Peer Review Thread

[Rossum]

Game: Charles the Bald is... well, he's having a very bad day.

First Impression:

What? Where's the game? Are you sure... say, that's a nice map.

When I first saw the title, I was looking forward to reading this one. The name alone wins big in my book. But I'm not I'm a big history buff- I know enough to know that Charles the Bald is a king, or European royalty at the very least.


Game Chef components:

Okay, based on or inspired by history. A big check. Middle of the 9th century (AD). Ingredients, check. Accuser, Companion, and Invincible are the three schticks of the three groups involved. The mechanics are limited by, let's see... Pregens, no character sheet and hand gestures. So far so good.

But as to the game- Either I'm missing something, or this isn't an RPG. There's a list of characters, sure- but there's virtually no details on them other than their name, title, and a half-dozen words to describe their relation to the others. The game hints at narration of scenes, bu there's no direction that I can see about what sort of scenes one might narrate.

The intro text has some nice color to it, and i was hoping to see more in the vein as I read, but the text quickly drops off into pure mechanics (effectively rock-paper-scissors) and examples. The humor and wit that the title suggests and the into provides is just flat out missing.

I also was a little let down at the bibliography/links/see also page. In a game that seems to rely on so much pre-play knowledge, it seems a crime to just tack on a list of links at the end. Perhaps if the characters and history were more detailed, one would have a better feel for what's expected of play.

Overall feelings:

This entry has a very rushed - almost incomplete - feel to it. I wanted to see more originally, but I'm still not sure this isn't a boardgame- there's provisions for scoring and winning.

Judgement:

I don't want to play this.

MDK

[Ben Lehman]

Review of BarQuest:

Contest Criteria:

Historical Period: Well, okay, it is vaguely medeival, but it seems a better fit into a fantasy setting, and doesn't really conjure up a specific historical period for me. It does fine meeting the criterion, but it doesn't really excel.

Ingredients: Wine, Companion, Accuser. The first is something that could be drunk at the bar, but the other two are only mentioned in passing in the random events table, and I'm not even entirely sure what those mean (your companion is effected by alchohol?)

Rules Limitations: It looks like there are some designer oriented card-like things (tiles and event tiles) as well as a wonderful set of pre-generated characters (but the option to make your own is problematic for that.) Hand gestures are also used whilst playing the game.

Review of the Game:

What a fan-fucking-tastic idea. I'm a big fan of bar games.

The greatest bit: The game totally shines with its pre-generated characters. Forget about making your own! The interface of desires for sex, money, love, emotional release, and how those interface with the ability to provide them is role-playing gold. It's just absolutely fucking brilliant.

The parts which could be genius, with work: The task resolution is just fine, but I want it to have a bit more bite somehow. Maybe some sort of rule about narration of successes versus failures? I like the idea that failure should really drive you deeper into trouble. Likewise, I like the idea of the random event after achieving a goal, but I think it needs to be only bad, not good -- someone who is achieving their goals doesn't need help! Also, the events table should definitely be seperated into different tables for different goals (so having sex gives you crabs, whereas getting money might attract a pickpocket.)

The parts which, frankly, confused me: Why is drinking alchohol just bad for you? It shouldn't be. This is a bar game. The characters are here to get drunk. There should be some sort of reward for it. Perhaps give each character an N drink minimum that they need to consume by the end of the night? Perhaps it could give some sort of short-term bonus with a long term penalty? Perhaps it makes the barkeep like you more?

Also, I was really just straight confused by the event tiles How are they used? Are those the only events that can happen? Also, what are the rules about movement and how much you can do in a "turn?" I really want a bit more structure to hang my actions and strategy on.

I think that this is an excellent game that needs some more development and a fair amount of spit and polish before it is totally playable. That said, I would probably play it once as-is, just to see the characters bounce off of each other. What a great scenario!

yrs--
--Ben

[hamsterprophet]

Awesome. My response to review is .

Now to find the time to do a good job on some of these awesome games...

-Nathan

[Matt Cowens]

Ignoring for a few minutes the massive pile of marking on my desk, I decided to glance through a couple of entries. The first was 'The City of the Moon'. Rather than have good intentions about commenting for a while, then forgetting as Senior Exam papers flood my 'free' time, I shall post unpolished thoughts from a quick read, and have the good intention to ammend them when I get a chance:

Premise:

Heian era Japan, courtly ladies competing for either artistic greatness or noble placing. Game play takes place in a series of rounds, with players contributing to each other's individual scenes, then coming together for group scenes.

Good Stuff:

Layout and appearance is very nice. Lots of photos of artwork and artefacts from the period. Easy to read font and size. Very few typos (I suspect a hell of a lot fewer than in my entry).

A good and original (to my limited knowledge) setting and premise.

