by DrFace
Varkias wrote:
I have some serious concerns about how I'm going to play this game with others. The chapters in the storybook have a very strong arc. What's wrong with that, you ask?
Consider most "dungeon crawl" games - whether Descent, the recent D&D board games, Doom, Gears of War, whatever - the scenarios may sometimes tie together, but each is essentially episodic. You can play any scenario without being lost. Not so the Sorrow & Remembrance storybook - each scenario sets up the next and follows from the previous. If you skip straight to Chapter 3, people who haven't played the previous chapter will be confused. The only way I can see to avoid this problem is to just skip the Read-Aloud text and present the scenario strictly in terms of victory conditions.
Compounding the problem, the game doesn't scale with number of players. Most Chapter setups call for 4 characters, but one calls for 3, and (IIRC) two call for all 6 characters. This means that even if you do play with all the same people, you've possibly got someone sitting out one chapter, and a couple of chapters where characters are unevenly distributed among characters. There's no satisfactory way to play the entire way through the story-line with a consistent group of players.:(
Consider most "dungeon crawl" games - whether Descent, the recent D&D board games, Doom, Gears of War, whatever - the scenarios may sometimes tie together, but each is essentially episodic. You can play any scenario without being lost. Not so the Sorrow & Remembrance storybook - each scenario sets up the next and follows from the previous. If you skip straight to Chapter 3, people who haven't played the previous chapter will be confused. The only way I can see to avoid this problem is to just skip the Read-Aloud text and present the scenario strictly in terms of victory conditions.
Compounding the problem, the game doesn't scale with number of players. Most Chapter setups call for 4 characters, but one calls for 3, and (IIRC) two call for all 6 characters. This means that even if you do play with all the same people, you've possibly got someone sitting out one chapter, and a couple of chapters where characters are unevenly distributed among characters. There's no satisfactory way to play the entire way through the story-line with a consistent group of players.:(
I am mostly going to play this with my Wife and/or daughter so will usually end up playing any extra characters, which I don't mind, as I am kind of DMing anyway as the reader. If you get a group of 4 or 3 with one person controlling 2, that get together I think you could get a good group. That's assuming people in your group don't mind the uneven distribution. If they have an issue with it then you have a point.
Maybe get a 'previously on Mice and Mystics' script to update new players who missed out on earlier plays?
Campaign games like this are generally all about the consistent group so I hope you can get some people interested!