Dex Machina...

Last night's game with the NYC Nerds rocked. It was the perfect storm for me - great players, a superb scenario, frenzied dice and a new card mechanic to drive the plot. I ran the game solo (sans minion masters) for six players - which is probably my max for players. I always say seven players are best, but that's just my personal penchant for the number 7.

As noted below, I ran a brand-new scenario called "A Plump Half-Dead Merchant" based on the details found in the mother-of-all adventures, Keep On The Borderlands. This is a perfect adventure for WEGS 101. Sure there's lots of system modifications for the minions, but the setting is perfect. I highly recommend running it for your friends if you're into old skool antics. I'm partial to it, but I think it runs better under WEGS than the original D&D system.

I also introduced a new mechanic which I'm calling the "dex machina". Deck ex machina or the deck in the machine. Using a standard deck of playing cards with jokers in, each player starts with one card (no jokers allowed though). These cards, though held independantly, can be grouped by the party to forge the plot developments they want. Depending on the likelihood of their request or "wish", the kreator determines the card challenge from 1 to 12. 1 being easy, 12 being impossible. Based on this level, the same number of cards are dealt. So, for a Level 3 challenge, three cards are dealt. The players need to beat the cards that are dealt. If they do so, they win the plot. If they lose, they surrender an equal amount of cards back into the discard pile. Prior to each challenge, players may expend Phew! points for one or two additional cards for their hands. They can only hold three cards max in their hand at any one time (similar to the Dunge O' Doom mechanic). All players have to declare if they are in for the challenge or out. They either pledge their cards or they don't. The party can even fight each other for the outcome, splitting the table for those who want Option A to happen and those who want Option B. Whichever side ends up with the highest hand wins.

In last night's game, the party starts chained to a wall. The party decided that one of the shackles was shoddy and would allow a party member to escape. I determined that the likelihood would be a Level 6 challenge. All players pledge their cards. I dealt myself 6 cards and pulled a pair of fours and a Jack as my best hand. They looked over their cards and beat me with a pair of sevens. So, a plot point was set - there was a set of shackles from which one party member could escape. I rolled a supplemental die and determined it would take the party member 3 innings to get free. Since they won the plot, the cards that were played were discarded (the pair of fours, the pair of sevens and the other two cards). The remaining 3 cards from the kreator's hand were surrendered to the players who distributed them as they saw fit. So, in addition to winning the plot point, they also had a minor card replenishment. In the meantime, the Gnoll Mage had begun to cast/blast the spell Ethereality, and was soon making his way to the keys to release the full party from their chains as well...

Dex Machina is just in its infancy and ended up being a little too powerful in last night's game. It was a lot of fun letting the players create the plot. There's other rules to it that I did not cover above though. It certainly has potential for an interesting way for plot development.

I'll be posting a full review of the game on my site - so stay tuned!