DESOTER - Playtesting with pals!

 Bit of a different post! This one is talking about one of my older games, Desoter, and the recent playtest I completed :). 

A brief intro, what is Desoter?

Desoter is a desert archeology game in which you explore the mysterious history of the desert planet Desoter, whilst traversing the rocky political climate of its inhabitants. It is a game that has two main storylines that intertwine with each other. One investigates the disappearance of Desoter's ancient civilization, the other seeks to tear down the corrupt senate of Desoter and free the sands to their rightful people. It combines a sort of Indiana Jones vibe with the serious political climate of Dune. 

Originally I made Desoter for my final year college project surrounding the theme of "discovery", its gone through a lot of changes since then, and has even more changes on its horizon. 

Here's a little comparison of one of the main NPC's designs from college to university!

So, What made me want to playtest it a year after i finished the "Rulebook"?

For most of the games me and Francis make through Hearthvalley, we always playtest them with friends to ensure the rules aren't complete moon runes and that the concept is actually fun. For whatever reason, we never got around to testing Desoter, which is very fitting with the fact that it technically sat as nothing more than a uni project concept for 2 years. I didn't even get around to formatting it properly, if you download the current version as of [21/06/26] it is just a pdf version of the google slides document I made it on.

This is all to sat, it's still pretty rough. I kinda knew that from the outset but I didn't quite know the extent to how busted the rules are. I think narratively Desoter is pretty sound, I've fleshed out the world to a point I'm really happy with and I think other than adding even more information about the setting, I think it's pretty much complete on that front. [Aside from future modules/campaigns I'll make for it I'm sure]. Rules wise... eesh... not sure what's going on there.

LOVE the random generation tables, I think that's just about one of the few things I think works well for Desoter. Everything else? Yeah, its definitely giving "First Project" vibes. I think what I'll end up doing is adapting Desoter to Francis's Pioneers system, creating additional rules for archeology and focusing the main rulebook on worldbuilding for Desoter and its inhabitants. Desoter actually takes place in the Pioneers universe anyways, so it would make sense to just put it in that game's system and use it as a campaign module to play through. I think I'd like to keep it where you have to play as one of the original races though, as this ties into the political conflict part of the game, I don't know though, guess I'll just have to test it again! [Oh no what a hardship, I have to play roleplaying games with my friends???? gosh someone put me out of my misery!!]

Playtesting, how did it go?

Of my regular TTRPG group I have one friend who is an utter menace in any game he's in, a lovable menace, but a menace nonetheless. Vice is great at finding loopholes and system breaking mechanics in a game and that's why he's absolutely great for playtesting. He will find the stupidest solutions to problems and 9/10 they actually work and end up being super cool even if a little impractical. For this playtest, it was just me and him. I was GMing and he was playing :)

His character, I knew EXACTLY what he was going to be before he even made his character. He made a Mob Boss sarcophagi [the sarcophagi part I didn't anticipate but was an interesting choice as it meant I could test out the Masked Visage trait they possess]. Considering his track record of characters (An amnesiac detective who is part of a flesh cult, a gambling addict turned rat king, an intergalactic fugitive who angered an entire planet, and a wannabe religious icon mutant) I knew I was in for some fun roleplay encounters. 

I drew a picture of his character, his name is Charly:

With Charly being a Sarcophagi, it meant he isn't affected by the heat of Desoter, so I wasn't able to test out the heat exhaustion mechanics, that's ok though, because in general I found the whole system needs an overhaul so those mechanics may become obsolete anyways.

To set the scene:

On the run from the law on his home planet, Mao, Charly seeks refuge on Desoter in hopes of starting a fresh. Rumours have gone around that one of his "Boys" (His minions) didn't "clean up a job" all too well, and with the burning eyes of Mao's peacekeepers on his back, it's better to try to blend in amongst the hubbub of a new planet. 

Arriving at Agreus Spaceport with nothing but his trusty sand perambulator and mechmover, Charly makes his way down the elevator to explore the commercial centre of Desoter, and hopefully find himself a new home. Luckily, being an elemental constructed of a soul wrapped in papers, Charly doesn't feel the blistering heat of the Desert planet. A welcome trait that many in the elevator grow jealous of. 

Agreus is a very busy city reminiscent of Dubai and New York, with advertisements on every building's sandstone façade, shops on every corner, and the blaring sound of bustling afternoon traffic. Boasting the largest market district on Desoter, the Indoor Gardens, Museum, and the headquarters for the GnoeGnoeian Architectural society, Agreus certainly has plenty to offer for tourists and locals alike.

