Skip to Content
 

Finished layout and rules. Everything in order?

11 replies [Last post]
Evil ColSanders
Evil ColSanders's picture
Offline
Joined: 12/08/2010

https://www.dropbox.com/s/eeyibl28td22j7d/New%20DB%20Rulebook.rar?dl=0

If anyone would like to proofread this, please do. I think I've covered all the bases, but if you still have questions after reading it, then I need to work on it more. 13 pages in png format. Each page prints to a halfpage landscape, I believe.

EDIT: Improved clarity with all your help. This is version 2.

Desprez
Offline
Joined: 12/01/2008
In the future, I highly

In the future, I highly recommend organizing all the separate files into their own folder. The rar just spewed random pages all over my downloads folder.

Desprez
Offline
Joined: 12/01/2008
I'll give some more comments

I'll give some more comments in a bit.

Are you looking for design and layout advice too? I'm finding the background a little strong for the smaller text, and printing is likely to exaggerate this as well.

Desprez
Offline
Joined: 12/01/2008
In general: Grammar rules say

In general:
Grammar rules say you should spell out small numbers in text. However, in the context of game rules it makes sense to not be overly strict here. Still, there are a few instances where you might want to revert to spelling, such as, "You cannot perform 2 Attack Actions in the same turn."

In American English, periods and commas go inside quote marks. In the UK it's different. Where is your audience?

You use quote marks quite a bit, and most of the time they seem to break up the text, degrading readability. When referencing cards, you could be referring to them as proper names (use caps) or titles (use italics). You could make an argument for either, I suppose. But be consistent.

Page 1:
No cap after semicolon.

Looks like there's a double space before "30 minutes"

Looks like different font weights on the two titles.

Page 3:
Create the Wound Deck
Consider a chart for the number of card types with the number of players. It could be easier to parse, but this is a minor issue.

Page 4:
"Once last round is played among these players..."

Use of all caps for emphasis is discouraged in formal writing. You could argue that that particular section is informal, but there are other spots in the following pages as well.

Page 5:
etc, should be etc.,
I kinda prefer the omission of the period in this case for readability, but it's technically incorrect. *Shrug*

Inconsistent title spacing.

Why is "Discard" in quotes?

Numbered lists: Periods or parenthesis. Not both.

Page 6:
"If you do not want to or cannot use you Attack Action..."

Using underlined text in the middle of a sentence is a typographic no-no. Use bold or italics. Furthermore, I'm not sure emphasis is really needed here in the first place.

Page 7:

In this case, the diagram lines could stand to be a little bolder, or perhaps colored.

Target
This explanation is a little confusing. How does the targeting reticule show who or what can be targeted?

Range
I think the use of quotes here is superfluous.
The use of "their square" is ambiguous. A more explicit reference to the same square would be clearer.

Card Effect
"The tells any other effects or limitations card has."

In general, the layout needs a little work. Particularly, the distinction between main and sub-categories. The main categories should be consistent in style, and Stat Row breaks this.
The sub-categories would be better if they were indented or smaller to differentiate them.

It would also be helpful to show all the possible symbols, instead of just describing some, such as Burst.

Page 8:
In some cases, the bold text isn't standing out clearly. I think this is mainly do to the the use of a serif font with a strong background.
This page is a great example of that. For example, Target step and Damage step are blending into the paragraph. A little more spacing would help here, or perhaps using a heavier font weight, such as black.

I'm also noticing some inconsistency with the proper names of game items.
Sometimes they are capitalized, sometimes they are just bold, sometimes both. Pick one.

Defending
Again, careful with the underlining.

"Range, shown by the Bow icon, determines the distance your target can be."
I understand the instruction, but I think this is bad grammar. But this isn't my strong suit, so I'll let someone else comment.

Example
"Clint plays Crippling Shot on Donovan, dealing 3 Wounds."
The card shows two wounds?

Why is there an Ironburst Mace card visible?

Why can't he play Move or Double actions next turn? I don't think this has been explained yet.

Page 9:
Ditch the quote marks.

It could be more clear that Valentina is getting a wound both from the card icon and the text effect. Partly because the explanation is light, but also it might not be clear that's (presumably) the edge of the board.

Where are these Shields Damaris is discarding? Is this treasure?

Use of all caps for emphasis.

Page 10:

Consider using a bit more space between the definitions. (You've got plenty of room on the next page.)

Enhance
Missing quote mark.

Half
Use of underlining for emphasis

Page 11:
Use of underlining for emphasis
Use of all caps for emphasis

Unpreventable Damage
As a gameplay note, how does one reduce unpreventable damage? Is that not prevention? Can one unpreventable damage be reduced by one?

Wound
Awkward wording.
Also, why is the underlined section part of this definition? Seems like it should be its own section.

Page 13
Warrior
Damage is caped here, but nowhere else.

