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Game Depth & Details - How much is too much?

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TwentyPercent
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Joined: 12/25/2012

Hey Folks

I am interested in designing a board game that would be similar to a tactical, turn-based RPG (think Final Fantasy Tactics and Baldur's Gate). Players would choose heroes, with a wide range of skills, abilities, magic, weapons, and armor. Players would form parties to complete a quest. The monsters would be AI driven (either by cards or dice-decided tactics).

The game would probably take roughly 3-4 hours to take, with heroes gaining roughly 4-6 levels over the course of the game, traveling across the world map, exploring dungeons, visiting towns, and ultimately completing an over-arching goal or quest.

There would be three tiers of monster difficulty, each with roughly 8 monsters. Gear would also come in three tiers, each a little more powerful than the rest. The gear would be 3 slots (armor, weapon, misc), and there would be roughly 8-10 of each tier of each type of item.

At what point does the game begin being too much, or overwhelming?

I really enjoy the tactical RPG's of old, but don't really play video games more. Not to downplay video games at all, but board games are my preference; they are more interactive and more social, and I personally prefer playing with people in person, on a physical board.

I just want to know what input you all have. Any thoughts are well appreciated. Does it sound like a good idea? A bad idea? What kind of hurdles do you all see? (The main "hurdle" would be the cost of the game itself. The sheer amount of design and material involved would probably accrue a larger cost to build, with a larger selling price.)

Anyways, thanks everyone in advance for your input.
Cheers,
Twenty Percent

Shaadjd
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Joined: 12/31/2011
Sounds interesting.

I don't think this would be too much if it was done right. You already have table games (term I'm using for card and board games) like munchkins which use gameplay features like job classes, weapons, armor and monsters together in a fashion similar to an RPG game. I don't see why it would be too much for a board game.

I never designed a board game but I would approach it with my basic knowledge of one by creating a world or setting for the game using the board or mat. Creating players pieces, using cards for weapons, armors, items and monsters and work on that bit till I found something that worked.

But I don't see anything wrong with a board game having any depth. Long setup times or long and complex rules could be annoying for first time players and could mean more work for you the creator though.

laperen
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Joined: 04/30/2013
since your inspiration is a

since your inspiration is a videogame, there is a high risk of overcomplication. so far all i can imagine is DnD with a more comprehensive combat element to it.

what made those RPGs worth playing was the story. the character development, or studying tactics to better handle the situation, mattered in progressing the story since enemies got tougher and tougher

it might be worth your time to check out this game which is a boardgame spawned from an online game:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/370924922/krosmaster-arena-anime-min...

what i want to know is what the focus will be, since it heavily influences the motivations of the players and player experience

TwentyPercent
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Joined: 12/25/2012
RE: Inspiration

Hey Laperen

The game's focus would be on character development and combat. It would definitely be more of a tactical, combat-heavy RPG. One main theme is that characters would not bound by classes or skill trees, but spend experience to train any ability from any training type, allowing for complete open-style sandbox gameplay (like Skyrim):

-Magic: Spells are cast using the base ability from an element (determines the effect of the spell) in conjunction with a manifestation (determines who is being affected).
-Archery: Abilities based around using ranged weapons.
-Fighter: Abilities based around using melee weapons and/or being in melee range.
-Stealth: Abilities based on using stealth and trickery to gain the upper hand.

For me, the story has a lot of meaning, as I have a lot of ideas that would be good expansion and future material for the game. The basic story in this game is a kingdom has a new king who wants to begin his reign with a celebratory, first-annual arena tournament in ten weeks time. All combatants must qualify by passing the pre-qualifier fight (which, coincidentally, is how the game begins).

Players start by creating their characters. There will be 4-8 pre-made characters with full progression for players' use, ideas, and also for NPC's. Also, before the initial fight, players must choose whether they play as a single party (for cooperative play), or up to two parties (for competitive play). After the initial pre-qualifying battle, players have ten weeks to travel the countryside, completing quests, trading in towns, exploring dungeons, etc. All the while they will be gaining experience, training new abilities, and gearing up for the Arena Tournament, the winning party being the winner of the game.

That being said, the story lends it self easily into future games and additional material. In the long run, it would be excellent to make a series of it, where afterwards the players continue on some larger, overarching story. Each expansion lending new mechanics, monsters, quests, items, story, etc.

