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One thing I really like in my wargames is to have leaders present on the board. They bring a certain human factor that makes weaving stories out of what happens on the board much more fun, help make each force more unique and flavourful - and command and control is usually a big factor anyway. I think I've stumbled on a rather fun way to give them more personality without much fuss. Before I begin, I must explain to non-wargamers the combat resolution system I'm basing my idea on (well, the one that got remixed the least). In some games, instead of rolling dice or whatever, each player chooses a tactics chit out of about 4-6 and then they get revealed simultaneously. Cross-referring them on a table leads to the result of combat, or gives some bonuses or whatever. This allows for greater control of your forces (it's your choice whether you'd rather give up your territory or trade more men for it) and certain amount of bluffing and double-thinking - if it's clear it's optimal to blitz the steppes with your shiny tanks, it becomes obvious to set-up a defence in depth, which would be best countered with... In my system, commander's ability would be represented by a numerical skill value and color/symbol-coded attitude - eg. Hasty, Cautious, Unpredictable. 3 types are probably most appropriate, keeping the numbers small is pivotal to keeping it convienient and retaining the place for bluffs. When the battle begins, each player draws a number of tactic cards (probably split into offensive and defensive mini-decks) equal to their commander's skill value and chooses one, to cross-reference with his opponent's choice. The cards themselves are split into three sections, one for each attitude and each containing a single tactic. Only the sections of appropriate attitude would be of use in a particular combat. The gist is, the same 4-6 tactics would be spread unevenly among the attitudes, so that bad leaders are limited in their flexibility and are more predictable, as well as everyone has their tactical preferences (which also is a factor for bluffing), while still retaining a - hopefully satisfactory - degree of player control. Having a card-based system means it'll be relatively easy to slap on some funky poo poo like "Napoleon gets to keep a card to use later on" or adding "this Cautious charge is kinda lame, get -1 to whatever the result would be" to a card etc. Currently I'm more concerned with making sure the basics work, though. Any obvious pitfalls I should look out for/is it a complete mess outside of my head? Now I just have to start a project for it small enough so that I'll actually finish it. 
Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Feb 28, 2013 |
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Feb 27, 2013 21:15
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Check out Hour of Glory: Stronghold Kit. It's basically Metal Gear Solid: The Boardgame and it has some rather clever ideas about how to go about it.
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Mar 2, 2013 20:34
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Hey xopods, I vaguely remember reading somewhere that publishers really, really prefer games that have a total of 55 or 60 (or a multiple of these), since that's how everyone prints anyway. Is that true, or am I misremembering something?
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Oct 30, 2013 16:21
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I could be interested, but I'm starved for free time for about a month. I'd be interested to take it for a spin later though.
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Jan 22, 2014 19:09
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For all the jokes about lovely wargame names (Storm of Panzer: Guderian of Steel) it turns out it's pretty loving hard to come up with a good one yourself.
Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Feb 2, 2014 |
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Feb 2, 2014 20:33
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Morholt posted:Epic Panzer Wars of the Battle Generalz: Duel at Mt Elbrus? Not a half bad suggestion, but since I'm actually working on a Russian Civil War design, it'd have to be more like Battle Komandarmz.
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Feb 3, 2014 01:21
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You know, it's a matter of theme. Having a sort of blackjack "overflow = failure" mechanic could be neat for mindgames and such. Say it's processing too much explosives, overcharging bullets so they explode inside the barrel of tank or whatever.
