u/benrobbins

We just started playing Emissary the other night and so far it's been a lot of fun.

The idea is that you're doing a LeGuin-style "emissary comes from another world", which means that you're doing world-building not just for the world you're visiting, but also the world they come from. The compare-and-contrast of the two societies is a pretty interesting change from usually just making one world.

I give it a thumbs up

https://samovargames.itch.io/emissary

When Titans Fight was one of the games recommended in the "unboxing" discussion (on bluesky), and I see a lot of potential. The core pattern of relationships feeding social scenes feeding combat scenes is great. I want to play it!

Buuuuut there's also a lot of stuff that's unclear. Even after several readings I'm not sure I understand some of the core rules.

I think it could be a really good game, with a lot of potential for genre reskinning (more on that later), so I'm really hoping by giving feedback we'll get a revised version that you can just pick up and play. Hopefully the author (agentouroboros) will be chiming in and let me know if I'm misinterpreting or missing something.

It's a free download, so I encourage anyone interested to jump in to. But be nice, since the author agreed to this feedback but didn't ask for it.

Let's start with the big stuff:

(For simplicity I'm going to say "P" for the number of players, because it will come up a lot)

• If I'm understanding the round order, you play a single bout vs an NPC mech for each player, then a semi-finals and finals. The rules say that's P+1 bouts but I believe it's really P+2 (P rounds vs NPCs, then 2 more for finals and semi-finals). So each mech is in two fights total? That took me a while to figure out.
• Is every player making a social scene between each bout? I think that could work if scenes were very short, but it sounds like they're supposed to ask all the questions each scene, which is a lot.
• In combat, is there any reason not to just use your best stat over and over? Just keep rolling Reckless, etc? Since winning actually matters, I think this incentivizes boring choices. It would be better if combat was simpler but had more motivation to do risky things etc. The Rival daring you to not use a particular tactic in your next fight is solid gold. Much more interesting than getting a generic resource. More of that.

I have a lot more questions, but let's stop there for now.

EDIT: oh forget to mention that the commentator newscaster thing is great. Genius. They should have more contribution to the combat too.