Boardgame Idea

I want to design and make a great boardgame.
I have an idea, but it’s in its infancy.

The concept is widely used already, I guess. It’s a dungeoncrawl of sorts.
You (and your opponents) are a merchant who has heard that the great dragon’s lair has finally been discovered. As far as you have discerned, nobody has successfully traversed the labyrinth to make it out with the lion’s share of the hoard.

You want that loot, so you set about hiring a party of adventurers to achieve this for you.

The board would be the labyrinth of interconnecting tunnels that all wind up approaching the central dragon hoard from each of the four compass points. You must get as many of your team into the hoard to collect some artifact of some kind, and get out with it alive. The more you collect, the better you score.
However, the dragon has other ideas about this.

The dragon is very protective of his hoard, but with so many adventurers approaching from all directions, there’s only so much he can do.
Mind you, what he *can* do is kill as many of these mortal morsels as possible. Fortunately for us, adventurers are in supply, so if one dies, we can just hire another. Or perhaps more!

To begin the game, each player would be allowed to compile his adventuring party semi randomly. My idea is that I have three or four decks of cards of adventurer types – warriors, magicians, rogues, and possibly priests (unless I think of something better.)
You take three cards, but you can choose which deck to draw from (no more than two from any single deck may be in your party at any time.)
You pay their agreed price from your starting cash and each adventurer has a multitude of strengths and weaknesses. For example, a particularly successful warrior might be more likely to succeed in stealing a great amount of treasure, however he demands half of it as payment. He might have excellent strength, combat, and perception, but terrible stealth – and be unable to give up or drop anything he has collected.

I want the game to be an eternal struggle of choices, without too much chance involved. Split the party up? Involve them equally to keep them all relatively even in skill, or neglect one character and risk starting from scratch if your other two die? Do I use one to steal from the hoard, and two to harass the enemy, or reverse?
Should I recruit a balanced party – one of each class – or will two warriors and a rogue be better? Or two rogues and a magician?

One idea I have is that each player may only take two character actions each turn. If they have three characters, then they must choose which characters are more important to activate when they do so. They will want to do more, but can’t do everything at once.

Originally, I was thinking about having modes, or stances, that each character could be in to modify their stats, so that combat or encounters can have great variety. A defensive stance would increase your armour rating and decrease your attack strength, for example. I think now, that while this might still be a viable option, I could include a very simple levelling system so that a player can improve their characters’ stats by achievements within the labyrinth. After three encounters, they can increase one stat by one point – or similar.

I also want to have player versus player interaction be very highly sought. Rogues, for example might be able to successfully steal artifacts from players who are returning from the hoard. Combat will be viable because it’s all about the treasure. I also want spells to be effective, and not just a warrior in different flavour.

So there needs to be a lot going into the game, and a lot of work to do to make it all work.

Today I had an inspired idea.
When a player has their turn, they choose which character to activate, and any character that does not activate gets a ‘ready’ token, which is a round cardboard disc with “+1″ on it. When that character takes their next action, whatever it is, they perform it with better than normal accuracy (as determined by the number of ready tokens on it.) Of course, every character will be limited in how many of these they can hold. This limit can be increased when you improve the character’s level. So something that would not normally work, could work if you prepare yourself. (It is akin to taking an aim, or preparing to ambush, or searching longer, concentrating harder, or anything you can conceive.) However, there will still be things that no matter how hard you try, you still cannot achieve.

So the game will be one of perfect timing, while at the same time being a race to the treasure hoard.

One more thing on player turns – since I started this idea, one factor has been ever present. I want the turn action to alternate, and the way I would do so is as follows:
Player 1 – take two character actions.
Player 2 – take two actions.
Player 3 – take two actions.
Player 4 – take two actions.
Player 1 – activate the dragon.
Player 2 – take two actions.
Player 3 – take two actions.
Player 4 – take two actions.
Player 1 – take two actions
Player 2 – activate the dragon

Using this method, no player MISSES a turn, but at the same time, they do, because their characters’ actions are replaced by a dragon’s. However, this still is useful to them – hopefully!
When the player activates the dragon, he is allowed to perform one of a multitude of maneuvres – usually a form of attack against characters (not his own) that are approaching the hoard. Similarly, the best time to approach the hoard is when your dragon move is nearing.
However, otherwise, when it’s your dragon play, your characters are not activating and might be easily ambushed or otherwise thwarted.

I have advanced this idea somewhat, but not yet sure how this might work – if it indeed works at all.
I am considering having each player hold a hand of cards, which allow certain actions, and so the choices for each player are limited by their hands. Dragon combat cards and Dragon Maneuvre cards would be included in these cards.
My idea here is that if a player uses a card to perform a character action he can redraw, but if he plays a dragon card (or more than one?) then they remain at a reduced handsize. Once they run out of cards, the characters must take a rest action.

Perhaps dragon card actions can be redrawn, and player character actions do not – as if they were getting tired, when performing their actions. A hand size of eight but be enough then, to rest after four full rounds.

I’m not sure if that mechanic will detract too much of the game yet, but if it’s the only way to heal, it might become a valuable idea.
Who knows.

Anyway, one deck of cards will be the treasure hoard – artifacts of variable value. I’m thinking of having a score track that calculates how much you have accumulated, minus the cost of the adventurers you have hired (and likely, killed.)

The game will end when the deck of treasure has expired. Also, I have decided that if at any time a player is required to take a dragon’s turn, and either cannot or does not act/attack (whatever the final ruling is) then one card will be discarded from the hoard. Just to speed the game along. But perhaps a player who has amassed a treasure trove can use this to his advantage.

And perhaps the game will end if any deck of adventurer cards exhausts and one is required. For example, if the warrior deck exhausts, that’s no problem because each team can take two magicians and a rogue, or two rogues and a magician.
But if the rogue deck now exhausts, and a player needs to rebuy a rogue because he has two magicians, then that triggers the game end.

When the game ends, players continue until their character either dies (dropping any treasure they have) or escape the labyrinth to get their final tally.

Anyway, that’s the game idea. I guess it might have a talisman meets world of warcraft:the boardgame feel.
At some stage I’ll make comments to add to this, but probably with character ideas, spell ideas, personality strengths and weaknesses, adventurer types (for example, the warrior deck will have archers, armoured warriors, barbarians, perhaps a monk, and anything else I can come up with.)