[GB] 5 or 6 Person Playtest (TBD)

[Eliahad]

Hey everyone! I'm really interested in how the new Hero Actions work in a Free For All Setting, and would like to find a time where a bunch of us could try a 5 or 6 person Godless Godball Playtest. So really I'm just trying to gauge who is interested and then try and find a time where we're all available to jump on Roll20 and try it.

[Mike]

Me, you, Wowie and Flame for sure. Phoebe might if we give her a direct invite. Who else has played? Who else could we drag in?

We need to pick some times and send some invites.

[Phoebe]

Down for it with husband too if it's tonight after 6pm CST or tomorrow after 9pm CST.

[Mike]

Your husband would be ideal for these playtests. I think he would be very into game-breaking just to see how far rules can be bent to alternate uses.

[FlameBlade]

These days, after 8:30 EST for me with a very occasional exceptions.

[Phoebe]

Sorry I missed the popup one last night - I was working and husband was sleeping, though, so probably just as well. Will remember to check here more carefully! Sometimes I read and am not logged in so miss it.

[FlameBlade]

maybe...we should have e-mail list, so we can push out announcements or make it easier to plot others' demi...I mean, plan for playtest.

[Wowie]

I, for one, coordinate groups of people I play games with using either Steam Groups or Discord, but I'm not going to ask you guys to start using a new program just because it's the one I use.

On a different topic, I could probably get a friend to come if I had sufficient warning.

[Bluedevyl]

If you need me, I'm definitely in.

[Eliahad]

Wow, thanks folks. Maybe later this week? Thursday or Friday, mayhaps?

[FlameBlade]

If there are too many people, I will be more than happy to watch and take notes.

[Bluedevyl]

Thursday is probably easier for me than Friday, since my wife is going to be at Ithaca College for Area All State on Friday, but I can make either day work, I think.

[FlameBlade]

Thursday is easier for me as well.

[Phoebe]

Work week schedule is pretty random but I should know more by tonight or tomorrow.

[Eliahad]

Okay, let's aim for Thursday. I will let y'all know if that will work by the end of Tuesday.

[Eliahad]

I learned some things last night. Good things.

The primary thing I took away is that the capabilities of Heroes is headed in the right direction. It makes a lot more sense to me that players want the focus to be on what they can do on a regular basis and not on the potential of some future thing. Which seems like an 'of course' statement, but let me explain.

The idea as we were driving across Kansas was that the Gods were the important part. What could Zeus do?
Zapping people with his lightning bolts. Mountains traveling across a vast playfield and causing mayhem. But those things ended up just being cards in your hand. You felt like you could do those things, but there was a block when it came to your actual connection to the play surface. But I tread old ground.

That's what I liked. I also liked that it felt to me like Heroes that were 'behind' the action were not as out of it as it looked, even with the wall of meat. Yes, it felt like you were a little out of the current action, but we're well positioned if the ball came back the other way. The times people were in such a state was when the ball was in a couple hexes of someone else scoring. So either someone would score, or the ball would pop out and the person who was behind would be in good position.

Things that are not good: Hero Action costs. I'm not sure if it is the costs that are flawed or some underlying reasoning behind the Hero Actions. It might be a deeper issue than 'this just has to cost more or less.' My gut says that's not the right way to go, but I can be convinced otherwise. Something has to change.

Grab and Knock Down specifically need clarification and tweaking.

Defense doesn't work. There's no incentive to it.

Boosting doesn't really work either, because defending doesn't really work.

Do Heroes need to be able to move farther on their move actions? Throw further? These go to questions of game tone. What do we want the game to feel like?

Lots of ideas were generated, and I can feel my brain processing this information. More later!

[edit: I meant play SURFACE, not play service. And now you know how my brain works.

[Eliahad]

(Also, with perfectly balanced Heroes, no one can win. That's both a good and bad sign. I don't know if we should start adding in other elements yet, but we absolutely will need to.)

[Mike]

[Bluedevyl]

Also, and this is MUCH further out than what we tested last night, but I had an idea that I think could add nearly multiplicative gameplay options down the road when things are added in.

In my experience with the God cards, each god has a similar set of powers, each according to their "domains" or what have you... what if, rather than giving someone a pile of "Poseidon" cards, the cards were spread out and EXPERIENCED players could draft a set of boons from different Gods, to set themselves up with a series of powers that they felt suited their style of gameplay or their hero or whatever?

If you want to build a more movement/throw based Hero, you draft those style cards, if you want to build a more defensive/impediment style Hero, you go down that route.

The thing more than any other that appeared clear to me is that this game really is, for me, anyway, less about the Gods and more about the Heroes. The Heroes were the ones in the epics that overcame the mountains of obstacles placed in their way by a bunch of fickle, capricious dickheads sitting around on top of Mount Olympus screwing with their creations. It almost makes sense that Hades would give a boon to Atalanta just to piss off Athena...

Just one of the things I came away with from last night.

Also, when a Hero is out of Hero Points, why don't we make it more punitive? Why don't we set it up where if you exhaust your hero points, you respawn back at your (or the nearest) shrine? That could potentially clear up the center of the board, and could add in interesting God powers... half the time you see Zeus he's depicted chucking a lightning bolt at some poor sap. He could easily have a card that was: Lightning Bolt - Deal 2 HP damage to target Hero or something along those lines... it could add in some interesting gameplay avenues.

[FlameBlade]

Let me throw out a little shift in thinking, building on Andrew's thoughts. What if 0 HP = down. Too tired to do anything, even stand. And remove knockdown as an action.