I definitely agree with you, though, Laperen, about it easily becoming too complicated. The game will be designed to facilitate minimum record-keeping, so more time is spent making the fun decisions and developing the characters. You are right about the story. Video games lend themselves to immersing players into the stories, whereas board games are more social in nature and require multiple people (normally). In a setting of 3+ people, you don't want the story to be too in-depth or require too much attention, as each player will have a different level of attentiveness to the story. Some just want to get to the strategy of the combat, others want to just finish as many quests as possible, and others just want to see what items they can buy in the marketplace, others just want to win. So the story will be kept simple, fun, and accessible for possible future material. What I haven't said about the story, yet, is that the king has an ulterior motive behind the tournament. He plans to hand-select combatants to form his new, secret task force, known as The King's Legion.

That game looks really cool, and would be similar in nature to the combat I have been designing. Players will fight in environments with monsters and there will be objects, such as trees, walls, boulders, that will affect Line of Sight and range.

Anyways, hopefully I've given a good elaboration to the game and my intent (probably more than you needed, lol). I really appreciate your feedback.

McTeddy
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Joined: 11/19/2012
I'm going to play the devil's

I'm going to play the devil's advocate here, not to shoot down your idea... but just to offer some warnings.

Sometimes, a video game is better off staying a video game.

Computers do certain things well. They perform calculations and keep track of details for many characters. They allow players to "save" the game and continue later on. They tell stories because they are played across 30+ hours for a single game.

Board games don't do the above well. Making multiple players find an overlapping 4 hour period to play a game is difficult. Making them keep track of multiple character health, stats, level ups, and equipment is alot of work. Heck, learning to play a game with complicated rules is difficult enough... not to mention 8 tiers of items and 3 tiers of gears and... all that other complexity that will turn people off.

This isn't even going into the sheer insanity* of trying to balance 24 monsters... 8 tiers of items... 3 tiers of gear... skills and leveling paths. This is ignoring the fact that "Story" isn't a major selling point for most board games. This too is ignoring the fact that board game AI is inferior to computer driving. It's even ignoring the question of "Why not just play a video game?"

This isn't to say that it can be done... it shouldn't be done... etc. But I am asking "Is it necessary?" and "Is it worth the effort?"

Honestly, the only way you'll know whether it's too complex is to build the game and play it.

But in my experience, less complexity usually results in a better game that more people enjoy. It's better to take the "Spirit" of the video game you want to replicate and reduce it to something better suited for the table.

* Not calling you insane. But the amount of effort involved in the task is.

TwentyPercent
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Joined: 12/25/2012
RE: Devi's Advocate

Hey McTeddy

First off, thank you very much for your response. As an engineer, I'm always a skeptic and love playing devil's advocate; it's a necessary role that weeds out those who can't think outside of the box or see things in a plausible reality. I would like to address all of your comments and concerns, and am interested in your response to each.

McTeddy wrote:
Sometimes, a video game is better off staying a video game.

Computers do certain things well. They perform calculations and keep track of details for many characters. They allow players to "save" the game and continue later on. They tell stories because they are played across 30+ hours for a single game.

I completely agree with you about the computers record keeping and saving gameplay well. As mentioned previously, the game will minimize record keeping by design. Where it will be necessary, it will be streamlined and simplified. This is a simply a matter of design, and after some additional playtesting (it's already started), this will be improved upon. Obviously a video game will do this better than any board game will, but who is to say a board game can't do it well.

McTeddy wrote:
Board games don't do the above well. Making multiple players find an overlapping 4 hour period to play a game is difficult. Making them keep track of multiple character health, stats, level ups, and equipment is alot of work. Heck, learning to play a game with complicated rules is difficult enough... not to mention 8 tiers of items and 3 tiers of gears and... all that other complexity that will turn people off.

As a board gamer, it is always tough to get players for a 4-hour game, but it does happen, and many board games are designed with that time frame of play, or longer (Twilight Imperium, Monopoly, Warhammer, and many many more). This is just a balancing issue of how long I want the game to take, and who my intended audience will be as a result. This is the choice I get to make as the game designer.

