Board game idea

[kane]

I know their are some folks here that have designed board games so thought I could copy and paste this from FaceBook and see if anyone would like to give some feedback. Its very stream of consciousness, so hopefully it makes sense. For reference, Monster Hunter is a video game that is HEAVILY inspired by Conan, D&D and Diablo in a lot of ways. See here for some idea of the setting.

Thoughts of a monster hunting RPG mini-campaign combined with Arkham Horror have inspired thoughts of a Monster Hunter board game somewhere between Arkham Horror and HeroQuest. Structured more like AH but with characters carrying over from session to session like HQ.

Random ideas for this: Each location on the map would have an encounter deck (ala AH). You go there, take what comes, play moves on. The boss monster would not spawn until the third to fifth round (semi-random?) giving the players time to gather resources to be able to fight the monster. The boss monster would have its own deck to mix up its attacks. Players roll to hit and dodge rather than anyone having to roll for the monster. Character speed would add to dodge and be modified by armor and weapon chosen. After defeating the monster, the players get bits out of a trophy deck to use to equip their character for the next fight.

[Dave]

Sounds like you're after a cooperative monster-hunting game, with no game master or referee needed.

What sort of setting do you have in mind? There seem to be lots of fantasy dungeon-crawling and space bug-hunt games like this. How about something sword-and-planet, like exploring the caves of Mars? Or exploring ruins in the post-apocalypse?

I haven't played either AH or HQ, so I'm not sure how tactical of a game you have in mind. Do the playing pieces move on a grid? Or is it more abstract, where everybody in the same location can attack the monster there, without worrying about line of sight or how many squares you can move each turn?

[kane]

The core is definitely a cooperative, referee-free game.

The setting I would LIKE to use is the one from Monster Hunter which is a kind of prehistoric/bronze age world dotted with ruins of an even more ancient civilization yet with balloon and repeating bowgun technology that is infested with dinosaur-like dragons and giant prehistoric beasts. Of course, if I were to ever publish, I'd have to use something else, but am going to use that as a base for now and hope for the best (never hurts to dream!).

I am still debating on abstract locations or tactical. I am thinking something abstract, where in a given location, everyone can attack the same beasts or gather the same resources. I want something board-game sized, so the areas need to fit on a regular table easily. Also want multiple zones so that the big boss monsters can run away when they are injured and so the players can do the same. I'm thinking decks (like AH) for each zone to randomize encounters and then a random events deck that counts up to the boss monster appearing. Also, the boss monster would have a deck to randomize its attacks. All rolls would be by the player, modified by the monsters. You roll to hit or to dodge its attacks. The monsters just add modifiers to what you need to succeed.

Then, you could skin the monsters to gain other resources that could be traded in for more gear to fight different/tougher monsters. you would also be getting resources from the environment to go along with this. The idea would be that you could gain 1 new item per session, so a new weapon or armor.

[Dave]

The setting sounds great. If you don't want a clone of Monster Hunter, maybe you could draw on some Mayan or Incan motifs. I always find Mesoamerican stuff to have a prehistoric, lost world sort of vibe. I also like those advanced-primitive technologies like balloons and repeating crossbows, etc. Very cool.

For abstract combat, you could still have a bit of tactical movement by having a certain number of spots for short, medium and long range (just have a certain number of hero-sized circles at different distances from the monster). There would be obvious implications for using swords, pikes/thrown weapons and missile weapons. Monsters might have different attacks for different ranges.

What about mooks or enemy henchmen? Or hired swords for the heroes?

Instead of having one big board with lots of areas, could you have a relatively small campaign map (or several different campaign maps)? I'm thinking something the size of a standard sheet of paper, or maybe 11"x17"?

For the individual combat zones, how much room do you think you'll need? Would it fit on a standard piece of paper? If you kept everything to about that size (or a standard square or hex or something), you could tile them to match the campaign map. Maybe that's what you already have in mind!

