tberton

Tabletop Game Development

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So, is this subforum intended entirely for video game development or are other types of games welcome as well? Because while a couple of my game ideas are for video games, I'm mostly interested in tabletop game design (board games, card games, RPGs, etc.). Is anybody else here interested in that stuff?

 

Unfortunately, since I'm in school right now I don't really have any time to commit to my ideas, but I'd still love to know if there's anybody else here who shares my interest or has any experience with this type of game development.

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My first foray into board game design was as part of a college class. Somewhere I still have the game itself, and in my emails I believe I still have a copy of the rules.
 

Looking back, it was convoluted and weird and just didn't seem to play all that well.

 

 

As for tabletop RPGs, I love the idea of them, I love reading the rulebooks and stuff, and I would like to work on designing one, but I feel that I really haven't played enough tabletop RPGs to get a sense of what works well and what doesn't.

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Almost none of my game ideas would work in a tabletop environment - I'm not a very good Thinking Gamer, and so that shows when I try to make games - but I did have one quite recently where, when I pondered turning it into a multiplayer game, I realized it COULD work. Since I'm garbage at Thinking Games, I'll just throw the idea out there and whatever.

 

A competitive recruitment game where you have a set of Prophecies that need to be fulfilled by different people - some vague, like "a red-headed woman"; some specific, like "born under the moon in a desert"; etc. Everyone has access to the same pool of heroes (maybe?!), but they might have different prophecies to fulfill. So, you bid on those heroes you need to fulfill the most valuable prophecies (some arbitrary Prophecy Point value). Sometimes fulfilling those prophecies will guarantee your kingdom prospers for a set period of time, providing more resources with which to recruit more heroes. Sometimes failing to fulfill those prophecies could result in less heroes available to you specifically for the next bidding phase. Stuff like that.

 

So, at its core, it's a bidding game, and the prophecy stuff is all flavor.

 

WELP THAT'S ALL I GOT!!!

 

Yeah. I don't really give tabletop design much thought. The only thing I know for sure is that I absolutely hate randomness in long-form competitive games. If the game's guaranteed to last only twenty minutes at most, make it as random as you like, but otherwise, GET THAT DIE OUTTA HERE.

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You aren't alone. Having zero coding skills ive always turned my creative focus towards tabletop games. Ive made a small handful of game systems to play with my friends, and a friend of mine showed me how to hack cortex plus (smallville and leverage base system) so I can make those work for just about any genre, as well as one project im working on with the end goal of being published.

 

Advise from a published game designer I was once told.

 

 All you really need to start with is this is a game about X (for example at its core DnD is a game about killing monsters and taking their stuff) then figure out in what ways conflicts will come about when trying to accomplish X and what skill sets your players will need to resolve said conflicts. Most of my game drafting ends up looking like spider webs as I try to piece together how systems will interact with one another.

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I enjoy thinking about table-top game-design. I haven't ever gotten very far with my ideas, but I think it's fun to try to imagine things I enjoy, like Korean drama (romantic comedy) tropes in a card game.

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A competitive recruitment game where you have a set of Prophecies that need to be fulfilled by different people - some vague, like "a red-headed woman"; some specific, like "born under the moon in a desert"; etc. Everyone has access to the same pool of heroes (maybe?!), but they might have different prophecies to fulfill. So, you bid on those heroes you need to fulfill the most valuable prophecies (some arbitrary Prophecy Point value). Sometimes fulfilling those prophecies will guarantee your kingdom prospers for a set period of time, providing more resources with which to recruit more heroes. Sometimes failing to fulfill those prophecies could result in less heroes available to you specifically for the next bidding phase. Stuff like that.

 

So, at its core, it's a bidding game, and the prophecy stuff is all flavor.

 

That actually sounds like a cool idea. I'm not sure exactly how, but I think you could make the prophecy thing feel like more than just flavour. Having some way of misinterpreting the prophecy (because that's what happens to every prophecy in every story ever) and getting unexpected results could accomplish that.

 

Just for fun, here's the list of game ideas I have from my notebook. Some of these are garbage, some really excite me, some are more developed and some are just the smallest seed of an idea:

 

-Real-time capture the flag

-Election game based on polling

-3 player abstract game

-Semi-team-based prohibition game.

-Semi-co-op zombie game where people turn into zombies.

-Federalism game with assymetrical negotiation

-Negotiation based worker placement.

