Mezzo Game System - Playtester's Wanted
Shimera9:
Mezzo is a rpg I've been working on. The game can perhaps best be summed up by a few key features:
Emergent Characters: Character details and traits are defined during play, allowing for a more fast and loose play style.Narrative Arcs: The game has built in mechanics to support rising tension, a climactic conflict, and bringing things to a close.Collaborative: Mezzo is design to work without a GM. All players have equal ability to shape the game.No Player Lock Out: Players can influence events even if they have no character under their control. This means loss of a character doesn't leave the player sitting on their hands.
You can find more information on the game on my blog (http://dancingchimera.wordpress.com/). Below is an imagined play section the inspired much of the system:
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J: "Alright, who wants to go first?"
C: "I'll go. I think I've got a good idea on how I want to start."
J: "Go ahead."
C: "Alright, it's in an old monastery. Stone halls, gargoyles on the roof and all that. Anyway, a couple of robed figures are walking down a hall. After they pass, another guy in robes slips out of a side passage to a nearby door. Bits of lightning dance from his fingers across the doors lock."
M: "So that's your guy?"
C: "Yep."
J: "Is opening the door supposed to be a challenge?"
C: "Yeah, it sounds like a good first test for the character and I'd like to start building up some points."
J: "Alright, it sounds like you're adding a unique ability by picking the lock with magic. Are you ready to spend one of your edges to back that up?"
C: "Yeah, it's a pretty cool ability and I like having him be a sneaky guy."
G: "Hold up. You've already said people go down this hall and what you're doing is pretty suspicious looking. I'm placing a threat on that challenge. If the threat goes off, you'll be spotted."
J: "Fair enough. C, are you going to split you attention to keep an eye on the threat?"
C: "Nah, I'll just focus on the lock and hope I can get in before it goes off."
J: "Alright, roll em."
*rolls*
C: "Yes! In on the first try!"
G: *shakes fist* "Next time gadget, next time!"
J: "Alright, you're in. What kind of room are we looking at?"
C: "Let's say it's the bedroom of one of the higher ups."
M: "So are you trying to catch the guy asleep?"
C: "No, I'm just looking for something."
J: "Did you want to cash in your success for that?"
C: "Not yet. Let's up the ante a bit. I want to search the room."
J: "Are you spending an edge on that?"
C: "Nah. I'll hold off for now. I can search without that edge right."
J: "Yep, you just don't get any modifiers."
C: "Alright, let's do this."
G: "If they hid something in the room, they might have laid traps too, I'm placing a threat on this. If it goes off, you sprung a trap."
C: "Heh, your throwing threats out left and right, aren't you. Alright, it'll make my reward that much better anyway."
*rolls*
C: "Excellent, looting time!"
G: "Not so fast, the trap went off, too."
C: "What kind of trap?"
M: "Ooh, I've got it. How about an animate statue, like one of those gargoyles?"
G: "That would work, but let's make it something smaller, like a little stone imp."
J: "Alright, so where does it come from?"
M: "Let's put it by the fireplace. It could be disguised as a poker holder."
J: "Sounds good. So just as Hoody McCloakington is poking around the fireplace, one of the poker holders starts moving. I assume it's going to swing its poker at him."
M: "Go for the knees!"
C: "I'm dodging that!"
J: "Go ahead. But you don't get any modifiers unless you spend an edge on that."
*rolls*
C: "Phew, just made it. I'm taking that thing down."
G: "How? It's made of stone and you don't have any weapons."
J: "You could spend an edge to pull one out of your robe."
C: "True, but I'm not sure I want to burn one just yet. The thing's small and this is a bedroom, right? With all the usual items."
J: "That sounds right."
C: "Alright, I'm going to grab the chamberpot and try to trap it under there."
J: "You can do that. The pot will be near the bed though, so the imp can act as you're moving over there."
G: "Like M said, go for the knees. Let's see if it can slow Hoody down."
C: "I already dodged away though, so I should be just out of range."
J: "Alright, let's make it a contest, speed vs speed. If the imp wins, it can spend its successes on an attack. If Hoody wins, he can spend his success on his chamberpot attack."
C: "One minute, I want to spend an edge on this."
J: "You already dodged without spending an edge, so you can't boost your dodging ability until the end of the adventure."
C: "But I should be able to boost how fast I can run, right? I'd like making him fast."
J: "Alright, go ahead and take the bonus then."
*rolls*
C: "Yes! That gives me points to spare. I'm trapping that thing."
G: "Rolling to dodge.."
Those interested can find the play test document here (https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1dOkL12RiYSTlNBlGUsmHhshNtNXJrHphAXRAq9CWIl4&hl=en&authkey=CLSY8rsC&pli=1#).
Shimera9:
After doing a quick playtest, I noticed some players can stall out on ideas. As such, I'm thinking of adding an idea deck to the game. Here's the summary from my blog on what this would do.
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First, it would give the players a source of new ideas. This can be especially helpful if the players run into trouble figuring out what happens next.
Second, it would give me an interesting way to package settings and scenarios in a collaborative environment. In DM run games, you can just give all the details of a scenario to the DM. In a collaborative game, doing so means one player knows what’s going to happen ahead of time. While that’s certainly a possibly, using a deck gives us an interesting alternative. The key elements that make up a scenario can be revealed to one or all players during play. The players can than connect those pieces in different ways to create their own stories from the provided ingredients.
Here are some of the things I’m thinking of working into these rules.
* Drawing Inspiration: Any player can draw a card to reveal new ideas.
* Personal Cards: Each player can sacrifice initial influence to put cards into their hand. This sets their hand size for the game.
* Seed Chains: Players can link cards to those already used. Doing so generates influence. This means a player who spends their initial influence on cards may generate more influence in the long run, but they to have to put in a little extra effort to do so.
If I do go this route, I intend to present this as an add on. I like the idea, but I want to keep the requirements to play to a minimum. As such while I may recommend these cards as a helpful tool, I want to make sure the system doesn’t need them to work properly.
Lance D. Allen:
Hey, I remember this. I believe I found your ideas pretty promising. Good to see you're still working on it.
I'm on a work computer tonight, which cannot access the new editor version of Google Docs, so I cannot check out your playtest draft. I'm going to try to remember to do so when I get home in the morning. Do you mind if I copy the text over to my Google Docs in the older editor format, so I can look it over during the slow periods at work tomorrow night? That'd be the best time for me to get a good amount of reading done.
Shimera9:
No problem there. I slapped a Creative Commons liscence on the playtest doc, so you're free to copy and distribute it. It's good to see a familiar name. I was thinking of mentioning the playtest in the original thread, but I wasn't sure if it be considered necroing the thread.
Lance D. Allen:
It would have been, yes, and then you'd have gotten frowny Ron in here to split it off, so you made the right call by making a new thread.
As an up-front disclaimer, my feedback will be entirely based on a read, as I don't really have any possibility of playing right now.
I've got the doc saved old-form in my Google Docs, and I'll look at it tomorrow night, when I've got quiet time at work.
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