For now, He looks to locate an information booth, it's a large city, and one far too big just to wander around in hopes of finding what you're looking for. Luckily for Charly, he doesn't have to go far. Right by the entrance to the Spaceport Elevator, a small information booth manned by a Sarcophagi hosts several panels of text, each with its own map and written in the most common languages on Desoter. Charly reads the map before consulting the attendant in hopes of locating the residential district. The attendant, who had now put down his newspaper, explains to Charly it will be difficult for him to secure a property without either a sponsor, or a fixed contract with a Desoterside business. The attendant advises Charly to consult the GnoeGnoeian Architectural Society [GGARS] about employment opportunities, according to him they are always looking for staff since theres plenty of dunes to cover and not enough hands to search. If he can secure a job with GGARS, he will be fed and housed for a few months before he can look at applying for residency in one of the nearby cities such as High Finalloo, Baketogh or Agreus. Charly asks about Cestus Metropolis, the city on the bay. The attendant says that's where the senate lives, it's a very expensive city with even the smallest of apartments starting for over a million credits. This number doesn't deter Charly, coming from a life of relative luxury he knows now where he aspires to be.

Although not an ideal career, Charly thanks the attendant for his advice. Before he goes to leave, the attendant slides a pamphlet over to Charly, its cover depicting 5 sarcophagi arranged in a semicircle with the title "Court of Icarus, Your representatives", opening it up, there's money inside. Confused, Charly askes the attendant what this is.

"I know I can't dissuade you from moving to Cestus, but things there aren't as great as they seem. There's big conflicts surrounding the Senate at the moment, a lot of them have the wrong idea of how life on this planet should be. Best to know who you can trust, you know. And the money, that's for a cab, can't get anywhere on this planet without some credits, my friend."

Charly thanks the attendant, pocketing the pamphlet with a weird feeling. Getting out of Agreus seemed like a good idea, no matter where he went he wanted to be away from the peacekeepers, word spreads quickly, so being out in the middle of nowhere with some archeologists didn't seem too bad of an idea.

Hailing a cab, Charly makes his way towards upper Agreus. His cab driver is a mammalian who is enjoying a hefty cheesebug as he drives his comically oversized jeep.

Implementing a random generation table -

At this point, I referred to my city events to spice up the journey to upper Agreus. Rolling a D12, i got a 6, which correlates to: A small sinkhole opens, uncovering an entrance to the tunnels [SEE TUNNELS]. A few civilians fall into the sinkhole as others flee to safety.

So, coincidentally:

Too many cars on the road caused the motorway to weaken, the asphalt caved in ahead of Charly's taxi as cars and pedestrians toppled over the edge of the chasm and into the depths below.

At this point I thought I'd throw in a secondary bit of conflict, having the sinkhole overlay with an underground scavenger base which certainly wouldn't have helped with the stability of the road system. I thought this might incentivise him to check out the incident and interact with it, placing him in a situation that might change his morality meter for better or worse.

Stepping out of the taxi, Charly descended into the earth to survey the scene. The drop was luckily not too far, at least not enough to prove fatal to any fallen pedestrians. It seemed some people had built a camp down here, tents strewn about the interior of the chasm and broken crates everywhere. The fall might not have been fatal to people topside, but the same could not be said for whatever being used to be within those crates, their goopy insides splattered underneath the chunks of fallen asphalt. Several scavengers seem to be harassing fallen pedestrians, yet none approach Charly as it seems they hadn't registered him as a living being rather than some sort of strange Halloween décor. 

That all changes when Charly decides to approach one of the tougher looking scavengers, questioning him on what they were doing in the hole. The scavenger, a reptoid referred to as Fang by their peers responds harshly, yet not immediately with violence. Obviously not expecting confrontation to come from an outsider, Fang tries to place the blame on Charly for the cave in. Obviously not being his fault, Charly defends his innocence, questioning further what they were even doing down here to begin with. Fang's patience wears thin, yelling at Charly that he will need to repay the scavengers for their lost cargo, 1000 credits worth of damages, they say. Now with more of the scavenger's attention on him, Charly stalls for a while, allowing the remainder of the pedestrians to escape relatively unharmed in case things went sour. 