Nice round structure. One character is the 'lead' character for the first scene, another for the second. These scenes will deal with the advancement or development of either the character's social standing or artistic skill (at the choice of the player). Every third scene is a 'full moon party', where all characters are present. Then back into individual scenes.

Relationships - companion, rival or nemesis. All characters have a relationship, chosen from these three. Seems a good setup to have both collaborative and confrontational styles of play supported.

Japaneseness - Japan is, let's face it, a cool place. I lived there for a while and it's a fascinating country.

Winning - the game is set up for a single session's play, with everyone competing to be the most famous at the end of the game. Fame can be won by being the most artistic, or the most noble, however lasting fame requires a balance. Those who excell in political machinations but have no soul, or those who are wonderful artists with no social support, end tragically.

Style of play:

Group storytelling, with lead players and antagonists or collaborators (depending on relationships chosen). There is a simple dice mechanic allowing the outcome of each scene to be determined (broadly speaking, good or bad). The dice determine whether progress is made towards artistic or social success. Bonuses are accumulated through storytelling/roleplaying, bringing in qualities and virtues, and incorporating NPCs into scenes.

Possible Problems

You'd need to know something about the period to have any hope of playing a good game. You wouldn't need to know lots about the period, and there's some information given on kinds of art forms and names and such, but a basic knowledge of some old Japan stuff would be required.

There is an improvised poetry section (festival) that gets repeated. It is used to replenish token supplies (tokens can be spent to buy extra dice to resolve success/failure in scenes). I suspect some gamers would be a little nervous about their freeform poetry skills.

Summing Up

This is likely to be of great appeal to its target audience: Japanophiles and History Buffs. There's a wealth of possibilities that this game would support, it has a nice system for working out just how successful an artist or courtier characters become, and it's nicely put together.

If you're considering giving someone a book on Japanese history, or a copy of The Tales of Genji or The Pillow Book as a present, be sure to include a copy of The City of the Moon with it - they'll thank you for it.

[nyarly]

In the wake of GameChef 2005, I've been excitedly laying out my game - which had to be composed on a console-only Linux box for reasons outside my control - and it seemed to me that it might be of interest to anyone that was interested in review my humble offering.



The text is completely unchanged. It's just easier to read than the original. Next step: edit the text to make it more pleasant to read, and re-lay the whole thing.

[CodexArcanum]

Finally got some time on my hands, so it's time to pay forward some review.

Invincible Hench

Initial Reaction:
Wow cool, a game where you play as the bad guy's minions. Needless to say, I was immediately intrigued by the concept.

Game Chef Requirments:
I'll leave it to the judges to determine how well this was. In brief though, I saw good use of Companion, Accuser, and Invincible, with just a hint of Wine and Entymology. Rules limits were employed and the setting is definately historical, set in a victorian-style era.

Style Thoughts:
Nice layout. The framing elements are good looking and help set the mood of the game. The line art for the character cards is decent, and has that "homemade charm."

System Thoughts:
I like the system used here, but I can see some problems. Like a number of games this year, IH utilizes a formalized round structure to enforce its style of storytelling. Players get a briefing, run the mission, and then go through a debriefing/accusing phase where the consequences are meeted out. The situation resolution is a pretty simple stat comparison, and players can join stats by working together to overcome tough challenges. There is also a system of Good/Bad Karma that can be used to aid in overcoming challenges.

My immediate question is, "Does Karma override normal failure?" and vice-versa. I'm assuming so, or else karma loses much of it's value. Another bit which wasn't really discussed in the text is the roleplaying aspect. I'm assuming that the author assumes that the hench-people will be roleplaying a good bit until the challenges come up. The example of play section provides slightly more in this area, but still boils down to "This scene has 2 challenges." Rather than integrating conflict resolution into the story, the story seems to revolve around conflict resolution. Set up the challenges first, then build a story up to meet it. Not a bad way of doing things, but i would have liked to see more story elements discussed in a roleplaying game.

The Accuser phase idea, however, is wholely brilliant. Actually making the PCs own up to their actions (and unspent Karma) during the mission is a great stroke that keeps the players thinking about the goal of the mission and on doing things properly.

Overall, I liked how things were set up, and I can see this working as a good choice for a quick pick up game or such.

Random Thoughts:
Although I think that the idea of pregen characters can work well here, I would have liked to see more. I know, it's only a week long challenge, but the game felt very limited. More characters would be a start. Some more distinction between characters would also be nice. I understand that it's a very light game, where the players enforce themselves, but I would have liked a little more definition to characters. Even something so simple as giving a 1 point bonus when a character attempts an action that they are good at would work, just to provide a little niche protection so that the safe-cracker has an incentive to be the guy who cracks safes.