I suppose you could include "city tiles" or a "healing fountain" tile or something like that so the characters can trade or get healed. You could have a "monster's lair" or "evil castle" where the baddies can retreat.

You could use cards to randomly set up the zones, totally. Or maybe just shuffle the tiles and place them in whatever order they come up?

Using cards to randomize attacks is cool. I'm all into paper dice these days, so I'd probably try to use those instead. I should warn you that I'm very much in a print-and-play mode, so I may be thinking about a quainter version of the game you have in mind. I'd rather make a few dice than cut out lots of cards! But I'll assume you're going to use cards.

Once the heroes acquire a dragon skin or some new equipment, how do they add to their inventory? Are the items all represented by cards, or will the players keep track of things by writing on a record sheet?

[kane]

Funny you should mention Mayan and Incan. LOL. That is one of the things that really drew me into the setting. Its a mix of tribal cultures from the Pacific Rim, Africa, and Meso-America but with medieval-fantasy weaponry. I'm going to go ahead and go with the Monster Hunter motif for the time being as I have no preconceived notion of this ever actually being published. But, I may see what I can do to get it published with the license intact, a license that is VERY poorly represented on this side of the Pacific (its as big as Pokemon in Japan and Korea).

Not sure how tactical I want it yet. Definitely thinking more on the boardgame end of things, but at least short and long range so that players would have to defend the shooter with the VERY slow to reload bolt-firing weapon.

Henches for the bad guys would be smaller monsters. For example, using MH again, the first boss is a gigantic velociraptor who can summon normal sized male 'raptors as well as females who are a bit bigger and tougher. For the heroes, once again, the analogue on the game would be these little cat people/pygmy's that help you by distracting the monster, healing you, and hitting the monster with some smaller attacks. Also exists in AH. DEFINITELY a good idea. Thanks!

Players would have herbs (from the exploration phase) that they could mix with other things to make various potions to heal or recover from poison and such. Definitely a must have.

The one thing that cards have over dice is that if you have to deplete a deck before shuffling, you make sure that the big, nasty surprises will come up more often than a random die roll. Both have their pluses and minuses, though, for sure.

Another reason I like cards is that, they get a card for each piece of treasure and turn it in as its used. Makes record keeping a breeze for those less inclined towards RPG type mechanics. Can get cumbersome but have a very nice, tactile feel.

[Dave]

Cool, that all sounds good.

I have a theory that any board game can be developed into a working prototype in 24 hours. What do you need to make this one happen?

Miniatures/figures - You have these on hand, I'm sure.

Dice - Ditto.

Cards - You could mock these up quickly for a monster or two, and some treasure. Enough to test the game without developing a large number of cards to start off with.

Game board - Easy enough to do by piecing together some sheets of paper and drawing on it.

Rough draft rules - This will write itself as you playtest.

What else?

[kane]

That is honestly it. The biggest hurdle is the combat mechanics. Definitely aiming for more abstract, board-gamey feel. I was just noting on FB that it was writing itself. LOL. Will start prototyping this week!

[Parduz]

While i like the idea, i see no clues about "cooperation"... i mean: are players just play each own game, or actively helping each other to reach the goal? How do they cooperate? Are player's turn "closed" (each player do his full turn), "open" (i do something, you do something to help me, then i finish, then you finish) or is the game working in "rounds" (all player moves, all players combat, ecc)?

I was searching for co-op games from long times. So, with my group, i tried BattleStations, Red November, Shadow over Camelot, Runequest and many more which i don't rember.
We all found that almost all of these games are boring, 'cause one (or more) of these issues:
- you're playing alone, and you may don't even care about what other players are doing
- you're forced to do always the same (or similar) things 'cause your character is the only one able to do it (the "tank", the "wizard", ecc)... so no choices available for the players
- Some characters do everything, others just do nothing more than supporting the cool ones
- Player's dead time is too much: they wait forever for they turn, 'cause other players have a lot of things to do.

The only working one is Red November, but it is more a filler than a "true game", and not everyone liked it anyway.

