Leadtown RPG: A game design diary for an Old West story game

#21

Taking a fresh look at the game, it’s clear a youtube video on Faro gameplay is a must see before even anything else. Making it triple clear can’t hurt.
I have a few questions about gameplay :

  • if each 1 of 4 players makes 1 bet, there’s still a large amount of whiffing (around 8/12). Or is there ?
  • it’s like a roulette, only with played card visible, the last rounds are mere formalities and claiming the last turn is automatic. Or is it ?
  • I am under the impression that, should it be played with one suit only, the game would begin to look like @RobertBohl Misspent Youth. Or would it ?
    What I am hinting at is that there’s an expected behaviour as the game closes, that maybe makes it grow tighter (!) near the end.

Side note : shoot out shooting order shows various states of rules remaining p16, and in the example, it’s John who gets shot at twice p17.

1 Like
#22

Hi DeReel,

I just wanted to say that I really appreciate your thoughts on my game. By the end of last May, I only loved the Shoot-out mechanics which are actually based on another forgotten card game played commonly in WWI in France. I realized pretty quick in May that it was not a game well suited for the pandemic and online play(with all the cards) and that the game is definitely story last so I set it aside for a bit.

Last night upon reading this thread again, I had a breakthrough. But, I have gotten ahead of myself.

I saw the lack of player decisions as a flaw that needing solving so last summer, I had the idea to make the cards that bets are placed upon representative of buildings in town. So, now players can pick from a list and write the location on a post-it or index card, underneath the card on the table.
This is interesting for 2 reasons.

  1. It gives the player a decision beyond picking a random number for every bet
  2. Each row of cards is a side of Main St., where once side is the open frontier out of town and the Ace card is the only fixed location of Train Station. This means the cards are actually setup like a frontier town if you look at it from a distance!

This still wasn’t enough player decision though. Sure, I get to pick where my PC is going but then the cards decide the theme, the players don’t have enough prompts for interesting improv, and chunk of the time nothing really happens if no bets come up as winners or losers.

Then, last night, I thought of a solution. I’ll add a narrow set of prompts for each location of which the bettor gets to pick from when they chose where to bet. So, let’s say they choose the first player chooses the 3 card for a bet. This player would also then get to narrate what location the 3 card represents, e.g. The Trading Post. This bettor and all future bettors on this card would get to answer a question about the location until there are no more questions left. These questions will ask about descriptions / history / who is usually found at the building / why is it important

Think of it like adding something like a simplified Beak, Feather, and Bone into this game for each bet new bet placed (increasing / decreasing bets would not get a new prompt.

This would make every bet meaningful, even when there is no win or loss involved. After the players answer these questions, then the GM ask them to develop a scene which has stakes for them (where a win or loss card is in play with a bet on it)

Obviously, the details would need to be ironed out but I think this could solve the narrative last issue.

1 Like
#23

I’m so glad you are Hands On It again.

The town was in the seed of the game, I like that you give it a more developed shape. Prompts are tried and true, and makeq the game easier to play.

Betting on a location reminds me of other games where it’s used to play hide and seek for gathering dirt, stealing or assassinating. Not that Leadtown needs it, only that this pseudo space makes the game much more grounded.

Plus, it’s dizzyingly meta : the table is the table in the town is the town itself.

1 Like
#24

FYI…apparently, when I stopped working on this last year, I never fully updated the Shoot-out mechanics. I played that part with my pre-teen kids last year and they liked it but had no interest in the rest of it. It’s based on a game called GOS - “Game of Skill”. It’s a fun, light, and dynamic card game which I adjusted by adding a few rules:

-IF a player wins the high/low bet, that player will determine how many rounds of shots will be fired in the shoot-out. Otherwise, it will be determined randomly by the Banker card (Max of 7 shots / hands)
-The damage is a 3 tier system based on the card rank won
-Determining the first shooter by Unusual Talent and/or Sharp stat.
-Winning an Ace is an insta-kill on the target but this is not in play except for characters with the Dead Eye Unusual Talent (which is not available for any NPCs for the first half of the game)

1 Like
#25

Excellent ! It’s good to have a “gamey” phase and a more “imaginary” map of the town. Maybe that part is less compelling to kids because they lack prompts and dialogue starters, which are obvious in a shootout ? As elders we have a pool of Western material that the character sheets only hint at.
One other thing : what about making two little games for demos, one narrative (town) and one action (shootout) ? So it’s easier to pitch and learn the rules. And after a successful first game, hey, there’s this game to complement the first one. That’s a bit like character creation : you can use premade characters and then, in a supplement, explain how to make new characters. All this helps lower the barrier for entry into the game, introducing rules bit by bit. Like Harper did, like Rickard summarizes : start small and narrow, players will break the frame when they can stride, and from Baker collapsible design and my experience as an educator : you already make sure there are bigger concentric frames around that when you make the game.

1 Like
#26

This is a very smart idea which is certainly proven to work. I can create The Shoot-out! as a mini-game to get some positive feedback once I get more playtests done. It’s a MUCH lower barrier of entry and anyone that like this piece might be intrigued enough to look at the expanded game later. Meanwhile, I can tweak the larger game and break the project into more manageable pieces.

2 Likes