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How to add some form of "conflict"?

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Sat, 12/26/2020 - 20:19
questccg
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To sum up the concept, I will briefly explain what I have so far...

questccg wrote:
I have a tile play area in which players play cards to be able to move Monks from one tile to the next. The goal of the game so far has been to unlock six (6) locations in any way the player chooses. In order to do so, player must gather "mana" from the play area using three (3) Workers (Monks). Once a location is unlocked, the player may benefit from the abilities and extended abilities (Inlays) to quicken their progress of unlocking the remainder of the other locations.

The problem to this is not the play area or the Realm cards... The problem is that the game has "no conflict"! If I was wanting to design some kind of Euro game... Maybe this would be perfectly acceptable. But I don't want this game to be a "Euro game". I am very much interested in some KIND of conflict.

Anyone have any GENERAL "ideas" about HOW these Monks should "do battle"??? In some way or fashion?? Ideas, comments, questions are all welcome!

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Sat, 12/26/2020 - 20:37
#1
questccg
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Some additional thoughts

I can picture a method of "bopping" Tokens back to a starting position like for example something like in the game "Sorry!" Currently there are NO "Creatures" or "Units" or "Heroes" aside from the Monk tokens.

However I could picture a Jumbo Card with some "kind" of information. I'm thinking SOMETHING RPG-ish... Not 100% sure. It could be a "Monk"-Kit that allows you to choose the "Monk" of your choice... Maybe?!

Maybe a MICRO Deck of "X" Cards ... And somehow use that MICRO Deck to resolve conflict between one or more players...

Not sure... Just some early ideas.

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Sat, 12/26/2020 - 20:59
#2
questccg
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I know I discussed this in another thread

In the game there are "Realm Card" which basically allow you to move around the area of play (Game Tiles). So if you want to move onto a "Mountain" Tile, you would need to PLAY a "Mountain Realm Card". It's pretty simple.

However I was thinking that MAYBE the "Realm Cards" could have a DUAL purpose?!

There are a TOTAL of 64 "Realm Cards" which are common for two (2) or four (4) Players. Each player's hand is five (5) cards and there are abilities which can increase the hand limit.

Four (4) Wildcards and sixty (60) "Realm-specific" cards. The idea that I am working on is... Adding abilities to the "Realm-specific" cards. Perhaps in some form of fashion of "combat".

Like maybe: 10 "Desert" Realm Cards... 1 to 5 for Power and 1 to 5 for Guard. So, 10 cards but split into 2 categories. This could really OPEN UP the game to simple BATTLE tactics... Maybe with some "Actions" too... Like "Desert" + "3 Power" + "Some kind of Tactic".

And if this Deck is STANDARD (identical for all play; no customization) ... It could level the playing field when it came to BATTLES being fair depending on what each player wants to sacrifice as cards...

Anyone have any thoughts about this??? Does this sound "reasonable"?? Anyone have their own ideas about how to include some form of BATTLE mechanic?

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Sat, 12/26/2020 - 21:21
#3
questccg
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I can picture some kind of "extended" rules like

If you have more "Power" than your opponent's "Guard", you defeat your opponent and you MUST discard your "Power" and your opponent must discard BOTH of his/her cards (Power + Guard). Next his/her "Monk" must be "exiled" and placed on the "Gateway" of his/her "choosing"...!

Again something not too overly complicated but enough to have some FORM/KIND of "Battle Mechanic".

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Sat, 12/26/2020 - 21:55
#4
questccg
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Somethings to consider

I have been thinking of using a 52 card (Realm Deck) for the game. And each player chooses cards from this Deck (Common Deck). But at the SAME time I see the *potential* for "customization". How could this be controlled???

Like say: "Power 5" cards. If they are the "strongest" why would anyone ADD any WEAKER cards?! Like "Power 3".

Or if you decided on ONLY having "Mountain" cards as Realm Cards?! Like 60 Mountain cards because you only had "Mountains" in your Realm Tiles...?

While customization seems VERY OPEN and COOL. It makes it HARD to balance a Deck (even if it is less than 60 cards). Like even if it was 52 cards...

How could you CONTROL which cards gets into the Deck without players just using their MOST POWERFUL cards and DOUBLES or TRIPLES of the SAME card???"

Ideas, comments, feedback, questions, are all welcomed! Cheers.

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Sat, 12/26/2020 - 23:27
#5
let-off studios
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Competing Factions

The first idea that comes to mind is that of different schools of philosophy and/or martial arts. Each of the monks is one of a trio of champions of their specific school, racing against the other schools to arrive at each of the six locations and succeed at that location's challenge.

A couple things that may be interesting are the use of high or low numbers to win at challenges and combat, and exclusive hands of cards. If each player has three monks under their control, each monk can have a hand of their own, comprised of cards from that school's initial deck of cards. As the game progresses, monks that succeed at challenges or visit certain locations add to their own hand from a deck of cards unique to that location.

Finally, when two or more monks from the same school are in the same location/tile, the player controlling them can rearrange the decks of those monks. This may be one way for a player to either consolidate power in a single monk to succeed at challenges or combat, or a way to spread powerful cards throughout their monks so each can travel to the different areas with a diverse hand of cards that might be useful.