This all is to give my experience to you, and to suggest to care a lot about player interaction. I'm still searching for a co-op game, so i look at your with interest.

[darkmook]

This sounds very cool-look forward to the finished product!
You certainly seem to be moving on this a lot faster than I've managed to on mine-over a year and counting now LOL!

[kane]

Parduz, good questions. Best to work them out while making the prototype where they are easier to fix.

The players ultimate goal is to kill the boss monster. Everyone is working towards that goal and the idea is that the monster is too tough for any one player to fight. My initial thought for turn sequence is all players move, all players gather resources, all players have an encounter. At any time, players may trade items to prepare for the coming big battle.

Hopefully, players will not feel less useful than others since they will be building the character with gear cards before the game starts. Each piece of gear will give bonuses/penalties to player skills and it is up to the player to optimize that. Personally, I think the learning experience of what items work best with others is a lot of fun. I hope others will agree.

Darkmook, thanks for the encouragement! Hoping I can really go somewhere with this.

[Parduz]

Ok.
Suggestion: did you know Claustrophobia? it's a great game, one of the best i have. Its only "cons" is that it is a 2 players only game.
It is a sort of dungeon crawling but very innovative: you explore and lay down new tiles. Every tile (which are squares) show 2 to 4 exits (one fir each side) and often have a specific feature (good or bad for the "heroes") that affect gameplay for figures in that tile. There's no grid: usualy a tile can hold 3 figures per player (heroes or demons)... as there's at least 4 heroes and hordes of demons this "enforce" some tactical choice.
I am thinking at it 'cause it can be a good "world" exploartion.
Suppose to have 12 tiles (a forest, a town, a cavern) and that the "world" is build by arranging 3x4 tiles, face down (well, any grid size can work, i'm just reasoning aloud).
Heroes start in the middle of the lower row and start exploring choosing one "exit" from current tile.
Exploring "up" increase the difficulty level and reward in "experience" (you're going toward the boss), while exploring on the same row provide encounters with the same difficulty and rewards equipement.
Make that from the middle of the world up encounters are too difficult for a lone hero, so the players have to build up the charachters from the lower rows (they can explore alone lower level and meet after), but also provide a way to give them pressure, so players have to choose if rushing toward the boss or risk another travel to a side.
Some tiles should requires a combo of heroes abilities to survive, so (talking about fantasy charachters) a hero and a wizard, or a thief and a priest, to enforce co-op. Monsters too should requires cooperation to win.

I think you'll end with a good coop game.

[glennwilliams]

For a board you could use 6x6 tiles with 2-4 areas on each so that each campaign would have a different layout.

[kane]

All great ideas! Thanks for the input, guys.

One system I have bumping around my head is to keep track of how much damage each player does with counters and the person who does the most each round incurs the wrath of the beast, forcing the other players to step up or lose a member, making a kill MUCH more difficult.

[kane]

On denoting which player is which, is color an ok way to do it? I worry about color blind players...

[Tommygun]

I think few people are truly color blind.
Most people I believe with this condition have trouble distinguishing between similar colors like light purple and light blue.
They see colors, but they look different to them.
If you make each color a different level of brightness (or shading) as well as a different color, even a totally color blind person, I think, should be able to see the different levels of shading.
It's like looking at a gray scale chart.

[cowboyleland]

The most common form of colour blindness confuses green and red. Yes, trafic lights and boat navigation lights are examples of THE WORST POSSIBLE CHOICES and are therefore a proof of Murphy's Law. Depending on the number of players you could avoid red and green, but I would also consider shapes. The cards the developed for testing ESP are meant to have the greatest perceptual differences from each other: circle, square, triangle, star, plus sign ( + ) and parallel waves.

Just some whisky inspired thoughts. Happy Burns Night!

[kane]

I know the most common is red/green color blindness, but I have heard of blue/green as well. Shapes may be the way to go. Would also be a good nod to the video game origins (Playstation uses a Circle, Square, Triangle and X button). Thinking 4 players would be ideal with the option of a hench for each player.

