courage score, and he steps forward to the beast.

As play progresses, We discover who our archer/ranger is because one of them decides he wants to throw a rock, and he wants to be good at it. We discover who our warriors are, because the grab rocks and start stabbing at the thing, one is a fast warrior, the other strong.. again, because the group voted yes to each of them being 'good' at it.

Imagine its dark, that head is twice as large and 7 ft tall!

When One of the group got bitten, the question was.. Do you have enough health to survive this? why? do you have any skills that might mitigate this situation?

As the turtles neck spun around in his direction, our warrior quickly turned his body away at an angle, the bite was harsh, but escaped being deadly as his bones halted the crushing jaws of the beast, just long enough for him to pull free.. a gaping wound, but one that could be survived.

Of course, We can't all be heroes in all ways possible. eventually most players had 3 defining stats of 21, 19 and 17, with 3 counter stats of 4, 5 and 6, while other players had more averaged 18, 16 and 14, with a 6, 7 and 8, the rest of the numbers were in the 10-11 range..

Play testing, I had allowed players to 'spend' the spare points to round out their characters, but they of course min-maxed a few stats, for the future I'll ensure the rule is 'average' out the remaining points.

Skills:

At first I was all "Oh you can be anything you want, are you a medieval peasant, or a caveman or a guy from present day earth or someone from star wars or warhammer 40k", the caveat is, they have to take skills relevant to their character, not the situation.. Also, their characters all have amnesia to begin with, "who am I" so their skill list is empty.. the problem is, they take skills as they need them anyway, not skills that are character relevant, but situationally useless, I'm going to have to bring in some kind of lists and have them roll or something, players could later invent their own lists and hand them to the GM.. they know what skills they 'might' get, but not when they will 'remember', or they could even not remember anything and just learn their skills from the GM never really knowing who they are until weeks into the campaign.

Again, this is to get the game flowing fast, decisions in character creation slow people down, take away the choice and direct their agency into interpreting the situation, gives players creative freedom with creative barriers, often best used when you're not sure whats best.

As the character settled down for the night, lost as to their place in the universe, the pondered their existence. They chewed on their uncooked turtle-horse leg meat, tended their acid wounds, and kept watch.. for the endless night sky and vague silhouettes in the lichen-glow suggested any manner of nasties, ready to devour them.

Ok, so lose the trees, the sunset, the glowing tents, pretty much all light.. so.. nothing like this photo.

World Build October Part 4

Its World-Build-Tober: 

Thursday the 4th - World-build-tober

"Draw (or describe) a Cultural rite of passage"

Every Year on Their Name Day, the Children are gathered around the great circle, They look on in fear, fretting their hands, From the year of their 10th until the year of their 16th, they are walked through the eye of Wailing.

Its unknown how long the eye of Wailing has been there, but its well known, Children who pass through unharmed are good children, those who have evil in their heart are banished.

Its rare that children fail to pass through of their 10th, it has happened, but maybe once every few years, more often than not, its the children of the 15th or 16th year, and even then, barely one in a few hundred might perish.

As a result, the towns are usually devoid of delinquents, Children before their 16th year are well behaved, they do not wish to be banished on their Name Day.








Thousands of miles away, on a castle floating in the sky, children appear at the summoning portal. They are quickly gathered, consoled and informed that they have been enrolled in the college of magi.  

Humans, meet the Octopodi

Based on the recent set or articles about Octopodes, This article seems to me more realistic amongst the myriad of link-bait "Octopuses are Aliens". I had a thought.. and so I wrote this:

They Came from the Stars

In a time, long forgotten, as records have been destroyed since. The Inhabitants of Earth watched as the creatures came in a vessel. A giant strange vessel. Rock Like, A Smooth outerworld rock, one shaped by the crashing of the waves upon its surface, outwerworld waves upon an outerworld rock. 

space-octopus by skumpf

Shev and Marsh looked upon this strange shape in the sky with wonder, as it descended.

Gathering fish for the future family, they slowed as the shape began to land. They quickly retreated to their homes, watching from the entranceways.

The Ship descended, steam like vents burst forth from the underside, then with a great thud, it landed.

Dust and Steam mixed in the air, settling quickly upon the surface of the outerworld craft, Shev pushed Marsh to go, have a closer look.. dared him to enter this hostile place and see what is what.

Shev moved cautiously, slowly, conscious of the slight pain as he grabbed rocks too tightly,He moved along the path that led up to this, outerworld phenomenon. 

A Crack, a Boom, and a strange shape opened in the craft. It separated from the craft, like a limb. Then the creatures emerged. They did not move like shev, they seemed to glide, but in a strange jalting manner.. but their legs.. Shev was in shock, awe, confusion.. the number of legs.. it was wrong.. all wrong.. how could a creature exist with this many legs, and the way it used them.. and on the ends of the legs.. little.. things? suckers? tongues? It was grotesque.

There were eight of them.

Shev quickly ran back to Marsh and explained what he saw.. Marsh was hiding, her arms wrapped around her head, scared. When he began to explain about the legs, and how there were eight of them, Marsh yelped and spilt ink on the floor. What would happen to them, would these 'things' eat them?

Shev told Marsh to gather their things, they would leave, but first Shev wanted to see what the Aliens would do, to get a better explanation of them for the place they went to, to explain to an elder, what these beings looked like.

Eight.. he kept thinking this strange number, Eight.. 

He crawled again out of the innerworld, poking his head into the outerworld, mindful to take a breath of air. 

His own tribe of two, made sense.. Sometimes there were three or in extreme cases four, but eight.. no-one travelled in packs of eight, 

Yet these creatures, Two Older, and Six younger,  some yellow topped with long strands of golden seaweed, some brown topped with fuzzy coral on their faces. They were constructing a home, an entrance and gaps to see, for eight! In this outerworld.. they were staying.. 

