Hi guys,

Unfortunately I didn't get a playtest of RA down at Conception but I did get a chance to bounce some of the problems I have been having with the game of the likes of Scott and Greg? Sorry I can't remember exactly who was there.

Anyway, the game has been coming along nicely and I have been shaping its tone and starting to think about design of the final book. However, design wise a couple of things had been bugging me:

1) The final showdown with the nemesis was unsatisfying.
2) The heroes needed a little more meat on them emotinally, I felt the players were not connected enough to them
3) Too many dice were used during conflicts

Thanks to you fine folks I think I have these problems sorted and would like to share them with you and hopefully get you to playtest the game as well. I would like to have it all wrapped up by end of march.

So here are all the changes I am implementing over this weekend. A new playtest doc. will be up on my site shortly.

1) Level 3 is the highest you can have in any background or resource. This is partly to reduce the number of randomisers used but also sits better with me, for reasons will we shortly come to.

2) Heroes are now fleshed out a little before play as is the nemesis. They choose their defining background which starts off at level 3.

3) I have introduced stakes for the heroes. This is something that is at risk over the course of the film i.e. John McClane's marriage in Die Hard. Whether or not it will come good for them will be decided in the finale with the nemesis.

4) Resources now start out at level 3 and there is a new way to introduce them. Before you could buy them by giving threat to the nemesis, you gave him as much threat as their level or you could beat people up to get them. Now however whenever you want in a scene you can introduce 1 resource at level 3. The cost to do this is to increase the Risk to your stake.

5) I think I am going to switch to cards to resolve Action! Instead of pooling all your dice and rolling you know use cards to guide narration and resolve the Action. I haven't worked out the details of this so will post it in another thread soon. Running contenders recently convinced me this would be a good idea. Damn you Joe!

6) Resources are now invested in conflict. Before they were a static number that gave you bonuses whenever they were invoked. Now you throw in a chip to show you are using it at the level it was before you threw in the chip. If you triumph you get the chip back. I f you overcome you lose it and it goes to the nemesis. If you fail you lose your chip which goes to the nemesis. The nemesis also gets his chip back if he bet one. maybe a risk increas as well.

This should mean that resources will go down over time and the players will need to invent new ones. As chips are lost the level of the resource is reduced.

7) The finale now involves all the players 'rolling' seperately against the nemesis. Everyone puts in everything I think, but that will need to be looked at. Now the outcome is that the nemesis loses, always, but the individual outcomes for the players are also determined by comparing their successes against the risk they have on their stake.

So the finale roll determines how well they beat the nemesis and what the outcome is for their hero.

I think that is it. These will be in a more coherent form soon but feel free to comment.

Cheers

Iain