Game #47: Ludus by emxibus

I would suggest using "players" instead of "ludus" - it takes a way from the "immersion" of the game, I admit, but I think it makes it clearer. People know they're playing a game anyway, so you might as well call them "cards" and "players", etc.

I got the impression that players simply bet on the winner, and win their bet, or lose it. Wouldn't everyone simply bet on the favorite in this case? I wouldn't suggest setting up odds (that would be too complicated), but perhaps a "pot" of a certain amount (or even the amount that everyone bet)... the winner(s) split the pot. This way, if everyone bets on the clear favorite and he wins, everyone get a "bit" of money. If only one person bets on the underdog, but he wins, he would get a lot more money. It involves playing the odds, taking chances, and second-guessing your opponents. This is just one suggestion though, you could probably come up with something better.

One final thing - there are a lot of possible scoring opportunities. Many of them involve having the "most" of something. Personally, I think there's too many of these to keep track of and plan a decent strategy. Maybe if theres one or two, you can weigh your options and see if you want to try for the "most whatever". But I think there's so many it's hard to strategize, and it will just end up being a random bonus.

I like the combat, and the training, and the fame points - try to focus on what you think are the game's best parts, and strip away the rest.

Hi emxibus, I like what you've done with the rules. Great graphics!

A couple comments. First off, you occasionally refer to players as Ludos (you did this before as well), when I think you mean to call them Lanstas.

As for training tokens, it says you get to draw 1 per gladiator you 'own', plus buy more for $1 apiece. A couple things about that... at first glance it seems like that might be too cheap/too many tokens flying around. Are gladiators allowed to get 2 training tokens in 1 turn? Also, are the training tokens face up? Is there an order inherant in the drawing of tokens? What happens if the 'agility' tokens (for example) run out?

Arena Challenge round:
I like that each gladiator will fight exactly once. I think it will make the game fair and balanced.
I don't know about turning gladiators face down... they have all these counters on them!

Fighting beasts: They don't sound very fierce to me... I had imagined it would be like fighting another gladiator, with a chance to die (though low probably- maybe one type of gladiator (heavy) would be better vs beasts than another- i.e. the beast rolls yellow dice- or maybe better you draw randomly which beast to fight- Tiger (yellow), Lion (blue), or Bear (red). I also thought ther might be betting on the beast combat. Althought it would be nice to keep it short and sweet, huh?

Bonus scoring:
I don't think I like the +1 for most gladiators... you already get rewarded for most money, and more importantly you get rewarded for not having your gladiators die because they get to fight more (they already have training tokens and should therefore be better then a newbie). So why should you be penalized further if your gladiator dies?
I also don't know about thet +5 for gladiators of the same type. I'm not sure what that means exactly.

emxibus nice start,

Fame Chart
This section looks really good, one question, has the layout worked well during testing? Seems like a lot of things are track on this one area. But I guess if anything the actual board size (which I dont know) might resolve this potential issue.

Gladiator Cards
Might be nice to have examples of what you mean by "I" and "you"/"your" in this section. It will help clarify any confusion for first time readers of the rules.

Training Token
Not sure why, but the training options and the images dont seem to associate well for me.
Agility and Dexterty seems to require a foot for me. But you have it as stamina, which also makes sense, because the gladiator is still standing. I think using an arm for dexterity might need to be a hand (you know the hand-eye thing). Maybe you could use the arm for strength (sort of a muscle arm type association).

Recruit Phase
I assume when you state "youngest lanista" you mean the youngest player?
I assume that in step 3, where is states "conintues, in order of fame" also assume the previous clause of "youngest lanista" goes first in the case of a tie? I asked since the first round will have this occur, every time. Since all players are started at 1 fame. No one has had a chance to gain fame yet, so this "youngest" order will occur.

Training Phase
It does not specifically state it, but do you only replenish the open gladiator spots? Can I pick up all gladiators and replenish the entire line? Though I would assume that previous training would be lost in this case, and would not be worth it.