Shev took note, to explain to the elders: They walk upright with two legs, and two legs to grasp tools. It was Alien! 

Shev quickly grabbed at the rocks with his eight arms, and slithered his way through to the innerworld as quickly as possible. Marsh and Shev would leave tonight.

They Packed their things and moved.. far away.

Portal to where sir? sure.. have you had your Cleric bless you against Troll-pox?

I've recently left on holiday, visiting my wifes home country and loving it, and besides the standard stuff to deal with, there can be many other complications.. so here are a few that you might want to use on your players.. oh and at the end.. some observations about medieval villages

Long Distance Travelling, Pitfalls for your players 

Lets start with the basics: Travelling across territorial borders.. Is there a border? is it guarded? do you need some kind of permission from the king of the land to travel to this land? how much will it cost and how effective will the letter be while IN the land? will you be harrassed at every location because you have an accent? 

Now this might sound a bit archaic, but having now 30+ countries in my passport stamps, and 44 countries that I've been in (airports.. they count right?) I've developed a bit of a mental blindfold to the corruption, bribes, speaking to 'the right people' to get things done.. 

Signed, Sealed, Leather strap, viola!

In fact, When I ran a Modern cyberpunk game a few years back, I included all the aspects of travel, my players were shocked at how difficult it was to sneak out of the country on a fake passport. Thought I was being too harsh.. but that was the reality.. the paper may LOOK correct, but it still needs to be in a computer somewhere.. 

Medieval paperwork, just needs to look right.. so maybe a few payments to the local rogues gallery might do the trick.. What next?

Accents, and Languages.. well many system have comprehand languages.. but do they have disguise accents? A common factoid of the tourist, both medieval and modern. Accent = price hike. There are so many place I've seen with three or four price labels on things.. one is euro, one is local currency, one is American, and the last, a PLU? (Price look up for register?) well as often as not, the exchange rate was done weeks ago on those, they say.. and whats written is whats written, but if you do the math, you're getting ripped off another 30% if you trade in anything but local.. then it turned out the local price is the PLU and the others are all fake..

"Offendi, Offendi, where are you from? ahh such a long way you have travelled? would you like some sugared dates? only 1 gold coin each!!"

Even if you have the language and the accent.. speaking with any colloquialisms would give you away., especially if its well known that language and accent spells are common enough.. get your players to be careful with their words.. that's half the point of roleplay, speaking the right way to the right(or wrong) people.

Ok, so what about diseases? Ok sure, I'm sure 99% of you don't bother to use diseases in any way.. how boring.. Is Steve not at todays roleplay session? easy.. he caught a local flue, the team are asked by the apothecary to pop over to the local forest and procure some wilkweed from the edges of dark swamp. On the way, the encounter a bug bear, a wild boar, some tangle-weed, The Dark swamp is home to a mere-gaunt, they fight it, find the wilkweed, gather enough for their befallen friend and a bit more for bonus, then a quick battle with some swamp skeletons (slain by the mere-gaunt, and risen by Dark swamp natural magic) and home again in time for Steve next week session.

Players getting a little too powerful for your campaign? are you the type of GM to modify encounters for plot? why not modify characters for plot? The Paladin contracts a virus immune to healing spells/effect, and requires a special cure at a temple far away, but first the evil BBG must be defeated.. and its only a -1 to con saves & -1 to hit..

Normally, a character travelling across lands would encounter diseases from time to time, deal with one, get on with their life.. its considered part of the down-time, many players skip (or DMs don't bother to run)

yep, worse than this..

But what if your players have access to some kind of quick transportation?

Changing time zones, entering new climates, whole slew of diseases and viruses all at once? the average person might fight off one or two.. but 7 or 10? plus jet-lag? I'm a fairly healthy person (con 16), but one trip through Abi Dabi, and I was out for 4 days with sweats, coughs, headaches, joint pain, and it was 3 different things all taking advantage of my jet-lag.

So if you walked through a portal from one city to another.. I think it'd be a good idea to cast a few greater heals or cure diseases on yourself withing 24 hours, else suffer the wrath of the GM who knows better.

"Oh Offendi, you are sick? please please? come stay with my family, you won't have to pay the hospital, my wife is a nurse, we can cure you, the ingredients will be a mere trifle for you.. 1000 gold" 

Expect different kinds of treatment, different styles of preventative measures, don't sit next to a window, don't drink cold water, let me rub cognac on your legs, here, wear these were-rabbits on your feet as boots, yes, freshly killed, what you don't think the blood will cure you?

Medi Eval Travels

I'll get a Photo to replace this..

Just an Additional Note, while I'm travelling I notice the things that have not stopped from 1000 years of technology and improvements.. On the side of the road, in front of a person house.. a stall.. a set up of their extra produce, in carry-able bags/sacks/jars ready for sale. usually a small child will mind it, playing with a cat or dog, will call out for a parent or even sell you things themselves if you make an approach, Players can get travel rations up to a days travel from a village like this, saving on rations, scurvy from rations, and possibly even get latest news..

News! People don't travel far and wide.. always have friendly villages ask you players about the news from other towns, be disappointed when they have none.. what sort of good for nothing person travels without finding out the local news first.. a pox to you.. Or, if they have news.. well done good sir, have a free ale and 10% off all goods. Players love little things that really gets them feeling like the world exists beyond the game table..

Hope it all helps.. good gaming to all, I'm back to my sick bed. should have cast Cure All on my self when I arrived.. too sick to cast spells now.. (does any system have magic restrictions like that?)