No, dice!

I've talked at length about mechanics I've come up with to evoke a movie-making theme, and the one I'm proudest of is the resolution cards.  Previously I was resolving encounters with custom dice, with the number of dice you rolled for yourself and the enemy commensurate with the 'investment' of each in the encounter.  I realized that you could encode the same information onto cards, albeit at a slight loss of randomness, but with the benefit that we could add other stuff to these cards.  Specifically, we could include storyboard art and a description of what has happened -- "Protagonist throws punch"/"Operative draws a pistol" etc.  So in resolving the challenge it's as if you're story-boarding the scene, and the cards match the challenge category you face so it's thematically appropriate.  I love this idea and would hate to let it go. 

But it's not without a few drawbacks.  First, it's extra steps in encounter prep: "Grab the encounter deck for the appropriate challenge category, put a marker on the enemy track, put a marker on your investment".  It adds some minor fiddliness: shuffle the deck you just used after the encounter.  The randomness is bounded (this I consider very minor).  It's another component (48 cards) that eats up some table space (4 decks).  And it requires a mat for the encounter resolution, with tracks for your investment and the enemy investment.  And possibly the worst part -- when you flip a resolution card, you have to place it very precisely so that the tracks on the card line up with the tracks on the mat, so you can compare your investment and the enemy's to the results indicated on the card.

Now none of these are that big a deal and the pros, to me, outweigh the cons.  But it does take time, and those extra 48 cards and the mat are not insignificant in a game with a lot of parts.  Compared to 10 custom dice, maybe it's a wash, but what if we could do this with standard dice?  What if we can do it with just two standard dice?  Unfortunately for my beloved resolution system, I think we can.

It's so simple I wonder why I didn't think of it before.  When you face an encounter, roll two dice, one red, one white.  For the red die, if the number is less than the number of black cubes in the region, move the enemy pawn that many spaces closer to your city.  For the white die, if the number is less than the amount that you invested in the encounter (adventure cards, basically), advance that number on the success track.  Repeat this three times.

That's it.  There are other bells and whistles about ways to use adventure cards to get out early, block bad results, and some things like that, but then there were some bells and whistles with the resolution card version too.  The statistics are different.  In the resolution card version the expected number of successes scaled linearly with investment, but here it grows with investment.  But on the whole it captures some of the same suspense but with zero overhead, fewer rules and fewer components. 

Ah, but there's another problem; the hubris challenge also used resolution cards, and these had two effects.  First, they ate hubris, their main function.  Second, they deal out penalties for curses you've acquired, e.g. if you drank from the wrong grail.  Can we capture this with dice as well?  Here again, two dice to the rescue.  White die is for cancelling hubris, red die checks against curses.  If you roll less than the number of curse tokens you have, you lose life equal to your die roll.  

There are a couple of things to think through, most notably that, assuming we use a d6, there's no difference in your performance in the hubris challenge if you have more than 6 green cubes.  If there are ways to lose green cubes during the challenge, then having more cubes is better.  On the other hand maybe it's ok for the game to be saying that if you have more than 6, you've been inefficient, and could have played it closer to the bone.  Or we could just use a d8 or d10 in the hubris challenge, although that may be swingy.
I've rolled through a few challenges this way just to try it out, and I like how quickly it sets up and resolves.  Yes, you have to use your imagination a bit as to what the dice represent, but that's true of every dice-based resolution system.  The biggest drawback may be that over three rolls (six dice total), the statistics just won't even out very well.  Sometimes the enemy will scream to your location, sometimes they won't move at all.  Sometimes you'll fly up the success track, sometimes you'll be sucking pond water.  In previous versions players had "script rewrite" cards that changed an outcome in some way.  We could reintroduce that concept here, maybe just in the form of a few tokens that everyone gets that you can spend for force another player, or allow yourself, to reroll a die.  A different thought was to roll two dice for one or both effects and keep the ... lower? higher?  That's the problem, it's not easy to define what you want!  You ideally, for the white die, want the highest die that's lower than your number of white cubes.  Neither "keep the lower" or "keep the higher" quite capture what you want here. 
So I'm potentially very upbeat about this change, particularly since it seems to move us closer to the simplicity of the v7 system but with more substance and suspense, but will just have to see how much of a concern random swings of luck are and whether they balance out over the course of the game.   

More cowbell

I finished a playtest of v15, and while it mostly worked, some issues emerged.  By about the 4th of 7 turns, nearly all of the players had full information about the temple. Thus there were subsequent encounters where no one cared about the info that was available, and those encounters fell flat.   Happily it made for a good stress-test to see whether the new temple system ("poison") works even when everyone has full knowledge, and the answer is a qualified yes.  The experience of wanting to bid high to get to move seemed to come through successfully. 