Maybe succeeding at location challenges calls for high-numbered cards, while succeeding in combat requires low-numbered cards. Maybe there's a target number that must be matched, and when facing off in combat the player with the most matches to that target number from the cards in that monk's hand is the winner.

From what you've written previously, I can't really determine what you would prefer to be the dominating mechanic in the game: card manipulation, or tile manipulation... Maybe even worker placement. It may be useful for you to focus on one or the other and stick with it as you develop your idea.

I hope my comments are useful. Good luck on this, questccg! :)

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Sat, 12/26/2020 - 23:35
#6
questccg
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Much greater of a problem

The major issue with "Realm" tiles is the same as the "Realm" cards: how do you prevent focusing on ONLY one (1) color of tile/card? This is of direct impact to the cards as well. Let me explain...

The first issue is with "Realm" tiles. You use these tile during Pre-Game Setup to configure the play area for 2 or 4 players. Each player has one (1) Gateway tile in addition to the starting Gateway tile in the center of the play area.

However ATM there are no rules to "tile placement" nor "tile quantity" nor any form of "control" over which tiles get chosen and put into play. This is a SERIOUS problem... Why? Well it means that a player could choose to ONLY play "grassland" tiles and use his "Realm card" Deck to ONLY include mid-to-more powerful "grassland" cards.

This clearly is WRONG! I know some people will be like: "Let the players decide which cards they want to PLAY!" And my response to that is that I don't want the game to seem "broken". You get that all the tiles and cards in the same "terrain" just leads to a "monolithic" type of play-style. And that is what is just plain old BAD!

Look at it this way: you are playing a RED deck and have some WHITE and BLACK. But no GREEN or BLUE. This is an example of Magic, how the decks get configured.

Is it possible to only configure a BLACK deck??? Maybe.

But the point being is that I don't want this to happen... Not in this particular game. Or perhaps more time needs to be done to figure out HOW this will impact GAME PLAY...

I think how to SOLVE this problem is with the "Land" cards. These are the twelve (12) cards that are used to configure the six (6) cards used for winning the game. If we DIVIDE the "Abilities" to be beneficial by COLOR or TERRAIN ... Maybe we could "naturally" STOP the single color Decks?!

I've got to think about this some more. I'm thinking that I MAY need tile placement rules. IDK ... Yet. Just an idea. Needs more thought. But basically I want an ORGANIC way of creating a more "balance" set of tiles and cards for the game.

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Sun, 12/27/2020 - 19:31
#7
questccg
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Using dice instead of more "cards" or dual purpose

let-off studios wrote:
The first idea that comes to mind is that of different schools of philosophy and/or martial arts. Each of the monks is one of a trio of champions of their specific school, racing against the other schools to arrive at each of the six locations and succeed at that location's challenge.

Each player has their OWN six (6) locations. But the resources must be collected from the "board" (play area of tiles). I'm still working on how to track resources. My best idea so far is Acrylic 8mm cubes. Or a jumbo card with six (6) tracks (there are six resources too) as another option.

let-off studios wrote:
From what you've written previously, I can't really determine what you would prefer to be the dominating mechanic in the game: card manipulation, or tile manipulation... Maybe even worker placement. It may be useful for you to focus on one or the other and stick with it as you develop your idea.

Indeed the thing is that I want to FOCUS on "Worker Placement" as my primary mechanic... That being said, "Tile Manipulation" and "Card Manipulation" are BOTH secondary mechanics.

let-off studios wrote:
I hope my comments are useful. Good luck on this, questccg! :)

Yes they did help me. Thanks.

I plan to used three (3) dice: 1 Black custom die with three (3) symbols for the RPS die and two (2) standard white dice.

You roll those three to see what you get!

There is a little bit of luck with the RPS... But it "offsets" pure dice rolling in that the white dice may be STRONG but the RPS declares an instant winner when the die rolls are NOT identical.

Your typical RPS: Melee->Ranged->Flying->Melee.

This way the "Realm" card can STAY "Terrain" cards... And Combat is a simple rolling of a few dice...!

Anyone see a problem with this solution??? Please feel free to share your comments and/or feedback! Also if something is not clear, feel free to ask questions so that I can help in understanding the underlying issues.

Cheers!

Note #1: The Attacker rolls first. Gives the Defender a better chance to survive (or to also DEFEAT his opponent too — double loss). If both lose, both reset to the Gateway of their choosing.

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Mon, 12/28/2020 - 00:11
#8
questccg
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Fresh ideas can revolutionize your design!

It's funny how originally the "concept" behind this game "Planes of Aria" (PA) was to remove or to replace a "mechanic" behind another game. And now after a bit of exploration, that "mechanic" could be reused by PA as a way of moving around the various "Planes".

So it is a bit like the concept was flipped 360 degrees in the opposite direction. And really it has... got me thinking there is plenty more to design ... But 25% of the design is taken care of! Just simply realizing that I can use DICE for Combat and the "Realm" cards for Movement.

I've got some more "thinking" to do... But I really am SOLIDIFYING the design after this last batch of "changes"! I am also re-working my design document to ensure all details are not forgotten. Cheers!

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