When I started designing Keet's deck I
had an idea for a secondary deck, similar to those found in RDI:3,
but I wanted to do something different. I had an idea; archaeologists
are always studying valuable artifacts, so why not replace Keet's
gold with a deck of unique artifact cards?
I knew Keet was overly excited about
mundane things, so it seemed natural that some of his 'artifacts'
would be worthless, random pieces of trash that he had just found
lying around. I loved the image of Keet proudly anteing into a round
of gambling with an ancient shoestring, or being fascinated by a
'rare and mysterious' bent coin. I could just hear him: “It's not
just any coin,” he'd say enthusiastically, “look at it it! It's
bent!” to which his comrades would just look at him, unimpressed.
Not all of his artifacts would be that terrible, but I couldn't
resist the humour of it. Worthless items and cursed items were just
entertaining. Of course, bad items also opened up the possibility of
designing more powerful artifacts that balanced out the trash.
I liked the idea that Keet would have
to carefully manage his artifacts, and cursed items played right into
that. I've always been a fan of cursed items in stories and RPGs; I
feel that they provide characters with a very difficult choice: are
the bonuses worth the drawbacks? Keet's artifacts, even the good
ones, would serve a similar role. Good items would have to be
discarded to be used, meaning if Keet was running low on Gold it
would be risky to use those artifacts. By contrast, Keet's cursed
items would have a negative impact on his Fortitude or Alcohol
Content, meaning if he was getting beaten up or drunk he would have
to find a way to get rid of them.
With all of this in mind, I knew I had
to give Keet specific tools to manage his artifacts. For instance, I
knew I wanted the artifacts to start face down; I liked the
randomness of not always knowing what Keet was using to pay the inn
or ante into a round of gambling, but it wouldn't be fun if Keet had
no control at all over which artifacts he anted. This meant that the
deck would need some way of 'identifying' artifacts by turning them
face up. This way, if the goblin was able to spend some time
'studying' what he had, he could pick and choose which artifacts to
keep, and which ones to give away.
Keet's deck came together surprisingly
quickly. Once I had a rough draft, I printed a copy and began testing
as soon as I could. I scribbled notes on the cards with tweaks,
corrections and more major changes. I did the same with the rulebook.
After some feedback from testing, I added card types to the artifacts
(Sometimes, Action, etc.) so that other decks could interact with
them more, and I removed a problematic mechanic that turned face up
artifact cards face down. Otherwise it was going very well.
One thing I knew I wanted to include
were artifacts from the existing Red Dragon Inn universe. I loved the
idea that Keet had 'discovered' treasures like Dimli's
Great-Grandfather's Helmet and took them to study. Interestingly
enough, these artifacts were the easiest to write rules for, since I
was basically able to copy their effects from other decks. I also
felt like adding them really put Keet in the RDI world.
I could go on, but I'll leave it here.
I look forward to Slugfest's final version of my deck. They're making
some changes, which is good. While I was pleased with my work, there
is definitely room for improvement. I trust Slugfest Games to do a
good job, and to take good care of my Keet.
13/13
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