Aha! You’re right, there is more to it than that. That branch should properly raise your Doc quality now. If not, I shall attack the card a third time. Thanks!
I just tried the branch on the doc card, is it not supposed to raise your doc when you lose? If so I can understand why but some clarity would be nice. Still enjoying it, especially since my earlier concerns seem to have been addressed.
EDIT: I believe I just found a typo, or else it’s really jarring. When Grinding gunslinger, the success text for “Patrolling Briar” ends with the statement “The other dudes seem – relieved?”
I also notice that I haven’t found any cityslicker grind card, I understand given the heavy cityslicker focus of Day 1 Evening this probably isn’t as much of an issue but I get the feeling some people might complain.
I’m still enjoying the game, so keep up the good work!
edited by Doomlewa on 12/31/2012
@DoomIewa: the Doc grind card should be fixed up and proper now. Dude is an intentional usage; it’s genre-appropriate lingo (if also admittedly a little weird, all things considered.) The Cityslicker grind card was indeed busted; it has now been fixed. Thanks!
The weird text string bug when you gain your first point of Bullets for Pappy McCall has been resolved. Thanks for the reports!
[quote=Gordon Levine]
@Kir: I’m sorry you felt jolted! But I think the Tom Waits reference did for you exactly what it was supposed to: fill in the details of when and where, exactly, you are. One of the big challenges of a storygame like this is giving players the information they need about the setting as early as possible. I think calling it a “post-apocalyptic western” does that for most people. Other details in the first 20ish storylets seem to have done it for the rest. :)
edited by levineg85 on 12/31/2012[/quote]
Oh! (Ahem. I clearly skimmed in my eagerness and staying-up-lateness. I should’ve realized post-apoc. Sheesh! Cheerfully embarrassed, me!)
Thanks!
Would any of you be interested in a Zero Summer tabletop RPG supplement?
This is an idea we’ve kicked around for a little while: publishing a set of Zero Summer tabletop supplements and mechanics. We would probably do this in conjunction with our Kickstarter (coming sometime this year) and offer it simultaneously as a backer reward and independent purchase.
How would it work?
We would release a basic toolkit: “Zero Summer: the Tabletop Role-Playing Game.” It would be a PDF. It would contain all the mechanics, basic setting info for the world and for Amarillo, and a free supplement: Day 1.
The basic PDF would contain all the info you need to run your own game in the Zero Summer universe. It would probably expand what you know about the world, but it wouldn’t spoil any of the mysteries not yet revealed in game (for example: “what’s with the bats?” would not be addressed.) It would also update the world through Day 1 and the mysteries revealed there (e.g. things you learn about the Gun of Santo Guerrero at Sunrise House; what happens when your White Noise gets too high… although not what White Noise is.)
It would likely cost $5.
Going forward, every time we release content, we would release PDF supplements updating the world knowledge to match what players can learn in game. (For example: if players learn in Day 3 that Santo Guerrero were actually a large cheesecake with strawberry topping, we would include that info in the Day 3 supplement.)
These supplements would likely cost a nominal fee – $2 or $2.50.
Does this sound like something interesting to you? If so, please speak up! All of us on the Zero Summer team are avid roleplayers and would love to enable you to tell your own Zero Summer stories. We just need to know whether there’s interest.
OK, I’ve been playing for my first three days. I’ve got a laundry list of stuff to address. (Tabletop would be REALLLY interesting, by the way. I’m interested!)
-
The ‘Cityslicker’ card has two variants of ‘Hostile Negotiations’. The one that requires the rose should only show up if you HAVE the rose.
-
Once you advance past the ‘Your Own Shadow’ section, the card that tells you to look in the Opportunity deck doesn’t go away.
-
For the rare Great Jackal bit,
“The Great Jackal is eyeing one of the Hardscrabble Homesteader’s cows.”
You turn the bold on here and never turn it off.
3a. Coyote failure typo:
“All you’ve got to show for your efforts is the start of a rash on your legs from the long shredding grass and whatever bitingbugs live among it.” (should be ‘biting bugs’) -
Schroeder’s Note doesn’t work. You just get a blank center pane.
-
“The Mercurial Jackrabbit” — IIRC, isn’t a player’s Luck always 0? You have it requiring Luck 1, and I don’t think that’s how the test is supposed to work.
-
Regarding reputation… getting it is time-consuming— I have two recommendations.
6a— increase the power of the menace removers. 5 points seems pretty weak when I gain that with my next ten actions.
6b— add an item that gives +1 reputation from grind cards. -
Free Clinic ‘Vino’ typo:
“…although it does call into question why Cookie, whose taste in food is immaculate, has such an awful palette for wine.” (should be ‘palate’)
7a. Free Clinic ‘Personal Session’ typo:
“ when the time of healing pain has passed over and through you – everything fels better.” (should be ‘feels’) -
Mission ‘Bearing Gifts’ typo:
“Sweeping in through the big double-doors is a loan figure.” (should be ‘lone’)
8a. You should remove the ‘you won’t have time’ warning on the Mission Conversation cards. You have just enough time to talk to everybody. -
I’m having a LOT of trouble with the first job because all the challenges are chancy ones. It’s taking so long I’m not sure if I want to do other jobs, and I’ve been in jail twice now because of its failure states! Can you change the challenges on the card to modest? I’ve been through ~150 actions over the past three days and the job’s not done… (in case you’re curious it’s at 4 and one change point)
EDIT: I juuuust finished the job with my last action of the night, though my previous appraisal stands. -
And speaking of menaces, I feel that the menaces come on too quickly. ‘up to 5’ comes to 15 change points. Fallen London used to have the menaces at 5, but shifted to 8 for all some time ago. It’s too easy to fail at a bunch of challenges and spend your next 7 actions getting out of jail (or resting up at the clinic). I’m not sure what options you have, but maybe up the Menace ‘sideslip’ threshold a bit?
