. . . huh! I was really expecting to either take first place for being the only player putting serious effort into the right core mechanics, or take last place for being the only player putting serious effort into the wrong core mechanics; getting the main idea wrong but doing everything else well enough for silver was not on my bingo card. (I’m also pleasantly surprised to note that I figured out which goblin I could purge with least collateral damage: I can leave Room 7 empty without changing my position on the leaderboard.)
There were only three likely hypotheses based on the problem statement: A) adventurers scout one room ahead, B) adventurers take optimal path(s), and C) adventurers hit every room so all that matters is the order. Early efforts ruled out C, and the Bonus Objective being fully achievable under A but not B made A a lot more plausible; however, further investigations[1] made it seem like that might be a fakeout[2], so I (narrowly) chose to max-min instead of max-max; even in retrospect, I’m not 100% sure that was a bad decision.
Notes on the scenario:
I have strongly ambivalent feelings about almost every facet of this game.
The central concept was solid gold but could have been handled better. In particular, I think puzzling out the premise could have been a lot more fun if we hadn’t known the entry and exit squares going in.
The writing was as fun and funny as usual—if not more so! - but seemed less . . . pointed?/ambitious?/thematically-coherent? than I’ve come to expect.
The difficulty curve was perfect early but annoying late. A lot of our scenarios commit the minor sin of making initial headway hard to make, discouraging casual players and giving negligible or negative reward for initial investigations; this one emphatically doesn’t, since pairing high-traffic rooms with high-challenge creatures was an easy(-ish) way to get better-than-random EV. However, the central mechanics of “dungeoneers scout one room ahead” and “loud fights alert” interfered in ways that made it hard to pin either of them down: more rows and columns might have made this smoother (imo a 4x4 or 5x5 dungeon would probably have been easier than the 3x3, especially for reliably distinguishing between hypotheses A and B), as would having more simple and easily-discoverable rules to use as a firm foundation (“When given a choice, Adventurers will always choose rooms with Sirens, and never choose rooms with Tar Pits”?).
The timespan was a very good choice for the season (and I’m absolutely doing things this way next time I run an end-of-year game) but paired badly with the premise. Your last Christmas scenario was, in retrospect, a really good match, because (possible spoiler for any reader who might want to play it)
it was puzzle-y and un-random enough that a player could be 100% confident their inferences were correct, so it wouldn’t occupy mental real estate once they put it down, and they wouldn’t mind waiting for their answers to be confirmed
but this one was kind of the opposite.
There was one aspect about which I have unreservedly positive feelings: the chrono effects, the hag poem and the varying numbers of adventurers were all excellent red herrings, seeming like they might hint towards subtle opportunities for performance improvement (and/or a secret Bonus Bonus Objective) but being quickly dismissable as fingertraps. (Yay verisimilitude!)
In summary, I think I’d put this one at about a 3⁄3 for Quality and Complexity . . . though I suspect others might have radically different opinions depending on how all the above happened to hit for them.
I found a row where Adventurers were clearly choosing an easy path starting with Orcs over a hard path starting with Boulders, and took this to mean “adventurers take perfect paths under at least some circumstances” instead of “there’s some predictable condition for which Orcs<Boulders”. Whoops!
I think puzzling out the premise could have been a lot more fun if we hadn’t known the entry and exit squares going in
I think this would have messed up the difficulty curve a bit: telling players ‘here is the entrance and exit’ is part of what lets ‘stick a tough encounter at the entrance/exit’ be a simple strategy.
The writing was as fun and funny as usual—if not more so! - but seemed less . . . pointed?/ambitious?/thematically-coherent? than I’ve come to expect.
This is absolutely true though I’m surprised it’s obvious: my originally-planned scenario didn’t quite work out as intended (I’m still trying to assemble mechanics for it that actually work the way I want them to) and this was my backup scenario.
imo a 4x4 or 5x5 dungeon would probably have been easier than the 3x3, especially for reliably distinguishing between hypotheses A and B
Interesting. I trimmed it down to 3x3 as part of Plan ‘Try Not To Make Everything Too Overcomplicated’, trying to use the smallest dungeon that would still make pathing relevant in order to avoid dropping 16 separate encounters on players.