Charly doesn't have 1000 credits, he doesnt even have the 20 credits that the attendant gave him anymore as he already paid for his cab. Having no other option, and no way out of this falsely appointed debt, he decides to plead for some kind of deal. Fang thinks on this for a while, before smiling at Charly with their sick crooked grin.

"Since you aint got no money to give me, how bout you get me enough loot to repay the losses, eh? You get me trinkets from the dunes, and I wont gut you like a fish?"

Charly thinks, all things considered, that's a fair deal. Besides, he was just about to join the GGARS, he'd done dodgy backhanded business before and by god he could do it again. Easy peasy, the stars had aligned, and if all went well, he'd not only get out of this deal alive, but also much richer. One step closer to securing him a place in Cestus. So, accepting the deal, Fang and their crew let Charly go, not before clipping a few of his papers though. Scent marker, Charly surmised. They'd know how to find him now, the sands of Desoter carried scent for miles.

Flying back to his cab, Charly continues his journey to Upper Agreus, now with a debt he has to pay.

I added this debt reminder to the top of the map for Vice to review. You can also see in this image a yellow quest marker, I'll get onto this later.

About the debt, I hadn't actually considered how this played so well into his main goal right now to apply with GGARS, it was just something I made up on the spot but plays really well into his Mob Boss background. It allows him to do some dirty backhand work whilst still having a main income coming in from his position as an archeologist.

Also! Because Charly saved some civilians by distracting the scavengers, public opinion of him has improved, placing him +1 morality point higher and now at neutral status. Vice joked that either Charly is going to finish this campaign with a completely negative score or be the nicest darn mob boss Desoter has ever seen. I honestly think the latter is probably going to be the case, he's very good at smooth-talking his way out of trouble and I could totally see him committing some huge crime and just going "me officer? me do the crime? but I'm just a little guy! i couldnt commit no crimes!" and he'd fully get away with it.

A little timeskip - Charly arrives at the GGARS headquarters and chats with the very frazzled receptionist

Sitting in the waiting room of the lavishly decorated GGARS Headquarters, with rooms that Charly reckons were decorated with either thrifted fakes or genuine artefacts, he reviews some of the paintings hung on the walls. They depict 5 mammalian individuals, two medium oil paintings either side of one very large painting. The pictures are described and labelled as follows:

Modest: A short mouse like man with a receding hairline and more wrinkles on his forehead that a raisin. He looks tired, yet stern, dressed in a plaid blazer with tassels on the shoulders.

Tally: A lively young man with the appearance of a heeler dog, his hair is shaved short on the sides with a topknot, and he wears a suit with a brightly patterned tie.

Tombstone: The largest of the paintings depicting a portly well-dressed man, he wears a fez and appears to be very similar to a hippo. He has a large handlebar moustache and is generally very eccentric looking.

Liz: A classy woman, her hair decorated with pearls and other expensive accessories. A Persian cat like face with well groomed fur and exquisite clothing. Everything about her screams wealth and power.

Sisters: The black sheep of the group, quite literally, but also figuratively. Dressed in nomadic clothing, Sisters looks weathered by the harsh Desoter sands, her once wooly coat matted by sandstorms, her horns gnarled and twisted with age. 

Charly doesn't get long to ponder the meaning of these paintings before the little rabbit receptionist returns to lead him to the meeting room. She tells him that he will be meeting with the three dig site overseers, Duster, Aphex and Cadwallader. He will get to interview each of them on their individual dig site missions, and choose which he will be managed by.

Charly sheepishly asks if he will need to provide a CV or background check, the receptionist waves his question away saying that only people who are serious about their desire to work here apply. There are dangers involved with this job that dispel anyone not genuinely passionate about archeology, besides, one look at his sand perambulator companion was proof enough for her. She laughs saying at least the company won't have to provide him with additional equipment.

The meeting takes place in a dusty archive room, with ancient tomes resting on bookshelves from floor to ceiling. In the middle of this spherical room, three chairs host three mammalians, each dressed in sandy coloured attire. Sitting opposite them, Charly introduces himself, it seems two of the individuals don't seem to get along, the one with the glasses and the one with the stripy hair seem to constantly be tutting at each other.

The overseer with the blonde braids spoke up first, his tail wagging in excitement.

"Introducing myself- Right! I'm Aphex, I'm the overseer of the Southern-most dig site. My team's focus on retrieving pottery and fossil specimens from the dunes - Sometimes we go over to southboer if the dust clouds aren't too bad too."

