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You could still have the bluffing! When you grab a card you gain the energy and put it in your hand, then you still get to play them face down for the bluffing aspect. As for overall action economy I figure you would have X 'Buys' per turn that you use to pull cards from the Reserve, then you'd have free reign to place whatever you wanted that you had in hand. You could also limit how many cards you placed in general, or it could be a faction specific thing. Either way if you go with limited Buys and Placements you could have Upgrades in the Reserve which let you increase the limits, or Units that were balanced around changing your limits while they're face up.
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Jun 4, 2015 18:48
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Misandu posted:You could still have the bluffing! When you grab a card you gain the energy and put it in your hand, then you still get to play them face down for the bluffing aspect. As for overall action economy I figure you would have X 'Buys' per turn that you use to pull cards from the Reserve, then you'd have free reign to place whatever you wanted that you had in hand. You could also limit how many cards you placed in general, or it could be a faction specific thing. Either way if you go with limited Buys and Placements you could have Upgrades in the Reserve which let you increase the limits, or Units that were balanced around changing your limits while they're face up. That's really clever actually. It looks like I had misunderstood your mechanic earlier. I'm now almost imagining this as a handbuilder, where you have a common pool of purchaseable cards (ala. Dominion) and then spend actions accumulating troops and then sending them on "missions". For some reason this mechanic gives me a pseudo cyberpunk vibe, and I can't say why... You mind if I play around with this idea and try to come up with something? e: Though on second thought its a little divergent as it does seem to be focused on building an army as opposed to the supply lines for said army. But maybe that's me misunderstanding the concept again and if so I apologize. e2: So brainstorming is taking this game design idea in a totally different direction than I initially anticipated. I'll see where this goes. Anniversary fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Jun 4, 2015 |
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Jun 4, 2015 19:26
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I was thinking of the energy mechanic being an alternative to the supply chain mechanic as your first post listed it as an alternative. Maybe you should try to nail down a couple of the core mechanics? Let me explain how I see what you have right now plus what I'm thinking, I'll even try to include some off the top of my head rules/game flow. Right now I'm imagining your game as being laid out like Smash Up. You pick a Faction and take all of it's cards but instead of making a deck you place the Units and Effects to the side to form your Reserve, and place the Locations in the center to form the places you are going to be contesting (or do whatever you do in this game to set up the locations). Its the first turn of the game and I'm playing the Soldiers. In this example lets say all Factions have 3 Buys unless something says otherwise. We'll use the faction cards I came up with earlier for this part. Misandu posted:Volunteer Militia For my three Buys I'll grab two Volunteer Militia and a Seasoned Soldier. This leaves me with 3 Energy (+6 from Militia, -3 from Soldier). My hand now has those 3 cards and I move onto the Deployment phase. I put a single face down card on two different locations, and end my turn. Now it's your turn. You know that I have 3 Energy and a presence at two locations, but depending on what I've deployed either location could have from 1-3 Power at it. After everyone has taken at least one turn, we add a phase to the game that happens at the end of each turn called the Contest phase. During the Contest phase each side may choose to flip over any face down cards at a location before the Power is totaled there. Once that's done, we do whatever it is your game does to score locations. That's what I had in my head. Feel free to use and iterate on any of this!
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Jun 4, 2015 20:54
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It sounds to me like you're looking for some of the mechanics from Mage Wars. The game had a deck-building aspect which was decent. First you'd select your mage, then you could compile up to 120 points worth of cards, where each card had multiple affinity costs (2 Nature, 1 Fire), and you had to apply a modifier based on your mage's affinity (the Ranger had to pay double for Fire points, the Demon Guy got both Death and Fire at 1x cost, etc...). But the clever part was actually playing it. Each deck represented your spellbook -- your potential pool of actions. Each round you picked two cards from your deck to be in your hand. You could play them face-up for their energy costs, or you could play them face-down for exactly two energy, regardless of what the card was. Cards could have separate costs for flipping face-up depending on their effect (this tile explodes, or that dude has a bad enchantment). Sometimes they were trickier: Decoy gives you back more energy than it cost to play if your opponent causes it to flip face-up (because they Dispel it or something). Any card you didn't play this round goes to a separate pile which goes back into your deck at the end of the next round (meaning you can't have it in your hand every consecutive turn). In practice it's a beautiful system of bluffing and mind-games. How is that face-down card going to affect me? Is it going to be a damage reversal? I think on this round he's going to cast a huge fireball spell, so one of my two cards should be a counterspell. Shoot! He didn't do anything that round, now I don't have counterspell next round. Mage Wars as a whole was a little more time consuming than it was worth (it'd take multiple hours for a two player game if you built your decks right before using them and took time to think about your moves and countermoves), but the deck-picking system and the enchantment revealing system were brilliant. You're forced to think a few moves ahead and include what you think your opponent might do during those turns. Bonus points if you don't quite know what's in their deck (they've used two disenchants, how many did they bring?).
