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RedScarf Tactics -- Game Rules, Looking for Feedback

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Three
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I've managed to draft out a set of rules for my project and had it revised with the help of a friend. The game is a skirmish/ tactical combat game based on mechanics from Warhammer and League of Legends. I'm looking for notes on what can be made clearer and what I could add / take away...but any and all comments are helpful!

((UPDATE: The current version of the rules are posted near the bottom. This rule set is NOT the most recent version.))

Objective
In Red Scarf, 2 players compete to build the better team and claim victory on the battlefield. The game comes with a cast of fighters, each with an array of unique abilities to let players fully customize their teams to fit their strategies. Whether using pre-made character loadouts to jump right into the fray or tinkering with character builds for advanced strategies, players can experiment to create their perfect team (and then lay waste to enemy teams for bragging rights.)

In battle each character has 3 lives, and lose a life every time they are knocked out. When a character loses all of their lives they are out of the game for good. When a team has no characters left in play, the surviving team (even just one surviving member) stands victorious.

((Setup))
The Board, Markers, Ruler
Characters move around a blank board, a 12” x 12” in. square, representing their in-game battlefield. The only marks on the board consist of the two Starting Rows, lines at opposing ends where players strategically arrange their teams before the game begins. The Starting Rows are also where the characters are placed when knocked out with lives to spare. Advanced players, if they so choose, can make alternative boards for more complex battlefields.

Characters are represented by their markers (flat tokens of varying shapes and sizes) and their stat cards (lists of their stats and available abilities.) Lastly, both players have their own ruler which they'll use to measure attacks and movement across the board.

Characters
Before the start of the game, a player chooses up to 3 characters to form a team, which they'll use to fight the other player. All characters come with a selection of 8 different abilities available for use, but only 4 abilities can be chosen for the battle. Premade ability sets included with the game can help choose said abilities, but players are welcome to select any 4 abilities to tweak the characters to their liking. Whatever abilities are chosen must be kept secret until the game begins.

After selecting characters and abilities, players take before going into battle is to place their characters on their respective Starting Rows in any formation they choose. It is only after this step is taken that ability sets for the battle are revealed to each player’s opponent.

It’s allowed for a character to take on his or her “clone” in opposing teams, but characters can’t be duplicated to max out the size of a team.

Character Stats
Characters have various stats which represent their innate strengths and weaknesses. Understanding these stats will enable the player to choose the right character abilities for the job and create teams that are a force to be reckoned with. All stats are shown numerically.

Hit Points: How much damage a character can take before they are knocked out and sent back to their Starting Row after the respawn period (one whole round). Also represents the maximum limit for a character’s regen stat.

Mana: The size of a character’s mana pool. Using abilities subtracts from a character’s total Mana.
Attack: How much damage a character deals per normal attack. A normal attack is when a character attacks another character Adjacent (within half an inch) to them. This method doesn’t require abilities and can only be done once per turn.

Magic Attack: How much magic damage a character deals per attack. An Attack ability is required to use this stat.

Shield: How much damage is reduced from normal attacks. If an attack’s damage is less than a character's shield, only 1 point of damage is inflicted.

Magic Shield: How much damage is reduced from magic attacks. If a magic attack’s damage is less than character's magic shield, only 1 point of damage is inflicted.

Speed: How far a character can move per action point, measured in inches with the ruler. No character can move on top of another character except when allowed by an ability.

Actions: How many Action Points a character use before their turn ends. Normal attacks spend one Action Point and Movement spends Action Points depending on a character’s speed and the distance traveled. Abilities can also spend action points to activate or remain in effect. Action points are replenished every round by the amount of this stat.

Regen: How many Hit Points and/or how much Mana a character replenishes naturally at the start of a turn, marked as HP and MP respectively. Inevitably characters will take damage or lose Mana from using abilities. This stat gives a character a chance to fall back and regain their strength. But be warned: the regen only takes effect when a character takes his or her turn. This stat cannot shield against a knockout during an enemy’s turn.

Abilities
Every character has 8 abilities to choose from that represent their unique attacks and spells. There are two kinds of abilities: Attack abilities which replace the normal attack during a turn when used, and Effects which encompass a character’s array of skills that don’t count as attacks. Abilities that target characters require the markers to be adjacent unless otherwise stated.

Abilities possess a few unique stats of their own:
Cost: The points required for the character to use the ability. Most abilities spend Action Points (AP), Hit Points (HP), or Mana (MP) while some don't have any cost to using them at all. Certain abilities may list Channeling as a cost as well, which is the number of turns a character must be in the channeling state to prepare the ability.

Cooldown: The number of turns that a character must take before the ability can be used again. The ability is usable again on the last required turn . Abilities that need to be channeled only go into Cooldown after channeling ends or is interrupted by a character becoming blinded. Abilities with Cooldowns can only be used once per turn.

Terms
Certain terms are used to describe the effects and mechanics of Red Scarf Tactics and it is essential to understand them to play the game well:

Normal Attack / Attack normally: As mentioned before, a normal attack is when a character attacks another character adjacent to them without an ability. Abilities can increase the power of a character's next normal attack, or allow a character to use their normal attack more than once in a turn. Again, characters can (usually) only attack once per turn.

Damage / Magic Damage: Two different types of damage caused by normal attacks or magic attacks respectively. Some abilities may deal “additional” damage or magic damage if certain conditions are met.

Lives/Knockout: How many times a character needs to be knocked out until they are out of the game. Knockouts occur when a character loses all of their Hit Points, in which case they are temporarily removed from the game (marker removed from the board) until the second round after knockout occurs. This is when they “respawn” or reappear on the board with full hit points and mana on their respective starting rows. By default characters need to be knocked out 3 times before they are removed from the game. The length of the game can be altered by adding or taking lives off of the total count.