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Feb 5, 2014 03:26
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So I got this little solitaire wargame idea the other day. The system would depict famous military raids and similar sorts of shenagigans. Each scenario would start with a Planning Phase, where the player takes a hard look at the map and his faulty, incomplete intel about enemy forces and plans accordingly, choosing drop zones, customizing his precious few squads (in a simple manner, like 1-2 inventory slots) and, you know, making an actual battle plan. The thing is, these sort of operations tend to be fast and furious and there's really not enough time to do what you need to do and think about it. Therefore, the ridiculous idea of a programmable action wargame was born. So you'd pre-program, say, six moves ahead for each squad by laying out a row of cards. These would be slightly more open-ended than those found in most programmable action games (e.g. there'd be a "Infiltration Move" and "Assault Move" cards granting the ability to move, but the target area could be chosen on the fly) as you're commanding people rather than mindless automatons. Still, it'd require pre-coordinating complex maneuvers like bounding overwatch, which invariably go to poo poo due to miscalculating AI enemy reaction, your troops getting suppressed or simply landing two kilometers off the drop zone. Each turn (of the actual operation) you'd repeat programming the next few actions (representing the OODA cycle, or in other words your squad leaders figuring out what the gently caress just happened in order to change their orders). One would also have a scarce pool of Initiative Points each turn, allowing some minor patching up of the plan during the turn resolution and perhaps some nice re-roll for when your maneuvers go off without a hitch. Now, assuming this system works at all, it is obviously geared towards operations where you hold the initiative: all the enemy does is try to disrupt your ability to do stuff, mostly by loving up your men. Yet, if the system could be forced to work in a limited scope with more defensive operations, it could allow to do some fun stuff, like have two linked scenarios of taking the Pegasus Bridge and holding it until relief arrives. Or the Battle of Mogadishu. Sadly, I'm not sure how it could be done in a satisfactory way - there's really not that much interesting things to do and/or have disrupted when you pretty much take the the mobility out of the equation.
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Feb 5, 2014 23:00
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Some further Battleplan system musings: - It'd allow for only a handful of units under player control, otherwise risking extreme fiddliness and requiring millions of cards. - Units should engage enemies automatically: usually it's a commander's headache to make his subordinates hold or cease fire rather than them not engaging a visible opponent. - Close combat (happening when friendly and enemy units meet in a single area) would simply take precedence over given orders. - Actually, since there'll be so few units to order around anyway (5 for the scenario I'm aiming to take my first shot at) I think I'll risk giving each a counter indicating their fire target, so that shifting fire while already engaged is a discrete decision. This could both help breathe some life into possible defensive episodes and make flanking by the enemy appropriately awkward. - I think of doing Space Alert-style double order cards, mostly to ensure there's enough of each order in the deck if you choose to spam it, but I guess a "Plan B" Initiative Point power of flipping the card to the second order depicted before resolving it could be cool. I envision the orders themselves as: Infiltration - slow, cautious move, doubling as hold fire order. Assault - the default move order, probably doubling as shift fire. Covering Fire - basically forfeiting a round to pump more lead in a given direction. Perhaps doubling as shift fire, but probably not, to throw a wrench into spamming this order at a designated fire element. Special Action - which really could use a better name. A catch-all order pulling double duty: 1. It'll work as a contextual action, doing poo poo depicted on icons in area the unit is in, or on other counters in the same area. Planting explosives, interrogating captives for intel, embarking on a chopper, stuff like that. 2. Using stuff the unit is equipped with. The two functions are merged into one order to conserve deck space and because they don't really need to be separate. May These would pretty much form core of the system. Other than that I've got Reconnoiter - to calmly assess potential contacts if you chose to sneak into position rather than doing a balls-out recon by fire assault. Could lead to some fun scenario-specific fun, like having to pinpoint lone snipers or insurgents blending before attacking or maybe making it easier to attack concealed enemies. Probably doubling as hold fire. This leaves me with space to comfortably add an order or perhaps two. Assuming possible scenarios could span the timeframe from WWI to modern times, is there anything useful and/or important that wouldn't comfortably fit the Special Action glove? I'll probably try to make a discrete shift fire order, but that'll probably be served well enough by just Assaulting without actually moving.