Charly asked Aphex how he would describe himself as a manager.

"How would I describe myself? ooh that's a real good question... Hmm... I like to think I do my best to support my staff and make sure everyone meets their quotas."

Not quite the full depth of answer Charly was looking for, he enquires further, posing the question "What would you do if scavengers attacked your camp."

"Oh! That's actually happened before... I let them take our specimens rather than let my team get hurt- We can always find more things, I don't think that anyone should have to get hurt over little pieces of history"

Satisfied with his answer, Charly nodded and turned to the woman to Aphex's left. In his mind, he noted that Aphex seemed easy to deceive, and wouldn't put up a fight if... oh... some scavengers accidentally found their site and demanded them to hand over their finds. That being said though, Aphex didn't exactly seem a reliable figure to fall back on if things started going sourly.

"Algernon Cadwallader, three time published historian-author and ex-university professor, Pleasure to meet you Mr. Charly. I've been working with this company for over 30 years, my specialty is architectural sites in the northern expanses of Desoter, up by the Fallen shore. Saving you the breath, I consider myself to be hardworking, and stern when I need to be to ensure the job gets done. My priority is meeting company quotas and preserving the TRUE history, of Desoter." Cadwallader shot her rival a dirty look. "Scavengers aren't a problem for us at my camp, many of my staff are ex-peacekeepers and are well trained to protect our assets."

Trying to remain polite, Charly nodded, yet noted Cadwallader as an immediate no. He'd be throwing himself out of the frying pan and into the fire. So, that left Aphex, or the last overseer.

"Duster. Eastern dig site. I preserve history related to the natives and fauna of Desoter." Leaning forward in their chair, their voice gravelly and harsh like a chain smoker. "I'll tell you what I'm looking for huh, I'm looking for someone who asks questions, who challenges the truth the masses are feeding you. I'm looking for someone not afraid to die for answers."

Intrigued, Charly nodded, urging them to continue.

"I have the lowest hiring rate than my two companions, and I'm legally obliged to tell you I have a history of breaking the law. I'm not civilized, i am not palatable, if you work for me, you must be willing to be a social outcast, to be ridiculed for what you believe in-"

"Duster, you're scaring this poor man! Gracious, I strongly implore you not to join their crew, Charly, Duster has had their pay docked three times this year already, and lost many staff under their supervision. You'll have much better finiancial luck with myself - Or my friend Aphex here... But mostly me."

Raising their hand to silence the interrupter, Charly posed the same question he asked Aphex. "What would you do if scavengers attacked your camp."

"I'd kill them."

The room fell silent, Charly's mind was set. Pointing to Duster, he selected his overseer, much to the chagrin of the scholar. Aphex, on the other hand, wagged his tail, shook Charly's hand, and smiled.

"That's alright! I think you'll do fine with Duster"

Duster offered nothing but a satisfied grunt, smiling with a sickening grin, exposing their rotting teeth. Standing up, they led Charly back out into the courtyard and towards their spaceship, a clunky vehicle looking like a shipping container with wings. They would be leaving soon, makes no sense to waste time when Charly had no family to wave away, no housing to empty, and no job to deliver notice to. They would leave at sunset, arriving at the dig site by nightfall the next day.

"There's something else you need to know about me, Charly. I don't much care for the regular artefacts you're bound to find out on the dunes, we have thousands of pottery and clothing scraps in the museum, I just hand those artefacts in to make sure I don't lose my job. No, there's stuff out there that interests me GREATLY, you bring your findings to me, I'll review them, anything I find interesting, I'll pay you for them.... for my personal collection. Anything else, I could care less what you do with it as long as we meet the minimum quota."

Perfect, though the fact that Duster had brought up that last remark was a little concerning. Charly worried his intentions were too obvious, however, it didn't seem like it mattered too much to Duster. Keep on his good side, and there won't be any problems. Ironically, Charly realized he had been looking in a mirror, What was one himself and his "Boys" back on Mao, was now Duster and his faithful crooked companions, Charly.

Weather mechanics -

Another random generation table, yippee! Some of these conditions affect how quickly players can traverse across the dunes, it's rolled once per day and affects the entire desert. This might be something I change in the future, having different areas of weather to vary travel.

Also, since we use Owlbear Rodeo to play, It was really fun using their new weather plugin to complement the atmosphere, I can totally see us using this a lot in our future campaigns.

