The Dragon’s Hoard

This post is mostly the rules of the game I’m creating, partly descriptive of said game.

Game contents
The game consists of the following components.
One gameboard.
One dragon.
One dragon token.
48 adventurer tokens (2 each of F1, F2, R1, R2, S1, S2; all come in each of four colours)
A token of each colour to mark each player’s game colour, and a token each for wealth and fame.
A deck of action cards
A deck of treasure cards
A deck of search cards
A deck of magic items
A deck of spell cards
3 decks of adventurer cards (one each for fighters, rogues, and spellcasters)
20 Focus counters
12 stat modifier counters
X life counters (enough for the healthiest 12 adventurers to be alive at the same time.)
12 corpse counters. These will be in pairs – one to mark the location and one to mark the contents at that location.

Setup:
Place the dragon in the centre of the board, facing any chosen direction.
Place your fame counters on zero, and your wealth counters on 24. (Subject to change.)
Choose one player to be the first player. This player takes the dragon token. Beginning with this player, each player takes one adventurer by choosing a card from any of the adventurer decks. Continue clockwise until you have three adventurers each. You may have up to two of any single type of adventurer.
For each adventurer you draw, pay the hiring cost, and advance your fame accordingly.
You have one chance to purchase equipment for your adventurers before they begin their quest.
After you have drawn three adventurers, you may purchase any number of cards from the magic item deck (or should I distinguish a shop deck, comprised of smaller magic items?), at a cost of 3 points of wealth per card. When you choose to cease such purchases, you must allocate each of these cards to be carried or equipped by your adventurers, as you desire.
Place the adventurers on any of the available entrances, and keep the reference cards visible on the table.
(Use your tokens labelled F, R or S to represent these adventurers.)

Beginning with the player holding the dragon token, deal or draw five cards each from the action deck. The limit throughout the game is seven cards in hand. You may not exceed this limit by drawing cards.

Turn Order
The player holding the dragon token begins the game, and in his turn takes two actions. Each player in clockwise order then take similar turns. When play returns to the player holding the dragon token, he replaces his turn with a dragon turn, where he activates the dragon once and forfeits his normal two actions. Once he has done so, he passes the dragon token clockwise, and the player receiving the token becomes the new player 1.

Adventurers
There are three adventurer decks. Fighters, rogues, and spellcasters.
Fighter deck is comprised of many fighter types, such as archers, heavily armoured combatants, nimble warriors, dwarvish axebearers, maybe a monk or samurai, and anything else I come up with. They all have a defining trait, and their cost reflects how valuable to your team they will be. If you’re lucky, you’ll get an expensive famous warrior who will increase your fame just for hiring him.

Rogues will be any devious character I can conceive. Mostly cutpurses and pickpockets and such, but I’ll also throw in a bard or a jester, or maybe even a ninja. Or more.

Spellcasters will be all flavours of magician, sorcerer, elementalist, summoner, and even cleric. One magician will be a diviner, and will have the ability to view decks of cards and hands of other players. He may not feel as valuable as a firemage but played correctly, he might do just as well.
I might even throw a necromancer into the mix. We’ll see. I’ll have to see if I can raise corpses or something!

Adventurer stats.
Speed – how fast they can move. This will be adversely affected by armour.
Attack – the ability to strike an enemy. The Damage value will be attack plus weapon modifiers.
Agility – the ability to avoid attack. This value is improved in a defend action. The Defence value will be agility plus armour modifiers.
Strength – how many items they can hold in their pack and still be effective in their skills
Search – your ability to discover hidden objects, effects or actions.
Stealth – your ability to manoeuvre without being detected.
Concentration – how many focus tokens you can use.
Health – the number of wounds they can absorb until death.

Magicians will have a spell repertoire available. These might be spells that they begin with, or spells that they can gain during their gameplay.
Magicians might cost more than the average adventurer. Some magicians will expire spells once cast, but be able to discover new spells during play. Others will be able to repeat spells but run out completely until they rest or return to town.

Cards
The largest deck is the action deck.
This deck is comprised of two main types of card. The foremost are adventurer action boosters. These cards will improve the ability to fight, or improve the ability to take treasure, or improve any number of actions in any number of ways. They will never be detrimental to other players, only helpful to your own adventurers.
The second type of card will be dragon actions. You may play one dragon action card when it is your turn to take a dragon turn. This type of card boosts the abilities of the dragon to slay opposing adventurers and protect its treasure.

