So I was talking to a friend of mine about maybe trying to morph ‘of gods and men’ (the mega game I played and did not overly enjoy) into something suitable for a smaller group of people – and he said ‘why not design something from scratch?’
To which I replied ‘Well I really like ancient Greece so that’s a good theme – and something new would require a new theme which I don’t have.’
About 30 seconds later he got an e-mail that said ‘Aye dark overlord/dungeon master the mega game' and I had a theme….. What follows is the early draft of some ideas – nothing specific but generally getting stuff written down…..
So we’d be looking at something for at most 20 players – running at either Stabcon and/or Bounceon in early January (assuming there was enough interest at either of those).
It’s not got a final name but for now it’s called ‘Upon a Throne of Bone’ (‘…and tomorrow the world!’ was one suggestion but that made me think of 1960’s evil organisations and supper spies rather than fantasy).
First decision – is everybody an evil overlord? I’d say not – I think you want a team made up of one evil overlord and a number of minions with the evil overlord being in charge but limited in some way and so reliant on their minions.
One thing I noticed out of gods and men was that based on the game structure our team only had one goal – gain prestige for the city – which rather removed internal conflict (or at least it did on ours). So that’s the first change - even if you are in a team – you need to have goals that don’t totally line up.
So we shall have an evil overlord that wants to the greatest evil overlord – while the minions just want to be the most loved of the minions for their Evil overlord - which immediately gets us the rather joyful tittle tattle and sucking up that makes ‘Aye Dark Overlord’ fun to play.
The second decision – what about the good guys? Well if you are looking to have teams of bad guys, and those teams are in conflict, then we need at least 4 of them and each one of at least 4 players. That’s 16 of your players already used up – if you've got some GM’s as well – that’s your twenty players. So for now – the good guys are a facet of the game to be manipulated and used by players – not players in and of themselves.
So the third decision - evil Overlords are the decision makers but since limiting information makes game then they are reliant on getting information from their Minions in order to make those decisions. This means that (generally speaking) an evil overlord needs to be chained to their base – not able to get out and look what options are available. Note of caution – of gods and men chained there ‘Wanex’ to the table and it caused problems because it never felt (at least for us) that the Wanex had that much to do. I was certainly bored when I was the Wanex so need to do something about that….
Decision the 4th – I thought the turn structure of ‘Of gods and men’ was not clearly split - specifically the time to make decisions and the time to negotiate rather ran into each other.
So the turn structure I’d go with would be……
And then back to the top – one turn every 30 minutes. A fair amount of time pressure – but it kept the game flowing.
The presence of a player – a minion – has to be significant. More than just a tie breaker – having a minion there will allow you to swing things in your favour. The flip side of this is that you will sometimes be deploying resources without a minion – so any rules system has to be able to handle that, and the range of options big enough that doing that seems like a plan.
So decision the 5th – a player brings with them an inherent bonus, and there are more things you have to do in a turn then you have minions.
Heroes’ are clearly something important – and since there are no good players they need to be under bad guy control. But they need to be different from monsters and other things that are under the direct control of players. So they are a weapon to direct against others players– something you don’t might losing because you won’t control it next turn……
Design decision 6 – it is possible to get given temporary control of heroes. These can be placed in areas to act as bonus to defence against any attackers – or placed on a villains table to attack them. They can never be combined with monsters or the forces of darkness – they just do their thing even against you if you end up facing them.
That’s as far as I’ve got so far…..
The next key decision is action resolution – so any suggestions for favourite action resolutions mechanisms that might work in this situation?
To which I replied ‘Well I really like ancient Greece so that’s a good theme – and something new would require a new theme which I don’t have.’
About 30 seconds later he got an e-mail that said ‘Aye dark overlord/dungeon master the mega game' and I had a theme….. What follows is the early draft of some ideas – nothing specific but generally getting stuff written down…..
So we’d be looking at something for at most 20 players – running at either Stabcon and/or Bounceon in early January (assuming there was enough interest at either of those).
It’s not got a final name but for now it’s called ‘Upon a Throne of Bone’ (‘…and tomorrow the world!’ was one suggestion but that made me think of 1960’s evil organisations and supper spies rather than fantasy).