Adjacent: Means to be ½ of an inch in range of another character or spawn. As a unit of measurement, all normal attacks must be conducted with the enemy adjacent to the attacking character. All abilities (namely attack abilities) that don't specify range require characters to be adjacent to one another, and only target 1 character.

Inches: Units of measurement used heavily in the games mechanics. Attacks, Abilities, and Movement are all measured in inches. Players must predict the length of their character and their enemy during attacks to make a hit or miss their target completely. Measurements start from a character marker’s edge.

Exact/ Within: Keywords which determine how strict an ability’s requirements of range are. Abilities that use “Within X inches...” allow players to target anyone between 0 inches and the specified range; whereas “Exactly X inches” means the player has to precisely calculate the distance and only hit their mark if the measurement stops on the character marker being targeted.

Rounding: Some abilities and effects require numbers to be rounded. In this event, all rounding is done to the nearest 5.

DpT/ Damage per Turn: Effects that inflict damage on a character for a set amount of turns. Only the target character's turns count toward DpT.

Knockback: An ability effect that causes the target character to be moved backwards a certain number of inches. Character's are always knocked back in a straight line and must occupy an empty space when they land. If there is another character on the last square, or if the character would be knocked off the board, then they land on the closest available square. Terms such as “Thrown” or “Knocked back” are commonly used.

Immobilize: An ability effect that negates the target character's ability to move for a certain number of turns. Furthermore, an Immobilized character is unable to dodge attacks until the duration of the effect ends. The character can still be affected by other ability effects that force them to move, such as knockback.

Blind: An ability effect that negates the target character's use of their abilities for a certain number of turns. Abilities that need to be “channeled” can be stopped by blinding the channeling character before the turn where their ability takes effect.

Stun: An ability effect that negates the target character's use of attack abilities and stops them from using normal attacks for a certain number of turns.

Slow: An ability effect which reduces a character's max Actions or Speed for a certain number of turns.

Knockup: A powerful ability effect that Immobilizes, Stuns, and Blinds target characters with the trade off that they cannot be targeted by abilities or attacks. Knockup's can be used to temporarily remove certain characters from the fight, or make sure enemy abilities can't target them. Such as heals or buffs.

Paralyze: An ability effect similar to Knockup's in that they Immobilize, Stun, and Blind target characters all at once. It is a rare ability effect with slightly more versatility than Knockup's.

Channeling: Some abilities require characters to spend a certain number of turns to channel, or prepare, in order to use them. Abilities that need to be channeled must always be used at the start of the character's turn and automatically ends that turn. The characters upcoming turns are then skipped until the turn where the ability takes effect.

Spawning: A minion or object that is put on the board through the use of an ability. Anything spawned will either have a certain amount of Hit Points (making them targetable for attacks and effects) or will be removed from the board after a certain period of time. Only the player that used the spawning ability can control whatever is spawned, during their turns. Unless stated otherwise, players cannot spawn anything on top of another character, or another spawn.

((Core Mechanics))
Starting the Game
Gameplay is divided into two phases: a single Turn and an entire Round. Turns make up an individual character’s actions, whereas an entire round progresses after every character has had a turn. After player's teams have been made and characters have been set in their respective Starting Rows, players must determine which character takes their turn first. Instead of having players go back and forth acting out a whole team’s actions at a time, each round starts with the “fastest” character and goes down until the round ends with the “slowest” character, regardless of which team said characters are on.

The fastest character is determined by adding up each character’s respective Speed and Actions together. The character with the highest number is the “fastest” and is first in the order of character turns for a round. At the start of each new round the fastest character must be redetermined if any abilities deployed affect a character's Speed or Actions. In the event where two opposing characters have the same number, players determine which of the two should go first with either a coin toss or by whoever rolls a higher number on a die of their choosing.

Combat
Combat is an integral part of the game's mechanics and is handled very simply. Attacking can be done using an ability (aka Special Attacks) or using a character's normal attack; either way attacks are always conducted using measurements with a ruler, starting from the edge of an attacking character’s marker, to determine whether or not the attack misses or hits. The first step to attacking is to declare an attack and pay its cost. When attacking normally the cost is 1 Action Point. An ability will always specify a cost other than spending an Action point. Only after that does the attacking player use their ruler to measure the distance between their character and the target.

A miss results when the player's attack goes under or over the specified range (measured in inches) listed on their attack. A hit, of course, is when the attack falls exactly into range. Some character’s markers are larger or smaller than others, making them easier or harder targets to accurately hit. Hitting any part of the character's marker results in a successful hit.

There are two types of attacks, as mentioned before. Ones that use Special Attack abilities and a character's normal attack powered by the Attack stat. The range of Special Attacks vary with each ability. Normal attacks, however, are always initiated between characters who are ½ an inch in range of one another. This measurement also qualifies as being “Adjacent” to another character.

Attacking a character and hitting them deals damage to their Hit Points equal to the attacking character's Attack stat unless the attacking character has a Shield stat. Shield depicts how much damage is taken off of an attack before it is subtracted from the character's remaining Hit Points. Alternatively, some Attack abilities utilize the Magic Attack stat, which is only ever used for abilities, and always deal Magic damage as opposed to normal damage. Likewise, some character's have a Magic Shield stat which reduces the amount of Magic damage a character takes.