[kane]

Kind of slacked on this yesterday. Sadly, listened to some music from Silent Hill and now suddenly having a thought to do something like Battlestar Galactica (which I have not played) where one of them is from the outside world and is their to be punished. Everyone else plays denizens of Silent Hill...or constructs of the characters shattered mind if you will. No one knows which of the others is real and the game would revolve around finding the living person and killing them.

BUT! Enough of that. Going to focus here on ONE game (aside from my RPG) and get this prototype rolling.

I like the idea of modular maps. I am thinking that the core game will have pre-set "zones" much like Parduz mentioned. Lower areas (grasslands) would be easy with herbivores and small beasties. Middle areas would have less resources and more aggressive monsters like 'raptors. Upper zones would have virtually no resources but that is where you would find the nasty beasts and the boss monster nest. Thinking 3 or so maps in each zone and each could be switched out depending on theme.

[kane]

Putting together the list of cards I will need to design to get a proper test going and suddenly thinking. So, in the source material, you gather herbs and mushrooms and turn them into potions. You can use the herbs alone to heal with, but once its a potion, it heals better. Add honey to a potion and better still. You also collect meat from herbivores to keep your stamina up so you can fight and dodge. The thing is, does that work for a board game? Should this all be simplified to "resources" where you use so many to heal or so many to sharpen your sword or whatever? Their is no easy answer to that. Too simple and its boring. Too granular and it bogs down.

[kane]

Started working on the board and I think I want to use an offset square/hex format, HOWEVER, I'm planning on it being abstracted into circles so that it has more the appearance of a board game. Anyone know where I could find pre-made offset circle paper?

[kane]

Huh. In response to my own question:
incompetech.com/graphpaper/
Round spaced grid! BEAUTIFUL!

[Sirrob01]

incompetech.com/graphpaper/circle/

What your after?

[kane]

That was exactly it, yes! Now just need to add some icons, shape that into zones and print for the alpha test board.

Then, I just need to design the boss-monster attack deck and finalize the combat system. Those have been banging around so long, though, that they should be a cakewalk. (famous last words...)

[kane]

Inspired by Dave and going with custom dice. Each type of weapon will have its own die. Sword and shield will have, for example, 1 hit on 2 faces, 2 hits on one face and a shield on three faces. When attacking, a hit denotes damage. When defending a shield denotes defense. Something like a great sword would have 1 hit, 2 hits, 3 hits, but only 2 shields as you are not armed with a shield, but can still block. A long sword (katana) would have 4 hit faces, but no shield faces as you can not block with it. Still working out the system, so this is just rough examples.

[Sirrob01]

reminds me of the old heroquest dice, although it was abstracted to just the one dice for everything.

Maybe to save on the number of dice, you could abstract weapons into class groups.

ie a sword and shield and an Axe and shield pretty much do the same kinds of damage, 2 handed weapons likewise, etc I think you see were I'm going....

just a thought

[kane]

Actually that was exactly the idea! Any one handed weapon with shield would be one die. Any large, heavy weapon another. Note to self: mace with shield treats an x2 face as x1 but treat the blank face as a hit...

[Parduz]

mh.... i see "problems" with ranged weapons, or melee vs. ranged. I can't imagine how to build dice for arrows and made them interact with melee ones.
But as i'm tired from 9 hours of strong programming, i may have some "imagination shortage"

[kane]

Ranged weapons will have their own dice as well. As it will be light tactical, it will hit the first target in the direction shot, I should think.

[kane]

First draft of the rules are done. Now need to write monster stats and gear stats. That is fairly simple, though, as the rules were written around them in the first place. Just need to write them and fine tune the balance and Version 1 is ready to roll!

[kane]

Sadly, life has SERIOUSLY gotten in the way of things. Was sick twice in the last two weeks and other things. Working on a slightly smaller scale arena combat version of the game to test things out more thoroughly before going full tilt. Don't want to curse myself, but should be ready within the next few days.