and then there were three...

Here are my questions:

We originally had decided upon a method for spending extra AP to draw X and keep 1 card while searching. Obviously we don't have search cards anymore so need to modify it somehow or figure out a different way of doing it. The way I had envisioned it is that when you searched you choose an available search tile in the cave you were in and revealed it. How could it work now? Spend the extra AP and look at the appropriate # of tiles, only keeping one? Here's where the mandatory tile might be interesting (and agonizing!). Suppose I peeked at gold statue, some fossilized remains, and a swarm of bats (which require immediate resolution). Using this system, would we rely on the honesty of the players to make sure the mandatory tiles were revealed? I have no problem with that personally.

Ok next thing: Are we still going to use the search icons on the cave tiles to determine the cost for searching? I.E. If I am in a cave with 3 search icons I would pay three 3 AP to search the cave.

Ok next thing: How will tile placement work? Like will there be an initial building phase? I imagine there would have to be, otherwise there's no where for the players' explorers to go.

Also how will movement work? I know previously we had considered you spend 1 AP to move as far as you'd like along the same passageway, and when you took a different passageway or entered a cave you had to spend another AP to do so?

I'm seriously starting to consider a pay 1 AP to move one tile mechanic where you also get X (like 5 or so) 'free' movement points per turn. I think it would be cool to implement a mechanic where as you lose 1 free AP per object you were carrying (treasure, equipment, etc) similar to the way the backpack works in Goldland. This way you could use your free movement points only for movement, but you could also use your regular AP to augment your normal movement, as long as you weren't too burdened. Any thoughts on this?

That's all I have for now.
-Darke

Regarding using the cave size to determine the cost, how do we do that without making players do some sort of math (rather than basic addition), because I feel that the caves might be too large and therefore expensive to go that route. I'm sort of hesitant to use any sort of system where the players have to do a ratio or division (such as it costs 1 AP per 3 tiles). That goes against my design philosophy. The other option would be to pump up how much APs a player gets to around 10 or so, which might not necessarily be bad, especially if we go the route where movement costs 1 AP or 1 MP per tile. Any thoughts on how we could implement this system to allow for paying more to do more thorough searching and choosing which search icon to keep (keeping with your pay X to draw Y and keep 1 mechanic)? Seth's suggestion didn't really float well with me. What is everyone's idea on how many AP you'd think we'd like to go with? I was originally thinking around 5, but now I'm not so sure. It's hard to estimate until we figure out some more of the details.

Hmmm We could say you could drop items in any cave. We could even allow them to be placed face down like a regular search tile. Might be kind of cool, especially if items are kept secret from other players until they are played.

Thoughts?
-Darke

Ok, we can use a 'wait and see' posture for this.

I think this is interesting and something we might want to implement. However I'd say that you can't 'hide' things in passageways (I.E. you have to drop them face up).

So how about the initial cave setup? How will that work. Obviously we need to create a little bit of cave before the players can start to explore it. It seems like we will need a setup phase or at least a method for spending APs to lay extra tiles down.

Thoughts?
-Darke

I envisioned a 'public pool' from which players could draw and a hand. Sort of like Elfenland in that you have X number that are face up and available to the public (when someone uses a public tile, they immediately draw another to replace it -or- the public pool is replenished at the beginning of each players turn) and you have X # that are available to each player that are face down and hidden from the rest of the players. With this system (I envision 4 public and 4 private for each player), players should have pretty good access to transition/threshold/entrance (or whatever we want to call them) tiles. Did we have a ratio in mind for the tiles something like 8:4:1 (passageways:caves:transitions)? Actually something like 12:4:1 might be even better.

Want I think is absolutely necessary is the ability for players to spend APs to build beyond their 'free' one build per turn. Do you agree with this? Something like spend an AP to play an extra tile? However, I think if players wish to do this, it must be the last set of actions they do on their turn. Reason: You don't want players doing this: Say I take my turn, my explorer is on a passageway. I place a transition tile in front of my pawn, then from my hand and the available community tiles, I spend a lot of my APs to complete the cave. With my remaining APs, I then move my pawn into the cave and score the discovery. Do you guys agree?

Next thing: We had discussed in the earlier incarnation of the game about only being able to build (play tiles) onto a system that your pawn has access to. I.E. From the main cave (the block where all the players start), you can only build/add onto the passages/caves that your explorer was currently exploring. If you couldnt trace a path to that tile, you couldn't build it. Do we still want to go that route?

-Darke

Where to go from here. I'm not really feeling inspired and/or nothing is really jumping out at me as needing to be addressed. Do either of you have any comments/questions? I'm thinking about typing up a mock ruleset to get a better understanding of what needs to be addressed.

-Michael