I'm making a boardgame.

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jus
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Re: I'm making a boardgame.

Post by jus » Mon Oct 11, 2021 3:12 pm

Primarch wrote:
Mon Oct 11, 2021 4:10 am
How is the game coming along? Any progress being made?

Looking at your example above, what benefit does the guard die add in place of a blue or a red die?
It's certainly coming along! I've been working hard on coming up with a compelling narrative to go along with it, which has been quite challenging. There are orcs, there are elves etc who are they?, what do they want?, where do they come from? and what have you. (More to come on backstory)
Now that I have fairly good idea of the world building. I need to start building an introductory module to get things started. That means making dungeon tiles, minis for encounters, painting said minis, and then finalising some player characters (4? for now). I still need to develop the abilities, determine progression mechanics and loot!

and goodness that is a LOT of work. Pictures of dungeon tiles to come.

OK so the guard dice is to represent the armour worn by the character and the coloured dice represents the toughness value of the character. So say the dwarf warrior has a toughness of 1 blue dice and 1 red dice, and he is wearing chainmail (+1 guard dice) and is equipped with a shield (+1 guard dice). The idea is that some abilities/debuffs will affect the guard dice value only, like a piercing shot for instance, and some abilities may only affect toughness, like a sap or a hex.

..that and I also went through the effort of making and printed out the dice so why not use them. :D

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me_in_japan
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Re: I'm making a boardgame.

Post by me_in_japan » Mon Oct 11, 2021 3:28 pm

If I may offer my services when it comes time to fine tune the story / lore side of things, I’d be happy to get involved with that. I quite enjoy a good coherent story, and it irks me something awful when a game/tv show/book has a good solid idea but then drops the ball and falls prey to cliche or other shenanigans.

Also, my two cents: be wary about putting in stuff like armour dice just cos you’ve printed them off. That’s a slippery slope right there. Maybe take a step back and really review: does the game need this extra component/step? Or could it be further simplified and streamlined?
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Re: I'm making a boardgame.

Post by The Other Dave » Mon Oct 11, 2021 10:42 pm

Speaking of, here's the stripped-down core rules of that lego mecha game I was talking about: http://www.lumpley.com/mechaton/mechaton.html

I think it's a rather elegant way of doing equipment and such - I've actually played once or twice, it's a nice little system. Not directly applicable to how you're approaching things maybe, but you might get some ideas from it.
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Primarch
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Re: I'm making a boardgame.

Post by Primarch » Tue Oct 12, 2021 1:00 am

Funky dice, armour or otherwise, are fine if that is the game's unique selling point (or USP for short). Games should have a USP to help them stand out, whether it is WH:Underworld's deck building or Warmahordes Focus allocation, being able to point to something and say'this is different,' is important. As I mentioned earlier though, avoid adding too many special features. So, if special dice aren't what you plan to focus on, be wary of adding them just because you can. That said, special dice do offer a lot mechanically and as a way to differentiate between models.

So based on what you've shown so far, I'm going to make a load of assumptions and see if I can figure out a rough idea of how the game plays.

-----------

(Assuming 1 non-move action per turn.)

Turn 1
- Elf moves to get LoS/Range on skeleton.
- Skeleton advances towards Elf with a rattle of bony limbs.

Turn 2
- The elf pushes forwards a little and shoots the skeleton. (assuming a 6 result on any given die is the same value as the 5 on that die). Rolling 1 blue and 1 red, the Elf will get between 0 and 5 damage, averaging 2.666.
- The skeleton rolls for defence with 1 blue and 1 armour dice. (assuming that armour is always a value of 1 and there are 3 shields over the 6 faces), scoring between 0 and 3, averaging 1.5 for defence.
- The elf averages 1 point of damage. If the skeleton is a low level threat with 1 hit point, it dies. If the skeleton has 2 hit points, the elf needs to be rolling above average, (or the skeleton below).
- For argument's sake, let's say the skeleton survives and the elf dodges back a little.
- The skeleton charges the elf. It rolls 2 blue dice (0-4. avg 2) against the elf's 1 blue and 1 armour. (0-3, avg 1.5).
- The skeleton needs to beat the odds a little to wound the elf.
- (assuming the elf starts with 4 wounds), The skeleton has a 1 in 45 chance (2%-ish) of one shotting the elf.
- Let's assume the skeleton wounds the elf, reducing the elf's action dice.