When a character loses all of their Hit Points, they are knocked out and consume a life to respawn on the 2nd round after knockout. When all 3 lives of a character are consumed, they are out of the battle for good.

deFunkt29
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Thoughts

As a big fan of League of Legends as well as Warhammer, I'm quite interested in your game. While reading, though, the first thing that really popped up to me as problematic was the scale of the game. While a 12" by 12" board may be easier to test on and create, there will probably be problems, mainly in the accuracy of movement. For example, in a game like Warhammer, units are placed on boards several feet long, allowing players to be more free in their measuring and less error-prone. In contrast, in your game if a player even measures incorrectly by even a half inch, it will probably have drastic consequences. Some other issues with this board size are if the board gets bumped at all, things will get very messy, as well, players won't be able to see the board as clearly or enjoy looking at the pieces as if it was, perhaps, at least 2 feet by 2 feet. Also, won't sides perhaps start a bit too close?

Overall, looks like an interesting game, seems like you're translating a lot of neat things from League into a more skirmish style setting. I think your idea to have turn order based on character speed will work well, as well I think you can come up with some really interesting characters that will work well together! I do think that perhaps the entire respawning system may not work as well as you have planned, perhaps each team should have a collective pool of lives, rather than each character. This way a character won't die three times early on and just completely ruin the game for one player.

Austin

Three
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Thanks

I could see the game being played better on a larger scale. Like you said, 12” x 12” will just be to play-test characters. As for lives I do enjoy your idea over what I had planned originally. Both your points are easily implemented and helpful!

Another thing I should mention about the game is that I have several different sets of characters I could use. For example, I originally started this project as a scaled down version of League of Legends. Not just in gameplay, but in terms of the characters as well. With basically a bunch of Animal Crossing-esque characters battling it out. As the project went on I started yearning for something with more “badassery” behind it. Which was when I made another set of characters to reflect that. I'll post pictures soon.

For now this is a WIP example of what one character would look like on paper.

Van

Stats:
Hit Points 25
Mana 15
Attack 3
Magic Attack 2
Shield 1
Magic Shield 1
Actions 4
Speed 5 inches
Regen 1 Hitpoint/ 2 Mana

Passive:
Rush: When you knock back an enemy you can move adjacent to them.

Tunnel Vision: If you move in a straight line towards an enemy your Speed increases by 2 inches.

Abilities:
Thunder Knuckle (Attack)
(Electricity surges through your fists, launching you from the force of your punch alone.)
You are moved 3 inches and attack any character adjacent to you afterward.
+ 2 Magic Attack Cost: 3 Mana, 1 Action

Hop (Effect)
(Tenacious and aggressive; you will never let yourself be pushed out of a fight.)
If you are moved due to the effect of any ability you can move back to your original spot on the board before being moved at any time during the turn.

Shocking Brawler (Effect)
(An electrical current continues to course through your veins, temporarily improving your combat abilities.)
After attacking with an ability you can activate this ability to attack again normally without spending an action.
Cost: 1 Mana Cooldown: 1 Turn

Sprint (Effect)
(You suddenly take off in a full sprint to close a gap.)
Until the end of your turn increase your total Speed by 2 inches.
Cost: 1 Action

Tackle (Effect)
(After lunging yourself at an enemy you grab them, holding them down for your allies.)
When you move adjacent to an enemy you can activate this ability dealing 2 damage to them. Until the start of your next turn you and that character are immobilized.
Cost: 2 Actions

Hyper Charge (Effect)
(A bolt of lightning strikes you, focusing raw power into your attacks for a short time.)
By spending your Attack action this turn, you can increase your Attack an Magic Attack by 2 on your next turn. Until the end of your next turn when you are attacked the enemy takes 1 Magic damage.

Spiral Kick (Attack)
(A quick roundhouse kick knocks all enemies around you.)
All enemy characters within 1 inch of you are knocked back 1 inch.
+ 2 Attack Cost: 4 Mana, 1 Action Cooldown: 1 Turn

Mega Impact (Effect)
(Power you've built up explodes, adding to the impact of your next attack.)
Whenever you attack normally or with an ability you can pay 5 Mana to knock back the enemy character 2 (accumulative) inches and increase your Attack by 1 for that attack only.

Three
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Random Artwork

Goes in correlation with my last post.
http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/4922/vansallywantstofight.jpg (Van is the one on the right)
This is how the project started out. Where I drew and stated character's in this style. When I work on a game I like to sketch out the characters before putting the numbers to them. It helps me think of their perks and weaknesses.

As the ruleset was nearing completion I started drawing more characters like this:
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/1794/jereccofinal.jpg
Right now I'm not sure which direction I'm going in, but characters and the like would come last. What I like about what I wrote is that I can attach whatever I want to the game.

Not a priority over critiquing the rules, but I would like to know your opinions on which direction would be better for this type of game. With the first picture it'd be a more "friendly" cuter looking game, geared towards children - teenagers. The second picture would be more fire and brimstone, with demons, dragons, and the like going to war.

deFunkt29
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Looks like you've done a lot

Looks like you've done a lot of work on the characters, looks pretty good. I do think you have too many skills going on, if a player is controlling a team of three, that is six passives and 24 (!) effects and attack to think about while on the field. I think perhaps by lessening the amount of skills to a more "league of legends" style, where each player only has a handful of skills, it'll make the game easier to keep track of, as well you can start making the different characters compliment each other more. But hey, perhaps your skills will work well, just an idea.

As for the art, they both look pretty good to me! I'm honestly a fan of the first, "cute" style perhaps more, just because it's really original. I think if the game's mechanics work, then I don't see how this style couldn't attract both teens and adults (see a game like pokemon, marketed for kids with a cute artstyle, still a huge hit with adults because of it's surprisingly deep gameplay). A fun idea could be having the cute style characters but with some more bad-ass accessories and such. Like chains and eyepatches and tattoos and weapons, etc. I just think it'd be really unique, and almost sort of humorous as well. I do think the second artstyle is great as well, but just more commonly used.

