#shadowrift

What struck me recently, playing 4 characters in Gloomhaven, was that there's a point where mental burnout sets in. And this could be fit into that definition; You could say that if the game gets complex enough that planning out a good turn in a way that feels like you were able to comprehend your options and risks well enough to make meaningful choices kind of exhausts you after just one turn, well, it's not saying "per turn" but "over time." If it's so complex the decisions take too long, it's less fun by that definition.

The word "meaningful" also does a lot of heavy lifting, allowing them to excoriate games with too much randomness for their liking; possibly even call them "not games."

Problems with S3 in its known (that is, "latest physically tested") form:

It's long. Not too too long, but long enough to be difficult to sell. About 2 hours, maybe +15-30 minutes for large player counts just due to confusion/discussion (though I was proud it didn't have extra phases with added players). For most commercial card games you usually want to keep it under an hour and a half, even for "adventure" style games that are emulating sword-and-sorcery stuff that in a TTRPG space would be played 3-4 hours at a time.

Fiddly Bits. I hesitate to say "it's fiddly," but it still had fiddly elements. Most notably the Darkness system, granting monsters bonus hp and ablative shields, meant putting a bunch of different-colored dice on every monster card as it came in play. It doesn't feel right, and messing with that math heavily contributes to the game duration.

Lacking Risk. In both the game that felt like it went horribly and lasted for like 3-4 grueling hours and the one we barreled through and won in 8 rounds (still 2+ hours), we ended the game with 1 Doom (for context, the question I was trying to figure out in terms of calibrating difficulty was "should the players lose the game at 15 Doom or 20?").

Some basic points about the game are that it had resources and you always felt like you were able to do something - this is good - but clearly you always felt like you could do enough because we were never on the back foot and that's bad for a game with a scripted competitor.

An idea I wanted to investigate was whether S3 could be combined with my idea for Dreamblades, a narrative-focused game played in 15-30 minute encounter vignettes using players' decks.

Promotional material for my card game:

A crumpled ball of grimy bronze sank through the water, dragging a thick iron chain.

"We have to go!"

In a city, not so far from the town of Port Promise, a child pulled his grandfather. Insensate, the emaciated elder whispered prayers he'd learned when his own hands were smaller than those that now tugged at him.

Every bell, an edict. Every song, penance. Suffer not the darkness. Touch not the unclean.

"Seek not the forbidden."

Tonbo touched down in the soft sand, took a few practice swings through the magically airy water with his sword. It wasn't quite air, but certainly more possible to fight in than water. It would take getting used to. He looked at the sea witch. "Chessel, is it? You already made a spot of breathable water for us. You don't need to spout cryptic nonsense to convince me you're magic."

Chessel's eye twitched. "It's an old prayer. And I couldn't care less about your opinion of my skills if I tried." She floated lazily forward and struck the ball of bronze with her staff. The water rang out. A dim light and a zone of clarity expanded farther across the seabed. "Your quarry is quick to flee. Finish it in one strike, if you can."

Tonbo opened his mouth to mouth off, then saw he was being watched. Behind Chessel and just at the edge of her mystic light, a pair of eyes gleamed red. They were too large, and too far apart.

"We've another visitor," he said quietly. "It's no dendian beast. A friend of yours?"

This time she actually moved her body to spin more quickly. "Leviathan," she said, fear suffusing her voice. "Wound it when it recoils from my lightning."

"And then?"

"Then we run. Follow the chain back to the ship."

Behind it, Tonbo could see a long, sinuous shape. Then another, and another. 

"It's got friends along!"

"No. Leviathan has no brood."

"I can see-"

"Those are all coils of the same serpent."

"That isn't better news!"

Leviathan roared. Cursing under her breath, Chessel began hurling lightning. Tonbo half-ran half-floated through the enchanted water. As the first bolts struck the great dragon on the cheek, Tonbo reached its belly and swung as hard as the air-water allowed. He drew blood, but the beast twitched and the building-sized surface of it slammed into him. He fell on his back, stunned, his hands grasping blindly for a weapon. They closed around something haft-like. He lifted it to defend himself and saw that it was a bone.

Back on dry land, the child knelt with his grandfather. He'd seen the white things pass people by if they knelt and looked down. This white thing - it looked like a mix between a bottle, a man, and a rune - floated over grandfather and raised its hand. A spear of white-hot light appeared, held by its magic but not touching its hand. It prepared to end them, and then...to the child it did not seem it had changed its mind. It was simply distracted, as something more important happened somewhere distant.

"Touch not the unclean," it intoned, and vanished.

Tonbo swung the thigh bone desperately at the serpent, all too aware how quickly this had changed from a routine hunt to a desperate play just to survive.

The angel appeared.

It still had its spear at the ready, and its strange, stone-like head turned toward him. "Touch not the unclean," it said.

"Wh-" Tonbo said, and then shifted to screaming as the bone in his hand burst into painful shards.

From the darkness behind a large stone, Chessel watched him collapse. She cast a current to carry him back toward the ship, then fired one more bolt of lightning at Leviathan's snout. The beast roared angrily again, its eyes glowing red with old sea-magic of its own.

The angel turned toward Leviathan. "Suffer not the darkness," it said. It began forming a spear, as a great maw larger than its entire body began to close around it.

As she rose through her enchanted water, dragging Tonbo as swiftly as she dared, Chessel heard a crunch below her, and a sizzle. She did not know the victor, if indeed there was one. She did not look back.

She breached the surface, coughing as her lungs adjusted to full air again. She was pulling Tonbo onto the ship - relieved to see him breathing - when she noticed the strange light reflecting off his sodden form.

She turned and saw that all the sailors were standing motionless, looking up.

Two more angels floated above the ship. They had no faces, but Chessel could tell: They were looking at her.

She was being judged. She was being found impure. She would be killed.