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NEED help on two of my game elements

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Joska Paszli
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Joined: 05/25/2012

For years i am busy creating a hex based fantasy board-wargame where players command hex shaped unit-tokens (4.5 cm wide) and their leaders on stands.. Armies consist of about 20-25 units and about 6 characters like a lord, heroes, standard carrier and spellcasters.

Almost all rules are ready now... but i have also 3 sort of cards implemented:

- common and special command cards these are the core of the game so no input needed on this but. These are used for normal movement and shooting. The player pick a special one before each turn.

-spell cards for spellcasters
-eventcards for increased joy

Spellcards
I -currently- prefer a system where players not choose the available spells and use the selected ones through the whole game like in a game like Warhammer.
But in the rules i have now players draw them new ones when they use one, they can hold a number of them based on the total casters level... in this way all spells the game provide will appear in the game.In average the player will have 3 spellcards in his hands.
Players must roll a dice to check if the spell succeeds.Dispelling is not possible unless they play an eventcard that allows dispelling.

QUESTION: What u prefer, to pick your own spells and use them the whole game or every turn facing new available spells?

Eventcards
I use a 24 set of eventcards. All these cards are either small benefits to your own army or small penalties to the enemies army. Think of cards like Out of Ammo where 1 shooting unit can not shoot one turn and Pathfinder where a unit which normally would pay penalties in terrain like woods could pass without penaltycosts or Reroll where the player can reroll a dice or Dispell Magic where the effects of a spell is dispelled.

Right now the player holds max 3 of those eventcards and draw each turn one of them and can play as many as he holds in a turn. This allowing to scheme a devious plan.

QUESTION: Do you know a neat way to obtain eventcard? For example one side of a dice... if a player rolls a 1 on a 1D6 in combat it gets one eventcard.

Extra info
The eventcards are really different from the spellcards. The spellcards are stronger and allow bigger tactical advantages but the player must pay points to enlist the spellcaster(s).
Now the player can have max 3+3 credicards sized cards in his hands and about 6 halfcreditcardsized command cards.

Need help
I am seeking for a way to implement the spell and eventcards in a nicer way. I know a game where the change on an eventcard is based on the size of an army. But for me this is too much time consuming. I want to streamline everything in my game. So no extra calculation on such.

QUESTIOn: Do you have a fluid idea how to combine the spellcards and eventcards?

questccg
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Hmm...

QUESTION: What u prefer, to pick your own spells and use them the whole game or every turn facing new available spells?

This depends on the style of the game. Like if you have a DECK with 60 cards, well then the deck-building aspect would make it that you could BUILD the spells cards into the deck and have a library of spells at your disposal but only when you DRAW those cards in your hand.

The other approach is like you are suggesting, in your hand you have like 5 spells and then if you want to change a spell for something new, you need to MEMORIZE the spell and then it becomes part of your spell hand.

MY OPINION: It seems as if your game already has a LOT going on. You have hex cards, miniatures, armies of 20-25 units, command cards, etc. Personally I would restrict spells to a HAND of 5 to 8 cards. This sort of library could be like a 2nd HAND. People say they don't like to manage two hands - but in your game, I think it COULD WORK.

Maybe you could have like a three (3) card MAXIMUM and gain cards as you gain in "experience" (to a maximum of 8 cards). That's like 5 experience levels. And you could of course have spells for different levels (1-5) where you could have 3 level 1, 2 level 2, 1 level 3/4/5.

I think two hands could work well... But that's just my opinion.

radioactivemouse
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All of these questions seem

All of these questions seem like something that would work itself out in testing. You can't have a rigid set of rules before you make your prototype. You gotta keep it loose to account for trial and error.

I say make the game and test all the issues you've asked about. You'll know very quickly what works and what doesn't.

wombat929
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Let the theme inform your choice here

Joska Paszli wrote:
QUESTION: What u prefer, to pick your own spells and use them the whole game or every turn facing new available spells?

I agree with questccg that this seems like a lot going on. I'd let the theme guide your choice here. How does magic work in your world? In most RPGs, Wizards "memorize" a certain number of spells that they can't re-use until they've rested or something. If my wizard in the game has a book or has to memorize (or both), how does he get different spells each turn?

(To be clear: you don't need to convey all this to the players, though flavor text can be nice. But if theme is important to you, I'd urge you to be consistent about it.)

Joska Paszli wrote:
QUESTION: Do you know a neat way to obtain eventcard? For example one side of a dice... if a player rolls a 1 on a 1D6 in combat it gets one eventcard.

This might be a good way to make bad rolls sting less. A TOUCH OF EVIL has a similar mechanic that if you roll a 1 for your movement, you get to draw an extra event (or search?) card. They explain that your slow movement is because you're being extra careful.