I thought the characters were also a bit... colorful. The Nazi saluting german, the snooty Frenchman, the crazy irish killer, and so on. Rather than inspire me to play, the character just sort of insulted me. I guess the humor, while not lost on me, was not meant for me.

Overall:

So, I may not be the best reviewer in the world, but overall, I really liked this game. I would love to see some more setting, some more fluff material to round out the system. It's got a solid concept though, and could be a great game for pick-ups and one shots. I'd like to see more of Invincible Hench.

[Harlequin]

"Entre chien et loup is a multi-layered expression. It is used to describe a specific time of day, just before night, when the light is so dim you can't distinguish a dog from a wolf. However, it's not all about levels of light. It also expresses that limit between the familiar, the comfortable versus the unknown and the dangerous (or between the domestic and the wild). It is an uncertain threshold between hope and fear." (From via Google.)

The Hour Between Dog and Wolf by Scott Knipe

Armed with a title like that - the English transliteration of the untranslatable phrase l'heure entre chien et loup - Scott's already grabbed me right off the start. It's not just twilight; it's that specific grey hour when colours fade into nonexistence and it's actually harder to see than it will be later on, when it gets darker.

The Hour Between Dog and Wolf is a game about wolves and men, and about the Bête du Gévaudan, a wolf/monster which terrorized a region of France during the 18th century. Scott's summary of the legend is a good abbreviated version, omitting some of the later elements involving the death of the Beast.

======= Sparks =========
Structurally, you can see My Life With Master throughout the piece, in the rounds of scenes, the precedence of friendship as a goal of those scenes, and the pariah status of the PCs compared with the NPCs. Similarly, the resolution mechanic is simply stripped-down Dogs in the Vineyard. Scott is quite up-front about this in his closing remarks (to mix a metaphor), and obviously as a Game Chef submission this is not meant to approach the scope of either. No complaints about creative theft, a good artist knows when to steal (always!), and he has chosen fairly well in the elements he steals - they fit the game and the scope nicely.

My one concern here is that each stolen item has some fairly important elements stripped away, and that (having played them) in each case the eliminated elements were necessary to the proper function of the whole. Thus I'm a little worried about the stripped-down versions. Specifically I'm thinking the loss of MLwM's endgame and master-orders-you-to-do-X; both may cost this game on structure, since Dog and Wolf (THBDaW is just too much of a mouthful) lacks any clear way to define its ending other than in tragedy and the death of all the wolves, and lacks any clear way to get the creative engines running on what kinds of scenes would work at a given time. Likewise, the La Bête score (note to Scott - you use the incorrect accent consistently, here, it should be an ê) is not much of a stand-in for the absence of Traits and Relationships, though the perks for abstaining from using it at all and the cost for using it entirely do give a good spectrum which is similar in kind. I'll discuss each of these more in a sec.

======= Characters =========
Players play wolves of the Gévaudan, whose goal seems to be simply to survive the brutal rigors of life as a wolf in this place for as long as possible. All the wolves are mechanically identical except for two variable scores, one named Hardship (representing wounds, hunger, etc), and one named La Bête (representing the extent to which they are feared by the townsfolk). The mechanical uniformity doesn't bother me, though it's not exactly a strength; it helps make a point about how similar the wolves are in capabilities, and how the game's conflict resolution isn't intended to be about "can" issues, but "will" ones.

I do have a problem with two things here. One is that in addition to being mechanically identical, there is nothing done to distinguish the wolves in any other way, either; indeed, in many cases one might expect that the Companions wouldn't know one wolf from the other anyway. Without a good deal of effort (essentially Drift) it looks to me like the players will end up playing sort of avatars of "Wolf" as a communal entity, as much as individuals in their own right. That doesn't appeal to me particularly, though it might to some. The other thing that puzzles me is how the townsfolk's fear of wolves (plural) is a score which ostensibly varies from wolf to wolf; this makes La Bête a purely nonsimulationist (player-authority) stat, which reduces its punch as a metaphor the way it's phrased. A certain amount of metaphorical reimaging/rephrasing here could fix this without modifying the underlying mechanics, though.

======= Structure =========
Players request scenes by list of characters present; the GM sets up conflict using those characters and optionally additional non-companion secondaries. (I note upon rereading that it's OK for the GM to include Mortal Enemies and other noteworthy NPCs so long as they're not Companions.) This is a lot of freedom to work with, without a lot of guidance from the system or the setting. I think that both sides of the game will be hard-pressed to get much variety in their scene-setting efforts. The first few will probably be very hard to structure, after which it'll get easier for a bit, but a stage of ennui seems inevitable. Having some before-play prep go into developing the townsfolk would be a big plus for this game; making sure that there are some preexisting faces to draw on, and extant conflicts to tap into.