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Feb 6, 2014 03:01
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silvergoose posted:Feels a bit like the computer game (playable both solo vs AI and duel against a player) Frozen Synapse. Have you played/seen it? Absolutely! Actually, come to think of it, my first thoughts about Frozen Synapse were "man, it'd be so cool if it was less abstract/barebones and instead, say, a SWAT game". So I guess it stuck in my head on some subconscious level. (And yes, I know about Door Kickers) The game that got me thinking about this though is Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm. It's a WEGO (meaning simultaneous turn resolution) Cold-War-gone-hot wargame whose shtick is, turns of each player vary in length. It's really quite ingenious and one of few instances where PC wargame actually get to use their platform of choice in different way than just dumping more stats on what would be an already tedious board game. The way it works, everything gets resolved in one-minute ticks (a bit like in Paradox games) and every X minutes you get to give a limited number of orders (depending on state of your command structure). I mean, chit-pull (board) wargames often try to convey similar things, but the granularity of this system really gives it its own quality. modig posted:It seems like you'll need someway of specifying where you move, unless all the units are just on rails. Frankly, it'll probably be just an adjacent area chosen on the fly. Thematic reasons are both that the actual battleplan would specify objective to reach rather than micro details of each platoon moving and the highly trained troops wouldn't march under machine gun fire just because that alley was marked on their map. Mechanics-wise, I think it's simply unnecessary to go any more restrictive. Precious few moves would make sense in context of remaining standing orders and the timing of it should be enough of a coordination issue. The major sources of friction I envision are: - Semi-predictable enemy action/spawning - (Tying to that) time pressure - Orders getting delayed due to squads being suppressed or engaged - Some micromanaging of disengaging the enemy and shifting fire (which is both an actual concern commanders face, and a way to open the possibility of getting actually fixed and flanked)
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Feb 7, 2014 01:31
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So, after few test runs of the Battleplan system, I'm positively surprised at how nicely my slapdash testing scenario (made from a converted Combat Commander map) held up. Sure, there's a lot of tweaking in front of me, but I'm glad to see some of my core ideas working as expected (which cannot be said about a million lovely game prototypes I made in the past). The one thing that could use a major re-thinking in order to streamline is the AI. The way I made the draft (which proved to be necessary to test the whole thing) was by streamlining and modifying the system used in Fields of Fire. Basically, it's a table you follow from top to bottom and stop at the first applicable trigger (e.g. "is shot at and not in cover"), roll a die and reference the result in that row (from about five total, no big deal). The personal touches are each trigger having three colour-coded variations depending on global alert level (not important) and particular units using different sized dice for a wee bit more personality. It pretty much fits my purposes very well (including the ability to print variants for particular scenarios like it ain't no thing) and it won't be a tragedy if it stays unchanged, but it has one flaw: you have to roll a die for each enemy which generates a bit of downtime (especially if you want to be anal about randomising the order). It's not terrible and a lesser problem since it's solo design, but stil ehhh. I wonder if there's a nice way of speeding this up without sacrificing much of the good parts. I don't really have a good idea though. The only thing that came to my mind would be to add a second deck of cards (uuugh) with a sort of remodeled-to-fit version of table, grouping particular reactions to units with particular symbols printed on them (and you get to have a set randomised order). Perhaps with two concurrent symbol sets on units*, so that there's less of clone robot effect. Still, ehhh. It doesn't appear to me to be good enough to warrant counting the odds and printing, but I just want to get started thinking. * I feel I might have been unclear here. Like, imagine a counter having a red triangle and blue circle on it, while a second one has a red triangle and blue square. If 50% AI cards has red and 50% has blue symbols, these units will behave differently half of the time. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Feb 9, 2014 |
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Feb 9, 2014 01:29
