Passing thought. You could have a base deck of cards for each location. Then you could write scenarios that would add some cards to the base location decks. You could even combine two different scenarios and add both there cards to the base deck. This would increase replayability. However, set up and teardown would be kind of a pain (something akin to setup and tear down of legendary)
Feel free to disregard use or improve upon.
Good luck with your game.
You could make the characters have unique card drawing abilities that are thematically represent of that character. Like the fortune teller can look at the top four cards but can't rearrange them in any way. Or the Mayor does the draw 3 cards, pick 1, put 1 at the top and at the bottom of the deck.
Good luck with your game.
Having different mechanics for card drawing is not really recommended, but I get your idea of giving different character advantages since depending on their profession, since they are better connected in certain fields.
Maybe that could be an idea that depending on your field of expertise, you can draw additional cards if they match your expertise. Knowing contacts in an area, or in the game, could give you additional expertise you can use.
So maybe you can keep a second card that matches one of your expertise. It is worth exploring.
Or maybe when you research, you flip cards until you get one that matches your expertise.
Well I said that each location can have TWO (2) "Breadcrumbs" and the players (as in a PARTY) choose which clue to collect and maybe at times BOTH on two (2) consecutive turns. That would make it more variable and make destinations more of INTEREST since there are two (2) possible "Symbol" Matches.
First and Last cards could be cool... Make some kind of over-arching story-arc and makes it a bit less random... Given that there would be two (2) cards with the same "Symbol" drawn and players choose one card over the other (similar to the Investigation Clues these would be Resolution Cards).
Now one thing I strongly suggest is: SURPRISES.
Again you could keep the game FRESH by supplying "Booster Packs" with ten (10) Random Investigation Clue, three (3) Resolution cards and two (2) Creature cards for say a FIFTEEN (15) Card Booster Pack.
This could make the game fresh and you can build the "Investigation" Deck with 20 Investigation Clues, 6 Resolution Cards and 4 Creatures in 2 Booster Packs (which can be released with the game with RANDOM content) and a base/core of "40 Investigative Clues", "18" Resolution Cards" and "20" Creature cards as having a sort of "SCENARIO/STORY" Content.
And with the Booster Card you would get 60 "Investigative Clues", 24 "Resolution Cards" and 24 "Creature Cards"... Given 2 Booster Packs. And the Booster Card Faces can have SOME KIND OF INDICATOR that they are "BOOSTER CONTENT" vs. "base/core" content.
Something like that... To have some kind of Story-Arc.
I had an idea when it came to think about "Group" (Party) and "Solo" Game play. Specifically ... Since there are only 6 locations in play and maybe a total of 12 location in all... I got to thinking that there should be ONLY ONE (1) PARTY token that moves. This makes a LOT of sense when you think in terms of players and the amount of locations.
Since the amount of location in-game is relatively LOW... I would suggest that either a PARTY or a SOLITARY player BOTH only have one "Avatar" they move around.
In Single Player mode, the PLAYER needs to collect "x" clues as per the Investigation Trail (decided by the 1st card in the sequence).
In Multi-Player mode, each PLAYER collects "?" clues as per the Investigative Trail. Once players can piece together one (1) Trail, two (2) Resolution cards are drawn face-down and the players decide which card they want (And obviously hidden information - so IN SECRET).
The "?" clues are the number of clues required by the first (1st) card in the sequence and divided by the number of players.
If it is "4" / "2-Players" = 2 Cards each (= total 4 cards)
If it is "4" / "4-Players" = 1 Card each (= total 4 cards)
If it is "4" / "3-Players" = 2 Cards each (= total 6 cards)
etc...
I would have a sequence from "3" to "6" cards (For an Investigation Trail).
Something like that. But SOLO and MULTI-PLAYER are very SIMILAR in-play.
I think this is something that YOU will like (@larienna)... Let me know what you think about these couple comments and does it HELP you in any way.
Best!
I like the idea that the clue you play could actually change the outcome. For example:
You have a trail of 5 clues, if you have a majority of black clues on the trail, the ending A is happening, if you have a majority of white clues, it's the ending B.
Else, I could create also a binary tree of possibilities if each clue has 2 different match up.
The problem with surprises, is the increasing of randomness and the reducing of strategy.
Moving as a party is in interesting idea. It could solve the issue of balancing the game between multiple characters at different places vs 1 character at one place. It would also make more sense that the trails are shared.
The problem might be multiplayer game play. When playing solo, it works well. When playing 2+ players, that could mean that the player's action are too much more simple, so there needs to be more things that the player needs to do to manage their character.