Turn 3
The elf is now locked in combat with the skeleton, where it's melee attack is not as potent as it's bow. The elf needs to decide whether to try and disengage, getting a better chance of killing the skeleton with it's bow, or remain locked in melee where it has equal odds with the skeleton.

-----------

Is that near the mark? Miles off target?

Obviously the above wouldn't be happening in a vacuum. Other players would also be taking their turns. A more melee capable character could intercept the skeleton before it charged. Etc.

Some thoughts about the above.
Armour dice having a value of 1 on each success seems fair given the odds on the other dice of causing damage, (as shown on the SDE image you posted) especially if you can stack a shield on top.
Should low level minions (2 blue dice = 4 damage) be able to potentially 1 hit kill the heroes?
Can heroes be revived somehow? Healing spells or potions?
Can characters take multiple attacks per turn?

The game is going to be co-op, correct? I'd aim for the following set-up of abilities for the heroes and the monsters they can expect to face at any given level.
Hero primary attack > monster defence.
Hero secondary attack ≧ monster defence.
Monster attack ≧ Hero defence.
Boss monsters would obviously be more in line with the heroes.
This balance should allow for the following.
Heroes should be able to remove enemies fairly quickly. Long grinding fights are dull.
Enemies should be able to chip away at the heroes. Gradual attrition through combat puts pressure on the players without knocking them out of the game immediately.
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Re: I'm making a boardgame.

Post by Jye Nicolson » Tue Oct 12, 2021 2:17 am

I think you'll want to make some decisions about how the pacing of the game works. Using the WHQ dice allocation system (or at least the bit where wounds displace dice) gives you a very particular kind of death spiral, and probably means taking on the WHQ pacing of everything being fine until it very suddenly isn't.

So whether you want a more explor-y pace or the rushed feel of Imperial Assault or the drop-dead clock of something like Gloomhaven will be an important context for the rest of the mechanics.

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Re: I'm making a boardgame.

Post by jus » Tue Oct 12, 2021 2:21 am

@Tod: Thanks! I'm going to take a look through it
me_in_japan wrote:
Mon Oct 11, 2021 3:28 pm
If I may offer my services when it comes time to fine tune the story / lore side of things, I’d be happy to get involved with that. I quite enjoy a good coherent story, and it irks me something awful when a game/tv show/book has a good solid idea but then drops the ball and falls prey to cliche or other shenanigans.

Also, my two cents: be wary about putting in stuff like armour dice just cos you’ve printed them off. That’s a slippery slope right there. Maybe take a step back and really review: does the game need this extra component/step? Or could it be further simplified and streamlined?
Certainly! lore/world building is the trickiest thing for me at the mo. Would love to hear your input/feedback/suggestions but bear in mind that there's a certain direction that I would like to take it in, and there may be a few cliches.

There are a few limitations that I have to work with though. Chief of which is the availability of miniatures, for example zombie elves can't really be a thing because
I'm not crazy about the idea and I don't have miniatures for zombie elves. That being said take a look at what we got to play with in terms of writing.

https://www.myminifactory.com/users/Artisan_Guild

Here are the bones of the background for this (hopefully not super lame) fantasy verse. Subject to change.

The world/setting exists as a convergence of planes of existence/elemental spirit realms coming together to form a territories of diverse biomes.
These planes could exist as a home/heaven/afterlife/sacred area and each of which possesses a gate/portal from which the races of the world come from.

