Caltrops - Wall Street Kid





	[quote name="skip"][quote]The rulebook was absolutely useless as well. One sentence that stood out for me as a perfect illustration of how bad the rules are was: Construct the map using the arrangement of any map tiles in the arrangement of the storyboard tile’s map icon. Yep. Great written English there, guys.[/quote] [quote]Thornwatch is billed as a light roleplaying game but that is not the case. It is a dungeon crawl with the most minor of roleplaying mechanics bolted on the side, seemingly as an afterthought. Even then the roleplaying mechanic is broken. Player's are given two traits cards describing their character. If they take actions that align with these traits they are rewarded with an special die that is more favorable to them. They can use this die on any future roll. It is very hard to role play towards these traits however when your actions are dictated by the cards you drew. "I am going to add resources to theses two actions and I am going to do it relentlessly...". Furthermore, it is up to the judge to determine if a satisfactory level of role playing occurred. That is a problem since the Judge is set up not as a Dungeons and Dragons dungeon master but as a Decent-esqu overlord. Meaning that the judge is not there to progress the story and "be the world" but rather the judges role is to be in direct competition with the players. Scenarios have different endings based on who won, the players or the judge, so clearly they judge is supposed to win some times. If that is the case why would the judge be the arbiter on the biggest boon to the Thornwatch players? Thornwatch forgoes the traditional hit points mechanic in favor of a new mechanic called the momentum track. The momentum track determines both turn order and an enemies health. Successful attacks against an enemy move them down the track and if they are at the end of the track it kills them. I was really intrigued by this mechanic it seemed like a really cool way to simulate health. The problem with it is that it has no memory. The order of the track is determined at random at the beginning of each round. Meaning all the work you put in to hurting an enemy last round is lost and you are at the mercy of the fates. After failing to kill an enemy a few times players quickly learn that if a monster is placed high enough in the momentum track it is often not worth it to attach that monster and since players can only move one space each turn there is often not another monster they can hurt this turn. This leads to boring turns where all the player does is build resources towards their actions cards and not much else.[/quote] Yes, the guy you're competing with should be the one who decides if you roleplayed well enough and let's limit movement to one space/turn. Great ideas there.[/quote]