Treasure cards represent the dragon hoard. When you steal from the dragon, you earn a loot card.
These cards are held in your hand of cards, and the cardback is identical to an action card.
The treasure deck is the game clock. When there is no more treasure in the dragon’s hoard, there is no reason to return.
If you manage to get all your adventurers back to town, you secure your treasure, and increase your wealth by their combined value. You may then send your healed adventurers back in to continue the quest.

Search deck.
This deck will have random events that occur when adventurers search caverns and passages for misplaced or hidden treasures. These cards will include cards that allow you to find equipment or magical items but it will also have adverse encounters, like a group of wandering orcs that attack. There will also be search cards that show ‘nothing’. Sometimes when you search a room there is nothing to be found.
If you are able to search well, you draw multiple cards and choose the resultant card. The card must be shown to all players and resolved. Anything found is placed in the pack of the searching adventurer, unless stated otherwise.

Turn actions.
On your turn you may take two actions. They may be any combination of the following.
Recruit: – Hire a new adventurer if you have less than three. This adventurer arrives at any chosen entrance at the beginning of your next turn.
Rest: – Discard any number of cards from your hand, and draw action cards until your hand size is seven cards. But discard all focus tokens you have on all your adventurers.
or, Activate an adventurer.

When you activate an adventurer you may have them perform one of the following.
Move – the adventurer moves a number of spaces equal to his speed. During your movement, you may spend one point of speed to give an item from your pack to an adjacent adventurer. You may do this as many times as you require, providing you have surplus points in speed remaining. These items are placed in the pack of the receiving adventurer.
Attack – the adventurer may move a number of spaces equal to half his speed value (round down) and then attack an opposing adventurer within his range when he finishes his movement. See combat for further details.
Defend – the adventurer improves his agility value by 2 until your next turn. If he is attacked, he returns an attack of his own.
Support – the adventurer may move a number of spaces equal to half his speed (round down), and then may provide support to any combat that takes place within his range, at any time until your next turn. See combat for further details.
Search – the player may draw a number of cards from the search deck equal to his search value (minimum zero). The character reveals and resolves the card. The agility and attack abilities are reduced by 2 when you search.
Cast – any spellcasting adventurer may cast an appropriate spell that they have in their repertoire.
Loot – grab any and all items that resides in this current location. These items go into the looting adventurer’s pack.
Equip – take one item from their pack and equip it. This may include unequipping items of your choice.
Steal – Thieves may attempt to steal from other players’ adventurers. To do so, the thief must be no more than one square from a target adventurer.
All characters may steal from the dragon hoard if they are adjacent to it and you hold less than seven cards in your hand. On a successful attempt, draw one card from the treasure deck and place it in your hand. Improve your fame by one point every time you successfully steal from the dragon hoard.

You may only activate a single adventurer once on any turn. If you activate two adventurers in the same turn, then your third adventurer gains one focus counter. If you take a rest action in any turn, you lose all focus counters on all of your adventurers.

Focus Counters
An adventurer may hold a number of focus counters equal to his concentration value. These are gained by not being activated when two other adventurers of your party were.
Each focus token held adds one point to the next ability they use, and then are consumed. Such tokens are returned to the available pool of focus counters.
For example, if a rogue is not activated for two consecutive turns, but both other adventurers are activated both turns, the rogue would now have two focus points.
Here is the impact of two focus tokens for each of his action choices.
Move – His speed is increased by two.
Attack – His attack value is increased by two.
Defend – His agility is increased by two, over and above the increase already given. His attack value is not so increased if he is attacked.
Support – His attack value is increased by two before the penalties of supporting are applied.
Search – His search value is increased by two, allowing him to choose from two additional cards.
Cast – The range or the damage of the spell is increased by two, where possible. The choice is given to the caster which benefit is gained.
Loot – No benefit
Equip – Regardless the number of focus tokens, only one extra item may be equipped.
Steal – The stealth ability is increased by two. Stealing from the hoard has no benefit.

If he was attacked while he had two focus tokens, his agility would be increased by 2 and he would lose his focus tokens.

Dragon Turn
When a player is about to take his second turn while holding the dragon token, his turn is replaced by a dragon turn.
In this turn, he is allowed to activate the dragon in an attempt to protect the dragon hoard from opposing adventurers.
The player may first move the dragon 90 degrees left or right if he desires. The dragon never leaves the hoard, however.
If the player holds any dragon action cards, he may play one such card as the dragon’s attack.
If he has no such card, or chooses not to play it, he may use the dragon’s standard attack.
(The standard attack is a claw attack in an adjacent front-facing square.)
The attack is resolved immediately.
He may withhold the dragon’s attack if he chooses to do so.

