March Entry: Passages of Pandemonium

[Gamerprinter]

OK, I've actually been thinking trying to find an alternate gaming use out of my Endless Terrain Battlemap products such as a board game. Now I'm no innovative board game designer, so I'm more than likely going to make a D&D styled board game.

Game Parts:

1. Four double-side printed 11x17 map tiles with geomorphic edges, but unique interior layouts (different wall, door and room configurations), other than some architectural features, changes in elevation, no prebuilt encounters on maps.

2. Two decks of (??) cards (business card sized):

2a. Treasure: Weapons, Armor, Scrolls, Magic Items; each with bonuses or special properties - Scrolls have one time use, all others are permanent. Including the Escape Card - what you need to end the game.

2b. Encounter Deck: monsters (with stats), traps, conditions (ie: weakness - discard half your treasure cards...)

3. Map Objects to represent permanent creations, monsters, traps, and stuff like cave-ins, collapsed floors, stairs up or down, etc.

4. Score sheet: adventurers each have some hit point/health score, when they reach zero, they lose/die, conditions with duration can be kept on score sheet as well, finally accumulated treasure is worth points added to your remaining health score. Highest score wins.

5. D6 for the dice mechanic, cards will state required dice roll to overcome, or bonuses/penalties gained. D6 is common enough, I don't have to provide dice...

A roll of '1' always means that one of the other three tiles is going to change, roll 1d6, going in a clockwise direction from which ever tile your figure is standing. 1-2 is nearest clockwise tile, 3-4 is next tile, 5-6 is last tile. Roll 1d6, whichever tile is selected from the first roll will either 1-2 rotate 180 degrees, 3-4 flip upsidedown on the short side, 5-6 flip and rotate 180 degrees. Player figures reappear at the same square as other map, or nearest adjacent square if position is blocked by wall, etc. All other items in squares that flip over, including monsters and other permanents are gone.

A roll of '6' is always a success, and other rolls may effect levels of damage, or other conditions.

The goal of the game is to survive the dungeons and acquire the most treasure, however players are not opponents, they are a team, the dungeons and the encounter cards are the opponents. Each imposing a specific penalty, or causing loss of health based on the results of a d6 roll determined on each card.

On each players turn (going in a clockwise direction around the table) roll a d6 to determine if there is an encounter. A roll of 6 means no encounter and free draw from Treasure deck, a 4-5 means no encounter, 2-3 means draw from the Encounter Deck, and 1 means tile change...

Traps must be avoided or is triggered, unless circumvented by a magic item or scroll, damage determined by card. (Traps and all permanents must be kept out in display, and not discarded, until they are destroyed or triggered, then must be discarded.) Some traps, monsters or phenomenon cause conditions in penalties to HP, AC, Damage Dealing, Movement, or forces you to discard treasure cards (of your choice).

Monsters can only be attacked from adjacent squares (horizontal or verticle), unless player possesses a ranged weapon, spell or magic item treasure card that grants a range stated on the card. Only players who alone or with other team mates causes any damage to a monster may draw a treasure card.

At the completion of any Encounter Card action completed, player may draw from the Treasure deck. All treasures provide some bonus, beneficial property and have number equalling their worth in end game health point bonus.

After drawing their Treasure Card, roll 2d6 for movement

The Escape Card if drawn is played immediately, and must be placed in the nearest open square to player figure drawing the Escape Card. Once the Escape Token is placed, its a race by turn, movement rate and obstacles blocking the way to reach the token. The game ends when the first player exits the escape teleporter, who gains a bonus for escaping (worth so many health points.)

Doorways accessing off the board area reroute to the door on the opposite edge.

I may have to come up with a better name for the board game - title is just a placeholder.

Thoughts? Is that too complicated of a board game? Is it too unoriginal?

