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So, I've been dabbling with board game design on and off for about two years, but haven't completed any major projects. I recently started up a new project I think has some potential, and would like some input if anyone is willing to post any! The initial design idea I wanted to explore was "What if there was a strategy game where all players can control the same units?" I have a basic gameplay system laid down, but it's not really enough to carry a game on it's own, so I'm looking for advice on how to flesh it out. I won't go into all of the nitty gritty details, but will list the general game design. The design I came up with is a light strategy game for about 2-4 players with lots of units on the board (which right now is just a simple grid, I haven't decided how I want to flesh it out yet). Thematically, each player is a demon lord that is sending spirits to possess humans (right now my theme is having the humans be high school students, but this could change) on earth in order to cause chaos - whichever demon lord causes the most chaos over the course of the game is declared the winner. The units on the board represent humans, and are represented as such by dice of four different colors - blue, red, green, and purple. The value on each unit die signifies that specific unit's health, and the color represents the clique that the unit belongs to. Each clique (color) has an info card, and will determine what stats units belonging to it has - movement, health, defense, attack, and bonus. Furthermore, each info card details the relationships between the cliques - as units attack against or alongside each other, the relationships between their cliques will deteriorate or improve. Clique relationships will provide bonuses to their respective units when interacting with units of other cliques - units that hate one another get bonuses for attack each other, and units that like each other gain bonuses for attacking in a gang together. At the start of the game, 4 units of each clique are placed on the board, and at the start of their turn each player adds 4 new random units to the board. Each player has a pool of spirit dice, that determine how many units they can control on their turn, and what colors those units may be - the spirit dice use the same dice as units, but are placed off the board in front of each player. On their turn, a player can control one unit for each spirit die they have, and they may only take control of a unit of the same color as the die. So if a player has 2 red dice and 3 green dice, they can control up to 2 red units and 3 green units. The player controls those units for their turn - they can move all their controllable units, and then they can attack with all those units. When a player kills a unit, they remove that unit die from the board and add it to their spirit dice pool with a value of 3, or may instead increase the value of one of their current spirit dice to 6. The specific value of each spirit die represents the player's spirit points. A player may spend 6 points in order to gain a chaos token - and then sacrifices all dice used to pay for this. After the pool of units that players place at the beginning of their turn runs out, the game is over and whichever player has the most chaos tokens is the winner. That's the basic game, and I've been toying with various other systems within the game to flesh it out more, as there isn't much player interaction. My current plan is to have spirit cards - at the start of a player's turn, they draw cards up to the number and color of spirit dice they have, and each card can be used to buff your units (or units that other players are fighting) in battle. Cards would be discarded on your turn in order to take control of units, or saved in order to be played during battle on your turn or on another player's turn. Cards would also have a cost value, that the player would need to pay with spirit points in order to use for combat, or even to take control of a unit of a different color on their turn. I'm not super happy with the card system to promote player interaction, as I know it can be frustrating to always be going into combat not knowing if the enemy player could completely gently caress you over or not - but that is pretty chaotic, which is something the game is more or less trying to promote. Another idea is to have each card also be able to be placed to create a new objective, which could award spirit points, dice, or chaos tokens - and have it so that any player can complete them. The problem I've run into with this is coming up with a variety of objectives - since each player only controls units temporarily, it's difficult to create long-term goals. Most of the objectives would likely result in 'kill x units of y color' or 'get x units of y color to map location z' Basically, I feel like I need to add more resources or objectives to the game, but I'm not entirely sure how to go about doing it with the base system. Oh, and sorry for dumping so much text!
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Nov 26, 2013 00:27
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Thanks for the recommendations. T&E and Kemet both sound like they're close to what I'm going for, so I'll definitely check out both of them. Kemet in particular sounds like the kind of experience I'm looking for - relatively fast-paced with very fleeting control over the board with extraordinarily expendable units. I do want to encourage players to consider the board state they're leaving, though - I think the fact that if all players have access to the same units then you could very easily purposefully lose fights, move to awkward locations on the board, or any other 'bad' strategic decisions in order to shoot the NEXT player in the foot by sticking him in a lovely position. That was my initial goal with toying with objective ideas - you could try to predict which objectives the enemy would go for, and then choose an objective that would put the units in a position that's favorable to you and unfavorable to an opponent. However, it doesn't feel nearly as good to just gently caress over other players as it does to do something productive for yourself, and I found in the few playtests I've done that players (myself included) would rarely ever take those kind of positions - granted the playtests weren't done with any objectives, but still. It most definitely was a series of solitaire puzzles - and while sometimes the puzzle was 'how can I get points without leaving the board in a position for the next guy to get a lot of points?" it usually was just "how can I get the most points?" So I'm certainly hoping to find a way to remedy that.
