My Owlbear Rodeo Map - From the Game Master’s Book of Random Encounters Map Pack. Monsters from Dragonbane.

Goals

This week I tried a single play test session of Rift Walker, with some differences:

There were 2 actions and a reaction for each player
Armour was an action (protect) you had to choose to use as your reaction
The other main reaction was using your Recover
Invoking pools slots for their bonus was tested again (as I did with running for people in this post Rift Walker One Shot: Find Q69 — Matthew Davis Projects
I play tested a montage that was a mystery
I made it that the damage that could come up in montage was to END/WP instead of a single pool – and linked it to the Special monster attack being one of these pools.
I tested some alternate character builds not seen before.

The Adventure

We had a session where Rift Walkers were time travelling monster hunters, sent to kill anomalies. In Canberra of all places! The adventurers were:

A Sci-Fi Tank Robot Guardian
A Modern Bad-Boy Monster Hunter Generalist (Dean from Supernatural)
A Fantasy Snake Monster Mind Warrior
A Historical PI Social Skilled

They hunted a Ghost that was summoned by a ticked off tenant of a real estate mogul, that killed him and was trying to kidnap his wife. The group learn limited information in the Montage and eventually had to do some deep exploration that meant spending more time. The crew eventually solved it and fought the creature in a climactic battle.

Feedback

It was clear it was very fiddly to have the reaction. It was fiddly to have set reactions. The interpose and the protect overlapped when using it as a reaction. It was a mess. But, that is why we play test. There was feedback about how armour should be different. Pool slot invocation was rarely used, and the group didn’t pick the END damage in the montage. All that being said the two players (with two RWs each), still loved the session. One is regular player and the other is someone who play tested a long time ago in an early iteration.

The Results

Here are my thoughts on improvement to the interpose and the armour mechanics. I think that interpose should just happen. If you choose to, you just take the hit against someone. If you are a Guardian Role, you get a +2 to the defend check to dodge the attack.

There need not be a protect action to use armour. I thought a lot about the thought that there were weird interactions with interpose/reaction. I also liked the thought you one player said, “What is the fantasy? Multiple small hits, or one big hit (to defend from enemies)?” The simplest version of this is that your armour points get ‘spent’ every round and reset each round. So, if you had 3 points of armour in Mind and you fought a Mindflayer and some Intellect devourers (for a simple D&D reference) you could take 3x1 point damage attacks from intellect devourer minions or 1x3 point attack from the Mindflayer. This does the same thing as I wanted it to achieve (not blocking all attacks) and it gives flexibility to the player. Not sure how fiddly that would be, we would need to test that.

Reaction and number of actions question. I think we have seen that limiting things to certain action types is quite intrusive and fiddly. I like that we just have 2 actions on your turn. I think we continue how it normally works with your reaction being suited to the type of role you are, with one change. Instead of using an action early, it is just a reaction that happens once per round, and it can only be your action type. Like a Warrior gets to make an attack on someone else’s turn.

This brings me to the point of actions in general. I would like to change the way that montage is worded so that it is not a single check but instead a single turn. This means that no matter the scene type, you get your 2 actions, and eventually when you level up enough you get your reaction.

Damage and armour in general are very combat centric. I would like to change the words to Effort and Resilience. This is more representative of other scene types. I would like to play test this and doing something else other than combat in general, in an Extended Scene. I have done a car race and that incorporated elements of combat. I would like to see how I would run other scene types based on my theory crafting on this blog https://www.matthewdavisprojects.com/thoughts/combat-micro-system-for-other-modes-of-play-amp-resolution-granularity

Advice to Remember

In general I liked the reminder to go back to the Fantasy. What am I trying to achieve? While I did talk about that here Rift Walker Design Goals Revisited (0.5) — Matthew Davis Projects It is important I remember that. Here are some thoughts I had about what the fantasy I am trying to achieve:

Big damn heroes that feel different to each other as they are from different times and places
Scary foes
Cool gear
Epic Legends being told
Exciting, multifaceted encounters, that feel different with urgency!
Party dynamic, in roleplay and helping each other with abilities

Still To Play Test

Damage in a montage being END/WP
Invoking Pool Slot items needs more checking, it could be fun!
Generalist Role bonus – is the +4 dice too much? I know they give up a turn to do it but maybe not if they move.
A non-combat scene in extended scenes

Rift Walker Reaction Play Test