That sounds super fun, I'm glad you had a good time! I love TAZ so it's super funny that you used it to run a Suffering Game type thing. And adding that extra mechanic sounds neat too!
As for your question, unfortunately I don’t have a cut and dry answer for you because thats not really how the game is structured. Remember, PCS aren’t rolling to clear obstacles, they’re rolling to cast spells.
For example, let’s say one of the challenges is that the room has no gravity. One PC might try to use Druidic magic to grow vines that hold them to the ground, and they’d roll to see how successful they are. Another player might use the lack of gravity to their advantage and push themself off the walls to fly around the room, which wouldn’t necessarily require a roll at all. Bigger challenges like the ones in the final test will probably take a few different spells, unless one PC comes up with something particularly clever.
As a GM it’s up to you to decide what the win condition for each room is, and then the players succeed whenever they meet it. And honestly, even there I would encourage you to be flexible. Like, the room setup with the spider on page 7 came from a play test. In my mind the solution was to attack the spider/help the ghosts kill it, but my players sided with the spider and helped it get the ghosts. Not the ending I expected, but everything they did made sense and felt satisfying, so it counted as a win. (IMO this is true for all ttrpgs honestly! If you set up a puzzle and they find a totally different solution that feels cool, you can just make that be the solution!)
In that encounter it wasn’t like I kept track of how many times each PC succeeded on a roll and then when they hit a certain number it was over. They rolled for things like using magic to climb up the wall to get a better angle on it, or to communicate with the spider to see what its deal was. There’s no mechanic for HP, so when they attacked the ghosts I had to decide in the moment how many successful attack spells felt like enough.
TLDR it’s all vibes based, they succeed on a chamber when they’ve done enough for it to feel like a satisfying conclusion.
I see the confusion, but “or” is correct! If you can explain how you disguise the spell, you don’t have to add to wild since you’re not raising suspicion. If you can’t hide the spell, then you would be more suspicious and you have to add to wild.
Fun answer: Good observation! It is more expensive by 75 cool cents, because I made it and I can set the prices however I want. Hope that helps!
Nice answer: If cost is an issue, feel free to take one of the community copies! It gets you the exact same thing as paying, but for free! I will restock if copies run out again at any point.
Real answer: I am moving, and I'm transitioning between jobs, and my last job was at a nonprofit that paid bad so I don't have savings, and also 19 other stressors that would go away if I had money, so here we are.
I am so glad you all enjoyed playing, and doubly glad to hear you’re having a blast GMing!!! I’ll definitely check out that podcast, I’m excited to hear what you have to say!!
Absolutely, I just refilled the community copies so you should be able to get one! There's kind of already instructions in the back for solo play, although for young students you might need to give more specific instructions.
Hi, thanks for asking! I think it should be beginner friendly as long as you are comfortable with the idea of making stuff up with your friends!
There aren't a ton of rules and most of them are very open to interpretation, so it's beginner friendly in that there isn't a lot to learn, but also you don't have many rules to lean on. I have heard from other people that it was their first time GMing and they enjoyed it, though!
The printable book is formatted to be folded like an eight page mini zine! I like this video but any instructions for an eight-in-one booklet or one page zine should get you the same results.
That's totally fine! As long as you're not like posting a link publicly for anybody to download from, or charging them money for it you're all good, thank you for asking though!
This is AMAZING, I’m so glad it worked out and y’all had fun! I am actually also a teacher n I had been thinking it might be cool to try with my kids in the future so it’s great to have evidence!
Thanks so much for the review, I'm glad you had fun! With the stat situation it's a little vague, but I included the props as a way to get out of that specific scenario.
Alternatively, if your group is down for higher stakes you could count it as an instant failure, and that characters magic explodes with enough force for a TPK. Or you could just lock that character out of magic for the remainder of the game. Whatever fits the vibes at your table best!
