Alchemy Bazaar scoring mechanic: Avoid analysis paralysis

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Playtesting continues apace on my newest game, Alchemy Bazaar, and it’s going really well so far. I had a great session over the weekend with a friend who is also a game designer, and as I had hoped, he helped me identify something to simplify in the game (no more tile ownership to track). I’ve put together a new set of tiles and cards, cleaning things up and adding more flavor, plus more creative tiles. Fun times!

Playtest 4 in action, with Michael getting help from Buttercup the cat

In the mean time, I wanted to talk a little bit about the scoring mechanic I’m using for Alchemy Bazaar. As I’ve said before, Lords of Waterdeep was a big inspiration for this one, and both games have a similar mechanic of collecting “quest” cards (Formulas in Alchemy Bazaar) and completing them throughout the game for points.  In Lords of Waterdeep, these points are tracked on the game board.

For Alchemy Bazaar, there are two reasons I didn’t want to go with the “points tracked on the game board” approach. The first is that there is no game board; the “board” builds up over time as players add new shop tiles to the bazaar. That’s not a deal-breaker, though; if I wanted, I could include a small side board just for point tracking (a la Seasons and some other games).

The main reason I skipped the scoreboard is that I want to avoid “analysis paralysis” where possible. Alchemy Bazaar is intended to be more strategic than Chaos & Alchemy, but I don’t want it to devolve to the point of players spending 10 minutes staring at the board before moving. One factor that can contribute to analysis paralysis is knowing exactly how far ahead of or behind the other players you are. I want players to have a general feel for whether they’re doing well or not, but I don’t want a precise number on it until the game ends.

So, I’m going with point cards. Whenever you would score points, you draw a certain number of cards from the point deck (I”m calling them Knowledge cards in the current playtest, but they might end up as Wisdom or something else). These are very simple cards with a single number on each. There are an equal quantity of 1, 2 and 3 point cards in the point deck, plus a sprinkling of 5-point cards.

I’m loving this mechanic so far. It helps to head off analysis paralysis and adds the potential for someone who’s behind to get a bit lucky and draw better point cards. It also opens the door to mechanics that let you discard point cards of your choice (get the 1-pointers out of your hand in the hopes of drawing 3s and 5s). This hasn’t changed in the slightest throughout playtesting so far; I think it’s a winner.

If you’re interested in joining the playtest for Alchemy Bazaar when it gets beyond the alpha stage, drop me a line at claycrucible@gmail.com. I have some playtesters lined up, but I wouldn’t mind a few more!

-Michael the OnlineDM – Clay Crucible Games

OnlineDM1 on Twitter

Alchemy Bazaar: A new game design begins

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Those of you who follow me on Twitter have probably seen some mentions in the past week of a new game I’m working on. My first game, Chaos & Alchemy, has been very successful (by my standards) and is in the process of moving toward publication by Game Salute.

My second design, Gods & Champions, was my NaGaDeMon project this past November, but it ended up not exciting me all that much, and I set it aside.

My third design, which I’m tentatively calling Alchemy Bazaar for now, is rolling along and I’m starting to playtest the alpha version. As of this writing, I’ve run three playtest games, and each one was better than the last.

Alchemy Bazaar is shamelessly inspired by one of my favorite games of the past year, Lords of Waterdeep. I love worker placement games (Agricola is still my all-time favorite game), and I really liked the buildings in Lords of Waterdeep. So, I decided to make a game that essentially takes those buildings and makes a whole game out of them.

In addition to buying buildings and doing worker placement, I also wanted to have the placement of buildings matter, somewhat like Alhambra but not quite. I wanted the players to build a common board, and then be able to not just place their workers, but also to move them around.

How does it work?

The game progresses through a series of rounds, each of which has two phases.

In the first phase the players are landlords of the bazaar. Each player gets to choose from three available tiles (representing shops that want to set up in the bazaar) and puts one on the board. The player collects some coins from the shop proprietor, who is eager to get a spot in the bazaar.

In the second phase, players get to move their tokens around the board, shopping in the bazaar. They’re trying to collect reagents (gems, metal and spirits) to complete alchemical formulas (similar to Lords of Waterdeep quests), which will give them knowledge. The player with the most knowledge at the end of the game wins.

The part I’m experimenting with here is the placement/movement rules for “workers” (alchemists and their apprentices). You can start by putting your token anywhere you want and using that shop. Then, you may pay a coin to move to an adjacent shop and use it. Then, you may pay two coins to keep going, then three, and so on. In the next round, your token starts wherever it ended the last round, and you begin your shopping by moving to an adjacent tile, then paying to keep going if you like.

