Subject:
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Brickfest 2000 Pirate Game Postmortem
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.gaming
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Date:
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Sun, 18 Jun 2000 06:13:50 GMT
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2362 times
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Ok, I've been kicked off my duff by Evil Stevie himself to write my final
postmortem. We haven't seen any additional comments for a while.
I'll discuss various areas as they come to me.
PREPARATION:
The game requires much more preparation that I had realized. I spent several
evenings the week before building ships, and we still didn't really have
enough cutters. Hopefully this will not be an issue the next time and I will
have all my ships built. I also didn't get a chance to pre-build any
islands. Packing was also an issue. The pirate ships are hard to pack. This
may limit how many big ships I bring to future games (which may not be an
issue - we never really needed the big ships). Thanks to everyone who
supplied stuff for bases (Shiri for her inn, Chris Weeks for a couple
islands, and Stephen Campbell for his base - I hope I didn't miss anyone,
thanks to Stephen Roberts for supplying his own cutter, and supplying a
backup of stock ships had we needed them [did anyone else bring cutters?],
Stephen Campbell also brought some bigger ships which we didn't use). I also
needed to be more prepared with materials (copies of the record sheets, read
the rules, etc).
One good thing which came out of my forgetting to bring tape measures. We
used range sticks made out of LEGO bricks. These worked nicely, and look
great in the pictures. It would be real nice if TLC would re-release the 1x1
bricks with numbers and letters so we could mark the sticks...
FACILITIES:
We had a space about 20'x30'. It would have been nicer to have a larger
space. It would have been MUCH nicer to have a lockable or otherwise secure
space. It was nice that we were not closed off in a back room (it's a shame
the castle folks were off in a back room, I don't think I made it there
until Saturday). Had we had a secure space, we could have set up (and
perhaps even started) Friday night. After playing, I definitely want to
stress that a carpeted space is more important than a bigger space. We spent
a lot of time kneeling or laying on the floor. The cafeteria would have
rapidly become uncomfortable. Also, the carpeting presents less worry about
scuffing the bottom of the ships. A major problem was that the space was
seriously under-air-conditioned. By 6:00 PM when we basically stopped, I
was essentially wiped out, largely due to heat issues (it took all evening
for me to pack, mostly because I just didn't want to deal with it). As a
result of all of this, we ended up with only about 6 hours of game play. Due
to the cramped quarters, we elected to change the 2' range of cannon to 18".
This worked well.
SCHEDULING:
The scheduling was a bit chaotic which caused problems. There was one point
where the game was abandoned for a demo. Several people were missed in the
call for lunch take out. Dinner arrived while we were trying to finish the
last couple of turns, and by the time we got to the cafeteria, the pizza was
almost gone.
GMING:
Major problem - we only had one GM. This was in part caused by my looking
around as we were setting up and seeing only 4-6 players. By the time we
actually started, we had more like 12 (Chris Weeks, Stephen Roberts, Lindsay
Braun, Jackie and Andy Lynch, Shiri Dori, Jeff Stembel, Tim Courtney, Mike
Shamus, Jameson, Abe Friedman - ok, so that's 11, 10 actual ships), a few
people started later (Stephen Campbell arrived just as we started, and
joined in turn 5, Nathan McDowell took over for Jackie and Andy, Inbal Dori
took over Abe's ship later in the game). The fact that no one had played
before also led to some slowness. Some major errors I made were forgetting
the initiative rules, forgetting to plot the NPC ships, and forgetting about
the chase rules. My estimation of the NPC ships movement also was annoying
to one player. One bonus that helped was that the players who were
experienced gamers took it upon themselves to resolve some of the movement
issues, and resolve some combat (like rolling to hit, and then telling me
when I got over, "no one hit"). One issue later in the game was how to work
with a younger player. Inbal was probably able to understand the game, but
the pace was definitely frustrating to her (in general, people were
constantly worried that their turns had been skipped).
Some thoughts for future GM assistants:
- deputize some of the players to oversee combats which are not near and
dear to them
- let some assistant GMs run a bunch of NPC ships. This would let those
ships be run a little more carefully yet still be fun. Each assistant could
take a merchant or two as needed, and a military ship (perhaps each could
have a military ship for the whole game, and try and chase down rumors of
the pirates or something), each assistant could also take on suttler duties
for one or two of the ports.
Steve Jackson has confirmed that this is the first time a large scale game
has been run by someone other than himself as far as he is aware of.
RULES:
There is a lot to understand of the rules. Some large charts to put on the
walls would help. Simpler damage charts for NPC ships would help (the PC
ships have the combat charts, so the NPC ships just have to have compas
diagram and damage boxes, with a few lines for comments). The wind didn't
change enough.
