Blind Playtest feedback on Setup Instructions in Rulebook v0.13

Ziggurat Playtest
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I warned you that it takes me a long time to get through the rulebook and into a game :smiley:

Sat down with the intention of reading the rulebook front to back but decided I may as well get a hero and quest set up while I did it just to be able to “See where all this would happen” as I read through the rules. I didn’t get too far, and paused to write up how I have been puzzling through the set up instructions as written, and to offer a few suggestions. Here they be.

A preface on my intentions here. I genuinely enjoy providing this feedback in the hopes it will be useful, but I am keenly aware that others may not struggle as much as me. Please take all my feedback as “here is one way that someone could be confused” and make your own judgment about whether you think it is idiosyncratic, and whether you want to take up the suggestions in the way I suggest, or in some other way, or not at all. Relatedly, if you believe I am confused about something here and it’s adequately addressed later in the rulebook, that’s fine and I will get to it – I am not requesting that you reply here point-by-point to shepherd me through learning the game. Above all please don’t mistake my attempt to clearly articulate all this as me expressing deep frustration or dissatisfaction. I am enjoying this. I will continue. I just like to be clear.

Setup Step 3 instructs the player to “Set trackers for… Grit reset at 2 and starting grit at 2”. In the setup image, the inset labelled #3 shows the purple cube set at 0 and seems to show the purple “min” token underneath it just as the Max HP token seems to be at the top of the HP track. (Perhaps the inset is outdated and the tracker has been revised?) The content of the rules prose, the image, and the token prose are not aligned. If I look to the Glossary for aid, the entry for “Grit Reset” defines it as “The value grit returns to after burning.” The entry for “Grit” says “… Starts at 2 with a grit reset value of 2.” From all this I am ready to suggest: (a) re-write the rule to refer to the “Min Grit” token, aligning the name with the text that is printed on the token; (b) update the image to correctly show the token and eurocube set to 2; and (c) abandon any reference to “Grit reset.”

But then, later, I see RB16 and I am told that “grit reset” is marked using the purple, wooden, cylindrical token. And yet there is no mention on RB16 of minimum grit.

Suggestion: (a) Tell the reader in RB4,5,6 that the cylinder is the grit reset token, (b) provide an image on RB6 of how the min/reset/cube are supposed to be positioned in setup (and reproduce it on RB16). I suspect that both the min/max tokens and the cylinders are rundundant, but to be honest I’m still not sure. I might also suggest (c) in the Glossary, remind the reader that the Grit Reset is represented by the cylinder… but generally the glossary does not provide mappings from concepts to components, so I suppose it shouldn’t start.

Lastly on this topic, it seems to me that the Min Grit and Max HP tokens are not in fact fruitfully utilized at setup, since the Hero begins with the default Max and Min values printed on the tracker.

Suggestion: RB4,5 should tell the player what these tokens are, and the the set up image/instructions on RB6 should tell/show the player to set them aside until they are needed. They should not be shown placed on the vitals tracker in the inset that is currently labelled #3; they either should be shown to the side, or not shown at all.

Setup Step 4’s final sentence instructs the player to “follow the quest “Set Up” instructions.” The use of quotation marks and capitalization sends me to ‘Cover Card’ looking for the same phrase, but it isn’t there.

Suggestion: Add a bold/header/title to the back of the cover card that explicitly labels its contents as the “Quest Set Up instructions.”

Setup Step 4’s instruction to follow the quest Set Up instructions is partly duplicated in Step 7’s instruction to “Create the quest map stack as directed.” If this instruction were to be retained on RB6 I would suggest revising to “Create the map stack for this session as directed in the Quest Setup Directions,” to underscore that this is redundant. However, this instruction appears to be included here only because RB6 is doing double duty as “here are the steps to follow in sequence for setup” and as “here is an image showing what the table should look like when set up is complete.” Step 7 is only distinct from Step 4 because the map Stack is labelled 7 in the image and thus some instruction must be provided (redundantly) for step 7.

Suggestions: Use a box/outline in the setup image to encapsulate everything that is intend to be done in Step 4, label it as such, and abandon the redundant Step 7 and its label. Alternatively, if you want to keep more labels in the image than you have distinct instructions, use things like 4a, 4b, 4c in the image and map them to Instructions explaining what those things are (Quest events, Peril Track, Map Stack, etc.)

