Playtest Report: Character Funnel Play Styles

[numenetics]

This may be too obvious to state, but I noticed something new on my third run-through of a level 0 funnel last night.

I had my wife roll up 8 level zeroes and sent her to Stonehell. The above ground areas of Stonehell seem to make a great level zero adventure, btw.

What I noticed was that she approached the level zero differently from the friends I had run with previously. The first two times I ran it, it was a fun meat grind and we lost a lot of characters, which is of course part of the intent and how most people will approach it.

My wife, however, hates to lose characters, even a level 0 without a name, so the fragility of the characters led her the opposite direction. She played a very cautious game and actually spent a whole day just waiting at the arrow slits in the gatehouse to pick off anyone who happened by. They only had a single spear to do this with, but hit the lone goblin who eventually wandered by. He had a shortbow with 5 arrows, so they had a massive upgrade to the operation.

Anyway, they only lost two or three people because of this caution and are over halfway to level one. When they took their big find of a cask of wine back to town I let her roll up replacements. They were also able to buy a couple of slings.

Previously I had just upgraded to level 1 after the first adventure, but I'm finding it very fun to go through the incremental progress. Every gain seems amazing; when was the last time anyone was excited about finding a mundane shortbow or getting to buy a sling? But these things will probably reduce the level 0 mortality rate for my wife even further.

[Harley Stroh]

That's awesome ... way to reward smart play! (You know this already, but 0-level doesn't have to be a meat grinder. It's up to the players to make that determination.)

//H

[finarvyn]

Yeah, one of my playtest teams (mostly female ... maybe there is a pattern here) really hated to lose any characters and played very cautiously. It will be interesting to see if this style of RPG fits this type of player long-term, since those same players aren't thrilled with random magic effects and some of the other elements which make DCC unique.

[numenetics]

those same players aren't thrilled with random magic effects and some of the other elements which make DCC unique.

So funny that you say that. The cautious playing and a little bit of luck paid off last night when my wife took down an ogre on the way to Stonehell yesterday and took 7 level zeroes to level 1 when they tracked down the lair. There's an elf and a wizard in the bunch and you should have seen her face when she rolled that the elf's magic missile was a D14 to cast instead of a D20. She was not happy. Haven't played with the level ones yet, though, so we'll see how it goes.

[finarvyn]

I'm wondering if this is an effect based on reading style.

I grew up on Conan, Fafhrd, Elric, and many other Appendix N books. In those the hero doesn't always win until the end, bad things happen along the way, and much of the fantasy is more gritty. Wizards were often doing Things They Ought Not Do and often paid the price for their arrogance.

My wife and many of my players are more into "modern" fantasy like DragonLance which seems more happy and predictable. Wizards seem to spend more time doing fantastic things without terrible side effects.

Clearly I'm stereotyping here, as not all books of either pile only are written one particular way, but maybe this accounts for why some players are more intriqued by randomness in magic and others are distressed by it.