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So, as an exercise in streamlining I made this mock-up of an AI card: So, there'd be two sets of four symbols, each set featured on one half of the AI deck and with each opposing unit having one symbol from each set. The way the card would be resolved would be similar to the chart & die option: you go from top to bottom and then left to right. When you hit the appropriate symbol, you get the action to perform (sadly, indicated only by a single letter due to real estate issues). The first icon column indicates the case of trigger recipient not being in cover, while the grey column indicates being in cover , effectively cutting the number of combat-related triggers by half. Unit group symbols are color-coded, being applicable only in particular global Alert Level. The last row lists the most typical outcome of an action, applicable for all triggered units whose symbol wasn't featured in the needed row - which should save me enough real estate to make this stuff possible. I'll probably do a 2x6 cards set to pretty much convert my draft table to this little experiment. A few things that came to my mind: - Since it's pretty easy to see which trigger is applicable to each unit at glance, the most  way to resolve it will be to just go through each trigger rather than follow particular symbols. While it's easy to randomize order of symbols on each card for random order, since I'll print multiple instances of the same table, I wonder if it'd be possible to change the order of triggers themselves every now and then and still make sense.- While it's certainly tempting to tweak the probablities a bit to give each symbol a bit of its own "personality" it probably can't go too far, such as including qualitative differences, since the symbols can't really correlate with particular groups for fear of silly (and gamey) robot clone army look. - Since I really won't need an entire deck for these, and I really can't cut space from my Orders Deck, there could be some fun in doing distinct AI "sets", from which the particular Scenario AIs get shuffled together. Or have each containg-symbol-set half mean something different, like Unprepared + Defensive. - The phrase "player unit" is really slightly too long to fit comfortably. - I need to find a way to clearly state that the "in cover" row doesn't refer to the unit whose reaction you're checking, but the one asked about in trigger (so it refers to AI mooks that are under fire, but player units that are spotted). [edit] I brainfarted while drawing this, defeating some of the point. The first icon column should be greyed out and mean "applicable only if in cover" while the next one should be applicable regardless of cover, as long as that symbol wasn't already triggered in that row. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Feb 11, 2014 |
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Feb 11, 2014 01:34
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How about players choosing their few pieces of equipment at the start, each providing a little predefined set of cards? Like, light armor providing more dodge cards and heavy armor more block cards or whatever. Or, if you limit yourself to just attack cards, players could "craft" their weapons from litle component sets, like Magical + Obsidian + Halberd. So you've got a chance to customize (or get meaningful loot from defeated monsters!), but don't get into the full-on deckbuilding sperg territory.
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Feb 15, 2014 19:09
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I'm not convinced this changes anything, other than add some fiddliness of remembering which turns are actual turns and which are Backswing Token bullshit turns, that are not actually turns. The time cost already is cooldown and already makes it a tricky thing to coordinate things between attacks of different players (which is the fun part, not slapping down combos from pre-made decks mindlessly). Personally, I'd like to see combos existing simply by virtue of interesting card effects, like a hammer stunning the monster so that the dagger guy can go for sneak attack and so on. Coordination between folks with different styles makes timing the name of the game, not stringing X cards you randomly drew anyway and going away to make some tea, while the others have actual turns to resolve. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Feb 18, 2014 |
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Feb 18, 2014 21:59
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CodfishCartographer posted: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. Well, what does it add to the game as compared to a Hammer Swing simply costing 6 ticks? I don't really see much in terms of clever plays it'd add. Maybe some stuff like poison/fire plinkng a bit of damage each tick for X ticks, but it's more of a status effect territory. I guess maybe it could make sense for some card to allow you to deliberately slow down the attack, to stress the flexibility of that particular approach as it's main shtick, but even then I don't think anything would be lost if there was a separate Zybourne Clock card whose sole purpose would be to allow to pass the precise number of ticks to be in position to pull off your sweet moves. quote: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. Might be worth trying, but it poses it's own set of risks, like players figuring out their favourite combos and just repeating them ad nauseam. Though that could be remedied by replacing variability of the draw with monster moves simply having a bigger impact on board state. I guess you just have to playtest everything until something sticks.
