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Love dungeon keeper 2? You're smart and have time?

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GameKnight
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Deep Game with No Market?

This sounds like a game with a lot of thought put into it, but no market for it. Even D&D started with a small rule book and grew from there into the multi-volume game it is today.

You should be able to boil the basic rules down to under 30 pages, and have some reference books that describe the numerous parts of the game.

questccg
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You're not the only one!

GameKnight wrote:
...You should be able to boil the basic rules down to under 30 pages...

It's pretty unanimous that a "Board Game" has to be written in LESS than 30 pages. I don't think the originator of "his baby" understand what the reality is in board games. And numerous people have pointed out that this is what needs to happen IF he wants to transform his 600 page book of ideas - into something that can be played and enjoyed by ACTUAL gamers.

So far no acknowledgement that he understands what everyone is trying to say.


He's probably under the impression that 0.1% of the total population would actual even TRY to play a 600 page game. And for him that's grand enough. I doubt he aspires to have designed a game that MOST people can enjoy playing.

Maybe only a subset of the market with either a War Games background or something similar - or perhaps the RPG market which are used to laborious reading hundreds of pages to satisfy they gaming needs.

Rick L
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The impression I got is that

The impression I got is that he wants to keep it huge and market it that way. I don't know if there is much of a market for that, but sounds like he sees it appealing to old school veteran dungeon masters who dream of epic and intricate campaigns.

I think he mainly wants collaboration in organizing and refining something that has already been working on the grand scale it was intended for. That was what I got from it anyway.

Sounds like a monumental accomplishment, which is great, but not sure if it could be marketed to a small subgroup of gamer geniuses, as stated in the OP.

questccg
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Not a board game

Mokheshur wrote:
The impression I got is that he wants to keep it huge and market it that way...

I have learned the HARD way:

1. Don't try to create some unique "Business" Model for your game.

It probably won't work. People are used to "standard" four (4) player games. If you expect to sell anything, you can't use NEW models ... because the market doesn't work that way. I know - I have tried and failed.

2. Don't try to use your own format for rules.

Gamers are used to pre-defined "de-Facto" standards for rulebooks. If you go in another direction, people will tend to be confused with the game. What happens next is that A> they either shelve your game B> have a difficult time playing it - which results in future shelving of your game.

I don't think there is a market for a 600 page "Board Game". He says it's a board game... I have a hard time believing that anything that large has any cohesion in terms of managing gameplay.

IMHO this sounds to me like a RPG with a "Dungeon-feel" to it. With a bunch of rules that are designed to take the players through it.

It doesn't sound like a "Board Game" to me...

roger
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Thank you for all those

Thank you for all those comments. It really helps put things into perspective. I think my goal is not to make it into a board game as such, unless it ages enough to become more practical and less unwieldy. Your view of real life boardgames is depressing and narrow, even if true i trust you. Thanks for sharing the experience. Look at KDM. This is a 500$ board game that became a success. Niche indeed, but real life as much as any other game. In your world, where is the dream, the escape feeling, the immersion factor, the suspension of disbelief? My belief is that, given enough time, the board game monster in my basement will settle down and get some bone structure, grow some teeth, like a Frankenstein monster. In its current state, there is no risk for it to end up in a shelf. It needs a big car! I believe the inner structure will come to emerge if i keep brewing it. In the meantime, it is destined to become a video game, turn based, on internet. Strategy.
The building of a real physical prototype is a prerequisite. Boardgame and website can evolve in parallel. I am learning c# and asp.net core. Have you seen a flat screen, horizontal, used as a board game media? The flat TV IS the table, the game board itself. With touchscreen feature, what do you think is going to be the future of boardgames? It is obvious to me that the "tried and true" model of game pieces, meeples and nice colored cards is becoming obsolete. The future of gaming is in merging it with a website, on a smartphone or a tablet. Later it will be in virtual reality. Some of you, readers, are still living in the old world. Me too I admit...
 So I am not trying to reduce it into a 30 pages mini game for the sake of publishing a WizWar2. I want to keep the game big because its value is in the ecosystem, which needs a critical mass in order to autobalance itself. I surprised myself discovering there is no easy obvious victory path. Its size is what makes it puzzling, stimulating. For me, and some playtesters, this is fun. You gather a bunch of slimes, anacondas, spiders to accompany the Vampire riding his Skeleton steed. The steed came back from a quest on the Sunland but had to stop to prevent another player from winning. The system is flushed and filled with stories. There is strategy, tactics for sure. On the long run, if you satisfy more quests you should win. But there are maybe 12 victory conditions. How can you be sure you will achieve victory first?
@Rick: yes, you have understood what I am trying to do. Refining, organizing, polishing but keeping it fun, rich. Marketing is only a far fetched thought. The design process is most of the fun. Instead of writing a novel, I write it as a dungeon module of the eighties, which happens to be playable a little bit like "Castle Ravenloft", but deeper, more strategic, more stimulating. I do it within the frame of my home business, R&D in education.