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Nov 26, 2013 18:23
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Well, while I'm working on straightening out the design for the game a bit more, I figure I may as well bring up two other projects I've worked on - one to get some advice on, and another just to see what you guys think. Hopefully it'll spur a little bit more conversation, as I'm sad I didn't find this thread a year ago when it was bustling. The first originated from the idea of making a strategy game with very few units for each player, rather than a huge army. The system I came up with was each player has three units - a warrior, a mage, and a rogue. Before the game begins, each player selects skillsets for each of their units. So one player's rogue might have an assassination skillset, while the other would have a trapping skillset. The skillsets are where the complexity of the game comes in, as there would be maybe a dozen or so different skillsets for each of the three units. It's up to players to select interesting combinations that complement one another. I've run into a couple issues. The first is that strategic choices are relatively limited once gameplay's gotten going. Selecting complementary skillsets is fun and interesting, but since there aren't many units on the board things get pretty samey pretty quickly. I took a lot of effort to give each class a specific role - mage is for dealing damage, warrior is for defending your units, and rogue is for hindering enemy units - all of the skillsets for each class more or less fulfill these roles. This created some more interesting choices (do I take out their mage, which is the biggest damage threat? or their rogue, which is making life difficult for me), but not really enough I feel. The board is just a simple 7x7 grid, and combat is the sole driving force of the game right now - there aren't any resources to manage aside from unit health and position. I'm not entirely sure if I even want to add resource management, as I enjoy the chess-like aspect of unit selection and positioning being the most important part of the game. The next issue is that once a player is behind, it's very hard to catch up. If a player loses one of their units, they are at a huge disadvantage, and will generally only win if the enemy makes a mistake. The combat and damage system works off of (custom-made) dice-rolls, so there is potential for (un)lucky rolls to even the playing field, but then it'd just relying on luck which isn't much better. My solution to this and the previous issue would be having really short, fast-paced games that focus primarily on the pre-game of drafting skillsets just as much as the game itself, but I'm not sure how well that would go over. Alternatively, increasing the number of units on the board (either by adding more classes of skillsets, or by maybe allowing players to have multiples of the already existing classes) The last issue with this game is that a lot of the interesting effects and abilities are done with counters - and as such, this game would be SWIMMING in tokens and upkeep throughout gameplay. I found that adding a 'timer' to these tokens as well as imposing a limit helped players remember them better: each unit can only have 3 counters on it, and as new ones are added (and at the start of each unit's turn) the counters move one space in the queue, pushing out old counters. This helped the issue, but didn't really solve it. Any suggestions for possible fixes? ------ The next game is one I've just recently come up with, after wanting to make something with a real-time aspect, and a high amount of player politics. The theme is that each player is a politician, riding around on Boston's subway system trying to win approval from the city's citizens. During the day, players travel around the city completing objectives via the city's four main subway lines. Completing objectives gives the player resources - money, supply, or approval - players have a physical time limit in order to complete as many objectives as possible, while also returning to their 'home' station. Any players that don't return to their home station by the time limit will have to lose some of the resources they gathered that day. Then at night, players auction over control of stations, beneficial items, and enacting new ordinances using the resources they gathered during the day - all of these can help them earn or hinder the other players during the following day. Money is used to pay subway fare in order to move around, supply is used to build and upgrade stations, and approval is essentially victory points. Like I mentioned, the daytime phase takes place during real-time. Players move about the board by physically moving train pieces along the lines to pick their player piece up at a station, and then move both to the station they're trying to get to. But each line only has one train at the start, so players may wind up having to wait for others to finish riding. The objectives are simple 'get to this station' goals, that may require a payment, and then reward the player with a resource. Objectives are drawn from a deck of cards and laid out on the table for anyone to complete, but there is 1 fewer objectives than there are players. To further promote player politics, approval tokens are a zero-sum game: the total number of approval tokens are divided equally at the start of the game, and then whenever a player earns tokens, they take them from other players. This is done Ladies-and-Gentlemen-style of peeking under face-down tokens to see what each token's value is. Approval tokens can be worth anywhere from 0-3 approval, and since they're only taken during the day (which has a time limit) it's up to the players to decide if they wanna just grab a 1 token, or spend the time searching for a 3 token that a player may not even have. I haven't run into any major design potholes with this game, which is kind of what worries me - is there something obviously wrong with the design so far that I'm missing? Obviously I haven't gone into too much detail on stuff, but thoughts on the idea would be appreciated.
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Dec 2, 2013 21:43
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Morholt posted:If the game is a foregone conclusion as soon as one player loses a character, maybe that should be the objective of the game? I thought about that as a possibility, but didn't think too much on it. Now that you mention it, it actually sounds like it might work out rather well. My main concern with this is that I'd be worried the game would just turn into "Who can burn down the weakest enemy fastest?" But then I suppose it opens up some interesting play with having to put forth effort to effectively protect weakened units while still forming an offensive. Also form a thematic standpoint it doesn't make much sense - just because you lose one unit, why do the others immediately concede? Crackbone posted:General thoughts: I kind of like the idea of action points being separate from the units - it might be a little tricky to work into the system, but I could probably make it happen. Right now, the system is that before gameplay begins players decide which order their units will take, alternating between the players. So Player 1 might move his warrior first, then Player 2 could move her rogue, then Player 1 might move his rogue, then Player 2 chose to move her Mage, etc. This turn order then loops, and is static for the rest of the game. The thought behind this process was to ensure players don't just move all three units at once to instantly focus down one enemy, and to also add a bit of strategy to drafting the turn order - Player 1 will move their mage first, so I may want to put my Rogue immediately after that to keep his other units from being able to support the mage he just moved. The action points idea has got me thinking that maybe instead of drafting individual turns, it would always goes Player 1 then Player 2, and they choose which unit they want to use on that turn. My only problem with that is that players might just only choose one or two units to use every turn, only using the other one or two units in specific niche situations. Or would that be more my responsibility to design each class to constantly be in use all the time? I really like the idea of each unit only being able to have 1 token on it at a time. I'll definitely make that change, and rework the balance to fit into it. I don't absolutely NEED dice for the combat, but I think it works well. Originally I just had flat damage values for abilities, but it just turned into a puzzle of figuring out the most effective numbers, and I found dice fixed that and also made the game more exciting overall. I don't necessarily mind having an aspect of luck in the game, and the design of the dice right now mean they don't have a big swing on the game. Each die reads 0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3 - designating the number of 'hits', with each hit dealing 1 damage. So a skill could deal 1+2d damage, where it deals a base of 1 damage, and then the user rolls two dice - say they come up as 4, so then the total damage is 5. I have the math for the expected damage values written down on another computer, so unfortunately I don't have them right now. The aspect of luck can create close comebacks, but overall I think the winner comes down far more to strategy than it does who rolls highest. However, the idea of using cards for battle does add in more choices during gameplay, so I'll probably put forth some more thought towards them. I dunno how much I like the added complexity, though. Right now each ability does have a maximum range, to force positioning - also, units have pretty limited movement. Abilities aren't limited to direction facing, though. Which is an interesting idea that I've wanted to mess with - a hex strategy game with very limiting ranges of effects. I might rework the current system to be hex-based so I can get more advanced ranges and areas of effects. It would probably also require a reworking of movement so that the direction a unit faces is actually taken into account, as right now unit direction isn't even a thing.
