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Second Exploration Era - game about exploring other planets in 1920s

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MKG
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Joined: 08/22/2016

Hi there.

All of the questions are at the bottom.

So with my Tabletop RPG group we had this brainstorm about designing our own RPG setting. In a nutshell it's premise is that somewhere by the end or shortly after Great War there was a contact with giant devices that were a way to travel between planets. That caused various countries to start exploring and eventually creating new colonies.
Then i had idea that it can be a good theme for a board game. I quickly came up with main mechanics and then some more tweaks to them. I have some thinking done about how it will look like, but yet, none of this has any physycal form yet. It's all in my mind.
So i wrote down something resembling a pitch, so i'll give it to you below, then i'll try to explain how i see the design process for that will go, what i want in this game, and then what components and look i have in mind.

Imagine all great nations in the world started exploring distant lands again. But now that are not continents, but planets. And it takes place shortly after Great war.
Players are important members of such expedition. But although they all work for common goal, it's their name thay want to be remebered,
During the game, players will be discovering new places, in secret or officialy, then gathering reaserch staff, biologists, geologists, archeologists and military, and finally reaserching discovered places to earn fame and recognition.
Players are competing over places to reaserch, represented as cards that are initially face down, but actions can flip them or allow players to look at them. Game turn consist of rolling one common pool of dice, and then each player choses one die and puts it on action board to execute that action, provided it has matching symbol. Once 2 dice are chosen, turn ends and another turn starts.

So there it is.
Main things i want mechanically in this game are:

- Worker placement, but partially random, ie not always all the actions are available
- possibility of "I know something you don't know"
- variable player powers
- possibility of few different setups

And how I see that in this game:

The action board (think agricola or sth) has on each action field an icon or icons. To take action, player is required to take one dice with matching symbol and put it on that field. Beacause the dicepool is reroled at the start of turn, it changes what action and in what amount will be available.
The places to discover are represended by cards. Each card has a value, name, required reaserchers and optionally a triggered effect. Thay are layed in 3x3 or 3x4 grid at the star of the game and players can flip them, or look at them. Other actions allow to take reaserchers to their expedition. And there is reaserch action, that flips a card and reaserches it, if you have right staff. After location is reaserched, player takes it's card and new one is placed face down.
Each player has one persona that has a trait or an ability. aditionally each of this characters comes with small action board, that extends main action board. It has two reasons. It allows to scale amount of actions to number of players, and two, since they are different, depending on characters chosen, different action set is available. Also the dice pool will be made of 2 neutral dice, and 2 of each used caracters dice (that can have different distribution of symbols or even different symbols)

Above should fulfill the things i want in this.

In my opinion that is to much to design at once, so i imagine following steps to create this:

1) Design cards and main actions. This is to test card flipping and reaserchers gathering mechanics, and also to some extent poit values of cards.
2) Add main action board. This is to extend and somehov vary available actions, and also check this worker placement mechanic with existing cards.
3) Add characters. That is to create and check "hero powers" and also to create and check character action boards.
4) Add symbols to action fields and add dice to game. this is to check how dice change gameplay and to tweak it accordingly

After any of this steps, i can get something that is good game and will be considering if it should stop at that moment. And then, i can skip some of the mechanics, if they do not work, and that would change the next steps.

Visions of mechanics and gameplay are out of the way, now onto how i see its graphics and looks look like.
There will be 5 groups of components in the game after 4th step. Those will be:

- Location cards
- Character Cards
- Action boards
- Reaserchers markers
- Dice

Location cards i have in mind are horizontally oriented poker sized cards. Visually they would look like page or piece of notepad. They would have name on top right, in the middle drawing (pencil sketch, or pencil sketch transistioning into full color art), bottom right optional short effect text. On top left coin with points value, and below that coin there would be amount of reaserchers of each kind needed to reaserch that card. Form of this indicators will depend on what markers will be used.
Caracter cards will be something visually resembling a file on that person. So photo, name, and trait or ability somewhere below. Kind like style that various arkham franchise make characters. Not much of thought was put into this one.
Action boards will be represented by birdview of expedition camp, with various tents and so on. on tents or other places there will be half opaque field with rules and so.
Reaserchers markers will be either colored cubes, or carboard punchout markers.
Each character will have one or two dice in their own colour, and then there will be some neutral dice. neutral dice will habe 3 different symbols in 3-2-1 distribition. Character dice might change that distribition and/or add new symbols.