My expectations

Unlike Chaos & Alchemy, I didn’t sit down and immediately create the game as soon as I had the general notion. I noodled on this one for a while. When I did start to create it, I expected that it would more or less immediately break down in play because of all the moving parts (tiles, formulas, actions, four currencies, movement on the board, etc.). I expected that I’d try an aborted game with my wife, then fix the fundamental flaws, then try again in a week, etc.

Happily, that hasn’t been the case at all. Much like Chaos & Alchemy, this one has been fun from the start. It’s only been played three times to this point, but those are some very encouraging games. The most recent game involved me flagging down a couple of strangers at the local game store, playing a game with them, seeing them have a great time, and only after the fact learn that they’re not even board gamers. That’s a very encouraging development!

Interestingly, I’m finding out how much fun good game components can be. After my first game, I replaced the Lords of Waterdeep cubes I had been using with some cool beads to represent the reagents. After my second game, I printed the tiles onto sticker labels and put them on matte board to create actual tiles instead of the cardstock I had been using. Such an improvement!

Next steps

I haven’t yet gotten to try the game with my favorite playtester, and I’m sure he’ll have some great suggestions for me. Also, the Formula and Action cards haven’t gotten a whole lot of thought yet, and I’m sure I’ll be able to refine them to include more of the fun stuff. But so far so good!

Watch the blog for future updates. And who knows? Maybe I’ll have a second board game out in the wild before long!

-Michael the OnlineDM

OnlineDM1 on Twitter

Online DM’s Kid-Friendly RPG

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For Christmas 2010, my wife’s brother and his family stayed with us for a couple of weeks. We introduced my brother in law and his wife to Dungeons & Dragons, and they became big fans, continuing our game online via MapTool over the next couple of years.

My brother in law’s family also includes two kids, a girl who is currently 8 years old and a boy who is now 5. They’ve been really interested in D&D, so when the family came back to visit for Christmas 2012, I knew it was time to introduce them to role playing games.

Now, I love playing D&D 4th Edition, but I knew that there was no way my 8 year old niece and 5 year old nephew would be able to handle the game yet. I went searching for a version of D&D that could work for the children, and I took a great deal of inspiration from Newbie DM’s RPG Kids. Ultimately, though, I ended up going with something of my own creation, which I’m uncreatively calling my Kid-Friendly RPG (KFRPG if you need an acronym).

The rules

Each player has a half-page character sheet (see below). When you’re not in combat, the Kid-Friendly RPG works just like any other role-playing game – you tell the game master what you want to do, and the GM tells you what happens.

Character sheets

Feel free to use these character sheets yourself (note that there are two characters per page). I’ll note here that I do not own the character illustrations; if you own these illustrations and want me to take them down, just let me know. If you’re creating your own character sheets, I highly recommend having a big picture of the character on it for the kids.

Character sheets for half-elf ranger and human druid

Character sheets for halfling thief and dwarf paladin

Character sheets for human barbarian and wolfman warrior

Character sheets for zombie wizard and elf cleric

Skills

If a character tries something that might not work, the GM will ask for a d20 roll. In most cases, a 10 or better will succeed, but the GM is free to set the target higher or lower for harder or easier tasks.

If the character is trying to do something that’s connected to one of the three skills on their character sheet, they can roll the d20 twice and take the best result.

Combat

When combat breaks out, the party chooses a player to roll a d20 and the GM rolls a d20. If the party’s representative wins, their team will go first. If the GM wins, the bad guys will go first. Ties go to the party (ties always go to the players rather than the GM).

Rather than tracking initiative, each member of the party takes a turn, starting with the player to the GM’s left and proceeding clockwise around the table. The GM has the monsters take their turns in whatever order the GM wishes.

On a character’s turn, the character can move up to its speed (measured in squares on the board) and take an action. Most of the time, the action will be an attack, but other options include administering a healing potion to themselves or a friend, using a special power or trying something creative.

Attacking and Defending

Each character has an Attack die and a Defense die, ranging from d4 to d12. When you make an attack, roll your Attack die. Your target will roll its Defense die. If a player character’s Attack roll matches or beats the enemy’s Defense roll, the enemy takes 1 damage. Most enemies only have 1 hit point, so this is usually enough to take the enemy out.

When an enemy attacks a player character, the enemy rolls its Attack die and the player rolls the character’s Defense die. If the Defense roll is at least as high as the Attack roll, then the attack misses. If the Attack roll from the enemy is higher, then the player character takes 1 damage.