-Crusader Kings II meets Risk Legacy

-Quite a Handful!

-Roll a lot of dice and don't let them fall

-One player is the other FROM THE FUTURE!

-Yo dawg, I hear you like board games so I put a board game in your board game

-Something with coasters

-Spy network game

-Sending orders war game

-Co-op theatre production

-Taylorism: factory owner vs. workers

-roguelike board game

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Just for fun, here's the list of game ideas I have from my notebook. Some of these are garbage, some really excite me, some are more developed and some are just the smallest seed of an idea:

-One player is the other FROM THE FUTURE!

A game where one player is the other from the future sounds like a great idea for a loose rules story-game. The player from the past could make progressively crazier decisions so that the person from the future has to somehow account it into their history and there could be an assymmetry where the player from the future must be listened to in order to avoid injury. Maybe the person from the future has cards like "Lottery numbers for 1997" that they can use to bribe or herd the player from the past. Turns could move a regular chronological clock forward and the focus could be on the person from the future being arrogant and the person from the past being disingenious.

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Hmm, I hadn't thought of it in a loose rules way, but that could be the way to go with it. I was thinking of a card-based action system, where one player (the one from the future) has more information about the cards that are coming up (because they know what happens) and uses that information...somehow. I hadn't really thought of a goal for the game, but storytelling might be the answer.

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Dude. I don't mean to hijack your idea, but now that you suggest the prediction of the deck ability, I'm really inspired.

As you say, the person from the future can look at the deck, but they can't rearrange order. But maybe the person from the present can shuffle. I love the idea that there could be these moments where the person from the future is like "You can't go to the party! You'll be in a car wreck!" and the person in the present is like "But I really want to go to the party." Then they ignore the advice from the person in the future and discover that it wasn't a car-wreck card. The person from the future was avoiding something else. But why?

Maybe the two players have different victory conditions. The person from the present's victory condition could be face-up and the person from the future doesn't have to reveal theirs.

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Oh man, that's a great idea to have one player look at the deck and the other player shuffle it! I was thinking it would be more of a Hanabi-style thing, where one player is holding their cards so that the other player can see them, but I like your idea better.

 

I think for a game like this, the goal would have be defined by the story first and the mechanics second. It would have to be related to why somebody came back from the future.

 

Another suggestion a friend had was that there are two people from the future, but only one of them is telling the truth about being "you" i.e. the player from the present. The other is trying to fuck you up.

 

And don't worry about hijacking: ideas are cheap and mine are vague enough that there are a million ways you could go with them.

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Another suggestion a friend had was that there are two people from the future, but only one of them is telling the truth about being "you" i.e. the player from the present. The other is trying to fuck you up.

This is so good. This sounds like it would be so much fun with a small group of friends.

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I asked for a Laminating Machine for my birthday so I could make all kinds of neat tabletop components with it,

but I haven't gotten around to inventing anything that needs laminating yet. So I just used it on some recipes. :[

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That actually sounds like a cool idea. I'm not sure exactly how, but I think you could make the prophecy thing feel like more than just flavour. Having some way of misinterpreting the prophecy (because that's what happens to every prophecy in every story ever) and getting unexpected results could accomplish that.

Oooh, I like that. Sort of a "flip over the card to see what the actual results were" sort of thing. Nice!

 

Ahh, the real problem with that sort of design, though, is that it only works once. You'd need to have a huge pool of possible prophecies to make the game feel fresh for a significant amount of time. Hmm.

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So I've had a project I've been working on here and there, and I could use, and welcome a little advice on a mechanic. I apologize if I bore everyone to tears.

 

Players move around a map they build out of hexes (test hexes under spoiler below) with the goal of claiming and controlling resource nodes. On the blue circles players can draw action cards from a deck. The action cards will will be items, or other myriad action things. These spots are reusable. 

 

Players also have a character sheet with multipurpose meter marked 1-6 that is a central mechanic to a lot of stuff. Action cards have a meter cost. A powerful card could require a full/6 meter.

 

My problem is Trap Cards. By nature they should be hidden until they're sprung. Some traps can be generic like "bear trap" but others might be conditional like "Haunted Chili" that you can only place on a hex with a healing campfire. Trap Card mechanics have been breaking my brain, because there are like 5 levels of inelegance to deal with.

