Need *game* ideas

Hey Quest,

When you say the game is "too simple," what exactly do you mean? Can you be more specific about what you feel it lacks? Could you also include what your target playing time and complexity is, and give an example of 1 or 2 games that have the feel and complexity you're after?

Hey Quest,

Thanks for the answers -- they helped a lot.

I've got a suggestion or two, but they're more "reformulations" than additions. I throw them out in the spirit of brainstorming rather than "have you tried exactly this?"

The idea is to change the basic mechanics a bit to reinforce more strategic gameplay, but still keep things simple. It works like this:

-- Have 1 (small) character pile, 1 quest pile (containing monsters, treasures, "areas" (formerly lairs) and events), and 1 "equipment" deck.
-- Deal the equipment evenly to all players.
-- Blindly select 10% of the cards at random from the quest deck and discard them (don't look at them).
-- Shuffle the remaining quest cards and place them face down.
-- Shuffle the character pile and place it face down next to the quest cards.
-- Play starts with the player to the dealer's left.
-- The active player starts a new Quest by flipping over the top Character card. All characters have a "strength" number.

-- BEGIN PLAYER TURN
-- The active player replenishes his hand to 5 cards.
-- BEGIN THE PLAYER'S TURN LOOP
-- The player flips over a single Quest card.
-- If it's a treasure, the player does nothing until the end of the turn (see below). All treasures have a Gold Value. Some have a Special Power (see below).
-- If it's an Area card, perform the action indicated. For example: Swamp -- player loses 1 Equipment card at random.
-- If it's an Event card, perform the action indicated. For Example: Lost! -- player's turn ends immediately. Quest continues with next player.
-- If it's a Monster, add its strength to that of all monsters previously played in this Quest. If the monsters' strength exceeds the characters, the player may play a single Equipment or Treasure card to save the character. Most equipment has a strength that is added to Characters, but some may be spells like "Fire Shield" ("ignore all damage from any blue creature) or "Dodge" (ignore all damage from monsters with strength < 3). Players may only play Treasure cards that they have earned from previous quests, and then only if the treasure has a Special Power. Playing the Treasure destroys it (remove from play), but activates the Special Ability. Example: "Jump Gem". Worth 5 gold, the player can shatter this to discard the last monster drawn.
-- If the total Monster strength exceeds the total strength of the Character and all Equipment cards, the Character has been defeated and the player's turn ends.
-- If the Character remains undefeated, the player may choose to turn over another Quest card, or may stop the Quest.
-- END PLAYER'S TURN LOOP (player can repeat the loop until his hand is empty, the Character is defeated or the Quest otherwise interrupted, or the player decides to stop).

-- If the player exhausts his hand or decides to stop playing cards, the Quest continues with the next player, who can choose to continue the Quest or start a new one.
-- If the next player starts a new Quest, the previous player collects all the Treasure associated with the previous Quest and discards the used Equipment and Quest cards into separate piles. The previous player then lets any players who participated in the previous Quest randomly choose 1 Treasure, then keeps the rest for himself.
-- If the next player continues the old Quest, he immediately enters his TURN LOOP, by flipping over a new Quest card.

-- Play continues until the Quest deck or the Character deck is empty.

-----------------------------

So, this formulation uses a "push your luck" mechanic to force players to use cards strategically. It also lets players risk some Treasures to gain advantage via Special Powers. If you give the monsters "colors" (i.e., suits), and the characters "Classes," you can make interesting equipment cards that are class specific, and Area and Event cards that affect only certain monsters.

The "blind discard of 10% of the Quest cards" makes card counting much less effective.

To make all this work, I imagine players placing all cards in a matrix as they build the active Quest. Each new player starts a new row, so everyone can track who has contributed when it comes to dividing treasure.

While there will still be a lot of luck, the game should feel much more strategic.

Mark

You're right about the scoring. The problems you point out are exactly what I was thinking when I said scoring was broken in the second post.

Stealing is an interesting idea -- have to think about that more.

Alternatively, I've been thinking it should work like Farkel in that you get all the points accumulated up to that point, but that could be tedious to compute.

I also agree that scoring should be about more than just Treasure. I have a couple ideas about that which I'll PM you.

As for Lair/Area, I agree that Lair is better than Area, but once I dropped set completion as a mechanic, Lairs got weird. For instance, you could have a Quest with Lairs but no monsters.

On the other hand, I think the Lair/Area cards could be interesting. For example:

Area: Enchanted Forest
Color: Green
Power: +1 for each Green Monster in the Quest.

These are the cards that make it very risky to continue a long Quest.

Going to read and reply to your PM now.

Thanks to this thread and your PM, I've been able to refine the design. It's diverging from the original idea a bit, and hence from your examples above, but that doesn't imply any criticism of either direction. I think you're on to some good stuff. This may be, too.

Anyway, the refinement:

Object: have the most points after playing once through the Quest deck.
Components:
-- 1 small deck of Characters
-- 1 large deck of Quest cards (Monsters, Realms, and Events)
-- 1 large deck of Adventure Cards (Weapons, Items, Spells, Skills, and Luck).
-- 1 medium deck of Treasures

Monsters, Realms, and Items come in colors representing "elemental" spheres like: holy, unholy, wood, fire, water.

Setup:
Shuffle each of the 4 decks separately. Deal 5 Adventure cards to each player.