Three
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There are quite a few

There are quite a few characters like that with the cuter style. Opinions were pretty much unanimous offline, so I'm going with that.

Right now there are about 10 or 11 characters in the game that have their abilities ready for play-testing, but I was in the process of condensing the amount they have before I posted here. Decided to go with four or five plus a passive.

waiyuren
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Nice!

I like the idea!
I've just skim-read your opening post for now, so i'll go back and read it more thoroughly after this.
Character customisation is a great idea, i very nearly went in this direction myself (Huge fan of the materia system in ff7), and being able to swap out abilities to focus on certain tactics will certainly add a pre-game strategy element to it. :)

Love the artwork too, we share a similar taste in kickass bunnies!

As to the direction and style? If your Character Abilities are going to be particularly brutal, then the harder feeling style of art might be better, but then the opposite can just as easily be true too. I'd just go with your gut.
And direction, well i kind of want to chime in and say don't simplify it. Maybe even put in more abilities? A stock of 16 per Character wouldn't be too bad if you only choose 4 at setup. I play EDH... Several thousand choices with 100 card slots. Choice is never a bad thing, though optimal choices are a different story. ;)

larienna
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Incoming!

OK, you wanted my comments, here they are, but I don't think you are going to like them. First of all, my comments are not absolute, consider them but take what you want. You are still the master of your game.

Second, the type of game you are trying to make is not my type. In fact I try to stay away from any Analog Game. The only analog game that I would be playing are dexterity games, and most of them are bad. I only know "tumbling dice" which works well. So in general Analog=bad.

I never player warhammer and know nothing about league of legends but I played and own Heroscape. In my point of view, Hero Scape is the only miniature game that succeeded and some of the reasons are:

- The map is digital
- The rules are easy and accessible
- The game is easy to carry
- The mini are painted
- Squad & heroes makes keeping track of HP easier.
- The game is affordable

Unfortunately, no miniature analog game fits with those criteria. I also think that by making that kind of game, you dramatically restrict your audience. Most people I know that would be willing to play Heroscape would never play warhammer.

Consider also the conflict and arguing from the measurement. In a game of pirates of spanish main, I made all my measurements to make sure my ship was not in range, while the other player said that my ship was in range. In that case, I need a referee. Not very convenient to play.

Seriously, I strongly suggest you make your game digital. Use square, hexes, triangles, pentagons or any other shape you like, I don't really care as long as it's digital. You can also use larger shapes if you want miniatures to share an area. That could be also interesting.

------------------------------------------------------------------

So let's start with your game. If you want me to summarize my comments in 1 sentence:

"As a video game, your game could be interesting, but as a board game it's unplayable"

----- How many tokens on 1 card? -----

Do you realize how many information you have to keep track for each player? Considering you are going to have multiple characters, you want to maximize your space to be able to place the components for everybody. Now the simplest method, is to use pen and paper. Which I really don't like since it's annoying to do the cross referencing all the time. So the 2nd best solution for you would be to use tokens. Now, just for fun, let's use your sample character and count how many tokens you will need for 1 character.

--- Van ---
Hit Points 25
Mana 15
Attack 3
Magic Attack 2
Shield 1
Magic Shield 1
Actions 4
Speed 5 inches
Regen 1 Hitpoint/ 2 Mana

First you need token for HP and mana. To make it easier to manage let's put denominations of 5 and 1. So you need 5 x 5 hp token and 3 x 5 MP token.

Then you need 4 action tokens
Then you need 4 skill tokens to mark selected skills.
Then you need 1-2 status tokens to record that the character is poinsoned, stunned, etc.
Then you need 3 knockdown/life tokens
Then additional tokens to manage skill cooldown.

So an average of: 20 tokens organised in 4 piles + 1 row (for the skill) that must all be placed on 1 character sheet. Better be a big sheet, but again not too big because you'll want multiple characters.

Now multiply that by the number of characters. 3 characters could be manageable. 5 characters starts to be very annoying to play, more is simply too fiddly to be playable.

--- Character config ---

Personally, I like the idea to design a character, but to change his skill in each game. It's not a good idea. You need your skill information to fit on a single token because using cards (even small ones) would take way too much table space. You generally want to configure a character in a game where when you only control 1 character. So my suggestions, 4 fixed skill for each character and use a token to mark depletion.

If you want new combination, design new characters. I will also make the game easier to balance and prevent combos you would not have seen.

--- HP, MP and status tokens---

Keeping track of HP and MP is just too annoying. Also adding to the fact that characters regenerate stats, it adds just an unnecessary management step that your games does not need. Insdead of losing MP to regenerate it afterward, it's just easier that the MP you have is the maximum for the turn and you recover it at the end for the turn. For example, you could flip a token when casting a spell with the cost on it. You may never cast more in a turn than your MP. At the end of your turn, you recover all or some of your spell allowing you to cast again. So no need for an MP stack anymore and no MP regeneration.

Same thing for HP, go simple: Healthy, Wounded or dead. In a game with multiple characters, you do not need more HP. This is easy to manage, simply use 1 double sided token with the Wounded/Dead word. When you are hit, you place a token and go from healthy to wounded and then Wounded to dead. So the HP stack is now reduced to 1 token..

Forget HP/MP regeneration and forget persistant damage each turn. That is very annoying to keep track. If you want something similar, you could have a status effect that reduce the opponent's shield making it easier to wound. (see below). Or you simply roll a die each round to see if the target gets wounded.

Quick idea, status tokens like stun, poison, etc could be double sided to mark a duration. For example, a stun could take 2 turns to recover, you place the token, next turn you flip it and then you remove it.

