Countdown Clue

I was looking for a version of clue with a player controlled killer, or some other mechanic to up the tension. I found some more complicated versions, but then I had an idea. Thus, Countdown Clue was born.

Materials

• Clue - The boardgame.
• RPG dice, specifically d4, d6, d8, d10, & d12.

Process

Play clue like the original rules prescribed. No intrigue cards, no individual abilities. Just move and guess.

But make the following changes.

• All players begin outside the house's front door.
• Players roll the normal 2d6 plus an additional RPG die, beginning with the d12.
• When the RPG die results in a 1 or 2, it drops down one size for all players.
• When a player rolls a 1 or 2 on the d4, they complete their turn as normal, after which they are eliminated.
• Eliminated players continue to observe and debunk guesses as normal.

Game End

The game ends when 1 of the players guesses correctly or when all of the players have been eliminated by the killer.

In the event all players have been eliminated by the killer, their spirits then make one final guess, based on the information the have. As they are dead, they can guess any room they wish. The players write their final guess before the hidden cards are revealed. The player(s) that guess the most hidden cards correctly, wins!

In Play

In play the game was fast. We played 3 games in about 35 minutes. With the additional die, the meeples practically soar around the house. 

The RPG die counting down has a double effect. First, players feel the visceral dread of the game coming to a close before having all of the information. Second, it slows down the meeples. 

When two or three rolls in a row resulted in 1s or 2s, everyone began to panic, but they couldn't traverse the hallways fast enough.

I also feel like other players were making better guesses, which improved the available information. Also, players were not spending as long thinking and making notes. Even though the timer was partially under our control (the dice only risk downsizing when you actually roll them), we still felt like we had to hurry.

In two games, I had the correct answer by my first turn with a d4. The other players had parts of the answer as well.

In the third game, another player and myself had two thirds of the correct guess. This game was also the quickest as we were all eliminated during the third round.

Episode 3 - Jaephing and Nala

 In this episode we chose Jaephing to be out main character.

We then went through the process of generating a plot.

We ended up with a police detective working for a cult, that wants to heist something from the Central Train Station. They tried to work Jaephing into the cause. Jaephing has their interest piqued, but so far has been reluctant.

Mistakes Were Made

One of the issues of running everything live, without editing, is fact that mistakes will be made. Here are the corrections for Jaephing so far.

1. Jaephing only had 1 Coin and 4 PD. So Jaephing should have 2 additional trappings. So I updated the character sheet to include the Rope d6, and Jack Knife Easy Nautical.

2. In episode 2 I had rolled that Jaephing was a female, but I forgot about this and later rerolled Jaephing to be a male. I am going to keep Jaephing as a male. I will explain my reasoning later.

And that is it so far.

This week, I'll try to do some setting posts.

Episode 2 - Characters

 In this episode we made 4 characters. Ugby, Thaki, Jaephing, and Laeth.

We used a weird table I made that gives you a series of vowels and consonants to throw together into random words.

We then randomly rolled the rest of the characters.

That was it really. 

Episode 1

 The ReLaunch of Roll 4 Saves is upon us. See previous post for an explanation.

This is the explainer episode.

I introduced myself, 

Hi, I'm Wayne.

I introduced the show,

This is an solo, actual-play, beta test.

I introduced the game system,

Start with a d6. Bump it up if something makes the roll easy, if you have a matching skill, and/or if you have a matching background. Bump it down if something makes the roll hard. A roll of 4 or higher avoids consequences.

I introduced the setting,

Pretty much just humans. But archipelagos separated by abyssal leviathans. Then Technology! and Airships! and the discovery of a continent. The continent is named Lurr. The greatest city on the continent is Nyrborg. Magic is a thing that exists, but it is weak.. There was once a great civilization in the world. Their towers and catacombs are testaments to their power. Electricity is generated by Furthstein, magic, glowing stones that can be threaded together to create more powerful currents.

That is pretty much it.

Show Relaunch

 A few thoughts were running through my head this past week.

1. I need to find a way to adjust the gain on my big microphone...
2. It is a bit difficult to follow the mechanics and story and all in a purely audio format.
3. I'm 5 episodes into the story of the Charbone Collectors, and bored.

So I did some experimenting.

• If I record with Zoom, I can mess with the Gain.
• If I record in Zoom, I can record a video along side the audio.
• If I'm going to use videos, I'd like to have it available for all episodes.
• If I start over, I can use my plot cards, which I had recently rewritten for a more generic setting, AND had added to the text of Roll 4 Saves.

So Friday, I took the nuclear option.

I made 3 episodes, and started a plotline I'm much more interested in.

One of the main differences is that the story will focus on a single character, instead of a full party.

Also, there is video on YouTube (see links below and in the sidebar).

As the older episodes had worse quality audio, and might dissuade new listeners that want to start at the beginning, I nuked them.

On the otherhand, I uploaded all three episodes that I recorded on Friday.

I am still planning to have Episode 5 up by Friday (November 5th, 2022), and then an episode released each week after that.

