IV. Design Decisions on the Format for Weapons and Equipment

Play testing props. Brand new cut and paste weapon cards. They aren't the prettiest things in the world, but we'll see if it helps keep the game simple and flowing.

Tomorrow I'm play testing Broken Contract with at least one new person who hasn't experienced the game yet. Thus far, I've lead the charge, showing the players the rules, and telling them what they need to roll, etc.

Since I'm going to have a fresh face, I want to have him be able to "figure things out on his own" the best he can without reading the rule book cover to cover. Originally, I had a Weapons and Equipment section of the book that would require the players to reference the book for the info, or consult a comprehensive chart (that I haven't created yet. So for tomorrow, I'm going to try something different. All of the equipment for all of the characters is on the cards I created above.

The idea with using cards instead of a Chapter is that I can ensure every player has all of the necessary rules handy for their Character to keep the game as simple and flowing as possible. Of course, if I push everything over to cards then you end up with each player having a stack of 20 cards to sort through every time they want to do something. Hopefully, since I'm mindful of that concern I shouldn't fall into that trap.

I do want to create cards for the Characters themselves, and for the victory points earned during scenarios played. We'll see how much I can get done before tomorrow.

In case you're curious, what kinds of equipment is on these cards? Fun stuff: Pick Axe, Shovel, Rocks, Molotov, Dynamite, Pneumatic Drill, Arc Pistol, Shock Baton, Neuro-Grenade, and the Crowd Control Repeater Rifle. You know, all of the fun stuff you need to stage or squash a fledgling insurrection.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

-Nick

PS. Play testing will be tomorrow, February 9th, at Next Dimension Games Chicago starting at noon. Feel free to come by and check it out.