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Dec 3, 2013 18:53
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Crackbone posted:IMO losing after the first character dies means everybody's immediate instinct will be to burn down a single character, and you're going to have a hell of a time fixing that in design. Even if you fix the game so that it's not the best option, it's going to make people frustrated that it's not. Fighting against a player's instinct oftentimes results in them having a bad play experience. Hmm, but what would be an easy way to signify the remaining activations, which unit hasn't been activated yet, etc? I'm assuming a round would be P1 Activation 1, P2 Activation 1, P1A2, P2A2, P1A3, P2A3, then would start up a new round, looping back to P1A1. My original idea for showing turn order would have players placing icons representing their units on a turn order tracker at the side of the board at the start of the game. Would I just have players update this tracker at the start of each round? Have them update it as each round plays out? Either seems like a tad bit of a hassle of upkeep. I like the idea as a way of dealing with the problem of falling behind, but not sure how to go about implementing it. I'm still not sure if it would entirely fix the issue (as each class has a very distinct role, so losing it would limit player options) but it will absolutely help it - maybe it would help it enough to not even be THAT big of a problem. Also I'll absolutely start reworking things to be a hex grid rather than squares, and then work in direction as well. Do you have any good examples of games that deal with hex and unit directions well?
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Dec 3, 2013 19:45
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Triskelli posted:I need two things: While it may not look very pretty, Dwarf Fortress has a pretty robust and realistic map generator that can create a disgustingly huge continent (world?) map that even runs through a simulated history to try and give the place as realistic a feel as possible. While DF may just be done with ASCII art, there are tons of different texture packs available - I assume they work with the map generator, but I don't really know THAT much about them. It might be a good place to start. I don't know a whole lot about Diplomacy, but I'd be happy to add input on any rules that you come up with.
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Dec 9, 2013 16:06
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Can anyone post some stuff on print and play games? I'm wanting to make a simple one as a portfolio piece, but haven't messed around with them much so I'm not sure what are some good examples of the genre.
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Dec 12, 2013 19:14
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I love me some drafting aspects in games, so it does sound interesting. So let me get this straight to make sure I understand - each card represents some kind of unit in a war, and also has a suit + value like poker cards. The usefulness of the unit is inversely proportional to the value of the card itself - so a King could be a puny little footsoldier, whereas a 3 could be a fighter jet - is this correct? And you bet with your health tokens, so players may have to choose between winning a bet for more health token, or taking a unit to be more useful later on once combat starts? This could be an interesting decision, but my initial worry about this would be players just betting really low amounts in order to play it safe, and only go after more powerful units rather than higher ranked cards - as those have more strength in the long-run. Your system for discouraging folding (letting players who haven't folded keep drafting cards) could be really risky. What's stopping a player from just going all-in on a sure-fire hand? If a player folds, then they're getting punished by giving the other tons of free cards. If he doesn't, then he's basically giving up all of his health before the fight even begins. I really really like the idea of gambling with your health points, but you need to be really careful with it. This is something you should probably get playtesting soon, as I could see it becoming an issue - being able to fold is an important part of poker, and limiting that is a huge design decision. As for the second phase, it seems a LOT like MTG. Instead of mana you have cash, and instead of tapping you have ready markers (which function the same as tapping, just with more upkeep). The only other major difference is that there's only one 'main phase' but most MTG players play their cards on the second main phase anyways, so it's not even that large of a change. Really, your second phase is almost exactly the same as MTG, just with only one type of mana and more hassle with dealing with tapped cards. I like your limit of only having 5 "mana" to spend per turn, and I think having such a limited resource pool could lead to some interesting decisions and strategies, but I think you should maybe try to rework the primary system to be a bit more separate from magic. The two phases also seem a bit disconnected at first, but thinking more about it the fact that you're gambling your life points and building your army may provide enough of a link between the two. I want to suggest having them a bit more directly related, like maybe having the card value or suit have some kind of effect in the second phase, but that could devalue trying to pick a good hand in the first phase, which already sounds like it might be a problem - so it might be best not to propagate that further.
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Dec 13, 2013 18:45
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Yay, xopods is back  On the topic of decks of cards, what would you say is "too many" cards for a single deck? I know it's generally best to avoid having a million decks of cards, but how big should a deck be before a designer starts considering cutting down the size of it? I'm designing a board game based on traveling on Boston's subway lines (I talked about it some on last page) and cards are used to give players objectives and things to buy. I'm planning on having two decks - one for objectives, and then one for things to auction over and for random events. However, I feel like the second might be getting too beefy and may wind up going well past 60. Would it be better to trim it down to 60, or try to pad it up to 100? Or would 100 be too much?
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Dec 20, 2013 22:30
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Are the fart cards there to fake people out?
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Jan 2, 2014 16:43
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I think I'd support making the starting hands asymmetrical, but not sure how that could work with the nature of the game. Always having the same starting cards means players could just work stuff out like xopods did. I like the idea of passing a hand around and trying to figure out who swapped what cards, but I'm not sure how I feel about the current setup? Have you tried having the first player start with maybe 3-5 water cards? Could complicate things just a bit more so that first round isn't quite so obvious. Also, since you don't look at the cards before panicking, what's the reasoning behind panicking besides pure chance calculation? I haven't playtested the game yet, but I'd imagine that it'd be more interesting to try and work out in your head who may have pooped in the jacuzzi based off of the current hand after you've seen it, rather than just guessing.
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Jan 2, 2014 18:41
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Thematically, wouldn't it make the most sense for players to NOT want to poop in the pool, but if they do then instead blame it on another player? It seems like right now players want to poop as much as they can, without being caught. What I'm thinking is players are dealt a hand of, say, 4 random pool toy cards, and then the Jacuzzi starts as 6 random toys. There would be various types of toys, each worth different amounts of points. The first player swaps a card (or maybe has the option to add a toy to the Jacuzzi from a central deck) to try and eventually get 4 of the same toy. The first player then adds a poop card (worth negative points) to his personal hand and passes the Jacuzzi on. This would mean the game would start pretty tame with players just trying to get specific toys, but as the game goes on it'll be more and more likely that someone will try to get rid of a poop card, since if you wait too long and get too many poops you won't earn any points at all. If someone gets all 4 of the same toy, maybe they can reveal it to instantly cash in those points, but then lose points for each poop card. Or when someone notices a poop card, they can panic and accuse someone - since everyone's had the same number of turns, you know how many poops they SHOULD have. If they're short one, then you earn points for all of your toy cards, regardless of whether or not they're the same. If you're wrong, then the person you accused would earn their points. The major downside I could see to this system is it waters down your theme some (  ) and with big groups of players, it'd be more difficult to try and figure out who took what cards since the last information you had on the Jacuzzi was 4-5 turns old, so you'd still kinda have the problem of it being more of a guess as to who dropped the duke, but at least there's be more choices to the primary game. Players would still want to get rid of poop, but pooping in the Jacuzzi wouldn't be their primary goal, and would be fairly risky. But accusing another player could be risky as well.
