Playtest at HexCon ’22

Last weekend, I flew to Trondheim to attend HexCon for the first time. HexCon ’22 also marked the last date in the “Loop ‘n’ Loot Demo Tour accross Norway” after Arcon, MidgardCon and RegnCon.

First time in Trondheim, I spent some time with my Guild Ball sparring partner talking about many things including my work-in-progress miniature game, quickly visited Nidaros Cathedral, had 2 pizza diners (Hevd is an awesome place to eat, Grano is completely overrated), visited downtown city and, of course, attended the convention.

The convention itself was pretty nice, although a bit small on the role-playing game side (I counted 3 GMs over the week-end, each of us with several slots). For my game, it’s not a disadvantage: it helps gathering people who have no clue what they have signed for and players who did not get a seat in another game happening at the same time slot as Loop ‘n’ Loot. It also gave me the opportunity to test OG, a caveman RPG with limited use of words. It was fun!

(Once again, I forgot to take any picture of the convention… If you happen to have some, hook me up!)

HexCon was the occasion to have 3 playtests with the latest iteration of the rules, with 10 players who had never tried it before. All in all, it went well and I believe everyone had a good time. A new record was set, with a player suggesting to put something on fire in the first room in the dungeon :p.

The playtests allowed me to validate some design decisions I took during the month of October. The biggest change was the new NPC cards (that you see in the October wrap-up linked article), consequences of many, many, many iterations with one simple goal: make it simple and usable. It is now in a satisfying place.

There is a good chance the name for the GM/Referee changes for “Croupier”, which makes sense given the poker inspiration.

One of the feedback I got from the playtests is the use of Attributes. Your Attributes value = Number of cards you can draw for a test. In combat, I simply say “you use everything you have at hand, therefore you draw the sum of your Attributes”. In a way, that makes sense. In a way it doesn’t (why a character with 0 in Heart would suddenly be able to charm an enemy in combat?). Therefore, my newest task on my to-do is to investigate that specific Attribute/Draw/Combat matter:

  • Is it better to draw the sum of your Attributes in combat (ex: 5 cards) and use these cards for your Action+Reaction?
  • Is it better to draw cards related to the relevant Attribute when you declare an Action or Reaction? Ex: “I attack with my hand weapon! = Draw your Clubs value for this Action”, “I dodge away from the lightning bolt = Draw your Spades value for this Reaction”.

I don’t know yet. But if you have an opinion, you are more than welcome to share it on the Loop ‘n’ Loot community Discord server :).

Playtest at RegnCon ’22

The previous weekend, I was in Bergen to present Loop ‘n’ Loot at RegnCon XXX (literally the convention of rain, which is accurate given it always rains in Bergen). It was the occasion to see familiar faces, meet new ones and play some games!

I had three pools over the weekend, so 15 hours of play with 15 different players and I used the opportunity to test the latest version of the rules as well as see how the Maze of the 4 Queens is resilient over multiple runs.

Among the positive evolutions of the game, let’s note:

  • 2 out of 3 groups died. Several times. Which is by design. The group who did not die had maybe a bit more luck with the randomness and almost always got the better initiative in combat, in addition to playing it safe. The various adjustments have paid off so far.
  • The combat seemed to be capped at 2 or 3 turns before one side got obliterated, which is – once again – as per design. So, cool!
  • I’m genuinely happy with the randomness and the emergent stories that the Maze creates. A group ended the playtest in a very satisfying way as they looted all the amphoras in a cellar and started a new vintage wine trade company. 
  • More players got to test the freeform magic system and they seemed to like it.
  • The new Attributes and draw mechanics. I remove the fixed hand size to have it depend on the Attributes (putting emphasis on “my character is more sneaky than you”), giving extra cards given tools, environment, time… On paper, it works. Sometimes it felt a bit underwhelming to draw only 2 cards to solve a test. In a way, the new drawing mechanic feels quite similar to the narrative dice from the Genesys system and, as a GM, I need to put more emphasis on how the players intend to revolve an action to give them the adequate hand size.

Among the things that I mixed feelings:

  • The new iteration of Soul Traits was not part of the playtest but I’m still thinking about it and what it could be. It seems like the playtesters enjoy absorbing souls a lot, and getting monster traits. I’m afraid the next iteration of the soul mechanics removes that excitement. But it’s a problem of a future playtest to determine.
  • I made small equipment cards to facilitate the playtest while giving or switching equipment pieces. It was not greatly efficient. I would need to create color-coded equipment pieces to find what I need more quickly. Or find a different system.
  • My brilliant idea of a character sheet pamphlet is looking less and less attractive, especially with all these tiny pieces of paper for representing equipment and flipping the character sheet back and forth. Maybe a boring single-sided sheet will have to be the way to go.

All in all, I can safely say that everyone liked to play Loot ‘n’ Loot. They enjoyed the game mechanics with the cards, they liked adventuring in the Maze of the 4 Queens, they appreciated my NPCs and how I roleplayed them…

Speaking of roleplay, a 1-hour improv’ course was available for those who wanted to know more about that kind of acting. I signed up for it and it was quite fun; it was not really targeted at role-players but I think I got one or two extra tips I could use.

It was a fun convention, with free ice-cream, free pop-corn, free fruits and free cakes! I met new people, got to spread a bit of love around my game and I hope to have something physical to show at RegnCon XXXI.