Still, it could be used as a constraint, like the party is all in location X. Try to maximize your time here the best you can. It could be subject to negotiation between players and remove the multiplayer solitaire feeling.
Note, I could also remove the board and make it an only card game. Still, I like board.
You can do like Wise Wizard Game's "Sorceror":
Notice the LOCATIONS are Jumbo Cards at the TOP/MIDDLE of the play area. My suggestion was to have SIX (6) Locations during a game ... But that you make and sell TWELVE (12) Locations for more replayability and variability too.
So that's what I THOUGHT you had in-mind when I saw the sample of the Eldritch Express Prototype you shared with everyone on Larienna's Library.
My thoughts were to SIMPLIFY the game, remember in PARTY MODE (Multiple Players) there are multiple turns to a ROUND. In the SOLO VARIANT (Single Player) there are multiple turns too... But the SAME PLAYER does the action for two (2) Players... That's how I was thinking to SIMPLIFY the two modes of play.
Still, it could be used as a constraint, like the party is all in location X. Try to maximize your time here the best you can. It could be subject to negotiation between players and remove the multiplayer solitaire feeling.
Well when playing multiple players, they may DISCUSS if a player should move to another location on the board. I mean is a COLLABORATION where each player is trying to help WIN the game. So player decisions may not always be the SAME or where everyone is in AGREEMENT...
I understand what you mean. I'll ponder some more. Is this supposed to be an "EXPRESS" game??? Like your "Eldritch Express" prototype?!
It seems like your "Eldritch Express" game was pretty good, you got a 7.0 / 10 overall rating. I can't help any further because I know very little about the STEAMPUNK genre. It's not something that I (honestly) like... My position is how can you say "Ambivalent"...
Now IF you wanted to perfect an Arkham, Cthulhu or Lovecraftian type of a game, this would be more in my "Wheelhouse" of INTEREST. I am curious about this genre of game and am a bit intrigued by things like "Call of Cthulhu" and other adventures in that Universe.
I also don't know IF you want to design an "Express" game or not. This is really important but "Arkham Noir" exists for a card game and each Deck is about a specific "Adventure". I've chatted with Yves Tourigny a few occasions about "Game Artisans of Canada" and I didn't get very much feedback from him only to tell me that he is based in Ottawa and that there is no Chapter in Quebec.
So there is no need to DESIGN a "Cthulhu" or Lovecraftian "Card Game" because Arkham Noir fits the bill and probably be interesting as a game itself IF it was NOT a SOLITARY GAME. That's where maybe a COOP "Card Game" or even a COMPETITIVE "Card Game" could be of interest and plausible as a game.
But you don't need to be ashamed about "Eldritch Express" it got a 7.0 / 10!
That's great... IMHO.
I'll check "Sorcerer" later.
The multiplayer vs solo is managed as each turn a character gets an action. In a 4 character game, during 4 turns, each character act once. In a 1 character game, during 4 turn, that character act 4 times.
So basically, it changes how many times a character can play, the space covered by the characters, the ownership of assets and the pool of hit points and resources available to soak the damage. It could be possible that changing the nb of characters, change the difficulty of the game.
(side note, I looked rapidly at Marvel Dagger, it could be a good source of inspiration for the action system. Else I need a quicker action dice system)
I am looking into making a small game, but it will probably not be a short game. So it's not express.
My Eldritch Express have a rating? I'll have to look it up.
Don't bother too much about the theme. Think steampunk + Cuthulhu, or Darkest Dungeon + steampunk. It's just the theme, and it's very close to the lovecraftian historical period, so the mechanics will work with one or the other.
I think I want to have a board, I like those gamecrafters accordion board. I would not go card only game even if it could be possible. I don't handle well abstraction, I want something more concrete and detailed. I'll re-dig into AH 2nd ed.
Ok... Let me know if this Jumbo Card "Locations" is something you could design and work with YOUR design...
Exactly my impressions... Simple and elegant. No extra worries.
Indeed ... TradeWorlds is getting bashed and is now at 4.9 / 10. Sobs...
Okay ... Action system is maybe what you are missing (at least from the entire discussion we've been having) nobody brought-up that point...
Ah okay... Well then ignore "Sorceror". It's giant CARDS which represent location around London. I'm not sure about the STATs on the cards... But just the idea of Mixing-and-Matching LOCATIONS for variability and replay value is why I suggested CARDS. You can think about it some more... I know the Accordian Boards available from "The Game Crafter" (TGC) ... But if you don't like the Jumbo Card Abstration and the variability of play (6 out of 12 locations) that's fine too...
