Tue 13 Sep 2022, 17:09
TL:DR: Fun game, cool give/take mechanics. Not fun to a lose a turn with reactions or fear effects. Also not fun to stack fear effects.
I got to run the pre-made in the back of the guide with a few buds and we enjoyed it! Plenty of it worked great: the initiative system, skill rolls, pushing, helping, magic, monsters. Overall there was a good feeling to gameplay that themed around give & take. The one instance of strong feedback from my players was the turn-loss mechanics. Reactions in general seemed to take more than give. Giving up a move/action, only to potentially avoid a single instance of incoming damage with dodge/parry quickly became something my PCs decided wasn't worth it. Especially when most of the monsters they faced were rolling with 2-3 turns of potential damage anyway. Even though they were still taking an "action" by using dodge/parry, this still felt like they were effectively just not taking their turn at all (succeed or fail).
I can see how the current set-up does indeed work, but in the end, effectively losing turns just wasn't fun for my players. We really enjoyed the core idea of the defensive mechanics and wanted to make them work, so we think we'll try this in the future: if they succeed on a dodge/parry they don't have to flip their card for the reaction, but if they failed then it's the normal result where they get hit and still have to flip their card. There still would be a chance to lose a turn, but also a chance that they wouldn't. This certainly makes the option more powerful but still prone to failure, and overall a more reasonable choice to make. We even saw the potential of the "wait" mechanic being used more, as a PC would be more inclined to fish for dodge/parry potential and delay their turn.
Other "you lose a turn" mechanics sprinkled in didn't sit well either. There was one in the paralyze option on the Fear chart that hit my players a few times. Granted, losing a turn might just not be fun for my players in particular (I can't speak for other tables), and maybe it would feel less punishing once we got gameplay down and ran combat a bit faster so folks weren't just waiting around, but I think it's still worth noting that those moments with "losing a turn" were the only bad ones in our experience.
Additionally I had a personal note on the topic of the Fear Mechanics. I did not like the idea of stacking fear effects on PCs in a single combat/instance. That just felt mean lol. Maybe I'm a lenient GM, but it also felt better for a PC to only gain one effect from fear and have it flavor their character attitude the rest of the combat/instance. Trying to tell my PC's "Okay, so you're exhausted, you're scared, & paralyzed all at once", RP wise, that does make sense as those can all go together, but when they're building one-at-a-time they start to seem silly. "You're afraid... and now you're MORE afraid... and now, you're even MOOREE afraid."
Overall, we're excited to see where the future of the game goes. I certainly backed, so i'll be following! Thank you to your team for all the hard work on the game.