After he has performed the dragon turn, he passes the dragon token clockwise and his turn ends.

Theft.
When you attempt to steal from an adventurer, compare the stealth of your adventurer to the search of your target. The highest value wins. Each player may play one action card from their hand or one spell to boost their ability. The thief plays their card first.
If the thief is successful, they may choose to take one card randomly from either the adventurer’s pack or the player’s hand (in an attempt to steal dragon hoard terasure.)
A stolen equipment card goes into the pack of the thief; an action/treasure card goes into the thief player’s hand.
All hand and adventurer strength limitations apply. A card that cannot be kept is given back to the target player.

If the thief was unsuccessful, now the target gets to make an attack against the thief out of turn order. This is considered a free action.

Combat
When a character makes an attack, he has the chance to deal wounds to that character.
There are two ways to make an attack. Ranged or Melee are physical attacks, and spells are magical attacks.

Magical attacks are made by spellcasters. The range of the attack is the range of the spell. The target character must be within a number of spaces equal to or smaller than this range.
There are two types of magical spells that can be used as a magical attack.
Some spells, such as lightning bolt, attack a character based on agility and can be avoided, to avoid all damage.
Penetration spells, such as fireball cannot be avoided, and deal damage based on the range and the armour of the target.
Quite often, spells can target multiple opponents. Spells can not tell the difference between friend and foe. They harm everyone equally.

Magical attacks usually have a range much larger than physical attacks, but provide melee counter attacks if in range.
Focus counters applied to the spellcaster can affect either the casting range of the spell, or affect the attack value of the spell.

agility spells
Spell attack + focus modifier > target agility + card modifier – armour penalty = target takes damage of spell.
Spell attack + focus modifer target armour + card modifier = wounds taken by target.

Physical attacks have a range dependant on the weapon used.
Physical attacks can be defended against, but they can also be supported by other adventurers.
However, in physical combat, it can be possible and more likely that both combatants attack at the same time.

Supporting characters must be within range of the enemy adventurer, not the adventurer they support.
Their attacks are not fully effective, as they are merely providing distraction and cover for the allied combatant.
Hence, their attack and defence values are halved. However, the supporting adventurers do not take damage, unless they were the target of the attack.

Add all combat modifiers, including weapons, armour, action cards, spells, and focus counters, before halving for the support value.

To resolve a physical combat:
For the attacker,
Attack + weapon + spell modifers + action card + support attack + focus counters = Damage
For the target of the attack,
Armour + agility + defend modifier + spell modifiers + action card + support defence + focus counters – search penalty = defence
Damage – defence = wounds taken, minimum zero.

If the target was attacking or defending in their previous turn, they are allowed to counter attack – even if the attack made against them kills them. These attacks happen simultaneously, but for sake of clarification, we resolve them separately.

An attack only lasts for one round of combat. Further combat may take place in the future turns of either combatant, or such a combatant may choose to flee.

Character death
Characters will die, frequently. Usually by spells, traps, monsters, the dragon, or combat with other adventurers.
If yours dies, remove all focus or stat modifying counters from the adventurer card. The corpse remains at the adventurer’s last position, and holds the equipment once held and worn. Use a corpse marker to identify the location of the corpse, and another to mark the equipment at that location. Place the adventurer card in the discarded adventurer pile. Remove the corpse markers if the corpse is looted.
Your party size is now reduced, but on a brighter note you are now allowed to take a recruit action during your turn.
A recruited character begins ‘in town’ and you are allowed to purchase one magic item at a cost of three wealth. However, that item must be carried or equipped by the newly recruited character. This character may equip the item as a free action.

Returning to town
Any adventurer that exits the board through an entrance has made it back to town. Their health is restored, the character may sell any equipment being worn or carried, may purchase one item, and you might be able to replenish the spells of certain spellcasters.
You must take a ‘recruit’ action to bring them back onto the board, or the adventurer may wait until the remainder of the party escapes the caverns.

Increasing your score

When all living party members are in town, as one of your actions you may convert any treasure cards held in your hand into wealth and you may convert your fame into wealth. You may then redraw your hand back to five cards.
You are permitted to change the equipment and carried items between your adventurers, as you see fit.
Your following action must be a ‘recruit’ action where you place all of your adventurers back on the board at any entrance(s) of your choice.

