The author of Wand of Odin monitors this list. I know for sure, because he's me. :)
Excellent. Well, I tried out Wand of Odin, and I have a lot of comments, questions, and suggestions. If I repeat anything someone else has already said, I apologize.
My first suggestion is wherever one of the world names or Art names are mentioned, that you put the suit in parenthesis, such as Alfheim (crowns) and Stealth (moons). This allows one to read a rule or example without a lot of flipping back... "Which suit was Niflheim again?"
It was unclear to me what you meant by "only placements with legal orthogonal movement paths are legal". Take the seemingly (at least to me) possible board configuration below. In this example, a * represents a sun, a C represents a moon, a ^ represents a crown, and a ! represents the suit of Arms. I'm using the numberal "0" to represent a blank.
!0 C0
*0 ^0 ^1
*1 ^3 ^2
*2 *3 *4
Now, obviously, this board configuration shouldn't be possible, as there is
no place to put the ^4 (4 of Crowns) tile. But to me, that configuration
has "legal orthogonal movement paths". Perhaps that rule to should be
clarified, or maybe I need to brush up on my math terms or something. Or
maybe that example *is* legal... I'm just not sure, from the rules as written.
(As a quick aside, I assume if we remove the ^3 from the example above, that not only is the above legal, but it is possible for the Questor to move from Asgard (suns) to Alfheim (crowns) by going from the *4 to the ^2, but that a moving, woken critter won't do that -- they only change worlds in the complex of blank tiles.)
Okay, while we're talking about tile placement, I assume it's possible to build up a "queue" of tiles that haven't been placed. That is, for example, you draw a 3 of Arms on your first turn, and can't place it, as it doesn't go next to 0. And then you draw a 2 of Arms, and can't place that either. Now you have two tiles with sleeping creatures on them. Then you draw the 1 of Arms. You put that next to the blank, and then the other two go down as well, yes?
I'm also a touch confused by the rules that call on sleeping critters. According to the rules: "If a critter is called for by the tile placement rules, and neither critters nor chips are available, the nearest sleeping critter is called to the scene, and awakened."
Now, another example. At the start of the game, there are six critters. I draw a 5 of Arms. A sleeping critter is put on that tile and the tile is put aside. Then the 4 of Arms is drawn. Another critter gone. Then the 4 of Arms is drawn, then the 3 of Arms, then the 5 of Suns, and then the 4 of Suns. So, we're out of critters, and we have six "lost" tiles. Then we draw the 5 of Crowns. Well, the rules call for a sleeping critter to be placed there. We don't have any spare parts, so we need to move the nearest critter to the scene and wake them... but which one is nearest? After all, the critters are on lost, legendary lands that have yet to come to light. They're not near or far to *anything* yet. (This happened to me, by the way, so it isn't 100% theorhetical.)
Okay, after reading them a couple times, I understood the conflict rules. I had a question: If I defeat a sleeping creature by Guile, and they don't have a Shard, do they persue? I haven't tricked anything awayfrom them, so they don't have a reason to chase the Questor, so do they go back to sleep? The rules only say what to do if you use Guile to trick the monster into giving away its Shard.
While I'm at it, I should probably mention my 2nd edition Mesomorph piecepack uses a sworl for a coin with a value of 1, so you may want to remove the "if you cheaped out like I did" comment. (And while I'm talking about coins, I agree with the other poster who said it's less confusing if you say "coin" rather than "chip", tho I think chip is a valid synonym, since I'd hardly consider the tiles to be chips. Plus, the term "coin" emphasizes the "treasure" nature of sworl coins and the Shard (blank) coins.)
Also, I was unclear on some things in the "Treasure" section: When using a Shard to re-roll a die, it doesn't matter if the Shard is the same suit as the die being rolled, right? It might be good to explicitly note this, since the suit is so important otherwise.
Another thing: When you use a Shard for a re-roll, you always put it under the die re-rolled, right? Since the rule for putting the Shard coin under the die is right after you mention that a re-rolled blank is good and not bad, some people might think you put the Shard under the die ONLY if you roll a blank. Or was that the intent? I wasn't sure.
In addition, if you start with a blank, and re-roll with a Shard, and you roll a blank -- do you keep it or re-roll, since you're supposed to re-roll if you match the old value... but a new blank isn't really the same "value" as the old blank (depends on how you look at it), so I wasn't sure what to do in that situation...
Going away from the things that confused me, you may want to have an optional point-buy rule, where instead of rolling the four dice, a player gets X number of points (14, say) and can divide them between the four Arts as he chooses, max of 5, minimum of 0 (blank), setting the dice appropriately. You roll as normal when using a Shard or dying. I bring this up not because as a roleplayer I prefer point-buy systems, but because I noticed that if you, say, roll all ones, your best strategy is to get yourself killed so you can re-roll everything. It might be nice if the Great Champion wasn't guaranteed instant death from the get-go...
And a final suggestion: I notice that while the idea is to save the world, that you actually can't fail. Eventually, through luck or strategy, you will get all four Shards and win the game, excepting, I guess, a critter that has all four Shards and is supreme in every Art. It would be nice if there was some sort of optional rule that allowed for the chance for the world to end before the Questor finishes. That is, a way to "lose". Perhaps you only get so many "lives" (the traditional "three lives" of a video game, perhaps, or some number important in Nordic myth) and after the Questor dies that many times, then the world is swallowed up by chaos. (This also prevents the rather twinkish strategy I mention above.) Or perhaps some highly unlikely critter configuration indicates the end, like a critter with all the sworls. ("The birth of such an unfit creature heralded the end of the world...")
Anyway, I really liked Wand of Odin, so I hope you take all my suggestions in the vein. I just wanted to make sure the rules were as clear as possible, so that one can just pick up the rules and play.
-Loki