As mentioned previously, the game will minimize record keeping by design. Where it will be necessary, it will be streamlined and simplified. This is a simply a matter of design, and after some additional playtesting (it's already started), this will be improved upon. Obviously a video game will do this better than any board game will, but who is to say a board game can't do it well.

To give a little more insight on the health, stats, level ups, and equipment, these will be simple. The focus is on options and strategy, not lots of depth. The only character stats are HP and SP (spellpoints). Armor stats only include Armor, plus passive bonuses provided from magical armor. Weapon stats only include Damage, plus passive bonuses. "Leveling Up" will only be choosing a single ability, which would be a new element, a new manifestation, or some new combat ability (could be passive or active), and each character will either gain +1 HP (for combat) or +1 SP (for magic). Again, the goal is to just keep it simple. It will not be like D&D in that there are many stats or skills. At the end of the game, a character may have 4-6 abilities from training. Hopefully this helps clarify my intent.

McTeddy wrote:
This isn't even going into the sheer insanity* of trying to balance 24 monsters... 8 tiers of items... 3 tiers of gear... skills and leveling paths. This is ignoring the fact that "Story" isn't a major selling point for most board games. This too is ignoring the fact that board game AI is inferior to computer driving. It's even ignoring the question of "Why not just play a video game?"

Yes, this is a lot of material to design, but most of them are just minor differences. It will be a fair amount of balancing, but it can be done. I have an idea of how much work will be involved, and choose to go that route. It is what will help make it a quality game with tons of replay value. As I said before, the story will be simple, fun, and accessible for future growth. I agree that Board game AI is inferior to video game AI, simply because video game AI can be more complex. This means board game AI will be "dumber" (ie less strategic). This can be accounted for by making combat a little more challenging (this will take tweaking to balance, of course).

McTeddy wrote:
But in my experience, less complexity usually results in a better game that more people enjoy. It's better to take the "Spirit" of the video game you want to replicate and reduce it to something better suited for the table.

Again, I agree with you. Simpler is better. The mechanics and depth will be simple, but the volume of material will be significant. This is the spirit of the tactical RPG I am looking to create.

McTeddy wrote:
* Not calling you insane. But the amount of effort involved in the task is.

I'm glad you think it can be done. Of course it will be a lot of effort, but hopefully a lot of effort means the better chance for success.

laperen
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Joined: 04/30/2013
if a tournament is the start

if a tournament is the start of your game, is it the thing the players jump into at the very start, or is winning the tournament the first goal of all your players?

will there be things like cooperative training?

you mention health and spell points being the only 2 accounted statistics, where does evasion come into play?

health is self explanatory, but are spell points only for magic spells or all skills? it might be better to call it a different name if all actions use this as a resource

is health lost at 1 per hit, or several depending on the damage dealt by the attack?

TwentyPercent
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Joined: 12/25/2012
RE: if a tournament...

The beginning will not be a tournament, but simply a pre-qualifying round, ie fight. It will simply be a fight against a couple simple enemies. This will serve to help introduce the players to combat in a non-threatening and simple way (ie, they should not lose, lol, otherwise there will just be some small penalty, such as they won't get a potion for successfully entering the tournament roster).

There will not be cooperative training, as all abilities in the game would be solely for the character using them. None of them will require another character to use. Characters will simply choose their own training.

Evasion will only be available as passive abilities, for the time being. In this game, abilities and spells automatically "hit". Armor reduces Physical Damage, and Spell-Resistance and various Elemental Resistances will reduce Magical/Elemental Damage. Where the "random chance" occurs are the attacks/spells/actions monsters take (the AI). The AI will be determined by combat dice, with the results coinciding with the monster's card.

Passive evasive abilities would be like, "Evasion (Stealth Ability): Reduce damage from Area of Effect spells by 2." or "Side-Step (Combat Ability): If an adjacent enemy attacks you, you may move one space in response. However, you are now fatigued."

Spell points are only for spells. Other types of abilities have their own trade-offs, such as the one just mentioned above.

Damage dealt would depend on the attack. A dragon's bite is going to deal more than a goblin's punch.

Hope this helps clarify a little.

radioactivemouse
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Joined: 07/08/2013
Smaller games

At the risk of getting shot down or explained away, I have my own thoughts on this design.

