Realm of Bastions
realmofbastions.itch.io
Shared Storytelling Table Top Roleplaying Game

Hello Comrades,

Some of you may remember me posting about the TTRPG I have been developing, and some even asked to playtest. I am now at a near finished state with the game and dearly need playtesting input, anyone who wishes to complete a post test questionnaire will receive a free copy of the finished book complete with character art assets!

Please do not actually donate money, this is a passion project and when it is finished I will seek money but until then I just want to share it.

Even if you do not playtest I welcome any feedback be it editing, phrasing, mechanical, worldbuilding, etc.

Any problems downloading it off itch.io let me know and I'll find another way to get you the .pdf.

Thanks again!

Questionnaire

  1. Tell me about your process of learning the system. What things were easy? What was difficult?

  2. What were your most and least favorite parts of chargen?

  3. What elements of the game supported your immersion? What, if anything, held you back?

  4. What did you feel was missing the the game? Does anything require more detail or explanation?

  5. How did you feel about the pace of the game? If you prefer it slower/faster, how do you suggest this could happen?

  6. What was the most frustrating moment or aspect of what you just played?

  7. What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played?

  8. Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn’t?

  9. If you had a magic wand to wave, and you could change, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be?

  10. What were you doing in the experience?

  11. How would you describe this game to your friends and family?

  • Eris235 [undecided]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Looked it over somewhat briefly, so this is kind of an initial impression.

    For how 'simple' the stats are, the system reads pretty jargon heavy. I found I had to constantly check the glossary and rules for stuff just trying to understand the basics of how combat and exploration work. Now that I think I've gotten how it works, it seems like a pretty cool system, but it's somewhat lacking in presentation as it stands.

    So, like, as one example, the action system. You say you can use one long, two quick, or four brief. (It also says "In addition each Actor may use a Free Action, (After Two Free Actions the next Free Action becomes a Brief Action).", which is kind of confusingly worded). That action system works, but its what I mean about 'jargon heavy'. I feel like it'd be better to either use a more 'gamey' term (call them, I dunno, single actions, double actions, and quad actions, or something numeric like that), or have symbols associated with them (like Pathfinder and older DnD editions have, maybe something like a four section clock, with one, two, or four 'wedges' filled in). Calling one action "quick" and another "brief" is also a little confusing, since they are synonyms. (reminds me of World of Darkness's awful games language, where 'instant actions' take a whole turn, while 'reflexive' actions are free. I love you WoD, but you're editing leaves a lot to be desired.)

    Some other similar layout things, are going through the example explocations/combats/socials. Its great to have those, but I feel like they need a few more rules references/explanations. Page numbers would also be great to reference, for example, the page of the glossary the Obstacle's rules are located, or at least summarize what the obstacles and player abilities do in the example.

    I also wish is had a few more rules summary pages. Like, just a brief section of 'here is an abridged overview of how character creation works, what combat looks like, what exploration looks like, how most 'resolution mechanics' work.' Jumping into the section on 'Life Path Rewards' or 'Combat Tones' immediately drops you into keyword heavy specifics, and I think it'd be nice for each of those types of sections to have just like a paragraph summary/overview in non-keyword language. Similarly, I wish there was a page just labeled 'character creation'. Like, I found the rules eventually hopping from 'core rules' to 'life paths', but I feel like the section on making a character should be in its own 'character creation' section.

    And, for another example of what I mean by 'this book could use more summaries, core rules says "Within Encounters Actions between Actors are resolved with the Opposed Roll." Since this is right at the beginning of the book, running into something like that right of the bat isn't very helpful. I think it'd be better with something like: "Within Encounters Actions between Actors are resolved with the Opposed Roll (Each rolling a d6, and sometimes each adding an attribute, see page 16)."

    Oh, and with this many keywords, it'd be nice to have generally formatting for 'this is a Keyword in the Glossary", something like bolding, underlineing, italicizing, different font, etc.

    I know for all of this the the book isn't finalized, and adding in some of this stuff is unreasonable before the art and stuff has been added, so its not really meant to be 'complaints' so much as 'this would make the book easier to understand'. Its also mostly issues with wording and editing. Something like balance is hard to grasp just looking stuff over, but it seems like a pretty slick system.

    • quartz242 [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Thank you very much for the detailed reply,

      I am working with another person for the art, so it is reasonable for me to make these editing changes while they are working on the art. I've been writing this for about 2 years, so it is really easy for me to get into the trap of "oh this is instantly recognizable / understandable" but I need to try and look at it through a perspective of someone who is unfamiliar with the "jargon" The suggestion regarding including more summaries is a great one, and I'll start working on adding those, as well as the page references and specific formatting for the keywords. Thinking of dropping "Quick" and just having Long Action, Action, Brief Action, and Free Action.

      May work to reword the Action Section to something like "Each Actor may use a single Long Action, two Actions, four Brief Actions or a combination of Actions & Brief Actions. Actors that are not Tired also have access to two Free Actions each turn."

      • Eris235 [undecided]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Yeah, that rewording of actions is a lot clearer.

        And I've written some RPGs myself (mostly homebrew), so I 100% understand getting in the weeds of the system, and losing track of the fact that a newcomer is not going to be coming in knowing how anything works, or what the words mean.

    • quartz242 [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Appreciate that, started off as a homebrewed D&D 5e world/campaign which I then converted to Pathfinder2e, I actually ran it for a couple people here. Shout out to @PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS

      Would love to eventually make a 2d godot multiplayer game with this mechanical system, but that is a long way off

  • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    This looks really interesting! I'm not sure about playtesting but I could give the book an editorial read. DM me if you're interested and would be willing to share a doc/odt.

  • MoreAmphibians [none/use name]
    ·
    2 years ago

    You've got a setting year mixup in the first two sections.

    "The game is set 2,000 years after the ship crashed"

    "set in the year 1202 after the ship’s crash"