GP

[tilt]

I say go for it ... been thinking along the same lines my self but since I'm planning to make a game for small kids, its to complicated for my use

[Gamerprinter]

I'll start making maps tomorrow, so I'm still thinking on rules:

Game is for up to five players, one per five piece set of Endless Terrain Battlemaps - use one map per player in the game. Each player starts at any square on their map tile they want. Roll 1d6 highest score goes first then clockwise direction for order of play. Players are allies so they cannot attack each other, opponents are monster encounters only. Each player starts the game with 15 life points. The do not begin with any treasure cards in their hand, so no armor, weapons, items or magic capability. An attack with a punch causes 1 point of damage. Any attack on them cause the damage dice rolled. You may only attack a monster if you are adjacent to it, or have ranged attack within your range. Only by successfully ending an encounter, can you draw a Treasure card. You do not have to draw the encounter card to gain a Treasure card draw, as you may help an ally fight a monster, when monster dies, all allies who participated in fighting that defeated monster may draw a Treasure card.

At the start of each players turn, roll 1d6. On a 1 map tile change as explained in the first post. On a 2 or 3, draw a card from the Encounter Deck. On a 4 or 5 no encounter. On a 6 find a treasure, draw a card from the treasure deck. On any turn a player can perform one action attack/use a magic item/use an item/cast a spell, and can roll 1d6 to determine number of spaces (horizontal or verticle) you can move.

There are 40 Encounter Cards: 10 Trap Cards - cave in, collapsed floor, pit traps, dead falls, firebombs, all causes direct damage of varying levels to you or to an area of effect that might affect other players. Most cause 1d6 damage and might have one debilitating effect. 10 Hazard Cards - Noxious Fumes (causes Weakness; discard half your treasure cards rounded down), Sleeping Gas (lose up to 3 turns; roll 1d6, 1 or 2 lose a turn, 3 or 4 lose 2 turns, 5 or 6 loss 3 turns), Confusion (for this turn, 1 must attack the nearest target, even if an ally, allies can only defend or move away), etc. 20 Monsters - Ogre (attacks 1 opponent for 1d6 damage, it has 10 life points, 1d6 movement), Troll (attacks for 1d6 damage, has 5 life points, regenerates 1 life point per turn until slain, 1d6 movement), Stone Golem (attacks for 1d6, defense of 3 - needs to be hit by 4 or more points to cause damage; move up to 3 spaces 1d6, 1 or 2 move 1 space...), Vampire Bat (causes 2 points of damage, has 2 life points, roll 2d6 for movement), Rust Monster (causes 1 damage and may destroy 1 weapon or armor on successful attack, 3 life points, up to 3 movement), etc.

There are 40 Treasure Cards: 5 weapons - dagger (causes 3 points of damage), sword or battle axe (causes 4 points of damage), short bow (causes 3 points of damage, range of 3 spaces - verticle/horizontal only), long bow (causes 3 points of damage, range of 6 spaces); 5 armor items (Defense number subtracts that many points from any attack, 1 can only use 1 defense items at a time) - leather (defense 1), shield (defense 2), heavy shield (defense 3), chain-mail (defense 4), plate armor (defense 5); 5 Rings - Ring of Defense +1, Ring of Attack +1, Ring of Speed +1 movement, Ring of the Vampire (gain 1 life point per successful attack), Ring of Magic (+1 damage or duration for any spell cast); 5 Mundane items - Thief Picks (open doors, foil any trap cards you draw), Healing Kit (heal up to 5 points of damage, may use any amount per use, use until out of charges, discard when out of charges), Rope & Grapple (ascend or descend to any elevation - some map tiles have elevated or lower areas), 3 smoke bombs (when thrown no one can attack until your next turn, discard when 0 smoke bombs), Caltrops (affect 1 square, crossing it causes 3 points of damage); 20 Spell Scrolls (spells are 1 use items): 5 attack spells - Fireball (cause 1d6 damage, range of 3), Petrify (turn one opponent to stone), Disintegrate (cause 10 points of damage), Magic Arrow (cause 3 points of damage, range of 6), Enchant Weapon (including fist add +1 to weapon damage, duration 1d6 turns), Teleport (move to any open square on any map tile), Levitate (move up/down any elevation - you must at least 1 movement rate to end on elevation change), Invisibility (duration 1d6 you cannot be attacked when your are invisible), Pass Through Wall, Time Travel (gain another turn), Zombie (any monster that was killed in the last turn, you can animate as a zombie has 2 life points, 2 movement rate, same attack and defense it had in life), Friend (one opponent will not attack you until you attack it), Jump (move 1d6 over any obstacle, not through a wall or door), Remove Curse (remove one debilitating effect), Wall of Stone (blocks up to 10' wide area, may block a passage), Create a Door (block 5' passage or may place door on any wall to cross it), Switch (allows you to switch places with any opponent on any board, or any ally that allows it to happen), Idiot (opponent can attack only on a roll of 6 on 1d6), Lead Foot (half movement rate rounded down on target opponent.)

