Noob thinks he can dungeon...

Well, thank you! Nice to see that sort of enthusiasm. I appreciate it, really.

I've kicked around the character creation just a little in my head, but haven't actually done much development. Several possibilities have come up, but none have really slapped me in the face with awesomeness. I would love to have a classless system (because Elder Scrolls), based on skill points that you spend into different attributes/abilities/skills, which would be modified by your race selection. I like the idea, but at this point have no clue how it would function in game play - but I will certainly test it.

Another possibility is to do deck-based classes combined with a race choice. For instance, I might choose the race ogre, which gives me some sort of racial modifiers, and then take the Ranger deck. I would then be an Ogre Ranger. With this idea, the decks would be composed of common cards with actions/abilities/items that apply to all classes, plus a number of class-specific cards. Say it's a 60 card deck. Maybe there would be 40 common cards and 20 Ranger cards. Something like that.

I also really love modular equipment. As I was play testing some tiles last night, I had the idea to use a hex as the character card as well, and use five of the edges and the center for equipment slots (helmet, torso, right and left hand, legs, boots). I have been in love with equipment slots since the first time I played Diablo. Regardless with what I come up with for the character creation part, I will probably use this hex idea for the equipment slot representation.

This toolset is some time out. I want to get the tile mechanics smoothed out first - they are pretty simple, so hopefully I'll have it ironed out in a week or so, then I can start really devoting some energy to the character engine.

This is exactly what I found last night while running through a bare-bones test of the tile placement. The dungeon was revealed very quickly. We weren't fighting or looting or anything at this point, but still...I don't want it to be so fast that it edges on casual. I think the combat will help pace things more to my liking, which i won't really find out until working up some stats and trying it out.

My concept right now is this:

Tile placement is determined by two key rules: The Pillar Rule and Line of Sight.

When you move into a hex, you pick a direction that has an open line of sight (a hex edge without a wall), and draw a dungeon floor hex, then place it off the edge towards which you are facing. Pillars are at each corner at the end of a wall edge. Columns must be touching existing columns when placing tiles, and no wall must cover the edge through which your character is looking (because you wouldn't be able to see through the wall to reveal the new hex).

Once placed, the player who revealed the tile, then rolls some dice to determine what is in that new space, if anything. Monster spawner, loot, or ? (random event/item). Some tiles will have two items and/or events to place in them. At that point, the player decides whether or not to move into that revealed tile, or to turn his line of sight toward another opening and reveal another tile. This counts as movement and will cost an action/movement point. The dice roll again, and it repeats until player is out of action/movements.

As long as there are monster spawners on the board, each player rolls the Spawn Die with his roll to determine if the existing spawners produce another monster. If a player enters a tile where a monster is already spawned, combat begins and the action phase is terminated, regardless of how many action/movement points he or she has left.

I think this will keep the dungeon randomly generated while still based on some form of logic, and still leave the player with an element of control over his fate. I might have to modify the Monster Spawn thing if it proves to be overpowered. I want the adventurers to be pressed, but not hopelessly outnumbered.

I'm also toying with the idea of mission cards, much like Risk implemented if you chose to use them. With goals like "kill this certain boss" or "slay this many of that", etc.

Does that sound like it makes sense?

That's kind of what I'm doing. When I first had the idea, the parts that excited me were the randomly-revealed dungeon and using the custom characters. I feel like I'm on the right track. My main goal is to keep the same feeling of a D&D adventure, but to remove the complications of finding a DM and a bunch of people with the same schedule. That is what always prevented me and my buddies from actually getting into a game. Either our normal DM was tired of running a game and just wanted to play a character, or nobody consistently had the same free time to play. We're all fantasy writers, too, so whenever any one of of us tried to start a campaign it always spiraled way out of bounds into something that was more of a novel than a game, and we would rarely actually play anything. LOL.

So, with this, I just want to have an evening with friends and be able to open the box, shuffle a few cards, and get started.

How do you mean "extra slots"?

Right now, in my head, the slots are fixed, but you can alternate what you put in them. Like...if you find a better helmet, you can switch it with whatever you have in the helmet slot.

I'm still trying to decide about what to do with inventory/loot. I wouldn't want to play a fantasy rpg that didn't have looting. But I also don't want to have pointless loot. Like a giant pile of gold you can't spend. And what happens if you throw down the junk? Does it go on the tile floor? Is it consistent so another player could pick it up later? All things I have to figure out.

Right now, I have a merchant area outside the entrance of the dungeon (the player starting area) where traveling traders often set up their wagons to make money off the many adventurers who come to that site. The presence of traders and the type of trader will be random as well, but I'm not sure yet how it will be determined. Maybe some kind of "chance" card or something that says "A new trader has arrived." My intention for these traders is to give purpose to the looting. Players can go back and trade at the weapon seller, for instance, if they aren't having luck finding a better sword while looting.

Holy crap, you guys...I think you just gave me an idea.

I'll draw up something tonight for this...but let me see if I can describe it.

Equipment slots on the edges of the character hex card, with a skill chain extending off of each to represent weapon or armor proficiency. Just a bare glimpse of a concept right now...but...that excites me.

So maybe the character card itself is a hex shape on a bigger rectangular car to allow for the skill tree graphic.

This is definitely one of my main concerns. I'm testing 60 tiles on a standard square card table from Wal-Mart. I'm guessing most people who are into gaming have at least that kind of space available, or make available.

Redesigning the columns to work better with the Column Rule right now. Hopefully I can get the new ones printed and cut out to do a little testing before I have to go to bed. Stupid sleep patterns.

I also just realized my dungeon doors violate my Line of Sight rule. So...more debugging to do.

Wow, that game looks cool. And the tile placement is very similar to what I'm trying to achieve. Mine will have more limitation on how many new tiles a player reveals when moving to the next hex. Good to see the design of those jungle hexes is quite like what I'm doing...with my dungeon pillars on the corners and walls along the edges between, so that then they are placed alongside each other it matches up and (hopefully) creates a nice visual. Maybe I'm on the right track.

Looks like the Relic Expedition uses roll-based action points too. I think I like that idea. Thanks for the links!

Successfully play tested an entire game's worth of tile placement! It works!

Had to tinker with some rules, of course, and fiddle with the design, but it's smooth.

Two questions that came up that I wanted to ask you guys:

1) The placement was somewhat dictated by the edge of the table in late game instead of any internal mechanic. Do you think this is a problem?

2) The players won't necessarily be moving in the same areas, but the game board will be visible to everyone, even if their character is across the dungeon. So they may take actions based on something that is revealed several spaces away by another character, and wouldn't be in their character's line of sight. For instance, a quest goal might pop up on another player's turn, prompting others to race for it. Is this a game breaker, or do you think people will suspend their disbelief for the sake of the game?

Thanks!

Hmmm...that might work. Originally the idea was to print the event triggers right on the tile, then choose an event from a corresponding deck (trap, loot, monster, etc).

Keeping it hidden somehow could be incorporated, though...if I'm smart enough. I'm gonna go think on that.

thanks for the suggestion!

I do know GW! I have a handful of characters in GW2, though it's been a while since I've played. I never thought about that kind of skill system. My original idea started to mutate into its own deck-builder very early, so I pulled it and set it aside to develop as its own thing. I like the idea of physical attributes governing the skills, sort of like in Elder Scrolls. Actually, a lot like in Elder Scrolls.

This part could easily spin far out of my control because I love the leveling system so much and always have some flash-in-the-pan idea to add. I have to make sure to keep it intuitive.

More to ponder...