Ranger
Armor is caped here, but nowhere else.

Ranger / Wizard
Ampersands should not to be used in place of the word "and"

Evil ColSanders
Evil ColSanders's picture
Offline
Joined: 12/08/2010
That was

That was highly-comprehensive! Thank you! Strange... It shouldn't have spewed anything, as they are all numbered with double digits.

My audience is American but my typing is British.

I've corrected just about every single flub you've spotted. Some explanation of the combat pages: The Mace is there as the discarded card. I guess I'll hide the name as it is unimportant which card is discarded? The cannot move or double action is due to "Snared" on the Ranger card. I'm guessing I'll have to add "due to the Snared effect on the card" as part of the example since you have shown me it is not immediately obvious.

Anything underlined needed to be emphasized for easy reference, as bolding or italicizing them did not have the same effect due to the background. Also, players frequently asked about the underlined items even after being told. I feel it drives home the point, grammatical faux pas be damned. I've changed them to bold and italics regardless.

The game comes with a game board which has a 2x3 grid as shown in the example. I noticed it was not mentioned anywhere. I shall be mentioning it near the set up section. Shield was added. Removed the Stat Row. Labeled everything individually.

Prevent damage does not reduce damage. If I prevent 1 damage from all sources until my next turn, I can still be hit from unpreventable damage. If I reduce damage by 1 from all sources, I am reducing the number, not the damage. 1 unpreventable CAN be reduced by 1, to a minimum of zero. I'm trying to expand on the explanation in the wording section. I removed the heavily underlined thing.

Vindexus
Vindexus's picture
Offline
Joined: 06/20/2017
I agree the background might

I agree the background might be a bit much with the text. Maybe try just lightening it a bit to up the contrast.

I think your headers might look better without underline.

I'm going to get very nitpicky with the grammar, hope you don't mind!

Pick a Class
Who picks the starting player? Is it a group thing?

Select your Artifact
You should change "gets first pick of the Artifacts" to "picks an artifact". Otherwise when you say each player does the same you're saying that each player gets first pick, which isn't true.

Create your Deck
Good use of bold here.

Create the Trap Deck
I'd probably move the line about suggestions to another section about alternative versions. For someone's first playthrough it's best to keep it simple.

Placement
I'd change first sentence to something like: "Starting with the first player, and going in clockwise order, each player places their character token on the board."

Small thing but I'd change the quote at the bottom to "Prepare to curse your friends' sudden but inevitable betrayal!" as the betrayal hasn't happened yet. I also don't think it needs commas.

Wounds
Second sentence should be "You get a score of -1 for every Wound you have at the end of the game" or "Every Wound card gives you a score of -1 at the end of the game." The way it's worded right now each card would give -1 for every wound card. That means 1 wound card is -1 points, 2 wound cards is -4 points, 3 wound cards is -9 points.

Treasure
Maybe don't state how you get treasure in section. It's referencing parts of the rules I haven't read yet, like wounding other players and drawing from the Wound Deck. You could just say that Treasure slows you down, but it also gives you points, and leave how you get it to the other sections.

End of Game
I think it would be clearer to just say everyone adds +1 for their Treasure and -1 for their wounds, highest score wins.

Would it be possible to have a second check for ties where the player with the fewest Wounds (or most Treasure) wins. So player 1 (2 wounds, 1 treasure) and player 2 (1 wound) are tied in score, but one of them could be the winner. If it's still tied, go into the extra round.

Trap Phase
Change "effect" to "affect". You should mention the die roll before you say that the starting player "play[s] a new trap card". I initially thought the first player got to place the traps as they pleased, then I saw the die roll. It might be obvious from the dice and the board, but from only reading this I'm not sure how the dice determines which squares are affected. I'm guessing it's a D6 and there are six squares and each is numbered?

Action Phase
Are the cards you play Move Actions and Attack Actions? If not, I'd say "You can also play cards from your hand" to highlight that it's an extra thing you do. I'd also change "Cards are played in front of you" to "Cards you play are placed in front of you", to make it more direct.

Discard and Redraw Phase
I'd suggest:

1) Discard you entire hand and draw up to your max hand size
2) Keep 1 card and discard the rest of your hand then draw up to your max hand size

I have to go now but if I'll try to go through the rest of it later.

Evil ColSanders
Evil ColSanders's picture
Offline
Joined: 12/08/2010
Got it. Cleaning up a lot of

Got it. Cleaning up a lot of the wording you mentioned. Traps work like the High Noon Saloon in Bang! The card game. It adds wildcard effects with easy to follow instructions. Die roll instructions on card. Squares are subtly numbered.

Evil ColSanders
Evil ColSanders's picture
Offline
Joined: 12/08/2010
Version 2

https://www.dropbox.com/s/eeyibl28td22j7d/New%20DB%20Rulebook.rar?dl=0

Used all your suggestions. Let me know how you like it.