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Jun 4, 2015 21:02
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Hammer Bro. posted:It sounds to me like you're looking for some of the mechanics from Mage Wars. Mage Wars is actually something of a huge inspiration for me as a designer because it manages to take many things I enjoy about a tcg and remove the randomness of a deck. That said, I really dislike the variability on the dice (though supposedly newer expansions have addressed this with cards that provide rerolls?) Though for some reason I thought only enchantments could be played explicitly face down. Looks like I need to go refer to my rule book... That said I generally am trying to design games much less time consuming (and with less dice) but hopefully just as brain burn-y, as the really engaging parts of Mage Wars. Misandu - I keep trying to design around a limited buy system but every time I do I get really wary of how to balance it, because having more units is inherently advantageous for bluffing so cheap units have quite the natural advantage in that sense.
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Jun 4, 2015 22:23
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Yo, another call-out to Seattle goons: this time more than a few hours in advance! Evergreen Tabletop Expo is being held in Tacoma June 20th and 21st, and UnPub is going to have space for designers to show off / test their games. Submission is at this link, and is on a first-come first-serve basis. I've already submitted Behemoth, so expect actual updates about the game along with print n play versions within the next couple weeks. No word back on whether the game's been accepted yet or not, and I have no idea how many slots they have open, so hurry up and submit any games you may have!
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Jun 5, 2015 01:53
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Tell me if this game exists already or if I have an idea on my hands The game is based around barons vying for control of their fief, or garnering favor with the lord. There is one central castle indicated by a hexagonal tile that does nothing. Every turn, a player places a tile and takes an action. These actions are generally spending resources to create towns or develop tiles that their towns control. Each tile has properties such as income, food, or other poo poo I dunno. Each side of a tile can have properties that affect the tile it touches, so if you place a lake, it increases the food value of neighboring tiles. The idea is to make a game where you are creating the board as you play, and each board should be different. You are trying to control as much of the board as you can while denying valuable resources to other players, by strategically placing tiles such that they benefit you but do not benefit your opponents. This is the basic mechanical idea and I want to do this while adding stuff to the game like hidden agendas and ridiculous demands from the overlord. I think what the game idea needs at this point is a way to directly interact with other players.
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Jun 5, 2015 01:57
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signalnoise posted:I think what the game idea needs at this point is a way to directly interact with other players. Its entirely possible that you don't have to do so other than blocking with tile placement. But other ways to do that might be to have Vote actions where all the players have to vote on some referendum that favors players in a certain game position. For some reason I see this almost Civ 5 (PC) -like where you mark control in the locations near your cities and their influence slowly grows to allow you to develop larger and larger cities.
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Jun 5, 2015 03:02
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Anniversary posted:Misandu - I keep trying to design around a limited buy system but every time I do I get really wary of how to balance it, because having more units is inherently advantageous for bluffing so cheap units have quite the natural advantage in that sense. Big units don't lend themselves to bluffing. If you're picking up powerful units you're most likely intending to be using them as a deterrent. It's also worth mentioning that I think it's going to be very difficult to bluff in a game with perfect information/very little randomization. What if you didn't have to reveal your units to score a Location? So instead of flipping over my guys and scoring points, I just go "Okay I beat the threshold here so I gain 2VP." I'm also assuming that Locations are going to be persistent unlike in Smash Up. Now you have to decide whether or not you want to contest me. You know I bought that 10 Power unit but I have two cards in my hand and I'm claiming to score two locations. Is it at the more valuable Location or am I just bluffing my presence there? Actually is this even a problem? I know what you're buying every turn, it should be harder for you to bluff then me. Maybe you could also give each player an Energy Capacity that makes constantly buying Energy Positive Units a waste as they can't hold additional Energy. That way if you decide to flood the board with cheap units over the first few turns you can't suddenly turn that into a surge of massive Units. I would try to balance costs around a 2-3 turn rhythm. Wait actually I just figured it out. So instead of having X Buys, why not just have X Actions in a turn? Say you get 5 Maneuvers a turn. That could be Buying 3 Units and Deploying 2 of them. You could also have Units or Effects that provided additional types of Maneuvers. Maybe 'Mandatory Draft' gives you an additional Buy Maneuver for free each turn, while 'Mobilization Orders' gives you a Deploy Maneuver. They could even be Strategy cards that dictate how you take your actions. So 'Mandatory Draft' sets you to having 4 Buys and 2 Deployments, while 'Mobilization Orders' might limit you to 1 Buy per turn but allow you to Deploy units that are already at Locations. Sorry if that was a little rambling, it ended up very stream of consciousness! As you can imagine I fill up a lot of notebooks with half formed game ideas.