There was one aspect about which I have unreservedly positive feelings: the chrono effects, the hag poem and the varying numbers of adventurers were all excellent red herrings, seeming like they might hint towards subtle opportunities for performance improvement (and/or a secret Bonus Bonus Objective) but being quickly dismissable as fingertraps.
This...is not really quite how those were intended. The intent was something more along the lines of ‘Easter Eggs’.
Notes on my performance:
. . . huh! I was really expecting to either take first place for being the only player putting serious effort into the right core mechanics, or take last place for being the only player putting serious effort into the wrong core mechanics; getting the main idea wrong but doing everything else well enough for silver was not on my bingo card. (I’m also pleasantly surprised to note that I figured out which goblin I could purge with least collateral damage: I can leave Room 7 empty without changing my position on the leaderboard.)
There were only three likely hypotheses based on the problem statement: A) adventurers scout one room ahead, B) adventurers take optimal path(s), and C) adventurers hit every room so all that matters is the order. Early efforts ruled out C, and the Bonus Objective being fully achievable under A but not B made A a lot more plausible; however, further investigations[1] made it seem like that might be a fakeout[2], so I (narrowly) chose to max-min instead of max-max; even in retrospect, I’m not 100% sure that was a bad decision.
Notes on the scenario:
I have strongly ambivalent feelings about almost every facet of this game.
The central concept was solid gold but could have been handled better. In particular, I think puzzling out the premise could have been a lot more fun if we hadn’t known the entry and exit squares going in.
The writing was as fun and funny as usual—if not more so! - but seemed less . . . pointed?/ambitious?/thematically-coherent? than I’ve come to expect.
The difficulty curve was perfect early but annoying late. A lot of our scenarios commit the minor sin of making initial headway hard to make, discouraging casual players and giving negligible or negative reward for initial investigations; this one emphatically doesn’t, since pairing high-traffic rooms with high-challenge creatures was an easy(-ish) way to get better-than-random EV. However, the central mechanics of “dungeoneers scout one room ahead” and “loud fights alert” interfered in ways that made it hard to pin either of them down: more rows and columns might have made this smoother (imo a 4x4 or 5x5 dungeon would probably have been easier than the 3x3, especially for reliably distinguishing between hypotheses A and B), as would having more simple and easily-discoverable rules to use as a firm foundation (“When given a choice, Adventurers will always choose rooms with Sirens, and never choose rooms with Tar Pits”?).
The timespan was a very good choice for the season (and I’m absolutely doing things this way next time I run an end-of-year game) but paired badly with the premise. Your last Christmas scenario was, in retrospect, a really good match, because (possible spoiler for any reader who might want to play it)
it was puzzle-y and un-random enough that a player could be 100% confident their inferences were correct, so it wouldn’t occupy mental real estate once they put it down, and they wouldn’t mind waiting for their answers to be confirmed
but this one was kind of the opposite.
There was one aspect about which I have unreservedly positive feelings: the chrono effects, the hag poem and the varying numbers of adventurers were all excellent red herrings, seeming like they might hint towards subtle opportunities for performance improvement (and/or a secret Bonus Bonus Objective) but being quickly dismissable as fingertraps. (Yay verisimilitude!)
In summary, I think I’d put this one at about a 3⁄3 for Quality and Complexity . . . though I suspect others might have radically different opinions depending on how all the above happened to hit for them.
I found a row where Adventurers were clearly choosing an easy path starting with Orcs over a hard path starting with Boulders, and took this to mean “adventurers take perfect paths under at least some circumstances” instead of “there’s some predictable condition for which Orcs<Boulders”. Whoops!
“You tried to play the GM instead of the game? Doom! Doom for you!” ← what I thought you might be thinking
I think this would have messed up the difficulty curve a bit: telling players ‘here is the entrance and exit’ is part of what lets ‘stick a tough encounter at the entrance/exit’ be a simple strategy.
This is absolutely true though I’m surprised it’s obvious: my originally-planned scenario didn’t quite work out as intended (I’m still trying to assemble mechanics for it that actually work the way I want them to) and this was my backup scenario.
Interesting. I trimmed it down to 3x3 as part of Plan ‘Try Not To Make Everything Too Overcomplicated’, trying to use the smallest dungeon that would still make pathing relevant in order to avoid dropping 16 separate encounters on players.
This...is not really quite how those were intended. The intent was something more along the lines of ‘Easter Eggs’.