All's Well That Ends adventure preview - One Stop Co-Op Shop
Transcript
Hey everybody, this is Mike with the Onetop Co-op Shop and I'm doing my second video on All's Well That Ends, an upcoming adventure combat campaign game. And as always, I take no money from publishers. I'm just showing you the game so you can see how it plays and make an informed decision. And if you like the content on the OneTop Co-op Shop, consider supporting us through Patreon. You get early access to our videos and exclusive videos every month you can't see anywhere else. You can also listen to our weekly podcast for reviews and design discussions, or join the conversation and say hi on our Discord. So, this is again the second video on this game. If you want to see the beginning of the story, meet the four characters, see how the combat works, which is really the main thrust of the game, I would go watch the first video first. But this one's going to show you how the overland adventure and sort of the in between narrative exploration sections of the game work. I have my four characters. They do get to heal fully, but they do not automatically get their resolve back unless an effect says they do. So, right now, Grown Ax is still down one resolve from the combat. They shuffle up their tactics deck because that's going to be used for skill tests and other things during the exploration, but other stuff like their impulses won't really matter.
Also, you take your character tokens, which are numbered 1 through six, and you create one pile of green, which will be success tokens, and one pile of red, which will be failure tokens. And then you randomize the turn order. And unlike in the encounter, you set the round tracker based on the number of characters. So, this one is balanced based on how many actions you're going to get. So here with me controlling four characters, I'm starting on the fourth round. And just like that was a short encounter in the previous video, this is a short journey. So you'll sometimes have longer, more epic journeys that go up to 12 rounds, although it's 7 to 12, so six rounds if you're playing with four characters. I also have the two token that I got from completing the side objective during the combat. That might be referenced later on. And because I succeeded, I'm starting on card one, whereas if I had failed, I would have started on card 1B. And this is a square card, move around, explore cards. Each card has little interactions on it. Some of them are going to be skill tests, some of them aren't.
Similar to things like Ant Trespass Odyssey, Seventh Continent, Seven Citadel, you get the idea. So, let's uh jump in and see what's going on here. A momentary silence falls over the clearing before the chittering of Thresh and the rustling of other unseen forest creatures return to fill it. The thrill of battle fades, and America's new wounds make themselves known. That was no chance ambush, she says as she begins to bind them, more to herself than to any other survivors. The rancher grown axe pushes himself to unsteady feet. Roadsmen are less rare than ticks in the wildlands, he grumbles. But some of these others carry quality gear. Cabalite stuff. Miracle wonders what a rancher could know of such things, but she must wait to find out for other survivors approach and hell hope awaits to the west. Okay, so it says we gain the one map token as well. Oh, and each of us regains one resolve. So that means Gronax is back to his max. all the rest of them are already there. So, our little party token will be on one location card and on each character's turn, they can take one of a few actions. They can scout one of the sides of the card with numbers, in this case, two or four. That will place a new location card, and we can move to it.
They can do a question mark interaction like the 1.3 here, which always succeeds, but gives you a choice for something that'll happen. Or they can take a chance and do a challenge, 1.1 or 1.2 here, where they'll draw some cards from their deck and try to match up the icons and values needed. And some characters will clearly be better with some of those things than others. All right, so uh let's see who's first. It is Lambic. Lambbeck's not the most armor happy person. And this green icon here is specific to one of Nomman's special abilities. So Lambbeck's not going to have much chance of getting that. Although it is just four movements, so any character might have that. But let's have Lampic investigate 1.3. Two wagons lie not far from the ravaged campsite. In the gloom, it's difficult to tell whether they are still occupied. Could be they lost the road. Gronac says it's hard enough to follow by day and I'd swear it moves around after dark. All right, so we can either approach the wagons or keep to the shadows. I'm not supposed to look at the options. I feel like Lambbeck. I'm not quite sure what he is. I thought he was like a priest, but maybe he's like a possessed guy. He seems to like being around when people die, but let's approach the wagons. All right, if the party has to Oh, we do.
