After worrying about writing up a character creation document with too much / not enough information I decided to steal from something I liked, and based my document on Vaesen. For each archetype in the game vaesen gives you a short description, a list of talents, some equipment and some questions to answer. I did the same and it got somewhere close to where I wanted to be. Here’s what House Aries look like
The second Inferno playtest has been conducted, and once again much was learned. It featured five players, and the same characters as the first session, with the addition of Viscount Pusey. The scenario was the same, but played out differently. None of the players had used the card of fate system before, and only one had any familiarity with the world of Inferno.
The start: The scenario possibly needs a little nudge to get things started. For the second time, all the characters stood around and looked at each other for a few moments, unsure of what to do. ‘A bit like a blind date where you’re not sure if you’ve got the right person’ was the apt description.
Todo: I think I’ll add an NPC to get the party over the initial ‘are these the right people / are we in the right place’ awkwardness. I’m also wondering if the news is a little bit too long for a one-shot, I think I’ll try and focus it a little more.
The plot: Things went in rather different directions to the first run. This time the party went with the Hyde Park opening, which provided some good early challenges, before the embassy ball was dealt with as an Oceans Eleven style heist (well, that was the plan…) rather than an exercise in intelligence gathering. The final showdown featured a sky-palace crashing into the world’s first skyscraper, death defying aerial interventions, and a satisfying Mary Poppins moment to save the day. This was much closer to how I’d envisaged it running when I wrote it, so it’s good that we’ve checked out the ‘happy path’.
Still didn’t really manage to really trigger any of the NPCs. I suspect that this is down to the scenario.
Todo: Find a way to introduce one of the major NPCs at the embassy. Probably means pointing to them in the first scene.
Difficulty: The group were 2-0 up on their five challenge mission going into the last challenge, so to add some drama since the evening was winding down we made it ‘all or nothing’ on the last challenge. I also upped all the challenges to hard (5 cards) from moderate (3). The sudden change in difficulty was really noticable, and the heroes ended up winning their final challenge on a high card – proper nail biting stuff.
Todo: Make sure the GM guidance for setting difficulties reflects the play experience. 3 card challenges are about right for starter characters, and 5 card ones are a stiff challenge. The final challenge was 10-8, which felt suitably all or nothing…
Once again the characters all seemed to work. The players seemed a bit happier with the strength of the characters than in the first playtest. The strongest example of this was Dr Rook holding off doing anything magical until the finale – but still finding plenty of things to get up to. There might be two reasons for this – first, the rejigging of the skills list probably created slightly more capable characters. Second, ‘Go hard or go home’ was the attitude of the players, and that strikes me as good general advice for playing Inferno. A player doesn’t make that many challenges in a session, so it’s reasonable to throw plenty of resources (Reputations, Qualities) into each one.
This test was also further proof of Arians not being essential characters. Jemima Gosh certainly didn’t dominate proceedings, although she did buckle plenty of swash. Viscount Pusey’s willingness to engage in a spot of fisticuffs at the end was an enjoyable moment.
Todo: Time to get started on a character creation system! Still keeping an eye on the power level though.
Once again people liked the system. Loads of kudos for the tension of the cards. “Like when you need a natural 20, but on every roll.” Most of the players had read stuff through ahead of time, but all felt more comfortable once they’d seen the core mechanic in action. Fortunately Inferno really only has the core mechanic, and once the group had been through the process once there was no confusion. So – probably worth making a video or two demonstrating how challenges work.
By the end of the game the players had got properly to grips with things. I’m sure they’d have had no trouble working out what to do with their experience points, or making other ‘system related’ decisions for future games.
Stakes: Again – the importance of stake setting – and imposing the consequences for failures. I think it helps with Inferno to set failure stakes that have an element of fail forward built in. So the stakes for the embassy heist weren’t “Do you get the info or not?” but “Do you make it out undetected, or do the bad guys accelerate their plans in response to your heist.” It sometimes requires a few moments of extra thought to get these right.
Todo: Strengthen the GM guidance on fail forward. I think challenges on the main mission should be fail forward by default. It’s probably fine to have ‘that just fails’ as a GM option for personal challenges though.