This is made even harder by the presence of the rule that if there are any non-companion NPCs in the scene, the moment the wolf is introduced the conflict becomes "chase away the wolf!"... but if the wolf isn't introduced, the GM brings the scene to a close and the scene is a net mechanical loss (precious time between Battues spent without profit). A very small change here, however (requiring that they see the wolf, or perhaps a randomizer even then), could close this problem door and open some interesting ones - because I can see ways in which having the wolf present, yet unseen, shepherding the humans as they go about their soft and hapless lives, would expand the rather limited range of types of scene.

In similar vein, playing upon the literal meaning of the title (the hour in which one cannot distinguish a dog and a wolf) would open up further possibilities for types of scene. Again this would require a mechanism for non-adversarial conflict to occur with non-Companions; for "drive away the wolf!" to be the result of a failed conflict resolution, not the impetus at the start of it.

Even with those changes, my biggest concern about this game is that the friendship between villager and wolf is a slender thread upon which to hang a complete multi-session game. Mechanically varying the manner of interaction between wolves and men (one wolf values men only for their tasty chattels; one is like an unseen guide; one is like a friend; one is an enemy-of-my-enemy with the soldiers and/or the Beast) might also be a useful way to vary the wolf characters from one another. Those could be stats (replacing the 5d6), or roles (objectives for an endgame?), or Companion traits, or whatever.

======= System =========
Mechanically, it's a simple enough system, and looks robust enough to stand up to what it needs to. It draws on Dogs' strengths (conflict resolution with drawn-out tension and guidance for internal events). The differing payoffs for no, some, or full use of La Bête dice are golden, though I think prerolling the La Bête is in this instance a mistake - make 'em pay for rolling these, not for using them. Likewise the option to take (unremovable!) Hindrance to discard one of the GM's dice is a robust approach to positioning. Many-on-one scenes put so many dice into the PC's hands that even a two-PC scene is a can't-lose proposition, but this sacrifices chances at reward.

Reward mechanics are based entirely on the Companion ratings. These are based on the players' choices to use or not use their La Bête dice. The system does not cover to what extent the results of the actual stakes of conflict are intended to impact the mechanics. It looks like "a companion dies" is a legitimate stake, "your wolf dies" is probably not; other stake effects such as changes to La Bête or Hardship are not discussed. In particular, although we're told La Bête will fluctuate during the game, there is no mechanism whatsoever for it to do so.

The GM can introduce the Beast itself once per session. This is fairly well done, though the sequencing is off (since the GM introduces it after the scene starts, he rolls an additional 5d6, not "ten dice instead of five") and I find it odd that the La Bête score works strictly against the Beast - in that it's on the PCs' side. Thus the Companions' vulnerability to the Beast due to their trust is mechanically sound (the La Bête is lower) but the labelling is counterintuitive.

There's mechanical time pressure in the form of Duhamel's Battues. Scott has set the hurtin' stick pretty high on this one. In a round of scenes (N players), the most that can happen is to increase an existing companion score by N. And that's if nobody uses his La Bête at any point in the round, nobody adds a new Companion to the list, and nobody jumps in to someone else's scene. Also they don't get to reduce the Battue unless that Companion was in a scene this round. So we're looking at very high odds that Duhamel's first through about fifth battues and beyond will be rolling a whole whack o'dice and inflicting some pretty substantial Hardship. In fact I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that the Hardship inflicted will probably outnumber the Companion points gained, in each round, until after at least a half-dozen rounds have gone by, probably more. Which is at least a session's worth. (Insult to injury is that even if nobody taps La Bête during a round, the battue gets to roll the full dice anyway. Easy change there, if Scott's restructuring the way La Bête works.)

Given that it is strictly up to the players which Companions will appear in which scenes, and a Companion's not in danger if not in scenes, the option to trade a turn for dismissing a Companion is structurally unsound. Moreover I think there's some interesting scene meat in the wolves trying to discourage innocents who trust them, but being unable to do so without hurting them...

======= Conclusion =========
Overall, what I see here is another flawed gem. Fifteen out of ten for style; this piece drips colour all over the page, right from the title. Structurally it's short a goal, something to inspire, and probably a lot of variety in the scenes. Mechanically it's basically sound, but the balance of values and the usage of La Bête need another once-over with the consistency hammer.

I'd like to play this game, but in its current edition I don't think I would be able to. Continued development would be well worth Scott's while.

- Eric

Oh, and BTW, Scott... check out Peter Morwood's book The Demon Lord (the second in the series about Aldric Talvalin, the series begins with The Horse Lord) for a very interesting fantasy rendition of the legend of La Bête. It's even set in the forest of "Jevaiden," which I hadn't realized was a corruption of Gévaudan until I read your game. Also a mighty fine fantasy series in its own right.

[hamsterprophet]

[JenniferS]

[BrennaLaRosa]