Championship Match & Unbelievable Odds [TPK]

I have to admit, no idea why I'm using this infamous D&D pic.
Until I can draft up a TPK logo, it's a good visual for the game
whenever I post updates or related material. 

I am the Warden!!

Fun time last night. We had a couple of friends over, including one of my fiancee's cousins, for a bunch of games and beverages that would make it unwise to drive. For Chris and I, it was a chance to finish up our initial match of TPK.

On Thursday, I talked about this work-in-progress skirmish game and provided a download to the first draft PDF. The day before, Chris and I ran a match in the Arena for 60 minutes before he had to go running back to school. Unfortunately, we weren't finished because of something I expected to be a rare event in the game: we had a tie.

To refresh, the goal of TPK is to end a 60-minute match with a single combatant holding the highest number of Damage points declared the Victor. In the event of a tie between two or more combatants, a special match is declared with both combatants entering a new Arena and fighting to the death. These matches differ in that every combatant starts with an amount of Health equal to their previous Damage score, thereby putting everyone off on a stronger and equal footing.

If a combatant is still alive at the end of a regular match and has the highest number of Damage points, that character is instead declared the Champion and is permanently added to the deck of combatants. The concept behind Champions is to reward such a rare occurrence, seeing as the theme behind the game is death (hence the name TPK).

In the case of our first match, when the timer sounded the end of the match, we had two standing combatants with a tie for the highest Damage (9 points). That's right, our first time ever playing this game and we have to go to a tie-breaking match to determine who would be declared the Champion and be added to the deck.

I'm not one for probability calculation, but I know my expectation of this happening was incredibly rare. We'll have to see if that's the case and as excited as I am for it to have happened out first time out, if it's actually a frequent event, I'm torn. On one hand, the original concept of the game was for everyone to die... a lot. That was part of the fun. If it's regularly possible for multiple Champion candidates in a single game, do I still want to call it TPK? Or do I want to play around with the gears and make it less frequent?

We shall see. As I've said before, this game is very much a side project run on my spare time (I know, that actually sounds ludicrous as I'm technically not employed and freelancers aren't supposed to have spare time) and I'm not sure when I'll be able to run another test or get to any of the revisions noted so far. I will say this... it was a lot of fucking fun. My hopes are high on this one.


You can download the first draft of TPK here. No charge, it's on me. 

TPK

I am the Warden!!

Last week, I teased my Twitter followers about a quick game drafted up over New Year's Eve called TPK and it's been sitting on my desk ever since. We finally had a chance to take it for a test spin this morning and I'm pleased to report it's held up very well to my expectations.

TPK does indeed stand for "Total Party Kill" and the objective of this fantasy miniatures skirmish game is to die with honour in the Arena. Each player controls a single combatant - either a Warrior or a Monster - drawn from a deck to challenge every other combatant in sight. Starting with only 1 Health, you gain additional Health by successfully attacking your opponents. When a combatant is reduced to 0 Health, the player randomly chooses a new one and returns to the Arena. Every time you hit an opponent, you gain 1 Damage and the combatant with the highest Damage at the end of a 60-minute match is declared the winner. If the winning combatant is still alive at the end of the match, they can rise to become a Champion and be permanently added to the deck.

As each combatant increases their Damage and/or Health, they can unlock additional Abilities, but they have special tools at their disposal from the beginning. Warriors come with a Starting Item (including weapons) and a Racial Ability, while Monsters start with a Natural Item and an Extraordinary Ability.

This 8-page PDF allows everyone to use their existing minis and battlemaps to run an endless cavalcade of matches and is intended as a pick-up game running up to 60 minutes at a time. While there is a lot of additional work and text revisions to make, I'm very pleased with how it went this morning and so was the other player. Additional rules for movement and Obstacles (or at least fleshing them out in greater detail rather than adding to them) are at the top of the list and I'll have to consider addendums to various combatants' abilities, such as the Mage and Psionicist. On that note, here's a list of the combatant available in TPK at the moment and basic rundown of their strengths.