What are good mechanics for implementing a "dungeon crawl" game in card form? I've been toying with some mechanics but my current design is far too similar to Dungeoneer :/.
I want to do a redesign of Doom: TBG for added portability and wish to keep the custom dice, but I can't figure a clean way to handle the larger rooms and encounters with lots of monsters.
do you mean you want players to play cards from their hand as their dice roll rather than actually rolling dices in order to improve the strategy level?
here is an idea I wanted to use. It's still use a board but it changes the scale. Instead of having steps to move on in the room and corridors, rooms are now smaller and they only count as 1 area. So a room or a corridor segment will be a place where your character can move.
This way, the board will be smaller, there will be much less things to calculate, " you are in the room or not", since there is no line of sight anymore. Still it requires a board but it will be lighter to play and will require less space.
Else you could use cards as the board. Refer to steve jackson's hacker and illuminati game where cards connect as a board game. The only drawback is the the cards can move during the game play. So I really suggest tiles.
Dungeonquest and drakkon use a system where each square tile is a room, and tiles are connected to each other.
But all the suggestions above has a board, it's just that some has modular board which might be more transportable. For a no board game, I think it would be hard for a dungeon crawler. The only thing I can see close to it is munchkin.
First, for each component of Doom: TBG that you want to eliminate, whether it be the board, itself, or the miniatures, or whatever, ask yourself what core function or functions that each component serves?
If you eliminate the board, portability increases, but a frame of reference for distance may be lost, as an example. If you lose the frame of reference, such as for determining range, line of sight (LOS), or whatever, by getting rid of the board, then in order to emulate that particular desired function or game mechanic, you must compensate. Otherwise, your design suffers a loss from what it is that you are trying to achieve.
If you retain miniatures, but do away with the board, then what will the miniatures do? Where will they be displayed by players engaged in playing the game?
If you want to delete miniatures, then cards can certainly be used to emulate miniature figures. Deleting the board is more problematic, although you can utilize multiple decks of cards to emulate various features that boards commonly provide in board games.
Connecting cards end to end is problematic, not simply because cards have a tendency to move around, but also because a dungeon created via the process of placing cards end to end can quickly run off the edge of a table where the game is being played.
I have no way of knowing what is or is not obvious to you. That said, I wish you the best with your design.
Give the rooms (whatever they are - 1 card each?) a Size rating.
Give the players Size and Speed ratings.
Create a small-ish deck of "cover" cards.
Give each Cover card a Size rating.
When a room is entered, or an encounter starts (or whatever), players get to draw some number of Cover cards and choose one from among those to use as their cover. The Size rating of the cover relative to their own size modifies defenses against hits.
A bigger room might allow drawing more. A faster player would get to draw more. The idea being that more cards == more chance of finding cover.
Or a fast player may forfeit some of his draws to get in an early shot or some other kind of action before the encounter actually starts.
Or you may have the fastest rated player draw all of the cards for the team (based on total team speed), choose one, pass to the next fastest player, etc.. In this way, the fastest player may actually choose an Open Space card, knowing he can more easily move to a teammate's better-covered position during a later round (leaving that card for his teammate to choose).
Or, the room size could indicate the total number of Cover cards in play and maybe their arrangement. For example:
3 cards in a line
6 cards, 3 wide and 2 deep
9 cards, 3x3
And the speedier players get to choose their positions first, and when the Size of the cover is used up, no other teammates can cover there. This could also address range.
As for range, I suppose the Cover cards could also indicate that aspect. The number on the card represents distance to the center of the room or something, so your range plus the target's range is the total distance over which you must fire. (Dunno, positioning with range seems REALLY tough without a fixed base for measurement - i.e., a board.)
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No, what I mean is "What mechanics could be useful to eliminate the need for a board (using cards for it), while retaining the basic tactical feel of the game?".
Most dungeon crawls use large modular map boards, with lots of tiles and miniatures. Usually dice are involved for resolving combat/events or ranged attacks. In this particular game (Doom: TBG) range and LOS are important elements that are handled by the dice rolls. What I want to do is to do away with the boards (for greater portability) while retaining the core tactical elements of positioning.
In other words, I want ideas for making a generic system (either for this particular redesign project or for other games of a similar genre), that eliminates or greatly reduces the need for massive boards.