I'm making a boardgame.

[jus]

I'm doing it. Don't try to talk me out of it.

Hmmm, a good old dungeon crawl, with narrative elements, RPG leveling progression, upgrades, custom dice and of course. only the most kickass minis. Oh how about some deck building. Why not?

Used to be you'd have to FOMO back something on kickstarter (or buy from GW) for cool minis packaged together with a pretty mediocre game. Having several of these already and having had good fun with friends playing them. I can't help but feel like I'm not 100% satisfied with the gameplay of the finished products. Like a mechanic here that was shoe horned in because of manufacturing restraints, or a rule there that didn't make a whole lot of sense.

So thus begins this massive undertaking whereby I try to amalgamate everything I love about warhammer quest, zombicide, arcadia quest and super dungeon explore and attempt to craft something that is worthy of a game day.



After a week of game designing ( ...and not painting anything), I have to say, it's really a lot of fun. I love the creative process of going from concept to reiteration after reiteration until you come to something that feels right!
Turns out most components you need like cards and boards can be, with some elbow grease, created with an inkjet printer. This this lovely grided forest setting. Maybe there are some sneaky Goblins hiding behind the trees waiting in ambush?


Other components like these custom faced dice that I threw together in TinkerCAD. I think these are the first 3d models I've actually made and printed myself. I promise they aren't weighted. They actually roll very well.

The tentative title for the game is, at the moment, "Elf chick vs Skeleton warrior" while I puzzle away at combat mechanics.

Also, Look - see I have been painting some of my cursed city stuff.

[me_in_japan]

Sir, I salute thee in thy noble quest. If you ever need words of encouragement (or nitpicky proofreading type of things) let me know. Godspeed, game designer.

[Primarch]

Cool! If you need to bounce ideas for mechanics off someone, give me a holler.

Are you planning on PvP or PvE?

[jus]

Thank you kindly MIJ and Prim. Yes, please help meeee.

OK so, it's a co operative game, with a GM, being me most likely (for now). I really like the dice activation system from warhammer quest so. I've incorporated that into the player dash board, but I've added some stats as well.

You roll 4d6 and place those dice on the top 4 squares. Those are your action dice you can spend on actions during your activation.

1+: basic move action
3+: run action.

The higher the dice are for more impressive abilities that I will get to when my dice are done cooking in UV light.
The dice I plan to use are going to be uniqe to each playable character, with unique facings etc.

I thought it would be cool to differentiate each character this way. what do you think would be on elf chick's unique dice? If you could have an elf die with what ever facings you want on it what would they be? A foot icon facing for extra movement or a poison arrow facing hmm.



would love to hear your ideas for weapon actions for elf chick. For example 6+: piercing shot.

Also suggestions for a good elven name for her would also be welcome. I haven't had time to look up one for her. we'll get there

[Primarch]

Some thoughts regarding dice, feel free to ignore if you want.

Dice are normally numbered sequentially. If you replace the numbers with unique icons, then there is no 4+ (or whatever) anymore, each facing has equal odds of 1/6. If you just stick with numbers then you get more or less likely outcomes. E.g. 2+ is 5/6, but 5+ is only 1/3. So the question is really do you want flat odds of any given ability cropping up, or do you wany variable odds. What could be a good middle ground is to assign a common power to 3 facings, an uncommon power to 2 facings and a rare power to 1 facing.

You also have the option of having combinations of different icons, like if you get the move icon and the shoot icon, the model can move and fire with one action, though that would need to be better than doing it with two normal actions.

As for what powers an elf could have, hmmm.
Shooting outside of normal range.
Dodging and evading.
Shooting an extra time.
Ignoring the target's armour.
Leaping over another model/hazardous space on the board.
Creating some cover by summoning some trees.
Being smug and condescending to lesser races.
Some minor healing magic.

[The Other Dave]

The tentative title for the game is, at the moment, "Elf chick vs Skeleton warrior" while I puzzle away at combat mechanics.

I'm sold!

[jus]

Some thoughts regarding dice, feel free to ignore if you want.

Dice are normally numbered sequentially. If you replace the numbers with unique icons, then there is no 4+ (or whatever) anymore, each facing has equal odds of 1/6. If you just stick with numbers then you get more or less likely outcomes. E.g. 2+ is 5/6, but 5+ is only 1/3. So the question is really do you want flat odds of any given ability cropping up, or do you wany variable odds. What could be a good middle ground is to assign a common power to 3 facings, an uncommon power to 2 facings and a rare power to 1 facing.