Okay, good. You find remnants of arms and armor, but no sign of the beast that must have drawn the wagons. Both they and any asalants that survived the campsite battle are lost to the forest now. Oh, we had four coins. I guess that's just Lambbe. Since I only have a few of the basic scenarios, I haven't really paid attention to like how the money and all that stuff works. I guess you can share it. I don't think it's full-on gloom haven selfishness style. And then we also gain plot armor one. So, we take the plot armor one token and when we go into the next battle, blink, it's going to cover up the first rounds event. So, we don't have whatever the negative thing is that would happen there. Now, even though Lamek didn't do a challenge or anything, he still draws three cards. Every character is going to do this on their turn basically, no matter what they do. He picks one card to be the card that he quote unquote resolved, and that's going to determine whether he's slow or fast for his next initiative. Then he can optionally put one of the cards on top of his deck, giving him definite information about what it's going to be next time he does an action. And the rest of the cards go on the bottom. So here, uh, here, this one's got two movement cards, so I'll know that Lambeck's going to be good at movement next time. I'll put that on top. And I don't know, I'll say that I resolve the slow card and I'll put this on the bottom of my deck. So just like in combat, he slots in over there. Oh, and sorry. I forgot I'm supposed to mark this with a success. And I use the lowest success token that Lambbe has available. All right. Nomin is clearly especially skilled at doing this one cuz he's the only one who can potentially get a bonus from that green icon. So, he's doing a skill test. In this case, I draw the top three cards of his deck.
But this time, I'm looking for specific stuff. So, I need a card that has four plus movement. And that could be from multiple actions. So, like if uh well, none of these do, but if I had like two move actions, I could combine their values. But additionally, if he has this specific ability showing, which again only he can because uh that's the character that he is, I can gain plus one for the ability or, and I did get lucky here with slip through the cracks, it has a plus one next to it. So, that would count as two. One for the icon itself, one for the bonus. Uh you don't include bonuses that would come from surges or rampages. Those don't matter here. So, actually, he's got a few options. He's got pick up the pace, which is just a four move by itself. And he's got spritly step, which is a three move plus that icon. So that'd be a five for the test. The only wouldn't work is this. But that's got two uh attack icons. That's nice. So I'll put that on top. So I know that Nomomen's got good attack going. I guess I'll use this one and put this one on the bottom. That means that was a fast action. And he gets a success. Oh, where did I put?
Sorry, I moved that to pick up the card. All right. So now I go into this entry 1.2 2 and I read the success version. Among a honeycomb of caves and defiles, one has the trappings of habitation. Barrels, bones, and litter lie scattered around the cave's mouth. This will be one of the roadsmen's hideouts. Nomman says they were a sorry bunch, but they something of value stashed away. And success, you make a brief foray into the cave, but soon realize you won't find much in the darkness. After pocketing what little there is to scrge, you abandon the search. A no man who's already rich gets three more coin. All right, next up is Oh, good. Grown axe. I was going to say, well, actually, America might be better at armor. Well, if we move away like he goes scouting. When you scout, you can see what the location is but not move to it. But that's kind of wasting an action. So, I guess he'll go for defense. I don't remember if he even had any defense cards in his deck. Well, let's see. Nope. At least not this time. Yeah. Oh well. Maybe I should have just left that space. It's not like you have to investigate everything. All right. So, I still have to pick a card to resolve.
No, these are double. So, I guess this one's a double move. So, I'll save that one. So, now Lambic and Grownax are ready to move. And oh, this is an even better move one. Never mind. I'll switch that one in. And I guess I'll save the brutal swipe cuz it's got a plus one attack at least and discard this one. So that means he counted as being fast. But yeah, we're going to read the failure version of this one and mark it with a red token of his. With the musty tents flaring up like kindling, there is little chance of salvaging anything intact. I hope you carried your worldly goods in your packs, America says, since that's all you have left now. But despite her words, the flames beckon. Oh, you feel your hair sing and curl as you duck into the tent. Smoke billows into your eyes and throat. He retreats, sputtering, eyes streaming. Lose one resolve. Ah, man. Which means he's back down to two. And importantly, that means for the rest of this adventure, we might not be able to heal before the battle, but also he's going to be drawing only two cards instead of three for all those turn resolution things. All right. And finally, America, she'll go to move us.
Uh, they said the place we're trying to get to is West the town. So, I guess we'll check out four. So, unless the scouting icon indicates, all you need is a single card that has any movement on it. Um, this one's great with two attacks. So, we'll have her being an attack ready person. Uh, but we'll go and use the steady advance card for her one that she actually played and put that one on the bottom, which means she's also going to be slow. But, we successfully move into four. The ruined westward road soon surrenders its weak claim to mapping the landscape. But other evidence suggests more recent attempts to establish a foothold in this stretch of the wildlands have met with some success. The first dawn shadows begin to prize themselves free of the tallest crystal. Just visible above the snarl of prism leaf and calm grass a few dilapidated windmills. Trudge this way a few times these years passed. Groex mutters though seem those mills were a ways further south then. Old man visit patch one together got it turning for the first time in a hundred years he reckons. As the sun dials the day up a notch. America sees that webs of vines hold the sails in a death grip. How many years passed? She asks under her breath.