Note that in both cases, Attacking and Defending, ties go to the player character. So, if the player is attacking and rolls a 3 and the defender rolls a 3, it’s a hit on the enemy. But if an enemy is attacking a player character and they both roll a 3, it’s a miss on the player character.

Hit points

Each player character starts with 3 hit points, which are tracked with some kind of physical object (I use red poker chips). When the character takes damage, the player gives one of these chips to the GM. If the player has no more hit point chips, then the character is knocked out (not dead, just not able to act).

Healing

Each character starts with 1 healing potion, tracked with a green poker chip. One of the actions available in combat is to drink the healing potion or administer it to a friend. If a character drinks their own healing potion, they regain 1 hit point (the GM gives back a red chip). If a character administers it to a friend, the friend regains 1 hit point. However, if a character has the Heal skill and administers the potion to a friend, the friend regains 2 hit points. Note that a character with the Heal skill who drinks his or her own potion still just gets the 1 hit point (your Heal skill only helps friends).

If a character is knocked out, a character with the Heal skill can use an action in battle to try to heal the knocked out character, even without a healing potion. The healer can roll the d20 twice, and if they get a 15 or better, the knocked out character regains 1 hit point. A character without the Heal skill can try this, too, but they only get one roll and still need a 15 or better.

If a battle ends with one or more player characters knocked out, those characters regain 1 hit point after laying there for a few minutes.

Special Powers

Each character has a special power, which starts charged up. This is represented by a blue poker chip. If the player wants to use his or her character’s special power, they give the blue chip to the GM and then carry out the instructions.

Range of attack

Most attacks are melee attacks, which means that the character needs to be next to the target. If a Range is specified, the character can be that many squares away from the target and can still attack.

Advantage

If two player characters are both adjacent to an enemy, they have the advantage on that enemy (they do not need to be in flanking positions, just both adjacent). A player character with the advantage gets a one-size bigger die for attacks (if the attack die is a d12, just add 1 to the result of the roll). Having advantage doesn’t help on defense.

Enemies can benefit from advantage at the GM’s discretion (a good rule of thumb is that you need 3 or 4 adjacent enemies to get advantage for them).

Movement

Each character has a Speed number, which is the number of squares they can move on a turn in addition to taking an action. The default is 5, with fast characters having 6 and slow characters having 4.

If a character doesn’t take another action, they can move their speed twice on a turn.

Enemies

Most enemies have 1 hit point and a d6 for both attacking and defending, and they only attack in melee. They do not have special powers or healing potions.

A tougher or easier enemy might have bigger or smaller dice for attacks or defense. They might have a ranged attack (generally with a range no more than 5 squares). They might have a slight twist to their attack, such as an attack that grabs a character and doesn’t let it get away until the enemy is destroyed.

A boss enemy might have 3 hit points and a special power, just like a character (though no healing potions).

Optional rule: Charging

If a character wants to charge a far-off enemy, the character can move its speed and then move its speed again with an attack at the end of the second move. This attack uses a die that’s one size smaller than the character’s usual attack die (since it’s hard to attack while running).

Optional rule: Opportunity attacks

If you want to teach your players about tactical movement, you can rule that moving past an enemy without fighting it will let the enemy take a free attack at the character (which can work both ways for player characters and enemies).

Tah-dah!

So, that’s the game. I ran this with two kids and three adults (which later ballooned to five adults as more people joined in). We played a short adventure that involved three fights and a trap (note: the kids just didn’t get the trap at all), plus a bunch of role playing at the tavern at the beginning. The game lasted somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours. The kids had a blast, as did I. The rules are simple and they encourage lots of improvisation all around.

If you end up trying this out with your own group of kids, please let me know how it goes!

-Michael the OnlineDM

OnlineDM1 on Twitter

Dominion: Free online version, and my top 10 MOST favorite cards!

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A while ago, I talked about the awesome web site that lets you play Dominion for free online (http://dominion.isotropic.org) and the 10 cards I least liked to use. I should point out that this online version does not yet have the Dark Ages expansion, so I’m only talking about cards released before that expansion.

Today I’ll mention my 10 most favorite cards to play with, the ones that make me giddy whenever they show up in the tableau. I get sad if my opponent vetoes one of these.

10. Grand Market. I love the way this card’s presence changes the incentives of the game. Now, you’re doing everything you can to get non-Copper income, because Grand Market is that good. Once you have a couple, they make it easier to get more. And kudos to you for finding alternate ways of getting them (Remodeling a 4-cost card, for instance). And of course, it’s a lot of fun to play, powering you through your deck with more money and more buys. (The original Market gets an honorable mention here.)