It's big.

Now, that's not entirely a bad thing. Many people have lofty goals and while some succeed, others crash and burn in a fiery blaze of glory.

So, with that, I propose this: Start small.

Think of the simplest aspect of your game, then create a simple game to see if it works. Go through the process: Create a game using static numbers, playtest it. Iterate, then playtest again. Keep iterating until you find something you want. Making games IS NOT like solving a math problem...there's no one true solution. It's iterative. It may work on paper, but not as a fun game mechanic. It must be playtested over and over and over again.

The problem is that not many people make games this way. It takes time and people just want to get to the end product immediately. Most great movie directors never had money fall from the sky and just brilliantly make masterpieces...they proved themselves by creating smaller shorts. George Lucas made many small films before Star Wars. Monopoly was NOT created solely by Charles Darrow, he just modified a game that had been iterating for over 30 years before he got to it.

Can a video game be converted to a board/card game. Absolutely. But all the housekeeping that is normally done on a computer will now be relegated to the players. That's just the truth.

If you're still unsure of what I've said, I say play Mage Knight. It's a great game, but TONS of upkeep and has a lot of the same elements you are looking to implement in your game, only that game has 4 very specific characters with specific abilities.

After playing that, imagine implementing everything you want in your game...the upkeep will most certainly be exponential and most people would just quit with that much upkeep. Even with the simplistic designs you are proposing, the mechanics, upkeep, stats will need to be regulated by the player.

Now you have to ask yourself: Are you willing to let go of some of the elements you would like in your game in order to make it easier for the player to get into the action?

You mentioned the following, "hopefully a lot of effort means the better chance for success." I wholeheartedly disagree with this. There are tons of people that make a lot of effort, but with no direction or wisdom, they just spin their wheels or go in a completely different direction.

So to answer your question: Make a simple game. Playtest it. Add more things to the game, Playtest it more. Wash, rinse, repeat. The more you playtest your game, the more you'll realize when it's too much for the player.

TwentyPercent
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Joined: 12/25/2012
RE: Smaller Games

Hey Radioactivemouse

Risking being shot down or explained away is the most useful path to take, because it gets at the nitty gritty and forces you to think at the detailed level. It's a necessary step.

I agree with you; it's definitely a big project and undertaking. Go big or go home has always been my motto. To skip ahead in conversation, you disagreed with my "more efforts means better success." Maybe we aren't looking at it the same way. The direction and wisdom was implicit to the ambition and project; sorry for not clarifying. As someone who has managed many construction projects, I am familiar with people spinning their wheels without knowing which direction they are going. A lot of time and efforts can be wasted that way. So part of what I was looking for, when originally starting the thread, was to get your all's judgement on the direction and wisdom of a game like this. I expected most of the answers I've received, and I appreciate hearing it from others as well.

You are definitely right about starting small and building up. That's something I have been doing. I started too big, and have gone through multiple scale-backs as the initial playtesting has started. Sure, it's an iterative process, and will be for a long while. Partially to what I meant from my "effort = success" statement, is that the more iterations and time spent, the better refined the game can be, resulting in a better game.

Not only have I played Mage Knight, but I own it. It's a fun game, with a ton of mechanics, depth, and material. That being said, I understand how tough it is to get players to play it, and have had success and failures with that. That's a result of the game design, and surely the designers knew that when they designed the game the way they did. In the same way, I'm expecting about the same from my own game. As the designer, I get to control who my target audience is. I don't expect "casual" board gamers to want to play it, nor those who want to pick up a game that is simple and takes 2 hours or less. It would be geared towards the players who want to play a 4-hour game that has a lot of depth and more-than-normal upkeep.

I really like your question of, "Are you willing to let go of some of the elements to make it easier?" That is a question that I am continually asking myself and how I want to balance depth/number of mechanics vs time of gameplay/game difficulty.

You are right, though. I need to continue to start small and build up from there. This will make playtesting and balancing the game mechanics easier, as well as keep me focused on what I like and don't like in the game.

Thank you very much again for the input.

