Anatomy of a Playtest 4: Weather Report

Remember Wednesday when I told you the weather rules hadn't been playtested?  I lied.  Tom and I did four fast, demo-style games last Sunday to quickly test the rules and see if there was anything majorly wrong with the concepts I had outlined.

Things were so awesome,
Merlin had to get involved.

Game 1: Dust Storm.  There were no obvious issues with this

idea.  It does need testing in a full scale game though.  The

biggest problem was remembering to roll down the Spotting die.

Game 2: Torrential Rain.  There were no obvious issues with this

idea.  It does need testing in a full scale game though.  The

biggest problem was remembering to roll down the Movement die.

Game 3: Hurricane Winds.  One, you need some sort of marker

showing which way the wind is blowing.  Two, if you do use this rule

modification it needs to be decided before the Set-Up phase so people

can decide where to place their units in relation to the wind direction.

Game 4: Hail Storm.  This one required some think on how to implement

it properly.  It has to occur at the end of the Round so that all Frames

have Defenses in place and you don't wreck Initiative Order.  Two, I

changed it to a d8 roll to decide when it happens so that you don't need

something other than the d6/d8/d12 that we already use.  Third, Tom and

I figured a 2d6 Use-The-Highest roll for an Attack number is closer to

how the game usually works and is more likely to generate an effect.

Final thoughts.  Honestly, all of these rule mods should be decided on before the game starts so people can plan around them.  A Dust Storm will require extra Spotting, Torrential Rain will require extra Movement, etc.  That's just in line with the data forward, What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get nature of Mobile Frame Zero anyways.  In terms of "interestingness" Dust Storm and Torrential Rain are fairly straightforward but will probably be brutal when it gets to late game, limited number of dice, make the best of bad rolls situations.  Hail Storm has the possibility of dealing a lot of damage, especially late in the game, but also has the chance of doing squat -- which is what happened in Game 4.  Hurricane Winds is probably the most interesting.  Speeding up -- or slowing down -- Frames always has big repercussions, even if they can't be seen until the game is over.

Here are the updated versions of the rule modifications.

Dust Storm -- This weather condition applies a -1 to all Spotting rolls.

Torrential Rain -- This weather condition applies a -1 to all Movement rolls.

Hurricane Winds -- Roll a d8.  A 1 or 2 = North, 3 or 4 = East, 5 or 6 = South, 7 or 8 = West.  This weather condition applies a -1 to all Movement rolls in that direction and +1 to all Movement rolls in the opposite direction.

Hail Storm -- Roll a d8.  A 1 or 2 = Round One, 3 or 4 = Round Two, 5 or 6 = Round Three, 7 or 8 = Round Four.  At the end of that Round all Frames will suffer a 2d6 (Choose the highest) Melee attack.  Compare the roll to all Defenses on the battlefield and roll the appropriate amount of Damage dice for each Frame that is effected.

Roll 2d6 (Add):

2 = Hurricane Winds.

3 = Clear Skies.

4 = Dust Storm.

5 = Clear Skies.

6 = Clear Skies.

7 = Clear Skies.

8 = Clear Skies.

9 = Clear Skies.

10 = Torrential Rain.

11 = Clear Skies.

12 = Hail Storm.

One of the good things about this expanded chart is that you can replace some of the "Clear Skies" results with the other weather conditions to increase the frequency if you want to have them happen more often.  You could also just choose one of the weather options if that's the story the players want to tell about that game

As I've mentioned before, I hope this is a fun option for people.  Flickr page.