9. Platinum. Playing with big money is cool; simple as that.

8. Spice Merchant. Get rid of Coppers and get a fantastic choice of things to do; what’s not to love? I especially love games where you find yourself trashing Silvers or even Golds near the end of the game in the hope of drawing the awesome cards that you need. I’ll never buy more than one, but it’s just about my favorite opening hand purchase.

7. Steward. I love versatility. Steward is great for getting rid of your Estates and Coppers early in the game or getting you an extra $2 when you need it most. If you have enough extra actions, the card drawing can be potent, too. Interesting choices equals fun.

6. Peddler. With Grand Market / Market showing up earlier on this list, you can understand why I like Peddler. If you’ve played a bunch of cards and you have an extra buy, you get a free Peddler! And if you have a few Peddlers in the deck, it becomes even easier to get more. The fact that it nominally costs $8 also means that you can do cool things with Peddler and Remodel or Apprentice.

5. Alchemist. No, this isn’t here just because of Chaos & Alchemy. I just like the card. This is the one Potion card that I really enjoy (with University getting an honorable mention). There’s something satisfying about lining up your next hand as being five Alchemists, knowing that you’ll basically get to start with a ten-card hand. It can be a little annoying to be on the receiving end of this, admittedly, but that’s lessened with the online version of the game.

4. Bishop. I like cards that let me get Estates out of my deck, especially if they reward me for doing so. I also like that Bishop can be used late in the game to turn expensive cards into points. Again, interesting choices equals fun. And this one even lets your opponent make an interesting choice, too!

3. King’s Court. There was a time when this card just annoyed me because my opponents would do ridiculous things with it and take super-long turns. Then I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb. Doing ridiculous things is fun. I wouldn’t want every game to involve King’s Court, but I’m glad the card is out there to use from time to time.

2. Expand. Remodel gets an honorable mention here. Improving your deck is an early “aha” moment for most Dominion players, and Expand is a great way to do it. I also like that it goes from upgrading your money and Estates early in the game to changing your Markets into Provinces late in the game; this can make for some come-from-behind victory stories, which I always love.

1. City. I could put any of the Village variants in this spot (original Village, Mining Village, Worker’s Village, Farming Village, Walled Village, Border Village, even Native Village), but I have a weird thing for City. It starts off as an overpriced original Village, but then it gets really good… and then it gets ridiculous and ends the game. I’ll often find myself buying a City even if I know it’s not the “best” choice, just because the potential to draw eleventy zillion cards with tons of money and buys at the end of the game is so tempting. And it’s still a Village variant, which means you get to do more cool stuff on your turn.

So there you have it – my 10 most favorite Dominion cards. What are your favorites?

– Michael the OnlineDM

OnlineDM1 on Twitter

Chaos & Alchemy has a publisher!

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Exciting news for anyone who’s been following my development as a board/card game designer over the past six months: My first game, Chaos & Alchemy, is going to be published by Game Salute!

Frankly, there’s not much more to announce right now. Game Salute will begin their process of fine-tuning the game, ordering art and setting up for a Kickstarter campaign over the coming months, depending on where Chaos & Alchemy falls in the queue (they’re a quickly-growing publisher with lots of games in the pipeline). At some point the Kickstarter campaign will launch, which I’ll be sure to tell you all about right here!

As for me, I’ll be continuing to help in getting Chaos & Alchemy polished for its ultimate print run, but I’m also working on some other ideas. I’ve talked about Gods & Champions, which I don’t plan to do much more with right now, but I also have an idea for a worker placement game that has me excited at the moment.

Anyway, I’m thrilled to have an actual publisher lined up for my game. Huzzah!

– Michael the OnlineDM

OnlineDM1 on Twitter

NaGaDeMon 2012 – Gods & Champions recap

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Previous posts: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4

I realized that I never put up a post at the end of November recapping what I had done on Gods & Champions during the month, so here you have it.

If NaGaDeMon is viewed as a game, I lost. I didn’t get to a finished version of Gods & Champions during the month, but I’m okay with that.

I went through three revisions of the game during the month, which got progressively more fun. The third version was played with my friend Nate, who is a professional game designer and a fantastic playtester. He had some suggestions, some of which I plan to take and some of which I may not. He was not in favor of the economic system I had set up in the game (two cards can be freely traded for one Power, and two Power can be freely traded for one Follower); I’m not convinced it should be scrapped, but I’m up for trying. He also helped me get to the point where I had an alternative to the Champion-switching between rounds.

