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Sprawling Behemoth: THE OMPHALOS

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infocorn
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I've foreshadowed long enough...

The concept: A race-oriented game (i.e. get the the end first, not a type of people lol) with a slight flavour of RPG. Also, the game itself will change and evolve based on the games played similar in feel to Risk: Legacy...game rules and cards will come into and out of play based on both number of plays, how players choose to use cards, and the outcomes of various game plays.

The name (for now...gotta say, the meaning of the word is great, but I'm not sure Timmy the Power Gamer will like saying:) OMPHALOS. From the Greek, omphalos translates roughly to "core" or "navel."

The World: A pocket in the thousands of alternate universes, used by those who can get to it as a multiverse DNA bank. The various animals and plants (and alien stuff) are brought to the Omphalos from "doomed worlds" by the will of The Pantheon, an unseen but very active cadre of the heavy hitters in religion (YHWH, Greek/Roman gods, etc. They're all there and they're working together). The Omphalos itself is a portal to any number of millions of alternate realities, and the first player to complete his mission card and return to the Omphalos is the winner of the game. Near the Omphalos are four Realm areas on the board, each connected to one of the players' stats (below) and a series of spaces where you can move between the Realms.

The Players: Your PC is a harvester, charged by the Pantheon to collect samples of genetic material from all over the multiverse. A simple 4-statline recurring player charcater is used by each player. Keeping the "anyone from anywhere" theme of a big DNA bank, any small mini-figure from D&D Minis through Lego Guys or even army men is legal as a PC pawn. Right now, players will have Luck, Brain, Brawn, and (StillWorkingOnThisOne). Players can change their stats through the game, acquire items/buffs/companions/favours, etc. in various encounter spaces and save them for other plays or later in the current game. At the core, your job as a PC in the Omphalos is to complete Harvester business before being sent to find another sample on a Doomed World. This is done with a Character card dealt out as the game begins.

The Kick?

"DNA Samples" from "other worlds" are rules, cards, people, etc. from your other favorite games modified to fit the world of Omphalos. As a for-instance, if you were a MTG player, you could incorporate "poison counters" or "mana burn;" Yu Gi Oh fans could have the Millenium items as PC items or even use Fusion monsters as allies. Heck, if you wanted to bring in structures from Puerto Rico to the Realms, I could see that working. This doesn't encourage THEFT from games, per se, just adapting "greatest-hits" from your other favorite games into a world that's flexible enough to support them. Obviously you're not going to call it "mana burn" in this game...something like "flux" or similar. The idea for this actually came from the game XXXenophile, where one of the cards allowed you to bring any single card from another CCG into your game. Chaos? Sure. But fun, right?

This idea is huge-- not "I think it's the best thing since pants with pockets!" huge, actual scope, writing, development huge. Anyone want to start off the DNA bank with a sample? :-D

infocorn
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No Speak-a the Infocorn

So...what needs translated :-D Not hatin', just asking. This reads OK to me, but taking Cog's reply-suggestion a while ago about making things accessable.

Cogentesque
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Joined: 08/17/2011
Well if you want

Well if you want super-instant responses, first of all, start the post with the point of the post "What do you guys think of..." or "Can you help with..." or "check this out!" kind of thing at the mo I have to read to the bottom of it to see what feedback you want - just as an aside, but yes, you have done a lot better in explaining the game in this post! gj.

Ok so the game, sounds cool, but needs direction - how do I, as harvester charged by the pantheon actually collect the elements of the other games? Do I literally get my box of MtG cards out and find my Catan expansion? If this is the case, how will my mana burn effect my carcasonne meeple and how will my dominion victory point effect my posion counter? Or is it in moc-versions of each of these games in Ompahlos? "eg You have captured a posion counter from Gagic the Mathering - bring this back to the Pantheon to win!" - in which case, you will be cutting a fine line into copyright infringements.

It sounds as if you really want people to get involved with a massive and expansive concept which si good - but I think the players still need to "Play a game" your game will still be a boardgame, like all of the others, veen if the concepts vary - find a good way to do that and the rest should come naturally.

I quite liked your previous idea that this came from - the alternating world one, but just a toned down version of that perhaps? So like, a normal boardgame but in order where the set up stuff is, you need to go online to www.boardgame.com - or whatever, to find out the "state of play" you could have it so you personally are the only changer though, so basically its a blog that says "Tunnel is in point b! and this game has a new rule: +1 movement!" so its kind of an updating game, but you dont need to mess about with inputting. If someone also doesn't want to go to the site and "play the stupid updateable rules" then they dont have to and can play it in the normal manner without any problems.

Any of these kind of things are very much "in addition to" or gimmicks, or bonus material - like the metal tokens in dominion sea side - they are damned cool and really fun an novel, but there is still a robust game behind it. Build a robust game and you will win the developers game! What happened to that Quaslebot game (I forgot the name :$) that you were having a go at right at the start with the fonts and all?

Much love my man,

Cog

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