Ok, one more thing to discuss. We need to decide how we are going to present obstacles and discoveries. So far I see two camps:
1) Obstacles and Discoveries occur on cards only when you search a cave section. When searching, you draw a card from the deck. Results could be an obstacle, a discovery, an encounter (bats, rats, etc), or nothing. Different decks (easy, medium, difficult) could be used where severity of the obstacle or event was balanced with the value of the discovery. Players could choose which deck to pick from or a system could be setup where the cave tile dictated which deck the players drew from when they searched in that tile.
-or-
2) Obstacles and Discoveries are tied to the specifically to tiles. Discoveries might have one point value for the person who first discovered it, and another lesser pt value for other explorers who also 'document' the find. Obstacles could be found in a cavern that prevented explorers from crossing the cavern without first overcoming the obstacle. Some obstacles might be a one time shot (I.E. Cave ins) while others might need to be overcome everytime they are traversed (steep wall, underground lake, etc).
Ok sink your teeth into that please.
-Darke
Scurra, we voted that there would be one game with one theme, hence no seperation in the games.
Let me say why I would like to propose tiles by OPPOSING the use of cards. Here's why: If everything is in the cards, then other than physical layout, everyone is playing in a DIFFERENT cave system. For example, if I explore a specific cavern, I may find a wonderfully ancient old cave painting that I had to use a rope to climb up to to discover it. You may go to the same cavern and find some broken potsherds and a swarm of angry bats. Hello!?!?!? Are we in alternate realities? Shouldn't I find and have to deal with exactly the same stuff as you? Otherwise it's too luck driven.
If we insist on using cards, perhaps we could implement a system with which the obstacle/discovery on a room is 'remembered' by placing the card(s) on a gridded board off to the site that represents the game board. I believe this to be too fiddly personally.
My other idea if we insist on using cards instead of tiles is to use TILE SIZED cards.. That way when the obstacle and/or discovery was determined for that specific tile, it could be placed face down on the tile. These tile cards could be placed on a tile immediately when they are placed (perhaps further clouding the details of the tile from the other players, like which exits lead out of the room). This might work very well if during tile placement we are only legally able to place new tiles next to explored tiles. For example, if I have a tile that is unexplored to the north, east and west, I could play one tile for each unexplored direction with the obstacle/discovery card face down on top of the cave tile. With this method only I would know about the exits of the face down tiles since I placed them. However, no one would know which discoveries/obstacles existed in the room since I would play the D/O tile face down before I even looked at it.
Of course, the other, more simple option is just place the obstacles and discoveries on the cavern tiles themselves. Of course, this isn't realistic in game terms, but it is a game, and some details HAVE to be abstracted out in order for it to work.
Comments please?
-Darke