Ramparts, Pens & Swords - RPS War Game

radioactivemouse, thanks for giving the rules a look, I really appreciate it! I hope to someday have a visually appealing rule book. For now, a thoughtfully formatted word doc does the trick.

Like any good ol' round of rock/paper/scissors there's a fair amount of luck and 'blind' throws involved. In my opinion, that's a lot of the fun of RPS--throw it out there and see if it sticks

But I've created Ramparts with strategy in mind, to make each playthrough unique outside of the randomness of luck. The four factions--English, Frank, Holy Roman Empire and Turk--have certain strategies to their deck. These strategies I have not explicitly stated because it's my hope that players would discover them as they play the game, but I'll divulge a few here to make my point.

The Turks benefit most from draw conditions. Also, their card conditions are based heavily on drawing more cards into your hand. Their round cards penalize or reward players with too few or too many cards in a hand, as well.

The Franks benefit greatly from losing matches. In fact, if a Frank player is losing matches more than winning them, they will likely win the game, as their cards' lose conditions penalize the winning player heavily. Additionally, they have more scissor type cards than any other deck, and they have round cards which only grant lose conditions, or force other card types than scissor to be null and void for a round.

And in terms of strategy, alternate rules allow for players to 'build' their round card deck, rather than playing the ten specific round cards associated with faction decks. Heroes, too, can all be played, chosen at will or blindly. It's up to the players.

The game is like war, and it's mechanic is rock/paper/scissors, but each playthrough, each round, each match will bring results largely based on player decisions throughout the session of a game.

I've created a game journal post discussing the board design for Ramparts, Pens & Swords. Feel free to give it a look and provide any feedback! I'm also working with artists right now, so there could be something visual to present in the very near future.

http://www.bgdf.com/node/18895

Thanks!

Phew, what a month it has been, diligently working on Ramparts, Pens & Swords, celebrating another year of life, and getting into the swing of the new year, 2017!

I wanted to take an opportunity to give a shout out to some great members here at BGDF who have taken the time to look at RP&S and provide meaningful and constructive feedback for the game. So, to questccg, The Professor, BHFuturist and radioactivemouse, thank you thank you and thank you again for your time! And to the many others who I've spoken with here and there--you know who you are--thank you as well for sharing your passion and your ideas with me. I'm indebted to the community here, and I just can't thank you guys enough! (thank you)

Here in the next week or so I'll be posting about the next Faction deck of the game: the Franks; but, for now, I want to share some additions I've begun to implement into RP&S and get some feedback on these elements. With these additions I believe I can consider the game to be moving into its 4th version since inception.

First, I've changed the Round Card's timing to occur BEFORE players set their match cards in a round. Originally, the Round Card came out AFTER players set their matches for a round, but this left players powerless each round to its effects, and I want to give players the most opportunities to play each round strategically in regards to their hand.

Secondly, I've added a new element to the game called 'Attrition.' There is now an Attrition Meter. Every time a DRAW occurs in a match one point is added to the Attrition Meter. When the Attrition Meter reaches 10, players discard the top card of their Victory Pile to their Defeat Pile. I feel that this gives draws--a frequent occurrence--more of an impact in the game, AND it opens up a whole new avenue of Faction card effects and Round Card effects that directly affect the Attrition Meter.

Lastly, and this one's a big one, I've changed how Heroes are integrated into the overall game. Originally, players chose one Hero card at the start of a game and could only play that Hero once. Each Hero possesses a unique card effect with a condition for its play (e.g. 'Play at the start of a round'). Once the Hero card was played it was removed from play permanently. Unfortunate for this element, I found that most players completely 'forgot' about the Hero card during a game session. Several times a game would conclude and a player would say "Oh right, my Hero." Also, while every Hero has a Faction association, players could originally choose any Hero card, regardless of their Faction deck.

Now, I've added 2 new Heroes to give each Faction 3 Heroes each, and Heroes can only be played with their associated Faction decks. At the start of a game, players take their 3 Hero cards associated with their choice of Faction deck for the game, and they arrange the 3 Heroes in any order of first, second and third. When that deck's condition is met for their Heroes (e.g. the Holy Roman Empire Faction requires that a player wins all of the matches in a round) then the Hero card comes out into play. Hero cards are of two types: Once-the Hero card effect occurs only one time and then the Hero card is removed from the game (e.g. Your opponent discards to 3 cards and then shows you their hand); or Continuous-the Hero card effect adjusts play continuously until the next Hero card is in play (e.g. Your redraw phase is now 7 cards instead of 5). Some Factions have Heroes with only ONCE occurring effects, some have only CONTINUOUS occurring effects, and others have a mix. At this time, there are no card effects which directly target Heroes or their abilities, but I could certainly implement this element with ease for future Faction expansions, or even by modifying a card or two already in the game to target Hero cards directly.

Sorry if this post got a bit lengthy, but hey you're still reading, so I thank you for that! Likewise, I'd love to hear any thoughts or questions regarding these changes to RP&S as I continue to fine tune and develop the game for future publication!

God bless!