itch.io

First of all, I don't know how long the setting has been brewing or if you've ever used it before, but this is a Havoc Engine adventure that basically has an entire campaign setting book strapped to it. I think that's really impressive for a game jam. Even if this is a setting that you've had predeveloped, it's really tough to slot in a specific engine and feel like the game mechanics reinforce the setting and premise. Speaking of premise, I'm in love with wizard city fire fighters. I saw your comment below about postal workers and I also feel like a Kiki's delivery service flavored game about postal workers could have worked really well in this setting too. 

As I go through the doc, I'll be taking some intermittent notes below. I'll try to wrap it all up into a cohesive review at the end. But the big thing I'm looking for is: does the game reinforce the setting and vice versa. As much as I appreciate the world building, Havoc Engine games are often not designed to be played for more than a few sessions. However, I could really see the appeal if someone were playing a different game in the city and wanted to have a short interlude as firefighters in the same city. Sort of like how firefighter shows will have crossover episodes with cop shows / medical shows / etc. 

The first thing mechanically that I want to comment on is the decision to tie the attributes to how successes get spent during success allocation. It's a decision that I'm not sure how I feel about until I play, but in general, I think is fine. It's definitely a way to help ensure players are picking the right attribute for the scene they're narrating & I can see it helping to increase narrative cohesion what the player says they're doing and where their successes go. However, I often tend to get frustrated with systems designed to remove player decision making. This one seems relatively minor though, so I'm willing to give it a shot. 

I don't love the resource being named Elemental Power. I just feel like there's something catchier and thematic that could be used. Some abilities are themed toward elemental energy, but most of them aren't. To me, most of them feel themed around a character's internal will to continue doing hard stuff. I think I'd prefer a name that's punchier and more thematic. The first thing to pop into my head is something like Moxie, Courage, Sacrifice, Control, Calm, etc. The alternative could also be to rewrite some of the abilities to be more thematically linked to the elemental nature of the characters, but even then, I think something a little punchier would have more flavor. 

I'll point to Heroism as a perfect foil to Elemental Power. Heroism feels exactly like what I think Elemental Power could be. The name is punchy. It fits the theme of completing secondary objectives, which often means taking more risk than just focusing on the main objective. And it gives you the ability to dig deep and try again if you have a dice roll that just isn't going to cut it.

I feel like the difference between Fire Threat and Fire Damage feels sort of contrived. It feels like the damage done by a fire is about half of the threat it poses. The threat it poses can be reduced with successes and the damage can be mitigated with successes. It seems like you've taken out the GM dice rolling to reduce crunch, but what was left was a harder system to understand. I think it could be handled one of two ways: 

1. GM rolls a pool of dice equal to the fire threat each turn. Every character in the area will take 1 damage for each success at the end of their turn. They can reduce that damage with successes rolled on their turn. They can reduce the fire threat as well on their turn with successes, meaning next turn the fire will have less possibility for damage. This feels super thematic, but is a bit more crunchy than the alternative.
2. At the start of their turn, each player faces damage equal to half of the current fire threat rounded down. They can reduce the damage they take by spending 1 success for each 1 damage they want to reduce. 

The second option has less rolling for the DM, but there's math involved. I think it's a little bit cleaner than the way it's explained on Page 12 though. Also, I do like how the threat goes up by 1 every turn to reflect that fire wants to grow. In the same vein has my comments on Elemental Power. I think Harm Mitigation could use a punchier name to sell the fiction a little better. 

Note: I wrote a lot of this out before reading the Sample turn at the end. I think I'm not really understanding how damage works. So the fire does roll its threat. When it succeeds, it deals damage. It appears that maybe the damage stat is the # of damage it does for each success? That feels overwhelmingly strong if it is. It also appears that players need to put points into Harm Mitigation before they know how much damage the threats will do. While I do like the risk/reward behind that, I also feel like it could dramatically slow progress if a group spends way too many of their successes in Harm Mitigation. That makes it take a lot more turns to complete objectives and slows the game down a ton, with no realy way for the GM to interract with it. I feel like Threat damage should definitely be rolled at the beginning of a round, so it can be reduced by each player as they wish. It may make the story feel a little more predictable, but I think it'll definitely let the players feel like they were given a chance in the event that they are killed by a threat. 

I do really like the Environmental effects table. This is a really great way to marry the fiction and the mechanics. 

I really like the two types of harm and how they impact the characters. No notes. 

I think it was a great choice to include a plethra of competing secondary objectives in each scene. I do think there are a lot of very linear scenes, but I appreciate the options to pick one scene or another at times. I think maybe it'd be a good idea to map these out and determine if you think it could/should be flattened a bit (maybe go from picking between 2 areas, to picking from 3). Here's the progression order of a normal playthrough (I'm going to pick the option that feels interesting to me each time):

1. Intro (Interlude - RP Only) - Each player describes a normal day at the station
2. Entryway - Objective Successes 8-21
3. Riddle Door - Objective Successes 8-14
4. Oubliette - Objective Successes 5-10
5. Summoning Circle (Interlude - adds to clue tracker)
6. The Menagerie Objective Successes 8-17
7. The Aviary - Objective Successes 6-14
8. Omnidirectional Lab (Interlude - adds to clue tracker)
9. Musical Stairs - Objective Successes 10-14
10. Fleshworker's Lab - Objective Successes 7-13
11. The Room Out of Time (Interlude - Experience Advance)
12. The Yawning Chasm - Objective Successes 8-12
13. Upper Kitchens - Objective Successes 5-20
14. The Staircase (Interlude - special rules for healing using only elemental power as the cost)
15. Faculty Lounge - Objective Successes 4-9
16. Reliquary Room - Objective Successes 6-16
17. Near The Top (Interlude - experience advance)
18. Reception Hall - Objective Successes 12-30
19. Aftermath (Interlude - read conclusion)

This means that the minimum number of successes to get through the game, if you spend zero time fighting fires/threats, healing yourself, or taking any action other than driving the story forward is 87. At a 50% success rate, that's 174 rolled dice, just for objectives. Then you need to also consider the other things the group is doing & ask if potentially the game could be flattened to reduce the number of scenes & interludes.

I think a good way to slim it down would be to present interludes as either always optional rooms that don't progress the story forward (i.e. they'll have to backtrack to keep fighting the fire) with a cost of additional fire threat in the next scene, the party will then have some decisions to make. Alternatively, if you want to keep each interlude on the main path of the game, I'd try to reduce the total number of interludes and then alternate between scenes and interludes 1:1. 

I think what you have here is very cool, but I also think it's intimidatingly detailed. There's a ton of background stuff that doesn't actually play into the core adventure. I fear that this may be a case where you can kill your darlings, pull out some of the highly detailed lore that you've built in, and focus in on the experience of these firefighters as they fight this one fire in this one tower. The lore could be an addendum. Hell, if you wanted to keep it in the doc, that's fine. I'd just put the gameplay details first, then the adventure, then include the lore as an appendix.

good luck with this one. I can tell you put a lot of time, care and thought into it. That's why I wanted to give you as much detailed feedback as possible!