terrycloth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
terrycloth) wrote2010-10-05 10:16 pm
terrycloth) wrote2010-10-05 10:16 pm
Entry tags:
hatchling playtest summary
Contains no hatchling spoilers. At least, Rowyn assured me it wouldn't, and I don't see how it could since the playtest took place on Earth and the PBEM isn't. n.n
While she was visiting during Rainfurrest, we played a few hours face to face to see how annoying a system where everything failed constantly was.
S: "Hi, who are you? My name's Shiny Wings!"
M: "I'm Moonshadow."
S: "That's a nice name! Where did you get it from?"
M: "I don't remember!"
S: "We should have other clutchmates. I'll try to smell around for them... I can't smell anything though, I think my tongue is broken."
M: "Maybe breathing fire on it will help?" *breathes fire* *it doesn't help*
After looking around for a very long time, Moonshadow manages to spot an exit from the cave, and the two of them fly up towards it. Moonshadow smacks into the ceiling, crashes to the ground, and breaks a tooth. He flies back up and tries his 'shapeshifting' spell, and gets inside. Shinywings manages to wedge herself inside, but it's barely big enough for her and she has to burrow out.
They level up for getting outside... because this is the playtest and we have to level up fast.
Outside, they go hunting for food and Shinywings finds some rabbits. Moonshadow is still in ferret shape, and chases the rabbits into their hole, where he bites one to death. It takes a lot of biting! He eats most of it so that it's light enough to drag back out, and shares the rest with his clutchmate.
First meal == another level up!
Shiny Wings is still hungry, so Moonshaadow flushes some more rabbits out for her to kill by battering them with her wings, and they eat more -- as it turns out, changing back from shapeshifting is easy. They get tired after eating, and fall asleep in a pile in the open.
In the middle of the night, Moonshadow doesn't get doom on ears and manages to wake up before the wolf actually starts eating them. Look! Another creature! He's been trying to remember creatures to shadpeshift into all day! He turns into a wolf, and tries to talk to it, but can't manage wolf language.
"Growf?"
The wolf grrrrs back, so he uses intimidate, and scares it off. So much for the first battle!
Moonshadow grabs Shinywings' leg in his wolfy teeth (the wolf form is MUCH larger than the dragons) and drags her back towards the den, where it should be safe because they were there without being bothered for like 1000 years, right? She wakes up and panics but he changes back and reassures her, and they get back in and sleep with no further problems.
...and level up again.
The next day, after failing again to remember how to hatch their clutchmates -- although Shinywings does remember some healing spells for injured teeth and tongues -- they're hunting some more rabbits when they spot a strange creature walking around in the woods. Moonshadow has a third point in shapeshifting and turns into a five year old kid.
It takes a long time to figure out english, but eventually he manages it. Shinywings gets DOOM on language and has to rely on him to translate for a while. Also, she's still in dragon form and hiding.
Lady: "Hey little boy, are you lost?"
M: "No!"
Lady: "Where are your parents?"
M: "They're dead!"
Lady: "What?! What happened? Are you okay?"
M: "I'm fine! They died hundreds of years ago!"
Lady: "Where do you live? Who's your guardian?"
M: "We live here in the forest! What's a guardian?"
etc, until Shinywings gets bored and shows herself. The woman panics, grabs Moonshadow, and tries to drag him off to the ranger's station. He tells Shinywings to leave a marker so they can find their way back, so she uses her fire breath to burn down part of the forest. "That's a good marker! Good work! We'll be able to spot this from way far off!"
The conversation with the ranger -- after the woman runs off and leaves the strange kid and the dragon with him -- is pretty similar. The ranger refuses to believe in dragons, or that Moonshadow is the same as Shinywings even though he TELLS him that he is. He does feed them some cooked meat, which is a revelation! They should be *cooking* their kills! With fire breath of course. After killing them. It's no fun to eat dead meat, although it's tasty cooked.
The ranger explains that he's a guardian of the forest and the animals that live in it. Moonshadow asks if he'll be his guardian, and the ranger is evasive. "What about Shinywings?" "Well... she's obviously rare and endangered..."
