The Second Test

In the second test, there was a total of five players, and I sat out of this one. Again, no character players wanted to risk taking on the monster without a weapon. Until they were armed, it was largely a slow game of cat and mouse. Once the human characters had weapons, however, the game soon changed.

One of the human characters was killed early on in the game by the monster player, and the other three spent their time exploring while evading the monster until they felt well enough equipped to take on the monster. Once they got hold of weapons, they seemed to feel much more confident in fighting the monster, which is what I wanted. I wanted the players to recognise the monster as a threat, and try to arm themselves enough to take that risk.

Even after the exit tile was placed, the three remaining players refused to leave. Instead, taking up the challenge of killing the monster. After different methods of hit and run, two more players were killed by the monster, but not before weakening it. In the end, the monster player won by killing all four human characters.

Overall, all five players enjoyed the game and wanted to play it again. The following changes were suggested:

1. Giving the monster back its Hit stat, and adding a defensive stat so monsters and players had two rolls each in combat.
2. Increasing the monster’s movement from d6 to 2d6.
3. Increasing the monster’s damage from 1 to 1d3 (d6 divided by 2, and rounded to the nearest whole number).
4. Giving the monster the ability to push players back instead of getting extra attacks.
5. The monster player can place tiles too, to hinder the human players.
6. With an added defensive value, the monster’s health is reduced from 30 to 20.
7. The exit now requires a key to escape.