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Jun 5, 2015 16:31
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Misandu posted:Sorry if that was a little rambling, it ended up very stream of consciousness! As you can imagine I fill up a lot of notebooks with half formed game ideas. So I actually mocked up and playtested this game idea last night and the bluffing aspect can be brutal. Though that's partially due to design decisions I made. Specifically how the game flows. Right now I have it so you start the game by assigning units facedown, then you flip them face up, then you buy new units, then you determine who wins on each location based on power, with ties going to no one. I handled income as a fixed earnings per turn, but that's something that I think was in need of adjusting. I played a two player game with only 3 locations, one worth 3VP, one worth 4VP and the final one worth 5VP and played first to 20 points. Testing went well, but there were a couple units that totally defined gameplay strategy which makes me think I may significantly change things for my next playtest. A couple of things in need of possible balancing include: a unit that had an effect when you bought it that allowed you to bounce an assigned unit back to its controllers hand, which made contesting locations more interactive but made that card the most popular one in the game because it let you secure immediate points quite often. Another unit that was problematic let you assign it to a location when you bought it and also got a power buff the first turn. Such on buy effects ended up being very game definingly potent. Though another mechanic that proved really strong is similar to how you envisioned bluffing in your post; it allows you to keep assigned units hidden until the determine control effect and because I had this ability on both the strongest and weakest units in the testing pool it was incredibly useful for bluffing and almost cost me a game. I think I want to stick with the turn order I went with because I like the ability to have on buy effects in the game, but I think I may try balancing the economy next and making it more meaningful. Right now I'm thinking over your suggestions and how I want to approach it but haven't quite come to a decision yet...
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Jun 5, 2015 17:28
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Personally I think you're going to get way more mileage out of bluff plays if you push revealing units back till after purchasing them. Being able to respond to your bluff by invalidating it with that bounce unit is completely counter to the type of game play you're saying that you want. You can still have 'On Buy' effects if recently placed cards haven't been revealed, having them available after you found out you got bluffed is going to remove a lot of tension. It would be like if Texas Hold'em let you un-fold when you found out you were going to win the hand. You already like the game play of the units that perform this way so why not just try the entire game that way.
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Jun 5, 2015 18:49
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This makes me think something. I like the idea of a unit that becomes more powerful (and therefore less believable) every time it successfully bluffs. Like the basic idea is you somehow are projecting 5 power in an area. The opponent can either chicken out (making that unit now 6 power) or they can call bullshit and plow ahead. If an opponent calls your bluff and you don't actually have the power to back up the power projection the unit was "promising" it could bring to bear, then it goes badly for the defender/bluffer and very very well for the attacker. Of course the opposite is also true. If they call a bluff that wasn't a bluff the roles are reversed vis-a-vis who gets wrecked. But I like the idea that bluffing is a one-way street of one-upsmanship that gets both more effective and less believable the longer it goes on. Making bluffers more "powerful" for each success has the effect of bluffing being highly effective but also being a one-way-valve that increases pressure until something gives.
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Jun 5, 2015 23:23
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That could be pretty cool. Every time you score off a face down unit put a counter on it, when it flips it gets more powerful or could even spend the counters for an effect. Could even have powerful units that need to setup and are discarded or bounced if they flip with fewer then X counters.
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Jun 5, 2015 23:59
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 Each hex has values along the edges, and the corners have 1/3 circles of color. Each hex's value as a tile is the sum of its edge bonuses and native value. You can add value to each tile through development. If you manage to create a complete circle of a single color, that confers bonuses/opportunities to all three tiles that makes up that circle. An example of a tile that would have different values along different edges would be a mine, where the entrance to the mine is on one side, and is nothing but mountain on the other sides. The object here is to be the favored heir of the fief lord when he passes (when the game ends). This is done by currying the lord's favor and by controlling more of the countryside. There are three possible values on the edge of each tile: money, food, and magic. City tiles confer no edge bonuses, but you must control a city to get the bonuses from the tiles that surround it. Money allows you to buy upgrades to tiles, which are noted by blocks set between the city and its surrounding tiles along the edge, like a road in Catan. Food allows you to curry favor with the locals, which will spread your influence. Magic is needed to play cards, which have effects that shake up the game. Food is important because you generate militia every turn in each city you own equal to the food value of the surrounding tiles, and you can use them to establish your dominance in a tile. Militia are all equally skilled so you win a fight if you bring more dudes than the garrison. For example, if the enemy has 3 militia on a tile and you bring 5, you clear away the garrison and place your 2 remaining militia on the tile, establishing it as yours. How's this sounding so far?
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Jun 6, 2015 01:29
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CodfishCartographer posted:Yo, another call-out to Seattle goons: this time more than a few hours in advance! Evergreen Tabletop Expo is being held in Tacoma June 20th and 21st, and UnPub is going to have space for designers to show off / test their games. Submission is at this link, and is on a first-come first-serve basis. I've already submitted Behemoth, so expect actual updates about the game along with print n play versions within the next couple weeks. No word back on whether the game's been accepted yet or not, and I have no idea how many slots they have open, so hurry up and submit any games you may have! I submitted one, Though knowing there's probably not going to be time to play two, I'm now wondering if I should submit my other untested game instead (feint wars). I feel like it's going to be crappy to play, but I need other people to get a feel for how this game will work and before I move on with it. Edit: Oh, I wasn't paying attention, I thought this was a just a free meet up like the last one, and I somehow missed this was a convention with admission fee. Only $10, but I have plans so I'd only be able to be there for the afternoon on Sunday. Foolster41 fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Jun 6, 2015 |
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Jun 6, 2015 04:31
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I'm chewing on ideas for a semi cooperative game, somewhere between BSG and Robinson Crusoe, with a pirates theme. Ideally, it would fill about an hour of playtime, a niche that doesn't have much going for it yet in the semi co-op PvE genre Each player takes a role on the pirate ship, with a loyalty card. One player is the Captain, who is in charge. This is both a good and a bad thing. They're the one in charge of primary decision making about who to send on piracy missions, Resistance style. I'm thinking resolution is card based. The traitor is trying to subtly sabotage the group, but they could be the Captain or one of the crew. When the group is ready to declare who they think the traitor is, they must (other than the suspect) unanimously or near unanimously agree to Maroon them, which removes them from the next several missions and a position of power. ... that's all I've got so far.
