Untitled Board Game WIP

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Untitled Board Game WIP

Post by I'm Murrin »

As I've rabbited on about in the new game ideas thread, I'm working on a concept in a board game format. I'm making this thread now to throw out ideas as I work on the idea and try to turn it into a working game, and so people can give their own feedback and suggestions.

The Game

In order to give feedback, you need to know how the game works. So here you go.

This will be a game designed for 4-6 players, I think. If it was an actual board game it would use cards and six sided dice.

Players will move around a board, collect items, and defeat enemies to collect prizes. The first player to collect a certain number of prizes and then return with them to the centre of the board wins the game.

Gameplay is turn based, with each player taking 2 or 3 (TBD) actions per turn. These actions can be:
- Move
- Search (roll a die, receive an item on a successful roll)
- Use a special ability (once per turn)

Certain places on the board will be occupied by enemies. These will all have a value, indicating the die roll required to defeat them. Roll results can be modified by items in your hand, or by discarding items. Defeating an enemy rewards one prize.

In addition, the game board will be divided into "areas", which will include multiple positions and paths. Players who are in the same "area" of the board - even if they do not share the same position - will be able to interact using special abilities.

Character Class

This is the thing that should make the game interesting and fun. Each player picks a character class to play as. These characters all have special abilities, some of which helps them toward their goal, and some which hamper other players from attaining their goal.

There will probably be 6 classes total, so that a game of 6 players has one of every type.

At the minute these abilities are just concepts, and I'll have to do a lot of trial and error to work out what works and what doesn't. Below, I am going to list all of the ideas as they currently stand, and I request your feedback and suggestions - if you see something that seems like it'd be too powerful, or not very good, tell me.

Ranger
- Special Ability: Arrow to the Knee - Injure another player in the same area, preventing them from moving on their next turn.
or (less powerful)
- Special Ability: Trapper - Place a trap on your current position. The next player to enter this position will be trapped, requiring one action to free themselves.
I'm also considering:
- Special Ability (passive): Fleetfooted - You may take an additional Move action per turn

Thief
Special Ability: Yoink! - When another player in the same area completes a Search, you can attempt to steal whatever they find. Can only be used once per round.

Wizard
Special Ability: Sleight of Hand - You exchange an item in your inventory for one item in the inventory of another player in the same area. "How did that get in there?"
Special Ability: Teleport - You travel instantly to any unoccupied space on the board. You cannot take any other actions when Teleporting.

Cleric
Special Ability (passive): Blessed - You are immune to the negative effects of other players' abilities.


Other ideas, more experimental, less likely to make it into the final game:

Barbarian
Special Ability: Bar Bar Bar - Your foreign speech confuses and befuddles another player in the same area, reducing their chance of successful actions on the next turn. (All dice rolls reduced by 1.)
(I like that one purely for the joke, but not sure I can make the Barbarian character work.)

Tinker
Special Ability: "I Can Fix This" - You retain one item that would have been consumed or discarded.

Paladin
Special Ability (passive): Altruist - You come to the aid of any other player engaging in combat in the same area. (Add your attack roll to theirs.) Any reward or penalty from combat is taken by both players.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

Example items:

Torch: +1 to Search when in Caves.
Bicycle: You may take one additional Move action per turn.
Pointy Stick: +1 to combat rolls. Throw your Stick for +2, discarding the item.
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Post by Fist and Faith »

Can't promise I'll play more than once. Dice are uncannily unkind to me. But worth a shot.
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Post by Lefdmae Deemalr Effaeldm »

As I said, I'll try to play. About the powers, they all seem pretty fine to me, but I'm probably not a good candidate to evaluate such things, and it's not like I tend to play to win :)
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Post by wayfriend »

Murrin, what you're creating sounds a good bit like a simplified version of Magic Realm, by Avalon Hill. Classes, treasures, monsters. Add Map tiles so that the board can be different every game, and you're almost there.

Magic Realm suffered from being so complicated that it took an hour just to set up (due to randomizing all future encounters) and was rather cumbersome to play, especially the complex combat system ... by which I mean "a simplified version" is a good thing!
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Post by I'm Murrin »

Haha. I've been watching TableTop and started attending a local gaming group recently, so I'm aware of a number of influences: Elder Sign, Forbidden Island, a game of Terry Pratchett's The Witches that I played a week ago, even Pandemic with its character roles. Seems there's a lot of similarity between different games in small details.

I'm pretty much relying on the character abilities and the way they'll make players interact to try and give the game some originality. ;)

Hadn't heard of Magic Realm before - it does look complicated.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

Update:

While I like the concept of the Cleric, and think a character whose only special ability is not to be affected by others is balanced, having a class that does not interact with anyone else goes against the spirit of the game, so that version of Blessed is out.

I've considered the strength of Arrow to the Knee and decided that because most of the time the target can continue looting items or using specials while injured, and because it requires the Ranger to stay near the target, it would only really be gamebreaking if he Ranger deliberately used it vindictively to prevent one player from moving without trying to win the game theirself. I'm going to leave it in for now, but that alone could be reason to remove it later...
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Post by I'm Murrin »

The Thief's Yoink ability hinders another player while also benefitting the Thief, and also does not use up one of the Thief's turn actions, so could be considered balanced without granting the Thief any other abilities. However, it can only be used when the Thief is in the same area as a player and that player successfully Searches, and it does not have a 100% success rate, so it could turn out to be a weak ability overall.

