Finally had a chance to read this. Excellent work! You outlined a really great monster-hunting use of the Polymorph system. I feel like I based my game on a more rules-sparse game (Rebel Scum) and you seem to have based yours on a more elaborate game (Mazes, right?)
Love the setup! Love the combination of an individual magic reserve and a party reserve.
Thoughts on creating adventures for it?
Viewing post in Creepers of the Night comments
Thanks for the feedback! A lot of it comes from the Polymorph SRD, but there’s some Rebel Scum and Mazes DNA in there too. Monster of the Week is an obvious influence, and there’s a smidge of Dungeon World/PBTA as well.
Originally I had something more akin to the Treasure mechanic from Mazes, but I eventually realized that it was more complicated than I needed, and went for more of an Action Point pool.
Similarly, I initially used Darkness as a GM resource per the Polymorph SRD and Mazes, but it was pointed out to me that it didn’t make thematic sense for Darkness to decrease when the Big Bad summoned minions. Also, I liked the more straightforward progression of the Darkness track in Rebel Scum.
Are you asking whether I’m planning to create adventures for it, or if I intend to add more about adventure creation?
I mean either.
Yeah, I still don't QUITE get Darkness as a spendable resource. Someone on the 9th Level discord said for Mazes said Darkness increases when a PLANNED Hazard shows up, and it's spent to buy unplanned hazards. I guess that makes sense. But I haven't bought or read Mazes yet, though I have watched a couple of playthroughs.
Yeah, I didn't really understand it either, so I dropped it from my updated version, and just use Darkness (called Dread in Zombuddies) to track how suspicious the humans are about if there are zombies in their midst. I feel like I wanted to allow for a stealth/obliviousness mechanic in case players wanted to play either as quiet stalkers or use the comedy framework to play as monsters in plain sight.
Like I GET the desire for a mechanic there, so players don't think the GM is being unrestrainedly adversarial by just adding extra hazards on the fly without having to spend something.
The Star Wars RPG has a mechanic I prefer I think, for that. It's a set of light-side/dark side tokens that are shared in a pool between players and the GM. At the beginning of the session, a die is rolled to determine the number of each token. But they flip over, light on one side, dark on the other. And the players can "spend" them by flipping them over and that works like a Star, they control the narrative for a moment, get to do something amazing, gain advantage on a roll, or get to add something to their gear that a flashback will explain.
But now, that token is flipped, and it's a dark side token, which the GM can use to give the bad guys a similar moment. And when it's used that token flips back to light, so the players can use it.
I began to question the need for Darkness as a GM resource. With a loosey-goosey system like Polymorph or PBTA, did I really need to justify making things up on the fly? Isn't that part and parcel of a rules-light TTRPG?
It occurred to me that instead of being used as a currency, Darkness could be a condition that "unlocked" certain abilities of Elite Hazards as the game clock advanced from Daybreak to Dusk. That would maintain the notion of Darkness as something to be feared, while eliminating the potential weirdness of the GM overspending their way back into a "lighter" tier.
I think that's something I could develop more fully in a later version.
That makes a lot of sense.
I’d love to pick the brain of Chris O’Neil and get a greater sense of his goals with Polymorph. Because to me, I feel a pull in a simplifying direction but then an opposite pull in a complexifying direction.
Some of Zombuddies was a reaction to what I saw in the play throughs of Mazes I watched, which (to my mind) were kind of dry and not atmospheric. I was missing a sense of story or flavor. But also what drew me to Polymorph is the idea of getting out of the way of the narrative, because the mechanic was so dead simple.
So to watch Mazes which both wasn’t super story-y, but then had quite a bit more complexity… I really want to understand some design goals in order to evaluate what I think works to achieve those.
I haven't watched any Mazes playthroughs, but I can imagine why you had that reaction.
Like you, what appeals to me about Polymorph is that the core resolution mechanic is so very basic, yet allows for a few surprises.
My own design goal is to create something that scratches my PBTA itch while being even simpler.
One thing I've enjoyed about PBTA is that all of the character creation stuff is on the character sheet itself. While I haven't quite gone that far here--mostly because I'd need to make 12 different templates--I still like the ability to stat up a character in a couple of minutes.
Another plus of PBTA--specifically Dungeon World--is that there are no lengthy explanations of the how, what and why of monsters. They get a few keywords and some stuff they will do when someone blows a roll.
There aren't any rules for how a Medusa's petrification works; a Medusa turns someone to stone because that's what a Medusa does. And there's probably a magic spell that can change them back, but it will take research and perhaps an exotic ingredient or two.