Play-Testing Complete

Still at Orcas. A fine, fine day with plenty of sunshine, hiking, good fellowship, and the eating of seafood. So much seafood.

(*sips wine*)

We also finished my final play-test of the tournament module that I plan on debuting for this year's Cauldron convention. My own players (kids..they're just kids) did quite a bit better than those (adults) who sat down at my last play-test, suffering only three deaths and coming away with some 60k+ in treasure. But it was a pyrrhic victory due to...well, I'll let your imagination fill in the blanks when it comes to the whys and wherefores.

Diego was miffed (for the most part) because, in the end, they'd left so much treasure on the table. The adventure is downright fiendish...I am VERY pleased with how it functions, as it should bring a lot of grief and suffering to the players if run correctly. I need to polish up the text a bit to make sure there's proper instruction for the DMs as to HOW to run it. But this shouldn't be an easy "cake-walk" in the same way (some) people referred to last year's module.

[and just to be clear: when I ran last year's adventure for my home group, it ended in a TPK]

[which reminds me: best line of the evening tonight: "Yes, we suffered two deaths so far. But one was a suicide and the other was, also, technically a suicide." Oh, my. We laughed so hard the kids were worried I was going to faint...]

For a group of 6-8 Euro 1E aficionados...yeah, maybe they'll find a way to break the thing over their knee. And that's fine; that's part of the game. I've been seeing players wreck my crafty machinations since I was a kid...it is what players do (duh). But my job is to make them work for it; it's no good if they find things too easy. 

Iron sharpens iron. And I want my players to be honed to a hair-splitting razor.

SO...polish the text for clarity and context (in terms of running) and then I'll get it out the door to the Cauldron organizers who (it seems) have appointed me "tournament director" for this year's con. Which just means (I think) that I get to decide the winner of the tourney. Which is, like, cool and everything (so long as they provide the medals)...but I'm less concerned with 'winners' and 'losers' and more concerned that people just have a good time running (and playing) the adventure. THAT is what we're all there for, after all.

Besides, I have three more adventures I have to write/prep/test before I leave town. ALSO, I should probably get on the task of buying my plane tix to Germany. Jeez, I'm a disaster!

Okay. It's after 1:30am and I need to get some sleep. Tomorrow's our last day here and it promises to be filled with pickleball and homemade pizza (among other activities), before I'll be catching a ferry back to Sea-Town (by way of Anacortes). It is time for BED, folks...hiking Mount Constitution, watching the Sounders drub LA Galaxy, and spending a couple hours in the dungeon really takes its toll on a person. 

Besides...my wine glass is just about empty.

(*drink*)

; )