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Feb 18, 2014 22:41
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I've spent most of the Tabletop Day toying with a deck of cards and emerged with a little game prototype that looks quite promising. It is themed around players leading competing fantasy-ish Thievies Guilds and is basically 7-card brag with bells and whistles. Each Guild consist of four Gangs, which are single suits of traditional french deck. Where they differ is in the face cards, which are veteran members* who grant various special abilities - some passive, doing nice things when they're part of a set and some active, simply played for an effect. The gangs can be mixed and matched, drafted, bid on, whatever - as long as they end up in a proper four suit deck. (I hope keeping it to only three abilities per gang will help keep this manageable for me) The goal of the game is to accumulate more money than the other players. Each round players draw seven cards from their decks and lay down three big Heist tiles. They take turns sending their goons (cards) to places they want to rob (face-down) or playing the veterans with active abilities until everyone passes. Each Heist is resolved in order and the guild with the strongest set of cards grabs the loot - getting the job done before the others. You can have up to three cards at a Heist and the sets are ranked as in 3-card brag, but you players can commit only one or two cards if they wish - they might be strapped for cards, but still willing to risk a pair/high card or just want to drop a face cards with a cool passive ability to mess with others. In addition to a loot value, each heist will probably provide some minor ability to steer certain gangs toward it, but I'm not touching that until the gangs themselves are alpha-finished. This is prone to punishment in the City Watch step, though. After resolving a Heist, one or more cards (depending on the heist itself) are drawn from the city watch deck, with players drawing additional cards for Heat tokens they've accumulated. If the City Watch has a higher hand than a player he is busted and forced to cough up bribes for the force. Face cards are the Sherlock Holmeses and Philip Marlowes that subtly mess with expectations if they find they way to the set. Please take my word that this is less random than it sounds - it takes some heat to be threatened at all and even more not to be safe with a mere pair. Heat can be acquired in a variety of ways, such as paying for particular card effects or having a run-in with a named watchman. Players can skip a round to lay low and lose all their heat. As for the gangs themselves (they will have proper names): Clubs are the gangs used to gently caress with other players. - Greenskins use force and intimidation to push out other guilds, going directly at their hands of cards. - Bent watchmen manipulate heat in their favor and totally have nothing to do with all the anonymous tips the commissioner receives. - Halfling burglars and cutpurses abhor violence and go straight for the money. This could end up as an annoying game extender, like Dominions witch, but I intend to give each gang a particular angle - for example Greenskins like to discourage others from spreading out (the holy grail of depriving someone of two cards would make it technically impossible to make two full sets!), while the dirty cops want to corner the market of spreading out with impunity. I intend to tweak the halflings as a response to going all-in on a most valuable heist. - I'll have to tread lightly here, but I intend the fourth clubs gang to be assassin-themed surgical card removal, or perhaps even narrower face card removal. I personally love control decks, but I know how annoying and unfun they can be at times. Still, I probably won't touch it until I establish all the cards actually worth sniping. Spades are gangs centered on card manipulation. - Ratmen just keep crawling en masse out of sewers and God knows where, represented by drawing extra cards. - Doppelgangers are Deja Vu personified, imitating goons seen before (and now chilling in the discard pile). - When life give you lemons, make a chop shops. Necromancers mix'n'match some body parts to tweak goons in your hand into just what you need. It's a bit tricky and costly though and suited mostly to the "one big heist" approach. - There's also a gang centered on stacking the decks for coming draws, but I have no loving idea what this means flavor-wise. A wizard did it, I guess. Diamonds are misc buffs I guess. - Dwarven financiers are shadowy puppet masters aiming to maximise their profits no matter what risks or costs it takes. They do poo poo like "This heist? Oh, it's my joint so you'd be stealing from my purse actually, but if I rob it, it'll make for a magnificent insurance fraud". - The Lost Heirs of Elven Kingdom are actually a band of confidence men, excelling in bluff-based trickery. - The corniest fantasy crime trope of all time: the all-knowing beggars' guild, peeking at cards to make more informed guesses. - The fourth diamonds gang is not developed yet at all. Hearts are also not developed at all. I expect it'll be more of diamonds-style gangs and when I have eigth I'll find some pattern to grouping them. I'm sort of burned out for today, but the few ideas still bouncing around my head are: - In a theme-first way, I'm amused by idea of rogue alchemists turning lead into counterfeit gold. Not yet sure how to do it in a fun way. - One yet unexplored aspect is shuffling around cards already committed to heists. It could be difficult to get right, though. - I'm really tempted, against better judgement, to have the ability to switch the heists themselves after other have committed. Perhaps in the con men gang, as a play on three-card monte. Maybe it even won't be that bullshit without proper ability to stall for this action. * I really need a more archaic term than "Lieutenant". Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Apr 6, 2014 |
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Apr 6, 2014 03:28
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[edit] Derp, wrong thread
Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Apr 9, 2014 |
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Apr 9, 2014 20:54
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I remember my friend once swearing to do a (not ironic) mash-up of Talisman and Monopoly. Yeah.
