DungeonPunk Report
Last night we ran our fist game of DungeonPunk XD6. Unfamiliarity with the game system led to some fumbling (GM included), but generally speaking the game went very well, with plenty of cinematic action and general wackiness. The players made it throught the gauntlet with only one death and, despite some slow bits, managed to make the final encounter a real crowd pleaser.
Some highlights:
The old adage was again proved true: being on fire may not be good for you, but it's always good for ratings.
When Judaicdiablo used his "throw anything" feat to bullseye a Hobgoblin using the elf maiden he'd just rescued from the villain.
Afterwards everyone was agreed that the game was great fun, but needed some kind of additional resource/award. One suggestion was cash prizes that could be spent on powerups, or perhaps some kind of fame statistic that went up whenever you did something cool.
I did include a dynamic "ratings counter", but more as a story element than an actual game mechanic, and I think that worked well. Rewards were in the form of "magical" treasures, but they turned out to be a bit of let down after all the fuss of getting to the treasure machine.
There was also a discussion of whether an advancement mechanism was required. Nobody seemed to think the game needed it to be fun. On the other hand, it's hard to introduce tougher and tougher monsters without it.
Some highlights:
The old adage was again proved true: being on fire may not be good for you, but it's always good for ratings.
When Judaicdiablo used his "throw anything" feat to bullseye a Hobgoblin using the elf maiden he'd just rescued from the villain.
Afterwards everyone was agreed that the game was great fun, but needed some kind of additional resource/award. One suggestion was cash prizes that could be spent on powerups, or perhaps some kind of fame statistic that went up whenever you did something cool.
I did include a dynamic "ratings counter", but more as a story element than an actual game mechanic, and I think that worked well. Rewards were in the form of "magical" treasures, but they turned out to be a bit of let down after all the fuss of getting to the treasure machine.
There was also a discussion of whether an advancement mechanism was required. Nobody seemed to think the game needed it to be fun. On the other hand, it's hard to introduce tougher and tougher monsters without it.
Sorry I missed it - sounds like a lot of fun.
Sometimes I think a character advancement mechanic is overated - treasure and power ups could well be enough in this sort of game - mind you, I wasn't there, so I speak from a complete lack of experience with the game itself.
Posted by
RogerT |
8:09 PM
You always need a character advancement Mechanic. DungeonPunk would actually need several advancement mechanism in fact. You would need personal advancement (in terms of your skills) and your character's advancement (in terms of what powerup you need.) You would also, want some sort of character ranking system so that you can taunt players with "special" tournaments that they can't join yet, or special "Rose Bowl" type events.
The game was a lot of fun and the setting is definately entertaining, but I'm not convinced that Fudge is the system for it. It was a little too all or nothing. By the same token, straight D20 would be much to cumbersome. But that is a discussion for another day.
Posted by
JudaicDiablo |
5:29 PM
I've been looking over the Fudge rules, and I think I just need a little more familiarity with it and some tweaking to make it work.
As for advancement... next comment.
Posted by
Unknown |
9:25 PM
So here's what I've got in mind for advancement.
Players have a certain amount of money and time to work with between dungeon crawls. They can spend this to advance their character.
For example, Grug the fighter might train on strength. He might also spend some money to hire a trainer to make his training more efficient.
StrongArm the network star, however, spends his time attending all the right parties and getting on talk shows to improve his visibility so he can improve his ratings.
As for equipment, well, the sponsors should supply that, but maybe it would be worth a players while to acquire (or even develop) a special item all their own.
Posted by
Unknown |
9:30 PM
I can't recommend Savage Worlds highly enough as the system for this game. It worked wonders for us. It has enough crunch and tactical map-based play to make it very gamey, while being light enough to be very quick and easy in play.
And I agree that character advancement (in fame, sponsors/gear, and ability) is required for this game. My recommendations for how to handle advancement are in the Savage TV PDF.
(Advancement is certainly not required for all games, Brandon. But we can argue that one another time.)
Posted by
John Harper |
12:32 PM
I am unfamiliar with Savage worlds. Fudge certainly delivers as a toolkit, so it's a great game for me, since I'm likely to run many short and varied campaigns. It does what I need for BPXD6.
In the long run, though it's not quite what I'm looking for. It remains to be seen if I need something different or if I'm just a hard to please old bugbear.
Posted by
Unknown |
9:42 AM