 

1) Marking spots: hexes. Solution: blue circles get covered with a circular chit that says "item" on the bottom. Players get color coded tokens that says "Trap 1-5" on the bottom. If you want a card, you flip the blue circle chit. If it says item, you get a card per normal. You then pick up your own tokens, act suspicious, and either replace the original item token, or if you have a trap card you want to play, place your numbered trap chit.

 

2) Marking spots: player. Solution: On each character sheet there is are 5 spaces at the bottom, like Talisman. Players can only hold 5 cards. You would place your trap in slot X, matching the trap chit you placed. Problem: what happens when you get over 5 cards, and discard a slot X trap, then a played flips that X chit? Require players to remember where their chits were before they can replace trap cards?

 

3) Paying the cost. Since traps are placed in semi-secret, how and when are costs paid? When they're placed is the obvious solution, but the cost also might as well be 0, because nobody will know what the cost is.

 

4) Cleaning up. What happens when players get new cards, and their traps haven't been sprung? Players would need to remember exactly the spot, because we can't have them hunting around on the map. Map balance might solve a lot of these problems, keeping blue circles at easy to remember levels. The game also has phases, like a scoring round every 3 rounds. Maybe all blues get flipped in a scoring round, and expire. This spoils a delicious long term trap. 

 

 

 

 

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Sorry, feelthedarkness, I'm not sure I quite follow the idea. Are traps something sprung on players when they're trying to draw Action Cards, or are they a subtype of Action Cards that they can play on the board to hurt the other players? I get the feeling it's the latter, but I may be wrong.

 

The first question you should ask yourself (forgive me if you've already done this) is: what do traps add to the game? Are they necessary for the feeling you're trying to evoke, the story you want to tell or the strategies you want to encourage? Any time a mechanic is tough to implement, it's good to ask yourself if it's worthwhile in the first place.

 

For more specific advice, I'd need a better idea of the flow of the game. Unfortunately, your image didn't load for me so that might be contributing to my confusion.

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Ahh, sorry. I think I fixed the image. Thanks for the feedback. 

 

I've been a little unsure of the implementation, though I think they would mostly be defensive tools to protect your claims, but also could be used as tools of general mayhem. They would go off when somebody tried to jump your claim, OR if they tried to get a card from a space you have trapped. Hexes might have different themes, and traps could have corresponding themes, like "wooden shelf" and a trap card "collapsing shelf" or a hex that heals players with a blue circle campfire, and a trap "Haunted Chili" 

 

Players can get into altercations with each others, and play action cards in combat, like an attack spell, or a buff, but I would say offhand you couldn't play traps as part of an attack, rather is something you had set previously.

 

This is where I get kind of fuzzy on implementation, like I supposed you could have it where Player A tried to get an action card, or activate a blue circle, and Player B just whammies them out of the blue with a trap from his hand. This would be easiest, but I think that would be less fun than forcing players to plan ahead and plant them in advance strategically.

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Well, whenever you want to represent something on a board but keep it secret, you need there to be multiple things you could place that look identical so that the secret is maintained.

 

How about this: each Trap Card has a "Trickiness" value. That value is equal to the number of tokens you can place on the board, with one of those tokens being the actual trap and the others being dummies. That way, people know a trap has been played, it can be paid for immediately, and planned for, but there's still uncertainty and surprise. Does that work with your ideas for the game?

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So, is this subforum intended entirely for video game development or are other types of games welcome as well? Because while a couple of my game ideas are for video games, I'm mostly interested in tabletop game design (board games, card games, RPGs, etc.). Is anybody else here interested in that stuff?

I'm part of a local boardgame design group. Several of our members have gotten games published by now or are deep in talks (not me though). Nothing major, just the Dutch market.

I don't really have the time or energy to work on them much (showing that it's probably best I don't do it as my day job haha) but I have a couple of designs under development that show promise. It's great fun playing and evaluating each other's work and seeing it improve over time.

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Well, whenever you want to represent something on a board but keep it secret, you need there to be multiple things you could place that look identical so that the secret is maintained.

 

How about this: each Trap Card has a "Trickiness" value. That value is equal to the number of tokens you can place on the board, with one of those tokens being the actual trap and the others being dummies. That way, people know a trap has been played, it can be paid for immediately, and planned for, but there's still uncertainty and surprise. Does that work with your ideas for the game?

That's a fairly solid way of implementing it, reminds me a lot of the genestealer blips in space hulk.