So if you read the previous posts and wonder what is happening to Melillot and the others, sorry, there story is gone.

But I'm sure Jaephing will more than make up for it.

Post Nuked Episode 4 Character Update

This Episode referenced here has been taken to a farm upstate. I learned how to record with better audio quality, and I wanted a more interesting story line. This post is left here to remind me of all the lovers I failed before. 

As mentioned in episode 4, I'm planning to post Character Updates after each even numbered episode.

The following might be spoilers. So read at your own risk.

Nuked Episode 4 - Blade Beetle

This Episode has been devoured by the flames of my passion. Or, I learned how to record with better audio quality, and I wanted a more interesting story line. This post is left here to remind me of my own  inevitable acceptance of the emptiness of the grave.

 In this episode, the group started with some last minute shopping. They mostly bought sources of light.

Then it was time to officially enter the tournament. The announcers are a pair of goatkin. They famously get drunker as the day's events go on.

So by the time the Charbone Collectors were up (they started 12th out of 12). The announcers were pretty inebriated.

I explained how combat works (I'll put up some separate posts on that when I get a chance), and randomized the first room's encounter.

The Blade Beetle

• Grit 10
• Base Damage 1
• Special 1d6 Damage to a Single Target.

This large beetle is about the size of a Great Dane. It is similarly lanky, and its legs end in sharp, semi-metallic blades. The beetles' diet gives them hardened chiton which makes the weapons formidable.

Amber was able to get a quick blowgun needle into the beetle's eye, and Mellilot was able to use her long rapier to impale it through the abdomen.

Then Onzo disabled a flame trap, but took 1 damage from one of the flame spouts.

They then found some armor and a sword, but they were obviously designed to fall apart in any real skirmish.

Next episode should be something tougher in room 2!

Changes

 Rules

I am reworking the rules for the vanilla fantasy setting. Some of the heritage abilities are a bit lack luster. My First reaction was to simply assign each of the 10 heritages one of the 10 spell types.

Then I was reading through Errant. And this is a big problem for me. I'll read a new system, and be inspired from it, and want to incorporate something from it into my current project.

So Errant breaks the heritages into 4 Ancestries. There are examples of which species fit into which groups (Dwarves and Orcs for the Tough Ancestry).

Each of the 4 Ancestries then gives a Once per Session ability. This means Dwarves and Orcs will have the same ability to avoid being reduced to 0hp once per session.

It is so elegant.

So yeah, now I am thinking of how I can rework my heritages into 3 or 4 basic categories.

Podcast

Probably some time after Episode 6, I'm going to try my hand at giving the Podcast a video component.

My current plan for the flow will be

1. Record using Zoom (Assuming I can get my USB mic to record with a high enough gain.)
2. Upload the video to Youtube.
3. Run the audio through noise reduction if needed.
4. Upload to Anchor and add Background Music.
5. Publish as a Podcast.

This means the videos will lack cleaning up on the audio and background music. But I think it will benefit from the visuals of the characters and rules; making it easier for others to follow.

I'll have to do some experimenting to see how it looks / sounds.

Nuked Episode 3 - Amber's Trial

The spiderlings of Zoth have ripped this episode into 10,000 tiny pieces, and scattered them to the far reaches of the universe. I learned how to record with better audio quality, and I wanted a more interesting story line. This post is left here to remind me of a happier time when I thought joy was real. 

In this episode, we started this episode with Amber in jail. Her trial was set for 3 days (I counted the arrest day as day 1). So the team needed to act fast.

Melillot took matters into her own hands. She knew of the judge, and that she was a sucker for fine wine.

She convinced her parents to let her have a party. Luckily, her parents were leaving for a business trip out of the city.

She invited a small number of people from town, but many of them took it upon themselves to invite others.

Soon the party grew to half-again the planned size. Thankfully the wine and other refreshments held out.

Melillot talked up the judge, convincing her that Amber is an outstanding citizen, and that she is deserving of a lesser sentencing.

We then jumped to the courtroom on day 3. Amber is a bit of a psychopath, and was staring daggers at the judge. But the judge remembered her promise to Melillot and sentenced Amber to a 100 coin fine and time served.

Finally, the group registered their team and dubbed it the Charbone Collectors. As an homage to their mostly successful caper to get Grung and his family out of the city.

Backgrounds

One of my favorite parts of the Resistance System (aka Spire the City Must Fall & Heart the City Beneath) is the concept of Domains.

Domains are basically areas of life that your character is comfortable with. They are very broad such as Criminal, Religion, or Commerce.

The rules set up that the Domains do not just suggest what your character can do, but who they know, areas they frequent, etc. In other words - devices outside of the character.

A character with Commerce will get the same bonus when performing a trade, when stabbing a merchant, and when fighting a ninja in a general store.

It reminds me a lot of the Skills in Feng Shui 2 (I never read 1st ed) and Backgrounds in 13th Age. Again, they are nebulous and reflect not just what the character can do, but what, where, and who they know.