All right. So we don't have to move in there. But you know, if we don't reach the town by the end of the thing, we usually have a worse result going into the next mission. All right, so here we can scout again. We've got a attacking and whose skills are those? The eye one is grown ax and the scary face one is lambic. Okay, but wow, a seven attack is tough. Now we can do what's called assisting, which I might want to do here. How it works is when somebody's taking a skill check that requires some of these ability icons, one character who has those icons, although only one, can flip and reveal cards from their deck up to their resolve. And each icon they reveal is plus one to the overall test, but then they discard all the ones they revealed. So maybe I'll consider doing that, but let's have somebody check out, let's see, who's first? Oh, Gronax is first.
Okay, so sure. Let's have him check out 1.13 with his bad resolve. And then maybe if he gets lucky with a card with like one of these, he can put that on top of his deck. Oh, and sorry, very important. It is the fifth round. We only have this round and next round. Old Man Bazette's windmill now plays host to a shrine, venerating a grizzly amalgam of thresh and diodanded, the monstrosity is at least inert, presumably a result of its missing head. Swaved in makeshift vestments, Bazette moves among the incense tapers, flanking the body, intent on keeping them lit. "Ah, Tars," he says to Grownex. "Still out running that affliction, eh? You might try worshiping my altar here." Gil Hammad has a wild gift for growth and renewal. Even in his current condition, he's got the local vegetation sprouting something furious. Alas, though, your timing is an opportune. We piece most of them together over this last year. But my idiot nephew is so far failed to secure the sacred cranium. So, we choose either to help find Gilamad's head or ask for some supplies for your journey.
Honestly, I don't think we have time to help find the head. So, let's do the older one. Ask for some supplies. Consume with his new faith. Bizad has performed no gainful labor for some time, so he has little offer and nothing for free. We pay four gold for an item. I assume. Is that just Gronax or can any of us take advantage? I mean, I'm assuming we can share money with each other. So, I'm going to say Gnomomen pays the five or the four. But Groax can have the actual loot. Oh, and it works well for him. A whip. Move a combatant within your influence to an unoccupied hex adjacent to you. Yeah, since he likes doing big melee attacks. And there we go. Grownx got a win. Good job, buddy. Now, let's look at his two cards. Uh, so neither of them have that icon. I guess I'll put these both on the bottom cuz I don't have to put one. Oh, that's right. I do have to pick one to actually be my action. I'll pick this one. All right. Now, do we want somebody to go for this? America and Nomomen both had pretty good attack cards on top of their decks, but not good enough. And neither Gronax or Lambbe have those icons already on top. By the way, the amount you get for your attacks is your regular potency. So, this would actually be a much easier test if we were playing two-player. Take that for what it will.
Again, I'm not sure about the balance for some of these things, but yeah, in two players, somebody could do this. And if they got like two basic attacks on their card, that'd be eight potency. They'd already be good. Yeah, I don't think we're in a great position with Gronex having less resolve and Lambbeck having a move card on top of his deck to do that one. So, let's ignore it and just scout again. Should we keep going west? This is Nomman's turn, so sure. Man, it does suck because the card I put on top of Nom's deck is super good. Well, I guess I can put it back on top of there. Yeah. So, I got to draw and get a move. Sure, we'll do spritly step. That's pretty bad in general. And I will put the attack one back on top. So, we're moving to five. America senses that the sky serpent has risen. Its presence draws a cold bead down her spine. Man, I have no idea what's going on with the narrative of this one. Like, I feel like there's more stuff than I was supposed to understand. Or maybe it's supposed to be all mysterious. I don't know. She freezes and braces herself against the heat of the serpent's obliterating gaze. The jewel enters Mamaconda's eye. What is this?
