Adventure World Playtest #1

 I got to sit down this weekend with a few friends to take Adventure World for a little test drive. I've got to say, I was a bit solicitous about the game falling to pieces but was pleasantly surprised that our four-hour session went swimmingly -- and that it ended with white-knuckled tension (can't ask for much more than that). I had two players; one played a Human Rogue, and the other played an Elf Warrior.

Adventure World makes use of a 2d8 system for a majority of the rolls in the game: Action rolls, Skill rolls, and Talent rolls. Basically, you roll 2d8 plus modifier(s) and add the total. 7 or less means a failure; 8-11 means success with a consequence; 12 or more is a resounding success.

There are other little mechanics throughout this game, and most of them worked out well. My players made some nice recommendations about the leveling system and rules for item costs. Your character levels up when they fail (7 or less) using one of their two highlighted abilities. (During character creation, the player chooses one ability to highlight, and the player to the left chooses that same player's second ability to highlight.) As I had foreseen, it was a bit easy to meta-game at times and level up quicker. We brainstormed a few ideas for evening things out a bit, and we'll give them a try next time.

For price items, I divide items into 1gp (commoner items); 5gp (adventurer items); 10gp (special items); 25 (luxury items); and 100gp (illegal/inherently dangerous) items. These items cost an amount of gp per syllable. For example, a 5gp adventurer item like a lantern costs 10gp (lan-tern). The more syllables you add to the item, the more expensive it is -- a "hooded lantern" costs 20gp, for example. One player had the brilliant idea that if you add detrimental adjectives to the item, it lowers the price, but there should be a chance (1 in 6 or something) that the item breaks or becomes useless when you try to use it. For example, a mirror (I consider this an adventurer items), is 10gp. but a "cracked mirror" is 5gp. On the opposite end, we discussed that by adding a certain gp amount of beneficial syllables would give you a special circumstantial bonus or something with that item.

These are the ideas that will be consuming my brain for the next week or so.

All in all, we had a great time, and I can't wait for the next playtest.

The character sheet (nothing fancy as of yet...)

The Rogue Talent Tree 

The Warrior Talent Tree.