I thought I
Guard Duty
Mon, 06/30/2003 - 09:51
Tue, 06/24/2003 - 09:39
#1
Guard Duty
Thanks, Zaiga, for getting us started. And thanks, Ender, for getting in the game!
I
Tue, 06/24/2003 - 11:52
#2
Guard Duty
My initial reactions:
1. I skipped the backstory entirely - what is it there for?
2. The very first thing I came to: The Draft, doesn
Tue, 06/24/2003 - 15:04
#3
Guard Duty
Here are my initial observations as I read through the rules...
1. As people have mentioned, the backstory is long.
2. The Draft. From what are we drafting bodyguards. What exactly ARE bodyguards?
3. Turn Sequence: You say turns are devided into phases, and after a phase your turn is over.... does this mean you go one phase at a time, like "Player 1, phase 1; player 2 phase 1; player 3, phase 1; player 1 phase 2; player 2, phase 2; player 3, phase 2l; player 1, phase 3..." etc?
4. Movement Phase: As I
Tue, 06/24/2003 - 15:35
#4
Guard Duty
Further thoughts on this game idea...
Suppose each player had 1 suit of a standard deck. The Ace is your VIP, and the three face cards are your bodyguards, who maybe each have a special ability. Either everyone starts out the same, or maybe the suits are a little different (but balanced).
The other cards are in your hand, and serve as both offense and defense as follows.
On my turn I advance to the next sector. Instead of drawing opposition from a deck, each opponent (in turn) may add a Hostile Force to the board by playing a card from their hand. The number value of the card represents the strength of the force.
After each player has contributed a Force (or passed), Bodyguards are assigned to "block" each Hostile Force. Now another round of card playing happens, this time the cards are like Giant Growths or power ups which add to the strength of the Force being powered up. There could be a rule like
Tue, 06/24/2003 - 20:25
#6
Guard Duty
Thanks for those responses, folks - I really enjoyed the criticisms. :)
Well, where to start...
Background-wise, I
Tue, 06/24/2003 - 20:36
#7
Guard Duty
I look forward to seeing the updated version :)
Wed, 06/25/2003 - 06:53
#9
Guard Duty
Newly updated rules!
I
Wed, 06/25/2003 - 08:51
#10
Guard Duty
Could you post the updated version of the rules to your website? I wasn
Wed, 06/25/2003 - 11:07
#11
Guard Duty
Quote:
The strategic aspect of the game is choosing your team, and using them effectively - not choosing who you get to fight, and when you get to fight them (just as it would be in a real combat situation). Drafting is one of the most important aspects of the game - as I
Wed, 06/25/2003 - 15:45
#12
Guard Duty
It looks like there
Wed, 06/25/2003 - 15:50
#13
Guard Duty
Quote:
25-06-2003 at 08:07, jwarrend wrote:
I could be totally wrong, but I just don
Wed, 06/25/2003 - 19:55
#14
Guard Duty
It makes a lot more sense now.
I still think it
Wed, 06/25/2003 - 20:34
#15
Guard Duty
I think it sounds like fun, with a quick read-through. I agree about the lack of interactivity, though. I wonder if you could make a big fight at the end once someone reaches the chopper. Maybe it takes them a while to get the bird in the air, so the other players have x number of turns to catch up to them and fight them for the thing.
Otherwise, I like how it
Thu, 06/26/2003 - 03:26
#16
Guard Duty
...And yet another update, this time provided on the web for Jwarrend
Thu, 06/26/2003 - 08:52
#17
Guard Duty
Re: Hunter. I couldn
Thu, 06/26/2003 - 08:57
#18
Guard Duty
Ok, thanks for posting that on the web. It was very useful to see the full complement of Guards.
Unfortunately, I agree with [whoever it was that said] that the complexity has gone way up from what I thought.
