New idea based on merchants supplying heroes

Ya I agree, there is a lot of space, almost too many possibilities at the moment :P. I actually did take a look at swords and potions, though never went past the loading screen. Although I had the idea in my head before that, it gave me some ideas on trading and such.

For the time being, I think it would be cool if parties could buy from all players. Perhaps they will buy from whoever can offer the cheapest price, almost like auctioning off gear to them. In the end, you would have to make sure you will be making enough money of off this though, and it will be difficult to balance this without a player actually playing as the parties, which is something i want to avoid.

I also think having different players supplying the same party will open up some interesting mechanics. For example, lets say a steel breast plate has 3 fame attached to it, and a sword has 2 fame on it. You supply the party with one of each, so you have 5 fame if the party completes a dungeon. Also, when it comes to getting whatever loot the party obtained after the dungeon, it will depend on what amount of fame the party had on all their gear in total. For example, if they had 15 fame from gear, you would get 1/3 of the items. As for what items the parties want to buy, it will probably be fairly limited. Perhaps each hero (depicted on a card) will want 2 items of specific types (sword, leather armor, shield), and there will be a way of determining highest quality with lowest price.

Again, lots and lots of options. I just need to find which ones are doable and which ones will totally slow down/over complicate game play.

It's interesting, dungeon lords sounds a lot like a different game I started creating earlier this year, but kinda gave up on, although a lot of ideas from this game come from my original idea. Thanks for the links, I'll check them out!

Haha of course you've muddled things up for me, but that's what I'm on here for, some new ideas that will totally re-shape the game's current form. I don't know about recruiting heroes, but I do like the idea of sponsoring. Like, if you supplied a party with the majority of its gear, or maybe if you gave it some gear for free, you can take some control over them, for example, convincing them not too buy with some merchants, bartering for better prices, going to certain dungeons, etc.

I was also thinking about each player specializing in a certain type of items, which would make trade and co-operation much more important. I would like the game to keep an endgame competitive feel, but I think you will have to help each other in some ways, of course, only to better yourself in the end. Possibly if you create a certain amount of items various times (such as swords, robes, bows, etc.) you get better at making them, giving you more chances to create powerful gear? Or perhaps you some how obtain 'blue prints', which show which resources are required to make what gear. Ex: Player A has a blueprint for a sword, which requires two metal and one wood. Player B needs a sword, but there is limited blue prints. Thus, trading would be necessary. I think some interesting over world events would stop the player from feeling like,as you put it, Norman the Barbarian's accountant (lol, btw).

Hmmm it's an interesting idea, and does seem fun. Especially the competitive side of it, such as supplying other parties just enough so they survive through your zone. The only thing is I'm just trying to stay away from players actually owning parties, or having allegiance with any party in particular. Maybe there is no way to do this, but I just like the idea of the players being able to supply any party in any which way, without being biased by thinking that he/she should make their own party a priority. I like the one dungeon roll though, and you hit might current dungeon battle mechanic almost right on the button!

Another thing is that I'm trying to make it so equipment won't 'break'. I think it would be neat if there was a way for it to incorporate the heroes buying different gear and swapping weapons between dungeons, but it would just be kinda complicated to see what the durability is on every item (I'm thinking possibly 2 items per hero, 3 heroes per party, and 3 parties? This ends up being a lot of items). Unless anyone (or Ludomancer) has any good way around this. All in all, some really good idea for a game, but just not for as I view my game currently.

In my last post I was talking about blue prints, and trading, and I think I found a way to remedy this. Each character will hold blue print cards (roughly 4-6 max each) which shows which gear they can produce. They can only hold one card of each type though (ex. Warrior Weapon, Mage Robe, Bow.... etc.). So, if they wish to supply a specific hero/party with an object, there will be smaller cards with colours depending on which player is supplying the gear. Each card will say what type of gear is being supplied. Eg. a blue card with 'Warrior's Weapon' on it shows that this party is gaining from the Blue player's current 'Warrior's Weapon' blue print (if this makes sense to anyone!). This way, players are limited by how many different items they can produce (can't supply a whole party by themselves) and also it's easier to track which players are supplying which parties. Tell me what you think!

Haha I know what you mean, it's an addictive idea in a way. Thanks for the reply! Ya, perhaps in a dungeon you can't pass a certain card, instead of losing for some, a certain armour piece would break. This would make the after dungeon process interesting, even if you end up winning the dungeon, the party may have to go back and buy some gear for themselves. Just thinking of that, it would be really interesting if the parties themselves had gold. It would also make it easier to see which pieces of gear they could buy in between dungeons, though it could get complicated with this feature.

I do think that getting more interesting blue prints would definitely be interesting. Perhaps gear would have 2 categories, "Non-Magical" for gear you can get at the start of the game, and "Magical" for gear you unlock as the game progresses. Perhaps there would be a certain resource like gems or something, that would be used only in the forging of magical gear, but would be rather rare. I'm definitely planning on some sort of leveling system for gear, but it may just be either common or magical. I don't think that really being able to upgrade the gear would work overly well, I think it would probably be better (and fairer to players that weren't currently supplying the party) if they had to buy entirely new gear in order to get better gear.

I have a general idea for a game board that I may make at some point this weekend!