Then he notices the forest fire, and calls the cops and the fire department. Shinywings notices his cell phone and covets it -- the workmanship is amazing! Moonshadow can see the delicate patterns of lightning running through it, surely the work of a powerful wizard. The wizard Samsung -- he wrote his name on it! So Shinywings challenges the ranger for possession of the cell phone, and batters him with her wings until he cowers and tells her to stop, then she casts her first spell, Chains of the Mind, to get him to give her the cell phone as tribute.
The ranger is not amused, but he does it, because he was defeated and she used the spell. Nya.
When the cops come, they try to separate the two hatchlings, which they're having none of -- eventually Moonshadow turns back into a dragon and they fly back home, using the marker. They're still a little hungry, but there's lots of smoke-killed rabbits in the rabbit den for them to munch on.
Overnight, they level up again and Moonshadow takes the spell 'Seeker', to try to find the wizard Samsung, or other living hatchlings, or other living eggs. He also explains shapeshifting to Shinywings, in case they run into more humans -- humans are annoyingly panicky when they see dragons in their normal form.
The next day, after getting DOOM repeatedly on various seeking spells, and hunting some rabbits, they talk to some humans a little, this time with Moonshadow as a wolf and Shinywings as the human. It doesn't go well, so they fly off to find some water instead -- they haven't drunk anything but rainwater, and they're thirsty!
They do find a river, and go fishing (with some amount of doom), and then decide to spar with each other in a play-duel, to help them learn to defend themselves because they're a clutch of two which is TINY! And all the other clutches will be bigger and make them their slaves unless they're the toughest dragons around. The duel is a long, painful, dragged-out slap-fight with wings (peppered with the occasional fire breath from ShinyWings, who is much much better at fire breath than Moonshadow -- he was practicing his bite, but can't hit her with it at all so it's totally useless) that leaves both of them really wounded and sore and they spend a while healing most of the wounds, except for the ones they get doom on, which they hope will heal overnight instead.
...then they would have levelled up but we kind of stopped there.
And the answer was... it was pretty annoying, so Rowyn decided there needed to be a 'very easy' category for things even *hatchlings* would succeed at most of the time (there was once when they both got DOOM on easy wings trying to exit their cave!). Also, the damage formulas were incomprehensible.
But it was fun! q:3
While she was visiting during Rainfurrest, we played a few hours face to face to see how annoying a system where everything failed constantly was.
S: "Hi, who are you? My name's Shiny Wings!"
M: "I'm Moonshadow."
S: "That's a nice name! Where did you get it from?"
M: "I don't remember!"
S: "We should have other clutchmates. I'll try to smell around for them... I can't smell anything though, I think my tongue is broken."
M: "Maybe breathing fire on it will help?" *breathes fire* *it doesn't help*
After looking around for a very long time, Moonshadow manages to spot an exit from the cave, and the two of them fly up towards it. Moonshadow smacks into the ceiling, crashes to the ground, and breaks a tooth. He flies back up and tries his 'shapeshifting' spell, and gets inside. Shinywings manages to wedge herself inside, but it's barely big enough for her and she has to burrow out.
They level up for getting outside... because this is the playtest and we have to level up fast.
Outside, they go hunting for food and Shinywings finds some rabbits. Moonshadow is still in ferret shape, and chases the rabbits into their hole, where he bites one to death. It takes a lot of biting! He eats most of it so that it's light enough to drag back out, and shares the rest with his clutchmate.
First meal == another level up!
Shiny Wings is still hungry, so Moonshaadow flushes some more rabbits out for her to kill by battering them with her wings, and they eat more -- as it turns out, changing back from shapeshifting is easy. They get tired after eating, and fall asleep in a pile in the open.
In the middle of the night, Moonshadow doesn't get doom on ears and manages to wake up before the wolf actually starts eating them. Look! Another creature! He's been trying to remember creatures to shadpeshift into all day! He turns into a wolf, and tries to talk to it, but can't manage wolf language.
"Growf?"
The wolf grrrrs back, so he uses intimidate, and scares it off. So much for the first battle!