I would like to fir all of this in either FFG LCG sized box, or carcasonne expansion sized box. Not sure yet.

Question time! I will be greatly thankful for any comments, suggestions and anwsers for the following:

How do you find this theme idea?
Do you think that mechanics are conected with theme? Or maybe it feels pasted on?
Does my design in step process make sense? If not, why, and how should i adjust/change it.
Do you know any games that use most, if not all, of mechanics i'm mentioning?
Would you play this game based on pitch? If not, would you play this game based on further explanation?
Is the graphical design something that makes sense? I'm asking both in "how it lokks" department, and "isn't this look a problem with seeng what part makes what?" department. I know i don't have anything to show yet, but maybe someone tried something similar and it looked eiter awesome or not.
Any other suggestions?

Just one thing to add. Writing all this down made it feel like it's beginning to appear, so joining this forum certainly was good idea.

Once more will apreciate anything you have to say about my idea.
Thanks,
Mat

mcobb83
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Joined: 06/07/2016
Wow. Long post. Good thing

Wow. Long post. Good thing I can read fast!

Here's my thoughts- you seem to have a solid concept of where you are going. The theme seems pretty interesting, and I like it. You seem like you have a good grasp of what's going on and how you'd like to proceed, which is more than many people come with, so that's good.

I have discovered that every designer likes to create differently, meaning if you gave 6 of us the same project we'd all get to the end by our own route. I'm going to reference thus idea as I answer your questions.

1) I like the theme.
2) hard to say if the mechanics feel pasted on. Worker placement and card/tile flipping certainly seem like they would be a good fit. It needs to be play tested to be sure.
3)design in step makes no sense to me. When I design I go basic rules, working prototype, test. When I write the basic rules I start with an intro, then overview, then setip, then game play exactly as if the game were being played. I tend to design components in that same order, but once I start making the prototype nothing is tested until the prototype is complete. But that's me, personally. Others may do things differently.
4) I learned recently (on thus forum!) That it doesn't matter if games use the same mechanics that your game uses. Make it anyway.
5) the game seems interesting. I'd consider play testing it at least.

MKG
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Joined: 08/22/2016
Thank You

Hey!
Thanks for comment.

I'm glad You like the theme.

I'm going to do a little of graphical design during overall design, as I think that it will be much easier to get people to play something that is not a bunch of white cards and boards with just text. But maybe I should test that with my playgroups. None of us designed anything ever, really.
We did some playtesting, and it had some artwork and final layout already.

I'm asking for games with similar mechanics, cause I want to see if they got something, that I might missed. Or something I think is bad in that type of game. More of a learning material, than "reasons to avoid doing this kind of game"

Thank you for Your time reading and replying, mcobb83, really appreciate that.

Willem Verheij
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Joined: 06/08/2016
Sounds like a fun theme yes.

Sounds like a fun theme yes.

You mention different nations at first, going into exploration again but later you mention characters.

Maybe it could be possible to add replayability through the combination of both?

Like, each color of player pieces could represent a different nation. And each nation could have two or three available heroes. The hero could have their effects listed on their card, which would allow each nation to be played in slightly different ways based on the hero.

Potentially nations could play differently too, if you'd want to. Then it would just be a visual thing. But the option would be there if you'd want it.

As for factions of that time period..

United States would clearly be a faction. Heroes could be:
-A hero of the great war.
-An adventuring actress looking for greater fame.
-A politician.

Germany seems perfect for it due to its iconic WW1 style that could be translated to space, and some references to the movie Metropolis (1927) could be made. Heroes could be:
-Crazy scientist inspired by Rottwang, Frankenstein and Einstein.
-Strict disciplined general.
-Sophisticated art collector, millionaire looking for new thrills.

Russia in the 20's is also a very iconic faction, in all its sovjet glory. The ambition seems fitting. Hero possibilities:
-Tough female commander and sniper.
-Intimidating commisar who might kill own troops to make an example.
-A geologist.

China is another big one that makes sense to include. I'm not too sure about heroes. Should always be a more heroic character in each faction though, none should be portrayed as evil.

Brittain is an option of course, creating new colonies seems suiteable for them.

Spain or Portugal could also be pretty cool, to have a bit of a throwback to their earlier period of conquest.