I acknowledge what some of you are saying, that is it is too big, it needs to be cut in smaller parts, it won't work as a successful board game, etc. So what? I am doing this as a hobby, not as a money making goal. There is no need to feel offended because people think differently. "Unanimous?" I don't think so. It seems unconceivable for some of you, but it is true. I am not in boardgames for the money. I am not even into it for the recognition. I am into it because I love it, and some around me love it as well. And consequently, maybe some others, out there, will love it as well. I feel a good boardgame is defined by the stories the players share together, weeks after the session. If the game is good, the ruleset, the players will come, not the other way around. And if they don't come, all the same for me. The thrill is in the development, the research, the creativity.
I still appreciate all the help and I agree the game needs some steamlining, but never under 30 pages.
I conclude this interlude with an extract of one of the creatures' Talents, the Darkishtar. It gives a real feel of the type of game I am talking about. Far from flipping a boring tile or thinking whether the game box will fit on a shelf or not, the player can instead choose to feel immersed in the wall glyph glide, following a 3-D path on the wall, ceiling and floor, over half the map distance, like in a Russian mountain Canada Wonderland ride, in two dimensions!
 Darkishtar . L3 . 7G . 3F . 4E . S4 . 6T
Talents: Melee(spiked gloves or whip), Haste Self(1), Slapping(1), Anaconda(2), Octostar(2), Lightning(3), Akkadian(3), Sargonic(3), Achaemenid(4), Flash(4), Freeze(5), Moonspark(6), Hail Storm(6)
Sex: F; Acronym: DI
Type: Living, Human, MinerM, SHOCKER
Hobby: Training, Praying, Converting, testing conversion Lightning . Range . L3: a blue iridescent Lightning targets a sub-tile, within a range of 2 tiles, +1 Tile per invested Spark . It is blocked by obstacles Door (Wood, Braced, Portcullis, Iron, Stone, Magic, Gate), standing Creatures (unlike Slime, Anaconda, Alligator), Bedrock, Softrock, Vein, Statue (if zapper is an Adventurer, Lightning cannot go into shadowy non-Aura lit area). But, along the way, if there is any direct path to an Iron Fixture /Creature, like a Golem, it is redirecting there, where it absorbs the zap without damage. Roll “To Hit” dice (before rolling, degrade the weakest battle die by 2 pips for each distant tile) >= target Defence. For every Hit Success, deal 1 LP damage and stun for 1 turn (place Stunned markers) (half Defence (round down, min. stays 1) while stunned). Double Hit Successes (multiplies by 2 your number of rolled successes) if target is in Water /Mudbath, in which case all connected wet sub-tiles within 1 Tile radius are electrified for 1 LP damage but the bolt vanishes. This sentient Lightning bolt goes through target, unless a “To Hit” die is “1” or the target receives 0 LP damage, at which point the bolt fizzles away. Note the zapper can become a target if within 1 Tile radius of the target’s pool of Water /Mudbath. Supercharge: if the rolled Talent die shows “6 ”, a secondary target is hittable, the closest to the primary target, even the zapper; the secondary receives 1 less LP damage than normal. If “6 ”, “6 ”, a tertiary target. If “6 ”, “6 ”, “6 ”, a fourth target.
Akkadian . Melee . SUP . L3: at the start of a Melee battle, engraving a glyph-free adjacent4 Rock with this cuneiform glyph, the recipient casts an adrenalin-like Darkishtar ritual. Firstly, place your flag on the cuneiform-marked Rock; it belongs to you. Then, at the beginning of each battle round, the opponent gets +3 EP (permanent), the recipient +2 LP (temporary) and the marked Rock gets a +1 rank better Panel (permanent, from none to Wood, to Iron, Stone, Diamond). Supercharge: if the rolled Talent dice show “6 ”, if escaping from the battle with a pair of paw-paw Handicap Dice, the recipient can enter into the marked Rock and rest there, permanently, able to shoot at range (further than 1 sub-tile away) but no Melee close-combat. If “6 ”, “6 ”, a summoned sister Darkishtar L3 joins the battle, adjacent8 to the opponent, at the beginning of second round; then one more at third round, etc.; those summoned stay up to t10; those can themselves engrave a second Akkadian cuneiform glyph on a glyph-free adjacent4 Rock; etc... If “6 ”, “6 ”, “6 ”, the summoned are L6 and all cuneiform-marked Rocks permanently form a network of teleportation way points for Darkishtars.
Sargonic . Melee . SUP . L3: at the start of a Melee battle, engraving a glyph-free adjacent4 Rock with this cuneiform glyph, the recipient casts a Sumerian Darkishtar ritual. For the battle duration, the writings (2 dimensional; cannot move) fight alongside the recipient, like an extra Darkishtar L3 on the same sub-tile as the recipient. Supercharge: if the rolled Talent die shows “6 ”, the extra Darkishtar of the wall is L4. If “6 ”, “6 ”, L5. If “6 ”, “6 ”, “6 ”, L6 and all cuneiform-marked Rocks permanently form a network of teleportation way points for Darkishtars.