Moonshadow grabs Shinywings' leg in his wolfy teeth (the wolf form is MUCH larger than the dragons) and drags her back towards the den, where it should be safe because they were there without being bothered for like 1000 years, right? She wakes up and panics but he changes back and reassures her, and they get back in and sleep with no further problems.
...and level up again.
The next day, after failing again to remember how to hatch their clutchmates -- although Shinywings does remember some healing spells for injured teeth and tongues -- they're hunting some more rabbits when they spot a strange creature walking around in the woods. Moonshadow has a third point in shapeshifting and turns into a five year old kid.
It takes a long time to figure out english, but eventually he manages it. Shinywings gets DOOM on language and has to rely on him to translate for a while. Also, she's still in dragon form and hiding.
Lady: "Hey little boy, are you lost?"
M: "No!"
Lady: "Where are your parents?"
M: "They're dead!"
Lady: "What?! What happened? Are you okay?"
M: "I'm fine! They died hundreds of years ago!"
Lady: "Where do you live? Who's your guardian?"
M: "We live here in the forest! What's a guardian?"
etc, until Shinywings gets bored and shows herself. The woman panics, grabs Moonshadow, and tries to drag him off to the ranger's station. He tells Shinywings to leave a marker so they can find their way back, so she uses her fire breath to burn down part of the forest. "That's a good marker! Good work! We'll be able to spot this from way far off!"
The conversation with the ranger -- after the woman runs off and leaves the strange kid and the dragon with him -- is pretty similar. The ranger refuses to believe in dragons, or that Moonshadow is the same as Shinywings even though he TELLS him that he is. He does feed them some cooked meat, which is a revelation! They should be *cooking* their kills! With fire breath of course. After killing them. It's no fun to eat dead meat, although it's tasty cooked.
The ranger explains that he's a guardian of the forest and the animals that live in it. Moonshadow asks if he'll be his guardian, and the ranger is evasive. "What about Shinywings?" "Well... she's obviously rare and endangered..."
Then he notices the forest fire, and calls the cops and the fire department. Shinywings notices his cell phone and covets it -- the workmanship is amazing! Moonshadow can see the delicate patterns of lightning running through it, surely the work of a powerful wizard. The wizard Samsung -- he wrote his name on it! So Shinywings challenges the ranger for possession of the cell phone, and batters him with her wings until he cowers and tells her to stop, then she casts her first spell, Chains of the Mind, to get him to give her the cell phone as tribute.
The ranger is not amused, but he does it, because he was defeated and she used the spell. Nya.
When the cops come, they try to separate the two hatchlings, which they're having none of -- eventually Moonshadow turns back into a dragon and they fly back home, using the marker. They're still a little hungry, but there's lots of smoke-killed rabbits in the rabbit den for them to munch on.
Overnight, they level up again and Moonshadow takes the spell 'Seeker', to try to find the wizard Samsung, or other living hatchlings, or other living eggs. He also explains shapeshifting to Shinywings, in case they run into more humans -- humans are annoyingly panicky when they see dragons in their normal form.
The next day, after getting DOOM repeatedly on various seeking spells, and hunting some rabbits, they talk to some humans a little, this time with Moonshadow as a wolf and Shinywings as the human. It doesn't go well, so they fly off to find some water instead -- they haven't drunk anything but rainwater, and they're thirsty!
They do find a river, and go fishing (with some amount of doom), and then decide to spar with each other in a play-duel, to help them learn to defend themselves because they're a clutch of two which is TINY! And all the other clutches will be bigger and make them their slaves unless they're the toughest dragons around. The duel is a long, painful, dragged-out slap-fight with wings (peppered with the occasional fire breath from ShinyWings, who is much much better at fire breath than Moonshadow -- he was practicing his bite, but can't hit her with it at all so it's totally useless) that leaves both of them really wounded and sore and they spend a while healing most of the wounds, except for the ones they get doom on, which they hope will heal overnight instead.
...then they would have levelled up but we kind of stopped there.
And the answer was... it was pretty annoying, so Rowyn decided there needed to be a 'very easy' category for things even *hatchlings* would succeed at most of the time (there was once when they both got DOOM on easy wings trying to exit their cave!). Also, the damage formulas were incomprehensible.
But it was fun! q:3