19-JUN-2007

Playtesting – Round 3.0 Is Over!

The third round of playtesting ran long and covered a playset of almost 400 cards. As a result of tester feedback, a lot of changes were made and has delayed the start of the fourth round.

As has become a normal process around here, the playtest round ended with testers debating certain elements: some like them as is, others would want to see changes made. Changes made to one element sometimes necessitated additional changes. The old challenge system was converted into the blocking ability. This meant that a lot of cards that dealt specifically with challenges needed to be reworked or cut completely.

From the beginning, characters being put into the discard pile didn’t mean they were dead, just that you’ve used up your favor; you’d have to establish a new link to that character to get them to do anything else for you (ie, play a new copy of their card). Since there is no afterlife for the people of Veridios, having dead characters be ineligible for sicard poile mining would severely limit the use of said discard pile. The alternative, having dead character suddenly back in action, was completely contrary to the established world.

Enter the “removed from game” pile. Now we can have characters killed off through nefarious means, poison, or other effects and still maintain “used influence” via the discard pile.

For the last two weeks, I’ve been refocusing the Order cards. Each pillar (economic, military, political, and religious) has been given a tighter direction separate from their related city-states. Certain mechanics were chosen to represent this feel. For example: Politics is concerned with having the right influence at the right time and denying your opponent the same. So the player’s hand of cards seemed the right place to put the political power. Political Orders lean toward manipulating hand sizes & drawing and discarding cards. Revealing cards in your or your opponents hand seemed a natural mechanic to represent spies and the information network of rumors and overheard conversation.

Other elements that came from this most recent round of playtesting include splitting Events into Divine and Worldly, the Camaraderie mechanic, a change to allied characters, and how location control can gain a player dignitas. Still to come is to typeset the notes and new cards into v4.0 playtest cards. Then the next round of fun really gets into gear!