Simple DnD Map V3

 The players for the last playtest were Brandon, as the mage, and Izhaiah, as the ranger.

The concept of my DnD map was to get the players, who played as aliens, to break out of prison. Since the players were aliens, they could see in the dark, but their human enemies could not. In the beginning of the level, the players are meant to break out of their cell and destroy the power supply to the building. The goal was for the players to be as stealthy as possible and avoid making noise so they won't be ambushed by guards. The players were introduced to the stealth aspect when the first enemy they were introduced to was sleeping.

The things that went right were:

• Brandon and Izhaiah really liked the concept of the map.

• Players understood that since the guard was sleeping, they needed to be stealthy.

• Players did die once, which means the difficulty of the level was there and it wasn’t too easy. The checkpoints had a use.
• The difficulty of the enemies increased as the player’s got stronger, making the items that the players picked up useful and not just there.

• When players decided to break down doors instead of using a lockpick, the enemy closest to the noise would move toward it, making it more desirable to use a lockpick.

• There were less lockpicks than doors, so players had to make noise at some point, which forced conflict or a strategy to avoid conflict.

  
  

The things that went wrong:

• I had to tell Brandon to destroy the power supply. He knew he was supposed to interact with it, but he didn’t know he was supposed to destroy it. He just wanted to mess with it.

• The concept of the game would have been better if the enemies could move on their own and had set moving patterns, rather than needing the GM to move them.

Ways to improve:

• Somehow make it clear that the players can see in the dark, but the enemies can’t by adding something else to the GM script.

• Recreating this concept with a different software and play style would be the ideal solution; however a decent solution would also be to move every enemy a set amount of spaces each turn whether visible to the players or not.

The challenges were presented in an appropriate way because the players understood sound as an element shortly after game play began. The players developed strategies to make less sound, and even decided to break down a door instead of using a lockpick in their inventory so they could save the lockpick for later. The players understood the challenging aspects of the game quickly.

The critical path was very clear because the map was linear besides one turn off that the players didn’t know was a dead end from the beginning. The players did decide to explore, but when they did, they were rewarded with an item that helped them in combat later.

The overall flow of the game was very smooth. The players didn’t need to backtrack at all. Dying didn’t break the flow of the game either, because the players got a checkpoint very close to the spot they died in. The players were also able to develop strategies pretty quickly because of how much they understood the concept of the game.

The mechanics of the game were very easy to grasp. The items were easy to figure out once players had them in their inventory. Since the players understood how to use the items, they developed strategies for who should hold each item when going into combat.