--- Attack and damage ----

To stay in the same theme, attack resolutions. About The idea of determining if a unit hits by being in a certain range on the ruler, I would say:

NO, NO, NO, NO and NO

This is one of the worst mechanic I have ever seen. I know you might want your game to be more deterministic than random but this is not the way to do it for many reasons:

- The player with a ruler in the eye will always win the game. It's not about strategy anymore, it's about evaluating distance. If you have that skill, you have a strong advantage, while other will not play your game.
- You will get a lot of frustration and it will scare even more people way from your game. I am sure warhammer players would not be willing to play this.
- You'll also get in situations that if you hit on the previous attack and the mini have not moved, you know you are going to automatically hit. Which is very cheap. Could also gives an advantage to first playing miniature because their measurements have already been tested.

I have a simplified idea that could be interesting for you and that implies low randomness. Instead that the shield stat reduce the damage, simply compare the value. If the Weapon strength is greater than the shield, you wound the target. Else the target resist. Then when a unit attack, simply roll 1 die with a fixed success level, for example 3+. More chance to hit is better in this situation.

Now you might ask, but if the opponent's shield value is higher than all my characters weapon, how to I hit? Simple, you can combine attacks. 2 character could aim at the same target, they each roll a die and if they both hit, you sum up their strength and need to exceed the targets shield to make 1 wound.

This ways the strategy consist in combining units to hit stronger units. By using high % to hit with 3+, a combined attack of 2 characters has 43% which is still fair. You could increase the odds at 2+ making all attacks almost hit but combined attacks of 2 character will hit at 67%. Test it and you'll see what suit best for you.

For the die roll target number, I would use a fixed value to make it easier to adjust the randomness according to taste, but feel free to have abilities that gives reroll, or roll 2 take the best, etc.

----- Actions and skill -----

Managing actions points for multiple characters is very annoying. I had an idea from the new XCOM video game that would get rid of your action token stack and use only 1 flipable token. Each character has 2 actions, when an action is used, the action token is flipped. An action can be one of the following:

- Attack (range/melee)
- Move up to the character's speed
- Rest (See below)
- Use a skill

You can do the same action twice if you want. For example, you could move twice during a turn.

For skill, I could use a flipable token on each skill. Managing cool down would be way too much annoying as you'll need a stack of tokens for each skill to keep track of the cool down. So the idea is simple. Either at the end of each turn, you can recover 1 skill, AND/OR you can use a rest action to recover 2,3 or all skills (your choice). So the "Cooldown" only disable an skill until recovered and all actions have the same cost.

----- Life and reinforcement -----

From what I understand, you want units to respawn. Instead of giving each unit life points, you could use reinforcements from one pool. Bringing back a unit in play cost you reinforcement points. An idea I had in another of my game is the more you wait before reinforcing, the more points you can use. Which could incite players to wait to reinforce stronger.

By using a central pool you remove another stack of tokens from each character sheet. It does not really matter if a character respawn more than another. Since the reinforcement points you pay is the price of the character, so there is no need to keep track of individual life points.

----- Initiative -----

Adding 2 stats for initiative is plain annoying. Simply use speed, but then again you get conflicts with duplicate values. You could make initiate independent from players stats. I have an idea similar to heroscape that you could use. There are different methods:

Each player have double sided numbered tokens which would look something like:

1/10
2/9
3/8
4/7
5/6

They place 1 token on each unit, then the first player do 1 action for unit 1 and flip the token. That unit seconds action will be made in 10th place. 2nd player does the same. Then first player with unit 2 and flip the token. So First to act is last to make his 2nd action.

Or Place tokens from 1 to 10, and resolve them in that order (2 actions immediately). Token can be put face down for bluffing. In HeroScape, you could put more than 1 token on a unit allowing to use it multiple times. This is useful when the number of units in play is unbalanced. Like 3 units against 1.

Or simply use the token to mark spended actions and players can move any unit.

Anyways, you get the idea, it would make the game easier to play because there is no tie and you are not searching for speed values on character sheet. Second, slow characters will be allows to act first if they are in a good position.

----- Using cards for Initiative -----

Another idea I have just got from battle master, make 2 cards for each unit. Shuffle then in a deck. Draw a hand of 3 or 5 card. One player at a time they play 1-2 cards per round. The cards played gives and action the matching unit.

You could also using more generic cards. Like making categories of units: Medic, Sniper, Fighter, etc. When you play a card, you can more 1 or all units of the same category. You could even place a special ability or bonus on the card. Like a "wild run" card that gives 50% movement to the moved fighter unit.

You could even make sure not all the cards get played. Like 2 or 3 actions are not done. A bit like the event deck in setters of catan where the last 2 or 5 cards are not executed.

----- Conclusion -----

So let see how much tokens you have left:

1 for HP
1 for actions points
4 for skills
1 initiative token
1-2 optional status token.

Total 7-9 instead of 20+. Much more elegant to play with since there will be no stacking. And if you wanted to use pen and paper, well you now have a paperless solution.

So this is all I can think of so far, if you have any question regarding the rules above, just ask. Converting a video game as a board is not easy, I have been there (Still want to make my master of magic BG). One thing you need to know is that you can never convert mechanics from a video game directly as a board game. And the main reasons are because board games cannot hold as much information and the players cannot make as much calculation. So you must try to design mechanics that catch the feeling of the video game rather than reproducing it.

Enjoy and have fun!

Three
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Thanks for the input!

First, thanks for taking the time out. It's appreciated.

