[3:16] Impressions on first play

[Calculon]

Ran a quick and dirty session of 3:16 at Toronto's FanExpo today. I had a lot of fun! Two players in the group - should really have had them act as a sort of "army of two" rather than throwing together a squad of redshirts, in retrospect.

It was a lot of fun, but I felt a little underprepared. Encounters seem like... well, I'm not sure if I had the requisite tools for setting the scene. The mechanics essentially boiled down to "do you kill them or withdraw?" I enjoyed the distance mechanics - gave a sort of old-school Final Fantasy/Bard's Tale sense of pacing and reaction.

At the end of the planetary campaign, one of the players had had a pretty good time, but the other didn't "get it". I understood that I hadn't gotten a chance to really drive home a theme, or really narrate the whole thing properly, but I think it's just that the conceit of the game -- you are the Starship Troopers, the Forever Warriors, the Legio Astartes and the Master Chief rolled into one, but there didn't seem to be room for meaningful choice in one's actions.

Still, I had a lot of fun showing the HaloClix minis blasting through d6-shaped threat tokens, racking up kills in the dozens, and eventually flying their bloodstained dropship back to the main fleet (which I forgot to call a Battle Barge).

Much thanks, Gregor, and I think with time I'm going to get to like this more and more!

[Dulahan]

Just played it too, like you with only one other PC and the GM.

Seems like it will be a great Filler Game. I had fun, no doubt about that. and really like the campaign options with upgrades and such.

That said, it almost needs to have other PCs too. A group of 4+ seems more ideal than just 2.

I also imagine that doing it any more regularly than just occassionally to fill time because X players couldn't come or we got to a good spot to stop the weekly game a bit earlier than we wanted would be a bit too undetailed for me.

Still, it was great fun blasting bugs! (Or in this case, giant rock men!)

[Calculon]

The game defnitely seems to mean more as you pull the camera back. It's interesting in that it has a sort of granularity at the "combat" level - war as narratively-described dice-off - but the flashbacks don't start to add up to a "full character" until you've leveled up a few times and moved a few planets along.

Also, players should know a bit going in about the competitive mechanics vis-a-vis kill-maximizing, leveling and development, so that they can make meaningful choices rather than having "revealed mechanics" when they get off-planet.

(That was my mistake, not a shortcoming of the rules.)

Anyway, a shorthand "rules cheat-sheet" is always worthwhile for convention games if people will be learning a new system. 3:16 is so streamlined that I thought I could explain it as we went, but it's still a better idea to have a plan going in.

Live, as they say, and learn!

[chaldfont]

I played two sessions back-to-back at the Ram Friday night of Gen Con Indy. We were all a little in our cups, but we had a good time. I think this game will really sing the next time we play, as everyone got the handle on using Strengths and Weaknesses and realized how cool it is to gain rank.

Our Sergeant got promoted to Lieutenant and his eyes really lit up when I told him he could call in orbital strikes.

[Inamoena Tempora]

...but there didn't seem to be room for meaningful choice in one's actions.

Admittingly, from the characters point of view, there probably aren't. You're the ultimate terran killing machine, and the goal is to kill everything that moves and isn't human. We're talking galactic genocide, really.

But there are choices. Not pretty ones, though. Basically, in order to progress you need more kills than everybody else, and, starting from the domination mechanic, there are quite a few ways to mess with the other characters/players. It starts by setting the encounter range at your own ideal killing range, upgrading weapons in order to improve the kill ratio at various ranges, up to and including the (ab)use of grenade mechanics in order to get that incredibly desireable field promotion.

Yes, you need the other players. They'll help you survive. But they also hinder your progress. The rules create a subtle animosity of the lower ranks against people with higher rank and people with bigger guns. While the officer ranks get all the cool toys, they are pretty expensive in terms of character development:
Each promotion means you blew (at least) one strength. Which not only helps to define your character, but also means lesser chances of survival once the proverbial alien excrement hits the aircooling system. Also, it's essential if he blew the strengths to save his troopers, or if he's a glory hound, hogging all the encounters kills and caring only about his career.