See, the initial idea for Gods & Champions came out of my desire to explore the tension of wanting to build up your own Champion with better abilities, but knowing that at the end of the Age, another God might take that Champion away. I was worried that this might not be fun, and ultimately it seems that it’s not.

However, what I think WILL be fun and still provide a catch-up mechanic is to have multiple Champions. Each God gets one new Champion each Age, starting with one and ending with three. The God in last place going into the Age gets first pick of Champions. This means that the Champions will have to be a bit simpler to keep the complexity in line.

I also feel like exploring the Quest angle is going to be rewarding. I haven’t playtested the Quests that I came up with at the start, just because I wanted to get the Champions and Blessings right first. I might end up making Quests the way you get stuff (cards, Power, Followers) rather than having those things tied directly to the Champions’ abilities.

So, that’s where things stand now. I have ideas about where I would like the game to go next, but I haven’t put them into action yet. It doesn’t help that I had another interesting game idea crop up halfway through the month, and then another one just last night. I don’t feel the passion for Gods & Champions that I felt for Chaos & Alchemy, especially now that I’ve abandoned the core mechanic that I wanted to explore from the start. I’ll probably do a little more work on it, then set it aside to start toying with other games.

I kind of like the idea of having several different games in the works, any of which I might pick up and work on again in the future as the mood strikes me. Maybe some of them will even see print one day, but I’m not in a hurry.

-Michael the OnlineDM

OnlineDM1 on Twitter

Dominion: Free online program, and my top 10 LEAST favorite cards

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A few months ago, my brother pointed out an amazing web site where you can play Dominion online for free. It’s at http://dominion.isotropic.org. If you’ve never been there, I highly recommend checking it out.

For those who haven’t played it, Dominion is a deck-building game by Donald X. Vaccarino that was first released in 2008 and that won the 2009 Spiel des Jahres (the German Game of the Year prize – the big prize in the board game world). Each player starts with an identical deck of 10 cards and spends their turns buying new cards, making their deck better and filled with more victory points. The player with the most victory points in their deck at the end of the game wins.

Dominion card image by Wim de Grom of BoardGameGeek

One of the major pains in the butt about playing Dominion is the constant reshuffling. At the end of each turn, you discard your hand and all of the cards you’ve played and draw five cards. If your deck doesn’t have enough cards to draw, you shuffle your discard pile to become your new deck. Since you start with 10 cards, you can see that you’ll start shuffling after your second turn, and it’s possible to have to shuffle every turn depending on the way you develop your deck.

The online version of the game handles all of this for you, which is fantastic. It also will match you up against opponents and let you have some say over the cards that will be available, or let it be totally random.

It also has a leaderboard, which is what has made the game addictive for me. The game uses a system similar to chess ratings or Magic: The Gathering ratings, but these are translated into levels. The highest levels are around 50. I’ve made it up to level 20 at my highest point, which is absurd; I do not think I’m really that good at Dominion.

Anyway, having played over 500 games of Dominion online, I thought I’d share my list of the 10 cards I least enjoy having on the table. These are the cards that I’m most likely to veto when they come up in a veto-mode game. I’ll point out that while some of these are Attack cards, implying that I prefer to play solitaire games (not really the case), a common thread is that I tend to hate cards that slow the game down. The beauty of the online game is that it’s quick – usually 15 minutes or less for a two-player game. Slowing it down makes me sad.

1. Possession. This card costs 6 plus a potion, so it’s not entering the game early. Still, when it does show up it’s just annoying. Possession lets you take your opponent’s next turn (after which your opponent does still get a turn). While it does keep you from entirely wrecking their deck, it still is frustrating to have to watch while your opponent controls your deck and you do nothing. I’ll always veto this above every other card.

2. Ambassador. At first, I had no problem with this card. It lets you get rid of two lousy cards from your hand and even give one of them to your opponent. I like cards that let you get bad stuff out of your deck. But the fact that you give the bad stuff to your opponent means that, often times, the decks don’t get better. You just keep passing the crap back and forth, which makes the game drag.

3. Ghost Ship. Getting Ghost Ship locked feels miserable. Your opponent makes you put two cards back on top of your deck every turn, and you never draw out of it. The game isn’t over yet, but you can’t make any progress. Blech.

4. Embargo. Not an attack, but a very weird card. You pick a pile of cards and make it less attractive for everyone to buy them. I’ve seen it played annoyingly, and I’ve seen it be completely ignored. I’d just as soon remove it from the game.

