Game # 19: Dragon's Hoard

For convenience:

Dragon's Hoard Rules

Dragon's Hoard Cards

Note that both are Word documents and so will require Word or a similar Office product to read.

Yes, BANG! was the first thing that came into my mind too. This game could be faster in play but loses the neat bluffing mechanic that makes BANG! work.

I'm not at all sure if the "luck of the draw" aspect will be compensated for by the length of the game. IOW most games will likely come down to someone drawing the DragonSlayer at the right moment, or perhaps lucking into the fourth Maiden.

Couple of comments:

The DragonSlayer seems far too strong. In Magic (a comparison Zaiga makes, although it's perhaps inappropriate), an "instant win" usually requires a combination of cards, rather than just one. For instance, perhaps you should need a Wizard and/or a Thief as well as your DragonSlayer in order to try to use it. That way the player has to use both their cards in a turn whereas the opponent only needs one defence.

Um, wouldn't there need to be twice as many Coins as Gems if the Gems are worth twice as much?

Is it simply the first player to slay an opposing dragon that wins? Or is it "last dragon standing"? (I'm excluding other victory conditions here! btw, I disagree with Zaiga on this: I think all of the conditions seem fine as long as they are balanced.)

Otherwise, it'd be interesting to know how most games end. Do people mostly collect enough treasure? Or do they slay their opponent?

It seems like a nice light game with a bit of tactical depth but nothing hugely strategic. A decent "filler" game (and that's meant as a compliment, btw!) that, crucially, doesn't need any extra components, which is also a good thing.

This sounds like a very fun mechanic. Clever.

When I first looked at the rules I thought, "oh no another magic type game."

When I looked at it further, it does appear to differ in a significant degree not making it a clone.

Things I like about the game:

1) Multiple victory conditions. Great idea to add in to a card game.
2) Differeing dragons have special abilities.
3) The card interaction where you have offensive and defensive cards
4) The building up of a play area.

I do agree with the other folks that the "Dragon Slayer" card is way too powerful, and may result on the second turn a player being eliminated.

There was a suggestion that in order to activate the dragon slayer card, you need other cards. Perhaps in your play area you must have more knights in shinning armour than your opponent (need a knight to slay the dragon) plus a special dragon slaying sword.

Also I noticed is that a player (however rarely) could draw five cards and happen to have four fair maidens. This would allow the player to win right away.

Besides these things, the main strengths you have is multiple victory conditions, a simple scheme, offensive and defensive cards plus the interesting interaction between the cards.

Looks good.

--DarkDream

Hi Geoff,

Haven't really been following the discussion on the game, so forgive the redundancy.

First, minor quibbles about grammar. When you're using the 3rd person singular, it's always "his" items that you're talking about, not "their." This is a minor point, but made the rules confusing. Moreover, the use of the singular and plural is mish-mashed in such a way that I can't tell how you win the game. From the rules, for example, it sounds like even in a 3 or 4 player game, each player has one opponent, and when he eliminates that opponent, he wins the game. Is that right? Or should "opponents" be pluralized? This small detail makes a huge difference in meaning.

Now, onto the game itself. I understand that you're going for a light, "filler" type game, and in general, a whole lotta luck can be apologized away with such a game, but it's important to remember that the game play still has to be fun enough to make people want to play. I don't play Fluxx, not because there's no strategy, but because there's no strategy AND no fun. (well, ok, it's *kind of* fun, but more "funny" than fun, I would say).

The big doozy, as some have noticed, is the Dragon Slayer card. I *hate* cards that say "play this card and you win". Now, I get it, it's possible another player could be holding a "Dragon's Fire" card or some other "stop an attack" card, but it's really just a crapshoot whether they are or not. And at any time, I can play the Dragonslayer, and if I'm lucky and my foe didn't hold a "defense" card, I win!

Now, one could argue that this could be mitigated by needing to hold onto your defense cards. ie, that the DragonSlayer only works if one player plays "badly" and doesn't hold onto defense cards. And since the defense cards in some cases have alternate effects, there's kind of a "will I use this for attack, or hold it in case I'm attacked" decision process, but I'm not sure it's really all that interesting.

And this, I guess, is my chief concern about the whole game -- it really just boils down to "take that!" card play. I don't see any effects whatsoever that make it more interesting than that -- no sense of trying to put together a good team with complementary abilities to raid the dragon's lair, no feeling of trying to pull off the daring rescue of the damsel for what you hope is a big payoff but finding out in the end she's flat broke, etc. I think there's potential for a great, fun, and atmospheric game here, but I feel like your game gets its theme entirely from text (and, I assume, artwork, in its "published form"). I think you can do better than this.