There are actually two problems bundled together here, players having full knowledge and players having identical knowledge.  We can address the former by making info harder to get, but getting info is fun and increasing the frustration level is a poor solution.  A different solution may be to put more information into the game.


Currently the info you can get includes:

Relic locations (2)
Temple start city (1)
Temple perils, red (2)
Temple perils, purple (3)
Aspects of the true grail (3)


That's 11 total pieces of information that are available.  But, we can't add more temple perils, although that would be the easiest thing.  Each one requires a bid-and-pay-and-move resolution step in the temple, so more perils would drag out the temple.  In contrast, the true grail is just a quick knowledge check, and we could have more items of that sort.



On the other hand, the perils affect the map phase in a way that the grail room doesn't, in that they tell you which peril symbols you should be acquiring on equipment cards.  How could a quick knowledge check also be actionable?



One easy-ish solution is to add a something like a door that is locked and requires the correct key.  There are several possible keys, which are treated like relics, such that each resides in a hidden location.  This adds several pieces of information, but unlike the others you don't necessarily need all of this info.  Some players will go for this info, some won't, so it adds player differentiation.   (And, to mitigate the effect of having spent time acquiring the wrong key, maybe each key also confers a special power in the temple).



The downside of this is that it ratchets up the number of different kinds of things that players need to know, and thus the number of different kinds of operations to perform in the temple, which is perhaps a concern.  However, maybe these knowledge checks are actually different modules, and different combinations of modules, along with where in the temple they occur, can give some variety to the temple.  Maybe more brainstorming on this in a future post. 




The problem of players having identical knowledge is probably exacerbated by the shared encounters, so even though it will take longer, I think we need to seriously consider a return to individual turns, as described by the previous post.  A nice benefit is that it removes at least some of the rules that the shared encounters require.  I think the turn mechanics are shaping up and I'm encouraged by their simplicity.


Map phase:
1. Move, add a cube to the region you're in (reveal a relic if you're in the right city)
2. Face encounter (read card, invest adventure cards, flip 3 resolution cards)
3. View temple cards (total value less than or equal to the point on the succes track you reached)
4.  Receive adventure cards (first is free, after that it's 1/3/6 time to take 1/2/3 cards)


Temple phase:
1. Simultaneous investment bid
2. Resolve in bid order:  incur penalty equal to your bid (offset by having the correct peril symbols on adventure cards), then move on the temple track (commensurate with your relative position; ties are unfriendly)
3. Players lagging too far behind on the temple track incur some penalty


And then a couple of knowledge checks are interspersed in the temple phase.  That doesn't seem all that bad.  v16, here we come!

Mostly for Seth, a v7/v15 hybrid

Seth expressed in a tweet that he was nostalgic for v7.  Naturally this got me to thinking, what would v7 looked like informed by the sensibilities of v15?  In some ways this was what v13 was trying to be, but it didn't work because, at that time, the encounter system was open-ended: encounters continued until you reached either a positive or negative resolution, so they could keep going for sometimes 6 or 7 die rolls each before the player learned whether they succeeded or failed.  

This led to enormous latency, to which the shared encounters of v14 were the solution.  But in v15, I'm imposing a fixed length on each encounter: four resolution card flips.  Could it work to have individual turns with individual encounters, each with, say, three resolution flips?  Maybe, although I think there will still be latency issues.  But here's how I think it would work.

First, the turn mechanic in v7 was a Tikal-like action point allowance system.  Scrap that. Information is the point of the map phase, build the game around that.  Time is a resource.  On your turn, you can burn time to draw cards, and to travel to any city.  Once there, add a black cube to that city, and reveal the top encounter card from that city type.  It has a challenge category.  Set the "enemy investment track" at the # of cubes in the city.  Pay cards to get adventure points (cards matching challenge category worth more adv. points), set the "player investment track" at this number.  Then, flip three resolution cards.  For each "X" at or below the enemy investment, move enemy closer to your city.  For each "check" at or below your investment, advance the success track.

If the enemy reaches your city, the encounter ends.  You can look up information or get a card, but not both.  Otherwise, encounter ends after the third resolution card.  Then, you get to look at temple cards that match the theme card for the city you're in.  The solution track tells the total value of cards you get to look at -- the further you've gotten, the more total value of cards you get to examine.  A temple card's value is the number of green cubes on that card; several were placed on each card during setup.  After you view a card, you can remove one green cube, making it easier for everyone else to see that card but helping you in the hubris challenge later on.