First decision – is everybody an evil overlord? I’d say not – I think you want a team made up of one evil overlord and a number of minions with the evil overlord being in charge but limited in some way and so reliant on their minions.
One thing I noticed out of gods and men was that based on the game structure our team only had one goal – gain prestige for the city – which rather removed internal conflict (or at least it did on ours). So that’s the first change - even if you are in a team – you need to have goals that don’t totally line up.
So we shall have an evil overlord that wants to the greatest evil overlord – while the minions just want to be the most loved of the minions for their Evil overlord - which immediately gets us the rather joyful tittle tattle and sucking up that makes ‘Aye Dark Overlord’ fun to play.
The second decision – what about the good guys? Well if you are looking to have teams of bad guys, and those teams are in conflict, then we need at least 4 of them and each one of at least 4 players. That’s 16 of your players already used up – if you've got some GM’s as well – that’s your twenty players. So for now – the good guys are a facet of the game to be manipulated and used by players – not players in and of themselves.
So the third decision - evil Overlords are the decision makers but since limiting information makes game then they are reliant on getting information from their Minions in order to make those decisions. This means that (generally speaking) an evil overlord needs to be chained to their base – not able to get out and look what options are available. Note of caution – of gods and men chained there ‘Wanex’ to the table and it caused problems because it never felt (at least for us) that the Wanex had that much to do. I was certainly bored when I was the Wanex so need to do something about that….
Decision the 4th – I thought the turn structure of ‘Of gods and men’ was not clearly split - specifically the time to make decisions and the time to negotiate rather ran into each other.
So the turn structure I’d go with would be……
- Scouting - 10 minutes. Minions run round talking to people and finding out what is available. But no decisions are made - nothing can be deployed to anywhere.
- Decisions - 5 minutes. decisions get taken and stuff get sent to places. Once placed it can not move so there is an element of brinkmanship
- Resolution - 10 minutes. Resolving the stuff that's been placed down.
- Explanation - 5 minutes. Minions taking stuff back and explaining what happened to there overlord.
And then back to the top – one turn every 30 minutes. A fair amount of time pressure – but it kept the game flowing.
The presence of a player – a minion – has to be significant. More than just a tie breaker – having a minion there will allow you to swing things in your favour. The flip side of this is that you will sometimes be deploying resources without a minion – so any rules system has to be able to handle that, and the range of options big enough that doing that seems like a plan.
So decision the 5th – a player brings with them an inherent bonus, and there are more things you have to do in a turn then you have minions.
Heroes’ are clearly something important – and since there are no good players they need to be under bad guy control. But they need to be different from monsters and other things that are under the direct control of players. So they are a weapon to direct against others players– something you don’t might losing because you won’t control it next turn……
Design decision 6 – it is possible to get given temporary control of heroes. These can be placed in areas to act as bonus to defence against any attackers – or placed on a villains table to attack them. They can never be combined with monsters or the forces of darkness – they just do their thing even against you if you end up facing them.
That’s as far as I’ve got so far…..
The next key decision is action resolution – so any suggestions for favourite action resolutions mechanisms that might work in this situation?
I do like the way the ideas are coming together. My instincts are pulling in a slightly different direction in three areas:
ReplyDelete(1) The choice of where to send your minions has to be significant, but, right now, you have four four-man teams and four locations to visit. Essentially, I could comfortably have a team-mate at each table, every turn. I'd increase the pressure by having five three-man teams. Problem solved.
(2) One significant element of being a Dungeon Overlord is the distrust and paranoia about one's own servants. I'd build in a mechanic whereby Minions usurped their Overlord. That way, empowering one's Minions would have the double-edged effect of making them more useful and more dangerous, while strengthening your own position is of little value in the competition with your rivals, but critical in maintaining order within your team.
(3) Megagames seem to thrive on different factions having access to different kinds of information, non-equivalent ways of applying it and victory conditions that are only tenuously connected. I would definitely swap out one Dungeon team for a team representing the Heroes of the realm. They could be bribed, tricked or otherwise manipulated, but they'd also be unpredictable. And, if designed well, they could function as an optional balancing mechanic.