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Aug 1, 2014 08:55
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I've been doodling away on a space feudalism deckbuilder (think A Few Acres of Snow rather than Dominion). One of the ideas that sparked it is that the cards would be split into 4-5 factions and a certain amount of Influence (probably 2 per faction) would be split among the factions. Each round, a faction would grant as many cards as it has influence in the court. So, for example, if you expect to engage in a war you may shine a bit of imperial favour on the Harkonnen to get more of their generally agressive cards, but it'll piss off Fremen who'll give you less of theirs (total number of offered cards stays the same). Admittedly, this was conceived from a solo-esque perspective and now I'm wondering if there's a way to stretch it into more "multiplayer solitaire" territory while not being some sort of obnoxious table-space hoarder. PS. Also, I think framing removing location cards out of the deck as granting fiefs to particular vassals is a nice way of doing things.
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Aug 11, 2014 15:25
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Hey guys, do you recall this type of thing in wargames where players move around particular leaders, who pick up (and perhaps drop) generic soldiers, who either cannot move on their own or do it in a ridiculously inefficient fashion? Numerous CDG, for example. My question is, what game, of those that you know, has the most of such leaders running around at the same time? My best bet so far is Time of Troubles, I think, with 26 leaders, but that doesn't really count, because 1) it's kinda meant for five players so it is spread around 2) the whole thing is a meatgrinder and seeing everyone at the same time is really quite optimistic.
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Dec 17, 2014 17:46
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Tekopo posted:For the People has a ton of leaders. That one is really reassuring, as this game hits the exact peak theoretical amount per player one could achieve in my vaporware heartbreaker design (it'd probably hover around 16 for one player and more sane amounts for the rest, it's hard to downscale without making OOBs super-retarded).
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Dec 17, 2014 19:16
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Hey, Broken Loose, what's the rationale behind separate melee and shooting attack decks? I'm sure there's some pattern to each, I just haven't spotted it right off the bat.