After you look at temple cards, you get to take one adventure card from the face-up display, presumably based on information you have about the temple. 

Then, the temple would still be essentially the v15 version -- a map track to see who is furthest along, and players incur a series of five auctions.  In each, you are bidding for how much of a penalty you're willing to take in exchange for moving further along the map track, but your bid can be offset if you have adventure cards that match the current temple card's peril.  So advance knowledge, and advance preparation, both help.  The encounter system above seems compatible with this:  you want to progress as far as you can in each encounter so as to get max info and thus be able to draw cards wisely.

Now, in looking at this ... actually it's not too shabby.  It captures some of the nice things about v7 but in different ways -- cubes added to cities to make challenges more difficult, possibility of 'sharing' information but now handled abstractly. 

There's an interesting trade-off, though.  The v15 encounter phase has shared encounters, which need quite a few extra rules to make them interesting, but there are fewer encounters in total so there's a big savings in time.  I can't see the map phase in this hybrid version taking less than an hour, whereas in v15 it could seat 5 players and still clock in under 40 minutes, I suspect. 

Now the map phase in v7 wasn't exactly quick either, because all of that sliding clues into sleeves and complying with the cube and track manipulation bureacracy ate up a fair bit of time too.  So it may be that front-loading all of the turn time in the encounter resolution might not be that bad.  Really now it's just the equivalent of "roll some dice three times", it's just that the dice take the form of cards.  And the encounter setup is fairly automatic.  Maybe that's not so bad.

But it's not just that it's an hour, it's that 28 encounters is just a lot to sit through:  they're all a bit samey.  But more variety would add more rules and thus more time to comply with them.

I think it still has some of the players-acting-in-isolation issue of v7 but with the enemy pawn moving around, there's an effect sort of reminiscent of Hansa, i.e. where you leave the enemy pawn influences where the next player is likely to want to go. 

I'm not sure yet where hubris fits into this, but maybe I can find a couple of little ways for players to get a shortcut here or there in exchange for hubris, and of course you pick up some hubris in the temple.  We could of course get rid of hubris entirely but it's grown on me so I hate to see it go. 

One of the strong points of v7 was that it was pretty intuitive.  Players taking individual turns makes sense to players, since most games work this way.  It's less easy when it's "here are the rules that govern these shared encounters"; people have less of an intuition about what a shared encounter entails. 

Anyway, this idea is actually pretty easy to solo test using most of the same components as v15 so I'll at least give it a go and see how it plays.  It might just be that a return to v7, at least some aspects of it, are what's needed to really push things forward.

Is variety essential to immersion?

This is (now) supposed to be a cinematic game.  Does it feel cinematic?  Should it feel cinematic?  I think the encounter system is converging on feeling nicely suspenseful, which is almost the same thing.  The enemy pawn is creeping closer to the city, the ambiguous character might switch teams, the extra might bail out of the challenge entirely, someone might blow up the bridge -- there are lots of things that can happen (eh, maybe too many) with each card resolution card flip.  But are the encounters differentiated in a meaningful way?  If they all feel suspenseful, is it the same kind of suspense in each encounter, and if so, is that ok, or should you really feel differently when experiencing a brawl in a seedy dive in Nepal as opposed to a frantic rescue attempt in a bustling Cairo market?

One of the weak points all along has been that we have these action categories (luck, wits, fight, escape) that don't have any gameplay differences.  All along we've settled mostly for connecting these to city types, such that each city type has two challenge categories.  I've tried to differentiate the city types further by making triangles more "difficult" than pentagons are more difficult than circles.  But I'm not sure that makes sense in the new version where your destination is chosen for you each turn -- there's no need to motivate a risk/reward location selection decision if you don't select your location!  Still they could feel different if, say, triangles yield more clues but also tend to deal out more damage, whereas circles are safer but not as productive.  This could influence your investment in a given location, coupled with the relative stage of the game and how much info you possess vs. how much you need.

But is it important, then, that, say, pentagons feature luck and wits challenges, or can every city have every kind of challenge?  I don't think it makes that much difference either way, so I'm inclined to take the latter approach, for the simple reason that otherwise, it's something you have to tell the players but it really makes no impact on their decisions.

So you have cities that feel a bit different and in each you face a random challenge category.  The encounter card tells you about the scene you face, and the resolution cards, with their story-board flavor, will help sell the theming a bit.  But I also wonder if we shouldn't add in some kind of differentiation between the challenge categories to make them feel different as well.  I can see two ways of approaching this.

