Thursday, January 29, 2009

Updated ESNA

Updated ESNA to include the missing rules as was reported by Aaron_ in the comments.

Also, I should point out that he found something similar. Granted it's much more dice-heavy, but kind of does the same thing. Which makes me want to move on to other things.

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8 Comments:

Blogger Tim Mitchell said...

How do I "improve a settlement" as described on page 4?

Kanthe left me baffled, by the way, with its Method/Action/Essence/Form.

Aside from readability, one other thing I prefer about the ESNA approach is that the player contributions are, for the most part, introduced gradually throughout the game, not up front.

Not too far into my first game yet. Indeed "Improve a Settlement" was my first event!

-Yogurt from BGDF

10:19 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

DOH! Improving a settlement is just incrementing a settlement (Tower/Temple/Village) by 1.

Or starting a new level 1 settlement.

3:47 PM  
Blogger Tim Mitchell said...

Thanks! The improvement has to be in the land you're in, right?

3:53 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Nope. It can be to any Settlement. The game is harsh enough as it is!

4:35 PM  
Blogger Tim Mitchell said...

I'm not seeing how creature speed is used. You wrote: "I couldn't even muster past their ridiculously slow speed rating of 3, to avoid their early hit." But I can't find the rules for early hits.

12:36 PM  
Blogger Tim Mitchell said...

Having moved from Level 1 ("Hobbyist Looter") to Level 2 ("Intern-without-Portfolio"), our hero became tangled in negotiations between the fractious kingdoms of Bugrit and Terminus. Distracted, he was eaten by three hungry elephants.

Here are my notes on this beta playtest:

- I had a good deal of fun and found it easy to pause and resume across a number of evenings. The negotiation quest was my favourite in-game moment. Naming monsters and kingdoms was very amusing.

- I wasn't able to find the Speed rules, so I played without them. Do they allow escape from combat?

- Drawing the same monster card ("E") a few times in close succession makes a dramatic difference to the difficulty of the game. Once a horde grows, one bad battle draw can kill you. This is where I'd work on the game difficulty.

- My main wish for the game was more choices for the player. Some examples follow.

- Different parts of the map should be more dangerous or rewarding than others. There wasn't much to distinguish kingdoms, aside from their distance from healing centres. Perhaps certain paths could become more dangerous if you lose a battle, forcing you to consider your future routes. Dungeon locations could offer richer, riskier quests, becoming tougher each time you delve.

- More treasure options would help customize your character and strategy. Perhaps one-time items, health/speed/travel boosts, or terrain-based items.

- I'd like to be able to buy a treasure, giving another spending option to weigh.

- I wasn't sure what the gameplay purpose of cursed items was.

- I couldn't convince myself to measure success by the size of my keep. I was judging myself by my level, loot and how mighty my enemies were.

3:06 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Sorry for the radio silence and thanks for the input. I'm sort of in the middle of updating new cards, including the speed rule, handling the gold a little differently, and so forth.

The keep thing is more about using up extra gold, which truly doesn't matter at this point because it's so hard to survive currently. I'm hoping the next pass is a little less mean.

8:01 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Oh thanks, I was confused by settlements, but this cleared it up. An interesting game! (I also enjoy Pocket Civ)

3:21 PM  

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