[Caterpillar] A Space Game of Space Pirates in Space
DPrim:
First off, I would like to express how awesome this game sounds. It was a pleasure to read, being the right mix of hilarious and informative about the ruleset. However, I have a few observations, and I hope you dont feel like I'm going out of the scope of your original questions.
1) The whole Bones section is very confusing to me. I feel like I understand the concept of what you're trying to accomplish (if you roll a Bone and the die lands on the number that you have pips filled in, you take damage), but it seems completely abstract until you look at a character sheet. Maybe it's just me,but it's a bit irritating that I have to look away from the ruleset and look at a character sheet to make sense of it. So either the rules need to be reworded, or I'm just a dummy, or perhaps the rules should be reworded so that dummies like me can understand it.
2) I'm curious about why you made a decision to only have the class descriptions of the character sheets. I'm also curious about why you would want characters to choose their homeworld before before being able to receive a sheet. To me, either of those would be workable, but there seems to be an inherent problem to include them both.
Let me explain my thoughts. It seems like your decision to have the class descriptions only on the character sheet effectively makes it so you have a rulebook without a complete ruleset, particularly because you explain in the Skulls section about different classes having different potential Skulls, and then you don't elaborate until the character sheets. Even so, not that big of a deal, it just requires going back and forth between the rules and the character sheets.
Now about the mechanic of not being able to receive a sheet until you declare your homeworld... I think I understand your motivation for this. I think that you included this so that people will just play what they think sounds cool rather than min-maxing. It also makes it so that you can get a character to create a little bit of background before he starts his mechanical decisions. Neither are bad reasons.
However, consider this. If you declare that players cannot receive character sheets until they determine their homeworlds, there are a couple of different scenarios that can happen. Either a player hasn't played the game before and they dont know the specifics of a given class, which means all they have to go on is "Earthlings were born on Earth. They are old and wise. Primers were born on Earth Prime. They are strong and tough. Fairies were born on Fairweather. They are tricky and techno-savvy. Rockets were born on floating space rocks. They are self-reliant and machine-minded." These descriptions are minimal to the point where a player could choose a homeworld, and end up not liking his character because he doesn't have abilities he might want. Essentially, he cant get a character sheet until he chooses his character, and he has to choose his character without learning what it can do. The alternative is a player who has already played the game and knows what each class can do, in which case, it doesn't matter whether he's gotten a character sheet yet, because he can already inform his choice. It seems like the only thing this rule does is hinder the ability for a new player to make a meaningful choice about what kind of character he wants to play.
3) Why the artificial limit on the characters? Why does each player have to play a different class? In my estimation,having two Primers wouldn't upset the game. The only meaningful change I can think of is that there is more likely to be a greater emphasis on combat. I get that you want every character to be able to shine, and having two characters of the same class means that during certain situations, they might have to share the spotlight, but shouldn't that be a secondary concern to players being able to play the characters they want? Especially considering the fact that the spotlight doesn't stay on any one character for long on account of the Skull Box (which is an ingenious rule and I wish I had thought of it), I'm not sure what the One-Pirate-Per-Homeworld limit is trying to accomplish.
I know I said I liked the idea game, so I apologize for what must just look like a litany of complaints. I'm just not a good enough wordsmith to be able to say all the above things succinctly.
Josh Porter:
Thanks, DPrim for your awesome feedback. I really appreciate the time you took to respond so thoroughly. It's great to hear. So let's break this down, shall we?
1) I am so glad you said this. The Bones section is confusing, I know. Or at least I suspected it. The issue I'm having with explaining this concept is mostly based on the fact that it's a purely visual thing that I'm trying to communicate with words. There's nothing to write down, no numbers, just coloring in a picture. Since you brought this up, I think I'm going to go back and apply some education theory to that section. Put in some step by step pictorial instructions perhaps. Or is it more the abstract nature of what Bones are that is confusing? Does the section need more of an explanation of what the roll means? It's basically a means of determining how much damage you soak. If you roll Bones, you were hit in some way, it just tells you how much that hit hurt you, if at all.
2) With regard to class descriptions and character sheets, you brought up one thing I'd thought of and one I hadn't even considered. First off, I am just kind of lazy and haven't yet ported the character stats and powers and stuff over to the book proper. I am planning to do it soon, but I have to get off my ass and get it done. It will probably be its own section after the rules for regular pirates and before the RA section.
Now the whole "pick your character before you look at the sheet" thing is something I didn't even realize my text was implying. That totally missed me. I kind of figured that everyone would hear the descriptions, look over the sheets as a group and people would snatch the ones they liked. That's pretty much how it went in my playtest group. But knowing the way it might sound, I should probably rephrase that little paragraph a bit.
3) Now this question is my favorite. And that's because I have a real answer to it. I'll start off with a question of my own, though. Have you ever played Apocalypse/Dungeon World? There is a similar idea in those games that's stated a little differently. It basically says, "There may be other people who [do what your character does] but there is only one [name of character class]: you." That's what I'm going for. There will be many other Primers and Fairies and such, but you are the only one that matters.
Thinking of other class-based systems, the go-to is always D&D. And in D&D, while it does occasionally happen, most of the time no one doubles up on character classes. It's easier in newer editions to spread out among the classes, as there are like 20, but even in old school, Rules Cyclopedia D&D (where there are perhaps 6 or 7) nobody tends to double up. BUT, you can do it and it works when you do it. I think the reason why is important. In D&D there are SO MANY OPTIONS at every stage of char-gen that two fighters can operate mechanically in totally different ways. In this game, though, the options are far more limited. Every last character option fits on a single, double-sided sheet of paper. This is important.
Two guys may choose to play Primers (in glorious defiance of the rules), and while creating their pirates they make sure to go for differing options from each other. They choose different Skull options, different Sinks, different Stuff. When the game begins, they are both fighty-men, but they have different mechanical choices to make. As the game progresses and they get promoted they will get to improve their pirates, up to, perhaps, 14 promotions. This is where the low-options element becomes more important. In order to keep their pirates mechanically separate, they have to avoid choosing new pieces of Stuff that the other guy has. When they get the options to rename their Sinks or add new ones, they need to be careful not to spread into the other guy's territory. When they do, their pirates, while possibly remaining different in terms of role-play style, become more and more mechanically similar.
Now for me this is a bad thing. That does not mean it will be a bad thing for every group of players. But it would be for mine. And, I'm sure, it would be for many others. The restriction is there to avoid mechanically similar characters, sure. But it's also in place to leave a pirate's promotion options open for the future. It's not as much fun to promote your pirate when you don't want to choose certain options because your friend's character already has them. Each pirate has his own schtick, and it's a fairly narrow one. That's my two cents, anyway.
***
Seriously man, thanks a lot for all your feedback. That's really the kind of stuff I was looking for from the first post, especially the Bones stuff. I'm adding a couple of things to the game right now (mostly a mission-prep system for the RA), and I'll throw in some revisions to address the things you suggested as well. I'll post a new link up on this thread once it's all written down, and I'd appreciate your feedback again once things have been reworded a bit. Thanks!
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