CodfishCartographer fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Jan 2, 2014 |
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Jan 2, 2014 20:52
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The Leper Colon V posted:It's also a bit complicated. Part of what I like about Jacuzzipoop as-is is that you can fit the rules on a business card. I guess, but that's probably just cus I always wind up vomiting up too many words. Essentially it's just "swap cards from a central hand to try and get 4 of the same card to score points, but each turn you get poop cards worth negative points - try to get rid of your poops without getting caught"
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Jan 2, 2014 22:05
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I really like the idea of adding in characters to play as. Seems like a really elegant way to maybe address some of the concerns shown in the thread so far (assuming that the playtest doesn't wind up proving all those concerns as pointless)
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Jan 3, 2014 18:18
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If I remember Hot Tub Time Machine correctly, there's nothing wrong with some dudes hanging out in a hot tub naked together, if none of them make a big deal out of it. Just some guys enjoying a hot tub, relax bro. Alternatively: who says they aren't wearing underwear? I really love ridiculous themes like this. On one of the Shut Up and Sit Down podcasts, they talk about their ideal themes, and I think Paul mentions wanting a gardening board game. I think he was trying to state the most boring theme he could think of, but it got me thinking about what the single most boring theme in a game could be. Filing paperwork, maybe?
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Jan 4, 2014 00:16
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So to get away from poop-talk: I'm planning on entering the monthly game design contest, and was looking for some input on the idea I've got so far. Basically, it's a fairly simple storytelling party game for 3+ players (although I guess 2 players could work). The idea is that all players are making wishes using magical Monkey's Paws. Each player gets a hand of 5 standard playing cards, and on their turn places one down and makes a 'wish'. They can wish for anything, but the idea is to try and come up with a wish that won't backfire in some ironic way. All of the other players, after one player makes a wish, can place down a card of equal or higher value to the wisher's card, and then that player will tell how the person's wish backfires on them. If someone does say how a wish will backfire (and the group decides it isn't something stupid, and actually makes sense) then that player earns points equal to the card he played, and the card that the person making the wish played. The person who gave the backfire will then return the card he played to his hand, but the wishing player's card is placed into a discard pile. If a player makes a wish and nobody challenges it, then that player earns double the point value of the card she played, and then her card is added to the discard pile. Play continues until all players are out of cards in their hands, or until someone reaches X points (35-50?). Face cards are worth 10 points each, but when it comes to 'playing higher value cards' then 10>J>Q>K. Ace is valued at 11. The suit of each card represents what KIND of wish you make, or in what way the wish backfires.  = Selfless wish. This is a wish that has to benefit someone else, and cannot directly benefit the wishing player. If a hearts card is played to backfire another wish, then that backfire has to directly harm someone besides the wishing player. = Greedy wish. This is a wish that has to directly benefit the wishing player. If used as a backfire, then that backfire has to somehow directly take something away from the wishing player. = Malicious wish. This is a wish that has to directly harm someone besides the wishing player. If used as a backfire, then that backfire has to cause direct harm to the wishing player. = ??? I haven't gotten a good idea for another theme of wishes yet.Right now, there are a few things I'm unsure of. First off is figuring out what kind of wish restriction clubs will have. Second, is the restrictions on playing a backfire card. Right now I have it so only ONE person can play a backfire card on a wishing player, and whichever player puts their card down first is the one who gets the opportunity to suggest a backfire. I'm debating if I want it so multiple other players can suggest ways for the wish to backfire, and then the group (or maybe just the wishing player) decides on which backfire suggestion is best. Limiting it to one player adds a sense of a time limit, making the game more tense, but having multiple suggestions could lead to more creative and funny results (but also longer turns). Any input on the specific problems I'm having, or just questions / comments in general would be greatly appreciated.
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Jan 6, 2014 05:37
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A real time game where players all take multiple turns at the same time might work well. Think like Escape: The Curse of the Temple. If everyone is all under a time limit and trying to get their own poo poo done, then it could be easier to risk doing an 'obvious' poor play because people would be distracted by their own actions and needs. The panic and time limit could then also be used for plausible deniability. The fact that players would need to look out for traitors while also completing their task would add an interesting element, I feel. I dunno if it'd really be a dexterity game, aside from the fact that all real-time games od have an element of dexterity to them.
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Feb 3, 2014 18:49
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I think it could work, if the game was designed around it. It would require a careful balance of needing to concentrate on your own tasks, but having enough wiggle room or downtime to pay attention to others. If each player's puzzle was somehow related to other players - for example, in order to begin a task, a player needs the person before them to complete their task. So when Player A completes his task, he passes something to Player B that allows Player B to start a new task. If Player B finished his task way faster than Player A, he'd have time to observe / encourage / berate other players. Then once Player A finishes his task, Player B can begin on his next one. Could create a group dynamic because if one player is underperforming, it's causing the entire team to suffer as the time delay works its way down the chain - Player C is waiting for Player B, and Player B is waiting for Player A. Could give some options to 'accidentally' screw over the group by performing poorly, but would run the risk that the more you try to screw over everyone (aka the traitor's goal) the more time people will have to observe you and potentially realize you're a traitor.