Also, I think that your description of the guards combines "backstory" with "gameplay issues" in a way that
Fri, 06/27/2003 - 00:52
#19
Guard Duty
[ This message was edited by: The_Ender on 26-06-2003 21:55 ]
Fri, 06/27/2003 - 00:54
#20
Guard Duty
Well, after a considerable process of brainstorming, it seems that I
Fri, 06/27/2003 - 06:49
#21
Guard Duty
Not convinced by the trading idea.
However, the rest of it is starting to get interesting.
1. If you tell an opponent to draw an extra Opponent, your penalty should surely be the number of sectors "behind" you are (so if you are on 2 and Brad moves into sector 3, you should probably only draw 1 extra Opponent yourself.) This makes it necessary to "keep up" as otherwise things get progressively worse for you. In a multi-player game you may need to include a rule about how many other players can force you to take new Opponents - then a bit of psychological warfare can go on as players who are further behind won
Fri, 06/27/2003 - 07:55
#22
Guard Duty
I agree with Scurra -- drop the "trade" idea, it
Fri, 06/27/2003 - 10:05
#23
Guard Duty
Nice work on the rambling, Ender! I think that really is a good thing to see ... a similar process goes on in my head when I
Fri, 06/27/2003 - 18:37
#24
Guard Duty
I just updated the online PDF file with the new rules; incase you needed that URL again, it
Sat, 06/28/2003 - 19:49
#25
Guard Duty
OUCH!
...No, I didn
Mon, 06/30/2003 - 09:51
#26
Guard Duty
I don
Mon, 06/30/2003 - 21:53
#27
Guard Duty
Those were some good questions, Bryk - thanks for asking them. I took a little time to ponder them on my own... then I decided to call-up my gaming group to see if I could convince them to have another go at playing. I got all but one of them to agree to just one more session.
I figured that by keeping those questions in mind, I could dissect them more thoroughly as we played.
After an hour, when the game was finished, one of the guys scratched their head ad ask, "...And why didn't we finish playing the whole thing last time?"
Maybe today was just some kind of fluke, or maybe everyone just wasn't feeling very 'gamey' the last time we played, or maybe everyone was feeling really peppy today - but damn, I had some fun with Guard Duty this afternoon. :-)
...This is actually a little disappointing, at the same time that it should be relieving. I'm happy that we all had fun playing today - but I'm still worried as to why exactly we weren't having fun when we first played. If my game has decent merit, it should be fun ALL of the time, including (perhaps even especially) the first play - shouldn't it?
I wonder if it might have been the number of players playing (although even then I'm not sure why - the downtime between plays was nearly non-existent), and (obviously) I was unable to test this theory, not being to help being one player short.
I was also curious as to whether it was the team that the player used - but I more or less ruled-out this possibility by running through the game a second time, with another player using the absent one's prior Squad. The game was no less fun (although this wasn't truly a controlled examination, since it was impossible to put ALL of the previous Squads on the 'board').
Anyone else experienced a circumstance where their playtest really sucked this first time, but went really well on second trials (without any real mechanical changes)? If so, how did you react to it?
Thanks again!
- Ender
Mon, 06/30/2003 - 22:33
#28
Guard Duty
I've had *proven* games that sucked when played sometimes ... it really depends on the group, and their mood, and what their expections are ... and a host of other things.
I'm guessing that play-testing a lot will be important for this game. A number of times with the same group ... and with different groups ... and with a different number of players. Is the solo version fun? Do other people think so?
-Bryk
Tue, 07/01/2003 - 06:29
#29
Guard Duty
I'm very glad to hear that the second run went so well.
I would also observe that the trick is sometimes working out exactly what was different - even tiny changes can have a huge effect and you're not always aware that those tiny changes have been made (unless you've been very good and kept detailed notes: yeah, right :) )
I had one example of a game in which I accidentally missed out a rule on almost all of the first runs throughs. It was a very small rule - a certain category of cards were not discarded but reshuffled back - but it turned out that the change it made to the game was huge.
So I'm not totally surprised that you had two radically different experiences.
I agree with a lot of points already made about the manual not being clear in certain areas.
I