Another bit of a time skip, the two arrive at Duster's camp where Duster and Charly turn in for the night. Come morning, Charly decides to spend the day using his sand perambulator and exploring the local area, this is where "Sand Sifting" comes into play.

You can move up to 10 hexes in a day, so this is the distance that Charly trekked. In each hex, he rolled 2D6 to determine the loot picked up by his sand perambulator or his shovel.

So, most of his findings were pretty normal, some cool gems, a hydrozoan headdress, and a ragdollie of the ancients [two of which were able to go towards his new objective given to him by desoter- this is the yellow post-it I mentioned earlier].

He found 3 things that were of special interest, however:

- A barrel of nuclear waste, Yippee!!

- A Scorched millipede and its baby that he had to fight off

...

And Tempus's nuclear warhead vault.

The Vault-

So. As is to be expected with random generation tables, anything can pop up. Even something that you intended to be a late game discovery. Hidden in the mountain just outside of Duster's camp, was the entrance to the nuclear warhead bunker. It makes sense it would be there, but it was a bit of a shock to roll it appearing this early into the game.

With Vaults, they have three main obstacles that are supposed to slow high level players down, and prevent low level players from entering all together. This is to make sure that enough megatons of nuclear warheads to destroy the entire planet does not fall into the hands of someone who might use it for evil.

Vice, in his usual chaotic neutral manner, broke into the vault with nothing but a shovel, a leaky barrel of nuclear waste, and an electrified lance.

He exploded the front blast doors with a carefully placed unexploded munition he found in the desert, bypassed the amnestic gas by setting it on fire and blowing those interior doors off, then gave all 8 internal [very strong] guards radiation sickness by dousing them with radioactive waste. Oh, and then just to top it all off he electrocuted half of them and suffocated the other half with a very powerful oxygen cannister. Now yes, you could say "As the GM you have the power to say no, and to not let things like this happen" however when faced with a player who clearly has a very thought out [and awesome] plan, I just had to see how it played out. We rolled for agility checks, he passed each one by miles, the dice decided, this was what had to happen.

And happen it did. Now, Charly is in possession of an ungodly amount of nuclear warheads, and knowing my friend, there is probably bad news ahead for the people of Desoter.

So, not only does Charly have that, but he also has a cool new apartment to move into.

As a secondary note, we did also get to test out some of the Illegal Market mechanics, where Vice cured his radiation sickness and also purchased some illegal weapons that helped him with Mission: Secure the nukes.

I think the markets and Illegal Markets are some of my favourite parts of Desoter, I like having the option to give your players a wide range of miscellaneous items and seeing what they do with them, and I particularly think the more illegal supplies you can get from these underground markets could be an interesting mechanic to influence morality, and play into the more city-central storylines.

Luckily, Mr Charly left with all his organs intact and a cool new mine function for his Sand Perambulator.

^ Said sand perambulator, he looks a bit like a robot horseshoe crab.

Post Session thoughts -

Overall I really enjoyed playing through this session, it was very chaotic and a lot of fun to just throw problems at Charly and see how he responded to them. We got to explore a lot of the themes, some parts I didn't mention but were interesting were:

- Charly met in passing, Tombstone from the paintings in the GGARS headquarters, in the illegal markets. Turns out those 5 people were apart of the senate's Hikari Union, the representatives for GnoeGnoe.

- He finds out that the Tempus Warhead vault belongs to a member of the Court of Icarus, challenging what he thought he knew about the senate.

- Duster talks in passing about wanting to talk with some "Important people" but they need to gather some special shell covered artifacts before they can do that.

- He sees that some people in the illegal markets are selling more than just pets...

Playing through this with my friend has definitely opened my eyes to the fact I need to work on the rules for this game, I think I will definitely apply the Pioneers rules to Desoter and maybe do some fine tuning of the random sand sifting tables. Vice suggested the ability to loot enemies too, which I absolutely agree would be a super helpful mechanic to have, especially if you're low on supplies when out in the dunes. Right now, its a very broken yet fun game, I don't think it needs too much work, I think altering the system will fix most of the problems, and to say this was one of the first games I made entirely by myself, its not too shabby. I definitely want to play another session with Francis involved too just to see how this insane storyline develops with Charly and his world ending arsenal.

So, all in all, a very fun and eye-opening session! 

And everyone on Desoter should probably start looking for a new home....