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Feb 3, 2014 19:07
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The Leper Colon V posted:...I don't know. You could make it so you have a bit of wiggle room for above quota. If you hit quota, nothing happens. If you get 1-2 over quota, you get an extra ration as a reward. If you get 3 or above, then you lose a ration due to not needing them. Alternatively, you could reward extra fully completed tanks over quota, but punish partially completed ones. So for every 2 extra tanks you make over quota you'll get an extra ration, but if ever there's an uncompleted tank above quota, you lose a ration instead for wasting resources. Could give players a reward for making extra tanks, but then they would run the risk of 4/5 of the players completing their parts, leaving an unfinished tank and thus costing a ration. Would provide for some funny bits of everyone yelling at each other for loving things up. I think there might be some merit to maybe not having player/specific colors on the tokens? Then it wouldn't be super obvious that Green player is usually the one who's behind on parts. Instead it'd be up to players to try to figure out "okay, we're getting low on parts kinda often, who is usually in the building group when that happens?" e: Another idea that may not be appropriate for this game but may spark some ideas: players could maybe submit their completed parts in secret, so each player wouldn't know how many parts each other player completed. Do I go for one tank over quota for a bonus? But if no one else does, then I'd wind up costing us. Player B has a really hard hand to create, should I try to make extra parts to make up for his probably failure? But what if he gets lucky and pulls it off? CodfishCartographer fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Feb 5, 2014 |
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Feb 5, 2014 03:07
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So a friend of mine made a joke suggestion to me that I should make a Monster Hunter board game, and after thinking about it I think it could have some potential as an idea. It'd be a cooperative game of players working together to try and take down one big monster that has lots of breakable parts. My initial idea would be the monster being a board, with cardboard bits placed on top of it that can be removed to show parts breaking. Players would take turns doing actions (healing, attacking, gathering, carving, etc) and then the monster would also take actions (attacking players). I haven't thought of individual combat mechanics, but I think it could probably work out. Variance would come from different monsters behaving differently, and with different weapons/armors giving different advantages or playstyle. I guess the primary challenge for keeping it entertaining would be ensuring that the actual combat itself is fun and engaging. Choice of what to actually do with your turn would need to be important as well, essentially turning the game into a resource management puzzle while trying to deal with a rampaging wyvern - low on stamina, which hinders my attacks and means I can't take certain actions so I need to eat some cooked meat - I'm out of meat, so I need to kill a small fodder monster so gather some, but risk taking damage while doing so if the monster decides to attack me - can another player give me some meat, but then we'd BOTH risk getting hit in order to speed up the process, etc.
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Feb 6, 2014 22:00
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The Leper Colon V posted:I really like the idea of the monster actually being the board. That' a very interesting use of the genre. I'm not sure if I want the monster to be the board, or just a board that is placed onto another to represent the map. My initial idea was just having the monster be a board, that players add/remove tokens and pieces to (cut off tail, so remove that piece - damage the wings, so place on a piece that shows the wings being damaged, etc. I didn't intend for player pieces to be placed onto the monster board, but that could be a possibility for players grappling the monster or something similar) but then that could limit some of the non-combat choices. If I'm out of healing potions, I'll need to gather herbs in order to make more. If there was a map board, then it could be that Area 7 is the nearest one with herbs in it, so I'll have to go there to gather them. I suppose it could just work without a map board in that I'd need to spend an action turn to gather herbs, or maybe spend one to search for them, then if successful spend another to gather.
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Feb 6, 2014 22:38
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Hmm, I suppose that could also work! Right now my plan is that each player has a pool of dice (or maybe just tokens) that represent their stamina, that they use to perform actions and regenerate over time. If gathering was an action, you'd then sacrifice, say, 1 stamina die in order to gather herbs. The risk for that would be that if the monster decides to attack you, then you'll have 1 less stamina die to roll in order to try and dodge the monster's attack. Or does that sound too much time-wastey? If it's just a pool of let's say 10 herbs for all players to take, and you could just throw them into your inventory (that would have limited space) on your turn, then the decision wouldn't be based on "how much will this benefit me for the risk of me getting hurt?" and more based on "how much will this benefit me for the risk of loving over a teammate later on?"
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Feb 6, 2014 23:04
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Yeah, I suppose when you put it that way that makes a lot of sense. I definitely want resource management to be a big part of the game, along with inventory management. So right now the plan is the monster will be a big board in the center of all the players. The image of the monster will be divided up into individual body parts (head, body, legs, wings, tail, etc) that can have tokens and other cardboard pieces overlaid on top of to show their status. Each body part would have a health value, an attack value, and a defense value, that would be altered by attacking that individual piece. Each player will have a status card showing their current health, stamina, and what's in all their inventory. There is also a pool of various resources that players can choose to add to their inventory on their turn. On a player's turn, they can take two of the following actions: attack the monster, use an item, or craft an item. If you attack a monster, you choose a body part and then how many stamina dice you want to roll (they would likely be 6-sided, but not valued 1-6, maybe 0,1,1,2,2,3). If you match the body part's defense value, then you deal damage to the monster equal to how many dice you rolled and then set aside the dice you rolled. When a part takes damage, place a damage counter onto that part and then reduce the monster's total health (kept track of on the board) by the dealt amount. When a part gets enough damage counters, then it is broken and players place the broken body piece on top of the old one. If you use an item, you discard it from your inventory and its effect activates. If you craft an item, then you discard two items from your inventory and gain another - player cards would have a combination chart to show what combinations are available. When you've taken both of your actions, your turn is over. After a player's turn, the monster gets a turn. It attacks a player (at random? have some simple formula for choosing?) by drawing a card to see what attack the monster will use. Different attacks will have a number to beat in order to evade the attack - players then grab however many stamina dice they want to use to attempt to dodge, and then roll those dice to try and meet the evade number. If they fail to match that, then they are hit by the attack and take damage equal to the listed value (often it will be the attack of a specific body part). After the monster makes an attack, it's the next player's turn. At the start of every turn (both player and monster) each player may move one stamina die from their used pool to their available pool. If players can reduce the monster's total health to 0, they win! If a player dies, they respawn with full health but with a lower maximum stamina pool on their next turn. If there are three deaths over the course of the hunt, then the players lose the game. e: Things I still need to work out: -How do monsters decide who to attack? -I want to introduce small monsters, but not entirely sure how. They'd likely be small tokens that could be drawn at random, and would attack along with the big monster if the players don't deal with them. Can probably carve meat off them to increase available/maximum stamina. -Probably a million more things I can't think of at the moment. Any feedback? CodfishCartographer fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Feb 6, 2014 |
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Feb 6, 2014 23:49
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Actually that just gives me an idea of how to deal with who the monster will attack. Players will have player pieces, and will move the piece to whichever body part they want to attack. On its turn, the monster will turn to face the next player whose turn it is - then the card will determine which body part the monster will attack with, and any players near it will have to try to evade it. So if you know the tail deals lots of damage and don't want to risk getting hit by it, then move so that you won't be in a position to get hit by it if the monster decides to swing its tail - since you know the monster will turn to face the next player, you can predict where the monster will face, but not necessarily where it'll attack.