The sun? Blinding light washes the whole world clean for the briefest instant before shadows once again pull and reform below the entities that cast them. That's not the Okay. America exhales. She enjoys the thrill of the morning ritual of that moment in which the great quiet calls in its voice of deafening silence. Rejoice. We live to strive another day. Nomen announces. Better luck yet. We find ourselves only a short hop and skip from Hellhop's north gate and a jump yet further from the bottomless tankers of Tea Keeper Tap. Guess we're almost to Hell Hope. That's good. So, wait, is that hell hope? That can't be a hell hope, can it? All right, so we'll move in there. We've got an automatic one. Got a movement one. That's pretty straightforward. What is this? It's just the potency symbol. Sorry, the the rule book is still a prototype and it's still a little bit unclear on these things. I have no idea. Do I just like get my potency without a card for that one? But then both are both of these Yeah, both of these are Lambic. Oh, no, no, sorry. One's Lambic and one's gnomomen. But yeah, that's I don't know. I think I'm going to ignore that. Oh. Uh, so this you'll see is a tougher move. You need to have at least four on the cards to be able to successfully uh scout down there. All right, Lamp picks up. I know he has a really good move on top of his deck. So, let's go ahead and do that one. Oh, now he's got two really good moves. Did he get anything showing that icon? No. So, I mean, if we want to maybe try it, let's say we put that on the or these on the bottom of his deck and just use this one. Well, I really don't think it's worth trying, but we succeeded that. A series of stone bridges arcs out over the serpentile, eventually succumbing to its depths. On the closest, a lantern shines faintly against the dawn light,
while those farther out remain dim. Blame Makanda for the tides, Noman says. When all the lanterns are lit, you've half a chance of crossing undrowned, but that's not happened for as long as I can recall. Best you're likely to get is a view of the Western Bank. Can we succeed? Each bridge you jog across lies lower and more cruy eroded than the last. Eventually, you slow to a walk on what is little more than a reinforced causeway before that too is lost to the water. Peering across the river, you're surprised to see the faint outline of a ship bobbing with the current. A sudden wind whips up around you, threatening to cast you into the serpentile's depths. As you plant your feet, the wind seems to laugh, but you hold firm and it fades with a frustrated whimper. What? What is going on with this world? The world building is definitely interesting. Like, I want to know more about it, but it's confusing. All right. Oh. Oh, I get three coins and plot armor seven. Nice. All right. America is last. Let's have her go ahead and uh do the free one. A trail of blood fades into the calm grass. Hoping to find wounded game, Noman and Gronax cut for sign, but find little evidence of what did the bleeding. There's bootprints enough, Grownax says. But no animal was dressed or dragged out. Could have fled to the tree line or into the shallows. Uh follow the wounded animal to the trees or look to the shadows of trees, I guess. You pick up the blood trail amid the prism leaf. It culminates in a puddle drying out between knots of roots. A rag dyed red lies to one side, a discarded canteen to the other.
Evidently, this blood belong not to an animal, but to a victim of the flux. You tow the canteen. It is wellmade, likely valuable, and you realize bears Cabalite runes in the metal binding. Plot armor 4. Okay, magic canteen going to help us out. Cool. All right, America still needs to pick a card to discard. That's a nice attack card. I don't know how many attack cards we had left at this point. Although, ooh, yeah, if I have her go fast, she's actually going to go first in this turn. So, I'm going to put this movement card on first because if we're not going to do this crazy test, we need to be able to scout. So, that's going on top. And I don't know, I'll pick uh this one as her actual action. And shoot, we are down to the last round. We have not reached the town yet. So, let's go. America's first. She's going to scout with that card I saved. Nice and easy. There we go. She's not getting another turn. Um, so I don't know. I guess I'll leave this one on top in case like somebody else does a healing test before we're there. Oh, wait. I forgot to put her. There we go.
Scraped raw from the scramble over the jagged granite of the switchback. America and her rabble emerge onto a windswept plateau hemmed in between endless prism leaf and the serpentile. Shielding her eyes from the morning glare, she sees distant towers nestled amidst the trees. Hell hope, she says to herself. The only kind of hope there is on this frontier, Noman chuckles. But it's better than nothing. With a knowing wink, he strides away towards a small encampment midway across the plateau. Lampic weighs him off. Apparently, Nomman is done with our shared adventure, he says. I suppose all good things must come to an end. Hey, that's the name of the game, or part of the name. I believe I'll take his advice and seek out Teaeper's Tap. Join me there for a tankered sometime. Oh, I guess. Yeah, looks like we're going to be done. So, I mean, I guess I could refuse to move with America. Have no try this test with I guess lamb. I mean, there's no way we're going to succeed. So, now we're just going, which means Nomman's going to be the actual one to do what I assume is the last encounter. The camp looks to have been here a while. Some of the carts have been baked into the mud up to their axles, while creepers pin several tents to the earth. Half of the largest tent is full to the roof with boxes of freight, while the other side has been decked out with benches and straw mats to form a temporary flap house. An old man stands to greet you.