One player commented that he thought that characters wandering about the
islands would play more of a role. The problem with the invincible
alligators contributed to this problem. The scale of treasure may be a
problem also (taking a prize probably gains you much more than just finding
treasure). Probably it needs to be harder to take a prize (but the game also
has to move at a pace such that over the course of a few hours, islands get
plundered, ships get robbed of their cargo, and an occasional prize is
taken). I think that the island action should be important (it gives players
another reason to sail around).
The weather was a real drag. We played almost the entire game under a light
wind from the west. I used the pre-generated chart, and several times, even
though the 5 or 6 roll to change the weather came up, the next line on the
chart was the same.
Things like turning radius and pursuit rules perhaps should appear on the
record sheets (need to think about some rules to summarize on the record
sheets)
I ran something which was a meld of the battle game and the campaign game.
Some of the affects of this were that the islands were pretty much always
there (I guess I could have introduced new islands which someone
discovered). Another effect was that the battles occurred at the same pace
as ship movement, so it was possible to sail into a battle. I don't think
this is bad for a game (even though it is mighty unrealistic from a campaign
point of view).
I liked the way I ran skeletons. The skeletons moved and attacked after live
characters. Their attack was a throttle (though they could pick up weapons).
When hit, the skeletons got a save, the save was a 1-4 on a d6 for gun fire
and 1-2 or 1-3 (I forget) for cutlass attacks. I didn't allow cannon fire at
the skeletons other than grapeshot (which could be shot at a cluster within
a couple inches).
Some thoughts have been raised about rule changes:
- initiative randomizer (I think this would add too much complexity, I also
don't see a problem with the pirates early on having a dramatic initiative
advantage)
- things like swivel guns (probably a complexity add)
- siege mortars
- Different range penalties for grapeshot (may add complexity, need to look
at the suggestion)
- wind speed variation seemed to add complexity without much value (wind
direction change on the other hand is worthwhile)
- should hull hits affect speed (if they did, some of that speed loss could
be kept until the ship is properly repaired, this would reduce the need for
the hidden damage chart)
- it has been discussed to have the combats run asynchronously (sorry - I'm
a techy) to ship movement (I don't think this would be good - if we speed
things up, I think it will be less of a problem
- another suggestion was to change the measurement from 4 studs (close to an
inch) to 3 studs. (I don't think this would be good, pistols already are
hard to use with -1 per full inch of range, reducing that would make them
almost useless).
- maximum ranges for cannon might be worthwhile, though no one ever tried to
shoot from one side of the ocean to the other, in fact, only a few shots
were ever taken at more than 18", and I think 30" or so was the maximum
range a shot was ever fired at.
OVERALL:
More GMs, some provision for GM relief, lockable facility (even if not
available the whole weekend), and better AC would have allowed running the
game all weekend which would have suited several of the hard core players,
and might have allowed fewer players at once since the players who wanted to
play for a few hours or so could come in at any time.
SUGGESTED CHANGES:
- Modify the wind chart so direction changes more, perhaps eliminate some of
the wind speed categories
- Make alligators easier to kill on land, and have them not automatically
kill characters
- Detail out the rules for all the creatures (these need not be revealed of
course)
- Swivel guns could be added. Quantity as reasonable to fit on ship. Used
for personal combat, similar to longarm, -1 per 4", can kill crocodiles and
sharks easier (as well as other large creatures)
- Siege mortars (see separate rules Lindsay has proposed - I'll be
commenting on them also)
- need smaller rulers for personal combat
---------------
I'm sure there's stuff I missed, but I'm running out of energy for tonight.
Frank
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Message has 6 Replies:
 | | Re: Brickfest 2000 Pirate Game Postmortem
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| (...) ...BTW: I thought your 'instant cutters' with 2 end to end boat pieces worked quite well. U should ship off pics to Evil Stevie for reference in emergencies like we had (too few cutters!) (...) ...I agree the 18" worked great as a way to limit (...) (24 years ago, 19-Jun-00, to lugnet.gaming)
| | | Re: Brickfest 2000 Pirate Game Postmortem
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| One other thing, I'm working on a writeup of the game. I've looked at all the pictures posted so far (has anyone yet to post pictures besides myself?), and I got through about an hour or so worth of the web cam, selecting out good pictures. I still (...) (24 years ago, 19-Jun-00, to lugnet.gaming)
| | | Re: Brickfest 2000 Pirate Game Postmortem
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| Aha! It looks like I can now read/post to the Lugnet web interface! Unless of course this message does not show up, in which case, ignore the above. I enjoyed reading Frank's writeup. Yes, as far as I know, this is the first major "blindtest" of the (...) (24 years ago, 20-Jun-00, to lugnet.gaming)
| | | Re: Brickfest 2000 Pirate Game Postmortem
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| (...) The writeup looks excellent. It really summarises everything quite well. One quick comment: (...) Just to get it on the table, as it were, I'm currently in MI and so both the mortars and the digital camera are in NJ. I'm not yet very facile (...) (24 years ago, 21-Jun-00, to lugnet.gaming)
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