Maybe an african country could be good too, to add racial diversity. If the contact was made in this african country it could give this country a good chance to compete, they could have had a headstart with others catching up.

Zag24
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Joined: 03/02/2014
Theme questions

I'm somewhat intrigued by your theme and your reasons for choosing it. I do think that it's an interesting time in history, and I've had a lot of fun running and playing in Spirit of the Century games which are set in the same time period. In the U.S., it was the start of Prohibition, which means the rise of Organized Crime. In Europe, it was a giant hangover from the War, with an odd combination of pacifism and increased national tensions.

But you're adding a whole new dimension. I assume that this other-worlds technology is something left over from visiting aliens (or maybe time-travelers) that the players don't really understand. (?) Or is this more of a post-steampunk world, set in the 1920's rather than the Victorian era? (Einstein's theory of General Relativity was published in 1915, after all.)

Is it because the Great War marked the beginning of the end of the Colonial period, and this new invention/discovery revives it?

Rather than try to put words in your mouth, I'll just ask: Why did you choose this period?

MKG
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Joined: 08/22/2016
Hey!

Thanks for Your input!

First I'll try to address what Willem said.
The thing about nations was overall world setting. And game is about one expedition. I did not think about what country runs this expedition. But your post got me thinking. Soviet expedition with some German staff sounds unlikely, but what if this expeditions are funded and conducted by some other countries, and specialists from other side of the world are helping. Or maybe there is a company that does that.
The idea to associate one die color (and thus layout) with one nation seem s interesting. And it could be easily done by double sided character cards and boards. This is great idea!

Now to Zag's questions.
Why this theme and this period?
I think there are many reasons.
I think it's the time in history that gives endless alternate timelines possibility, even without introducing supernatural, or alien stuff. There was a lot going on not only in countries that had taken part in fight in Europe, but also countries from South America, Central and south Africa, India and so on. So there is a lot of story opportunity here. Ethiopia, Congo, Brazil, Indonesia (Dutch East Indies then), to name a few
The setting is relatively modern and maybe a bit more relatable than for example medieval times, renaissance or some nondescript future setting, but putting it in context of new lands to discover or conquer, alien tech and so on, can bring some of things that are interesting in those other settings. Why is it relatable? Although we had a lot of technological advance in last 100 years, i think more people from now would handle 1920, than people from 1920 would handle 1820. There is a lot of QOL things, that we are still using now, that were already on 1920. Planes, automobiles, phone, light. There is a lot of culture references and how people lived. We have not only books, but also photos and movies from that time.
Then there's a lot of "What if" questions. Main being the new lands to expand. Would it diffuse situation in Europe and in the world? If there was other source of power in politics of world, what countries would become empires and how it would like? How would other countries react? How would the ideologies that just appeared recently evolve faced with all that? There is a lot of interesting question one can ask and then answer.
Also always wondered how expeditions of Polo, Vespucci, Columbus, da Gama, Carter, Drake, and so on would like, if they had trucks, guns and photo and video equipment.
Your first assumption is somewhat correct. Main and so far only way for travel between worlds, is to use this vehicle, or structure, that appear in various places in the world. It is quite spacey, so you can get trucks and a lot of people inside, and after some time, there is "poof" and the thing teleports to other planet.
There would be several of them, connecting different planets, and it would something closer to the force of nature, than technology. Not to be controlled, just to be used like for example ocean currents.
Their locations would make some parts of the world more valuable, so there is a lot of interesting things what would happen. Royal Family of GB moving to India, and taking Capital to East London? Why not? Dutch being new thing due to Congo and East India Company? hey! Another war, cause some tiny country had access to this device? Can do.
And finally, the theme was born mainly to be hopefully used in Tabletop RPG session, allowing to have exploration adventures with a little more relatability and more action than sitting and ship and suffering from Scurvy. And when the theme foundations were set in place, the bits and pieces of game mechanics I had in mind found rich soil and sprouted.

Hope this was enough of an answer to satisfy Your curiosity.

let-off studios
let-off studios's picture
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Joined: 02/07/2011
Quick, Cheap Graphic Design

If you need some ready-made, no-cost iconography for your basic graphic design, you could do far worse than the following websites:

iconarchive.com

game-icons.net (my personal favourite)

MKG
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Joined: 08/22/2016
TY

Great resource. Thanks a lot!

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