Gladiator Rules Draft

Looks like your rules link might be broken. The other images look great though.

Overall, I think this game sounds very interesting, and something I would definitely enjoy playing. The game sounds like it has a fair amount of complexity without being overwhelming, but you do a great job of explaining things. Here are a few thoughts that stand out to me after one reading of your rules. Although these comments are primarily critical, I'd say overall you've done great work here.

1) Be very careful of words that can easily get confused. After my first reading, I found myself having to go back and check to learn the meaning of the terms attack, ability, move (something action a gladiator can do) and move (how characters get around the arena). I would strongly encourage you to limit the use of the word move to the relocation of characters. Perhaps moves should be called abilities, since I can't currently figure out what abilities are, but they are referenced a number of times in your rules. If nothing else, each of these words needs a glossary entry. Also, the terms Foe and Enemy are a bit confusing. You seem to use the term enemy deck throughout, but in the Gladiator entry in section 11, you mention Foe cards. I'm guessing this might be a typo?

2) Your various keywords are a bit confusing between the samples you put up and these rules. I'm assuming Caught/Entangled and Grounded/Fallen mean the same thing and underwent a shift at some point. For the record, I like the terms in the rules better. If you're going to wait until the end of the document to explain the meaning of your keywords, I would do everything possible to limit the use of them early in the document, while including a more comprehensive glossary entry. Right now I feel like I need to hunt all over to find the rules about any given term.

3) Having not seen the tracking card, I am confused by the effects of wounds. I'm assuming this information will be described on the card, but as of now I don't understand the penalties for being wounded or if it matters which body part receives a wound. Regardless, more detail about this should be given in the rules. Also, I may have missed this, but I don't recall seeing an instruction about whether or not wounds come off between matches. Is this lumped under remove all tokens from the arena? This should be more specific.

Those are the big issues that jump out at me. Good luck with continued development. This sounds like an exciting game.

I think the glossary as a separate insert is a great idea. It would be even more effective if in an introductory comment, you point to the glossary and encourage people to reference it as they read your main rules. I also think a shift you suggested from Abilities and Moves to Core Abilities and Abilities would be helpful.

As for the Enemy/Foe question, I would ask whether or not you need to split hairs between these two categories for your rules to work. If you really have abilities that shouldn't be used against other player gladiators, would it be possible instead to note in the description of those abilities that they can't be used against players, rather than using new and potentially confusing vocabulary? I haven't seen all of your cards, so its entirely possible that these distinctions are legitimate, but I would encourage you to at least think through this issue to determine if your implementation justifies the mental space necessary to separate these two very similar categories. If these categories can be combined, then everyone you don't like is an enemy, whether it is a non-Ally player or a card from the Enemy Deck.