While I disagree with a few things I do like a lot of what you wrote and want to try implementing them. Most of all I'm open to the idea of using squares or hexes for movement instead of a ruler. In fact, I have a version of the game that doesn't use rulers. I haven't gotten around to testing both to see which is more preferred. Long story short I want to condense the game's bulk without losing feel of it.

The biggest thing I'm against adding are the inclusion of tokens. That said a lot of what you suggested could be implemented without using them.

One thing I would love to do, while having no resources to do so, is make the game digital. I've tried many times. On my own, with partners, nothing ever works out. Later down the line with more resources, maybe, but right now the main focus is the board game.

Knicksen
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Master of Magic Boardgame...

...tell us more 8o)

Evil ColSanders
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Three wrote:Most of all I'm

Three wrote:
Most of all I'm open to the idea of using squares or hexes for movement instead of a ruler. In fact, I have a version of the game that doesn't use rulers. I haven't gotten around to testing both to see which is more preferred.

Hexes are boss.
Three wrote:

The biggest thing I'm against adding are the inclusion of tokens. That said a lot of what you suggested could be implemented without using them.

I don't see how. The closest thing to no tokens I could get would be make, and sleeve, magic-sized character cards which have all the stats and boxes next to them where you can write the current HP/MP, cooldown timer, and all that. If I have a D&D sized character sheet of info for each character, I wouldn't touch it. I'm interested on your idea on how to pull it off.
Three wrote:
One thing I would love to do, while having no resources to do so, is make the game digital. I've tried many times. On my own, with partners, nothing ever works out. Later down the line with more resources, maybe, but right now the main focus is the board game.

Try the program, "Vassel". I've played Warmachine and other boardgames on it. It's not intuitive to program for or play on, so if you're looking for easy, forget it. It's free though.

Three
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Next set of Rules

Yeah, I was going to make the character stats card sized. The game is still in need of condensing, but I think I'm getting to the point where I'm happy enough to make more characters for it. As for the tokens it's just a personal decision. Things like damage tokens and character tokens I'd use of course, but nothing much more than that.

The biggest change in this set of rules is the exclusion of measuring, and implementing some of the suggestions I've gotten. I've yet to playtest this version, but I have another one with the measuring included. The biggest point of including a ruler was to make it so "skill shots" would have to be aimed and could miss. I'm still looking for a way to do the same on a grid without including too much randomization.

Objective
In Red Scarf, 2 players compete to build the better team and claim victory on the battlefield. The game comes with a cast of fighters, each with an array of unique abilities to let players fully customize their teams to fit their strategies. Create the perfect team and lay waste to your competition.

In battle each player has a pool of 9 lives, and lose a life every time one of their characters are knocked out. When a team has no more lives, the surviving team (even just one surviving member) stands victorious.

((Setup))
The Board
Characters move around a 15 x 15 gridded board that comes with the game, though more complex battlefields can be made. The board consists of the two Starting Rows on the last row of each opposing side where players arrange their teams before the game begins. The Starting Rows are also where the characters are placed on their next turn after being knocked out.

Characters are represented by their markers (flat tokens of varying shapes and sizes) and their stat cards (lists of their stats and available abilities.). Most tokens only take up 1 square, while larger characters would occupy multiple squares making them larger targets. For such characters 1 “square” of movement would be every square their marker take up. (Ex. A character with a marker occupying 4 squares would occupy 4 new squares on 1 unit of movement.)

Characters – Picking
Before the start of the game, a player chooses up to 4 characters to form a team, which they'll use to fight the other player. All of whom have 4 abilities, 1 passive ability, and a list of stats which govern their performance ingame. Players may choose to use pree-made teams, or create teams spontaneously. There is no obligation for players to share which characters they've picked until they place their makers on their respective Start Row. As such, a single character may appear in both teams.

Characters – Stats
Characters have various stats which represent their innate strengths and weaknesses. Understanding these stats will enable the player to choose the right character abilities for the job and create teams that are a force to be reckoned with. All stats are shown numerically.

Hit Points: How much damage a character can take before they are knocked out. There are several variations to damage, which we will cover later.

Mana: Function like Actions in that they are replenished at the start of each turn. Some abilities spend Mana in order to be used, as such some characters won't have a Mana stat because their abilities might not use Mana. When a character runs out of Mana on their turn they are unable to use anymore abilities until the start of their next turn.

Attack: How much damage a character deals per normal attack. A normal attack is when a character attacks another character “Adjacent” (one square) to them. Characters can only use their normal attack if they haven't already spent their Attack Action that turn.

Magic Attack: How much magic damage a character deals per attack. An Attack ability is required to use this stat.

Shield: How much damage is reduced from normal attacks. If an attack’s damage is less than a character's shield, only 1 point of damage is inflicted.

Magic Shield: How much damage is reduced from magic attacks. If a magic attack’s damage is less than character's magic shield, only 1 point of damage is inflicted.

Speed: How far a character can move per Action, measured in squares. Characters cannot occupy the same square as another character or a spawn (see Ability Effects) unless stated otherwise by an Ability.

Actions: How many Action Points a character use before their turn ends. Every character has 4 Actions which replenish at the start of each of their turns. Of these 4, only 1 may be used to use a normal attack (Attack Action) and 2 can be used for movement (Move Action). Spending both of a characters Move Actions exerts the character, preventing them from using their Attack Action that turn. Actions can be spent on as many Abilities as the player can afford (1 Action per Ability). Using an Attack Ability, though it only spends 1 Action, counts as an attack, and prevent the character from using their remaining Action as an Attack Action. If, however, an Ability specifies it's cost in Actions then using that Ability doesn't spend the 1 Action it would normally need to activate.