When designing Roll 4 Saves, I have a strict maximum 3 bonuses to a roll goal, because that will be a d12.

My current goal is to have a super general bonus, a more specific bonus, and a super specific bonus.

Backgrounds fill that General Bonus. When writing the rules, I wanted backgrounds to focus on devices outside of the character (place, target, object), but during the playtest podcast, I realized that this actually really limits some backgrounds. So I am attempting to broaden them to also include specific actions as well. So Academic might have research or debate, Criminal might have Grift of Burgle.

I am still working out the details. But I am leaning to not actually specifying actions in the descriptions.

Nuked Episode 2

This Episode has been folded so many times it collapsed into itself and formed a black hole. I learned how to record with better audio quality, and I wanted a more interesting story line. This post is left here to remind me of my own fallibility.

In this episode we used the GM Emulator and Oracle to make a springboard for the party.

The Noble Milillot gathered a rag-tag group of ruffians to earn some money in a dungeon crawling tournament.

The problem is they needed 150 coin to register their team.

Luckily Amber new someone that was needing to get out of town.

Grung is a Doctor, but got in deep with some smugglers. He was buying the illegal drug known as oracle to help with his surgeries.

Now the smugglers (the Blue Barbarians) are after him and his family.

The team devised a plan, set a fire, and forge death certificates for Grung and his family (5 total people). Then get them on a ship leaving port.

Luckily Tyddwock new a captain, and easily got Grung a passage out.

Unfortunately, Onzu botched the death certificate forgeries, but Melillot was able to get the coroner to accept them anyway.

Then Amber tried to set fire to Grung's home, but was caught and the fire was extinguished.

Amber was arrested, and is in jail for at least 3 days before she will stand trial.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team procured some large crates and had Grung and his family smuggled onto the ship GreyEyes. 

The Blue Barbarians know something is up.

Amber needs to get out of jail.

And the group needs a team name.

Anvilstones

 Anvilstones appear as dull grey spheres. They are actually similar to geodes, being hollow with crystalline structures inside.

Anvilstones have the strange property of being able to store kinetic energy. Furthermore, the energy seems to be compounded.

When an anvil stone is simultaneously struck on two opposing points, the energy is stored within the shell. The energy is slowly radiated as a white light. The stronger the blow, the more energy - and brighter the light - is stored.

The easiest way to charge a stone is to strike it on an anvil with a hefty hammer; hence their name.

Small anvil stones are fairly common, with many households having 1 or 2 for use at night.

Often the stones are dangled in a wire net, to allow a clear emittance of light.

Recent Discoveries

The famous gnome, Fimdost discovered that an anvilstone precisely bored at its poles and threaded by a conductive wire creates an electric battery.

Currently, these batteries are what powers the arc ships and other new inventions.

This has greatly increased the demand for anvilstones across the known world.

Designer's Note

I've had the idea for a magi-natural battery source for a setting for a while. It is a way to add fantastic creations such has hovering galleons, spark guns, and other innovations to a setting.

For my upcoming game, anvilstones have been used as batteries for about 100 years, and they have powered the discovery of the eastern continent.

Nuked Episode 1

This Episode has been banished into the void. I learned how to record with better audio quality, and I wanted a more interesting story line. This post is left here to remind me of my sins.

Episode 1 is officially up.

In this episode, we introduced the podcast, and created 4 characters.

The character creation helped me find some parts of the character creation system that I wanted to change.

Here are the 4 characters. They are written as created on the episode, except changes were made to their items.

Saves vs Checks

In many games, we tell players to Check to see if they can do something.

Player: Oh, I failed my check to pick the lock.
GM: Ok, the door is still locked.

~~or~~

Player: I failed my check to hit the foe.
GM: Ok, you missed.

The problem with this model is that it can create failure loops.

Player: Oh, I failed to pick the lock. I guess I'll try again. And again. And again.

Or worse still, it will create dead ends.

Player: Oh, I failed to pick the lock. I guess I'll never know what is on the other side of the door...

The NSR answer to this is to make everything Saves.
The main purpose of a roll is to determine if there is a consequence for the action.
Yes, a consequence of a bad roll might be failure, but this is not the only answer.

Player: Oh, I failed my save when picking the lock.
GM: The door swings open, but a needle stabs into your hand. Take 3 damage.

~~or~~

Player: I rolled a 2 on my save to hit the foe.
GM: You deal 2 damage to the ruffian but he shoulder checks you, knocking you off balance. Your rolls next round are all hard.

At first glance, this is like the narrative first games, such as PbtA and FitD games. However, the GM is the ultimate arbiter of whether a failed save had a successful action, not the dice.

Player: Oh, I failed my save when picking the lock.
GM: The door's lock seems to have jammed, and a guard has stepped around the corner.

~~or~~

Player: I rolled a 2 on my save to hit the foe.
GM: The ruffian parries our attack, and responds with a flick of his wrist. You take2 damage.

This gives the GM more leeway to direct the narrative on failed rolls.