I do feel like I need a little more info on the theme to understand how the trap should exactly feel, is the player embodied at all? What is he risking? His life? His resources?

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I'm part of a local boardgame design group. Several of our members have gotten games published by now or are deep in talks (not me though). Nothing major, just the Dutch market.

I don't really have the time or energy to work on them much (showing that it's probably best I don't do it as my day job haha) but I have a couple of designs under development that show promise. It's great fun playing and evaluating each other's work and seeing it improve over time.

 

Hey Osmosisch any chance you could perhaps give some tips/feedback about what makes your particular group work (in your opinion), I like in a pretty small town and so don't really have the luxury of having other designers around to critique my work. Perhaps we could even build some of that into this thread in a way.

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So I put together a board game for the game design course I'm doing this semester (for an easy 6 credit points) but I really like it and want to take it further.

 

Players are abominations of science, in a lab, and have to consume as much as possible before the hazmat team arrives to clean them up. Players move around the board and can gather parts, represented by cards. They get one card each turn, and one card if they reach a container (which is marked so no-one else can use it). Each part allows a player to do one thing - move, attack, defend - and has a food cost involved. Players can use each part once per turn but can use as many parts as they can pay the cost for. Each card also has a 'consume' bonus - if players willingly discard the part, they get that much food. When a certain amount of turns elapse - the board has a turn track - the hazmat team arrives, and instead of drawing a part at the end of their turn, they draw a hazmat card, which everyone follows. These force players to discard parts, and if they don't have that kind of part, to discard food. The last player standing wins.

 

We went hard on the idea that parts should be weird, so there's like 10 different kinds of movement cards that all have different movements and directions permitted. We discovered that the game is already a bit complex so we cut a lot of mechanics and cards that had subtle interactions with others. Attacks and defence have a rock-paper-scissors relationship so that players don't have to read the other player's card to understand what just happened in the combat, which seemed to help. The game has this lovely three act structure where players start off in a small room all moving towards the centre, then start getting enough movement/attack cards to really spread out and explore the lab, and then they come under attack in the climax. 

 

We had a strict time limit in the assignment - a 40 minute playtime - but I'd like to develop it further and publish it. I'm not entirely sure where to take it, though - there are cards we cut because the board design didn't support them, but the board design was our weakest link so I'm basically redoing that from scratch. Some playtesters kind of hated the first act, and I'm concerned that it might get repetitive. A win condition we considered involved players growing powerful enough to escape the lab, which we cut because of the time limit - but I think bringing it back might be a mistake because there's a bit of a positive feedback loop. We could add tiers of parts, but I'm not sure what form that'd take. What opportunities do people see for things that the game maybe doesn't do?

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Hey Osmosisch any chance you could perhaps give some tips/feedback about what makes your particular group work (in your opinion), I like in a pretty small town and so don't really have the luxury of having other designers around to critique my work. Perhaps we could even build some of that into this thread in a way.

I think there's several factors.

First, we are all quite different, with different ideas about what is and what isn't enjoyable in a game. For example, one of us greatly prefers ultra-simple games, while I lean towards the Ameritrash style of game ideas. This diversity makes it clear that when everyone thinks something doesn't work, chances are 100% that it doesn't.

Second, there's a great amount of game literacy in our group. We're all well into our thirties and have been playing boardgames as a hobby since our early twenties. This makes it relatively easy to come up with solutions to specific problems, if it's a problem we've seen solved before. It also helps avoid solutions that we didn't like in other games.

Third, possibly also due to age, we are all able to divorce ourselves from our work at least enough to be able to accept and evaluate criticism with no hurt feelings.

Fourth, several of us have enough drive/love of making games that they work on games in their free time for enjoyment. Not coincidentally, these are the ones who have been the most successful. Having such an active, driven core makes having regular meetings more interesting and relevant because there's always something new to test.

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One of these days I will design a card game, because it is so easy to make a prototype without much effort. You can buy regular packs of playing cards for cheap, and then print stuff on similarly sized stickers. Unfortunately I haven't come up with any theme that I think would work well with card based play, but one of these days...

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One of these days I will design a card game, because it is so easy to make a prototype without much effort. You can buy regular packs of playing cards for cheap, and then print stuff on similarly sized stickers. Unfortunately I haven't come up with any theme that I think would work well with card based play, but one of these days...

 

Educational supply stores sell blank playing cards, often in bulk. They also sell the sort of tokens you'd be looking to use.

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