The training portion of the phase does not mention that you may only have up to one training token of each type on a gladiator. Do you need it here?

Arena Challenge Phase
Not sure I understand the point of the animal fighting. I understand from a theme angle, but can you explain this are more?

Alone the same lines, would it be better to only award the 3 denarii upon a successful roll? Not sure, but getting up to 9 denarii just becaue you did not attack or get attacked during this phase, might be a bad thing.

Seems like you are handing out free money, is this needed to keep players will enough money to play all 4 festivals?

Along the same lines, if a player does not have any gladiators (for some reason, as mentioned in this section), I dont see how they will gain any money. So, is it possible to reach a point in the game where a player is broke and can no longer gain fame or recruit new gladiators?

Ok this is as far I have made it.... I hope to have more time later to post on the rest of the doc.

Do your rules ever explain the relationships between the dice, and therefore the weight classes? I think this would be important.

Either way, the game looks very interesting. How has playtesting gone? Is it as fun as it sounds?

Hello and congratulations on a great game so far! The rules are very well thought out and the graphics are incredible. With the attention to history and the research that must have gone into this, I can't help but wonder if your screen name is somehow tied to Roman history or to a Latin phrase.

On the other hand (regarding a 7 player game), I agree with others that the game would run a bit long (especially with the combat rules) and downtime might become extreme. Of course, that may not be the case in reality, but it's something to watch for. Just imagine you have 7 players and you're the last one to be challenged. Waiting for all the other combats to be resolved could take quite a while.

Also regarding combat, initiating the challenges seems fairly straightforward, but it's a little fuzzy once all players have had the chance to issue one challenge. Once that has happened, it seems from the rules that ALL remaining gladiators then fight animals. Is that correct?

Granted, the animal fighting system is fairly light and quick, but even still, you have the possibility of up to 7 gladiators to go through the animal fighting (and that's after there have been up to 7 challenges with up to 7 stamina each). Granted, this may be the msot extreme example, but how long does this typically take? How long does your game usually run?

Regarding the ludos/lanistas terms, I love their use in the rules. It lends the game an authentic feel—that extra bit of flavor that evokes the feeling of sand in one's sandals as they play the game. However, could you briefly define what each of the latin terms means so that there is no misunderstanding?

The design looks great! I understand from earlier posts that you did everything yourself except for the actual illustrations of the gladiators! Hats off to you!

Regarding the Skill section of the gladiator cards, the use of "I" and "you" seems likely to cause some confusion. I'm not used to being referred to in the first person by a game component. I would suggest you change the text to refer to the player in the second person and refer to the player's opponent in the third person. For example: "Entangle: Your opponent re-rolls his high attack roll."

For the training tokens, could you put the affect of each token on the token itself? I know that it's always better to keep components text-free, but in a game with as many components as this (and with such a variety of game mechanics triggered by each component), it may be too much to remember. You players will be grateful to not have to constantly refer back to the rules or a chart every time they want to refresh their memory as to the effect of a training token.

I like that the lanista can choose what training to assign to each gladiator, nice touch!

I like the economic factors that you have, but you need to be careful to balance the game so that there isn't a runaway leader problem. Typically, when more money allows a player more options to do better and in turn make even more money, then that becomes a problem. That doesn't seem to be too bad in your game, but you will need to thoroughly playtest to be sure.

Regarding the issuance of a challenge, I would drop the penalty for choosing a non-existant gladiator. It seems a little fiddly to me. You could phrase it such that a participant may not select a slot in which they have no gladiator.

I like that you have used non-transitive dice in your combat situation, but the rolling of two non-transitive dice tends to reverse the effects of them (at least that was the understanding that I got from the article that was recently posted regarding the subject). You will want to playtest the combat to be sure it works the way you intend.