Characters (Stats) – Abilities

Every character has 4 abilities to choose from that represent their unique attacks and spells. There are two kinds of abilities: Attack abilities which replace the normal attack during a turn when used, and Effects which encompass a character’s array of skills that don’t count as attacks. Abilities that target characters require both characters to be adjacent to one another unless a range (measured in squares) is specified.

Abilities possess three unique stats of their own:

Cost: The points required for the character to use the ability. All Abilities spend 1 of the characters 4 Actions to use, however Abilities primarily spend Mana and might also spend HP. Some abilities have no cost to them aside from the 1 Action spent.

Cooldown: To prevent certain abilities from being used too frequently, or “spammed” they might have Cooldowns. Abilities with Cooldown cannot be used on the next turn after it is used, and only becomes availible on the start of the following turn.

Modifier: Shows the character stat use for the Ability (Attack / Magic Attack) and how much additional damage is added to the stat while attacking (ex. Fireball +1 Magic Attack, Magic Attack = 4. Damage = 5).

Passive: Passives technically do not count as Abilities, and aren't affected by anything that would normally target them. Passives are additional effects which function all the time without needing to be activated. Some Abilities work like Passive's, in that they do not need to be activated to function.

Terms
Certain terms are used to describe the effects and mechanics of Red Scarf Tactics and it is essential to understand them to play the game well:

Normal Attack / Attack normally: As mentioned before, a normal attack is when a character attacks another character adjacent to them without an Ability. Abilities can increase the power of a character's next normal attack, or multiple Attack Actions per turn.

Damage / Magic Damage: Two different types of damage caused by normal attacks or magic attacks (Abilities) respectively. Some Abilities may deal “bonus” damage or magic damage if certain conditions are met.

Knockout: When a character is knocked out by reducing their Hit Points to 0 their marker is removed from the board until the start of their next turn, where they are placed back on their player's Start Row with full HP. When a character is knocked out their player loses 1 of their 9 lives. The game can be lengthened or shortened by increasing or decreasing the number of lives assigned to a player.

Adjacent: Means to be directly next to another character, or 1 square away. Also mentioned, some characters may occupy more than 1 square with their character marker. What counts as being adjacent to them (regardless of their size) always applies as 1 square. Characters must be adjacent to one another to use their normal attack, or if the Ability they want to use doesn't specify range.

Exact/ Within: Keywords which determine how strict an ability’s requirements of range are. Abilities that use “Within X squares...” allow players to target anyone adjacent or within the specified range; whereas “Exactly X squares” means the player must always target characters in that range when using the Ability. Unlike "Within" Exact measurement must always use the fastest possible route when targeting characters.

Rounding: Some Abilities and effects require numbers to be rounded. In this event, all rounding is done to the nearest even number.

Target: Abilities will never say they “hit” characters without fail. Instead Abilities will “target” characters. Giving the target character the chance to avoid any effects by activating an Ability of their own. (Ex. “This Ability targets...” “If you are targeted...”)

Enemy: Characters and spawns with HP on the opposing players team are specified a “Enemies”.

Squares: A square is both 1 unit of movement and measures range.

Bonus: Some abilities inflict bonus damage or magic damage when certain conditions are met. Bonus damage is added to the total damage/magic damage before the target character's Shield or Magic Shield applies.

Ability Effects
Some Abilities inflict status effects on targets as well as doing damage, called Ability Effects.

DpT/ Damage per Turn: Effects that inflict damage on a character for a set amount of turns. Only the target character's turns count toward DpT. DpT is unaffected by Shield or Magic Shield.

Knockback / Thrown: An ability effect that causes the target character to be moved away a certain number of squares. Character's are always knocked back in a straight line and must occupy an empty space when they land. If there is another character on the last square, or if the character would be knocked off the board, then they land on the closest available square. Knockback always travels in a straight line, going "away" from the character knocked back the target character.

Pull: The opposite of Knockback. Pull moves characters in a straight line "towards" the character using an Ability with Pull. As with Knockback, a character cannot be Pulled into a square occupied by another character, and will instead occupy the next available square.

Immobilize: An ability effect that negates the target character's ability to move for a certain number of turns. The character can still be affected by other ability effects that force them to move, such as knockback.

Blind: An ability effect that negates the target character's use of their abilities for a certain number of turns. Abilities that need to be “channeled” can be stopped by blinding the channeling character before the turn where their ability takes effect.

Stun: An ability effect that negates the target character's use of attack abilities and stops them from using normal attacks for a certain number of turns.

Slow: An ability effect which reduces a character's max Speed for a certain number of turns.

Knockup: A powerful ability effect that Immobilizes, Stuns, and Blinds target characters with the trade off that they cannot be targeted by abilities or attacks. Knockup's can be used to temporarily remove certain characters from the fight, or make sure enemy abilities can't target them. Such as heals or buffs.

Paralyze: An ability effect similar to Knockup's which Stuns and Blinds target characters all at once. It is a rare ability effect with slightly more versatility than Knockup's.

Channeling: Some abilities require characters to spend a certain number of turns to channel, or prepare, in order to use them. Abilities that need to be channeled must always be used at the start of the character's turn and automatically ends that turn. The characters upcoming turns are then skipped until the turn where the ability takes effect.

Spawning: A minion or object that is put on the board through the use of an ability. Anything spawned will either have a certain amount of Hit Points (making them targetable for attacks and effects) or will be removed from the board after a certain period of time. Only the player that used the spawning ability can control whatever is spawned, during their turns. Unless stated otherwise, players cannot spawn anything on top of another character, or another spawn.