Naturally the Sylvan Elves/Satyrs come from the woodland plane and the area/biome surrounding the gate to that plane is the great sacred forest.
I picture the Wood Elves to be the quintessial elf but otherworldly and oddly sinister creatures. Graceful/ghostlike/whipers in the woods/it's there...and then it's not, then you're dead.

Just a few world rules before we continue:

- Each race belongs to the "affinity" of their realm. i.e Elves - woodland affinity. Dwarves - (molten?) affinity, humans - holy/unholy affinity)
- Each race can only cast spells from their respective affinity (for thematic purposes) Sylan elf mage casts thorns/leaf blade/summon treants etc and not fireball for instance
- Humans being more versatile than other races delve into forbidden lore to cast spells not of their own affinity at the cost of possibly blowing up like a plasma gun in 40k. Forces beyond their ken/lose control.
- races don't mate each other. So no half orc/half dwarves. They need to be of the same affinity.
- Curse of the undead only affects humans (there's a reason)

PREMISE

In ages past, Humans were cast out of their Holy plane/eden/paradise and have been seeking atonement/a way to return.

In their hubris several kindgoms/human nations sought a way to reclaim their lost divinity/angel wings and caused a great cataclysm that ended up revesing their affinity from holy to unholy resulting in a ZOMBIE APOCALYSE and the collapse of civilation for (only) that empire.

The other races are none to pleased with humans now, and distrust is rife. As a side effect of the cataclysm, a valuable resource has become available - wyrdstone/warpstone/premium gatcha currency - and now all races brave enough to form warband to battle through the zombie hordes may find riches beyond imaging should they manage to find any.

Inspiration from Mordheim evidently but rather than just a city, a much larger area and a Zombie apocalyse set in a fantasy setting has always been an interesting idea.

What do you think so far?

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jus
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Re: I'm making a boardgame.

Post by jus » Tue Oct 12, 2021 2:41 am

@prim : Spot on (almost). That was a very concise run down of what it should look like. The main difference being only a successful attack roll, unless stated otherwise, only ever does 1 point of damage! This allows for a more co operative experience as you say, the other player characters will be also be participating in some way. Also this heroes can't be one shot like that.

Higher damage abilities will also come into play when I get around to designing the ability cards which will be a core mechanic (that still needs work)

Of course all this may be subject to change during the "trim the fat" phase of development, but as for the guard dice. I like the idea of them when it comes to armour upgrades and what abilities such as, lets say, (shieldbreaker - minus 2 guard dice for instance) a higher toughness character would fare better in this situation. In this regard the guard dice add nuance and utility and not something entirely superfluous like abe no masks.

You raise a good point in that there shouldn't be long grindy battles. I'll need to pay attention to that during play testing.

@jye: Also very good point. The inevitable death spiral has been tweaked a little as you will only lose action abilities at certain thesholds of health loss. So one wound taken doesn't necessarily mean minus one action straight off the bat. Removing hearts from the character dash board may reveal other detriments though, like minus one to movement.

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Re: I'm making a boardgame.

Post by me_in_japan » Thu Oct 14, 2021 7:25 am

@jus - i want to send you a docx file of my ideas. Any idea how i can do that, either here or elsewhere?
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Re: I'm making a boardgame.

Post by Karantu » Thu Oct 14, 2021 8:34 am

me_in_japan wrote:
Thu Oct 14, 2021 7:25 am
@jus - i want to send you a docx file of my ideas. Any idea how i can do that, either here or elsewhere?
Sorry for butting in but, a google drive link or dropbox link should work without needing other people to log in if you set the privacy settings to "anyone with the link".

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jus
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Re: I'm making a boardgame.

Post by jus » Thu Oct 14, 2021 10:18 am

me_in_japan wrote:
Thu Oct 14, 2021 7:25 am
@jus - i want to send you a docx file of my ideas. Any idea how i can do that, either here or elsewhere?
Ideas?? I must see! I'm very excited.
How about Facebook? I think I have you on there. Could you send it through to me there?

@karantu: Google drive would be convenient. I really should get around to sorting that out eventually.

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