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Jun 7, 2015 11:57
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I'd be wary about marooning, since it sucks to not be involved with the game. If the turns are quick enough it wouldn't be too bad though.
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Jun 7, 2015 12:44
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chaos rhames posted:I'd be wary about marooning, since it sucks to not be involved with the game. If the turns are quick enough it wouldn't be too bad though. Other thoughts I had: Destiny deck like BSG is mandatory in order to provide the traitor plausible deniability. The object of the game might be to get treasure from an ancient Aztec temple before the crew mutinies, the privateers arrive, or supplies run out. There could be different possible traitors, who each want the pirates to lose in a different way, and with a reveal effect that helps that. A native who wants enough NPC pirates killed by the temple that they turn tail and run, a spy for another country that wants the Captain caught by the fuzz, etc. girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Jun 7, 2015 |
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Jun 7, 2015 16:19
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Lately I've been infatuated with Mahjong, the aesthetic of block-based wargames, Chinese stories like Water Margin, and Koei strategy games. I've also always loved Dread, a role-playing game played entirely with a Jenga tower. I've been preoccupied with ways of combining elements from Mahjong into an empire building game. So in Mahjong there are 3 suits of 9 tiles in 4 sets equaling 108 "simple" tiles. The sets are circles/barrels, bamboo, and the 萬 (wan) character which usually represents 10,000. Everybody has a hand of tiles, there's a face-down draw pile (the wall) and a face up discard pile (reserves) and a bag (haven't thought up of a name for this yet) which are usually available to everyone to draw from. Armies on the board are represented by colored cube markers, they're not an indication of strength. So when units come into conflict you go into a little mini-game. The attacker (going first) and defender take turns drawing 1 tile, discard 1 tile, then forming a meld (tactics). Melds in Poker equivalence are three-of-a-kind (pong), four-of-a-kind (kong), straight (chow), or pair (eyes). The melds are unique ways in which you attack: pong represents a simple attack. You can form a kong directly from your hand (an ambush) or place a tile on top of an already formed pong (reinforcements). Chows are unique in that if you can form one from an opponent's reinforcement then you steal that tile (defection). An eye represents irregulars and can't be further modified: however, if your last play is an eye (Mahjong!) then you automatically win the combat (total route). Winner is determined by who has the most tiles played but you both earn victory points based on how well you did (combat superiority). For example an ambush is worth more points than an attack because it's harder to pull off while a flush (all of your tiles are of the same suit) is worth even more points. So even if you lose ground you may still come out ahead, perhaps this represents a tactical retreat after dealing a decisive blow to a superior army. In any case, the winner and loser choose one meld to keep and discard the rest. The winner draws up to hand size from the reserves, wall, or bag then the loser draws up from the reserves or wall (but not the bag). It sounds overblown for simply resolving combat but I want to create a game that's played primarily with a complete standard Chinese Mahjong set. So each tile has a use across the entire game. Like the circles represent provisions (rice and coins), the bamboo represents resources/infrastructure, and the 萬 character represents workforce. So outside of combat they can represent feeding your population, constructing buildings, or growing cities respectively. You'll still be melding tiles to accomplish actions and your melds determine how effective those actions are. I can foresee a Catan-like situation where all the good stuff is out of reach so the big design challenge is creating some means of cycling through tiles but more importantly having multiple viable ways to achieve victory points. These Chinese stories are all about people making do in the face of famine and betrayal. I want to reward "going with the flow." Luck is a factor in the strategies available but you're rewarded for smart set matching. Mahjong also has honor and flower tiles which could be entirely separate from the simple tiles so there's a lot to think about here. And of course I've got to create a solid terminology for everything. I strongly believe in good terminology, it helps with teaching and you can explain entire actions in few words.
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Jun 7, 2015 18:24
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Misandu posted:Personally I think you're going to get way more mileage out of bluff plays if you push revealing units back till after purchasing them. Being able to respond to your bluff by invalidating it with that bounce unit is completely counter to the type of game play you're saying that you want. You can still have 'On Buy' effects if recently placed cards haven't been revealed, having them available after you found out you got bluffed is going to remove a lot of tension. It would be like if Texas Hold'em let you un-fold when you found out you were going to win the hand. You already like the game play of the units that perform this way so why not just try the entire game that way. signalnoise posted:How's this sounding so far? Sounds pretty interesting! What resources are you thinking of having other that food and how do they interact. al-azad posted:Lately I've been infatuated with Mahjong, the aesthetic of block-based wargames, Chinese stories like Water Margin, and Koei strategy games. I've also always loved Dread, a role-playing game played entirely with a Jenga tower. I've been preoccupied with ways of combining elements from Mahjong into an empire building game.
