IRON GAME DESTROYER

[Rossum]

[Tobias]

Chop!

This chopping done without prejudice. I will say that in every game I found something wonderful that I respect - and think makes all these games worthwhile.

Founding Fathers:

1. You can choose you own effectiveness initially by choosing your state. Georgia gets 7 cards. Massachusetts 13. Intended? Fair?
2. On choosing companions: no rules on who you're allowed to pick as companion. Same as opponent allowed? Pick twice allowed? Can the Companion deny the attempt?
3. What if you have no card of a color to match either companion or opponent?
3. The text of the accusation has no in-game meaning or consequences for further play (other than something that may influence your fellow players on a basis of what those players find agreable)
4. There is no winning nor losing NOR character development - just resource increase or decrease. You're basically playing to hear your friends agree or disagree with a narrative statement you've made and get a gamble afterwards to see what happens.
5. Reasonable potential of 'game going nowhere' or 'game being stalled'.

In a Grove

As in a Grove is 4 serial monologues (that are acted out by the players in the role of actors with limited ability to ad-lid) with ever-increasing restraints, with no goal on determining 'right' or a 'winner', it is hard to bust this game for 'mistakes'. You like this type of play or you don't. There seems a lot of room for expansion of the core concept.

Still:

1. No explanation of a 'compound fact' or a 'single fact';
2. Clarification of being able to roll your own character as murderer
3. In Ongoing play step 3, there is no tie-breaker for determining the validity of a dispute.
4. Vulnerable to social contract / open-mindedness / cooperation issues due to immense author powers and veto's. This can, however, lead to more powerful play for groups that can handle this open-mindedness.

Morpho Londinium

1. Incomplete. (Quite visibly in the 'powers' page. Less visibly in the use of secrets and the value of certain actions on the final resolution.)

I could say more, but "incomplete" is what it would come down to anyway.

Titania Regina

1. Lacking IIEE structure (when do players say which things, flow of play, which events happen, how are they resolved?)
2. Unclear on the importance of combat, pranks, pixie's, scarcity of wine, etc. (due to lack of overall IIEE structure)
3. Unclear GM's role (if there is one)
4. The color-die is no improvement (re: clarity) over a plain d6
5. Resolution of Combat is unclear

Guilty before god

1. 'the tiebreaker should go to she who has survived to most duels' - this is about a player?
2. Generally, more care is needed on the player/character boundary. (especially since there are 'grievances with players' and renumerations may consist of real-world effects (refreshments, loan of books)
3. what is 'anyone who tries too hard to hide their dice'? Especially since hiding dice isn't actually disallowed?
4. Confusion between pain and wound dice (trivial, really)
5. What if there are unequal numbers of dice in the offensive and defensive cup?
6. Clearer definition of use of duel end and (time of) use of the crystal cup
7. Clearer definition of the way pain/wound dice subract
8. What if there's an off number of players? How do you get everyone to duel, then? Does a duelist heal between duels?
9. Since endgame is determined by (honor minus wound) dice, wouldn't it be easy to skip the mid-game as much as possibly (duel to first blood) as just grab as many Honor dice in character buildup?

"Invincible" and "Worker's paradise" I've both read - but they haven't gelled in my mind yet. I will print them today, read them as well, and hopefully have them on the chopping block for you tomorrow. I will certainly get to them before I post any other game.

[jmstar]

Cool, it's Iron Game Abbatoir up in here! Keep it up, man - this sort of thing is very useful and, I'll note, hard work.

[Paka]

[Tobias]

Glad you like it.

I've gotten through and made my notes on "Worker's Paradise". I will put them up when I get around to doing "Invincible" as well - which should be in about 8 hours.

[Tobias]

First off, I'd like to offer my apologies to "Invincible" - I did not have time to adequately comment on this game.

On to the one chop of the day:

This game, too, has things I admire!

Worker's paradise

1. The 'any player who hasn't acted between two actions of another player can take over an action, so long as they do so before the player being pre-emted hasn't actually begun to resolve the action' is needlessly complex and will lead to some horrific book-keeping. This rule could easily be simplified while still creating the same effect.
2. Control pools may be forfeited at any time. Also just before dice are rewarded according to need?
3. Demerits for under-perfomance - what if there's a tie in least-performing?
4. What if there are more need dice than result dice? Tough luck?
5. Two tables missing (Subject Ratings and Crimes/circumstances)
6. Is a subject's rating visible to the players? Unclear.