Step 8 instructs the player to place the quest’s Set Aside cards “above the quest area” but in the image the area below #8 is labelled “Encounter area.”. RB19 likewise refers to the “Encounter area.” I do see section of the rulebook, starting on RB 11, titled “Quest Tableau.” Possibly “Quest area” and “Quest Tableau” are being used interchangeably to refer to the arrangement of cards labelled as 4,5,8 and (sometimes) 12 in the image on RB6. But (a) nothing in the “Quest Tableau” section of the rulebook says anything about how to arrange those cards, rather this section of the rulebook simply explains what each of the cards in the ‘Quest Packet’ are and (c) if that arrangement of cards were the Quest Area/Tableau, then the instruction to place the Set Aside cards “above” the Quest Area/Tableay would be mis-matched to the setup image, which… well, it doesn’t show the Set Aside Cards anywhere, but the cover card that is labelled “8” in the image is located at the bottom of the (hypothetical, unlabelled) Quest Area/Tableau and above the (labelled) Encounter Area.

With a CTRL+F on the rulebook, it seems clear that “Quest Tableau” is legacy vocabulary that has become non-functional. “Tableau” seems to always refers to the Hero Tableau, though it is very frequently named only as “your tableau” (and once, as your “party tableau” … “Volken, party of 1? Your table is ready!”)

Suggestions: Abandon all talk of “Quest Tableu” and “Quest area” in both RB6 and in the section heading on RB16 (and the toc). Explicitly rewrite all talk of “your tableau” as the “Hero tableau” (though this will become unambigous once talk of any other tableau is exorcised). Explicitly use a box/outline to encapsualte the “Hero tableau” in the setup image on RB6, such that the setup image explicitly indicates that all of (current) steps 1, 2, 3, and 9 are identical to setting up some portion of the Hero Tableau. Explicitly show examples of Set Aside cards in the setup image.

Steps 5, 12 and 13 are misaligned to the image. Step 12 text says to shuffle the True Names deck, but label 12 in the image is the Peril Track, which should be re-labelled 5 to match the instructions. Step 13 text refers to Location Encounters, but number 13 in the photo of the setup shows the draw deck of True name cards. The correct placement for Location Encounter cards is not shown in the image.

Suggestion: sort that out; this one is not tricky, it’s just a question of alignment.

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Either the Setup image on RB6 or the Hero Tableau image on RB7 (or, perhaps both, ideally) should show the intended/suggested location of Memories. RB7 should provide an image of some card(s) showing where the player can locate the “memory spheres” marked on the card.

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On a vaguely related topic:

The inset image of the “Play Area” on RB 19 (v0.13) seems to be outdated, and should be updated to reflect current vitals tracker and card art. In addition, the arrangement of cards and areas in the Play Area should be revised to match the suggested layout shown in Setup.

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See above re: my attempts to parse

Elsewhere:

Grit is a measure of the hero’s determination and will to keep going. Grit (purple cube) starts at 2 and has an initial grit reset (purple cylinder) value of 2 (ie. placed in position 1). (RB10)

In contrast, the Learn to Play (v0.01?) says:

Place a blue cylinder on the “Max” square and a blue cube at 10. Place a purple cylinder on the “Min” square, and a purple cube on the grit track at 2. Place a ready/exhausted token (ready side up) on the hero card. (LTP1)

As the Learn to Play is the latest document to be written, I believe Rulebook v0.13 must be outdated.

  • RB’s instructions to set grit reset at 2 appear to be incorrect. The default is 0, as printed on the vitals tracker.
  • The player must be told up front that the cylinders and min/max tokens are interchangeable.
  • RB’s talk of “grit reset” is mostly confusing, and might ideally be systematically removed and replaced with “min grit.” My most charitable reading is that a “grit reset” is best understood as an in-game event in which your grit resets to the min grit value; “grit reset” is not, however, the special name for a value that needs tracking on the tracker at setup, rather the name for the relevant value is “min grit.” The current RB does not keep these distinct.
    • This has already been canonized on the vitals tracker and the grit token on the slug: they read “min,” not “reset.”
    • The Glossary should also be updated to address this. The entry for Grit Reset should be abandoned, and the entry for Grit updated to “Grit / Min Grit” following the model of the entry for " HP / Max HP"

Note also one other item highlighted in the LTP quote above: the RB never told players to put a Ready token on the Hero card during setup.

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  • The Rulebook’s setup instructions should ideally inform the player that the Exploration tokens are unique among tokens in that they are intended to be drawn from randomly (e.g., kept in a facedown pile or drawbag, if handy). To improve clarity, I would suggest eliminating the use of the ambiguous term “pools” when discussing tokens. Non-Exploration tokens may be kept in a face-up “supply” and are selected when prompted to fit purpose; Exploration tokens must be kept in a randomized “draw pile.”
  • There are two places where the rulebook calls these “explore tokens,” these should be revised to “exploration token” for consistency and CTRL+Fability
  • For clarity, the instructions on page 2 of the Learn to Play might be revised to read:
    • “To make the rules simpler for the Learn To Play, we remove all barriers (3 “Barricade” and 3 “Locked”) from the draw pile of exploration tokens.”