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Jun 8, 2015 02:42
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Anniversary posted:I think what I'm going to do is place the keyword that does exactly that on more units but keep the fundamental rules the same. Because I like the ability to interact with the game state this provides, but I also think you're right that extending the bluffs is better and I don't see any reason why I can't have the best of both worlds with the rules as they are as long as I design around it? I mean you can design around anything, I just think that you would need 50%+ of the cards to be Bluffers in order for a player to really reliably get mileage out of Bluffing in a game where your opponent has close to perfect information. Then if you have that many cards that operate that way, why not just make cards that can't be used to bluff the exception? Could you give an example of how you nearly lost due to a bluff? Right now we're just discussing theory, a more concrete example might help us work out the strengths and weaknesses of the design in question. I'm having a hard time envisioning a situation where my response to an opponent's bluff play isn't just to assume the strongest unit is at the place I actually care about.
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Jun 9, 2015 19:56
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Misandu posted:I mean you can design around anything, I just think that you would need 50%+ of the cards to be Bluffers in order for a player to really reliably get mileage out of Bluffing in a game where your opponent has close to perfect information. Then if you have that many cards that operate that way, why not just make cards that can't be used to bluff the exception? It was actually me assuming my opponent had made their play knowing what I knew when I bounced one of their units that almost cost me the game (it was actual a tie on points that pushed the game beyond the game end point, but I won on a tiebreaker). They had units on every location and I only had units on two, but needed to win the 4 point location to tie them. They had a face down unit on the 4 point and the 5 point location. I assumed they had played their face down's after knowing how I was playing, so it would seem logical to me, with all the info I had available, for them to have played the face down that would assure them victory on the 4 point location and the weak one on the 5 point, as that way they would be guaranteed a win if I didn't bounce them off of the 4 point location. So that's what I did, and I ended up bouncing their weak unit needlessly. So even with only two face down units it was enough to persuade me into a misplay. Twist Ending: My opponent had accidentally revealed one of their face down units so I knew which was where. But I was trying to make choices as if I didn't because it was the last round of playtesting I was going to be able to get in at the time and I didn't want to win off of them accidentally cheating in my favor. That said I've gone through and now I'm giving the face down mechanic (currently called Discreet) to most units, to the point that not having it is being used as a balancing tool. I think I like to do it this way, if only because it's my understanding that its usually held that it's more fun to have a mechanic that has a positive effect than one that has a drawback. e: Hopefully that all makes sense. Anniversary fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Jun 9, 2015 |
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Jun 9, 2015 20:13
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Well you didn't actually misplay in that situation. Misplaying would be not bouncing the Unit at 4VP and taking a coin flip on whether or not you lost the game. In the situation that you described the correct play 100% of the time would be to bounce the unit at 4VP and stay in the game another round. It sounds like the Bounce Unit might be a bit too strong though, if taking it and guessing incorrectly didn't hinder you enough to put you behind on the next turn. The big thing though is why are you making your game more complicated for no reason? You currently have the game set up so that all units flip face up before you buy Units, then most of your cards have text on them that contradicts this. It would be like saying that you had to pay 1 VP to play a Unit and then giving them all a keyword that says actually this unit can be played without paying 1 VP. Why not just say that units flip after buying except for Obvious units, who have to be played face up?
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Jun 10, 2015 16:09
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Misandu posted:Why not just say that units flip after buying except for Obvious units, who have to be played face up? You make a really compelling point. It does needlessly complicate things, but as a designer I really, really appreciate the design space it opens up. That said, I'm going to keep a very close eye on it during testing and see if it is as much of an issue as I'm now worried it might be in actual play. (I'm also checking with the person I've done preliminary playtesting with if it was one of the things that tripped them up, as there were a few things that needed more clarification than my initial explanation provided and I can't remember if discreet was one of them.) Right now there is a difference between playing a unit face up right away (which is a separate mechanic called Reckless right now) and revealing it before the buy phase. Though I haven't created many units with Reckless as its such a swingy thing, you need the unit to be strong, but you need to preserve the importance of bluffing so you've got to make them good, but not so good that you can just load up on them and ignore the bluffing portion of the game. And sorry if I seem obstinate on some of these things Misandru, I really, really appreciate all the feedback! I'm just trying to figure out how best to incorporate it into my vision and, ultimately, deciding if my vision needs to change to make a better game. Misandu posted:Well you didn't actually misplay in that situation. Misplaying would be not bouncing the Unit at 4VP and taking a coin flip on whether or not you lost the game. In the situation that you described the correct play 100% of the time would be to bounce the unit at 4VP and stay in the game another round. It sounds like the Bounce Unit might be a bit too strong though, if taking it and guessing incorrectly didn't hinder you enough to put you behind on the next turn. Anniversary fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Jun 10, 2015 |
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Jun 10, 2015 16:30
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I'm guessing the game is played in Rounds? As in I place Units then you place Units then we move onto Revealing Units, then I buy Units then you buy Units? So currently you have 3 distinct places where Units on the board get revealed. Immediately when played which is Reckless. During Reveal which is the default. And then after Buying which is Discreet. So at a given point in time each player can have two different types of Face Down cards that they will need to check the type of before revealing. That's going to slow down play and lead to players making mistakes ("poo poo wait he has discreet pretend you didn't see that"/"why didn't you flip that one over it doesn't have discreet" "oh, oops"). If the game is played in Turns (I do all my stuff, you do yours, we compare strength at Locations) then there's literally no difference between Reckless and regular Units. I guess I can see what you're going for I just don't think it realistically matters? Remember that I watched you do your Buys last turn, I know every Unit you could be playing this turn and I'm going to use that information to inform my decisions. You don't need more fiddly places to reveal units, what you need is mechanics that actually punish me for guessing wrong. Keeping Units hidden while I'm placing mine is only meaningful if there's a reason besides claiming Locations for me to base my plays on. There needs to be a reason I don't want to just play my big Units to the valuable Locations other then "I might have more Power there" because I have perfect information of everything you have acquired. I can just mirror your buys 1:1 and make the game come down to complete guesswork with Buy effects like Bounce if I want to. Alternatively if Reckless/normal Units are cheaper then their Discreet counterparts why am I even engaging with your bluffing? I will just play my Units openly and beat you via efficiency. In either case, keeping a Unit Face Down while I place the rest of mine is mostly meaningless.