Play Summary:
-- The game starts by flipping over the top Character card. Play starts with the person on the dealer's left.
-- The active player flips over the topmost Quest card, which will have a Power value, a Treasure value, and possible a special effect.
-- The player must then play one Adventure card (or a single comb of cards) whose total Power equals or exceeds the Quest card's Power value.
-- If the player succeeds, he draws Treasure cards equal to the card's Treasure value. If he fails, the Quest ends, along with his turn, and play proceeds to the next player, who begins by flipping over a new Character card.

Example -------------
Dave, Diane, and Drew start a new game. They flip over the first Character:

Njordalf the Dwarf
Special Power: +2 Power when using a Weapon
Limitation: may not use Spells

Dave starts his turn. He flips over the first Quest card:

Realm: Burial Mounds
Color: black
Power: 0
Treasure: 0
Special: Draw Again

Seeing the Special Power, Dave draws a second Quest card:

Event: Thief!
Special: discard 1 Treasure or 2 Adventure cards to continue your turn.

Dave discards 2 cards and flips a third Quest card:

Monster: Orcs
Color: grey
Power: 4
Treasure: 1

Dave plays his "Short Sword" card, a Weapon with Power = 2. Since Njordal has +2 Power with Weapons, the total power is 4, which matches the Orcs' 4. Dave draws 1 Treasure and places it on the Orc.

With only 2 Equipment cards left, Dave decides to stop. He takes the Treasure and places it face up in front of him in his Treasury.

------------------------

The next player can continue Njordalf's Quest, or start a new one. If she starts anew, she discards all of Njordalf's accumulated Quest cards. If she continues, she leaves them on the table, adding Quest cards to them as she plays out her turn.

Some Adventure cards can be "comboed" for increased effectiveness, allowing players to place multiple cards in a single play. Players may make only 1 play per Quest card, however.

Example -------------
Diane begins her turn. She decides to continue Njordal's Quest and flips over the next Quest card:

Monster: Skeletons
Color: Black
Power: 2 + 1 for each Black Area in the Quest
Treasure: 1

Because there is 1 black area in play (the Burial Mounds), the Skeletons have a strength of 3. Diane plays "Dagger" -- a Weapon with strength 1 -- using Njordal's +2 Power to bring her total to 3. She defeats the monsters, draws 1 Treasure, and places it on the Monster's card.

She decides to continue and flips over the next Quest card:

Monster: Ogre
Color: grey
Power: 8
Treasure: 2

Diane plays the following combo:

Item: Scroll
Color: grey
Power: 0
Special: allow anyone to use a Spell at full power

++ plus ++

Spell: Fireball
Color: red
Power: 6

++ plus ++

Luck: Lucky Shot!
Special Effect: combo to double an attack's Power

Her total of 12 beats the Ogre's 8 and she collects her 2 Treasures, placing them on the Ogre.

With only a single card left, Diane decides to stop, moves her Treasures face up in front of her.

------------------------

Players can continue to draw Quest cards until they fail to overcome one of the cards' Power or decide to stop. If a player empties his hand successfully overcoming a Quest card, he can replenish to 5 and keep going.

If the player fails to overcome a Quest card, he must discard all Treasure earned during that turn.

Example -------------
Drew opts to continue the current Quest and flips over the next Quest card:

Realm: Enchanted Forest
Color: Green
Power: 4
Treasure: 1
Special: you may overcome this card by discarding 1 green Adventure card

Drew discards a green "Heal" spell and collects 1 Treasure, which he places on the Realm card. Then he draws again:

Monster: Wild Elves
Power: 4
Color: green
Treasure: 1
Special: Double Power if last Realm is green

Drew plays the following cards:

Luck: Surprise Attack!
Special: Combo with Any Card for +2 Power

Miscellaneous: Oil of Pain
Special: Combo with Weapon for +2 Power

Miscellaneous: Perfect Specimen
Special: Combo with Character to double Special Power

Weapon: Short Sword
Color: grey
Power: 2

Drew must overcome 8 Power. His combo results in 2 for the dagger, +4 for Njordal's special power (doubled by "Perfect Specimen"), +2 for "Oil of Pain" -- for 8 points. He succeeds, and uses all his cards to boot.

Drew draws 1 Treasure, places it on the Wild Elves, and replenishes his exhausted hand to 5 cards.

Flush with victory, he draws another Quest card:

Event: Unholy Rite
Special: If any black Realms are in play, revive the last monster defeated, treat it as black, and double its Power.

Drew looks at the Raised Wild Elves, now strength 16, frowns at his hand, and announces his defeat. He discards his accumulated Treasure (1 on the Enchanted Forest and 1 on the Wild Elves), discards all current Quest cards (since he failed, the Quest failed), and passes play to Dave.

------------------------

Some Treasures', called "Artifacts", have variable value, depending on cards played previously in the Quest. Such Treasures have a unique value printed on each border, signifying four "levels" of possible Value. When a player successfully ends a turn and collects his Treasures, he rotates all Artifacts when placing them in the Treasury such that the correct value as at the top of the card.

Example ---------------------
After defeating the Ogre, Diane drew two treasures, one of which was:

Artifact: Necronomicon
Value:
-- Level 1: 2 (0 black Realms in the play)
-- Level 2: 4 (1 black Realm in play)
-- Level 3: 8 (2 black Realms in play)
-- Level 4: 16 (3+ black Realms in play)

Since 1 black Realm was in play when she defeated the Ogre, she turns the card so that 4 is along the top when moving it into her Treasury.