The Magonomia play experience: notes from the Toil and Trouble playtest

Yesterday we ran an online playtest of the upcoming adventure Toil and Trouble by Chris Iredale. This adventure is specifically designed for beginning Magonomia players. It’s a quest to help a famous apothecary obtain rare ingredients for a magic potion, with plenty of surprises along the way (hence the title). Read on for some spoiler-free highlights of the game session.

What I like best about this adventure is that it has lots of opportunities for the wizards to use their spells. In Magonomia, every player character is a wizard with a repertoire of 11 spells. It didn’t take the players long to get familiar their spells and to start finding opportunities to apply them. The character sheet has a one or two-sentence summary of what each spell does, with a page reference to the rule book for the full details if needed. Most players cast their spells by consulting the character sheet. As much effort as we spent making a rulebook that explains things thoroughly while being fun to read, I think we can all agree the time to enjoy reading that rulebook is not the middle of a fight scene.

Because there was so much spellcasting, we got to see spells that haven’t come up much in other games. Here are some of the lesser-used spells the players employed to great effect (all of these are on the character sheets of the example characters):

• Weather Lore to make it rain at a fortuitous time

• Breath of Purity to clear the air of smoke, dust, and hostile gases

• Elixir of Wisdom to prepare a PC ahead of time to get the most out of a clue

• Balm of Protection from Fire to quickly deal with some of the toil and trouble that occurred

• Reading a Stranger’s Stars to size up the villain and get the upper hand in social conflict with him

Something special about Magonomia is that wizards don’t run out of spells. They can cast a spell whenever it fits the situation, though some spells do require ceremonial casting time and/or a Fate Point.

The plot of the adventure had a lot of variety: some action, some intrigue, some suspense, and even some social interaction. It’s well put together and flows well.

The next steps are a few minor design tweaks based on the first playtest, then illustrations, maps, editing, and layout. If all goes well, we should be able to have this available for sale by the end of 2022. I know I’m looking forward to running it again, perhaps at a convention.

Magonomia Example Characters updated

It’s surprising how much little details of a character sheet can make gameplay flow smoothly. Players have a lot of details they need to consider when deciding and resolving their characters’ actions and we don’t want to go searching through the rule book every time!

One of the benefits of our hands-on approach to playtesting (Andrew Gronosky, the owner of Shewstone, GMs more than half the playtest games) is we get to see what goes smoothly and where players hit a little friction—which wheels are squeaky, so to speak. One of the sticking points has been knowing the difference between which spells a character can cast immediately and which require the 10-minute ceremonial setup. We’ve updated the character sheets to clarify that, as well as answer other questions like “what equipment is my (pregenerated) character carrying?”

You can download the Magonomia Example Characters version 1.2 here, on the Magonomia wiki, or (if you’re a DriveThruRPG customer) by checking your notifications on DriveThruRPG.

Kudos to Patrick Murphy of Mad Irishman Productions for an outstanding job designing a concise, playable Grimoire (spells) page for the character sheet. Another year’s experience running Magonomia has shown us that all we need to do it take a little more time to fill in the details on that sheet. The effort pays off when new or casual players have an easier time getting immersed in the spontaneous, freewheeling and unlimited magic of a Magonomia game session!

Adventure in the works: "The Angry Birds of Essex"

Yesterday we played the second playtest of a new adventure for Magonomia, “The Angry Birds of Essex” by Jaclyn Lewis.

The wizards have been volun-told to investigate a disturbance in the market town of Coggeshall in Essex. Townfolk are fleeing their homes saying the place is accursed by a faerie queen. It is time to put your hard-won arcane skills to the test. Confront the menace and save the village! Fame awaits you if you prevail, and perhaps a still greater reward -- knowledge!

This is a short, 2-3 hour adventure that will become part of a new, free Quick Start product. The playtests have gone very well: the story is solid and easy to run. There’s more than one way to succeed. Actual statistics of the titular “angry birds” need a little tweaking so they don’t cause a TPK, but that can be done without playing through the whole adventure again.

We don’t have a timeline for release of this adventure yet because the rest of the Quick Start is yet to be written. We’re aiming to get it done by the end of the year. As you can see, we have same great art by Teresa Guido!

Our next playtest event is a different adventure, “A Surfeit in Surrey” on July 31 at 1 pm EDT. Check out Community and Events page for the playtest schedule (updated monthly) or subscribe to our special playtesters’ newsletter.

Shewstone and Magonomia on Storycomic Podcast

We have a new 44-minute interview about Magonomia on the Storycomic Presents podcast! Check out storycomic.com for links to the podcast on your favorite platforms, and/or subscribe to their YouTube channel.

Interview with Andrew Gronosky of Shewstone Publishing about Magonomia’s use of Fate Core.

Magonomia back in print with updated map!

Print orders for Magonomia® the TTRPG of Renaissance wizardry are back online after a week’s pause. Now we have the corrected and updated map of Enchanted England, plus other errata fixes.

The map of Enchanted England, version 1.2. Feel free to download, print, & share for non-commercial use.

If you purchased a print copy of Magonomia before today and you’re disappointed with the map, we offer you a copy of the corrected version for the cost of printing and shipping. This offer is valid for two years from today. Check your DriveThruRPG notifications for a discount code, or email service@shewstone.com.

Happy gaming!