You also have the option of having combinations of different icons, like if you get the move icon and the shoot icon, the model can move and fire with one action, though that would need to be better than doing it with two normal actions.

As for what powers an elf could have, hmmm.
Shooting outside of normal range.
Dodging and evading.
Shooting an extra time.
Ignoring the target's armour.
Leaping over another model/hazardous space on the board.
Creating some cover by summoning some trees.
Being smug and condescending to lesser races.
Some minor healing magic.

Yes, Very true. After thinking it over, I think numerical values are still important in a stat based game, especially for tests and checks for RP moments. i.e if asked to make a str check to lift a boulder and you roll 2 bananas and an apple, is that a sucess or failure?

I still like the idea of unique facing dice and plan to factor it in. Maybe one per character for now to be included in dice pools for added bonuses. I really like the idea for "being mug and condescending to lesser races" and should be represented on one facing of the elf dice.

the other ideas are great too. As chracters level up they will gain ability cards that allow them to add to their weapon abilities/ actions.

I have to make some more dice.

[Primarch]

You could always tie bonus dice in to level progression.

Some more thoughts about game design in general, as always feel free to ignore if they don't line up with what you want to do. It's your game after all.

Having played a lot of games over the years and even tried writing a few of my own, there are a few things I'd recommend.
Keep notes of every idea. Even if you don't use it initially, you may swing back to it later.
Be consistent. If high rolls are good, they should always be good. If the attacker wins any draws, they should always win draws. That kind of thing. Having special rules that change the consistency is ok, they are special rules after all, but it's much easier on players to remember a single method of rolling.
Get the basics down before paying too much attention to special rules. If you know how to resolve all of the movement, fighting, interacting stuff first, it gives you something to bolt your special rules too. If you have some ideas for special rules, write them down, but don't build around them to begin with. It's way too easy to get caught up on making everything special first and wind up with a mish-mash of stuff that just doesn't work well together.
Take a little time to do the maths. Work out averages and extremes on dice rolls and stats. Can the weakest model take out the strongest if they get lucky? How big a modifier can you add to rolls before it becomes unbeatable. Do you need to include critical hits and misses?
As well as thinking about stuff you like from other systems, think about negative experiences you have had. What left you feeling unhappy with other games? How can you avoid your players having that experience with your game?
Is there enough to do in the game? Big wargames are usually just move and fight, but smaller games need other actions as well. For an RPG-ish experience, looting corpses, searching for traps and interacting with other players are all good ideas.
Funky mechanics are all well and good, but should be limited to one or two areas (they can be the core of the game if you want), a good, interesting mechanic will get players interested. A dozen good mechanics will get players confused and unhappy.
Simplfy! If you have to roll on a table to find a line on a chart which tells you how to plot a graph... then your players won't play.
Try to represent things visually. If you are using icons on your dice, use the icons when explaining the rules as it cuts down on misunderstandings. "When you roll the icon that looks like an arrow with a squiggle on the end, that means..." Is much easier if you write it as "{icon} = rule".

And the most absolutely difficult part: Listen to feedback and make changes accordingly. Just because everything makes sense in your head, or it's something that you spent ages thinking of, if you get some critical feedback on it then you should look at it again, pick it apart and see if that feedback is justified. Some people do like to whinge about nothing, but don't just ignore it.

[jus]

@prim: words of wisdom, well recieved.



Borrowing heavily from the super dungeon explore (excelent game by the way) combat mechanics. I replicated their dice with my own 3d printed ones. For now the 6's are blank just to simplify things, but I may change the 6 facing to something more fancy.

I find that this system is a simple yet elegant way to represent strengths and weakness. Starting from blue being the most basic to green being the best.

So a lvl 1 fighter may start out with a STR rating of 3 blue dice.



Here they are. I've stained them with some color. I've also added a grey GUARD dice for saving throws.



Here is the 0.1 version of Elf chick's stats. Her DEX is quite good as she starts with a red and blue dice. To make a ranged attack she would roll her DEX stat and compare it to the ARM stat of the target. Let's say she has a range of 8 squares and the Skeleton warrior has ARM of 1 BLue and 1 GUARD dice.

The idea is, as they lvl up/gain equipment and abilities, they will gain extra dice to throw. For example leather armour adds +1 BLue dice to def or the Crack Shot ability that adds a RED dice to DEX and the range penalty for shooting through terrain.

Any thoughts or suggestions welcome as always.

[Primarch]

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?