Achaemenid . Melee . MOV . L4: at the start of a Melee battle, engraving a glyph-free adjacent4 Rock with this cuneiform glyph, the recipient casts a Mazdayasna Darkishtar ritual. It prevents altogether any battle dice to be rolled; the battle is immediately over. The recipient becomes two dimensional (2-D), on the wall, embodied into those cuneiform engravings. It cannot fight, use Talent or Power, cannot be harmed in any way (short of destroying the wall, in which case the recipient pops out, unharmed) but it can move, slide and flow alongside the wall, floor and ceiling (but still no Mudbath Room contact) at normal Speed, up to t10. Costs no move point over Panels. As a 2-D picture, it does not trigger Traps, can cross Portcullis, Firedoor, all creatures. Before t10, anytime, the recipient can come back to three dimensions (3-D), thus ending the Achaemenid Talent. Supercharge: if the rolled Talent die shows “6 ”, for 1G or Mana or Spark per Creature Level, a chain of extra connected adjacent4 allies can be brought along in the moving 2-D cuneiform engravings, but the group move Speed is the one of the recipient;. If “6 ”, “6 ”, all Achaemenid-wall-absorbed creatures are turned permanently to Darkishtars when coming back to 3-D, but they keep their original Level. If “6 ”, “6 ”, “6 ”, when back to 3-D, also all TP, LP, Mood are restored to normal start rating; Poison, Disease, Curse, Ash, Handicaps and all impediments are washed clean.
Flash . MOV . L4: like “Lightning . L3”, but recipient is Ligthning-immune, and can “ride” the bolt. Merging inside, recipient exits instantly anywhere along the path travelled by the lightning beam, including its last sub-tile. But still cannot contact or cross Mudbath Room. For 1G or Mana or Spark per Creature Level, recipient can bring along a chain of adjacent4 connected allies.
Freeze . Range . ATT . L5: within 2 tile radius, designate a sub-tile, within line-of-sight (obstacles are Doors (Wood, Braced, Iron, Stone, Magic, Fire), standing Creatures (unlike Slime, Anaconda, Alligator), Bedrock, Softrock, Vein, Ice Cube, non-transparent elements (like Smog, Fog, gas, smoke, cloud, Mist), Statue), as impact spot; up to 1 sub-tile radius, place “Ice” markers on open Land (Tunnel, Room, Water) adjacent4 connected sub-tiles. There, ice covers ground, walls, ceiling… Cold immune creatures travel free of MP, fireproof creatures cannot go through, non-flying others travel like on a Tunnel at max. Speed 1 (flyers just hover without touching Tunnel surface). Roll “To Hit” dice (before rolling, degrade the weakest battle die by 2 pips for each distant tile) >= target Defence against each enemy Creature / Fixture there. Each non-Cold-immune hit target becomes encased in “Ice Cube” (add marker) and loses 1 LP: it cannot move by itself (except psionic like Blink, Telekinesis, Teleport…). From each ice-cubed creature, extend the ice zone by adding 4 extra Ice markers connected adjacent4, attempting to encompass other creatures / fixtures. The freezing zone can thus extend while processing the Freeze effect. Every turn, discard, in this zone, one ice marker from a covered sub-tile. If there is none left other than Ice Cubes, then melt an ice cube, the creature / fixture within comes back to action. An Ice Cubed Creature /Fixture can be pushed by any non-gaseous Creature or any standing Creature (unlike Slime, Anaconda, Alligator), from the back of the Ice Cube (same position as when kicking a tiny Skull), at a Speed of 1 per turn. If it is on liquid Water /Mudbath sub-tile, the Ice Cube floats and can be pushed once at normal Water Speed of the pusher; after the initial push, the cube continues by inertia in the same direction, up to landing on a Room /Tunnel shore sub-tile or rebounding at a chosen angle (when hitting an obstacle). Every turn, 1 ice cubed creature’s Gear is shattered if you roll “Gold” on a Golden Die (victim owner chooses which to discard). If an Ice Cubed is an undead Ghost, it is killed (discard). If an Ice Cubed is attacked by a creature (or other means) and suffers at least one Hit Success (cannot retaliate), the ice cube breaks apart thereafter (discard “Ice Cube” marker) and the victim is stunned for 1 turn (half Defence (round down, min. stays 1)). Can be used to displace Fixtures. Fireproof and Paladin targets suffer twice more LP damage then twice stun duration while “de-Ice Cubed”. Supercharge: if the rolled Talent die shows “6 ”, +1 sub-tile impact radius. If “6 ”, “6 ”, add 8 (instead of 4) extra Ice markers for each ice-cubed creature. If “6 ”, “6 ”, “6 ”, Cold immune creatures can be targets as well (but suffer no LP damage).
Moonspark . L6: if spending 6 Gremlins or 12 Sparks , a sudden burst of Moon black light strikes the Tile of the recipient. Place permanently 1 Dark Moon night marker (or remove Sun marker if there is any in the area).

