Board Game Design, Miniature Painting...and a welcome!

My name is Kris (though I usually go by Ino on the various forums I belong to) and welcome to my Bloggity Blogger Blog. I had one of these things ages ago when the forums had(?) a bad name, the House was just a twinkly twinkle in Lauby and Dethtron's eyes, and I was 30 pounds lighter. So I'm older now, I've got a kid, and more time on my hands that I know what to do with. Ahhh being a student is fun! So enough about me, now on to the meat of this blog, and what it's going to be about.

Like I said I'm a student, and what I'm a student of is Computer Programming and Game Design. As such, I'm going to use this space to explore some of the Board Games that I'm designing and the prototypes that I'll be making to playtest those games.

First off is going to be a slow leak of my board game (working title) "Heroes United".

From reading other board games rules, the great articles by Mark Rosewater (Magic the Gathering Head Designer), RPGs, and even Miniature Wargames (ala 40k/WHFB, WarmaHordes, Infinity) having a mechanic that is both easy and memorable is important. The problem that I have with Games Workshop's for instance is the different type of dice rolls that are to be made in the course of a game.  Knowing this I knew that I wanted my dice mechanic to be simple, efficient, memorable, but not too swingy. Here is the mechanic for "Heroes United" that I though of:

Rolling Off: 

Pick 3 20 sided dice (d20) and roll. On a roll of a 1 you've failed at your task. On a roll of a 20 you've succeeded critically (If this is an opposed roll, only another Critical Hit can negate your roll)! If you happen to roll both a 1 and a 20, they cancel out and you take the value of the third dice.If you roll neither a 1 or a 20: If 2 dice are valued between 2 and 10 take the LOWEST valued dice.If you roll neither a 1 or a 20: If 2 dice are valued between 11 and 19 take the HIGHEST valued dice.Henceforth this outcome is known as a "Result"

Pretty much this negates the linear outcome of rolling 1 dice. Having a bell curve as many game designers have shown leads more towards "real life" averages. On top of this it allows me the design space to "fudge" outcomes to either the high or low side to signify a greater probability of success or failure.

Next on to what I call the S.U.P.E.R. stat card. This piece of beauty, if I do say so myself, is what shows the individual stats of the Heroes (and Villains) of our game.

Explaining the S.U.P.E.R.  stat card:

S: Strength - How strong your Hero is at dealing damage with his fists, or melee weapons.

U: Unyielding - How tough your Hero is. This can be anything from innate physical toughness to precognition

P: Perception - How well your Hero observes his/her surroundings, along with how fast they can process this information

E: Endurance - How long your Hero can last in a fight. Some Heroes go for the knockout punch while others pace themselves for the long fight.

R: Range - How well your Hero can handle Ranged Combat. This is anything from shooting fireballs from their hands to the simple handling a gun. 

***Any S.U.P.E.R. stat of 5 or greater allows the lowest dice to be re-rolled.

***Any S.U.P.E.R. stat of 1 must re-roll the highest dice.

ATT: Attack - 1 is a the standard attack. Anything over this is an Extra Dice is rolled is rolled for each point above 1.

ARM: Armor - 1 is the standard armor value. Anything over this is an Extra Dice is rolled for each point above 1.

A.P.: Action Points - Written in a X - Y notation. X = Movement A.P. and Y = General A.P. (One type of A.P. can not be used for the other)

Vitality: How many hit points it takes before your Hero is knocked unconscious and must return to base for healing/rest/contemplation...

Weak Strike: 2 - 10 : Dmg 10 

Strong Strike: 11 - 19 : Dmg 15

Critical : 20 : Dmg 17

Each Hero has at least three moves that they can preform in combat. A Weak Strike, a Strong Strike and Critical Hit. Only natural rolls of a 20 can be used for "Critical Hits". If the total including modifiers is higher than 20, a Strong Strike will be used. 

For instance Puck has:Jab : 2 - 7: Dmg 111-2 Combo : 8 - 14 : Dmg 13Uppercut : 15 - 19 : Dmg 16Critical : 20 : Dmg 18Having a total of 6 would strike the opponent with a "Jab" while having a total of 17 would strike the opponent with an "Uppercut".

And finally since this is also a miniature painting blog, Here are a few of my latest pieces that I've painted. For a very small Ogre Kingdoms army (I've got about 1500 points total...)








Join me next time when I talk about the game turn, how enemies are "spawned", and I show you the first of five Hero S.U.P.E.R. stat cards (along with the model that will be representing it on the game board).


Kris.