Back from a Con that Confirmed Change
Juggernauts Journal: Oct/Nov 2024 Edition
First off, a warm welcome and thank you to you all who joined the email list after seeing/playing JJ at the Newberg Game Con in October! And to everyone who continues to be a part of this journey, let's see where this adventure is going next...
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Art Recap
Simplification
I received a lot of great feedback both at the convention and in other playtests since the last newsletter, but the item I heard the most of any other was that there was too much text on all the cards and/or it was too small. Given this and updates that I needed to make anyway to transition the game from an attrition-stat based game (Hit Points), to the new Mettle system... 🎸🤘🎸 ...not that kind of metal...Here are what some of the changes look like:
Mageineer Character Card
Power Card Update
Gameplay
Leveling Up
You may have noticed that on the Saffron card above, the only thing that looked fire focused was her Charges (âš¡). And in fact all the Mageineer character cards look pretty much the same in terms of Actions/Reactions. So why did I get rid of their interesting asymmetric abilities??
In an effort to give players less to have to focus on at one time, I moved all the abilities (and added a lot more) to Specialization/Class cards. These Specializations are selected when a player performs their first Heroic Feat. Subsequent Heroic Feats then provide leveling up this Specialization.
Which Specialization you choose also doesn't have to be the same Element as your Mageineer, but will likely be more tied to your Juggernaut build, as this dictates what extra abilities you have access to. For example, Malcom with a Mystic Specialization below:
Each Specialization card has two sides as well, one slightly more offense focused, and one more defense focused, for different play styles.
Warlord Trigger
One last element I wanted to share in how gameplay is changing is how the Warlord is picked and operates during the game.
JJ will begin with Power cards equal to the number of players-1, set aside and shuffled with the Warlord card. After the first Junk Golem is defeated, this story blurb will be read:
After successfully setting up camp you notice something strange on the path ahead. You leave your troupe and Juggernaut behind...investigating to your prospering or to your peril.
At this time all players draw from the card stack that contains the Warlord, making one of the players the secret Acolyte. After this point I am still trying to figure out if the best arc for the game would be to have the Acolyte/Warlord revealed at the next Junk Golem defeat, and there after operating to thwart the Mageineers until the Final Confrontation is triggered. Or if it would be better for the Acolyte/Warlord to stay secret and have a tribunal mechanic for discovering the Acolyte/Warlord. I am currently leaning to the former because I think that will lend itself to a more predictable climax for the game, and be less reliant on one person's ability to use subterfuge. But what do you think, reply to this email and let me know?
Playtests
November 17 and More
I will be having another online playtest on Sundays Nov. 17 and Dec. 8, both at 2pm Pacific. Please reply to this email if you are available and would like to be a part of either test. And if you can't attend but would like to watch, I livestream the playtests on the following channels:
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retrorewindpod
(What's with this Retro Rewind? Because it is the podcast on old movies and video games me and my best friend do, and it's where I have found a lot of online friends so it just made sense to stream there though this may change in the future)
Finally, I am working to update my IRL copy to the latest mechanics so that I can be doing some playtests with ya'll that are local :D
🌄🔥🌊💨