((Core Mechanics))
Starting the Game
Gameplay is divided into two phases: a single Turn and an entire Round. Turns make up an individual character’s turn whereas an entire round progresses after every character has had a turn. After player's teams have been made and characters have been set in their respective Starting Rows, players must determine which character takes their turn first. Instead of having players go back and forth acting out a whole team’s actions at a time, each round starts with the “fastest” character and goes down until the round ends with the “slowest” character, regardless of which team said characters are on.

The fastest character is determined by a character’s Speed (“faster” characters have higher Speed). Any conflicts are settled with a coin toss at the start of each new round. Ability effects that reduce Speed or stop movement all together will change turn order. Any character on the board that cannot move will always take their turn last, and in the event where that applies to multiple characters the character that would normally be “faster” would take their turn first.

Combat
Combat is an integral part of the game's mechanics and is handled very simply. Attacking can be done using an Attack Ability or using a character's normal attack. The first step to attacking is to declare an attack and pay its cost. When using a normal attack the cost is usually1 Action, while an Ability will always specify a cost (if it has one) in addition to the Action spent for using an Ability. Normal attacks always target adjacent characters unless an effect which increases range is active. Abilities offer a wider variety of ranges and can possibly target multiple characters at once.

There are two types of attacks, as mentioned before. Magic Attacks which use Attack Abilities and a character's normal attack powered by the Attack stat. Which deal Magic damage and regular damage respectively. When attacking damage is only applied to the character after it is reduced base on the target character's Magic Shield and Shield Stat. For example, if a character would take 3 damage and they have a Shield stat of 1, they would instead take 2 damage. Damage or Magic damage can never be reduced to 0, no matter how good the target character's defenses are. If it would, damage applied to their HP would always be 1.

When a character loses all of their Hit Points they are knocked out and consume one of the player's lives, and are removed from the board. At the start of their next turn they are placed back on their players Start Row.

Three
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Also, this is one of the

Also, this is one of the mock-up character cards I've been making. Right now I think the actual cards will be horizontal to leave room for a background, but this card has all the text I'd want on the (not in the actual fonts, but still). When I have more I'll put them together and post them.

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/2900/vancard.jpg

larienna
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Quote:The biggest thing I'm

Quote:
The biggest thing I'm against adding are the inclusion of tokens.

I said token because it was in my point of view the only way to have small components hold the information you needed. Else the only way I could see is pen and paper or make an electronic version of the game. Because there is just too much information to keep track.

larienna
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About master of magic

Quote:
Master of Magic Boardgame...

...tell us more 8o)

Knicksen: here is the project page for my master of magic remake.

http://bgd.lariennalibrary.com/index.php?n=GameIdea.GameIdea201003240528PM

There is a lot of content to read and pictures to see. It's still under development and I did not had the time to work on it lately. I intend to make a toy play exploration test to see what results it can gives.

I am currently programming "wizardry legacy", so no time to design games.

I seem to have a solid core mechanic allowing infinite expandability, but I do not consider the game to be playable yet. It's a big project I do not expect to finish soon, but I am always hopping to succeed.

Three
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larienna wrote:I said token

larienna wrote:
I said token because it was in my point of view the only way to have small components hold the information you needed. Else the only way I could see is pen and paper or make an electronic version of the game. Because there is just too much information to keep track.

I know what you mean. Originally I wanted to make it pen and paper but I lowered the numbers on stats so that I could use counters/tokens. Like, little chips in numerals of 1's, 5's and 10's.

Three
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More Abilities

I finished a few more character Abilities, but I've yet to test them out. I have about 9 characters now who all have beta abilities, so to speak. I'll post more as I make more but I' love suggestions/input on what I have on their play styles. It might be hard to visualize without the numbers next to them but I'm going for stats last to balance out the abilities.

--Sally
Passive- Implosion
Access energy charges after you use an Ability. Dealing xxx bonus Magic damage on your next attack every 2 Abilities.

Thunder Kick (Attack)
Your kick is charged with electricity. Knocking back all enemies within 2 squares of you as you spin and Stunning them until the end of their turns. By spending xxx Mana you kick off of an enemy, dealing xxx bonus Magic damage and jumping 3 squares.

Numb (Effect)
You charge yourself or an ally with a powerful electric volt, numbing your senses and granting you 1 stack (1 max). Stacks are spent when you are attacked, ignoring all damage you would have taken. Each turn you or an ally have a 1 stack you regain 1 HP. Being Stunned removes the stack.

Charge Bolt (Effect)
A bolt of lightning strikes you or an ally adjacent to you. Until the end of your turn you gain an additional Attack Action.

Shock Field (Effect)
Using abilities leaves you charged, Immobilizing an enemy on your next normal attack after using an Ability.

--Fyver
Passive-Fade
By paying xxx Mana when you are attacked your body fades into mist. Avoiding all damage during the attacking characters turn.

Spark (Effect)
Magic energy funnels through you, increasing the range of your normal attack by 3 squares until the end of your next turn. During this time, your normal attacks use your Magic Attack stat instead of Attack.

Starshot (Attack)
A shooting star fires from your palm, traveling exactly 6 squares in a straight line. Enemy characters between you and the 6th square take 1 Magic Damage, while the enemy on the 6th takes ½ bonus Magic damage for each enemy who took damage.

Splitting Image (Effect)
After channeling for 1 turn you split into two mice, spawning a second Fyver marker adjacent to you. The second Fyver can move, attack, and use Abilities however you both share the same Mana and total number of Actions (You can both use 1 Attack Action and up to 2 Movement Actions). When it loses all of it's HP, or when you run out of Mana during your turn, the second Fyver is removed from the board.
(Stats)

Flash (Effect)
A bright light flashes on your next normal attack, causing the enemy to lose focus and Stun them until the end of their turn. If the target enemy has stacks of any kind they lose stacks equal to the amount of damage they took.

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