City of Brass after-action report

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Harlequin reviewed "City of Brass" excellently. I wanted to answer some of his comments here.

First impressions are strong]

Thank you! I'm not completely happy with it - I think I could go back and state exactly when people narrate clearer.

My one concern in this area is that there are a few spots where there's nobody to stop the buck on a value judgment... for instance on trying to apply a secondary ability to a conflict. And while they're all small instances, these gaps are mechanically important - that secondary ability is a good example.

You're right. It's sort of implied that the Leader gets say, but should put things up to a vote if there's questions.

Another little rough edge shows in arguably insufficient setting information to answer "What does your character seek in the City of Brass?"... more guidance on this would probably improve accessibility. On the plus side, however, the balance of flexibility (the sketchy nature of the challenges) and direction (the fixed storyline) is an excellent handling of setting and one which has huge potential. (I'm thinking of things like The Mountain Witch here, not only City of Brass itself.)

Again, thanks for the praise. I should have made it clearer that all of these characters are desperate for something. You should come up with something meaty, like the Doctor can't save his wife from a wasting disease and seeks a cure.

BUT. I have some concerns about the balancing of game vs. players, which is pretty core to Clinton's concept. ... And the results are... scary. They're pretty doomed. ... overall, it looks like Clinton not only wants us to die horribly in darkest Africa... but he's practically ensured that it'll come to pass.

With a few things tweaked, though... I would buy this game in an instant. Top marks, but ow! the cayenne pepper, it burns, it burns...

You're right in that it'll be hard as hell for the party to make it. Scratch that - it's impossible for the entire party. It might be too hard for even one person to make it, though. I like your mechanical suggestions.

I did try to mitigate the mechanical harshness with the special abilities and gain from cannibalism, but I might not have enough.

I'm planning on a playtest this Thursday, hopefully. I'll let you know what happens.

[Harlequin]

I look forward to seeing that. (Do you think it'll actually be finishable in a night?)

One question for you - do you ever recycle the discard pile? It strikes me that this would make a big difference in the overall tension; it wasn't clear to me which was intended in the design. Similarly, where do you figure players will get things to represent the resources gained from cannibalism - do they take them from the discard (and are they limited thereby?), do they search the deck for them, do they just try to remember?

I really like the "desperation" aspect to the questions of why seek the City. That definitely deserves a bump up in attention in the final edition.

- Eric

[Clinton R. Nixon]

One question for you - do you ever recycle the discard pile? It strikes me that this would make a big difference in the overall tension]

That should be in there. I seem to remember writing in under the Leader's role, but I could be wrong.

Similarly, where do you figure players will get things to represent the resources gained from cannibalism - do they take them from the discard (and are they limited thereby?), do they search the deck for them, do they just try to remember?

Doh! I didn't think of that. My original thought was to take all the Food and Water from the dead character's resources, but that just wouldn't work - they'd be spent. I'd say that you take two different colored dice and set them aside, or write the values on a piece of paper.

[Harlequin]

For reference, you're right - it says to reshuffle under the Leader's role. So no problem there, I just missed it first time through.

As for eating the dead - it strikes me that this ought to be a rare enough event that stopping to do some discard pile mining is not unreasonable. How about this: the now-deceased dives into the discard pile and draw deck, and finds cards equal to his max Strength and Endurance. Give those cards to those who choose to eat the dead. If they ask for a particular distribution of the points, he does so within the limits of what he can find in the deck; once the cards are chosen they're fixed. He then reshuffles the whole thing. The trick here is that by simply making each Food/Water card carry a unique illustration or identifier, you can have the deceased remember and/or write down which cards are now "tainted." Heck, you can get nasty and have those cards tainted from now 'til the end of the game, regardless of reshuffles.

Or, slightly better because it divorces the values somewhat from Strength/Endurance... put a set of letter codes on each Food and Water card (say, tucked unobtrusively up next to the illustration or something). "E" for the Explorer, and so forth. You'll likely need 2-3 letters per card, with cards arranged to sum to as many total points' worth for each character as you assign - no longer constrained to equal their Strength/Endurance. Then when the Explorer dies, he goes through the discard pile and deck and retrieves all the cards he finds with an "E" on them, making these available to those who choose to damn themselves thus. From now on the use of any "E" card is tainted and can't be used unless you've paid the price of cannibalism.

If you want this also gives you the versatility to make it cannibalism and robbing the dead, by putting (many fewer) "dead guy" codes on other cards. A couple 1- or 2-pt Hygiene cards with a "D" on them, for instance; a 2-pt Wine card with a "P" for the priest, perhaps. This is distinct from ordinary resources because these were resources so precious to them that they didn't even have in-game use of them themselves while alive... the Priest's cupful saved for the sacrament, the Doctor's own medications for his dicky heart.

I don't think there's any need for you to break pattern and use slips of paper or dice to carry totals.

- Eric

[Harlequin]

Mmm. Another thought for you on how to handle cannibalism... the complexity in the preceding all stems from trying to track who "inherits" the taint from eating the dead, after trading and so forth. Drop that and you get not only a much simpler mechanic, but an interesting philosophical statement.

1. The dead guy goes through the discard pile & deck and retrieves N food and M water cards. This could be "all the ones with his initial" or "equal to his Strength and Endurance", either works. Then he shuffles the remaining discards back into the deck.
2. Whichever player(s) choose to may take some or all of the retrieved resources. If they can't work out a compromise which distributes the cards, then obviously there's party infighting rules to resolve it with. They all pay the one Nobility cost for getting access. As a thought, it might be good to reward declining cannibalism - maybe +1 Nobility for all, if everybody passes on the temptation.
3. Then for all mechanical purposes we simply forget the origin of those cards. The players who have those resources have 'em, and can use 'em or swap 'em, just as normal.

The statement? Once it's smoked or jerked, it all tastes like chicken. Honestly although it's mechanically weaker, the irony of the players knowing that it's dead PC, but the characters managing to suppress this knowledge, is quite creepy in its own right.

- Eric