Thanks so much for the review, I'm glad you had fun! With the stat situation it's a little vague, but I included the props as a way to get out of that specific scenario.
Alternatively, if your group is down for higher stakes you could count it as an instant failure, and that characters magic explodes with enough force for a TPK. Or you could just lock that character out of magic for the remainder of the game. Whatever fits the vibes at your table best!
I just learned that reviews aren't public!? So I'm going to add that here as well.
Played this GM-less with a couple of friends over Christmas. Our game lasted around 2 hours (though we weren't exactly rushing) and was a lot of fun. We thought the art did a great job of setting the mood, and the character creation was a nice mix of simple and evocative.
It's quick to get into with minimal need to prep beforehand - as long as someone's read over the rules for spellcasting it'll be fine. No props or maps or anything are needed, just a way to roll dice.
The system is very light - it helps you generate the four parts of the Wizard Certification Practical Exam, then leaves you to it. This leaves the GM/group to decide how many separate challenges need to be overcome in a particular room, and judge when they've been overcome. We generally went with one successful roll per challenge (since failures often generate new obstacles) and that worked out well, with all of us teetering on the edge of exposure when we triumphed.
It was a great palate-cleanser between our usual longer-term games which are fairly crunchy. Our group wouldn't want to always play such freeform systems, but for a relaxing change of pace (or when some players can't make it) it hit the spot.
Who's it good for? We're all experienced GMs and found it comfortable enough as we're happy improvising and judging the level of challenges. As long as there's someone confident in the group either to GM or to support decision-making, you should be fine. We couldn't judge how it would be for an inexperienced group - I think it'd work well if they're happy treating it as improvised storytelling with the odd dice roll, but some might find the rules too light and want more support in terms of how many challenges, how many rolls, and when you've won.
We actually followed up by using our characters (and the system) to run Overdue, and found that it worked well; highly recommended.
If anyone wants to know how the game plays, I can't promise this is a correct version, but it is a podcast of our game.
https://discussion.tekeli.li/t/one-shots-and-miscellanea/502/13