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Feb 7, 2014 00:05
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So, working a bit more on the monster hunter game. I figure I could work in little monsters by having some Big Monster attack cards instead be event things that happen, like 3 small monsters show up, or the monster changes areas and thus some of the resource supply gets replenished. Small monsters would attack whenever the Big Monster does, but would be pretty easy to kill and deal small amounts of damage. The players could ignore them, but their damage could add up over time. Another system I think would work would be a rage mode - at various points along a monster's life bar, it'll go into rage mode, allowing it to draw two attack cards every turn for a full round. Some monsters would go into it more often than others, but it will always get more frequent as monsters get closer to death. I'm a little iffy on players rolling dice for actions, since four players with maybe 10 dice each to manage would mean a shitload of dice. Cards would be the next-most-obvious choice, but they aren't quite as all-purpose as dice are for what I have in mind? And I was thinking that maybe each specific monster could have its own deck of attack cards to make them each feel really unique, so more cards would just be overkill as I'm already hesitant on having a ton of decks anyways.
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Feb 7, 2014 03:43
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Gutter Owl posted:The worst thing about following this thread: Encountering the most exciting, ludicrous game concepts, and knowing that it will be available to really play in maybe a few years at best, if ever. Haha thanks for the encouragement. I'm working on the design doc now, and I figure it can probably be easy enough to get a downloadable version people could playtest, if I work it to just use standard d6s or something. It'll probably take me a week or so to get everything designed out, maybe longer? I'll let the thread know when I've got a playable version ready to test.
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Feb 7, 2014 16:28
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Tunga posted:Yeah, it's probably best to just info dump everything you have right now. Yeah this. It's up to you how much you want to get into theme, but generally whatever you think is necessary for us to provide feedback. If you have a four-page backstory to your game's world we probably don't need to know that, but knowing theme can help come up with some creative solutions to problems you may be having. Unrelated to that, but I've run into a teensy problem with the Monster Hunter game. I decided to rework how monsters' turns work a bit. I realized that them turning to face players in a sequence would just lead to the monsters spinning around wildly, and would make for some weird calculations of "okay, in four turns I'll be near the tail, which is dangerous!" So I decided it'd work best with an aggro system. There would be a pool of 10ish aggro tokens divided evenly between players, and as players deal damage they take those tokens from other players. Then when it's the monster's turn, they'll face the player with the most aggro. They won't necessarily attack that player, as the drawn attack card determines which direction and body part they'll attack with, but each monster will have a general theme - one monster will have lots of attacks facing forwards, one will have lots of attacks to the side, etc. the problem I have with this right now is it adds another layer of upkeep, and I'm a bit worried I might have too much. When a player attacks, they'll roll their attack dice to see how much damage they deal. They then move the monster's health tracker, add damage tokens to the body part they attacked, and then grab aggro tokens. Does this sound like too much work for each attack?
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Feb 7, 2014 22:09
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I like the idea of having one agro marker to move around, but I think the revealing different aggro levels by moving damage markers is probably a better fit. I dunno why something like that hadn't occurred to me. It would work, but runs into a problem when there's no more breakable parts left (or when players attack a part that is already broken). Right now the design uses damage tokens to mark how damaged an individual body part of a monster is. When it hits a certain threshold, the body part gets broken and the damage tokens are removed, then the broken part overlay for that part is placed on top of the monster board. Having them cover aggro levels could certainly work with this, as players could choose how those tokens get distributed to help remove aggro from weakened players, but then they aren't used for anything after that - since if players are attacking a body part that is already broken (or unbreakable) then they wouldn't place damage tokens onto it. The monster also has a separate track of its health, represented by a meter on the monster's status card that players move a marker along as they deal damage to the monster. The idea behind this is so that players can just damage the monster by attacking whatever they want or think is important at the time, as opposed to having to break everything overall. Maybe it could work that instead of moving a marker along a track, players place their damage markers onto the card to cover up stages of its health when they attack an already broken or unbreakable body part, and when all of the monster's health gets covered then it's dead. My only problem with this idea is that when a player has already given away all their damage tokens, what are they going to do? Unless there's an item players can use to refill some of their damage tokens...
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Feb 7, 2014 23:48
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At first I kinda liked the idea of using an item to refill damage tokens (whetstones), but then that would lead that item to having two very different uses - one to be able to deal more damage, and one to reset aggro. I'm getting close to being able to an initial basic playtest the game's system, so I'll definitely try different things and see what sticks and what doesn't. Or, random idea while typing this out: player cards could have two different 'tracks' that damage counters can be placed over - one that covers aggro, and one that allows the tokens to be placed on their reverse side, which would give a bonus to attacking. So players could decide whether to reduce aggro when they get damage tokens returned, or they could deal more damage. Although that does provide a bit of a weird thing in that players generate more aggro by dealing less damage? gently caress, I dunno.
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Feb 8, 2014 00:12
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Okay whew glad I'm not the only one.
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Feb 8, 2014 17:20
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Not entirely sure how I feel about purely static damage, as I like having it be a bit swingy at times. I'll of course try to balance the dice so it won't be super random or anything. I recently got an idea to replace the aggro system entirely by having each attack card from the monster list a priority of which player the monster will face before it attacks. Red player, then blue player, then green, etc. Each card would be unique, so one fire breath may face red, while another may face yellow. The plus side of this is it keeps monster behavior unpredictable without falling into an obvious pattern and simplifies upkeep and things players need to learn, but does get rid of some depth of aggro manipulation. I'm hoping to get some play testing done on my own tomorrow, and maybe then get some friends to help do a run through during the week. I'll let you guys know how things turn out.