[Kenneth Bailey]

Hey Tobias,

No need for an apology regarding reviewing Invincible!. I've actually been dreading the day someone reviews it and sees what a horrible mess I made. I know I left some things out that I would have liked to have included, but I (a) either forgot them or (b) left them out due to time constraints.

I look forward to any constructive criticism, but I'm still nervous about it.

So, don't worry about it. If and when you get to it, cool. Until then, do whatcha gotta do. It's only a game.

Always,
Kenny+

[nyarly]

[Tobias]

[Tobias]

Finally, I get on to Invincible!

I found this one hard to comment on because I couldn't get my head wrapped around play. So, comment #1 should be:

1. Describe more clearly which actions can be taken when by what person, and how many actions. I think almost all the rules are actually there, it's just that they're scattered around the document, making it hard to get a complete picture.
A BIG one to pay attention to is the 'assign points' action. Since there is one both inside and outside of combat, and the one inside combat is more restricted than the one outside of combat, the actual start of a battle is an important aspect.
Also, some confusion about 'being in a Mode' should be cleared up. 'Mode' is probably not the best term for what is essentially a stat.

I had to read these rules a couple of times, as per #1. This makes the amount of comments (which, due to the nature of the destroyer, is all criticism) high. Don't think that there's no good game in here because of all the comments - there is!

Comment the second:

2. This is a game about beating your buddies, becoming the Big Dog, and then meeting some mechanical goal. However, other than enslaving your beaten buddies to your will and thus growing stronger, there's no incentive to be the first one to start fighting - because that will weaken you and your target, making it more likely that you're going to be picked on. This ties directly into the play structure - clockwise from the GK. This makes player position at the table (relative to GK) an important aspect of your game-postition (even while multiple actions are allowed to each Khan).

3. On transferring points: the only mentioned transfers are from companion to informer and from leadership to multiple modes. (If there are many more, it isn't mentioned, I think, or it would invalidate the existance of character if it was possible). Informer (and Accuser) points are used in attack and defense. What isn't clear is whether they're spent permanently, or refresh after the battle. If they're spent permanently, this increases the effect of 'becoming weaker due to fighting', which will make people not want to act. If they're not spent permanently, then it makes no sense for the player to not transfer all but 1 point from companion to informer, since that will give him the best odds.

Also, if the transfer is permanent, this would make cooperating with another Khan very dangerous, as he gainst the ability to distribute your L points over the other modes.

Also, wouldn't high C and high L characters be superior to others (in flexibility?)

So - permanency of spending, moments of spending, and moments of refresh are very important in this game, and it needs to be clearer.

4. 'Attack Mongol Enemy' would probably be clearer as 'Attack External Enemy' or somesuch - I kept confusing Enemy Khan with Mongol enemy.

5. The rules for Ambush mention the attacker (normally) losing Accuser points, but now losing Companion points, when succesfully ambushed by the defender. The rules for battle say both attacker and defender lose Companion points. Contradiction?

6. There's some confusion about fighting a Mongol Enemy, but if I've read correctly, there's only fighting them if a 6 is rolled on the end of a turn. This seems rather passive for the mongols. Also, defeating the mongol enemy seems the only way to inject new Wine into the game - but if that's only happening 1/6th of the time, that's a trickle.

7. Endgame - it is mentioned an enemy army of 80 should be beaten for the endgame to be complete. This does not take into account the number of players. Also, there is no way to actually roll up an enemy of rating 80 - so how should we take this? Should a number of armies be defeated under the leader of the GK, until it sums 80? Is a fight against an enemy of 80 automatically started once one GK dominates all others? (Sounds smart, would be a lot of waiting around otherwise).

--

So that was the last chopping of my intial series. I will continue chopping away at the other games, still going by increasing file size. I will add one more rule though - I will skip those game that have already been reviewed (either Peer review or by the Iron Game Reviewer - or even the judges, should that thread become active). In this way, those that haven't gotten any attention will get some first.