Sorry for the triple post here.... but just thought I'd show the rough prototype for the game board. Hopefully this shows off some of the above ideas a bit more clearer:

http://www.bgdf.com/node/5071

Ok thanks for the comment! The Player's role is that of a merchant, who is supplying heroes in a fantasy world in order to gain riches from their endeavors, and fame from supplying the famous heroes/parties. Their end goal is to get a certain amount of fame from the heroes, and they get this through supplying the heroes with gear (weapons, armour) that makes them better at completing dungeons. The Player's do end up playing a variety of roles though, as they must gather resources, create gear, trade with other players, supply heroes. One thing they do not do though, is control the parties of heroes in the dungeons.

Thanks for all the ideas! I like the idea of spreading rumours, I already think there will be a system to influence their choices, which is by if the majority of their gear by supplied by you, you get to influence them once a turn, or something along those lines. And yes, it is fairly direct risk/reward.

This is another thing I have problem with, the actual movement in the game board. It's more about the merchant changing cities. Each city will have certain resource nodes attached to them, which represent the likelihood that a certain resource will be spawned in that city. So to get a certain resource, you will have to buy from a certain city (though some will be available at multiple cities). Eg. A certain city has 2 metal nodes. At the start of all players second turn, roll a dice for each one. On a 3+, players will be able to buy metal resources if they are in the connecting city. Also to supply a party with gear, you must be in the same city as them.

As for collecting resources/materials, it is just going to cost gold in the early game, but possibly in the late game you can create a collector model on a certain node, for a large cost of gold. Possibly heroes could gain resources in dungeons as well, I never thought of this!

I did think of 3 levels of dungeons, but I just think 2 is good enough for me to focus on for now, after all, I don't really want the focus to be on the parties in the dungeons themselves. There is probably going to be some differences amongst the easier parties anyway, but if I see a need to later on, I could change this.

Ya I like the exotic places idea, I could really play around with it once I actually get a background on the main map. For example, there is only one city that you can get magic essence from, I could place it near some sort of magical location etc. Thanks for the ideas!

As for the limited actions, that's actually a really good idea. I've been wanting a way to limit players turns, and this could be a good way of doing it. It'd be nice if players took turns after every action, since it would be kind of unfair if one player got to do all his actions right after certain resources became available. For example, at the beginning of the turn, 2 metal resources are gathered at a city. Player A gets the first turn, and he buys up all the metal. It'd be more fair if he got to buy 1 metal, then it went to the next player. After all players do their actions (3 per turn?) the event board is rolled on, and the heroes move one space closer to their current dungeon.

A cool idea, and I like the idea of the resource costs changing depending on how many are bought. I'm kind of confused though by your post, does the price go up or down as more are purchased? Is the price effected by every player that buys resources?

I thing its a neat idea, but it may clutter up my game since each city is supposed to offer multiple resources to merchants. I think since certain items costs combination of resources (for example, a sword costing sword and metal) it would be difficult if certain cities only offered certain resources. Maybe I should increase the amount of cities in the game though. I am interested in implementing a system similar to it though, perhaps instead charts on the right side of the board that show as all the resources of a certain type (eg. wood) are bought, the price increases. These charts would be effected by all buying of resources on the map.

By the way, the list of resources are as follow: Metal, Wood, Leather, Cloth, and Magical Essence. I suppose fame and gold are also a resource in a way, though they are not used in a similar way.

You need to move from city to city because there is still only certain resources in certain cities, and certain resources are more common in certain cities. For example: City A has 2 Metal nodes, a Wood node, and a Leather node. City B has 1 Metal node, a Wood node, a Cloth node, and the rare Magical Essence node. City C has 2 Wood nodes, a Leather node, and a Cloth node. As you can see, you will be required to move from location to location, and if you are short on certain resources, certain cities are even more advantageous (such as getting wood in City C).

I've been thinking all day, what problems persist in the game and a big one came up- what will make the parties buy gear, how much will they buy it for, and what happens if someone tries to sell them a new piece of gear that they already have the same type as (so they don't necessarily need it, but the gear may be better). I came up with some solutions/ideas that I'd like to get some input on.

How much they buy it for could be entirely up to the selling player. I was thinking a simple solution would be each player offers a price. Then, for the gear they are selling, they take the gear's power (eg. 3) add a point if it has an additional effect (1), and subtract the cost (eg. 2). The party of heroes will then buy whichever one has the highest value (so this one would have 2, 3 for power, 1 for effect, and -2 for the cost). Another idea would be if each party had some sort of nature that characterizes what gear they prefer. Maybe 5 cards in total (each party of the 3 picks one) would be possible. For example, one party could really want gear with effects, 1 party looks for more expensive gear, one party mainly wants gear the effects dice rolls etc. This is an interesting idea, but could make some gear impossible to sell if the right nature isn't in the game (but perhaps if the party dies, the nature gets replaced)

For what will make the parties buy gear in the first place, it would mainly be based on demand, what weapons they need, and which are cheapest etc. But, if they already have gear, things get complicated. One idea is to include more situations where gear would get broken, maybe even some event cards that would destroy certain gear. Another thing is perhaps if a new piece of gear is offered to a party that is superior (more power, or same power with an effect), the party will want to buy that one. It'd be neat if every time a party wanted to buy new gear, the players went on a sort of bidding war to make the parties buy their products, but the problem is when the parties will want new gear (though I think event cards would be a neat solution).

Some other ideas in the game that I think will need to be changed are resources (possibly even having no resources), how fame works, more balanced gear (because after turn 1, having a blueprint for a weak weapon would be next to useless), and how players can gain control over parties. I'll go over these once I've thought about them more, just wanted some feedback on my above points!