What, Me Playtest? First Impressions of Thirsty Sword Lesbians
So apropos of nothin' in particular, I got a PM from a guy I've known for ages out on a certain gaming forum. In brief, he wrote something along the lines of "have you heard of this? It seems to be relevant to your interests" and tagged on a URL. This URL, to be precise.
Well, no, I hadn't, and I spent part of my lunch hour looking up the site over at Evil Hat. And then my feminine side, who you may have gathered is a frisky little Anthro at the calmest of times, imaginarily grabbed my collar, gave me a vaguely predatory grin, and in my mind's ear said, more or less, "do it for Steph!"
And that, dear readers, is how I volunteered to help playtest something called Thirsty Sword Lesbians, once again finding myself looking over a game that my dear friend would have enjoyed quite thoroughly. Because yes, it is more or less what it says on the tin: Lesbians, with swords, thirsting for relationships and romance and all that shojo-ai cuddly goodness that goes with it.
This is the 'armchair' feedback from a quick read-through, since it is the middle of the work week and I won't have time to really dig deep until later.
Mechanically, this is PbtA with all that the term implies--narrative friendly play with loose and easy mechanics that allow story to happen and fail forward without getting tied up in the minutiae, playbooks centered on archetypes. I see a bit of Masks here (Conditions for 'damage') and a touch of Monsterhearts there ('strings' as social currency). No doubt there will be more to discover as I work my way through the text with more care, but the framework is about what I expect. There are five defining stats, five conditions, and the customary three possible results (In a curious twist of lingo, one refers to the three possible results as up beat, mixed beat, or down beat instead of the more usual triad of 'strong hit', 'hit', 'miss'.) Playbooks are what you'd expect--everything you need to play, and geared to whatever archetype the playbook embodies.
The beta version of the rules is clearly written with a sense of humor, which is always something that appeals to me. Several move names left me giggling like Katana on 'nip (if cats giggled, that is, which the Floofy One does not). Others are evocative of a more serious mood, so it isn't all fluff and sparkly rainbows...and the mood can be dialed up or down depending on how one's table prefers their swashbuckling action.
There are several sample settings, including a number of 'plot bunny' sized suggestions for game 'verses instead of one overarching core world. This is another feature I rather like to see, and the accompanying section on rolling one's own (so to speak) is pretty good. Hopefully this will make the cut for the final version!
A few more things that are now on my radar:
Some moves are rolled +Stat, but with an additional +3 bonus if you also spend a String on them. This has me scratching my head and wondering if that's a typo, because that bonus makes a Down Beat far less likely. (NOT impossible, though, as anybody who's watched me try to play one of these games can tell you!) I also did not see any sort of cap on the bonus/penalty range, such as the -2 / +3 in Masks, but I might just have missed it the first time through. Given that all the stat lines are variants on +1, +1, 0, 0, -1 with two +1 adjustments to different stats, it may not be needed...and that +3 bonus becomes awfully powerful, which might be the whole point of the exercise.
This game has the most upbeat retirement option I've seen yet: 'Live Happily Ever After." It also has the fewest, as the only other 'unlockable' advance is to change your playbook. Maybe that will change, maybe it won't.
Steph would have absolutely loved this game.
Okay, that's enough armchair argle-bargle from me! Back to reading, the better to let my feminine side go a-cosplaying as Evie Frye. So more to come.
Well, no, I hadn't, and I spent part of my lunch hour looking up the site over at Evil Hat. And then my feminine side, who you may have gathered is a frisky little Anthro at the calmest of times, imaginarily grabbed my collar, gave me a vaguely predatory grin, and in my mind's ear said, more or less, "do it for Steph!"
And that, dear readers, is how I volunteered to help playtest something called Thirsty Sword Lesbians, once again finding myself looking over a game that my dear friend would have enjoyed quite thoroughly. Because yes, it is more or less what it says on the tin: Lesbians, with swords, thirsting for relationships and romance and all that shojo-ai cuddly goodness that goes with it.
This is the 'armchair' feedback from a quick read-through, since it is the middle of the work week and I won't have time to really dig deep until later.
Mechanically, this is PbtA with all that the term implies--narrative friendly play with loose and easy mechanics that allow story to happen and fail forward without getting tied up in the minutiae, playbooks centered on archetypes. I see a bit of Masks here (Conditions for 'damage') and a touch of Monsterhearts there ('strings' as social currency). No doubt there will be more to discover as I work my way through the text with more care, but the framework is about what I expect. There are five defining stats, five conditions, and the customary three possible results (In a curious twist of lingo, one refers to the three possible results as up beat, mixed beat, or down beat instead of the more usual triad of 'strong hit', 'hit', 'miss'.) Playbooks are what you'd expect--everything you need to play, and geared to whatever archetype the playbook embodies.
The beta version of the rules is clearly written with a sense of humor, which is always something that appeals to me. Several move names left me giggling like Katana on 'nip (if cats giggled, that is, which the Floofy One does not). Others are evocative of a more serious mood, so it isn't all fluff and sparkly rainbows...and the mood can be dialed up or down depending on how one's table prefers their swashbuckling action.
There are several sample settings, including a number of 'plot bunny' sized suggestions for game 'verses instead of one overarching core world. This is another feature I rather like to see, and the accompanying section on rolling one's own (so to speak) is pretty good. Hopefully this will make the cut for the final version!
A few more things that are now on my radar:
Some moves are rolled +Stat, but with an additional +3 bonus if you also spend a String on them. This has me scratching my head and wondering if that's a typo, because that bonus makes a Down Beat far less likely. (NOT impossible, though, as anybody who's watched me try to play one of these games can tell you!) I also did not see any sort of cap on the bonus/penalty range, such as the -2 / +3 in Masks, but I might just have missed it the first time through. Given that all the stat lines are variants on +1, +1, 0, 0, -1 with two +1 adjustments to different stats, it may not be needed...and that +3 bonus becomes awfully powerful, which might be the whole point of the exercise.
This game has the most upbeat retirement option I've seen yet: 'Live Happily Ever After." It also has the fewest, as the only other 'unlockable' advance is to change your playbook. Maybe that will change, maybe it won't.
Steph would have absolutely loved this game.
Okay, that's enough armchair argle-bargle from me! Back to reading, the better to let my feminine side go a-cosplaying as Evie Frye. So more to come.
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