Esoteric Fulcrum
Esoteric Fulcrum's picture
Offline
Joined: 07/18/2017
Introduction. 4th line, you

Introduction.
4th line, you use "here" instead of "hear"

Second paragraph, you use "player" twice in quick succession. May I suggest "Dungeon Brawl is game for 3 to 5, in which players assume ..."

And now that I'm there, the rest of that sentence seems a bit cluttered. Will revisit this sentence after I've finished your rules. :-)

Pick a Class
You might want to give them a way of choosing the starting player. Drawing cards, with the high card going first or something. You should also list the classes here. First thing I did when reading this was search through the rules to find what the classes were.

Selecting the Artifact
Again, list the artifacts. If I'm reading these rules, I don't know anything about the game, and this is an obvious question.

Also, why do they randomly draw artifacts if less than 5 players, but get to choose if there is exactly 5 players? Is there an important reason for that? Because otherwise I think you should keep it consistent. Either you get to choose, or you randomly draw. And if you're randomly drawing, then perhaps classes should be random too.

Create your deck
How many cards in the class pool that we get to choose 12 cards from? And just to check, with wounds and artifact, I have a 16 card deck? Or am I only drawing 8 class cards to make a 12 card deck? This needs to be clearer.

Create the Wound Deck.
It's cool that altering this deck changes game time. Do you have an idea of the specifics of the times? Because the ratio of Wound to Treasure cards varies according to number of players, it's a bit vague to suggest players to add more or less cards for game play without specifying how they should do that. I suggest making a "Short Game" and "Long Game" column (or "Easy Game"/"Hard Game" if that would be better) with specific numbers that the players should use.

Otherwise, if you do really want to leave this up to the players, then I would not mention the ability to change the make-up of the deck here, and add a "Variation" topic at the end of the rules. Because as I read this, as a new player, the sentence just opens up so many questions for me, which I possibly shouldn't be thinking about right now as I'm trying to learn the game.

Placement
Is there any prohibition as to where on the board? Assuming not, you should specify "... any square on the board."

Off to watch Master Chef. Will finish reading the rules, soon.

Esoteric Fulcrum
Esoteric Fulcrum's picture
Offline
Joined: 07/18/2017
Draw and Turn Order. I don't

Draw and Turn Order.
I don't know if this should be here. It seems like the "Draw 6 cards" should be the last thing you say in the paragraph about making your deck. Then the Turn order can be added more organically after you explain how the action works. Which brings us too ...

Winning and Goal
So this heading seems to have come too early. Because you then explain Wounds and Treasure but you don't explain how the action works or what the goal is. Meaning, you explain that a Wound is worth -1 points and a Treasure is worth 1 point, but you don't explain the game play that will result in you receiving these cards. And then you have an End of Game, explaining when the Wound deck runs out ... again, before you've explained how that might happen.

At this point, on my first read through, I'm not even sure who I'm fighting.

I think you are missing a Game Overview, which should come before the Set Up. You need to briefly explain the game mechanics, the risks and rewards, and how you win.

Player Turn
Removal Phase
It seems odd to read this when I'm learning the game, as it's not an action I take on my first turn. I understand why it is here, but it still seems odd.

Trap Phase
This seems odd here also, if it is not an action taken by all players.

Action Phase
"You will have one move action and one attack action." Does this mean I can move one square and attack one player, or is it dependent on my cards? If the latter it should read, "You may play one attack card and one move card." I am making this guess because of the line "Cards you play are placed in front of you."

Why are you explaining other card actions later? It seems like you are trying to get into detail here, but not too much?

The Card Legend.
This should be much earlier in the Rules. I want to know what the cards look like and what everything means on them when I'm picking my deck.

I wouldn't mind an overall view of the board either. Probably after the note about placing the tokens on the board.

And yes, making the BG texture paler will help with the readability of the rules.

Hope this has been helpful.

Shane

Evil ColSanders
Evil ColSanders's picture
Offline
Joined: 12/08/2010
--The reason nothing is