Joska Paszli
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Ha thats a nice touch... well

Ha thats a nice touch... well i had ideas for some sort of a faithladder or gift of the gods where bad things happening in the game for a player are counted up and at a certain point that player gets the benefit from all of his bad luck like being able to summon a deamon to fight for him...

well i dont think not much is going on in my game when it comes to cards and such....

players pick a number of common command cards at start of the turn based on the total command level
and 1 special command card
and 1 random event card, they can hold a max of 3 in their hand
They already have a few spellcards based on the total magic level, lets say 3

a turn consists of command waves based on number of common commandcards of each side. each wave a player picks a common command card which shows a number on it and the highest goes first and can move and or shoot with a single unit or a brigade up to the players choice. the 1 special command card they can play when they want.
meanwhile players can play eventcards when they want (if instant) or always in their ow turn
and meanwhile spellcasters can cast a spell (depending on the spell when they want or only n their own commandwave)

spells have a number on them lets say 5, if a level 2 spellcaster wants to cast the spell he must throw a 3 or more to succeed. if he fails he doesnt lose the spellcard. if he succeeds he loses it and draws an other at the end of the turn so the total number matches his total spellcasters level again...
some eventcards allow a dispell of a spell or a reroll of dice so the outcome of spells are an uncertain factor.

mages are powerfull but cost a lot...and are no winners unless tactical used best...

the combination of a few eventcards and a few spellcards allow to create a nice tactical twist to turn the tide. players can store 2 eventcards and spellcards for the next turn and wait till these cards fits their plans best...

Joska Paszli
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btw i love to read ideas some

btw i love to read ideas some games have on this subject.... so bring them if u have them :)

Midnight_Carnival
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I have perhaps a silly

I have perhaps a silly idea.
I haven't played your game and don't have a sense of how well my suggestion would work.

instead of getting spells in the spell cards you could get a number of "magic elements" per turn, only a few could be kept and the rest must be discarded. You would have a vast array of spells you could use but would need to 'build' them from the elements.
For example you might be working against an enemy formation and need a lot of one element which would give your spell an effect on an area whereas another would give your spell a powerful effect on one unit (a hero?)

As I said, I don't know how well this suggestion would work in your game but it is something you might consider.

Soulfinger
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Joska Paszli wrote:QUESTION:

Joska Paszli wrote:
QUESTION: What u prefer, to pick your own spells and use them the whole game or every turn facing new available spells?

The rationale behind consistent spell cards is that it offers up one less random aspect to foil a player's plans. If your die rolls are already poor then it would be even more disappointing to draw an "Involuntary Lactation" spell in place of the fireball you'd been hoping for.

You could do both though. Games like Warhammer use, or used to (I haven't played since 4th edition), fluctuating spell points to limit what spell casters can achieve in a turn and represent the ebb and flow of magic. You could represent this somewhat differently by having a wizard start with one or more spell cards picked by the player, but then gain additional random ones each turn, essentially having the character power up, like a character from Dragonball Z, over the course of the battle. Perhaps different conditions unlock additional spells, like a Necromancer getting an additional card for each unit destroyed.

Joska Paszli wrote:
QUESTION: Do you know a neat way to obtain eventcard? For example one side of a dice... if a player rolls a 1 on a 1D6 in combat it gets one eventcard.

You could gain them for seizing and holding objectives. Criteria could be determined by the individual unit type -- like gaining one card if a berserker unit starts the turn in combat or if an undead unit is near a grave.

Centaur255
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Joined: 06/23/2015
Testing Will Help

I'm with Radioactivemouse - I think testing will help. A few thoughts off the top of my head for you:

1) Rotating Hand: I think it's possible you could have a rotating hand that would work something like this: you have a max of, say, 8 spells in your "Spell Book" at the start of the game. You always have a hand of 5 spells so that you have some variety, and then as you play a spell and it is successfully cast it's put at the bottom of the Spell Book, allowing you to draw another spell (so that you're back up to five). This would give some flux to the kinds of spells that are being cast each turn (though if you could successfully cast four spells you could get back the first spell that you cast that round, so it's not "gone" per se for long), would give some random factor to it, but would also make it predictable enough that a guy who is having a bad day is also getting torn up by the random arrival of spells.

2) Hand Limit by Mana Cost: If you use a mana pool for casting or something like that (a limited number of D6 to roll to cast the spell, for example), you could make it so that the number of spells you can have is based on the total mana cost of all of those spells, so the guy with little fireball-style spells has more tools at his disposal than the guy who just takes large tidal wave-style spells. This idea dates back to the Runescape online RPG from way back when, where players had access to all kinds of spells but if you ran out of the runes (which was their "magic elements" mentioned earlier in this thread) you couldn't cast the spells anymore (or other spells, if they required the same resource). Same concept here: people can have up to, say, 20 Mana Points in their magic "Deck," so the deck could be up to, say, 10-15 cards (if small spells only had 1-2 Mana on them), while another guy could have as few as 4-5 spells but they would be larger. Still cast normally, but this would give a sense of strategy to the question of, "How many spells should I take?" It all depends on what you want them to do.

Just a few ideas - hope it's helpful!

Calixtus
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Joined: 08/07/2013
Is this Fate?

Damn, this must be Fate, for I have developed a board game similar to yours in many aspects. Is yours by any chance inspired from Nexus Ops? I feel we should work together, on both our projects, in fact, one of my Factions behave very similar to those command cards you have. Let's talk more on this, you can search me up on Facebook. Give me the go sign, and I will message you my name.

wombat929
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Lame Mages

Soulfinger wrote:
The rationale behind consistent spell cards is that it offers up one less random aspect to foil a player's plans. If your die rolls are already poor then it would be even more disappointing to draw an "Involuntary Lactation" spell in place of the fireball you'd been hoping for.

Now this would be a fun game:

LAME MAGE
The game of apprentice wizards toying with powers they can't possibly understand.

It could be a spell-casting card battle game where the bits of spells come from their masters' spellbooks, and while the players have the raw power and components to do the spells, they don't know what they do nor how to control them.

Involuntary Lactation would have to be one of the spells.

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