One, and probably the better of the two, is to impose a single rule on each challenge category.  It's simple, so it can be printed on the encounter card or the mat.  Perhaps these are so unobtrusive that it's an optional rule, in the form of a single info card, that you either use or leave out entirely.  But I tend to frown on optional rules like this generally.

Anyway, what could these simple rules be?  I don't know, but something like:

Fight:

- Only one side will view solution cards after the encounter

- Only one cube can occupy a space on the success track

Escape

- The challenge only lasts for 3 resolution cards instead of 4

- No player may bid more than 3 time in the investment stage

Luck

- When investing, adventure cards are chosen at random; any that is 'luck' is worth an investment of 4

Wits

- Pick investment cards secretly and simultaneously -- if you match another player's, you each get +1 investment

A second approach would be to harness the fact that each category has a dedicated set of resolution cards, and each encounter has a custom success track, and make these work together. 

So, for example, "escape" encounters could have on their success track several "stop" points, and the cube can't progress past this unless an "escape" icon shows up on the resolution card or someone pays an escape icon.

"Fight" encounters could have two tracks with a choke point, and only the first team to reach the choke point gets to progress past it.

"Wits" encounters could have a mini-maze:  spaces could blip you back and forth but symbols on the resolution cards would let you punch through the maze.

I think I like the first approach better because it means encounters are all basically the same with each having a single rules tweak.  In the second approach, really each category is a separate mini-game system.  That's potentially fun but it's maybe more complexity than the game needs.

Bidding screenwriters

I think I’ve convinced myself that the “poison” version of the temple is the way to go.  I think the symmetry with the map phase is a compelling argument in its favor.  In both phases you’re bidding damage but this can be offset by preparation.  The details of the auctions and the stakes of the auction change so it still feels like there’s a transition, but it still feels like it’s the same game.

I think there’s also a good thematic justification for this.  Let’s say that the game’s premise is that we are screenwriters trying to promote our own character such that in the editing room that character will emerge as the protagonist.(*).  The punitive temple didn’t make much sense — who is it that is punishing our characters?  I like the poison temple better — we, the screenwriters, are punishing our own characters, creating interesting drama by being willing to subject our favorite to a greater level of struggle.

This calls for caution, though.  Upon hearing that we players are screenwriters, playtesters generate a ton of suggestions about how to introduce screenwriting theming and conventions and concepts.  So this theme may create expectations in people that the game doesn’t fully deliver on — i.e. in some ways you’re the character and in some ways the writer and we have to be careful about this.  But I think at least most of the systems are justifiable:

- Adventure cards represent gear and traits you’re investing your character with to enable them to succeed.  That one is easy.

- Encounters are scenes we’re writing together to show how our characters acquire knowledge about the temple.  Also easy.  Except...

- ...it makes sense that info about the temple (the peril cards) is hidden from the characters, but why is it hidden from us?  I guess my hand-wave at this is that the film is already in production when we’re hired to work on it, and so the props department is already at work building sets for the temple.  Getting a sneak peak at those tells us about what kinds of things we should be writing into our characters (i.e. cards we should get) to prepare for that.  That doesn’t completely answer why we have to do encounters to see the temple phase sets, but I guess it will have to do.

As previously posted, though, there’s an open question as to what winning represents.  In v14 it was “furthest back on the time track”, which worked but had weird thematic implications.  With the temple track, “furthest along the track without dying” seems ok enough.  Except, if we’re rival screenwriters, is it possible that there are other ways to win?  For example, sometimes a scenery-chewing villain or a character’s heroic sacrifice or redemption arc end up being the thing you remember most about a movie, and sometimes the best or most famous actor or actress is cast in one of those supporting roles.  Surely if you could choose between being the writer who created Vader or the one who created Luke you’d choose the former.

The way I want to have a whack at this is to have the spaces of the temple track numbered such that at game’s end, the space you’re on gives your score, unless you die before the end, in which case your score is zero.  Except, if you die due to hubris, or accumulated injuries, or after purging a lot of hubris, you can claim the corresponding scoring card, and if no one exceeds that score on the track you win.  So if no other players progress too far into the temple, the editor doesn’t have much to work with and cuts things in such a way that your compelling but doomed villain or heroic sidekick gets the most favorable treatment in the final edit.

We must be careful here not to encourage players to deliberately spike their hubris or injuries just to try to win in this alternate way.  The best way to win is still to move along the track.  But death should always be a possibility and if your character dies, it might be fun to nevertheless be able to win the game, if all the other players did was just hang back and not accomplish very much.




(*) Another possible premise is that whichever of us emerges with the strongest character arc will have the best actor/actress cast as our chracter.  I think it has to be one or the other of these but it probably doesn’t matter much which.