Doug Ruff's Iron Review of Bacchanal

[M. Paul Buja]

Dang, Doug. That's quite a review. A "flawed gem"? I'll take that.

And yeah, as a player, the high Soldier on your first roll would be a downer. I wish I'd had time to craft the rules so they prevented the possibility, but I couldn't come up with something that satisfied me. I do have this notion that the game will play quickly, and that it'll be fun to watch, so maybe that mitigates it somewhat. But a revision should definitely address the first roll high Soldier possibility.

I'm not sure I agree with you that it's not FatB. But I can see what you're saying. The whole game, from the perspective of a single player, is like one FitM conflict resolution in DitV. Hmm. To what does beginning/middle/end refer to in FatB/FitM/FatE? I've always thought it referred to the position of interpretive creative content relative to the Fortune. You're suggesting it refers to the position of Fortune relative to stakes/conflict.

And thanks. You really are the Iron Reviewer.

M. Paul Buja

[Doug Ruff]

Hi, glad you liked it. You earned it.

Re: the FitM/FatB thing - I'm not going to stick my neck out too far on this one, as I'll cheerfully admit that, despite my Forge postcount, I'm a newbie to Theory. The main point I wanted to make was about the game looking like a single conflict (well, one for each player, with similar stakes).

Beyond that, I'm lost. Yes, I was thinking in terms of fortune relative to stakes, No, I don't know if that's the right way to go about it.

Perhaps you can educate me: does the initial "roll the two relevant stats" part of conflict resolution in DiTV count as FaTB? Why, or why not?

In the meantime I'm starting to write the next review, will try to finish in time to post tonight.

PS "M Paul Buja" - does that mean I can call you Paul? You have no idea how much grief this caused me writing the review - which is why you ended up being referred to as "the author" so much

[Rossum]

[Harlequin]

I would suggest reworking the "High Soldier" result such that it triggers the ending only under conditions which prevent too-early completion. Maybe it needs all the soldiers to be off the cheese tray, for instance.

Or, interestingly, maybe a high single Soldier forces a scene change and adds two more Soldiers to your cup (possibly also boots some Wine out, too). A high pair of Soldiers is what gets you executed. You'd have to playtest that version, of course, but it would prevent the early loss problem. And would mean that if two or more players are snowballing Soldiers they might actually spread the military out thin enough to escape...

- Eric