Let's stipulate to the previous post's framework as being, at least notionally, the path forward for the encounter system:
- Perform a Dutch auction to resolve investment, and assign roles
- Resolve the encounter and then give out rewards (temple card lookups) in role order
- Then, each player choose one equipment card, some of which match the temple perils.
So you're getting info about the temple's perils, and cards to help traverse those perils. What do you do with it? Actually, there are two possible answers:
Punitive temple
This is closest to the version we tried most recently. For each temple card, reveal the card, and then order the players based on how many of that card's peril symbol they have on their equipment cards. Then allocate penalties; the further you are from the most-prepared player, the larger your punishment.
This works well enough and it lets players' relative preparation matter, so it's nice. It's reasonably simple, and it's reasonably thematic. A downside is that it bears little mechanical similarity to the map phase, so it's like you've started a whole new game, albeit a quick one.
Poisonous temple
What if instead there's some sort of map or track with spaces that represent progress through the temple. We've had things like this before so it's not a full deparature. But for each temple card, now there would be a bid (closed fist, I suspect). Mirroring the map phase bid, you 'pay for' your bid by a combination of the matching peril symbols on your equipment cards, and some poison that you drink.
In the map phase, that poison is movement on the time track. Maybe here it's time, or hubris, or damage, or maybe it blips between these from card to card. The point being, if you have the highest bid, you have to have the right equipment cards or be willing to drink some poison.
But then the benefit is, we move our pawns across this temple mat in bid order, with the highest bid moving furthest. Maybe the lowest bid even has to move backward! Maybe there are spatial effects -- a bridge that leading players can "blow", forcing trailing players to take the long way, etc.
The temple cards progress from red ("approaching the temple"), to purple ("inside the temple"), to yellow ("the grail room"), to green ("hubris challenge"). Maybe the track or map mirrors this, such that if, when the temple card switches to the next color, if your piece isn't in the similarly-colored region on the track/map, you are eliminated or punished or whatever.
The nice thing is that it creates urgency asymmetrically. I may be poorly prepared for the next temple card but I still need to bid high because the downside is being left way behind.
Another advantage is that it has direct mechanical similarities to the map phase. On the other hand, it means the game is basically an auction game all the way through, but maybe that's ok.
What got me thinking about it in the first place was my endless concern about the "trivial strategy" -- i.e. is a player who does nothing in the information game still able to do well in the temple phase simply by randomly grabbing some equipment cards in the map phase? There are ways to counteract this in the punitive temple, i.e. by making the punishments more severe, but in the poison temple, maybe you handle it organically: the player, by being poorly prepared, will either consistently lose bids and thus be hopelessly far behind, OR will have to drink so much poison to be competitive that he effectively eliminates himself just in the very act of trying to keep up.
This still needs more thought but there are benefits to either approach. I would have thought before today that the punitive temple was the only way to go, but the poison temple may have some upsides as well.
Monday, June 25, 2018
Worth the wait (?)
In the last post I talked about which elements of the past couple of years' worth of activity I want to try to keep. Now I need to think about how to fit it into an encounter system that works.
First, I think we need to put the challenge setup on rails. You get a randomly chosen tile, which is placed in a randomly determined city. The tile says which one, or two, solution categories are available this encounter. Then reveal an encounter card, and read what it says.
Then comes the twist on previous versions. The first shared-encounter version let players commit cubes, either to help the group or set themselves up individually for rewards. Some playtesters felt this was broken (it may have been), so we split the players into teams. Now it's more tense: if you are too selfish your team will lose, but the other team will still get stuff. But this resulted in a lot of extra rules: first bid cubes, then choose teams, then decide how to split up the cubes between helping your team and rewards. And I'm not sure "be selfish/be altruistic?" is super interesting or that it is that evocative of the theme.
An easier solution should have been obvious all along: the cubes you bid are also the ones you use to claim rewards at the end of the encounter. Also, put the team selection on rails: there are four roles on the "good guys" team and one on the "bad guys" team. You take the top-most card on the team you wish to join, in bid order.
But instead of a closed-fist bid, how about a Dutch auction? This will reduce the problem of ties quite a bit, and I like the psychology of this style of bidding in another game I'm using it in.
So, bid for roles, committing some cubes. Cubes you commit, you have to pay for, either with adventure cards or with moves on the time track. Increase the 'investment track' for your team on the encounter mat.