I do like the ability a lot, because reaching out and shouting Yoink as you grab the just-acquired card out of another player's hand would be very satisfying in a tabletop game.

...I may make it a guaranteed success, no roll required.


To prevent the Ranger's Arrow to the Knee becoming gamebreaking, I might change it so that it simply restricts the player to making only 1 (one) move action on the next turn. This would still become very powerful in the final stages when a player has enough prizes and is trying to reach the centre.

I'm most likely going to scrap the Barbarian, but come up with some other ability that has the same gameplay effect.

Are there any iconic fantasy character classes you think I should consider for the game?

Fist and Faith wrote:Can't promise I'll play more than once. Dice are uncannily unkind to me. But worth a shot.
Fist, fortunately the item system is intended to let you improve your dice rolls. Some items in your hand increase all your rolls, but any item can be discarded during a fight to add more to one roll.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

I think the main issue with Arrow to the Knee is in what's referred to as kingmaking. A player who has the Ranger class, who is not in a position to win the game themselves, might be capable of deciding which other player wins by using Arrow to the Knee to stop one of them moving.

The other kingmaking possibility in the current abilities is the Paladin choosing to always support one player and help them win prizes.

I actually had a bit of a thought experiment last night regarding how the game might go if it was cooperative, with player in teams. I decided that if it was two 3-player teams then any team with both a Paladin and a Ranger would probably win, by double-dipping the Paladin's victories and using the Ranger to block any opposing team member who's close to winning.
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Post by Lefdmae Deemalr Effaeldm »

Maybe I can suggest a few, not sure how fitting - Sages, Elementalists, Necromancers, perhaps I'm going to recall a few more soon. Got to think on the powers though.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

Thinking of giving the "reduce chance of success" thing from the Barbarian to a Bard class.

The classic class types seem to be: Warrior, Ranger, Wizard, Thief, Cleric. I have Ranger, Thief, and Wizard covered. A fighting type and a cleric type seem like they'd round out the group well, and a sixth for the numbers.

So given the ideas already thrown up above, possibly:

Barbarian
Wizard
Ranger
Thief
Paladin
Bard

What do you think?

Trying to come up with secondary abilities and such. Can't think of a way to bring back Teleport for the Wizard because no matter what it's an ability that lets them reduce the journey back to center to a maximum of two turns. I think Fleetfooted is out for that reason also.
Last edited by I'm Murrin on Sat Oct 12, 2013 10:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Lefdmae Deemalr Effaeldm »

How is it going to make the ability better? :)
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Post by I'm Murrin »

Hmm?
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Post by Lefdmae Deemalr Effaeldm »

I was referring to
I'm Murrin wrote:Thinking of giving the "reduce chance of success" thing from the Barbarian to a Bard class.
Apparently you edited your post after my answer, so it became less clear which part I meant. I don't see how giving the ability to another class improves it - well, it can be more fitting, but how does it change to ability itself?

As for the Teleport - maybe you could either make it not for all the board, just better than walking as usual? Or you could make a restriction that doesn't allow to use it at the end, for example, the number of items the player has - if he's overloaded, the teleport won't be able to transport all that.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

I never had a problem with the Barbarian's ability, just decided it wasn't worth trying to overturn the barbarian stereotype just for a nerdy joke about the origin of the word "barbarian".

As for teleport, I considered "you can't take any items with you", but I don't think it'd be useful at all if it made you drop prizes, which means it still becomes overpowered in the endgame. (Prior to the endgame, it'd make it harder for you to immediately confront an enemy after teleporting.)
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Post by Lefdmae Deemalr Effaeldm »

Ah, if that was your reason, then it makes sense.

And I didn't mean dropping a few prizes, I meant not being able to use it at the end, though not sure if it will be well ballanced by its usefullness before that.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

I'd prefer to avoid that kind of arbitrary limitation. Plus I want strategically using abilities near the end to be part of gameplay.


Anyway, I could use some help brainstorming ideas. Let's go through one character class at a time, looking at flavour, not necessarily trying to design a specific ability.

Warrior/Barbarian/Fighter/etc

Iconic abilities?
This character is usually either the reckless melee fighter or the meat shield. They can take a lot of abuse and/or deal a lot of damage up close. In this game combat isn't so much of a thing, so it's hard to give this kind of bonus to the class. Combat between players doesn't exist at all, but special abilities need to exist that interfere with other players.

How do you create a "melee fighter" flavour when interacting with other players, without combat?

The one option I'm stuck on is to make the class the Paladin, and use the "Altruist" ability. But maybe some outside perspective could bring some new ideas, so what do you think?
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Re: Untitled Board Game WIP

Post by Lefdmae Deemalr Effaeldm »

Isn't it going to be helpful to fight the monsters that you mentioned before?
I'm Murrin wrote:Certain places on the board will be occupied by enemies. These will all have a value, indicating the die roll required to defeat them. Roll results can be modified by items in your hand, or by discarding items. Defeating an enemy rewards one prize.
Maybe either helping with a fight, or if the problem is that there are little of those, something that helps to get into one :) Maybe some of both.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

Want the special abilities first to focus on affecting the other players, not just solo play.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

I really am bad at following through on things, aren't I? This kind of thing has been in my head again recently, I'd forgotten I'd put so much thought into this one and shared so much of it here.
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