***
"Not Express" cancels my concept of 10 Rounds and a Final Concluding Round (11th) at the 12:00 Hour (Midnight) when all things get resolved. That may be too short of a time to play... IDK.
One thing that is GOOD about a shorter game is AGAIN "Replayability" Value... If players lose the game... It's a shorter game and they may want to TRY again with maybe a different outcome.
But this may be TOO SIMPLE for you. However for an EXPRESS game... This could be of interest... Since players KNOW they have 10 Rounds to play and then the game CONCLUDES (which could mean players lose, a royal battle ensues or an easy victory, etc.)
I had another CONCEPT I wanted to pass by you. It's about the "Breadcrumbs":
So if the "Backsides" have a SYMBOL and TWO (2) Connecting Symbols on the Left and Right of the "Backsides" and players do something interesting:
ONE (1) Player chooses the "Backside" Symbol the matches either the LEFT of RIGHT of the card. The NEXT Player chooses a Dice either Black or White. And finally the THIRD Player chooses a VALUE for the Dice. And a DICE gets placed ATOP the "Backside" "Investigative Trail". All of this is HIDDEN INFORMATION mechanic.
Why do this???
Because at the 11th Round (le denouement) that's when EACH card of the Investigative Trail (and there are 10 Cards), each "Breadcrumb" is INVERTED to the FACE SIDE and the instructions are performed as PER the DICE COLOR and the VALUE selected. Each card is handled one at a time. From LEFTMOST to RIGHTMOST (last card).
What is the purpose... The 11th Round is like a MEGA ROUND.
And each CARD is verified according to the dice and value. Sometimes ONLY the VALUE will be considered, other times only the COLOR will be considered and lastly more complex outcomes BOTH may be considered...
IDK if you LIKE this idea. I think it's COOL and acts as a SURPRISE ending. Players may remember cards from previous plays (maybe a similar symbol but not the same card, hehehe)...
So it's like a PROGRAMMING Game where you BUILD the sequence and then you RESOLVE it. I think this could be VERY COOL... And not something that I've ever seen in games (obviously I have NOT played all games... But I've seen many...)
And this is a DIFFERENT style of play:
- First Programming the 10 card sequence.
- Secondly the 12th Hour (Midnight) the CONCLUSION.
This would go a LONG WAY into making something VERY ORIGINAL. I wasn't going to post these IDEAS ... Because I'm pretty sure you won't LIKE this kind of game TBH... It's probably too simple even though it is AMAZING when it comes to REPLAYABILITY value and is indeed a SURPRISE at the very end.
Each TURN, the 1st Player (his turn) plays the CARD (Backside), the NEXT Player chooses the color of Dice (Black or White) and lastly the Third Player chooses the VALUE from 1 to 6.
I'm pretty sure it's too simple for you... But I figured I'd share it because it's very ORIGINAL and is TOTALLY UNPREDICTABLE... That's why I LIKE it...!
Plus a TON of replayability... Let me know!
Cheers.
So there are 6 Locations with six (6) Different Colors. The LOCATION SYMBOLS are predetermined based on the LOCATION.
There are 10 "Breadcrumb" Cards per LOCATION.
That means in total 60 "Investigation" Clues per game.
If there are TWELVE (12) LOCATIONS (of which only 6 are in play per game) ... There are 120 Cards to the game.
Each 6 LOCATIONS have 2 Location (6 x 2 = 12 Locations in total). So you can SWAP different LOCATIONS and "Investigation" Decks (10 cards per LOCATION and dependent on the COLOR of the location...)
Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple are the COLORS and there are six (6) SYMBOLS which define the TYPE of cards (I think I already explained that previously but you did not comment...)
There are TWO (2) of each of these COLOR and you draw 10 cards of the SAME Color per LOCATION. I just figured it's quicker to sort 20 cards of the same color than 120 cards of the same color (monochrome case).
You put whatever DECK on whatever LOCATION you like at the START of the game. A form of hidden information which is determined by the setup phase at the beginning of the game.
Something like that... Again let me know if any of this makes any sense to you... Like I said. It's hard because I don't know what you think about these ideas...
Sincerely.
Each of the LOCATION has a COLOR (12 locations as I said). The mode of play is to have Colored Decks MATCHING the location.
What I mean is if the "Hardware Store" is ORANGE... You can place atop 10 ORANGE Cardbacks with a random selection of SYMBOLS.
This means that you have 20 Cards (2x Orange = 2 x 10 = 20 Cards) to shuffle and DRAWN from for a SPECIFIC location.