5. Sea Hag. I don’t mind Curses as part of game, but the Sea Hag is a pure Curse machine. She doesn’t draw you cards like the Witch or give you interesting choices like Torturer; she just gives you a Curse. And once the Curses are gone (fun fact: You’re only supposed to include 10 Curses in a two-player game) she’s dead weight in your deck. Blech again.

6. Saboteur. I almost don’t need to include this one on the list because it seems to be so reviled that most players shy away from it. Nevertheless, having your best cards trashed and replaced with something worse is not a fun experience. It’s also depressing to have a card that costs 5 to get but that’s a pure attack; it doesn’t help your own game at all, instead just hurting your opponent.

7. Duke. This is a card that’s not an attack in any way, but that still annoys me. I guess it’s because I’m used to the standard game of racing to collect Provinces (or Colonies when they’re around), and the Duke encourages you to go in a different direction – load up on Duchies and then Dukes. This means that you’ll have a greater number of Victory cards in your deck, which clogs it up and makes it feel less fun to play, even though the strategy can be quite effective.

8. Goons. I partly include this one because, like the Duke, it encourages a totally different win condition: Goon points. If Goons are on the table, you’ll ideally want to build a deck that lets you make multiple buys, preferably with multiple Goons in play. Buying a Copper for 3 victory points is a strange experience. The fact that it makes your opponent discard down to 3 cards is actually more interesting than annoying, somehow. I kind of wish this were two separate cards, one granting Goon points and one that makes your opponent discard to 3. The extra 2 money could go either way (although I guess it would just be Militia if it went with the discard… okay, I’m off track now).

9. Vineyard/Silk Road/Gardens: These are similar to the Duke, but they feel different to me somehow (and yes, I’m cheating by including three cards in one slot; it’s my list, so I can do that). I guess it’s because I’ve seen Duke be really good, but I’ve never seen anyone win on the back of these cards (okay, occasionally Gardens).

10. Navigator. I include this as a placeholder for cards that I completely ignore because they’re just not good enough. While there are rare occasions that cards like this can be useful, I typically ignore Navigator, Scout, Chancellor, Adventurer, Apothecary, Counting House, Coppersmith, etc.

Coming soon: My list of top 10 most favorite cards!

-Michael the OnlineDM

OnlineDM1 on Twitter

NaGaDeMon 2012: Gods & Champions Part 4: Actual playtesting

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Previous posts: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

As National Game Design Month (NaGaDeMon) rolls on, I’m working on a new board game, Gods & Champions. Each player gets to be a God, acting through a Champion to claim Followers. The God with the most Followers at the end of three Ages wins the game.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve spent more of my game development time on the expansion to Chaos & Alchemy and less on Gods & Champions, but I haven’t totally abandoned my game development. As a matter of fact, I had a fantastically helpful playtesting session this past Sunday with some new friends.

Current state of the rules

Here’s the way things work right now:

  • Each player randomly gets a secret God card, which they can either keep secret throughout the game and reveal at the end for bonus points, or reveal at any point to activate the God’s ability, giving up the bonus points. (I haven’t actually played with the God cards at all so far; I want to make sure the Champions work first).
  • Each player gets a face-up Champion card, most likely through some type of opening hand size bidding mechanism (still under development – for now, initial Champion assignment is random).
  • In the first Age of the game, five Follower tokens per player (so, 15 tokens in a three-player game) are put on the board. (I’m currently using white poker chips for Followers.) The Age will end when all of the Followers are gone. (I’ve also experimented with rules that give everyone three turns per Age and rules that let you keep claiming Followers after the pool is empty until everyone has had an equal number of turns, but I find it more interesting to deal with the fixed pool of Followers).
  • After each Age, the player who claimed the most Followers in that Age gets some bonus Followers. Then there is a re-draft of Champions, starting with the player in last place.
  • The Second Age cards are shuffled into the deck at the beginning of the second Age,  and the Third Age cards are introduced at the start of the third Age. (I’m also experimenting with entirely replacing the prior Age’s cards rather than shuffling them together.)
  • The second Age has 10 Followers per player available, and the third Age has 15 per player (this might end up at 20 per player). Each Age awards bonus Followers to the winner of the Age, and is followed by a re-draft of Champions.
  • The Champions are worth points at the end of the game (rules still under development; it will probably be based on the total value of Blessings on the Champion).
  • There are some Quest cards available that your God can claim if certain circumstances are met. (I haven’t playtested these at all yet; they’ll probably be an advanced rules module for later.)

These rules are still a bit in flux, but I’m getting close here. Of course, the big question is, what do you do on your turn?