McTeddy
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TwentyPercent wrote:The

TwentyPercent wrote:
The beginning will not be a tournament, but simply a pre-qualifying round, ie fight. It will simply be a fight against a couple simple enemies. This will serve to help introduce the players to combat in a non-threatening and simple way (ie, they should not lose, lol, otherwise there will just be some small penalty, such as they won't get a potion for successfully entering the tournament roster).

Tutorial missions make sense in a video game sense because the developers are expecting new players to the series and they have 40 hours to fill.

Is there any reason this intro battle needs to be in the game other than "Because it's Story"? Story is only effective the first time you see it. This makes it a rather ineffective tool in board games where player's expect to play hundreds of times.

If the players are supposed to win the battle anyways, why not just cut the battle and save the wasted time?

TwentyPercent
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Joined: 12/25/2012
RE: Pre-Qualifying Fight

Hey McTeddy

That's a very good point; thank you. I haven't thought about it that way. It is fluff material and not really necessary. I will either take it out, or give it another role in the game.

Thanks again! Great input.

questccg
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This is a GOOD question

A little while earlier, I was working on a Dungeon Crawl board game. And I came to the conclusion that RANDOM moving through random levels was simply NOT interesting ENOUGH.

But take the smallest PC game called "Rogue" and it's the exact same thing: you move through random corridors and fight monsters to earn items. Monsters and items get more and more powerful as you progress in the levels. A player can waste hours playing that game...

So I started thinking: "How can I make my game more interesting?" And then I thought about adding a storyline to the game. My idea was to have a "Dungeon Book" filled with all kinds of sub-plots to the game. I was not yet sure HOW I was going to implement it, but I thought it might be possible.

And so suddenly I went from designing a BOARD GAME to WRITING A BOOK! Again not the best move yet...

But I firmly believe that by adding the story to the game, it could make the game more immersive. To be truthful, I cannot remember how the BOOK + DUNGEON CRAWL worked together... But they did.

However I shelved that project because it just wasn't going in the direction that I wanted. I felt like the game was still lacking (in some regards). And obviously I came to thinking about other projects that were more compelling.

Bottom line: it you add a STORY to your game, it might make the game more interesting. How you integrate the story into your board game - well that is something of a challenge.

Best of luck with your game idea!

Note: Thinking about the Dungeon Crawl and the book has made me think that instead of stories, the book should be filled with all kinds of Puzzles that players need to resolve... This would probably make for an INTERESTING dungeon crawl... I see some potential... But again putting it together is the key!

wineaholic
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Joined: 10/26/2013
I think simplicity is better

I think simplicity is better for mass appeal. As far as avid gamers go I think the leniency is a lot more flexible, if that's your target audience. I personally very much enjoy some longer more complex games...one of my favorite games is Runewars, which is nowhere near simple. I've also much enjoyed playing Descent.

I think complexity can work, it just has to be done right. If something is cumbersome and doesn't really add anything substantial to the game-cut it. Keep only what is essential/beneficial and makes sense. Complexity is fine, as long as you avoid having it be overbearing or frusterating. The most important thing is to make sure it is fun, and gets the players excited to play it and to have them become immersed . If anything gets in the way of the fun or the immersion, maybe it should be changed or cut.

That's my personal philosophy and input anyhow, whatever that's worth!

larienna
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I have not read through all

I have not read through all the posts but here are a few advice:

Determine if you want each player to control a party of characters, or 1 character each.

Since you want to focus on level up, you could use a deck building mechanic to power up your character and make sure that players needs to combine their cards together to be more efficient in battle.

Since your focus is level up, tactical battles should be meaning less. Instead, you could use something like Thunderstone where you chose which fllor you want to adventure in. Or you could use adventure cards that the players try to fulfill which determines a random amount of encounter cards to be faced with soem special rule conditions.

In board games, most of the time, you cannot focus on all aspects you would want to compared to a video game. So determine the most interesting aspects you want to use and focus your game on those part.

saiyanslayer
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Joined: 10/08/2013
Recommended

Liking the idea, but simpler is usually better. An elegant game system always (in my opinion) plays better when you don't constantly need to reference the game rules.

Take XCOM for example.

The original X-COM is loved and considered quite good, but the recent remake managed to keep most of the fun and discarded a tonne of the painful parts (to me at least, some people still enjoy that). I use that transfer as a guide for how a game can be made less complicated and still keep the fun aspects.

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