Damage: We had our first proper example of someone being broken and a concession. Elias Halcyon supported Lord Pusey on an influence challenge that went disastrously wrong. Pusey’s boundless confidence was badly dented but Elias was broken, and ended up with ‘Humiliated by the Prussian Empire’ as a negative reputation. Elias did get to trigger his ‘indefatigable’ talent to recover from this – which worked as it should.
Todo: I need to tweak how this is written. As it stands the Prussian empire gains a ‘Humiliated Elias Halcyon’ reputation, but that’s basically writing the information in the wrong place for it to get remembered. Perhaps a space on the character sheet for ‘concessions made / concessions gained’ is the solution.
Personal missions: Players got more adept at building in their personal challenges as the game unfolded. This is probably something that just comes with experience. This also meant that the PvP stuff in the scenario didn’t get triggered.
Todo: Make sure campaign playtests have plenty of room for personal missions and some player versus player action.
Do you love role-playing games? Are you waiting impatiently till your child is old enough to join you in your adventures? I know I was. So when my daughter was four years old I made up a game just for her. Since then it’s been played by thousands of families around the world.
But making that first game a success is still a challenge. Here are five ways to make sure that first game is memorable for both of you.
#1 Keep cool
For you, your kids’ first adventure might feel like a very big deal. They’re about to join you in your favorite hobby. If this goes well you’ll have a shared love that will last you for the rest of your lives. A joint gateway to your favorite fictional worlds and real life pastimes. And that’s great. But don’t tell them, it’ll only confuse them.
Tell your child you want to play a game, together with them, and that it’s going to be fun. Tell them they’re going to get to roll those cool dice you have. Give them the dice. Tell them that you’re going to make up a story together and they can be the hero. Kids love it when their parents want to spend time with them, and they can tell when you’re really looking forward to it. That’s going to be enough.
#2 Keep it small
For grown-ups a role-playing game usually means a Dungeon Master and four or more people sitting round a table with snacks and drinks. For your child’s first game keep it small. Just you, and them. Running a game for a child is different to running one for grown ups, and you don’t want to be distracted by friends, toilet breaks and the inevitable moments when attention drifts as the spotlight lands on another player. So for the first time out, don’t invite friends over, this is for you, and your children.
#3 Say yes to their ideas
The promise of a role-playing game is that you can be anything you want to be. So when your child says they want to be a pirate, with their own ship, a pet tiger and a crew of fifty ferocious cat-pirates you say yes. If you’ve been imagining the game as a classic fantasy quest to slay a dragon and they tell you they want to be a caped superhero with a laser-gun, you say yes. That dragon is in for a surprise.
Kids don’t know about genres or rules. Their first game is not a time to tell them what they can’t do, it’s a time to reward their imagination. And remember, with just one or two players you don’t need to worry about game balance at all.
#4 Take them where they want to go
Whatever your child came up with in character generation, make sure they get to show it off in their first adventure. The pirate ship has to sail, to fire it’s cannon and to race another pirate ship. The pet tiger has to growl and eat a bad guy. The fifty ferocious cat pirates have to do ferocious feline things. Make sure your child’s hero gets to be the hero they imagined them as.
#5 Make the ending awesome
Make sure your child’s first ever role-playing game features an epic ending. Face to face with the villain on a cliff edge as the counter ticks toward zero; returning the stolen jewels to the temple moments before sunset while pursued by ghosts; wrestling the controls of the star-ship from the pirate moments before it crashes into the sun. That kind of epic.
If your child’s first experience of role-playing delivers on these five things, I think you’ll have a gamer for life.
And if you’d like to give this a go, I’d like to recommend the Amazing Tales role-playing game. I wrote it to play with my daughter when she was just four years old, and since then it’s been enjoyed by thousands of families around the world.
Amazing Tales features a system so simple a four year old can explain it, and lets you fit a whole adventure into the time it takes to read a bedtime story. It’s grounded in the kind of stories kids love, fairy tales, quests in magical kingdoms, pirate voyages and adventures in space.
Take a look at the game in action. Here’s character creation, world creation and a whole adventure packed into half an hour of play.
You can get Amazing Tales as a lavishly illustrated 104 page hardback book, or as a PDF.
