We’ve hit two incredible milestones in the past few months… First, the writing and editing is almost complete of the Player’s Guide and we’re well into the Game Master’s Register. Second, we’ve had one test focusing exclusively on character creation back in April, and a few weeks ago we had an internal stress test of the mechanics that included character creation, social challenges, and combat as our brave band of mercenaries fought to recover a stolen map.

Raven Con: Franklin Pierce College, April 27th – Many thanks are owed to C.R. Day of the Comics, Clerics, & Controllers Podcast for inviting us to Raven Con! We set up our table, talked Azamar and Westward to an enthusiastic group of Gamers and sat down for a character creation test. The mechanical issues were minimal, and the valuable knowledge that we gained from this experience is that it took our participants under an hour to have a diverse cast of playable characters ready to go.

The In-House Playtest, July 13th – A group gathered in the early afternoon and we set up Azamar as if we were embarking on a brand new campaign! Once more, the character creation took under an hour – important questions were asked, and excellent points were suggested. When character creation wrapped up, we had Atreyu the Tre’uoall wizard, Krong-Thar the massive Orc bodyguard, his ward the elderly Shrave diplomat Sovereign Zdenek the VI of the Infernum, and the cranky mute Immyr soldier Fundin, whose soul was bound to the rogue artifact-hunting Enfri Skrie shrouded by her invisibility cloak.

What we learned: the game mechanics are pretty solid at this stage of second edition’s development. The areas of focus since our test have been retooling hit point and initiative calculations – as one of our testers managed to obtain a massive amount of hit points compared to the rest of the party, and adjusting our initiative system as higher initiatives did slow down the pace of combat. While we’ve accomplished a lot, we have more to do and are busily making changes to adjust for our game testing discoveries along the way. Once our schedules line up again, we’re hoping to continue the playtest soon.

In the meantime we’re focusing our efforts on developing the adventure that will be included upon release, adjusting some of our Training Backgrounds so they’re more balanced, and making some necessary adjustments to certain Special Abilities.

As always, if you have any questions at all – please ask away!