Built at the table

Playtesting is often described as a way to find what is broken. For us, it is just as often a way to discover fun.

That was especially true at Gen Con this year. Over three days of running Shroudwake for new players, two relatively simple observations at the table led to some really neat changes to the rules. And neither came from weeks of theorycrafting, they came from watching people play and experience the game.

A Simple Question

During our first session Thursday night, a player was preparing to make an attack and asked:

“Is there anything I can do to increase the chance of this attack hitting?”

The answer was no.

It was a perfectly reasonable answer under the rules at the time, but the question stuck with me. Shroudwake already allowed players to gain Temporary Skill Points, giving them ways to push themselves beyond their normal capabilities. Why couldn't that same idea extend to the other moments when a character desperately needs something to work?

That night, I began working on what became Mutation Exertion.

Mutation Exertion allows a player, before making a roll, to spend Health Pool Points to increase their Target Number for that attempt. Every 2 Health Pool Points spent grants +1 TN, and because that increased TN contributes normally to Degrees of Success, the player isn't simply buying a better chance to succeed, they are pushing their mutation harder in hopes of achieving something extraordinary.

Most importantly, it creates a choice.

How badly do you need this attack to land? How much of yourself are you willing to expend to make it happen?

We introduced the rule into our Gen Con sessions over the following two days. The feedback was resounding. Players loved having that extra bit of agency over their characters.

A single question from one player changed the game.

Seeing the Game From the GM's Side

The second change came from watching combat unfold from behind the GM screen.

Creatures in Shroudwake can possess Triggered Mutations, reactive abilities that make encounters less predictable. On paper, individual triggers worked well. At the table, however, a GM might be running several different creatures, each with multiple mutations and different circumstances that had to be remembered.

The problem wasn't that the abilities were complicated. The problem was the mental overhead of watching for all of their triggers simultaneously while also running the rest of the encounter.

At the same time, one of the mechanics receiving some of our strongest positive feedback at Gen Con was Adventure Points. Players enjoyed the shared economy that builds throughout a Writ and gives the party opportunities to influence important moments.

So we asked: why shouldn't the GM participate in that economy too?

The revised system gives the GM their own Adventure Pool, which grows through play and can be spent to invoke a creature's Triggered Mutations. Rather than constantly monitoring several independent conditions, the GM can decide when spending those points will make an encounter more dangerous, interesting, or memorable.

The result is less bookkeeping for the GM without removing the tactical structure surrounding those abilities.

It also creates something we particularly like: players and the GM are now interacting with parallel Adventure Point economies, each looking for the moments where spending those points can change what happens next.

This Is What Playtesting Is For

Neither change began with someone telling us, “This rule needs to be redesigned.”

One began with a question.

The other began with watching a GM have too many things to remember.

That kind of feedback is incredibly valuable because players don't need to know how to design the solution. Sometimes they simply need to show what they wanted to do, what felt cumbersome, what surprised them, or what they wished had worked differently.

Our job is to observe and listen to what that experience is telling us about the game.

Shroudwake is still evolving, and that is exactly what this stage of development is supposed to look like. We want to protect the concepts that make the game distinctly Shroudwake while remaining willing to change the rules when the people playing it discover an unexplored path.

So to everyone who sat down at our Gen Con tables, asked a question, provided your feedback, challenged a rule, or simply showed us through play how the game felt:

Thank you!

You aren't just testing Shroudwake...You're helping us evolve it.