My thoughts after reading it, in no particular order:
- Setting seems fine, nothing jumps out at me as a "wow super cool i have to play this" that i sometimes feel after reading a rulebook, but there is nothing bad about it.
- Basic mechanics need another pass. I think i understood most of the things, but even after reading it thrice im not super sure about everything. Maybe some things need to be explained in different order, or maybe examples are needed. Things like AP costs, and attribute actions i think i got, but i have the nagging feeling that it could work completely differently than i understood it.
- Everything needs a bit of polish, some sentences run too long, some explanations gloss over stuff that seems very important. Needs to be proofread by someone with little to no experience with the genre to see what needs more explanation.
- I would need to read a play by play of an example turn or even an entire combat before i would feel qualified to run the quickstart adventure. Something very simple like the hero vs 2 random thugs in an alley, it should be enough that every mechanic could be used once before the fight is over.
- Heat sounds very cool, simple risk-reward systems are my jam, and degrees of success is something i always do in my games, no matter the system, so i like it's baked in. Reflex is iffy because it relies purely on luck, i just see my buddy making a reflex based ronin and just never rolling doubles and being stuck with basic attacks.
- As for the adventure, its fairly non-linear, and i can see the player doing some stuff that will leave them with no further clues or skip half the drama.
I do love non-linear stories, especially whodunnits with multiple plots at once, but it does feel like a bit much for a testrun adventure. If i had to juggle a new ruleset on top of the adventure, i would for sure mess it up. I do like the story and i wouldn't want to simplify it, but i feel like it needs a little rewording to make it flow more intuitively. Maybe the adventure could have some sort of a checklist, a glossary or even a flowchart. Or a cool map of all the areas and what happens in them?
I appreciate the feedback! I'll address a few points:
- With everything going on in the lore of RōNIN it's a slow build. Once we have the funds to commission more art I can show off the setting a lot more. It's one of those that can be shown but not told.
- I noticed you had some concerns about the mechanics and I'll say it is a common concern. In the next few weeks (depending on my assistant's health) I want to put out an explainer video on the mechanics. (In the style of an employee training video BTW) Plus when I launch the crowdfund I'm going to have some information regarding the beta period as the artwork and printing situation is worked on.
- You're the second person mention the heat system positively, I'm glad you like it. As for the reflex system, I knew this was a problem early on that's why I implemented expendable enemies so you have another way of gaining reflex. I'll be thinking up other ways for you to gain reflex as we go.
- As you can probably guess, I like to take the procedural route when it comes to RōNIN. I like the idea of a cliff notes version of the campaign so if you're hosting a campaign you'll have a rough idea of where the story is going to go. I'll heavily consider that because I know a lot of the stories could be hard to follow, especially the map idea.
Really great points, Tourfaint!