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Post by Gilvan Blight on Jan 23, 2006 9:50:58 GMT -5
My local gaming group has been chosen to playtest The Cornerstone Project coming soon from Inverse Opinions games.
"In brief, the high-fantasy setting of Cornerstone is divided into three continents strung between the 15 elemental Realms. The world and ground shows obvious signs that the people here are not the first by a long shot; ruins and debris, ancient beyond compare, are left scattered thickly amongst the grounds by some long-forgotten culture. Great and awesome cathedrals or halls can be found under mountain's peaks, and often on the seafloor can be found even whole buildings from a time left in the past. Even with this so prevalent, the people of this world find this no strange or unusual feature, as this is just the way that things are. Every group lays it's own cultural or regional legend onto sections or specific ruins, and everyone accepts that this is "The Way That Things Are"."
We have been asked to do this ASAP, aka next Sunday the way we meet. If I can get the rules ahead of time I would like to make characters this week if possible, so we are good to go Sunday. Also if anyone has any free time this week perhaps we can set a couple of small games up so we can get used to the rules and the setting.
For all my regular players I have sent you a message on here with a contact, you need to send some info to the company for legal reasons and I can get the files and start prepping.
For the rest of you, we will let you know the progress and review appropriately.
This is a great chance for us I think and I hope this sets a trend for the future. We wouldn't be offered this oprotunity if it wasn't for the WGR.
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Church
Level 3 GM
Dragostea din tei
Posts: 853
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Post by Church on Jan 23, 2006 16:53:04 GMT -5
Cool Sent them a message just now.
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Jan 26, 2006 8:34:46 GMT -5
Well received the file Tuesday and have been working through it when I get time. First comment it's pretty big, there is a lot of text to eat through.
So far we have been providing feedback just based on reading the material. Pointing out issues like spelling, grammar, missing information, missing tables and things that just don't seem right even before play.
This has worked out great so far. It's thursday and already we have the first revision of Cornerstone. With some major changes due to our efforts.
One of the major changes put in due to our input was to give Humans something to make them more appealing. Based on the first read of the races, humas just didn't hold much appeal, nor did they seem able as a race to compete background wise with the other races. This has been fixed in the latest update. This update makes humans the best at skills. I don't think I can give the details out yet, but basically Humans will be the skill masters, while other races are the combat, spell, sneaky, etc. masters. I kinda like this concept.
The game so far: So far the game is pretty appealing. There are a great set of races put forth, one of my favourites being evil bloodthirsty halflings. Most of your standard races are present but each has a twist on them that makes them very different from traditional D&D/Fantasy races. For example you won't find a Wood Elf here, let a lone a forest. In addition to the basic races there are some rather cool Advanced races. All of these include level adjustments, which basically means even a level 1 character in one of these classes counts as level 2 or more. Some of these are hugely powerful. One race in particular is a form of Giant and it has the strength to match.
In addition to the races is a large selection of templates. These are not something you would see every game but very interesting for anyone who wants some variety in their games. It adds a ton of longevity to the setting. What these basically do is stack with your race to make them more interesting and often more powerful. Some of these are huge making characters into near gods, others are simple things like Half-orc that can be applied to any race other then an orc.
That last one in particular makes me really happy as I always wondered why it's always Half-elf half human. Why no Dwarf/Gnome Elf/Orc, etc. (or how about an Aireal Mulitilimbed Half Dragon Dark Shadow Dwarf - something you could actully make)
The character classes are also totally new while still seeming familiar. You have your standards, but each has been tweaked and changed to fit in with the campaign setting better. The classes seem better 'balanced' then the races thus far.
An interesting note: I questioned as to why races didn't list class preferances or classes didn't list race preferances and got an interesting answer that fits well with the setting: "The combinations you are looking for were originally in there, but removed because I wanted Tyrm to have such combinations based on political environments rather than race. In Soreiv, there'll be a common feature for hurtha'hedel berserkers. In the Saltplains, it's blackeye orcish cavaliers. In Harn'kena'bekh, there's hurtha'hedel templars that are found commonly, and blackeye orcish rogues or myrmidons. In Aubernil'esh, the hurtha'hedel are patricians or prophets, the blackeye orcs tradesmen, etc, etc, etc"
Will keep you posted. Any questions feel free to ask and I will answer what I can.
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Jan 30, 2006 11:31:39 GMT -5
The first playtest:
Okay first big thing was making characters. Biggest issue with this was the format. I didn't manage to get a copy of a printed version of the rules so it was a lot of scrolling in a word document.
Making charcters took forever for most of us. First Unfamiliarity with the rules system was a hinderance, but expected. Second No real information on the game world. I one had tidbits about the background of the world, the geography and the races, so it was hard to pick a character you wanted to play when the characters were just a bunch of stats. Third, rules issues. We ran into a ton of issues, typos, missing information, and things that just seemed wrong. Thankfully Ben of inverse opinions was more then willing to help us out with this, it just took some time to get answers back. Another bing issue we found was the Equipment lists. Items just didn't make sense. Why buy a waterskin for 5Gold that holds 1gallone and weighs 5lbs when you can buy a Wineskin for 1gold that holds 1 gallon and weighs 1lbs, as an example. In the end it took longer then expected and we had a group. A balanced group who knows?
One of the issues we had starting the playtest, was since the races and classes were unique it was hard to summarise what people were and what role they played in the party. It wasn't clear who the warrior (tank) was, who should be the thief (we didn't use the rogue class), who should be doing the talking etc. Having non-traditional roles was a bit challenging.
The actual game wasn't much of a roleplaying session, as we all needed to learn the meat of the system. As the meat of a OGL based system is combat we started with that.
I put all 5 players in a random dungeon and they battled to the death. This wasn't as fun as expected mainly I think due to having to look up rules constantly. The cornerstone rules are not OGL/D20/D&D. There is OGL material in there but Ben has changed the system. This made it a bit odd as a couple players were familiary with D20 and needed to adapt.
After that I ran the shortest module ever, a two room dungeon. That went much better, and I could see that we could get into the game more, but it would take some work.
From the session we had about 15 things I sent off to Ben and got a responce this morning. I don't know if this is a good thing or not, but based on our game and comments (as well as another playtesting group) the game will be delayed until April or so as it 'needs some work'
My impressions so far: I think overall my group will enjoy this more once we get more world information. Backgrounds, citys, plot hooks, etc. What makes Tyrm different from Greyhawk so to speak.
The combat system: Jury is out on this one. I don't know. Ben has taken the traditional Armour Class system and broken it into Defense and Armour. Reading it it sounded like it works, could see the logic and see how it shouldn't affect the odds of getting hurt. Playing it was very different. People with armour were way too tough and way too much damage was needed to hurt even a weak foe. Some of this has already been addressed by Ben (in the aformationed email). A few other combat things like the Combo system were just way out of balance.
The races and classes: I like the background for most of this, especially the Cat-Gnolls, Killer Evil Halflings, Forge Guard and the cleric/monk like Mystic. But I think there is still some balancing to do. Some classes definately seemed to overpower others. Generally great concepts but needs some work on the execution.
Overall: The last sentace there sums it up. There are some great concepts here, some great new rules (feats, races, etc), but so far it doesn't work as well as it sounds. I think there is potential here.
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Church
Level 3 GM
Dragostea din tei
Posts: 853
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Post by Church on Jan 30, 2006 15:49:51 GMT -5
It'll be interesting to see what he comes up with. It is promising though, that Ben is using our suggestions, and a map and some more background will be useful...
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