Turn order

  1. Receive 2 Power (currently represented by red poker chips) from the bank. In the second Age, this increases to 3 Power. In the third Age,  it’s 4 Power.
  2. Use each ability of your Champion once (skipping any abilities you don’t wish to use), in any order you like.
  3. Claim 1 card from the board. You can either take the card in the free slot, pay 1 Power for the card in the 1-power-slot, pay 2 Power for the card in the 2-power-slot slot, or pay 1 Power to draw a random card from the deck. The cards then get cheaper (shift them down one space, discarding the free-slot card if a card was drawn from the deck) and a new card shows up in the 2-power-slot.
  4. Play any number of cards from your hand, paying the Power cost for each card. Most of these are Blessings that give your Champion new abilities for future turns, but there are also Miracles that have one-shot effects on the board right away.

In addition, there are two things that you can do at any time on your turn, as often as you wish:

  • Discard two cards to gain 1 Power
  • Pay 2 Power to claim 1 Follower

When it comes to Champions, they each have three slots for Blessings. If you want to replace an old Blessing with a new one, you can essentially “sell” the old Blessing for half its original cost (probably rounded down, but I’m experimenting with rounding up, too) and pay the difference for the new one. You can’t downgrade a Blessing to a less expensive card in order to downgrade your Champion near the end of an Age (since someone else might get that Champion for the next Age).

Open issues

The game is actually fun right now, largely thanks to the theme (it’s fun to be a God – who knew?). The mechanics are okay, but there are ares for improvement:

  • Some of the cards, especially the later Age cards, are out of whack in cost compared to their power level (too cheap or too expensive). This is pretty easy to tweak.
  • A lot of my cards don’t have names yet. Not that hard to fix, but the flavor is going to be really important in this game, so I have to do a good job here.
  • The whole business of re-drafting Champions each Age is what I originally wanted to explore but, as I feared, it might not be that much fun in the end. If I ditch it, I’ll need a new catch-up mechanic.
  • Card selection is currently not that important. If you have five cards in your hand, you don’t much care what most of them do, since you’re only going to be playing one or two each turn. The rest will be discarded for Power. This is a problem. It might be solvable by letting you do other things with cards in hand (perhaps you can discard them for more Power if they’re more expensive). Alternatively, I might make it so that you just don’t get all that many cards, though I like having the exchanges between the three currencies (cards, Power, Followers).

Next steps

From here, I’m hoping to find time for some more rules tweaking this week, followed by more playtesting later in the week. I don’t know that the game will be “finished” by the end of November, but I think I can at least put something playable up here on the blog by December 1. I’ll continue working on it from there, but I think I should be able to declare at least a partial victory on NaGaDeMon 2012 by the end of the week.

-Michael the OnlineDM

NaGaDeMon 2012: Gods & Champions Part 3: Solo playtesting

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Previous posts: Part 1 / Part 2

As National Game Design Month (NaGaDeMon) rolls on, I’m continuing to work on my new board game idea, Gods & Champions.

Quick recap: Gods & Champions is mainly a card game. Each player represents an ancient God, and the Gods act through their Champions to claim Followers and ultimately win the game. At the end of each Age of the game, the Champions can change allegiance via a drafting mechanic. This means that the Gods want to invest cards to build up their Champions, but it’s possible that a different God may claim that Champion in a later round, thus introducing tension. This is what I want to explore via the game design process – can this tension be fun?

Trying it out

Last time, I talked about the Blessing cards that you can play to improve your Champion. I got some great feedback from readers – thank you for that! I made a few tweaks, but I realized that I had no idea how good or bad various cards would be until I actually played with them. At the same time, I didn’t feel like the game was even close to being ready to try out with another person, not even my wife.

Solution: Solo playtesting!

I printed out the cards, sleeved them with Magic cards and tried things out with just myself. I played two different Gods, each with its own Champion. Right from the start, I found myself tweaking things.

It’s hard to see how much fun a game is when you play alone, but you can see if it’s completely broken or not. Gods & Champions in its initial form was indeed completely broken. It just didn’t work. Fifteen minutes of actually playing with the cards revealed what sitting in front of my computer could not.

It can be fixed

Fortunately, solutions to the problems suggested themselves quickly.

First, the Champions were completely unbalanced in their initial forms. Some of them were great and some of them were worthless. A varying power level is okay, but I don’t ever want a situation where one of the Champions just feels terrible to have. I could adjust this easily enough.

Second, it was clear that I was going to need way more cards, and more variety in them. The big insight here came from a game that one of my friends had made up in which the available cards would change as you move through the game. In the case of Gods & Champions, there will be a First Age deck, a Second Age deck and a Third Age deck. When you move to a new Age, you shuffle in the new cards (or perhaps completely replace them; I haven’t decided yet).