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Feb 8, 2014 21:12
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Trip report on initial Monster Hunter playtest: two players died (don't worry, they aren't removed from the game) by the time the players had dealt 35 damage to the Rathalos. He has 425 health.  Guess my initial guesstimations of numbers was way off, and we decided to call the game when we figured there was no hope of winning without dragging it on for hours.I used the system for aggro-management I mentioned last, which is having attack cards list which player the monster will face, then each attack will hit a specific area. This was easy enough to understand and while it kept things unpredictable, they were TOO unpredictable. You didn't know where the monster would face OR attack, so it had the Arkham Horror effect of having a bit of control, but mostly it's just reacting to things happening to you. Players could mostly deal with it and stay alive, but if they got careless and wasted their stamina they'd get destroyed. Which I suppose is plenty appropriate for the source material, but still. I won't be tweaking the damage numbers around much yet, I like Misandu's suggestion about aggro being sticky. I'm about to try out another playtest with that aggro system in place and I'll see how it goes, hopefully it'll give the players enough control. Upkeep-wise it seemed just fine, players didn't have much of any issue with the amounts I have so far, so I don't think adding in that little bit more will hurt things too much. Also, Rathalos will be neutered down to 200 health, and I fear even that may last too long.
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Feb 10, 2014 03:36
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Update on Monster Hunter: Haven't gotten a chance to playtest with friends using an aggro system, since something came up and we didn't have time for another game. Currently playing around with ideas for a card-based combat system, though. Right now I'm not happy with dice being used for combat, as it just isn't providing a lot of meaningful choices to players during the game. My current idea is to have a combo-based card system for attacking. Each card would represent a specific attack, and would have a symbol on it, an effect, and then more symbols on the side showing what the card could be combo'd into. You can only play one combo per turn, so the idea would be to try to chain together as many cards as you can at once. So say I play a Gunlance Upward Thrust card that has a symbol (I wouldn't use card suits, just for this example), that would combo into and . So if I had another Upward Thrust card I could play that immediately, and then say I had a Gunlance Shot card that had a symbol, which could be played immediately after that and combos into more things.I'm still working out the details, but I think that general system could work. The problems I have with it right now are: 1) How to tie stamina and evading into the system. I'm thinking each card could have a stamina cost, but then how would evading work? An idea I've got now is to remove stamina entirely, and instead have the cards themselves represent your stamina. Each card would have a value, and each monster attack would require a specific value of cards be discarded in order to evade it successfully. So you could discard your Greatsword Level 3 Charge card to really easily evade a big monster attack, but then lose out on that damage. However, that would lead to players burning through cards kinda quickly, which leads to my next problem.. 2) How should the deck creation work? Should there be a deck for each specific weapon, and players choose one at the start? Should each player have their own custom-made deck? Should there be one giant deck that all players draw from and then they can share cards with one another? Should it be some kind of deck building game? Should the cards JUST be attacks, or should I work items into cards as well? While writing this up, I've actually come up with an idea that MAY work, but I'm not really sure yet. Before the game starts, each player chooses a weapon deck that only provides attacks. Then players draft item cards into their decks from a central pool of cards, similar to a deck building game. Once X round of drafting has passed, then drafting ends and players have to play with the decks they've built. Although this would mean it's a deckbuilding game where players aren't building their decks over the course of the game itself, which means players don't get the satisfaction of watching their horrible machine grow aside from being able to 'gather' more cards while on the field. 3) Players are on a team together so there's no reason to hide information from one another. This is just kind of a minor problem I guess, but is still a problem. I've worked out some rules for a 5-player variant where a player takes control of the monster itself - in this situation, it would be worthwhile for hunters to hide that information from the monster, but there still isn't any real reason to hide that information from other hunters. I've vaguely considered a coopetition-style system where hunters can carve monster parts off of the monster during fights by breaking parts to earn victory points, and then whichever player has the most at the end wins. Breaking a part would earn you X number of VP, and then when the monster dies each player gets some as well. My initial thought would be players grab tokens with varying amounts of VP on them to keep with the "dunno what I'm gunna carve off next" feel, but that would likely end up being far too random. Furthermore, that idea in general kinda turns the game into one long round of Cuthroat Caverns so I'm not fully sold on the idea yet. 4) This idea in general would likely lead to CARD OVERLOAD which I know isn't really that great from a design perspective. All that said, I've also never design a card game (despite the fact that I love playing them) so I'm not super confident in my ability to do so. Any thoughts on some of these issues and this idea as a whole would be greatly appreciated.