Welcome to the tale trader. Stranger, stay a while and listen. Okay, listen or tell? Sure, we can listen. Listen to the old man's story. The wizard figure spins a fanciful story about battling deformed giants far to the west in the itcher. No one listening believes him, but you toss a coin for his troubles. Then you stand to take your turn. Uh, no man can pay. He's rich. Okay. Tell a few tales of your own. If the party has won, we do. With your outrage, imbuing your delivery with passion and urgency. The audience laps up your retelling of the battle at the wilderness camp. So that's bow plot armor 8. And if your party is two, always happy to hear of another dead roadsman. Your listeners cheer when you narrate in gruesome detail how thoroughly you crushed your foes. Plot armor 10. Great. You dredge up memories of past des, but on this wild frontier they all seem abstracted, almost unreal. Your erration falters, and your audience soon lose interest. This journey ends.
Progress to the next encounter. The tea keepers tap. It's a bar fight. All right. And kind of like at the end of the encounter, we check afflictions versus achievements. And if our highest value red is greater than our highest value green, which is not the case here because only Grown X has a red and his green is at least equal to it, then that character would get one trauma as well. But here, we're not getting any. And yeah, we shuffle our decks back up and go into the encounter with a ton. I mean, almost half of the 12 rounds, we would be ignoring the plot points for him. So, there you go. That was the adventure phase. Sorry, I got confused a few times there. I've only played through this one once, and it was a partial play. And yeah, clearly I still have some uh confusions about the rules and things. So, what do I think about this? What do I think about the story? I think the actual mechanics are fine. I mean, drawing the cards to do nothing isn't that interesting, but you are potentially setting yourself up for the next round, giving yourself a clear information on what you can do. So, even though it seems a little weird to draw three cards when you're just like moving or doing a little choice encounter, the fact that it gives you some mitigation of your luck in future turns, that's fine. The initiative order feels a little unnecessary, but I mean, you got to have something to organize things.
Using tokens to keep track of what's happened, getting these plot armors to help you in the next encounter. That's all pretty fun. And I always like whether it's Aon Trespass Odyssey, Seventh Continent, 7 Citadel, this game. I like these kind of things where you're exploring the land. And certainly, there seems to be a good amount of replay here, maybe more than in the encounters, cuz I didn't do that one. I didn't do that one. Now, my biggest knock is the exact same knock I have against the combat. It just seems a little bit weird how they're doing the player balance. I mean, this is good. I like that you get uh the same number of actions cuz you kind of saw that you need a certain number of actions to progress in movement. So, if we only had like three rounds with two characters, that'd obviously be pretty silly. But these really high tests, I mean, even with the ability to assist each other, I just don't see how they're possible with a really low potency. I mean, this one would maybe be doable if the turns had worked out so that Gronax was the one going and he got a double attack card since he has three potency instead of two. Then he might have only needed like one assist from I guess Lambbeck. Still luck whether we're going to draw like the one or two cards in his deck that have that icon. So, I don't know. Like the skill test system is okay. Uh when it gets to these really challenging ones, I'm not sure it fully makes sense.
And again, I don't love how the entire balancing is being done for player count. I mean, here it's kind of the opposite. I really think the game works better with three or four characters in the combats. I think here it might feel a little better with only two characters because you can be more successful consistently. As for the actual narrative, I'm not sure yet. I'm really not sure yet. They're thrown a lot of new words and new concepts and the sun doesn't work the way that it usually does and plants are different and you know that's fine. Like I like world building. I like fantastical worlds even when it's like a kind of weird version of our own world. But so far, nothing's been explained. Like, I feel like I'm missing a primer. I feel like I'm missing a glossery to talk me through it. And even the characters, like, I don't really know who these characters are. I don't know why they're together. I mean, it sounds like we're breaking up when we get to the town. So, clearly something's going to happen in the bar fight and that's going to bring us together anyway and give us like probably some greater purpose to go after. I guess they all have like a mysterious past. Like clearly Gronax used to be something besides a farmer and that windmill dude knew him and America's running from something in the east. Maybe that'll probably be fleshed out in the campaign, but at least in this tutorial, these first two encounter adventure sections. I feel much more confused than I am drawn in. I mean, I do think the world is interesting. I just don't know what's going on. I think the writing could be a little bit uh clearer. I mean, I, you know, maybe talk down to the audience a little bit, explain things a bit more, give a bit more exposition. I don't know. Usually, I hate that kind of stuff in writing, but here it might be necessary. So, for me, this is very much a wait and see.
I'm not sure how the final product will turn out or how much I'll like it. But hopefully seeing this in action was enough for y'all to get an idea of whether this might be a game you want to check out. See other previews that might cover other encounters and go deeper into the gameplay. But that's it for me. Hope those videos were helpful and thanks for watching everybody. Special thank you to our biggest Patreon supporters, Matt G, Dan J. William F, Steve Ren, Andrew R, and Chris C.