questccg
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Cardboard will never go away.

Well if you don't care about the "success" of your "game"... well then who cares if it is 30 or 600+ pages.

Believe me I understand. It's just that you seem to "ignore" what a TYPICAL gamer wants to bring to his table. You also have to THINK that even if your game is "Advanced" younger children may want to play: if the adults LIKE the game, that may interest their offspring.

Personally "success" is all about numbers. To me: the MORE the BETTER! It's a hobby - but at the same time I would like to be "successful" in that people are playing my game.

Don't get me wrong... People may play your 600+ page game. But please understand that we are NOT talking about the masses. In turn, when I talk about my own WIP, the goal is two-folds:

  1. Have a "core" game that even a 9 year old can play along with his Family (think parents and older brother or sister).

  2. Have a "advanced" version geared for 13+ year old gamers along with more experienced veteran gamers ... who want something immersive.

What is "immersive" by my own definition (in contrary to what you express), this means you can ENJOY the exclusive story-lines written by a great Sci-Fi writer... But you need to "re-sort" the cards to do so. A bit creative and very interesting to READ the storylines about the four (4) Factions.

I'm not a REAL RPG fan. I have never played D&D ... but I have always been fascinate by their "lore". So I like Sci-Fi and Fantasy.

What you have "written" about the "Darkishtar" sounds like something I MIGHT read in a "Monster Manual": a 100-200 page RPG document which tells me about the various creatures that I might encounter in a "dungeon".

It doesn't read "Board Game" to me at all. With that amount of DETAIL, there is no way you're going to be able to transform it into a REAL "Board Game". When I was young we had a Train Set in my basement... Even if you have some "monstrous" creation in your basement, doesn't mean it will become something that people may play.

Sure with you "Guiding" your players - it might be FUN. But that's the problem... Only you will know how to PLAY the game. Others need to learn it and at 600+ pages, you're going to need to figure out if this "monster" is best served as an RPG with several volumes, clearly divided too.

You can image how people get "confused" with 20 pages of rules. Some think that 20 pages IS TOO MUCH! And will not play games with bigger rulebooks. So we too face rejection as well... I know some "newbies" to my own WIP have given me a 3/10. But experienced gamers have given me 9/10!!! And strong reviews.