Fame points
Fame can be converted to wealth when your entire party is in town. To do so, decrease your fame to 1, and increase your wealth by the following chart. Your first five points of fame are worth nothing.
If your Fame was:
- between 6 and 10 you gain 1 wealth.
- between 11 and 15 you gain 2 wealth.
- between 16 and 22 you gain 4 wealth.
- on 23 you gain 6 wealth.
Fame cannot be increased more than 23.

Once the last treasure has been removed from the dragon’s hoard, or when any deck of adventurers is depleted, you may not convert your fame into wealth.

Ending the game
When the last treasure is taken from the hoard, all players must expose the treasure in their hands. These cards still count in your hand size. The game ends when all loot has made it to town. (Shuffle your hand before any theft attempts are made from you!)

The winner of the game is the player with the highest wealth. Ties are broken by fame points.

Live werewolf game in the works

This game is spontaneous creativity after an evening of f2f werewolf. I want to take the game in my local game store to the next level.
I will advertise this one in advance, but note that the ad will be pinned in my FLGS.

LOOKING FOR DEDICATED WEREWOLF ENTHUSIASTS

This will be a night of werewolf taken to the next level. Please recognise that this will be a more difficult game of lies and deduction.

ROLES:
Wolf: 2
Vampire: 2
Witch: 2
Necromancer: 1
Priest: 1
Wolf hunter: 1
Vampire Hunter: 1
Villagers: 3 or 5
Optional – Lovers: 2

Total: 13-15

Rule adjustments:
1. The dead go back to sleep. They are not allowed to view the night actions once they die.
2. Each role might have more action choices than normal.
3. The dead can come back to life.
4. Winning conditions apply differently for some teams.

ROLES:
Wolf.
Night actions.
The wolves know each other, and can choose one of three actions.
Attack and feed, infect, or abstain.

To attack and feed, the wolf points at the victim.
To abstain, the wolf covers their mouth instead of pointing.
To infect, the wolf covers their mouth AND points at a victim.

If the wolves cannot agree on a target, no kill occurs. All wolves abstain.
If all wolves abstain, no kill occurs.
If all non-abstaining wolves choose to infect, the target becomes a wolf.
Any player that becomes a wolf will be tapped on the shoulder. They do not wake until the next night, but they are considered a wolf at dawn. No kill occurs and wolves are considered to have abstained.
Vampires, witches and undead cannot become wolves.

If one or more wolves choose to attack and feed, but others choose to infect that same target, the infecting wolves are considered to have attacked but not fed, ie abstained.

Any wolf that abstains two nights in a row is revealed dead at dawn.
Wolves win if they reach a clear majority of the group (ie more than half.)

Vampire.
Night actions.
The vampires know each other and can choose one of three actions.
Attack and feed, infect, or abstain.
See the description for wolves.
Wolves cannot become vampires.
Vampires are considered undead for the necromancer’s win condition.

Witch.
Night actions.
Each night, the witches may choose one of two actions.
View one deceased player, or dose a player.

The witches may view any deceased player, and learn if they were a wolf or not.
If the player was a wolf, they have the ingredients to make a witches brew.
The witches choose who to view by pointing at their target.

If the witches own a witches brew, they may choose to dose a player with their brew.
They indicate this by pointing at their target and pointing to their mouth.
If all witches agree, this player becomes a witch, and are tapped on the shoulder.
If the witches dose a wolf or undead (including vampire), the player does not become a witch.

The witches win if there are ever four living witches after a lynch.

Necromancer.
Night action.

Each night, the necromancer may choose one deceased player to raise their corpse as a zombie of their former self.
Only humans become zombies, so deceased wolves and vampires remain deceased. Witches can become zombies.
When a player is raised from the dead, they will be tapped on the shoulder. These players are now undead, and win if the necromancer wins.

The necromancer and zombies all awaken together on following nights, but only the necromancer makes any decisions.
The necromancer and his zombies win when the undead are in the majority. This includes vampires, but vampires do not win this way.
The necromancer is not undead. He can be infected or be purified as a villager after his death.

The priest.
Night actions.
Each night, the priest may choose one deceased player to raise their corpse as a purified human. This player now wins if the village wins.
Zombies, wolves and vampires may not become villagers. The priest can be infected or become a zombie. The priest can purify deceased witches.
The priest is not infected by wolves or vampires.

If the priest and necromancer choose the same corpse, the player remains deceased, but as a deceased zombie.

