Vikings!

You are a viking who's about to start his career as a raid leader. You have a ship and three other vikings. The ship would have a similar set up as the cars in the game Life. That way you can see how many vikings you have in your ship. This affects the game later on....

So anyway, there's a map of the coast of Norway, Northern Europe, and the East coast of Scotland. The goal is to go out, raid villages, and return with your loot.

You are limited to how much you can carry though. There's 8 spaces in any Ship token, and one space is always filled for yourself. The spaces can be filled with other vikings, which increases your chances of success on raids, but doesn't leave you with any room for loot. I'm thinking 5 pieces of loot for every empty space on the ship, but that's a minor point.

So anyway, I've got the basic game concept fleshed out where you and the other players raid villages and each other, trying to amass loot while preventing your opponents from doing the same.

The problem I'm running into is this: how do you win the game? Is there a time limit? A goal amount of loot? Last man standing? Does anyone have suggestions for this?

Well historically the vikings 'success' declined with the expansion of Christianity during the 11th century. I can't say this enough, but if you ever need material on anything, always always ALWAYS check wikipedia. You'd be surprised how much info is available there on any given subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings

At any rate, it might be cool to have a 'Christianity track' whereby once it reaches a certain point, the game is over. Also you can have it so the Christians take over villages, and each player fights to keep the christians from taking over their village, when the last village is taken over, the game ends? Just some thoughts.

-Darke

Neat idea!

The following idea is inspired by the simple mechanics from "Full Metal Planete".

How about a map with all the specific areas of the time period covered with hexes(simple "zones" would do too, would be less "wargame" in this way) to cover movement and simplify everything linked to that aspect: 1 Action = 1 hex / zone movement.

Players get Actions to spend as they see fit: movement, raid, attack... Boat speed could be affected by the amount of content in a Drakar.

For the time limit, get the players to play x amount of rounds. Each round is either a year or a season. If a player is killed, he could take a new Drakar and start anew, this way no one is just waiting for the game to be over. Or a dead viking could haunt the others, or the dead player could use a pirate party and ONLY raid other players...Or even he could get to play the villages that are raided: get less Actions and decide which village to use these actions on to try and protect it...

soul

i like that :)

"...washed ashore, I feel the waves on a cold northern beach and, beaten but not defeated, I rise to raid another day..."

soul

In this I agree with Dark on "always, always, always check background information". In this case you are not messing with religion, but with cultures (and the time of the Vikings is still a part of our cultural history). No one will attack you if you get it wrong, we will just se you as a fool (if you want to use the common description of the Vikings, then you have to add a lot of humor).

Here is a very, very short information about the Vikings:
Vikings came from the Nordic counties, Sweden (Sweden was divided into several counties), Norway and Denmark. The time of the Vikings where around 800-1100, with a peek 950-1070. Vikings traveled both to the east and the west. They lived on farming, hunting and triad. They where also raiders and pirates.
The Vikings found America several of hundred years before Columbus, Vikings invaded England and raided France. They colonized Island, went east to among other cities Moscow and Prag. Vikings could also be found as far away as in Turkey.
Since the Vikings (with other cultures as for example the Celtic), tried to live side by side with other religions and accepted them, they had the same destiny. The unforgiving Christians did also ruin this culture.

// Johan

p.s. Sweden raided Europe around the year 1000. We also raided Europe between 1630-1700. Wait another 350 year and we will do it again ;).

The game "Serenissima" (boardgamegeek is apparently down right now so I can't link to it), uses this rule. There are five spaces alloted in your boat, which you can fill with shipmates or goods. I don't remember the exact usage of the shipmates (or even the correct name that they used), but one of the things was in battle, the boat with the most men got to steal the goods from another boat.

I borrowed this system somewhat in my GDS
"Hero, Myth, Hail Toileticus!" entry. In this instance, the more sailors you had, the better chance you had of winning battles; however, the more sailors you had also incurred the penalty that your crew would "go through your supplies faster" by reducing the time you had to sail.

