A Sunday Dingbitt's, Part 2...

You know a game is good when you have a lingering feeling for it to continue, and you find yourself thinking about the game play a full week later; the "afterglow", as it were. There were a couple of reasons why this demo rocked: (1) three brand new players; (2) two players with books; (3) one player who just happened to be in the store and decided to jump into the game on a whim; (4) two Wegshogs in attendance: Spointer Don and Willy the 2 (Minion Master); (5) I was free to loom above the table helping the players with questions and running lesser level minions; (6) two spectators who sat in on the game and pumped energy into the players with their questions and comments. All in all, a good, solid demo that ran like a full-fledged game. It didn't feel like a demo at all. It was us power-playing WEGS.

At about 3:30 pm, we were wrapping up the fourth encounter. Arks had already sprung a few leaks: Phew! were being blown, spoints were being conserved, the Warrior had a Wicked Invulnerability Failure). It was up in the air if all the Arks would make it out of the encounter alive. There was one Minion left on the battlemat: the 66% Undead Sage who had only five Wound Chips and one Blood Chip. For those of you who don't speak WEGS, that meant the enemy had anywhere between 60 and 150 Wounds. The Blood Chip strength isn't revealed until it is tapped. (I'm sure that explanation was even less helpful for the Unwegs.) Anyway, the Undead Sage (who was holding the bottom of the inning) successfully cast a spell. He would be blasting it the next inning.

Top of the inning. Players go!

With the breath of the Undead Sage's spell breathing down their necks, the players needed to take him out fast; hopefully before the spell went off. The Warrior charged up to him and took a whack. He reduced the Undead Sage to 1 Wound Chip and 1 Blood Chip. The Gnobbit Trickster ran up and jumped into the Undead Sage's square. This would cause the Sage to suffer an Invulnerability penalty the next inning. No other Ark's were close enough to help (or none wanted to get within the Undead Sage's spell range...).

Bottom of the inning. Minions go!

The Undead Sage launched Clash of the Spheres. This instantly paralyzed the Warrior, who was now a sitting duck. Unfortunately, this did NOT paralyze the Gnobbit who was in the same square as the Undead Sage. The spell has a ground-zero benefit. The safest place to be when this spell goes off is exactly where the Gnobbit was! This was the first time we ever saw this maneuver - ever. Moments like this solidify the afterglow.

Next inning. Top. Players go!

I'll cut to the chase here - the Gnobbit Trickster has one shot to kill the Undead Sage, and so he takes it. He only does 40-something points. He destroys the Undead Sage's last Wound Chip and so everything hinged on the Blood Chip total... Willy rolls and scores...

1

The worst possible roll for him... The Undead Sage perishes! The Minion Master groaned. The Arks cheered. The game ended on a high note - kinda. After all, the players were still trapped in Dingbitt's Dunge O' Doom!

A Sunday Dingbitt's Demo

This past Sunday, we ran a demo at Time Warp Comic & Games in Cedar Grove, NJ. Had 5 players (Don, Nate, Nick, Todd, Joel). Three players were brand-spanking new to WEGS. Willy the 2 was Minion Master. I floated about as Kreator. Scenario was Dingbitt's Dunge O' Doom. The game was fluid and the new players took to it like fish to water. Arks were:

Dwarf Sage
Goblin Warrior
Elf Ranger
Gnobbit Trickster
Goblin Mage

This list also represented their batting order. They started and ended each inning with a spellcaster action (Sage/Mage). The group plunged down four levels, picking up speed with each passing encounter. All in all, they completed four encounters in three hours - which is great for this scenario. In the final encounter on Level 4, they faced one 88 Warrior Lord, one 66 Undead Sage and three 33 Zombies. The group perfectly divided themselves to fight this three-front battle. The Ranger took on the zombies. The Mage and Sage focused on the Undead Sage. The Warrior and Trickster engaged the Warrior Lord. The field was covered with mini-battles. Stuff that was great:

Top of the Inning was in effect. We normally don't push this rule, but the speed of play warranted it. The Arks were able to start at the bottom of the inning and hack their way to the top by eliminating the minions of higher stat percent.

Trickster Blitz (page 45, WEGS 101). We tend to leave this rule out at conventions as it's one of the extras. Two players had their rulebooks and called it into play. It allows the Trickster to move+attack. Being that the Trickster in this game had found a pair of magic boots that added +3 Move, he was able to fly around the field of combat. Great stuff!

More to follow!

Crackin' Copper, Part 2

Spent some time this week trying to organize WEGS Copper. I have two versions: (1) the actual text document in MSWord, and (2) the layout in InDesign. Trying to wrap my mind around the differences in the two docs and get them back in sync. As all 12 of you who read this blog know from prior posts, Copper was near-ready for print. At that point in the publishing process, I cut the strings that bind the two versions together and finish all the loose ends in the InDesign layout. The docs generally don't get too far out of sync. This weekend my plan is to get both versions to jive, then begin edits once more. I also have a Pirates of Penzantium playtest with the home Hogs and an in-store demo at a local store. A WEGS-ish weekend all-in-all.

Crackin' Copper

As I sit here typing, WEGS Copper is spitting furiously out of my printer... This is the first time I've printed Copper in over 10 months! This copy is just for proofing purposes, so I set my printing options to "Draft Quality", then pushed print. When the printer is set to this mode, it rapidly spits the pages out, off the tray, and into a unsorted pile on the desk... I sit here with one eye on the chaotic, anti-paginated pile that is mounting. One page just got caught up in the feed, almost a jam, but luckily averted by my Eli Manning-esque printer-jam diversion play. Just ran out of paper at page 23 (Chapter 3, On Arks & The Ark Kard). Resume printing. Crazy gear-grinding noise. Pages a-spitting again. {INSERT ART - DUNDWELL} note on page 2... Done! Now I just have to sort the pages in their proper order... 209 pages in all. My weekend plans are to compare this document to the pdf master version that was completed in April 2007. It was at that time that I pulled the plug on Copper and put all my attention on getting WEGS 101 Old Skool to print. Gonna be a fun weekend.

On a different note, I just got a shipment of plastic card cases today that fit the WEGS 101 Skill Deck perfectly. The Skill Deck just went on sale on the website this week (though I did sell a couple of decks at Dreamation). These decks have already brought a whole new perspective to WEGS 101 game play. Players can use these decks to build multi-class Arks and take the game to a new level. The thrust of Copper is similar in that it strips away the regimented Ark skill list (i.e. only Mages get Mage spells). The skill deck allows players to explore multi-classing on their own, before cracking Copper.

(There's an FAQ on the website that briefly details this concept)