Playtest last night went well. The mechanics seem to work. We need more counter attacks though, and had to add in some clarity for a few Kung Fu Techniques. Looks like we will need to make sure there are plenty of Kung Fu techniques to cover all the different weapon styles (so just going to have to have a much bigger pile of abilities than we have in Sertorius). Also running the session opened my mind a bit on how the sects interact and function in the setting.

Had to change how the history skill works to accommodate the setting. In Sertorius it is by region, but here I think it makes more sense to do it by historical age.

Here is the report: http://thebedrockblog.blogspot.com/2014/02/wandering-heroes-of-ogre-gate-playtest.html

Second playtest went well, was conducted via online video chat.

(Note: Forgot the PC names, as my players have their sheets and i do not yet have copies, so just using made up names for now).

In this session the party had just killed the Witch of Zhaze Zhou with the assistance of Heiping Sect led by senior disciple Zhao Min, but both groups were doing so to obtain the Wind Sabre of Sunan for themselves (an item widely coveted in the martial world). In the end, the players allowed the nuns of the Heiping sect to take the sabre (withi the aim that they might take it from them later). After the two groups parted, the party was confrontsd by the Tsun River Gang, led by Frowning Eagle. Frowning Eagle and his men were loyal to the witch and wanted revenge for her death. A fight ensued and the the party sent Frowning Eagle running away with his men.

After deliberation, the party decided to head north to Heiping Sect headquarters, believing that they should team up against the Tsun River Gang. On their way they found evidence of a possessed swordsman (kung fu practitioners can be possessed by spirits in this setting if their Qi is unbalanced) kiling local villagers. They learned what they could but moved on to Heiping sect.

At Heiping Sect they spoke with the leader, Queen Lu Zhi, who agreed to send six nuns led by Zhao Min with the party to deal with the Tsun River Gang. The party stayed at Heiping Temple in a guest quarters. During the night, Heigo (one of the player characters) spotted a woman entering their quarters, standing over Jing (another pc) with an object in her hand (he had made a Detect roll to wake and sense the presence of the woman). Heigo could not see the what object was in her hand but spoke and saw that the woman was Zhao Min. She said she had just come in to check on the party and hid the object behind her back (which Heigo was too polite to press her on). When Heigo spoke with Jing about it, jing's unconcerned response made him worry because the nuns can't have relationships with men (and he thought it was possible Zhao Min had taken an interest in Jing). He spoke with Queen Lu Zhi but this only made matters worse, and in the end he decided to simply keep an eye on things during the journey south.

OBSERVATIONS
The system worked very well. This time around there were no complaints but it is clear we need more Kung Fu Techniques. Making NPCs is tricky because of the number of techniques so i would like to look at simpler optional methods for GMs who need to save time. There is a Fated flaw int he game, and jing took it at character creation. When PCs are fated the gm rolls secretly on a Fated table, gets the result and then needs to incorporate it into the campaign. This was the reason why Zhao Min was standing over Jing, it was related to his result on the Fated table. Normally, this isn't the sort of thing that would occur in one of my campaigns. So it was interesting to have the adventure go in that direction because fate wanted it to, even if I as GM would normally resist it.

Here is the latest playtest report: http://thebedrockblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/wandering-heroes-of-ogre-gate-playtest_22.html

Had another session of Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate last night. Went well. The setting definitely works, and the array of Sects really kept things interesting as the players started forming alliances and breaking ties (will do another playtest report on the session in a day or so).

Noticed some things. We have counters and blocks, which work great but raise a lot of questions regarding how many blocks/counters you can do in a round. So discussing the best options on that front. Many of the techniques have a degree of vagueness that needs to be addressed. We dont want the system to be weighed down by meaningless detail but we also need to make the technqiues smooth in play with minimum confusion. We also noticed some of the older techniques in the rules need to be updated as they carry assumptions no longer in place. So my task this week will be to go through blocks, counters and stances, as well as older techniques and refine them.

Latest playtest report: http://thebedrockblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/wandering-heroes-of-ogre-gate-playtest_29.html

Latest playtest report: http://thebedrockblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/wandering-heroes-of-ogre-gate-playtest-v.html