That said, it's what makes the game fun. It's the very essence of the Aliens-RPG, minus the horrible Leading Edge Rules. And you can throw in planets of predators just for shit and giggles. Best beer & pretzels RPG I've played in years, and with such an enticing theme, so suitable for glorious displays of badassitude. Inspectres was nice, but snuffing out 1D100 aliens in a turn brings that happy, wicked smile to my face.

-I.T.

[Akodo Daimyo]

Originally Posted by Inamoena Tempora

You're the ultimate terran killing machine, and the goal is to kill everything that moves and isn't human. We're talking galactic genocide, really.

Man, I need to pick this up.

[Arc Dream]

3:16 seems to be GREAT for pick-up games, as long as the GM is really well versed in it beforehand. It's dead easy for players to master, but there are a lot of wrinkles to the little game that the GM needs to master to get the most out of it.

I ran it once at GenCon for two players, Bailywolf and John Marron from RPG.net, and I agree that it seems to benefit from having at least three or four players. However, we were really unfamiliar with the system at the time and were dog-tired, settling in after the Ennies awards and a long, exhausted dinner to play a game basically out of stubbornness ("We are gamers at GenCon. We must game!"), so we didn't really hit the game's strong points.

The key, I think, is remembering that this is a shared-narrative game more than a classic "I shoot, you shoot, he shoots" simulation. The rules give you plenty of juicy details to hang the narrative around, but where it gets fun is where the players have a good time describing exactly what happens when you roll those 32 kills with your machine gun while taking damage that turns you from "A Mess" to "Crippled" -- and the GM has a good time working those descriptions into the game, whether for color or for some mechanical effect.

The flashbacks then are the big-ticket narrative moments, where you're not just describing the outcome of the rolls but changing them based on your vision of your character's history and personality. The built-in limits on how many of these you can do keep them from dominating the game, but the more players you have, the more encounters will end with a flashback-fueled moment of heroism.

Now, I'll have to admit that I don't personally enjoy RPGs that are really lite and hand-wavy, where players basically take turn telling a story. I know those games rock on toast for a lot of people, but they don't do it for me. But I really like the way it works in 3:16, where the game events provide a very solid structure for the narration.

I may run it this Wednesday for our local game group, if we have time after John M. runs "A Dirty World," and I'm really looking forward to it because I've had more time to get the hang of it.

I've also pondered running a slightly cleaned-up version for my Halo-loving sons, age 9 and 13, with the focus on action and heroics rather than exploring "kill them all and don't bother sorting them out" machismo and angst.

[iconoplast]

Originally Posted by chaldfont

Our Sergeant got promoted to Lieutenant and his eyes really lit up when I told him he could call in orbital strikes.

The only time I've run this, we cleared four (or maybe five) planets in the time we usually take for a single D20 combat scene.

The newly promoted Lieutenant called the Orbital strike in immediately upon receipt of promotion, since the player had just figured out that

(1) he needed to get the most kills in order to unlock a new strength in order to get promoted, and
(2) he was never going to beat the E-Cannon wielding gunbunny for straight kills.

We ended the game before he had a chance to drop a TPK bomb, but I'm pretty eager to see the results of that...

[Gregor Hutton]

Oh, there are a number of ways for an encounter to end and they each put something different into the story.

Do all the PCs die?
Does a PC show a Strength to win?
Does everyone alive get beyond Far Range?
Do you fight the aliens to a standstill?
Does some event end the combat?
Do all the aliens get killed?

Not all of those outcomes are winning ones for the PCs.

Oh, and remember that while using an Orbital Bombardment gives you d1000 kills (I'd laugh if someone rolled 005 or similar), and might free up a Strength if it levels you up, that it cannot lead to a promotion directly after that mission. And double remember that if you ever (as a player) use it again it kills your PC. And a player can never use it more than twice. I like John Harper's assessment that this means in your lifetime as a player.

The TPK bomb and Paradise Bombs really let you keep pace with a maxed out RocketPod or E-Cannon, but... for some reason the grunts don't take kindly to nuclear grenades evaporating their health. Who knew!?

[The Duck of Death]

Slightly off topic, but there's a bunch of fun 3:16 stuff like play tokens over here.

For instance: