Difficult is fun, too difficult can be frustrating: testing my one-page ttrpg

Game Design Log #50

This post comes later than usual, as I've been working on my one-page game and other things that have kept me busy all week.

The game is progressing well, and I've been enjoying the solo playtesting process quite a lot. The amazing thing about making a solo game is that I can test it many more times in a shorter period than my previous games (I have already played it at least ten times in a few days).

Today, I want to share with you the current state of this game, after all my testing, and a “play report” from my first playthrough. Hopefully this will give you an idea of what the process has been like for me and pique your interest enough to try the game for yourselves. If you do, any feedback is welcome!

RUNNER OF THE WASTELANDS (V1)

This is the “too difficult to be fun” version of the game: I played it at least four times in a row, and I realized that it was very difficult to survive any encounter.

But even though it was difficult, the narrative of it was super fun, which made the one encounter that I survived super special. So, maybe, if I get crazy, I will return to this “difficult” version, or something closer to it, after I further test the more balanced version.

Play report (testing #1):

NOTE: Mechanics will be written after a * symbol in “code blocks”

Runner’s name: Marla, Pleasure: Gamble

— IN TOWN: Longsaddle —

Day 1:

Longsaddle is a settlement built between two cliffs. Long sails of old sandships cross from cliff to cliff to protect the town from the sun. The homes, mud domes, encircle the cactus-brewery and the sand-pit.

*Starting the game Marla has: 4E, 4C, 0F, 0A, 0W, 0P
(E=Energy / C=Coins / F=food / A=Armor / W=Weapon / P=packages)

*I expend 1E to connect to someone on Longsaddle: I have to roll 4 times a d8 in the connect table to create the contact:
Funny, Rotund, Always with a pet, Sports.
I name the contact Miar.

*I add his name to a "town-contact-jobs-sheet", below the name of the town. Here I will write the names of the contacts I have in each town, and the packages they give me as delivery jobs.

*Now Marla has: 3E, 4C, 0F, 0A, 0W, 0P

Marla looks at the big lizard, old muscles, with a big yellow cat on his lap. He watches from afar the fight in the sand pit, two women, using the traditional crowns of feathers in a friendly match.

Marla nods to the lizard. She sits in silence close to him. They comment on the fight, as if they knew each other. She realizes that the lizard has lost two fingers. They talk for a while, until Marla's attention is caught by someone close to the pit…

*I expend 1E to connect to someone on Longsaddle: I have to roll 4 times a d8 in the connect table to create the contact:
Fancy, Coyote, Extravagant clothing, Gamble.
I name the contact Isa.

*I add Isa to the "town-contact-jobs-sheet".

*Now Marla has: 2E, 4C, 0F, 0A, 0W, 0P

The coyote is betting on the fight, black rocks on a copper bowl. She smokes from a long pipe. She likes tough women and people who let her lead the talk. Marla is both, tough and of few words. They talk and gamble. Isa talks of riches and strong sword-women of yore.

I ask Isa for a job, her grin is alluring.

*I expend 1E to get a job from Isa. But as Isa and Marla share pleasure (gamble) she gives Marla two jobs.

*I need to roll for the HEXES of the locations of delivery:
1) 1d10,1d10 -> 4,3: I name this town Virna.
2) 1d10,1d10 -> 9,3: I name this town Lizard Swamp.

*I wrote both destinations beside Isa, in the "town-contact-jobs-sheet".

*Now Marla has: 1E, 4C, 0F, 0A, 0W, 2P

Isa talks of a special package she wants me to take to Virna, something for a warrior she once loved. The other package is a package from a friend. She doesn’t know what is inside.

Marla finds herself tired and decides to rest. She asks Isa for a recommendation. She points to a dome painted on oranges and greens. Marla enters, the smell of soup and cactus brew. She pays 2 Coins for food and one night of sleep.

*Sleeping and eating on town costs 2C to Marla.

*Now Marla has: 1E, 2C, 0F, 0A, 0W, 2P

*When Marla awakes, her E resets to E = 2+d6 = 2+2 = 4 -> 4E

*Now Marla has: 4E, 2C, 0F, 0A, 0W, 2P

Day 2:

Marla awakens, not in much of a good mood; she didn’t sleep well, and her energy seems low. But in any case, she has a job to do. She decided to go to Virna, which is closer. She gets paid by distance, but she prefers to start slowly.

— IN THE WASTES —

Marla leaves Longsaddle towards Virna.

*As Marla is moving 1 HEX on the map, I expend 1E.

*Now Marla has: 3E, 2C, 0F, 0A, 0W, 2P

*The HEX is: 2d6 = 5+6 = 11 -> Petrified Forest

*As I didnt expend an extra 1E to move stealthy, Marla has an encounter.

*The encounter is: 2d6 = 5+6 = 11 (as well) -> Caravan!!

*Caravan means that Marla will gets +1E and that she can travel 1 HEX for free with them. They also sell/buy as in towns.

*Now Marla has: 4E, 2C, 0F, 0A, 0W, 2P

Marla walks only a couple of hours through the Petrified Forest when she sees the caravan. They offer to take her as a passenger. They are meerkat folk, singing and playing beautiful wooden liras. They have good food, “birds and leaves from a faraway forest”, says the green fur meerkat to Marla. In no time, they arrive in Virna.

— IN TOWN: Virna —

That was easy, thinks Marla, smile hidden by her sand mask. She walks between the buildings made of green glass, on the streets of red paving stones. She searches for the warrior, the old love of Isa, and she found her in an open space, where they play “stone and bone”. The warrior hits the bone in her first hit and winks at her friends. Marla walks and makes a sign, as if she were asking permission to get closer. “From Isa”, says Marla, giving her the package. The warrior is caught off guard. Almost without words, she pays the 1 coin to Marla. “¿Is she ok?” asks the warrior. Marla nods and walks away.

*As I make a delivery I expend 1E. 

*As the distnace in HEXES between the origin of the package and its destiny is 1 HEX I get 1C.

*Now Marla has: 3E, 3C, 0F, 0A, 0W, 1P(she delivered 1 package)

Marla decides to buy armor for her next journey.

*I expend 1E to buy/sell: I use 2C to buy 2A (it can absorb 2 damage) and 1C to buy one weapon 1A (do 1 damage, then breaks)

*Now Marla has: 2E, 0C, 0F, 2A, 1W, 1P(she delivered 1 package)

Marla expends all her money on a simple armor and a hard ceramic pikeaxe. She feels safer with them and, as she has no money, she decides to continue her journey to her next destination: Lizard Swamp.

— IN THE WASTES —

Marla leaves Virna and travels to Lizard Swamp.

*As Marla is moving 1 HEX on the map, I expend 1E.

*Now Marla has: 1E, 0C, 0F, 2A, 1W, 1P

*The HEX is: 2d6 = 1+4 = 5 -> Grassland

*As I didnt expend an extra 1E to move stealthy, Marla has an encounter.

*The encounter is: 2d6 = 4+3 = 7 -> Hyenas!!, they are 1d6 = 2 of them.

*This start an encounter on the COMBAT GRID!

Marla walks through the tall grass without being able to see anything in front of her. She hears them first, the growling of two hyenas.

*A combat starts.

*To set up the combat, I put my miniature of Marla on the START HEX.

*I roll for the HEXES of the two hyenas.

*Then for the number of obstacles: 1d6 = 2, and for each 1d10,1d10 to set their HEXES.

*With everithing ready, Marla has the first turn.

*Marla starts the combat with 1E, 0C, 0F, 2A, 1W, 1P

Marla moves, but she is not fast enough. The hyenas charge toward her, both biting her armor, breaking it. She moves, leaving some space between the hyenas and her, but she has no energy to run faster, or to do anything else; the hyenas charge again. This time, their teeth pierce deep into her skin, she falls, and the hyenas kill her.

Poor Marla is in trouble! — The wolves are from “Frostgrave”, and Marla’s mini is made with the “Scavenger II” set from “Stargave” (with a green stuff neck, so that her head would be straighter).

*What happened here was that Marla moved 1 HEX and couldn't do anything else, because she had 1E left (with more E she could act again). 

*Then the Hyenas where 1 HEX away so they could charge, moving 2 HEXES and then attacking her, breaking her armor.

*After that, Marla could attack them, but her weapon was 1W: she could break the hyena's armor, but her pikeaxe wold break as well. So she moved 1 HEX.

*As the hyenas were just 2 HEXES away (1 HEX in between), they charged again, killing Marla.

What happened after this first run?

As you could read, Marla didn’t have much of an opportunity to save herself during the encounter with the hyenas. But I wanted to be sure that it wasn’t my “strategy’s fault”, so I started this same game, one, two, three times, and Marla always ended dead.

I had fun trying, as if the problem was a strategic one, but after the third time, I said What about a couple more times? The result? the same, Marla was dead.

The fun was a good sign, but I knew that I had to tweak the game, as this process of constant failing, in the long run, would make the game frustrating.

So I began by tweaking the starting Energy and Coin, from 4E to 6E, and from 4C to 6C, giving more opportunities to the runner to get some kind of equipment from the beginning.

Also, I changed the stats of the enemies, for example, the hyena went from “Weapon 1 Armor 1 Energy 3” to “Weapon 1 Armor 1 Energy 1”, and the sand worms went from “Weapon 2 Armor 2 Energy 3” to “Weapon 2 Armor 2 Energy 2”

And with these changes, I tried again and… died again. Poor Marla encountered two Sand Worms; they just charged twice and did 8 points of damage to her.

So then I changed the rules of charging to: “if you charge, you do 1 damage”. Which helped a lot! This also allowed Marla to charge and do damage without a weapon.

But, to be sure, I also changed the reset value of Energy, from 2+1d6 to 3+1d6, thinking that with at least 4E you could move (-1E) and go stealthy (-1E) to avoid the encounters when entering a HEX, and then use 1E to hide your camp, to avoid the night encounter.

I played with this last Energy change, and then it was more… boring, as every time I needed to travel from town to town, I could move, stealth, hide camp, sleep, and repeat, avoiding any kind of encounter.

After playing a couple of long runs, I realized I needed more tweaking to make it more interesting and to make the player interact with the encounters.

The first change was introducing a roll when moving stealthily: 1d4, which, in a 1, means you fail and trigger an encounter (this means that you will fail 25% of the time, which sounds good enough).

To make the combat grid more interesting, I increased the number of obstacles from 1d6 to 2d8. This made the combat field more “rich”, as you can use these obstacles to move faster, and a barrier against enemies (although they can also cross obstacles as you do).

After that, I played again, and it was fun; it had the right balance of danger and resource management. However, I now have to keep playing to see if increasing the danger/difficulty would be necessary to keep the encounters “meaningful”.

RUNNER OF THE WASTELANDS, after ~ 10 testing runs

This is the “more balanced” version of the game in its current state, in case any of you wants to try it:

I have been thinking about making a long run with this version as a continuation of my first run (because I liked some of the characters on there). So if this is something you are interested in, let me know in the comments.

See you next time!