Yes, SETUP time is a bit time consuming... But who cares, if the GAME is FUN that's really what matters.
Anyhow... I probably will stop commenting because I've pretty much SHARED with you the IMPORTANT aspects of the IDEAS that I had for the "Breadcrumbs" and how to make a SIMPLE but yet DRAMATIC ending given "Programming" Mechanics.
Again, let me know what you think.
Best!
Note #1: In terms of ACTIONs I can come up with THREE (3) of them:
- Move to a location (or stay at the same location).
- Draw one (1) card and place it into the investigation trail.
- Place one "Breadcrumb" card at the bottom of its pile (optional).
I know it SOUNDS very simple... And fundamentally it is... But ALL the FUN is when the SEQUENCE gets RESOLVED at the 12th HOUR (11th Turn) and that's where all the MAGIC happens.
It's LIKE your original RPG-like mechanics... Except they ONLY happen at the END of the GAME (Last Round).
Again you'll probably HATE these ideas... Because they may be TOO simple.
Some cards (Face up) have elements which affect a specific location.
For example: The Bloodied Saw
"If this clue has a BLACK dice on it, the Hardware Store or the Abandoned Building loses TWO Sanity Point (-2 Sanity)."
"If it has a WHITE dice on it, draw one creature and place it on the Hardware Store or Abandoned Building and players must defeat this creature. The Bloodied Saw acts as a weapon and deals 1d6 melee damage.
The Bloodied Saw MUST be used to defeat the creature."
***
Each location has a Sanity Track... when one location drops to "0" Sanity, the players lose the game.
***
So the goal is to protect all locations and continue down the sequence. Of course this is all theory... you would need to see how many points of Sanity per location and the types of damages, etc.
***
Let ne know what you think...
Cheers @larienna.
Note #1: The Sanity of the Locations is directly tied to the DIFFICULTY of any given game. The HIGHER the Sanity per location the easier it is to beat the game. This also adds some SERIOUS "Replayability" and Added Value when it not only comes to VARIABILITY but also "toughness" too!
Like in my Example ("Bloodied Saw") MUST be used to combat the creature.
This is pretty CLOSE to your RPG "Breadcrumbs" and introduces mechanics that can alter the effect of any given "clue".
Note #2: The game comes with five (5) Black Dice and five (5) White Dice... So a balance in the end ... It's a matter of "sequencing". This sounds so VERY cool... TBH ... But like I say about IDEAS ... They always sound GREAT and need a LOT of work to make them seamless into your design.
Again... Please share with me your "ideas" or any reaction to these ideas.
I'll read your replies tomorrow (or later today). I was in the bus and gave some thoughts to the experience I am looking for in the city scale version. It could be summarized as:
So making investigation trails might not be the priority here. Maybe investigating is just about revealing locations on the board that could help the players. So either the game reveal locations/encounters, or the players reveal encounters. But if the game reveal an encounter, there could be a special effect since the players are behind the game.
I had a funny idea that I could use a Wizardry like structure for such a game. The city is where you upgrade and manage your characters. While you uncover various locations(dungeons) in the city or in the surroundings that you can explore as a first person dungeon or top view map (like hero quest or mansion of madness). That could actually work.
Replies to your replies
I do have a rating, but it's from 1 person. So I don't really call this a rating. You need a minimum amount of votes to get a real rating.
For the sorcerer cards, I'll need to learn more about the game. They seem to have tracks on the edges. Personally I like my 8x2 board to mimic Arkham Horror 2nd edition. There would not be any wrap around, but that could be a good thing. Location cards are good if you want to change them during or between games.
Your countdown to midnight is interesting, it reminds me of "final hour" that tries to mimic something like this. Could be a good idea for another game. There is a 12 hour countdown until the game wins.
If I want a campaign mode, the game cannot be too long. Right now, I am not optimizing time too much.
Maybe a breadcrumb system could work for that 12 hour game idea, but I'll try to avoid trails in my game for now to lighten the load.
At this point, I think you have enough ideas to make your own game. It will probably diverge from mine.
The one deck per location is still on my mind, I'll have to see how it plays out. The problem is positioning those decks since I am already putting encounters on the edge of the board. Else, maybe there is only 1 draw deck, and the location is on the card, or on the back of the card.
With the non-trail system, I am wondering a few other things:
How does the player progress. I like having the doom vs progress track, it's clear and obvious to know who is winning. Do I make all encounters make the players progress? Maybe failing removes the encounter from the board (they regroup and re-plan, so you stall them).
Encounter types is also something I am reconsidering. Right now, it distributed, the encounters among those types which should have specific behavior. Now I am thinking in removing those types on encounters and maybe make them specific to board locations.