EDIT: Another thing would be to try and spice up the menace areas, and I specifically mean the jail, a bit more… add some rare successes? :)
SECOND EDIT: I realized what it is about the menaces that’s been bugging me. They feel insubstantial. My time in Rio Seco intrigued me, and I wanted to stick around a little and learn more— even if I wanted to return to Amarillo even more. Rio Seco felt like it meant something, something big and puzzling and hidden. With jail and the clinic, neither has the same import. They feel more like service stations, somewhere you stop to heal up or bleed off your trouble with the law, than places of enduring solidity (and perhaps threat and somewhere to avoid). It needs to be harder to attain them, but at the same time they need to mean more when you go there.
edited by ladymadsci on 1/2/2013
edited by ladymadsci on 1/2/2013
Thanks for the well thought-out and detailed feedback! The balance issues are under meditative discussion (one wants several cups of tea while considering these things). Right now I have my typo-assassin hat on, so I wanted to follow up on one of your notes, ladymadsci.
I seem to be playing a merry game of chase here, so at what word do you see the bolding begin? And when you say it never turns off, do you mean that the rest of the card’s text is bolded, but then it ends, or that all text for subsequent cards is bolded for you?
Aha! Some Irish Breakfast tea gave me the caffeine needed to spy our error! Many thanks, without end-tags, things can quickly get out of hand.
One thing re: Menace states:
Our goal has always been to use them as narrative tools. A satisfying way to tell stories of danger and convalescence. The White Noise Menace is currently more fleshed out because it serves as a critical narrative pivot.
The Heavy Hand and Ailments Menace states will be expanded soonish to include more long-form story content. No promises, but I’d expect to see new Menace storylets when we release the first part of Day 2/Afternoon. (Also no promises, but: consider mid-Aprilish. More on that soon.)
And for a little content tease: in Ailments, expect to learn more about the sullen Mr. Zucker and the hidden gears that grind within the Clinic.
Ah crap. Server error killed my post. I’ll see if I can remember.
-I like the new grind cards. Gives a feeling of progress and “newness”.
–A bit strange that the initial Gunslinger option doesn’t award Reputation, but the initial Doc option does. Intentional unstable equilibrium?
-Nice to be able to finally use one of the rare success rewards I’ve been holding on to.
-Equipment sure is expensive! Very Fallen London-like, there. I guess we’ll be getting more opportunities to earn money, then.
-Hm. I admit I’m not terribly thrilled with the way jobs are handled. Any story that progresses through opp cards is going to be tiring at best and tedious at worst, and this is especially bad because it’s not even guaranteed that you’ll advance every draw. Maybe lower the difficulty of the skill check? “Chancy” does seem a bit unfair, especially for a mandatory tutorial one.
-Cityslicker grind card had some typos in the option that involved being a mediator.
I’ve used up my 30 actions, so I guess that’ll be all today due to the slow recharge speed.
@Little The: Glad you like the new grind cards. The lack of Rep on the first Gunslinger option is a bug. As for Jobs: would you rather they be pinned? Currently they’re set to diff 1 – 50% chance success at PE1.
(We could instead lower the difficulty a notch.)
Having them be opp cards does work for the ongoing side-job thing, it’s just kind of annoying when it’s mandatory in this case. It also seems like it’s going to take a long time to get to level 5 at one CP per success. I do think that lowering the difficulty would be the best solution.
That’s what I’m leaning towards too. Also doubling Jobs’ rate of appearance (to match grind cards’.)
Actually, nix that: I think I’ll try with Jobs as Pinned cards for a couple of days.
Closed beta testers: thoughts? Preferable to Opp cards? Keeping in mind here that eventually Day 2/Morning will be over and you’ll want to grind Reputation without as much of the other stuff…
Oh, that’s great! We’ll see how it turns out. I do prefer pinned cards to opp cards, myself.
By the way, after reading your update post, I do very much like the idea behind the Reputation system. Grinding to unlock an obscure but juicy subplot is much more rewarding than just grinding to buy an infinity+1 sword or a bunch of Potions of Minor Healing that I’ll never really use, and it will be nice to have something to work towards in-between content updates (a bit like grinding for an Overgoat in FL, ha). They do get extremely expensive, though – I imagine the upper tiers are only intended to be gotten during the end of the game?
I’m glad you like the Rep system! The goal is very much to give dedicated players a slow drip of content between content. I expect the most expensive content – the Ashling, Doc Roslyn – will take dedicated weeks of play. Faster than the Overgoat but not exactly fast. Then again, I think the rewards are commensurate.
[quote=Gordon Levine]Actually, nix that: I think I’ll try with Jobs as Pinned cards for a couple of days.
Closed beta testers: thoughts? Preferable to Opp cards? Keeping in mind here that eventually Day 2/Morning will be over and you’ll want to grind Reputation without as much of the other stuff…[/quote]
I like the Jobs as Pinned cards–it makes them less tedious and more fun.