I think you could stand to add some "standard effects", so instead of each card having a special effect, maybe there's a "generic thing" that "all cards" (or "most cards") do, but each also has a special ability. It just seems like with a deck full of cards that are all special power cards, balancing the different cards is going to be a nightmare, yet you sort of want them to be pretty balanced if the game is to be fair. In contrast, if there was a little more substance to the game, you could have things be a little less balanced, but have the "luck" effect made up by the "risk-reward" effect.

Here's a simple idea for how you could rework the game yet still retain a lot of the flavor and feel (and most of the cards) that you've built.

Divorce slightly the idea that player=dragon. Instead, have each player put up X cards next to their dragon, with Y of them face-up, and place a corresponding "difficulty" card next to their dragon. Now, each other player must assemble a team whose skill exceeds the "difficulty" of the dragon, and if they do, they receive that many "fame" points and the X cards. (and perhaps there are special abilities like "Thief -- look at the face-down cards before going on the quest", "Magician -- exchange one of the prize cards with one from the controlling players' hand, etc").

You'd have to think of an intellectual justification for why players were trying to get other players to raid their dragon lairs, or what basis would go into deciding what treasures to put up for grabs, etc, and a whole bunch of other things besides. In fact, maybe the game system just does this randomly or something. Of course, this is a little like "Dragon's Gold", but you can come up with ways to make it different...

But I think the point is, I could be very, very wrong about your game, and could be misunderstanding it in a fundamental and disastrous way, but right now, as it is, I don't see it ever being better than "pretty ok". BUT, I think that with some simple (but sweeping) changes, you could come up with a system that is guided by the theme you're making, that doesn't rely on "take that!" card play, and that would be more fun and more immersive. It could still be short, it could still be light, yet I think you have everything to gain.

I'm certainly sorry if I come off sounding negative. That's certainly not my intent -- rather, I want to push you to push this one a little harder, because I'm sure there's a great game in here. As it is, you've come up with a nice theme for a fun game. Good luck working on it further!

-Jeff

Just a quick remark about this. Please keep in mind that my remarks (and those of others, I suppose) should really be taken with a grain of salt. I think that the most reliable opinions are probably those of your playtesters -- if they like the game as it is, then that certainly counts much more than my first impression. Also, as you know, should your game end up published, or being played by a lot of different people, you're always going to get a spectrum of opinion -- some will say "it's great", some will say "it stinks!" Don't take the negatives personally, but if you can use them, that would be great...

Glad to hear it has some promise. You should definitely look at "Dragon's Gold" by Bruno Faidutti for comparison, but that game is more about negotiation, and yours is more about adventure; you shouldn't have a problem with making your different.

This, of course, just depends on what it is you're trying to create. For a quick 10 minute romp with lots of back and forth "take that!" action, your game is fine. On the other hand, I really think that you could take something like your game engine and make a 30 minute romp that is much more atmospheric and would be something I'd be much more interested. And, you should take my remarks in that spirit -- I don't insist that all the games I play be deep like chess, but I play almost nothing in the "10 minute filler" category. I just don't have interest in spending time playing those kinds of games. But, if that's what you're really trying to create, my remarks may push you in the wrong direction.

This sounds like a good thing -- I'd certainly try to start from the framework you've already developed if at all possible, and it certainly sounds like you have a good way to do that. I might further differentiate the player cards into "characters" and "items/upgrades". I can see all sorts of simple but interesting character abilities -- a "thief" that lets you look at some of the dragons' treasure to see how lucrative a given hoard is; a "warrior" who boosts your chances of killing a dragon; a "knight" who's worth more if a maiden is part of the 'hoard'; a "weasel" (a la Bilbo) who can parley with the dragon and try to outsmart him, etc. The possibilities are certainly endless! But...be careful. Excercise restraint, and come up with a few simple and clear characters/items/whatever, focusing on playability of the game system and some level of predictability in the card draws; don't worry as much about "simulation" at this point...

Glad to have gotten you thinking; it's certainly the goal of the GDW. Whether you end up making big changes or not, I think it's worth the process of thinking through some sweeping changes, if for no other reason than coming up with a more solid perspective on why you like the game as it is. Whereever you come out with this one, good luck with the project!

-Jeff

I hate to pop your balloon here, but "their" is always plural, as in "Well, I never wanted to go to *their* party anyway!" Sorry, but there's no working around the he/she problem, unless you just pick one or the other and stick with it. While "their" sounds okay in certain contexts, it is actually grammatically incorrect to ever use their in a singular sense. If there's anything I learned in high school English class, that would be it.