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Feb 15, 2015 23:07
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Foolster41 posted:Another game I've been working on (no title, I'm just calling it Cyber Anti-Terror Squad, but that spells CATS, so that's not the name I'm keeping. Though it made me think of an 80s style cartoon show about a cat swat team, something like this :P) is based loosely on the universe of Ghost in the Shell and other cyberpunk works mixed with a bit of Rainbow 6 tactics. You play as a futuristic police team. The board is laid out as tiles representing rooms. Each missions has two phases, "stack" and "action". I'm currently doodling (read: recycling assorted bad old ideas) on a similar game, a co-op about bank heists with room tiles/cards and decks for each player! It'll be a long and boring post, but I thought it may give you some food for thought on various thing you have on mind. The goal would be to barge into the main vault and get out of the building alive with the sweet cash, diamonds and newfound notoriety. The players would each choose a character with some unique ability for flavor and then lay out random locations in this pattern:  It is not meant to suggest the place is an actual pyramid, but rather resemble a sketched-out plan: criminals evaluating possible entry points and then beelining to the goal. Players would be encouraged to spread out a bit along the way, rather than follow a straight path to exploit location abilities (e.g. steal manager's access card from his office rather than try to pick a difficult lock), clear alternate escape routes for when cops arrive or other reasons, like herding hostages so that a single guy can have an eye on them. The obstacles slowing down the players would be generally split into three different challenges - lockpicking, safecracking and disabling alarms/electronics (these would not so much block access as do bad poo poo when not bypassed). Then there's obviously the human element, panicked clerks, guards and cops to, the latter two of whom provide the de facto lose condition (getting gunned down/arrested) and need to be avoided or dealt with. Now comes the horrible, dumb, part that'd only needlessly extend the game, set-up and teardown, but let's roll with it as a wishful early draft that might just get some creative juices flowing later on, ok? So, the bank is laid out, you generally know what locations you can plan around, while drawing particular obstacles later on (so e.g. you know you can trace a path with no alarms up until the vault, but not know what sort of employees you'll have to deal with). Then the Planning stage begins, which represents the part of movie where criminals prepare, assembling their tools and swaying accomplices. It would be resolved as a single draft round, defining the deck players will use during the actual heist. Each drafted card wouldn't actually do nothing on its own, but list a set of thematically-linked cards that form the actual deck (to keep the whole thing quick and simple). This will probably end in a fiddly disaster, but I'm hoping I'll iteratively find a sweet spot between Smash Up's no-fuss "half a deck" packs and the customizability of 1/10th of Star Wars LCG. It'd be a nice thing if made to work: represent a big part of the fiction I'm emulating, provide variety and hopefully provoke some actual discussion and planning. And perhaps open some design space to play with, e. g. giving the Mastermind ability to claim one unchosen set and put it in his discard pile - not diluting his deck, but able to fetch it in a pinch with a proper card, when the situation calls for the obviously-prepared-beforehand Plan B. The main resolution mechanic during the heist itself would be using the aforementioned cards to do actions in a sort of reverse Metal Gear Acid fashion. Each player would put a colored disk on a stopwatch-themed rondel, split into six spaces. Each card would cost an amount of time to use, moving your piece on the rondel forward that number of spaces, with the baseline being 3 Time. The player furthest back in time becomes active, and those reaching the next "minute" indicate that by flipping their disk (marked on one side). If you don't need whatever action is printed on the card, you can play it for a lovely basic action (think playing a card sideways in Mage Knight), but you pay its full Time cost anyway. When all players reach the next "minute", guards/cops get their action, team's Heat increases by one and everyone draws up back to their hand limit. Heat is also gained by loving up and going loud to make a run for it, and is basically the game's ticking clock, making guards actively look for you and the cops knock at the doors. The necessary skill/whatever checks would be Mage Knight-y in that it's about non-random beating of certain target numbers, so that you always know you can do something, or need to run away, or might consider brute-forcing with basic actions, but you rarely have time to spare. So, uh, sorry for the wall of text, but that's my current take on the idea. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Feb 21, 2015 |
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Feb 21, 2015 01:36
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Bribing pirates/funding corsairs feels perfectly thematic to me. For storms, how about theming the action as getting hold of a weather report?
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Feb 25, 2015 22:40
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So, other than being ashamed of own nerdery, does the Red Letter
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Mar 6, 2015 00:28
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CodfishCartographer posted:So, I’m trying to think of how a dice-building game would work. Not a game where you build a pool of dice, like Quarriors or King’s Forge, but a game where you alter the faces of the dice themselves. The customizable lego dice would be the best choice for the physicality of it, but I’m not sure how the design of it should work out. Would it be too random to base a decent strategy around? Unless you specifically load your dice to give you mostly a specific resource, or whatever. The way I'd do it is have a bunch of cutom dice with some various coloured "mana" sides. Each player has his own little board, where he puts down tiles indicating what do those symbols actually mean, when they are rolled. Different dice have different icon spreads.