--The reason nothing is explained in detail is because the page you are on is "setup". Also fixed the double player.
--Classes are briefly explained on page 13.
--Artifacts aren't mentioned anywhere but in setup. I shall note them on the Wound/Treasure/Winning page. Good catch. Artifacts are chosen this way into order to prevent the "strong" artifacts from always being chosen over the "weak" ones... and is basically the premise of the game.
--The baseline for Wounds Treasure is set. Why would I forcibly tell them how many more to add/subtract when it's their decision on the amount? sigh. I would assume they would have a feel for the amount to add/subtract after playing a few games. I guess I'll have to assume all players are stupid who can't think for themselves and add instructions to alter it.
--Deck creating has 12 cards in bold, then "add 3 Wound cards" in bold, and Artifact in bold. It even says "also add". I do not see how anyone can misconstrue the instruction.
--All phases should be known by all players. You'd be surprised on how many starting players forget to do the trap phase and how many other players catch it. Basically, you need to pay attention.
--I'd rather explain what goes on during your turn, then actions within the turn, then cards. I'm sure if I put the card first, there is no premise, and the player now has a bunch of questions.
--Draw: your max hand size may change. This is mentioned.
--I'll add pictures of all the other cards with small descriptions.
--Action Phase: explaining all the actions and what they do when I'm in the middle of explaining what happens during your turn breaks the flow of knowledge... and I dedicated a whole page to actions on the very next page.
--You don't know who your are fighting? It is mentioned in the second paragraph on the Introduction page. I think this is also the Game Overview you were looking for. (The Combat example also makes it obvious but only after the game is explained)

Thanks for the input!

Esoteric Fulcrum
Esoteric Fulcrum's picture
Offline
Joined: 07/18/2017
Hi. Evil ColSanders

Hi.

Evil ColSanders wrote:
--The reason nothing is explained in detail is because the page you are on is "setup".

Sure. But I don't even know what a class is, in this game.
Evil ColSanders wrote:
--Classes are briefly explained on page 13.

Perhaps adding that page note would help.
Evil ColSanders wrote:
--Artifacts are chosen this way into order to prevent the "strong" artifacts from always being chosen over the "weak" ones... and is basically the premise of the game.

Yes, but why is it random some times, and not others? I'm all for randomly choosing them, but why does that change with more players?
Evil ColSanders wrote:
--The baseline for Wounds Treasure is set. Why would I forcibly tell them how many more to add/subtract when it's their decision on the amount? sigh. I would assume they would have a feel for the amount to add/subtract after playing a few games. I guess I'll have to assume all players are stupid who can't think for themselves and add instructions to alter it.

I just don't know why you are offering a variant to your game, but with no specifics to it? Why tell them that they can vary the game time here in the set up? If I'm reading this to play the game for the first time, I'm not going to be trying to think of variations that I have to make up. But if there was a clear set up "these cards for a 30 minute game, these cards for an hour game" I would know what I can do.

Otherwise, just don't mention it at all.

Evil ColSanders wrote:
--Deck creating has 12 cards in bold, then "add 3 Wound cards" in bold, and Artifact in bold. It even says "also add". I do not see how anyone can misconstrue the instruction.

So it's a 16 card deck? If so, the sentence "players must now create a 12 card deck." is incorrect. "Players choose 12 cards from their class pool" is clearer.
Evil ColSanders wrote:
--All phases should be known by all players. You'd be surprised on how many starting players forget to do the trap phase and how many other players catch it. Basically, you need to pay attention.

Of course. It just reads odd as a new player learning the game, because it's not part of the players turn, but something that gets done at the start of each 'round'.
Evil ColSanders wrote:
--I'd rather explain what goes on during your turn, then actions within the turn, then cards. I'm sure if I put the card first, there is no premise, and the player now has a bunch of questions.

So instead, explain the turn, and when you get to the players playing their cards, you insert the actual different types of card, and how they work. Show a Move action or an Attack action on a card.
Evil ColSanders wrote:
--Draw: your max hand size may change. This is mentioned.

I am not sure where it is mentioned, because "Draw to your max hand size" on the Player Turn page is the only place I have seen it.
Evil ColSanders wrote:
--Action Phase: explaining all the actions and what they do when I'm in the middle of explaining what happens during your turn breaks the flow of knowledge... and I dedicated a whole page to actions on the very next page.

I would suggest saying, "I have more things to talk about here, but I'll do that later." is also breaking the flow of knowledge. It just created more questions in my mind when I read it. Perhaps say something like

"During the Action phase, you play cards from your hand which allow you to move and attack. The specifics of the various actions printed on the cards are explained on the following page."

Evil ColSanders wrote:
--You don't know who your are fighting? It is mentioned in the second paragraph on the Introduction page.

The second paragraph reads:

Dungeon Brawl is a 3-5 player game in which the players assume the role of one of many adventurers attempting to defeat one another by receiving the least amount of wounds at the end of the game. This game takes 30 mins to 1 hour to play.

That states that the player that receives the least amount of wounds at the end of the game has defeated the other players. You might think it is a clear paragraph that says the players are fighting each other, but it is not.

Evil ColSanders wrote:
(The Combat example also makes it obvious but only after the game is explained)

It really doesn't. It talks of attacking and defending and targets and wounds. It also talks of Clint and Donovan, but it does not mention that you are attacking "other players".

Evil ColSanders wrote:
Thanks for the input!

You're Welcome.

Shane

Syndicate content


forum | by Dr. Radut