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Jun 10, 2015 19:40
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Misandu posted:I'm guessing the game is played in Rounds? Oops. I should have explained this earlier, so I can totally see where the confusion is coming from. The game is played in Rounds, but each Round is broken down a little more that you assumed. Excluding Reckless units (which may be a design dead end, as I've said I haven't tested if they're worth the hassle.) You go through each of the following phases with each player taking one turn, then passing to the next player, etc. until it comes back to them when they play a second unit. (So once you've placed a unit you don't place a second unit until all other players have placed a first unit or chosen to pass.) This same procedure is used during the buy phase (you make one buy, then an opponent makes one buy, etc.) Also start player rotates at the end of each Round, as getting to place/buy last is a pretty big advantage just from the additional information you have available. The following Round summary ignores Reckless units (because, again, I haven't fully incorporated them yet): First you assign Assets in your HQ (hand) to locations face down. (Taking turns placing one unit at a time until all players have placed or passed). Then you reveal most Assets (excepting those with the Discreet keyword). Then you can buy new Assets, placing them at your HQ. (Some of which have on purchase effects). (Taking turns buying one unit at a time until all players have made a buy or passed). Then you reveal all Assets (including those with the Discreet keyword). Then you determine which player has the highest power in each location and they score that location. Then you return all assigned Assets to their owners HQ. Misandu posted:You don't need more fiddly places to reveal units, what you need is mechanics that actually punish me for guessing wrong. Keeping Units hidden while I'm placing mine is only meaningful if there's a reason besides claiming Locations for me to base my plays on. There needs to be a reason I don't want to just play my big Units to the valuable Locations other then "I might have more Power there" because I have perfect information of everything you have acquired. I can just mirror your buys 1:1 and make the game come down to complete guesswork with Buy effects like Bounce if I want to. Alternatively if Reckless/normal Units are cheaper then their Discreet counterparts why am I even engaging with your bluffing? I will just play my Units openly and beat you via efficiency. In either case, keeping a Unit Face Down while I place the rest of mine is mostly meaningless. That said I'm definitely looking into more ways to punish incorrect guesses. I have a few composed but they're definitely on the fiddly side right now, so they'll likely be cut/refined after my next round of playtesting.
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Jun 10, 2015 20:14
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quote:That said I'm definitely looking into more ways to punish incorrect guesses. I have a few composed but they're definitely on the fiddly side right now, so they'll likely be cut/refined after my next round of playtesting. Just some food for thought that you might find interesting, from a game I was working on a while back (it had a lot of other stuff going on, but this is the relevant stuff): In each battle there's two sides, an attacker and defender. You play units from your hand into your pile, normally face down. The attacker starts by playing 1 unit and naming an attack value (he can lie). The opponent then plays two units (again, normally face down) and must claim an attack value higher than the other player. Then the attacker plays two units, and then the defender plays a final unit (so each person has 3 cards total). Then you flip over cards and compare strength to decide who wins. However, at each stage, you can also call a bluff to have your opponent reveal their cards. If they meet their stated attack value they win, otherwise they lose. The other twist is that some units have different values for how strong they are during buildup vs. how strong they are in a revealed conflict. Thematically, I tried to have this be like "effective sneaky raid units" vs. "open battle units". I also had some cards that were played face up (or, at least, had 0 strength if not played face up). Then there were other units that had particular powers when revealed, or that had an additional effect if they won via bluff, or an additional affect when played face up (ie. they would challenge another unit, meaning the opponent had to reveal their top card or whatever). Essentially it's Liar's Dice - but with some card based variety that made it feel more thematic. Worked out OK.