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Apr 17, 2015 22:53
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Broken Loose posted:IFLS is a photography meme that lets people pretend to like smart things by Facebook Liking pretty pictures and actually does quite a bit to set scientific progress back. I know it's offtopic, but I actually want to read your angry rant about it. Here's something to get you in the mood: 
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Apr 24, 2015 11:49
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So I'm tinkering with my co-op heist movie game again and I have a bit of a money problem. See, while the ultimate, immutable goal is to breach and enter the bank vault and then leave the building with bags full of money and without handcuffs slapped on your hands, there are some possible locations where it makes a lot od sense to grab some additional  , e.g. the iconic act of holding up of the cashiers. Come on, you cannot leave the cashiers out as an option in a bank heist! The thing is, I'm at a bit of a loss at how to make this extra cash matter.- Under no circumstances should the extra cash constitute an alternative win condition (meaning enough laying around so that the players do not have to bother with the vault at all), bacause the game structure would kinda fall apart.- An obvious thing is to make it the extra feelgood VPs (like Space Alert's window), but it's kinda  and nobody ever cares and risks team's neck for these in my experience.- A way to make extra VPs matter is making the entire thing a semi-coop, where everyone strives to end the job with the biggest possible share of the loot for themselves, but I'm not sure I want to follow this path 1) just because 2) as it may work out or not. - I try to think of a way to make extra cash be a way to somehow make achieving the main condition easier. For example, gold straight out of vault clogs up your hand (the game will have a sort of mageknighty card-based task resolution), constraining your options on the way back, while the extra :bux: weight nothing and can bring you up to the required amount of loot, equal to full vault capacity. - Alternatively, maybe during heist planning (simplified deck construction after seeing final bank areas layout) some options could involve more efficient tools that require you to grab extra cash during the heist itself to "break even".
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Aug 18, 2015 11:02
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Ok, I think I have an idea how to go about the question. I started by trying to break the problem down to its basics. Why do I need the cash to be around? How many reasons are there to want it in the first place in addition to self-explanatory useful items laying around (e.g. a spare guard uniform). The answer is, naturally, that it makes sense for some areas thematically (how the gently caress is the room with the cashiers named?) and would be a shame to leave out for thematic reasons (the cashiers, mostly). That led me to think, how about stopthinking about the cash as a token/object, and more as an ability/trait/whatever of a particular area. Now the simplest way that I hope would not break apart due to scaling to the number of players is to make grabbing all the cash on the map (if it's on the board, it's notable enough to be a part of the plan), period. The idea being that it presents another form of obstacle: instead of being a room presenting the players with additional problems (e.g. guards, paths blocked by seriously time-consuming lockpicking, etc.) it presents an additional objective, a forced waste of time and resources, drawing them away from what would be otherwise an optimal way to deal with the vault & escape. The cashiers in particular would work nicely in the semi-random layout I'm going for, as they could be a "Main Entrance" tile for the entrance row that is super-obviously a much bigger pain in the rear end than all the other options, but will have to be dealt with eventually. Areas with cash deeper within the bank could suffer from randoming out on the path the players would like to take anyway, but it's okay, because the main entrance one is really the only cash-laden room I strongly care about.
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Aug 19, 2015 12:42
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Summoner Wars did a neat thing where your deck was your mana.
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Sep 17, 2015 06:43
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Vivian Darkbloom posted:I wonder if you really need the 18xx rail-building element. It adds flavor by making the railroad's route flexible, but this could be achieved with more standard COIN pieces. My worry is that the rail system adds a lot of complexity -- if the progress rail construction was instead an off-map track, that would seem like a more COINish approach. Just something to think about. Having a player decide how to snake their LoC would be dank as hell though.
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Sep 27, 2018 11:17
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 07:47 |
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FFG-style double dials.
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Dec 18, 2021 12:50
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