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Feb 15, 2014 18:57
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Misandu posted:Let me know if any of this looked helpful to you! If you don't end up using this I will probably find something to use a system like this! This is actually a massive help, thanks a ton. I dunno why I never thought of an initiative system, especially since I only just started playing Galaxy Trucker recently I may not wind up using this exact system, but it's definitely given me some food for thought. I really like using an initiative track to keep track of time in general, I'm just trying to visualize how it could all work physically. You'd need some kind of marker to ensure players know when cards they play will take effect, or how long those cards will take effect for - even in your simple example, you forgot that the Hammer user used his heavy smash - unless you were meaning that attacks take place immediately, then the initiative change is the delay of the attack. Also unsure of how to work monster combos with cards being drawn randomly - if it's a player controlling the monster that problem would be easily fixed, though.My initial idea would be to have everyone taking turns at the same time, with each card having a position on the track it needs to be placed. Each player can start one combo of attacks per round, but can dodge by playing a card for evading on the turn(s) that a monster is attacking (assuming that the player isn't attacking). Once all cards are placed onto the initiative track, it reads from left to right Space Alert-style as things happen. I was initially worried that this would give players too much foresight (as they could see what a monster will do), but then I had an idea that may be crazy but I dunno - the BACKS of the monster attack cards could list what initiative space the card would be placed on, so players would have a vague idea of what the monster will be doing, but not specifics Keeping with the Jaggi example (but swapping Hammer for Gun Lance), let's say the Jaggi's next card has a delay of 3 on the back, so it's placed onto the fourth tic (with players starting on tic 1), face-down. pre:GL
DS o o o o o o o o o
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pre: GL
DS o o o o o o o o o
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pre: GL
o DS DS o o o o o o o
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o DS DS DS[E] o o o o o o
J
I think this system could probably help reduce some of the upkeep stuff of trying to remember what's taking place when, but maybe I'm just overcomplicating the system you lined out? e: Actually thinking it through more, I think your system might wind up being better overall, but I'll leave this up here for commentary. CodfishCartographer fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Feb 17, 2014 |
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Feb 17, 2014 23:34
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Misandu posted:So Jaggis are swarms of little purple d4s. Oh my god this is loving brilliant. I like the idea about having attacks that have a delay on the damage itself, could then set up for various timings on attacks. Are you thinking it would work with the Galaxy-Trucker-style of initiative - whichever unit is in first goes first - or a Space-Alert-style of everything happens in one round, then goes onto another? Also, I'm debating with myself how I want to implement being within range of skills. Right now there isn't a board, instead focusing on just the hunters and the monster. I've got a few ideas on how it could work with a square/hex grid, but none that I'm really crazy about since there'd need to be a way to streamline the monster's AI (hence why I didn't have a board in the first place). I suppose if I make it always require a player controlling the monster it could work, but I'd like to keep some way for players to fight against an AI monster. poo poo, forcing it so that a player always controls the monster WOULD remove a lot of the headache of the design so far with aggro, attack randomness, etc.
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Feb 18, 2014 02:33
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You know, I think I like that system variant the best. It's fairly simple without having to worry about damage markers or anything and all players can be on the same track to make keeping track of things easier. The only issue so far is to how to have it loop together infinitely. Having two/three tracks, and just sliding them along to create a never-ending line would work, with maybe one of them having a marker line that signifies time passing, and once it's passed X times the hunters lose. A circular loop would also work, but then it kinda stops making sense when someone has delayed themselves SO MUCH that they pass the starting point and would go first. Right now the plan is to have the player decks be a pseudo deck-building game. Players will select a weapon deck that gives all attack cards, an armor deck that gives various defensive bonuses, and then four different item types. They shuffle all these cards together to create their own personal deck that they'll use in the game. Each monster will have its own deck of cards. I might wind up removing the armor deck to just have armor give passive buffs rather than being active cards, but I'll definitely keep weapon and item cards. It'll really depend on if I can come up with enough uses for armor cards to warrant their use. e: Also unsure of if I want to keep the symbol combo system or not. Obviously with some weapons like Dual Swords they'd be based more around combos, but I'm more concerned about how to implement them within this system. My current plan is to make it so the first card that starts the combo will determine how far it'll delay you, then you can play combo cards immediately after the starter. When it comes time for the starting card to resolve, you'll move your marker X time tics forward and then the next time you get a chance to resolve, you resolve the next card in the combo. So basically, you set up a large combo at once, then it resolves over time, and you can't place any more cards until the entire combo resolves. The theory being that overall it'd delay you less than one big attack would, but you can't change your plan once you've locked it in. In order to prevent the entire combo from firing off at once in quick succession, each new card in a combo will delay you exponentially further (so the first card after the start will delay you 1 tic, the 2nd will delay you 2 tics, etc) CodfishCartographer fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Feb 18, 2014 |
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Feb 18, 2014 18:51
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Eh y'know what, Galaxy Trucker just kinda glanced over this problem so I think I'm just overthinking this way too much. I'll just have a point be the start that will add a time counter if a player passes it, and players can keep track of who's going first or not. I'm also really happy with the system - I'll start designing all of the individual cards and should hopefully get some playtesting done with it this weekend. If all goes well then I'll get a more official print-n-play pdf made up so you fine folks can help me test it out.
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Feb 18, 2014 19:28
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Gutter Owl posted:Whenever possible, let the game interface itself do the heavy lifting, without stuffing in extra rules architecture. Yeah, that makes sense. I was planning on making the track pretty big anyways so this likely wouldn't happen. Like I said I think I was just overthinking things, as I was worried about what happens if a player played a bunch of big jumps in a row - without realizing that that'd be impossible cus after the first big jump it'd take them a while to get another turn, and everyone else would have caught up by then 
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Feb 18, 2014 20:41
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Misandu posted:An easy way to combine these ideas would be to have Attacks that cost some initiative to play, but then push you back more initiative after they fire. So Super Pounder would cost 3I to play, moving you ahead 3 ticks, and then as part of it's effect deals damage and pushes you forward another 1I to simulate the back swing. I was actually thinking of this exact same thing to have some skills have a cooldown after them, leaving you open. I also really like discarding your current action in order to evade, so you'd be vulnerable during the cooldown period after an attack (since you have no action card to discard to use for evasion)
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Feb 18, 2014 21:39
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Well, the way I saw it was just for example having a Hammer Swing take 4 tics to occur, then after it occurs it delays you 2 more. I don't think it really has a problem of trying to remember which turns are which and wouldn't require much extra upkeep, but I suppose it would lend for half-turns where your effect goes off, but you may have to wait longer before you can play another. I mean it's essentially a "Your next turn comes in X turns, but the damage is dealt X-2 turns from now", which I don't think is too complicated to keep track of, but whether that's fun or not I can't say. As for the combo thing, I do see where you're coming from. I think it might work out to having where each weapon is just represented by a hand of maybe 7-10 cards, and you always have access to all of them. You can play any of your turn, and once a card resolves it just goes back into your hand. This could shift focus from hoping you draw useful stuff to planning useful interactions with other hunters, and gets rid of dealing with premade decks and deckbuilding and poo poo like that. Really they'd just be in the form of cards to make upkeep easier, they could theoretically just be a weapon card that lists its different possible attacks or actions. Items would then just be tokens kept on a player card like I had planned originally.
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Feb 18, 2014 22:11
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