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Jun 10, 2015 20:39
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Once again I think that your normal Units are the least interesting as it stands. They're only hidden during placement and once you get past 2 players you are going to run into a problem of placement taking long enough that people need to double check their face down cards. You're including that for the robust design space of revealing cards after placement but before people buy cards, most of which have no impact on the cards that were just revealed. Reckless Units have a very clear drawback, they get to be more powerful because everyone gets to see them right away when you place them. They can have their cost adjusted to match that they signal your intentions very clearly. They also have the quirk of being explicitly better for the last player in the round, as that player will have an opportunity to place a Reckless Unit while no one can place a Unit in response. It's hard to design in a vacuum so lets make up some rules. I'm going to say that every player gets 10 Energy per turn, and that you only flip over Discreet Units if there's at least one opponent's Unit is at your Location. Now let's make some cards. pre:Sneaky Thief - Discreet Cost 2 Power 1 If Sneaky Thief is Face Down at the end of your turn, Reveal it to gain 2 Energy. Powerful Sentry - Reckless Cost 4 Power 4 Units cannot be played Face Down to Powerful Sentry's Location. Ambush Troops - Discreet Cost 4 Power 3 +2 Power if you have a Reckless Unit at this Location. Covert Operatives - Discreet Cost 3 Power 3 Demolitions Expert - Discreet Cost 2 Power 0 When Revealed, Destroy this Unit and another Unit at this Location. Bounce Guy - Reckless Cost 4 Power 1 On Purchase: Return a Unit to it's owner's HQ. Junior Agent - Discreet Cost 1 Power 1 You may flip this Face Up instead of Buying a Unit. If Junior Agent flips Face Up before the Contest Stage, it gains +1 Power. Land Surveyor - Reckless Cost 3 Power 2 This Location is worth +1 VP this turn. Advanced Scout - Discreet Cost 3 Power 2 On Purchase: Flip a Unit Face Up. Misandu fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Jun 11, 2015 |
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Jun 11, 2015 16:41
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Misandu posted:The idea is that on average you can buy 2-4 Units per turn. Things like Sneaky Thief punish opponents for leaving you uncontested, while Demolitions Expert allows you to isolate and destroy powerful units that are giving you problems. Powerful Sentry and Ambush Troops are a powerful combo when you play them together, but also serve to bait traps. Even just buying a single Sneaky Thief or Demolitions Expert makes calling your bluffs much more difficult, while Junior Agents are helpful to conceal your true intentions. If I buy 2 Covert Operatives a Demolitions Expert and 2 Junior Agents then how do you assess a Location with 2 Face Down cards? I really enjoy your designs! Though you left off the effect on Junior Agent so I'm not sure how that combo is meant to work, but I really like where you going with that. But in general this has given me a much better idea of what your suggestions have been towards and I see a great deal of design synchronicity here! One quick question, in your rules once you've assigned a unit does it stay where you've assigned it? Because right now in my design I have it so that at the end of the contest phase you return all units to the HQ. If it would help I can share more concrete examples of what I've designed so far as that may make it easier to focus advice/criticism? jmzero posted:Just some food for thought that you might find interesting, from a game I was working on a while back (it had a lot of other stuff going on, but this is the relevant stuff): This is a really cool idea! Why did you stop working on it? Anniversary fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Jun 11, 2015 |
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Jun 11, 2015 19:09
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Woops sorry got distracted while I was reworking it. It's supposed to get more powerful if it reveals early, the idea being that you buy say two of them with another card and then place two of them causing opponents a headache trying to figure out what you've got in play. I think to give any more relevant feedback you would have to at least post how the game flows, what Units are available, and how much you get to spend per turn. I think getting to redeploy your Units each turn might be interesting but again, adds a lot of complication. I would argue that given how much control players currently have over the game between the Bounce Unit and redeploying every turn that your game is currently MUCH more about making correct purchases and remembering what your opponent has bought then it is about any sort of bluffing. Here's a question though, what if every turn I just buy the two biggest Units I can afford and place them on 4 and 5? In your current version of the game what's the counter play to that?
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Jun 11, 2015 20:09
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quote:This is a really cool idea! Why did you stop working on it? A large part of the problem was that it was a design that needed a lot of playtesting, and was difficult to playtest because it absolutely required 4 people. A little more info, since I guess this is the game design thread: it was an "early Game of Thrones" themed game (never intended for any sort of distribution) where each player played one of four houses. Each player got a deck of house specific cards (Rob Stark, Khal Drogo or whatever) as well as taking some generic units (some gained during the game) to round out their decks (and replace units lost, since losing a battle was permadeath). The game is played 2v2 as Lannister+ally house (chosen secretly and randomly from the other 3, with Lannister not knowing who their ally is to start) vs. the other two remaining houses. The gameplay involved a series of 1v1 battles, each over a location card (which contributed resources and/or VP) culminating in the Iron Throne. The Lannister player has a better deck than the other houses, but has to fight every round against 1 house that is decided upon by the other 3 players (eg. Stark says they have a good hand ready, so the other players vote to let them fight the Lannisters this round). When a house doesn't fight, they use the turn to improve their deck and tune their hand; this means that normally the players will alternate, so that they have their best cards ready. However, it also means that sometimes they'll end up letting the traitor house fight. Fights use the Liar's Dice fight mechanic from above. Lastly, before a battle the players must send a raven to and get a raven from the Lannisters (chosen from a set list of messages, and kept secret by the receiving player) - houses might say things like, "my forces will be weak" or something, but the messages are vague enough to leave some room for misunderstandings (ie. they're not amenable to specific performances, like "call my bluff on turn 1").