On the other hand, the clock could have various symbols triggering different outcome according to the demon (making each demon have a personality)
Also, encounters would spawn differently. Some could spawn by the demon which could have additional negative effects, but some could spawn (maybe hidden) by the player's actions. This is the investigation trail replacement. Players could get some kind of ambush bonus when attempting those encounters.
So I think separating the clock from the encounter system could help, maybe spawn 1 encounter per turn from the demon.
As for the campaign mode, maybe if certain encounters somehow mature(unresolved or attempted), they get replaced by a new encounter during the next game. Could be stronger, weaker or just different. This would make the game evolve from game to game.
I had more thought for the action system.
The core idea is to have 5-8 actions which could be of different strength: Weak, Strong. Maybe each character have different weak strong effects, that is more cool, but also harder to balance. This would substitute giving each character a unique action.
Now something will give you access or not to those actions in weak or strong format. It can be a combination of the ideas below:
So by default you could get access to all weak actions, and have options for stronger actions. Maybe you cannot use the same action twice. If you do so, it can block it for next turn Maybe if you use a strong action, you can use a 2nd action as a weak one.
Lot of possibilities in this matter.
I just had a random thought while taking some notes about the game.
Why not shift it more as a war game than a story game. As many of you know, I am not a fan of intense story in games. War games offer more option for strategy.
Now, it would be a disguised war game. You will have too look a the core mechanics to actually see a war game.
Characters and monsters are basically units fighting each other on a map. Gates are actually factories producing units. Barriers and security could be defenses.
Encounters might be more like mission objectives or quests.
Resource management is common in war games too.
Why not shift it more as a war game than a story game. As many of you know, I am not a fan of intense story in games. War games offer more option for strategy.
Well If you WANT to do that... My suggestion to you is to further discuss this with Ramon (@X3M). He is very versed in Wargaming and Real-Time Strategy. He will be of better service to you than I can. I know very little about the Wargame genre especially in everything relating to Combat, Look-up Tables, Dice Rolling, Accuracy and approximation, Fog of war, etc. You name it, Ramon's had extreme analysis and under-the-hood experience with it.
I on the other hand can only say that I played Warcraft and Starcraft... That's my limited experience with RTS games (and they are Video not TableTop).
See if Ramon can shed some light on whatever you plan on doing.
Cheers!
I don't want to go that deep in war gaming. Axis and allies is the deepest I would get.
What I am thinking is to put all threat, monsters, gates, mysteries, barriers, etc as tokens in an area. Those tokens are like units that can be defeated.
Some tokens like Gates, can be treated like unit factories. Manoeuvring is handled with movement and actions. Think the character as super units that can destroy many tokens, a bit like a dungeon crawler. The are many parallels with war game mechanism without being a war game. Maybe a dungeon crawler comparison would be better. Lot of similarities could be made with Deepest dungeon which is a rogue like dungeon crawler.
Now there is something that annoys me is that there is 2 resolution system, one for the encounters, and one for the combat resolution. I was thinking in unifying both system.
The mechanics would be relatively simple, instead that the encounter determine the consequence of failure, it's the configuration of tokens in a area that does that.
Each player, once per turn can roll 2 dice, attack and defense in order to clean up the area. Attack die destroy stuff, defense die resist enemy attack. The same value is apply to multiple target using different stats. (ex: a gate could require lore, while a monster requires strength).
A system above could be almost without encounters. I would need to fusion combat stats with character attributes. I might need to restrict the number of attacks per turn, else you could wipe out an area with a low roll. I am not sure how equipment could help during combat with this system.
Still, I am not sure if those changes increase the strategy of the game. I could go the other way around and have no randomness. Or make encounters always succeed.
There is so many ways to approach the problem and it's hard to find a solution that match the experience I want.
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My first idea was for the campaign mode. But yes, using scenario based set of cards and allowing different permutations by adding to the base set or creating new sets is an interesting idea.
I think it could be possible, but more complicated, to use those cards for both scenario and campaign mode. It's just reusing the same cards differently.
I am still not sure if I should go with 1 deck per location and ask for player to kind of memorize the card. Draw 3 and chose 1, with a limited card set, could make it easier to use that memory effect in a non-campaign game. Like "a touch of evil" I still like the idea of going somewhere and drawing cards, it`s simple and elegant.
Else, I had a mechanic I used in many game ideas: Draw 3 cards, pick 1, put 1 at the top and at the bottom of the deck. This way, you can keep a card you need floating at the top of the deck. Some what useful in multi player.