Fueled by Blood! Playtest Report 4/6/24

Recently, I ran Fueled by Blood!'s 5th public playtest, and I think it has been the worst play experience out of any test so far. Between a player leaving without saying a word mid session, and I along with the remaining players seeming to be off our game that day, it was rocky and slow. However, I still learned a lot, and I think that, even though it wasn't a great session, it was a very good stress test.

I wrangled up 3 players again. There were 2 new players (a rules-light fan and a Lancer fan), and 1 returning player (the mechanics enthusiast from the 3/9/24 playtest). The goal was to test some of the system changes mentioned in the last playtest report, as well as a handful of other changes made in the meantime (mentioned below). While the Lancer fan left about 45 minutes into the test, the remaining 2 players stuck around till the end, so we still got a full test out of that session.

If you're unfamiliar, Fueled by Blood! is a character action TTRPG about cybernetic super soldiers who fight eldritch monstrosities---you can think of it as Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance + Doom (2016) + Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. It's about combos and knowledge checks, over the top abilities, and larger than life characters.

Before I go over the results of this test, here are the rules, pre-gens, and mission that we used for the test. If you're interested in joining a playtest, or just discussing this game's design, you can join me over on Fueled by Blood!'s Discord server.

PLAYTEST BREAKDOWN

CHANGES

First up, the changes that were tested. As mentioned, I introduced the changes that were touched upon in the last playtest report (giving hostiles Death Actions, buffing hostiles in general, and changing Cyber Systems to be more like Sekiro's Prosthetic Tools), but I also made a handful of Striker facing adjustments beyond that:

1. Roles were redefined.  Though it's not been mentioned much here, Strikers had 4 roles that they were vaguely operating within, and each model was connected to 2 of those roles. What they were previously doesn't matter much, but for this test they were Blitz (burst damage), Burn (sustained/AoE damage), Control (buffs/debuffs, forced movement), and Engage (better defenses, environmental effects).
2. Models were reworked. The models have gone from Blade, Bulwark, Phantom, Slayer to Monolith, Oracle, Phantom, Slayer, with what roles each occupied being shifted around a little. I found that the Blade tended to be the least interesting during play, even if it did function fine, and that the Bulwark tended to push towards a style of play that was very tactical and not very character action-y. They've all been shifted a little just to fall better in line with this game's goals.

GOALS

Now the goals of this session were, in part, the same as always (to ensure the design pillars are being held up), but I also wanted to poke at the ideas presented in the last playtest report. I wanted to see if:

1. The hostile buffs were enough to make them more interesting/combat more dangerous.
2. If bosses are actually interesting, or if that design was a fluke.
3. If the clean up phase worked and was interesting.
4. If Cyber Systems would see more use when they were instant, powerful effects rather than buffs.
5. If exploration mode was fun and could be better integrated into cutscenes/combat.

LESSONS LEARNED

Finally, onto the lessons from this session.

THE GOOD

I can confirm with certainty that exploration mode and cutscenes do work, and that they are pretty good overall. They're going to require a lot of Director advice and likely a few examples, but a quickstart and handful of modules should be more than enough to illustrate how they should be built and their function during play. Narrative permissions are also pretty well enjoyed and seem to do a great job at establishing the flavor and feeling of a Striker as a character beyond their pure combat abilities.

Continuing to look at Strikers, the Cyber System changes were well received. Focus flowed, and the Cyber Systems were used by both players (though admittedly the returning player more than the rules-light fan). While there was some confusion about when you can spend Focus and what exactly that means, the systems themselves were impactful and used thoughtfully, so it seems to have been a success.

Similarly, the combat adjustments seemed to be very good. Hostiles could survive for long enough to pull off their cooler moves, and dealt enough damage for their attacks to be threatening---in fact, I managed to get 1 Surge out of the mechanics enthusiast and, if they had not been the Oracle, it's very possible that the rules-light fan could have died. Bosses functioned about how I expected, though having only 2 Strikers meant that a lot their actions weren't triggered. Unfortunately, due to the out of game factors and some in-game issues described below, the clean up phase and death actions weren't tested too heavily. with the clean up phase being mostly swept passed (though it did still perform its function, and managed to cut off combat before it became pure slog).