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Jun 11, 2015 21:15
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So expect a new print and play version of Behemoth sometimes (late) tomorrow. Got all the cards mocked up and about a third of the rulebook written, since my last one was a piece of garbage and there have been significant changes anyways. All I gotta do is finish writing the rulebook and then slap together a print n play version. Gunna try my hardest to have it available before Saturday.
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Jun 12, 2015 07:08
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CodfishCartographer posted:So expect a new print and play version of Behemoth sometimes (late) tomorrow. Got all the cards mocked up and about a third of the rulebook written, since my last one was a piece of garbage and there have been significant changes anyways. All I gotta do is finish writing the rulebook and then slap together a print n play version. Gunna try my hardest to have it available before Saturday. Looking forward to it!
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Jun 12, 2015 15:29
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Are there solo play rules? I might try to set up a Tabletop Simulator module for the game like I did with Final Attack.
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Jun 12, 2015 16:17
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Poison Mushroom posted:Are there solo play rules? There aren’t any solo rules yet - I’ve retooled it to be semi-coop rather than pure coop. Players earn VP (taking cards off the top of the Behemoth deck) primarily through dealing damage, and they need to kill the Behemoth (the Behemoth deck runs out of cards) within a limited number of turns. Whoever has the most VPs at the end wins, as they did the most work for killing the Behemoth and thus get the most glory for it. If players can’t kill the Behemoth in time,all players lose as the Behemoth retreats. There actually isn’t even a way to die in the current version: if you take damage, you lose VP by placing them on top of the Behemoth Deck, thus elongating the fight. I mean, you could definitely play solo, but I haven’t done any balancing or testing towards that yet so no clue how difficult / interesting that would be. That being said, a Tabletop module for it would be amazing! Might want to wait until I get some more play testing done though, since the new version is pretty fresh and hasn’t had a lot of time for me to play with it yet.
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Jun 12, 2015 17:26
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TS is also the only way I can really economically play the game, without a decent printer. I'll make it work.
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Jun 13, 2015 07:32
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Well it took me until 3am (and the forums refused to load when I was done, so hopefully I haven't missed everyone's game days for testing), but here it is! Click here for the pdf for the newest version of Behemoth. Curious how to play? You can find the rules here! Disclaimer: I haven't had much time to test this new version, so balance may be out of whack. I'll be testing it with my group this weekend, so if you'd rather wait for after I hammer it out a bit that's fine. I'd appreciate as much feedback as I can get, though - on both the game and the rules I've written. Granted I wrote most of them between 1-3am, but I'm pretty sure I haven't left out anything important and that everything should make sense. The only thing I know is a little bit off between the rules and the cards is that Enraged Cards have a number on them in the print and play, whereas the rules show them as not having it - ignore this number in the print and play. I realized I shouldn't have this number AFTER I'd spent several hours getting all the cards made and then compiled into a pdf.  I'll get it fixed to be more clear within a couple days.Let me know if anything is unclear or confusing and I'll try to fix it right away.
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Jun 13, 2015 19:06
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CodfishCartographer posted:Well it took me until 3am (and the forums refused to load when I was done, so hopefully I haven't missed everyone's game days for testing), but here it is! Click here for the pdf for the newest version of Behemoth. Curious how to play? You can find the rules here! So thoughts from reading everything over: What does speed up by 2 on Encouraging Banner mean? (I assume it moves you on the turn tracker back 2?) Jumping Strike lets you speed up one attack as a unique feature right? (The wording of if you discard it to another attack was a little confusing, I initially read it as their are other reasons to discard to power an attack for some reason.) Normally you redraw to 6 when you run out of cards right? This seems to make Potion a little redundant unless there's more drawback there I'm missing. All-in-all I really like this redux of your initial design. Can't wait to hear how testing goes!
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Jun 13, 2015 20:38
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Anniversary posted:So thoughts from reading everything over: What does speed up by 2 on Encouraging Banner mean? (I assume it moves you on the turn tracker back 2?) Jumping Strike lets you speed up one attack as a unique feature right? (The wording of if you discard it to another attack was a little confusing, I initially read it as their are other reasons to discard to power an attack for some reason.) Normally you redraw to 6 when you run out of cards right? This seems to make Potion a little redundant unless there's more drawback there I'm missing. Oops, I guess I forgot that bit in the rules. Yes, whenever a card tells you to Speed by a number, you move back towards the start of the Timer Track by the designated amount, following the same rules as Delay (skip over other markers, etc). Jumping Strike on its own doesn't speed up other cards, but other Sword and Shield cards allow you to discard cards from hand for bonuses. If Jumping Strike is discarded this way, then yes you Speed up by 1. I can see how the wording is weird, I'll rewrite it to be more clear in the next version. E: Shield Bash works the same way: if you discard it through another cards effect, it provides an addition bonus CodfishCartographer fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Jun 13, 2015 |
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Jun 13, 2015 21:26
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You should include a version number in the rules, too, so anyone who's downloading them knows they've got the most current version. Edit Also, the rules imply, but don't directly state, that you should place the Behemoth cards face-down. girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Jun 13, 2015 |
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Jun 13, 2015 21:37
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