Then, when resolution cards are revealed, compare the boxes on the encounter card to which boxes are filled on the investment track. But there are some ways that you can lose cubes as the encounter proceeds.
Then, after the encounter ends, gain any bonus cubes specified by your role, and then in role order, claim rewards. What are rewards? Before it was the right to look at solution cards, or the equipment cards you need to traverse the temple's perils. Now, it's just solution lookups.
Each solution card will get, during setup, a specified number of green cubes. To look at a solution card, you have to 'pay' cubes equal to the number of green cubes on the card. If you want to, you can keep one of those green cubes. This helps you in the hubris challenge, but also means that anyone else wanting to look at that solution card will have an easier time.
There's a catch; actually two. If the enemy pawn is further along the progress track on the encounter card than the "good guys" pawn, the good guys get nothing. So this is one reason to maybe want to be on the enemy team for an encounter: the potential that you can be the one to skunk your opponents.
In addition, however far back you are from the final space on the track, there's a hubris penalty. This reflects that you didn't exactly reach the end of the encounter, and you're being hubristic (?) to push on when the forces guarding the information clearly have decreed that you should not have it! This bit is fiddly so we'll see if it survives.
After the encounter, everyone gets a free turn. Move to a different city, and in that city, either take two (face-down) adventure cards, take one (face-up) equipment card (for the temple), or if appropriate reveal a relic, which gives freebie cubes that help you get information from certain solution categories.
I think this basically works, and while it's not trivially simple, I think it's easy enough to internalize. The limitation of this system may be that the encounters aren't all that well differentiated; it may not feel that much like you're in a Cairo market or an Austrian castle. But I'm not sure the extra rules needed to achieve these kinds of differences are worth the trouble. For now I think the main thing is getting in place a framework that works well, and then seeing how to embellish this if needed.
Taken collectively I'm not sure this is an earth-shatteringly brilliant new direction that really needed a six month delay to be realized, but I do think it achieves the qualities articulated in the previous post but is simpler and more compact than any of the other directions that I had tried up to that point, so if it sets us on a solid footing from which to begin tweaking, then certainly it will have been worth a delay.
First, I think we need to put the challenge setup on rails. You get a randomly chosen tile, which is placed in a randomly determined city. The tile says which one, or two, solution categories are available this encounter. Then reveal an encounter card, and read what it says.
Then comes the twist on previous versions. The first shared-encounter version let players commit cubes, either to help the group or set themselves up individually for rewards. Some playtesters felt this was broken (it may have been), so we split the players into teams. Now it's more tense: if you are too selfish your team will lose, but the other team will still get stuff. But this resulted in a lot of extra rules: first bid cubes, then choose teams, then decide how to split up the cubes between helping your team and rewards. And I'm not sure "be selfish/be altruistic?" is super interesting or that it is that evocative of the theme.
An easier solution should have been obvious all along: the cubes you bid are also the ones you use to claim rewards at the end of the encounter. Also, put the team selection on rails: there are four roles on the "good guys" team and one on the "bad guys" team. You take the top-most card on the team you wish to join, in bid order.
But instead of a closed-fist bid, how about a Dutch auction? This will reduce the problem of ties quite a bit, and I like the psychology of this style of bidding in another game I'm using it in.
So, bid for roles, committing some cubes. Cubes you commit, you have to pay for, either with adventure cards or with moves on the time track. Increase the 'investment track' for your team on the encounter mat.
Then, when resolution cards are revealed, compare the boxes on the encounter card to which boxes are filled on the investment track. But there are some ways that you can lose cubes as the encounter proceeds.
Then, after the encounter ends, gain any bonus cubes specified by your role, and then in role order, claim rewards. What are rewards? Before it was the right to look at solution cards, or the equipment cards you need to traverse the temple's perils. Now, it's just solution lookups.
Each solution card will get, during setup, a specified number of green cubes. To look at a solution card, you have to 'pay' cubes equal to the number of green cubes on the card. If you want to, you can keep one of those green cubes. This helps you in the hubris challenge, but also means that anyone else wanting to look at that solution card will have an easier time.
There's a catch; actually two. If the enemy pawn is further along the progress track on the encounter card than the "good guys" pawn, the good guys get nothing. So this is one reason to maybe want to be on the enemy team for an encounter: the potential that you can be the one to skunk your opponents.