In the attack rules, you will want to indicate what happens in the event of a tie (not a possibility with just the single set of dice, but with two dice and with modifiers, it is certain to happen at some point).

Combat resolution: I agree that the restriction on the emperor's decision seems fiddly.

It seems like, rather than have the “thumbs-down” vote rest simplistically on whether the “winner” took any hits, you could have the player “cash in” tribute tokens to prevent this eventuality (or, choose to keep them till the end, when they’d be worth VPs). Additionally, you could have the “voice of the people” sway the Emperor’s decision somewhat...

Also, I would refer to the Emperor alone and drop the "/Editor." It seems like you are trying to include too much theme in this instance.

I love the feeling of being in the arena that comes from the great blend of theme and mechanics (and the artwork!). I think you've got something really good on your hands!

In your last post you said that the "new" VP rules would give 1 VP to the victor of a challenge?

Here are my comments on the game; I haven’t been following the discussion, so some of these may be redundant.

My “negative” observations. First, I am pretty sure that the combat system doesn’t work. The whole point of non-transitive dice is that A beats B beats C beats A. When you start adding them together, I suspect that this relationship may get screwed up.

This is particularly problematic because of the skill that allows rerolling.
Since you don’t have much variety in the possible outcomes on each die, the whole “interest” of non-transitive dice is that sometimes, they’re going to give in the “low-probability” outcome. Rerolling will gloss that effect over too much. Furthermore, the “+1” bonuses and such probably aren’t as meaningful in a non-transitive system, because again, this system isn’t set up to give fine-grained numerical values, but rather, just an up-down outcome; either A wins, or B, but the actual values don’t have any meaning, and you’re trying to give them meaning. Basically, it feels like you have force-fit non-transitive dice into your old, “conventional dice” combat system without fully thinking it through. If you want to use non-transitive dice, that’s fine, but I think you have a lot more changing to do.

Furthermore, I must confess that the back-and-forth nature of the combat could make this aspect of the game somewhat flat. Maybe not; in Axis and Allies, combat resolution takes a long time, yet it’s kind of fun. But with this round-based combat resolution, you’re looking at a pretty long game, and I don’t know if there’s really enough “meat” to the combat system to sustain interest; I’m afraid it will just feel like a whole bunch of dice-offs without much decision making involved. And also, when you have so much die-rolling to begin with, rerolls are a no-no; I would strongly recommend thinking of something else for the skill that confers that ability.

The “Emperor” bit seems like a missed opportunity to interlock a couple of systems (and what’s the “Editor” supposed to mean, anyway?).

It seems like, rather than have the “thumbs-down” vote rest simplistically on whether the “winner” took any hits, you could have the player “cash in” tribute tokens to prevent this eventuality (or, choose to keep them till the end, when they’d be worth VPs). Additionally, you could have the “voice of the people” sway the Emperor’s decision somewhat, basing the outcome in some way on the Favor tokens that the gladiator has accumulated. (For example, a super-popular gladiator should be hard to "kill" if he loses because the people will discourage the Emperor from doing so)

RETIRE: A gladiator cannot be retired until he has XX Charisma points
VANQUISHED: A player with more Charisma is less liekly to be killed when vanquished (though the possibility is always there)
ANIMALS: A gladiator that is successful against an animal gains for his trainer 1 Fame Point (VP?) for each Charisma.

How about this- Roll a die, and if you roll more than the number of charisma counters then you get the 'thumbs down'? this could be even more interesting if you have to roll your attack die- so you might have strange percentage chances of death that would depend on your class.

I worry that only giving a gladiator 1 VP for defeating another gladiator, a much more high risk venture, may encourage players to try to fight animals instead of gladiators. I know gladiators only get charisma for gladiator fights, but that seems to be the only benefit to fighting another gladiator. The chance of losing your gladiator exist when fighting another gladiator. Does the charisma bonus offset this? If it does you definitely shouldn't give charisma bonuses to gladiators who fight animals.