Wolf Hunter:
Night actions.
Each night the wolf hunter chooses one player. That player will receive a tap on the shoulder.
If that player was the target of a wolf infection, he prevents the infection. The target does not become a wolf.
If the target was attacked by a single wolf, the wolf is slain instead.
Otherwise no action occurs.
When all wolves are destroyed, the wolf hunter receives a tap on the shoulder.
The wolf hunter wins with the village.

Vampire Hunter.
See wolf hunter.

Villagers.
No night actions. Must remain aware of which phase in which their shoulder is tapped.

Lovers.
Know each other. If one dies, the other always dies on the following dawn.
Can be otherwise affected as any human.

The village wins when no other team remain.

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.)

WW: Dark Moon

I have an idea for an online game of werewolf.

I think it will be the next game that I moderate.

The first thing is that this template can use any roleset for standard or multi team werewolf. The roles are dealt randomly.

The concept and difference though, is that there are four moons and the four moons have differing cycles.
Every player is influenced by one of these moons, based on the sphere of influence of each moon.
The four moons are coloured orange, red, white and black.
Red influences passion, love and anger.
Orange influences dream and art
White influences logic and rationality
Black influences destiny and fate

There are two things important for the way moons will influence the game.
Firstly, any moon that is full will give a bonus to the role ability of all players under influence of said moon.
Moons that are new will have a role-based penalty or weakness.

Secondly, any two moons that are in eclipse will affect vote strengths of affected players. They will be double strength on any player of the opposite moon.

Before the game, I will run a simple questionaire which will calculate which moons are more influential for players and choose which moon rules them. They will not understand the moons’ spheres of influence, or which moon I decide rules which player. That is for them to discuss if they like.
Each day, I will advise which moon is full, and which is new, so they can see effects in the game, and make appropriate correlations.
However, the black moon – known as the dark moon – is invisible. It also has a non-standard cycle, which is variable in either the wax or the wane.

The tricky part is deciding – once I choose a roleset for the players signed up – how each role will be influenced – either improved or reversed.

Wolves – I have three ideas, for stronger and weaker, in case I have three wolves.
I have a different power for each wolf, and because they are the evil team, they understand their avilities and their moon of influence. Lucky them!!
One wolf will affect the night kill. When his moon is full, the wolves get two kills. When it is new, they get no kill.
One gets brutal when full, the other tough when full, but when their moons are new, their votes count for nothing, and they automatically begin the day with a hidden vote on them.

Seer is easy. Two views when full (one by choice, the bonus will be random) and a failed view on new.
And I don’t see why the sorcerer would be any different.
These two will quickly learn their moon of influence, unless it is dark.

I have an interesting idea for the hunter.
In the new moon, he doesn’t count as the hunter. He’s just a normal villager. But when his moon is full, if he gets nightkilled, he takes a wolf with him.
It won’t happen often, but it doesn’t need to.

Villager – I think a bonus to vote power, negated by zero vote power.
This ties in to make wolves very similar to villagers, allowing a cover story for evil.

Bodyguard – he can protect two players when his moon is full, or perhaps he learns that his target was attacked if the moon was full. When his moon is new, he dies instead of his custodian, as a martyr.

As for the moon cycles, I have drawn them as if they were a sine wave, with different curves, and where they cross will be eclipses.

I think it will provide an entertaining, interesting twist to the game.

NEW TO BLOGS

I’ve never blogged before, but have always thought that sometimes my internal thought processes might amuse someone, so….

Let’s give this a go.

Today’s blog is gonna be a bit lame though, as I warm up to all this.

Yesterday was my first attempt at gambling for cash on Full Tilt Poker.
I invested $5.00 in my skill and talents as a “professional” poker player. Gotta start small!

I tried some 9 player sit’n'goes at $1.25 entry, winner gets about $5, 2nd gets $2.70 and 3rd gets the difference (with $9 being the total prize pool.)

Well, my first three games I got busted. The first two in fourth place too (the bubble!) in hands that statistically I should have won.
My next two games I came second in each, and had almost earned back my original $5.

But I got busted trying to steal a pot with AQ in the next game, and that left me too broken to recover.

I have enough for one more, but am being cautious. Maybe this afternoon I’ll try again.
Some professional, heh! There’s still room left in this dream.

In other news, I’ve wandered back over to the werewolf forums that I frequent, where I often live or die by my word.
I also like to moderate games for other players to be challenged by.
I am very ambitious in game design for werewolf, sometimes I bite off more than I can chew, if you’ll excuse the pun.