I think it's a fun balancing mechanc that can expanded upon a lot more.

Svea Rike is not a Viking game. It handle the Swedish history from 1522-1810.

// Johan

I often thought that a Viking game would be cool to design - it is definitely an underused theme. However, the mechanics that you describe so far could just as well be a Pirate-themed game. Pirates have ships, steal loot, and raid villages as well.

So my question is - what separates the Vikings from Pirates and makes them unique? Whatever the answer to this question is - I would make sure you include that in your game design.

Honestly I tihnk the difference between the two is simply cultural. Sure, the pirates may have more naval battles, and utilize different weaponry, but the function of pirate raids and viking raids are almost identical. Perhaps someone could show differences between the two on a level where it would impact gameplay, but it seems pretty much just a cosmetic function at this stage of design.
I would say that, game-play wise, the main reason is that pirates attack moving targets (ships), while the vikings attack static targets (villages, towns). At least from a layman's point of view.

Seo
PS to Josh: When you acheive fame and fortune with a game using "my" idea, I want a free signed copy. ;-)

That's not fair! I can't remember what was your idea about! Where is that thread? This ain't fair! This ain't fair! :-P

Seo

In regards to Serrenessima, the number of sailors defines number of areas a ship can move per turn, as well as the number of dice rolled in combat.

Vikings move in, pirates move on.

-- Matthew

Honestly I tihnk the difference between the two is simply cultural. Sure, the pirates may have more naval battles, and utilize different weaponry, but the function of pirate raids and viking raids are almost identical. Perhaps someone could show differences between the two on a level where it would impact gameplay, but it seems pretty much just a cosmetic function at this stage of design.

There are a lot of difference between pirates and Vikings. To say it’s the same is to say that Alexander the great and Djingis Kahn was the same since they both attacked Persia.
If you only want to include the raiding part of the Vikings, you still have several options.
Weapons are one thing. Vikings had several ways to attack and defend (shield wall was one of them). They also had fanatics (to die in combat was a good way to end a life. If you did so you would end up in Valhalla where you could eat and fight all days, training for the battle that would nearly end of the world (Ragnarök).
The social part is another. Vikings was not outlaws. They where businessman’s, that also was good fighters. They shall have an option when they arrive to a village or town. Trade or raid.
The Long ships are another part. The Long ships were constructed so they could attack directly from the ships to the beach. Vikings could have horses on the ships, so it was possible to attack directly from the ships with cavalierly (normally pony’s and not so common used, but it existed).
The Long ships were also constructed so they could be carried (dragged). The Vikings could travel upstream on the rivers, carry the ships around difficult parts.

// Johan

Ps

Is Canada a worth raiding…

I'm not working on a Viking game, but I do enjoy Viking Fury.

-- Matthew

No, no, below Canada... it's big, has lots of states... and apple pie...

Man, what does someone have to do to get universal health care around here?

As far as a Viking game goes, though, I think you can go two ways, either historically accurate, or cartoon caricature. Personally, I'd lean toward the cartoon approach, given the vast amount of Viking-ish flavor that could be thrown in. (Viking-ish flavor? Eew! Sweaty!)

So, like we did for Pirates, let's list all things Viking, and see what use they could serve in a game, beyond theme:

Dragon-headed longboats beaching silently out of the mist
Pointy-horned helmets and round shields
Fur vests and strappy sandals
Beards
Norse mythology
Hordes of dauntless marauders
Berserkers
Pillaging and Burning towns
Building great halls to hold celerations and feasts
long epics and sagas

All of this gets me thinking that one major difference between pirates and Vikings is that the money was the primary motivator for pirates, while for our sketches of Vikings, loot and riches served as targets, the winning of which required feats of heroism, daring, and guile. These, in turn, were the raw stuff of the epics around which the Viking myth was created. The goal of a viking leader, then, was to amass glory, not gold, and build great halls not for defense, but as monuments to their achievements. Glory should be a Vikings motivation, and the fame of great deeds. This is a huge contrast, as far as game mechanics are concerned, I think.