This past Saturday, Legends of the Wandering Crows was one of three RPGs demoed at Lobocon 2024. (Another one was Tarotweaver, a coming-soon game created by my colleague and friend Jared Mullicane. I didn’t get to play it, since I was running my own games; but I heard later on from playtesters that it was very, very good. So if you’re interested in a tarot-based RPG, I suggest you subscribe for updates on his Kickstarter page!) I’m happy to say that the playtest was very successful, both in terms of “I learned a lot as a game designer” and in terms of “my players liked the game!” What a difference good feedback and two weeks of work makes…

From a technical standpoint, I dramatically simplified the game since my last playtest. First, I’ve removed dice entirely and replaced them with playing cards. Second, I’ve ditched custom cards, too; all of the “flavor” like spell and ability names happens on the character sheets. As a result, it took me only 12 minutes to teach players the basic rules of the game before we made characters. That is a huge improvement, since at my last playtest, it took over 30 minutes to teach the rules.

Despite (because of?) these simplifications, players were still easily able to immerse themselves in the game. I had both novice and experienced RPG players, and they all got into their characters and the imagined world. One player reported that he really liked how the game mechanics helped him to be creative in how he accomplished things, instead of encouraging him to always solve problems with a sword. He also said that he’d rather play this with his friends than D&D 5E, because it was so much quicker to get started and play! That is exactly what I hoped to hear when I started designing this game!

I did notice some elements of gameplay that weren’t as smooth as I would have liked, so I still have some work to do before my next playtest at Kublacon 2024. Turns need to be clarified, and I need to work out a better system for documenting gear. But I can work on that. And if the Kublacon demo goes well, I’m hoping to get a v1 of the game online on Itch or the like by mid-June. And then anyone can play it!

Another high point of Lobocon (for me, anyway) was my “business cards.” I wanted a way to advertise Riddle & Rook to convention attendees, but I didn’t think that a traditional business card would create a lot of value. Luckily, I stopped by Sonoma Library’s Zine Fest 2024 a few weeks ago and was inspired by the zines there to create something better: A mini-dungeon in a pocket-mod format! So anyone at Lobocon 2024 was able to get a copy of my very first one-page dungeon, “The Dragon of Destiny,” with links to this website. And I had so much fun making it that I’m planning to do the same for Kublacon and Big Bad Con this year, and then I’ll put them all up on Itch afterwards, too.

So, the journey continues ever onward. And if you’re reading this, I want to extend a special thank-you to Scott, Gio, and all of the other members of the SSU Anime Club for making us role-players feel welcome!