I have four games I could run, but they all need work before they’re ready.
1. Village of the Damned
2. Ingulf The Mad
3. The Dark Moon
4. Hunters of the Red Moon

1. This game has been one of my favourites for a long time. What is different in *this* game of werewolf, is that everyone has a physical location on a map, and it takes time to travel to other players’ huts. So if you’re not home when the wolf comes knocking you might just survive. But then, someone might be setting up to ambush you on your return. Also, there’s gold pieces with which you can purchase potions. You can drink them yourself, or trick others into drinking them (if they’re harmful!) or can be tricked yourself into drinking something undesirable. And every player has a role, with strong abilities, and a somewhat misaligned agenda to fulfil.

It’s just a big job to mod this game, and I know for a fact I’ll be the only one to ever try. That’s kinda satisfying in some respects.
I have nailed the balance issues in the large games (20+) but I was having trouble in small games (I think I was running 11-13?) so I need to extend it slightly. But the more people, by far the more work. There are just more interactions, people visiting your huts, or paths crossing during the night – more potions to keep track of, more actions to resolve. With six people, I might have an interaction between every player – 36 interactions. But with 7 players that can become 49. And so forth.

To moderate this game, I actually make a map of the village for each night, and draw the paths taken by every player, and see where they cross, and keep track of how long it takes to get to the destination. Pretty intense. But the reward is the story that evolves (every game is drastically different!) and watching each player’s role come to life – and then a very sudden and unexpected end. I get more out of resolving it than any player gets from their single side of the story.

2. Ingulf The Mad. If the last one was big this is massive. 50 players massive. Complicated lynch resolution, tricky roles with changing states as small as “free slave” or “captured slave” or others that change the game for every role – such as if Ingulf gets captured by evil. When this happens, agendas change, abilities change, and more.
Plus the text is conceptually required to come from the novel, which means I have to find and type every passage as I require it. And I must find at least two a day. A lot of work. Not to mention delivering 50 night results (this number decreases daily, though.)
I would run either of these games as 24 hours day and 24 hours (plus, if required) night. Very slowly.

3. The Dark Moon, I can make as tricky or as simple as I require. Player’s role and ability is influenced by one of the four moons as they come into and out of cycle.
I’ve been toying with lunar cycles based loosely on what I remember of biorhythms. The trick I can employ though, is a fluctuating cycle for the dark moon, which can’t be seen. And this is based on the story too – if you need justification for my tricksy ways.
I need to work out what happens when moon cycles cross (or hit peaks or troughs), to make this game interesting, and design a game long enough to make the most of at least a three moon cycle I guess. So maybe a two week game. Not to mention how different roles can actually BE affected by lunar cycles.

Ideas so far:
All players = their vote is worth nothing in trough. Their vote is worth double in full moon.
OR = your vote is worth double if your moon is crossing the moon of the moon of the player you vote for. Your vote is double at full moon.
(Not entirely sure how to do this, yet.  Biorhythms are real time, but votes in real time, while correctly recorded, would be hard to correctly calculate.)
Hunter – at trough acts as normal villager. In normal moon, acts as normal hunter. On full moon, if he is killed, he gets brutal (and as a night target automatically succeeds in killing the wolf that killed him.)
Seer – at trough gets reversed view. Normal days get normal view results. At full moon gets full role result.
Sorcerer – similar.
Wolf – At full moon gets “tough” can’t be lynched ability. At trough votes against him are doubled.
Bodyguard – at trough fails to protect and dies also. At full, also acts as a witness? Or perhaps learns the number of wolves attacking?

4. I had already designed this game, and came real close to running it, but I kind of forgot a thing or two I originally intended, and incorporated slight variances which, I feel, don’t make the game suspenseful or exciting. I dropped it, until I can fix it up.
It’s close, though.
Hidden roles here, can’t tell you much.

But there are some cool roles here such as unexpected wolf roles.
Also, I’m considering having involved level of interaction between players – such as a seer who looks not for the wolves, but their trusted companion to gain mason abilities, or unlock powers.
Also, there is more than one kill method and some players will be susceptible or immune to various attack types. This will make it a true hunting game for evil – they must seek out their prey and strike appropriately.
Oh, did I forget to mention sacred ground?

On any night, any ‘hunted’ player (ie not evil) may take refuge in the sacred ground, where they may not be attacked at night.
Why, oh why would I include such a game breaking mechanic?

Wow, this was a long blog.
Don’t get bored, check back often.