In addition, however far back you are from the final space on the track, there's a hubris penalty. This reflects that you didn't exactly reach the end of the encounter, and you're being hubristic (?) to push on when the forces guarding the information clearly have decreed that you should not have it! This bit is fiddly so we'll see if it survives.
After the encounter, everyone gets a free turn. Move to a different city, and in that city, either take two (face-down) adventure cards, take one (face-up) equipment card (for the temple), or if appropriate reveal a relic, which gives freebie cubes that help you get information from certain solution categories.
I think this basically works, and while it's not trivially simple, I think it's easy enough to internalize. The limitation of this system may be that the encounters aren't all that well differentiated; it may not feel that much like you're in a Cairo market or an Austrian castle. But I'm not sure the extra rules needed to achieve these kinds of differences are worth the trouble. For now I think the main thing is getting in place a framework that works well, and then seeing how to embellish this if needed.
Taken collectively I'm not sure this is an earth-shatteringly brilliant new direction that really needed a six month delay to be realized, but I do think it achieves the qualities articulated in the previous post but is simpler and more compact than any of the other directions that I had tried up to that point, so if it sets us on a solid footing from which to begin tweaking, then certainly it will have been worth a delay.
Sunday, June 24, 2018
Keepers and bleepers
So here's what happened.
In early 2016, a publisher that has previously shown interest in the game expressed interest in potentially licensing the game, but felt it needed a cycle of development. The publisher sent it out to a developer, who felt that it needed a significant redesign, and wanted a design credit to undertake this effort. The publisher agreed with the developer's assessment, but I decided to have a whack at the redesign myself. This was made difficult by a lack of specificity from the publisher. They wanted something different, but weren't sure and couldn't say exactly what they wanted.
2016 and 2017 were the result of this, and a flurry of frenetic design activity, as amply documented in this blog. I tried a lot of different things, and came up with what I feel are some genuinely nice ideas and mechanics, and in addition "re-discovered" some things that we had previously done in v7 and before, that I think were worth preserving or reintroducing. The problem is that it didn't all fit together, and after two years I was burning out and spinning my wheels. Some of the pieces seemed right, but I couldn't make them fit together.
After six months away from the game, I wonder if maybe enough time has elapsed that I'm ready to jump back in and see if a fresh perspective and renewed energy can get this to completion (or at least, to the point where the systems are in place and it's just a matter of balancing).
Things that I like and that I think are keepers:
- Hubris. This was the coolest new idea, because it works so well thematically. Mechanically, it should in some ways mirror unrest in my other game, Sands of Time: it's something you take on, usually voluntarily, as a way to get some benefit but it puts you at risk in the long run.
- Linear temple. This is all the way back from v4, I believe, but at this point it's either this or a paragraph book. The 2D temple crawl just has too many problems and needs too many rules. A single temple, explored one card at a time, keeps the group all involved and engaged in the end game, and makes the action about how well we are prepared relative to each other. There may be tweaks needed but the concept is correct.
- Time track. A time track that represents your film's running time is thematically nice and makes a nice 'currency' that you can draw against. It's a bit muddled that in the last few versions it also determined your score. Probably need to get away from that.
- Adventure cards. The last cycles have used more complex arrangements of adventure card effects, special effects, player mats, and special character roles. I think the next version needs to go back to basics here and just have simple adventure cards, maybe with a twist.
- Shared semi-cooperative encounters. Everyone likes the encounter cards, where you read a description of the scene you face and then some randomizers are used to resolve the encounter. These are strictly better than the v7 method. But too many of them drags things out. So, shared encounters seem vital if this system is to be preserved. Seven or eight max.
Maybe-keepers:
- Resolution cards not dice. These have only seen a couple of run-outs and I think they basically work, in that they represent the "story-boarding" of the scene and are probably cheaper than dice as well. Down side is a need for more decks, to reflect the different challenge categories. So they're in the maybe category for now.
- Hubris challenge. At the end of the game, face a final challenge to see whether you purge all your hubris. Doing this with resolution cards hasn't been as much fun as it was with dice, and doing it simultaneously is efficient but isn't as much fun as watching each person attempt their hubris challenge while everyone else watches. It might just be more fun to go one at a time, and the rest of the game's length will have to be built around this.