And you'd be wrong. Just like you learnt that you should never split an infinitive. Which is also wrong. :)
I do not deny that we don't have a good solution to the problem in English. What I am arguing is you just won't notice if a passage of text only uses "they" in place of "him" or "her", unless the writer deliberately tries to draw attention to it (which some people try to do as if that somehow invalidated it.)

My point is that is isn't easier to write using "they" and "their" without getting into tangles unless you spend time learning how to do it, which often involves rewriting sentences a lot. Which is one reason why people are generally discouraged from doing so at school...

As for bouncing back and forth - that's even worse than using "he" as a default gender assumption!

And can I apologise for turning this into a grammar thread? I bet people are wondering why there's a sudden flurry of conversation about the game and being disappointed to find out that we're just having am English language flame-war ;)

(note: some out of context quoting is occurring here...)

And what's wrong with "a player plays 2 of their cards" in that context?
Now someone might say "he plays 2 of their cards" is wrong - and they would be correct. Indeed, "they play 2 of their cards" would also be wrong, since it leads to singular/plural confusion. But "a player plays 2 of their cards" wouldn't even lead to a moment's pause.
And no, I don't know anyone who would react like that if they saw "he" being used. Although I do know people (myself included) who notice when someone actually draws attention to the fact that they have used "he" throughout!

You brought it up first ;)

Too right. Which is why I don't go around evangelizing on this particular subject; I just apply it myself and join in when other people comment about it...

(As it happens, I started to get interested in the subject when I wanted to stop talking about "God" as "He" - and ironically, "They" is an exceptionally bad replacement in that context! But please don't let us turn this into a Theology thread as well as a grammar flame-war ;))

The problem is that it isn't proper written English. It's ok *colloquially*, but under formal English, it is wrong. I already gave you Strunk and White. Here's a web site I just found that analyzes the whole subject.

I know your response will be "it's ok to use 'their'". But that's just an assertion on your part at this point. Do you have a source that is at least somewhat authoritative that says this is the case?

But it would still be wrong, though I agree it wouldn't raise many eyebrows. Are we talking about "sneaking under the radar", or about using proper English? Should we strive for formally correct English in our rulebooks? It's a legitimate question. To me, the most important thing is explaining the rules in such a way that they can be understood. Pronoun gender usually isn't a factor in this, but I think it could be if you start using "their"'s in place of "he"'s too much.

I have a friend who was a Divinity student, and apparently the school he attended (a reputable institution, actually) decided that to keep everyone happy, the school's official moniker for God would be changed to "He, She, and It." Seriously.

Now, this friend had a professor who wasn't happy about this, and who said one day, "Class, I must say, I'm not happy about this 'He, She and It' business. I don't care how you say 'He, She, and It', to me it just sounds like sh__."

I found that pretty funny, particularly coming from a Divinity professor!

Thanks for that, even though I think it's reasonable to argue that the case outlined there supports either viewpoint :)
(I notice that at least one of the links on that site goes to a page that underscores another point I made, which is that it is easy to write a passge that deliberately makes the use of "their" obscure.)

(You'll have to wait for an answer on this one, as I don't have my books handy. Well, unless Darke decides to kill this thread first for major "off-topicness"...)

Can we use the split infinitive argument here? Do you say that splitting an infinitive is always wrong, sometimes wrong, generally ok or "colloquial" - I can find sources that tell me any number of ways.
You say that I am using colloquial English. I say that I am using perfectly grammatically correct English, but in a form that "traditionalists" do not like. Unfortunately, traditionalists only actually have "tradition" on their side, and tradition is notoriously unreliable (how about "color" vs "colour"? :)

It is, and this is an incredibly trivial point to argue over. I agree totally that the intent must be clear. Hence you were correct to point out (in the original posting that caused all this!) that Paleogeoff's rules were unclear because he was mixing his usage up at various points.
All we have been disputing is a minor technical point, which clearly neither of us are going to budge on.l I was leaping up and down about your original statement :

And I said that you were wrong. I didn't say that you should always use "their", I simply said that you can use "their" as third person singular.
And you can. :)

Hey, who's the moderator of this forum? You messin' with me?
(kidding)

Seriously, you're right, this is OT for this thread. I had hoped that one of the admins could have taken the OT posts and moved them to a different location, but Darke just informed me that he can only move an entire thread, not individual replies from that thread. So, I apologize to Geoff for taking up your thread, as it had always been my hope that these messages could be removed but I guess that's not the case. (although, technically, your session is 'over' anyway, so maybe it doesn't really matter...)

At any rate, anyone who wishes to discuss proper English usage further (which is a legitimately interesting and important subject that we need to explore as writers of rulebooks) should feel free to start a thread in a different forum and continue the discussion!

Thanks,

Jeff