Can you imagine 1/5th of the game had to be REMOVED from my "core" game?! Why? Because "newbie" gamers (people that had never played modern board games) felt "Analysis Paralysis". A syndrome where you can't figure out what to do because there are TOO MANY OPTIONS available to you! Sound familiar?! So maybe your game is not for "newbies"... I on the other hand wanted my OWN WIP to be a "Gateway" game. Something Veterans and "newbies" could BOTH enjoy.

So I removed 1/5th of the game! It didn't kill me... LOL


And about your "what do you think is going to be the future of boardgames?"

I personally deal with "Card Games". That's my interest. When I think about card games - I think how BORING "Hearts" is on the computer and HOW MUCH FUN it is playing with Four (4) living people. I've got to admit "Hearthstone" is boring to me... I like HAVING the PHYSICAL CARDS to play the game.

And from that standpoint of view - I doubt card games will disappear.

Funny that you should mention "Flat TVs"... Do you know how many people play Magic: The Gathering. They have a Video Game with all the cards you can play. And still people go to their local Magic shop to both BUY and PLAY the game.

So I'm not certain about the "future"... But my guess people will always be interest in playing "Card Games"...

FrankM
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Is this 600-page book "red" by any chance?

This sounds like the Red Book, a vast collection of one group's RPG notes that eventually became Rolemaster and its spin-offs like Middle Earth Role Playing and Spacemaster.

Rolemaster had rules for pretty much everything. Think you're clever having you character walk on some improvised stilts? Not only are there already rules for stilt-walking, there are predetermined skill point costs for getting better at it for dozens of character classes.

Importantly, that system was not published all in one go. Core components were published one at a time (not so subtly marketed as alternatives for specific parts of AD&D). You probably can't be that piecemeal about it, since you'll almost certainly want a playable stand-alone game to start, but there needs to be some reckoning of what is "core" versus what is "supplemental" versus what is "optional."

Little or nothing gets thrown out, but splitting it up forces some level of coherence and interoperability to the mechanics.

Beyond dividing the game into learnable chunks, you should also consider what makes this game distinctive from other RPGs already on the market. That can become the unifying theme of what belongs in the "core."

roger
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Core vs supplemental vs

Core vs supplemental vs optional. I like that. I am not clear on which part belong to which of those 3 categories.
I was more thinking about simple progressive tutorials, presenting each a rule, a creature, a room. There could be easily a hundred of them. At the same time, in parallel, I wanted some sessions of complete play with all the components. This parallel approach is what I am slowly implementing.
Another dimension I am slowly developing is Skirmish vs Campaign. In Skirmish, like in Civilization IV or Heroclix, you have a fixed number of Army points to buy your creatures and dungeon features from the whole list. So you can start small, like an Imp vs an Imp, and gradually try bigger armies. When you qualify by reaching some optimum, the Campaign elements become gradually available up to a point where you can start a Campaign.
A.I. is also a field of tremendous interest, how to find the better things to do and ask a computer to play it like that. In Age of Mythology, computer players can be assigned a personality, aggressive, defensive. There are certainly some personalities in the game I prepare. Some players are turtling and hiding all. Some are expansionist. Some are defensive with one entry, well controlled. Some are sending diversions here and attacking there.
@Frank: this is not a RPG, at all. There are 300 pages of rules and descriptions, not depending on any dungeon master. There is no dungeon master. All players have the same start in an undetermined land. Like in Warcraft 3, their peons dig for resources and make tunnels.
Thank you all, you have been very helpful in my thought process. I am still looking for a partner of some sort to go deeper. I am ready to reciprocate this help with my diving into another designer's WIP.

roger
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It is already a board game.