Bleepers:
- Player mats. I think these are taking a leave of absence for now. I like the thematic idea that you have a character mat that starts with some attributes, which you further populate with additional cards to flesh out more attributes. But in practice this kind of asymmetry may not be something the game needs. I'm not 100% sure but we'll see.
- Encounter penalties. Previous versions had encounters be the way that you get information, but also they deal out penalties when the enemy catches you, thus heightening the suspense of the enemy arriving in your city. Except, it's just one too many things that encounters can do. I think encounters need to be about solution card lookups, and only that.
I think that this leaves us with a core set of ingredients, and the next post will talk about how to mix them together into something coherent.
In early 2016, a publisher that has previously shown interest in the game expressed interest in potentially licensing the game, but felt it needed a cycle of development. The publisher sent it out to a developer, who felt that it needed a significant redesign, and wanted a design credit to undertake this effort. The publisher agreed with the developer's assessment, but I decided to have a whack at the redesign myself. This was made difficult by a lack of specificity from the publisher. They wanted something different, but weren't sure and couldn't say exactly what they wanted.
2016 and 2017 were the result of this, and a flurry of frenetic design activity, as amply documented in this blog. I tried a lot of different things, and came up with what I feel are some genuinely nice ideas and mechanics, and in addition "re-discovered" some things that we had previously done in v7 and before, that I think were worth preserving or reintroducing. The problem is that it didn't all fit together, and after two years I was burning out and spinning my wheels. Some of the pieces seemed right, but I couldn't make them fit together.
After six months away from the game, I wonder if maybe enough time has elapsed that I'm ready to jump back in and see if a fresh perspective and renewed energy can get this to completion (or at least, to the point where the systems are in place and it's just a matter of balancing).
Things that I like and that I think are keepers:
- Hubris. This was the coolest new idea, because it works so well thematically. Mechanically, it should in some ways mirror unrest in my other game, Sands of Time: it's something you take on, usually voluntarily, as a way to get some benefit but it puts you at risk in the long run.
- Linear temple. This is all the way back from v4, I believe, but at this point it's either this or a paragraph book. The 2D temple crawl just has too many problems and needs too many rules. A single temple, explored one card at a time, keeps the group all involved and engaged in the end game, and makes the action about how well we are prepared relative to each other. There may be tweaks needed but the concept is correct.
- Time track. A time track that represents your film's running time is thematically nice and makes a nice 'currency' that you can draw against. It's a bit muddled that in the last few versions it also determined your score. Probably need to get away from that.
- Adventure cards. The last cycles have used more complex arrangements of adventure card effects, special effects, player mats, and special character roles. I think the next version needs to go back to basics here and just have simple adventure cards, maybe with a twist.
- Shared semi-cooperative encounters. Everyone likes the encounter cards, where you read a description of the scene you face and then some randomizers are used to resolve the encounter. These are strictly better than the v7 method. But too many of them drags things out. So, shared encounters seem vital if this system is to be preserved. Seven or eight max.
Maybe-keepers:
- Resolution cards not dice. These have only seen a couple of run-outs and I think they basically work, in that they represent the "story-boarding" of the scene and are probably cheaper than dice as well. Down side is a need for more decks, to reflect the different challenge categories. So they're in the maybe category for now.
- Hubris challenge. At the end of the game, face a final challenge to see whether you purge all your hubris. Doing this with resolution cards hasn't been as much fun as it was with dice, and doing it simultaneously is efficient but isn't as much fun as watching each person attempt their hubris challenge while everyone else watches. It might just be more fun to go one at a time, and the rest of the game's length will have to be built around this.
Bleepers:
- Player mats. I think these are taking a leave of absence for now. I like the thematic idea that you have a character mat that starts with some attributes, which you further populate with additional cards to flesh out more attributes. But in practice this kind of asymmetry may not be something the game needs. I'm not 100% sure but we'll see.
- Encounter penalties. Previous versions had encounters be the way that you get information, but also they deal out penalties when the enemy catches you, thus heightening the suspense of the enemy arriving in your city. Except, it's just one too many things that encounters can do. I think encounters need to be about solution card lookups, and only that.
I think that this leaves us with a core set of ingredients, and the next post will talk about how to mix them together into something coherent.
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