One Escape Portal card is included with the treasure (when cast place in nearest open square to you, entry into portal allows you to escape the dungeon, everyone must immediately try to reach the escape portal to end the game, the first one through gains 5 life points, each Treasure card is worth so many points, listed on card, that is added to your life point total at the end of the game. Whoever has the most life points, wins.

I do not know if I have enough Encounter and Treasure cards to make this a full and balanced game, I will find out in playtest. I won't remove any, but I may have to add some.

GP

[Gamerprinter]

Here's the first map tile design for the 10 tile set. This one is rather generic, I'll try to get more interesting with the others - but the emphasis here is for general use in RPG dungeons, so I don't want to get too non-generic in design. Note: the section on the lower left corner is elevated perhaps 1 level (10 feet higher) than the main floor, notice the machiolation on the top of the wall. Also notice that this section of wall is lower than the main outer walls, this is to indicate that those on that section can view down to the lower floor, and still be within the outer walls of the main walls themselves. Also the section in the top right is completely closed off from the main floor area, as its walls go to the ceiling and are not lower than the main walls, but a part of them - that's intentional.

Nine more maps to go. Note two of these maps are intended to be less generic, though one will be a completely open chamber within the outer walls - for big room encounters.

I am designing this board game as 11 x 17 pieces for 3 reasons:

1. Design reasons - 11 x 17 full bleed, gives me lots of room to get interesting with design layouts. More room to work brings more options for layout designs.

2. These are intended to be the next set of Endless Terrain Battlemaps for April, so they have to match the existing Endless Terrain Battlemaps in dimensions.

3. For Business/Selfish reasons - 11 x 17 full bleed prints are tougher for endusers to print for themselves. I am in business and am trying to sell these sets commercially. Being tougher to print for endusers, mean that buying them directly from me, is the most economical. While I intend to offer the two bonus maps as downloadable versions. Tabloid sized (11 x 17) prints sliced for home-use printing with a 3/4 inch deletion area allows to be more easily printed on a wide variety of home inkjet printers, which means it takes 6 sheets of letter size prints to accomodate 1 11x17 map tile print. So for 10 total map tiles at that scale, it means you need to print 60 pages to do the same as ordering the basic full size printed and laminated sets from me.

Finally, unlike other entries for this month's challenge, you can expect to purchase this board game design in full next month, with my next offering. Beyond the 10 piece map tile set, the game download or physical product/purchase will include: all cards ready for print to pre-perforated business card stock (80 cards in all), and at least 40 map objects, one for each Encounter Card. I haven't calculated the price for the total game, but it will be separate from the Endless Terrain Battlemap set offering (so boards aren't included with the separate game).

Anyway, the first generic map tile for this board game idea:

endless-dungeon-tile-1.jpg

[Gamerprinter]

While I intend to finish this project eventually, if it isn't obviously clear, I do not have time to finish it before voting starts, I've been much too busy doing page layout, illustration, cartography for Kaidan and for commissions - I've got too much on my plate.

So please pull this entry out of the challenge.

GP