I have a pretty good idea on how the "bait" mechanic will work. It's pretty simple and it goes something like this:
- Each Hero has a Dexterity which gives him the number of rooms he can move through on his turn.
- If a NEW tile needs to be placed in order to move, the Hero must roll the custom dice: 3x blank, 1 Event, 1 Encounter and 1 Relic.
- If the roll is NOT a blank, the Hero must STOP in that room - even if he still has remaining moves.
The two (2) types of occurrences each have a "bait" meaning also:
- An Event produces one Monster Virtue: Food, Treasure or Bloodlust.
- An Encounter produces a Token: +1, +2 or +3.
Once the "Lord of the Keep" (LOTK) is revealed, the third occurrence, the Relics, becomes the crucial aspect of the game. Relics will be linked to "Quests", Heroes must complete their Quests and succeed in reaching the LOTK goal.
Once a Quest is completed, a player earns the Relic which he can use at a later time.
The LOTK is revealed once (2x # of players Relics) are "baited". So if two (2) players are playing, there would be 4 Relics (and Quests) that would need to be accomplished before winning the game.
Comments
Not certain - yet
I'm still unsure if there should be a "Lord Objective" in addition to completing the required "Quests". I guess it might makes things more interesting in the long run...
Aside from getting NEW monster cards, you would of course have a NEW Lord and that would of course affect the outcome of how the game is played.
I like this aspect... I'm just worried it may be hard for a 2 player game to complete 4 Quests and the Lord's Objective.
I'm still toying around with the NEW prototype. I'm working on defining what the game might look like. It's very much a WIP... Early stages with quite a bit left to design.
Partial/hidden information
Another aspect of the game is "Partial/Hidden" information. As players "bait" the Monster Keep, the contents of each piece of information is completely hidden from all the players.
The only thing the players know is what kind of "token" is placed at each location... And remembering the details of said information is rather difficult because the Keep will be "baited" sometimes multiple times per tile.
But the "Lord of the Keep" (LOTK), once revealed, he can check the complete composition of "his" Keep. Players only know the "type" of tokens, not each one. The LOTK can check these at will to know how he can use them against the other Heroes...
So the game will have a DM without requiring a referee to administer the game...
Hidden VS. Partial information
One of the practical aspects that is bothering me are the "tokens". What concerns me, is that if I put them in separate bags like "cloth bags", when a player picks a token from a bag, because the side he pulls out might "reveal" the content of the "token".
So "tokens" are two-sided: one side shows the type of token, the other side the "number" (#) of the "token". Each token matches a corresponding card in one of three (3) decks: Event, Encounter and Relic/Quest.
In other words, players might already get a feel for what is going to be on the board (or in the Keep). So this would be a form of "partial" information. I would have liked it to be "hidden" information - but I don't think there is a mechanic out there that allows randomization and full hidden information.
Guess this will be known by future playtests.
Hidden information
It has been made clear to me that it would be realistically possible to keep all information hidden until the "Lord of the Keep" (LOTK) is revealed. It works in other games such as Poker so why not "Monster Keep".
Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest one! Thanks.