Hi all,
I've been working on designing my first board game and I've run into an issue it. I have the mechanics of the gameplay itself figured out for the most part. Also, I do have the overall idea of what the game will be about with the theme but the issues lies in with trying to integrate the theme with the mechanics of the game. Let me explain though in more detail to show what I mean:
First off, the main influences for my game thematically are coming from dark fantasy works with "big picture" type of themes/scenarios as well as occultism in general...
Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, Demon's/Dark Souls, & Shin Megami Tensei IV are my main influences with it media wise.
Boardgames I am influenced by with it: Mage Knight, Defenders of the Realm, and Darkest Night mainly. The idea is to adventure around a preset board...
Basically the overall idea I'd like to put forth in the game is this:
The world is in a apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic state and overrun by demons and/or warped humans (most likely due to a god-like/demiurge being intent on draining the world of its lifeforce before it moves on to another, though I may change/refine the story in the future). The player(s) in the game are working together to save the world from falling into complete oblivion BUT are also trying to remake the new world as they see fit with the power that they will gain.
Gameplay wise the game must be solo-playable and if with more than one player then it would be played co-operatively. The player(s) would travel around a board that has 4-5 bosses (minions/aspects of the god-being draining the world) that around the board that are guarding cosmic keys that are the source of the god-being's power and have to defeat them before some sort of losing condition occurs (most likely a darkness type of track similar to the game "Darkest Night" that accelerates negative things that occur on board and eventually trigger losing the game, but not a strict time limit in and of itself that automatically causes the game to be lost when at the end of the track. Any ideas on losing conditions would be appreciated). The board would have different tracts you could go into that are warped by the minions who have dominion overall the general areas on board. For example, one tract could be warped by the abyss and make it so when players draw event cards there they have to check to see if there is an "abyss effect" on the card which causes something further negative to occur, but if the player has some item or effect that grants "abyss shield" then they could ignore said effect.
As I mentioned earlier, I would like the game to be about defeating the bosses but a key thing I want to put in the game is how the players philosophy in game will allow them to create the new world if the game is won. This would be similar to the concept of "Reasons" within SMT Nocturne. While playing the game too it could also allow new special faction-only abilities to be gained. The main impact of this (besides knowing story wise that you established the new world as you see fit) that you would gain extra bonus to new abilities to use in future games (similar to the levelling up system in Space Alert's expansion between games); story wise it would be represented by the cosmic karmic imprint left on the cosmos by the creation of that new world. The in-game philosophies would correspond covenants/factions within the game, possibly found on board at certain locations and I am considering having those factions give the players quests to complete that can be done separately from the main game objective of slaying the bosses.
So to cut to heart of things, what's been on my mind is: if the players can follow their own factions' philosophies/alignments they join with, then how/why would they co-operate together story wise? If some of the factions have completely differing points of view how could two characters work together and keep it as a co-operative game? Perhaps I should make it semi-co-operative? If anyone has any other ideas on how to integrate factions/alignment into the game I'm open to other ideas too. An early idea was to have the bosses represent leaders of different factions but that I believe would be more suited to a pvp game than co-op
Basically what I'm asking for help on is ideas on how to refine the story to have it so it's still solo and co-operative playable but also have it so the players can follow different in-game philosophies/alignments for their characters
Sorry for my long-winded first post and thanks for any help on it.
As a Faction grows in power, this could unlock more abilities for the players, but the powers would be consistent with the Factions' overall themes.
Carry over to the next game would be very simple as you would only need to record the ending power levels of the various factions and use them as the starting values in the next game.
Sounds like a fun game - good luck with your design!
Thanks !
Before I respond, I have to talk about an important thing I forgot to mention in my original post and that is concerning the scale of the game. The factions are not like huge armies or groups, they are just about at most a few dozen people each, the world otherwise is a wasteland overrun by undead, corrupted humans, and demons. The factions don't have power enough to reshape the world or defeat the bosses so they are more influencing the individual heroes to take up their cause, whether individually and/or as a group.
I do like your ideas and also one of the ideas I had for the game was to have it so some of the bosses could be defeated in other ways besides combat (so perhaps they are corrupted humans guardian the god-being's power sources). One idea I had was that one boss could be defeated by gathering 3 artifacts you could find in treasures decks together for instance.
Have you ever played Cruel Necessity? That game tracks the state of various groups on board, maybe I should use a track similar to that?
"Would your game still work if the players themselves had no faction, but their actions caused the Factions to gain power?"
That is an option and seems to be the easiest way to implement things.
If that were the case then perhaps it wouldn't matter what the individual characters in the game do the total aggregate of the players actions as a group do as a whole that will determine how the world is remade when the bosses are defeated.
Though an important thing is that I do still want to do the idea of having one of the players be able to determine how the world is remade because I want the idea to be that the factions in the game itself aren't powerful enough on their own to defeat the bosses and/or guide the remaking of the world, they need a hero to do so for them. So I think if I were to use trackers on board maybe it'd be best to track the factions influence in the group/world (through the tracker on board) as well as the players alignment either on the tracker by using tokens representing the players or perhaps through individual hidden cards or something to keep track of as individuals?
The simplest idea I suppose to keep the game co-op /solo would be to have it so the factions gain power and strongest faction at end game determines how world is remade. Individual choice as to how a single hero wants the world to be remade could be allowed by having some events/quests allow a hero to lower and/or raise some of them through choice thus affecting other players previous choices on the tracker board.
But thematically I would like a player to determine that perhaps through having the most points or some other resource at end of game? If they co-op to kill a boss for instance then they draft vp cards and the player who did most damage to boss could pick which one they want first and then hand it to another person. The cards would represent vps at end but could also be discarded in game to purchase things or do re-rolls.
Any ideas on how to implement an individual winner who gets to choose how the world is remade after game is won would be appreciated.
Basically to summarize important points: I don't want the characters to have a faction they belong to per se. Rather the idea for the story is that the players are working together to save the world and if they do then they (or more likely/preferably, the individual player with the most vps or other type of thing to see they are the one who gets to make the choice) gain the power of the god-being to recreate the world as they see fit. The factions are not powerful groups waging war against each other or against the god-being's minions but rather are groups that are essentially whispering in the ears of the individual heroes, trying to influence them to recreate the world in the way that the faction believes it should be.
Event cards or other things could give multiple choices, depending on how a player reacts to the event it would raise or lower some factions. Besides events there could be quests...
"As a Faction grows in power, this could unlock more abilities for the players, but the powers would be consistent with the Factions' overall themes."
That's a very good idea. Utilizing that could give impact to players decisions as a group. I like it. Besides new abilities, different paths on the board could be opened up too for instance.
"Carry over to the next game would be very simple as you would only need to record the ending power levels of the various factions and use them as the starting values in the next game."
I don't like that idea so much. My main idea at this point is that new game+ from a theme perspective would be that the disaster takes place in a whole new world; that's why the individual choices should matter as the new game+ mode would level up you between games and being the player that chose (or influences most on the tracks? perhaps when you put adjust the faction tracks you take a counter each time to show you did so and that has some sort of effect at end game like the vp cards i mentioned earlier) how the world is remade would give you an extra bonus for levelling up. The levelling up would be justified as the impact/karma of the event reaching to others in a world going through same thing with the wandering god-beings that drain power from worlds to sustain their own existence. Though I am willing to entertain other story concepts that would give a reason to have new game+ levelling up system. For example, another idea for new game+ would be the individual hero is reborn into another world and has memory of past life where they dealt with same disaster in the past for example...