THE BAD

During play, I found that it was really hard to keep track of triggers and restrictions at the same time. I was constantly double checking and second guessing every action I took, which further decreased the quality of that session's encounters. I think that, while triggers and restrictions are both interesting and do open up fun avenues of play, one of them has to go. That will likely be restrictions since triggers are extremely convenient and actually make Directing much easier as they give me permission to interrupt Strikers and mess with their turns.

Observing the Strikers, I also found that Striker quick actions can slow down the game by a pretty incredible amount. They open up more decisions for inexperienced players, which causes them to freeze, and give more ways to optimize a turn as an experienced player, slowing down the turn and possibly interrupting other player's turns to get rid of Interrupts before they reset or to give ally's benefits. Given that this game wants to move with extreme speed, these actions need to be changed pretty dramatically.

The biggest offender was actually Quick Attacks. While they seemed simple and present fun gameplay (like being able to attack off turn and move yourself out of a hostile's range), those little actions are very slow and often compete with Counter/Dodge, which I think are much more interesting and, while about the same speed, tie much better into the core loop of combat with Fueled by Blood!.

Currently, my plan is to turn Striker quick actions into triggered actions much like hostiles, except the Striker spends 1 Interrupt to take the action and may choose whether or not they want to take it. The idea is that it will lead to fewer breaks in the game's flow since I can place them at the existing breaks during the game's conversation (start or end of a turn, when a hostile is Lanced, etc.), while still allowing Strikers more freedom with their quick actions because they choose if they want to take them or not, with unique model quick actions having stronger effects overall to compensate for the cost.

THE UGLY

Keeping up the pattern from the last couple of playtests, I've been discovering an increasing number of ugly lessons---something that's not good or bad, just a thing that I have to keep in mind when designing this game.

I think the biggest ugly lesson from this session is that abilities must present active decisions that only the owner has to make. What I mean by active decisions is that you are deciding to do something because of the ability for some immediate payoff, as opposed to a passive decision which would be doing something regardless of the ability but getting a bonus because of that action anyways. The issue with a passive decision is mostly to do with tracking and checking. If I gain damage as I move, I have to a) remember that I have that effect, and b) track every move I make to ensure that I get the proper damage bonus. In a video game, that design is perfectly fine because the computer can handle the tracking for you. Here on the tabletop, it's just a lot of little numbers for you to keep a hold of, and that becomes harder and harder the faster the game wants to move and the more unfamiliar with it you are.

That the owner has to make the decision is an important note too because it means that you don't get to hand off the complexity of your abilities onto your allies, which would slow them down if they do track it or cause you to feel less powerful and cool if they don't.

A close second is that the layout of information is extremely important even if you are the one who wrote it all. While having restrictions and triggers definitely caused some problems for me as the Director, an equally large issue was simply how the hostiles' stats and the encounters were organized. It was very difficult to parse. The solution for that is simple, to create hostile statblocks and maybe specific encounter sheets of some kind, but it is one worth mentioning due to how impactful poor organization can be even for the person who wrote and presumably knows all of the information.

The final lesson, and one that I've avoided in basically every prior playtest, is that the map is just as important as the hostiles in making an interesting encounter. Multiple “lanes” for movement, the use of vertical space, and notable environmental effects all powerfully alter the encounter and can help to keep the combat fresh when hostiles would otherwise become stale, and add for more meaning to positioning and the differences between single target and area damage.

I’ve got a handful of changes that I’m excited for coming up. Even though this test wasn’t the best, I still think the game is progressing pretty smoothly, and that I should have something that’s playable and well tested out for a public beta around early to mid July this year.