Post Metatopia Thoughts

Did Metatopia last week. Finally had time to sit down and collect my thoughts about the experience.

1. It's amazing and if you design an RPG or a Board/Card Game then you need to make it to this convention.  It's got a knowledgeable dedicated group of designers and players who are ready and willing to give you a lot of excellent feedback. You're going to get a lot of unvarnished, critical, much needed opinions. The kind that most people wish they had.

You know those times when you bemoan the fact that you can't find playtesters? If you play your game several times here it's quite possibly the equivalent of fifteen indifferent test groups that you managed to cobble together. If you have a lot of products that you'd like to get ready, then this is the place for it. Make your way here, you will not be disappointed.

2. The people who show up for this are great, and the people who run it are spectacular. It was a well run machine despite the fact that this was an area that wasn't all that far from the coast after Sandy hit. The hotel staff was a pleasure to deal with, and they were acting like a small shelter for people to come in out of the cold. Classy acts all around.

3. The panels were fun, and well done. They were willing to go at some tough topics, and for the most part stayed on the surface level but then again it's a panel in a one hour slot so it might not have all the time that it needs. However, there's a lot of stuff going on and it will only get better from this point in time.

Now, specifically about my games.

AIR went beautifully. Not to say that the game didn't have any flaws, it did. Some large gaping ones that were exposed by the playtesting. But these flaws were less holes and more like shallow ruts, things that can be easily filled in. People really enjoyed all the elements, they just didn't feel like the game didn't bring any of it together.  Hopefully the changes address that.

I'm changing how the Downward Spiral works, it's not drastic but it's now a group thing rather than an individual thing. The keywords are also unique to each character, and are things that the players are going to invoke on themselves.

The air content is going to be in the entire station rather than just in one area, and it's going to be visible to all so that they can see what's going on.

PvP situations were sorted out, so now that works and could use some testing.

FIXER was a rather huge success. It needed some tweaking of the rules to get it moving, and I'm going to need to go over the math on the cards, but the core rules are pretty damned solid. A few people were interested and I'm going to be playtesting and prototyping for the next little while to get it to a better spot before I send it out.

BANK JOB, was a beautiful horrible mess. No tension, no panic, no anything. The idea is still good, they just didn't pan out. I think I really need to sit back and rethink that one. I have a couple of thoughts but it's going to require some time and I'll probably get to it after FIXER is more done.

Metatopia - Bank Job (Working Title)

I was in the subway coming home one night and thought about the song The Bank Job by the Barenaked Ladies. It's a lot of fun, it's a great song and I felt like I should make a Bank Job game. Not much behind it other than that, I hope that it works as well as I want it to.

What is it, or the Elevator Pitch.

You play a group of bank robbers trying to get as much money as you can, while double crossing the others out of their share. 

The Slightly Longer Pitch

You play cards and bid on various jobs. These jobs give you bonuses, but of course depending on the situation might get you screwed over. Before you bid for the jobs, each person will determine what job they want to screw over. 

What does the game do, how does it work?

Each player gets a set of cards. These cards are valued at 1,2,2,3,3,4,4,5. You reveal the bank, and then each player decides what role they want to screw over and then you bid on the various jobs hoping that you end up getting the jobs that don't get screwed over even if you're the one who screwed over that job. 

What are you hoping to get out of Metatopia for this?

Really, a whole helluva lot. This is something that just came out of my head very quickly. I don't know if it's even a good idea, or if the game works. 

Metatopia - AIR

I have written a fair bit about AIR because it was the game that really wanted to come out earlier. You see I played a game that promised me something, and then didn't deliver on it at all. I wanted a game that was able to tell a ghost story in space, because that sounds like something amazing.

What is it, or the Elevator Pitch.

Exactly what I said, you're playing a ghost story in space. You wake up, something has happened to the space station. You need to get off to survive, but something on the station wants you dead.

The Slightly Longer Pitch
This game is a rather antagonistic relationship between the players (Victims) and the GM (Captain). The goal of the Captain is to kill the Victims, as nastily as possible. The Victims want to get to the escape hatch and survive whatever it is that is trying to kill you.

Much like Geasa though, there is an element of co-operation at the beginning. During the setup the Victims and the Captain will build parts of the ship, and then build in a very indirect way what the Ghost is. You'll do that with keywords on the Downwards Spiral, which the Victims must go through in order to make it to the Escape Hatch.

What does the game do, how does it work?
It's the most boardgamey RPG I've ever done. The players are moving on a map, as well as on the spiral. There's a constant recognition of where you are at all times, but no knowledge of where the ghosts are and what they're going to do.

I want to bring that to the mechanic, so you're uncertain at all times what's going on. What happens is that the Captain rolls a certain amount of dice and assigns them to methods of how you can deal with a problem. The player will then roll and assign dice in an order on how they're going to try to get past a problem.  When that's done everything is revealed and the player gets to see if they succeeded or not.

There's a fair bit of book keeping on the part of the Captain, but I don't know if it's a hindrance.

What are you hoping to get out of Metatopia for this?

The mechanic still needs some work, I think it's fun but there are ways it could be more fun and scarier. It needs to really survive contact with other people, to see if it's going in the right direction. Surprise, because there's probably going to be something brilliant that comes out of people playing it. You can follow the AIR label in order to find the playtest sheets and document if you're interested in seeing what it is before the convention.

Metatopia Upcoming Projects

With Metatopia only a month away I figure it's a good time to start talking about what I'm going to bring to that convention, what the game is, what the goal is, and what I hope to get out of the convention.