Third, just drawing cards didn’t present enough interesting decisions, so I added  a “pay to pick” mechanic. (Coincidentally, Daniel Solis was looking for a name for this mechanic on Twitter the day after I added it to my game.) This means that there will be three cards available to choose from when it’s time to “draw” a card. One of them is free, one of them costs 1 Power Point and one of them costs 2 Power Points. I’m also including the option to draw the top card of the deck for 1 Power Point.

Fourth, things were a little too chaotic. The rules I had in mind would have players getting power points, drawing a card, playing cards and using the cards they had on the table, in any order they wished. The problem was that it became messy to remember what I had done and what I hadn’t done if I could do them in any order. I needed an order of phases within the turn, which is currently:

  1. Gain Power Points
  2. Use the cards on the table
  3. Draw one new card
  4. Play cards from hand

I also have a rule that says you can buy a Follower for 2 Power Points at any time, but I might restrict that to phase 4 of the turn.

Onward!

I learned a lot from a little bit of solo playtesting, and I used that knowledge to make a very different set of cards for my next playtest, which would come Sunday night with my wife. More on that one later!

-Michael the OnlineDM

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NaGaDeMon 2012 Part 2: Gods & Champions Blessings

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Previous post: Part 1

As National Game Design Month (NaGaDeMon) rolls on, I’m continuing to work on my new board game idea, Gods & Champions.

Quick recap: Gods & Champions is mainly a card game. Each player represents an ancient God, and the Gods act through their Champions to claim Followers and ultimately win the game. At the end of each Age of the game, the Champions can change allegiance via a drafting mechanic. This means that the Gods want to invest cards to build up their Champions, but it’s possible that a different God may claim that Champion in a later round, thus introducing tension. This is what I want to explore via the game design process – can this tension be fun?

A brief word on mechanics

My current thinking is that players will begin with a God card (which they may keep hidden, a la Lords of Waterdeep) and will draft a Champion at the beginning of the first age. The Champion will come with one ability to do each turn, plus slots for three Blessings to be added.

On a player’s turn, the Champion will receive 2 Power Points (poker chips) and will be allowed to carry out each of the Champion’s actions a single time (the base action plus each Blessing action). Also, a Champion may always spend 1 Power Point to draw a card or 2 Power Points to claim a follower from the pool. Any unused Power Points carry over to future rounds (so a Champion may save up for something big).

The cards in the deck are Blessings and Miracles, and each of them costs a certain number of Power Points to play.

Today’s topic: Blessings

Most of the cards in the game are going to be Blessings that the Gods can bestow upon their Champions, thus giving the Champions more and better abilities. Each card has a Power Point cost to play it, and once they’re on the Champion’s board they can be used for free every turn. This makes Blessings an investment: the cost to play a Blessing that lets you draw one card will typically be higher than the cost of drawing one card directly, since you’ll be able to use the Blessing every turn in the future.

However, there is another, more subtle cost to playing a Blessing to your Champion: That’s one less open Blessing slot. Each Champion can only have three Blessing cards in addition to the base Champion ability. There will be rules for upgrading a Blessing to a better one, but I’ll get into that later.

I definitely want there to be Blessings that cost more than 2 Power Points, which means that you’ll only be able to play them if you save up over multiple turns or if your Champion has ways of getting extra Power Points. However, I also want there to be some Blessings that cost just 1 or 2 Power Points (or possibly even zero), thus creating some interesting tension between getting a lesser Blessing on your Champion immediately and saving up for a better Blessing later.

Below are some ideas for Blessing cards. I haven’t designed any super-expensive Blessings yet; this batch tops out at a cost of 4 Power Points (the number in the upper right corner is the cost). I could definitely see a cost of 5, but I don’t know that I want to go beyond that. I haven’t playtested any of this yet, and I’m sure that will be what determines the way to cost these things.

Engines

My hope is that Champions will be able to build up engines via combinations of Blessings and the inherent Champion abilities. One Blessing lets you draw more cards; another lets you turn cards into extra Power Points; a third lets you turn Power Points into more Followers. You basically have these three currencies in the game (cards, Power Points and Followers) and  I like games that let you change one resource into another at better exchange rates as a way to move toward victory.

What do you think?

Now that you can see a little bit of how the game is shaping up, what are your thoughts? What’s fun or unfun about Gods & Champions so far? Where might I be missing something that needs attention early on?

I have to admit that I’m excited to get to the point of actually trying this idea out! Maybe this weekend.

-Michael the OnlineDM