It is already a board game. The prototype is played once a week with playtesters. It works, it moves on. We are at the turn 73 now and it ends by an apocalypse. The player who called the arch demon, profiting from an eclipse, nearly won but had not enough cards to fight in another victory path, the apocalypse. A third player was waiting for the demon to be dismissed in order to claim it for himself, but the apocalypse happened before. The player who prepared for the Apocalypse won.
I don't care much about the typical gamer. When i see what kind of players buy magic the gathering cards, I am not so fond of wanting to interact with them, no offense intended. But I recycled my 4000 mtg cards for the Apocalypse victory path of my own game. So this is not all spent down the drain. Same for the Advanced Civilization trade cards. Recycled and attached to 70 new dungeon tech. Nothing science fiction though.
You are right, a simplified version would be an entry point into the world of boardgames. But there are so many already. The market is overloaded. I don't even consider buying any boardgame anymore. And my collection is only 30+ game big. Games like K2 or Lords of Waterdeep are not what I am aiming for. Games like A study in emerald, Chaos in the old world are heavier but still too small for my taste. After just a few plays, those games, even very good ones, seem to be closing their horizons. I want something a typical player cannot encompass within a few games. I want the mystery and undiscovered parts to be elusive and only slowly revealed.
Removing 20% in order to make a simple version is reasonable. I wished I could accomplish such so small a cut.
I am not at all so obsessed by having my game played by anybody other than my close circle of friends. As long as it entertains me and my playgroup, it is fine. But I can see where this is going. If it is becoming better and better there will be a time where I could open it to others. This is what I am preparing for.
You should try D&D, for me, in the eighties, it was a revelation.
I agree my project is not for the masses, but that's okay. The competition and the market is just too harsh I think. The high-end market has better prospect, small quantity but big value-added. If only 0.01% of worldwide gamers are interested it is already too many for me.

Mosker
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Quick thoughts:

If getting the beast out of your basement may be a non-starter for casual viewing, playtesting, conventioneering--have you looked at Tabletopia or Tabletop Simulator? Playtable? From your comments, it seems the more tidy you can make the asset management, rules introduction, the better you may achieve your goal of delaying player mastery--or even competence--for several plays while always making them aware that they will get it.

krone9
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do you have pics of a game in

do you have pics of a game in play? I'm quite curious

I'd also recommend learning to code as if you've got this far with design, even to build a basic functional game will be much easier to do yourself than to explain to someone else. I suspect it will also help you refine the game.

roger
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Thank you for this advice.

Thank you for this advice. This is indeed tricky to tidy up for a creative mind. The way it has to be presented is difficult. The risk is to lose players on the way, losing interest if too simple at the start.
I started coding but this is a nightmare. At least I want to clarify the play sequence and make a few video tutorials. The Artificial Intelligence programming will be even tougher. About tabletop simulator, my monster is too unwieldy at the time.

roger
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@Stormyknight1976: This game

@Stormyknight1976:
This game could easily suffer from multi-player syndrom. Indeed, each player develops its own dungeon in its lonely corner, without meeting any body for a while. So, the auction mechanism is to be kept. It makes up for some pretty tense desperate bidding from time to time, excellent for the interaction between players. Auction happens every 10 turns and is a critical event for any strategy. Players bid for picking up a Land Tile, a Creature, from around 20 branches where the top card is face-up.
There are too many cards and options. This is where the player gets lost. This is good because it forces you to evaluate your position and to design a few strategies.

questccg
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Make the board SMALLER!

roger wrote:
This game could easily suffer from multi-player syndrome. Indeed, each player develops its own dungeon in its lonely corner, without meeting any body for a while...

My solution to fix this "multi-player syndrome" is to make a SMALLER BOARD. That way space is an essential resource and a limited one too. With a smaller board, players will be restricted how the can grow and encourage player vs. player conflict SOONER rather than later.

Hey I get it... but sometimes solutions are simple... and don't need 100+ pages to be effective. Who knows maybe you are using some kind of mathematical scale which is 1:10 IRL. If you've got that much rules - I'm positive there must be a scale at which your game operates.

If no ... well then make the board smaller... If you are working to scale like most wargames (even if your game is not a wargame) - I can't help but feel like you've put everything according to some kind of scale. With the amount of "stuff" you put in those 600+ pages - I would be SURPRISED if there were no scale...

ElKobold
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roger wrote:There are too

roger wrote:

There are too many cards and options. This is where the player gets lost. This is good...

Ummm... In my book this is bad. Like really really bad.

Limiting player's options, while still providing interesting choices is key.

krone9
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I think we need to be careful

I think we need to be careful to compare apples to apples. This clearly isn't a commercial board game (and Roger has never claimed otherwise)

It sounds like a game for friends by friends which is engaging enough that they would like to share but cant see a clear route to do so.

I suspect its not possible without pulling it apart completely and rebuilding. Whether its a boardgame, app or browser game I think you wont get far until you break it down into component parts.

I think my advice would be to leave as is and just enjoy it - including all the convoluted, crossing over complexity that may or may not balance. Exploring that sounds like half the fun.

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