Breakthrough
I've been working on The Paradise Incident for a while now, and every time I've come back to it it's felt like it's just getting more and more disjointed from a design perspective.
I want TPI to feel like a gateway drug between a boardgame and a traditional RPG, and the ways that I can do that have generally been escaping me. I knew for a fact that I wanted it to be fairly mechanic-driven, unlike The Quiet Game, which I love but I really don't want to rip off.
Then an entirely new system hit me. I don't want to go into too much detail, because it's still rattling around in my game, but it's a card-based system. The problem is that it won't be compatible with a standard deck of cards, but you'll be able to print-and-play with no problem or order a print set from DriveThruRPG (this will also give us a premium option to try and make some money).
In any case, the rules are fairly simple. You make a character, or take a pre-made, then describe how you interact with events. There are player actions, but also character actions.
A player action is something like "Add a new location card to the deck, and shuffle it in." There are rules to how this happens. Each turn each player gets one action.
The characters are super-simple. You need to be able to get through character creation in 15 minutes for the game to have a reasonable run-time, and we'll include a handful of pre-made characters for groups that aren't as into the roleplaying aspect or want to jump right in.
Characters get multiple actions each turn, which are limited to interacting with the cards that make up the game.
Characters may "scout" a new location (drawing a card from the deck) or "plunder" a previous location to gather more resources.
Each location both has resource impacts, with three main resources (Food, Survivors, and Tech) that get used up during play and must be replenished.
There's also time pressure, and skill tests for each of the challenges that characters face, with a focus on playing up unique elements of characters, rather than just numbers.
Just in case the idea hadn't occurred to you before now, you probably want to think about making those "cards" 3 x 5 cards, both for flexibility in having enough room to write on and the ease with which players can get more blank cards on which to write.
A game which requires you to pre-populate three by fives with data may not be ideal, but as long as the prep is relatively short or can be done on the fly by all the players at the table during Turn 0, it could come together fairly well.
The idea is that you can play the game with or without customization. Adding more cards can serve as a setup for multi-session play or make play with larger groups go better.
I'm thinking I might offer two versions; one with a 54-card "standard" set and one with a 70-card set. The print your own might be in 3x5 format, or I might just include a template for blank cards.
If I'm already stuck playing with a nonstandard deck of cards, meaning that I'm going to be required to print out my own stuff, whether it be on paper and then glued to card stock or directly on the card stock, it better be compatible with something that I can get my hands on easily and quickly so that the inevitable customizations that are going to come along at least fit in with the materials as designed.
At the very barest minimum, you need to include templates for 3 x 5 cards and for standard playing card sized stock.
Also, if a player action is something like "add a new location card to the deck and shuffle it in", and that does not leverage player creativity – you've just tripled your work as a designer for no real gain. If you want to design a board game, design a board game. But recognize the way that the tools get leveraged.
Of course, if you want to design a board game you will essentially be competing in one of the hardest fought markets currently available to entertainment designers, far more so than video games. With the rise of places like Game Crafters, board games and board game designers have access to high-quality custom pieces and printing for relatively low costs – making competition very, very tough.
One of the advantages of the RPG industry is that, truthfully, production value isn't that big a deal. People are perfectly happy with print and play work in the industry. Outside of the tiny niche in a tiny niche, however, there's not a lot of traction to be had.
Since brainstorming the original design, I've come to a couple conclusions.
Adding cards during play is probably too significant in a balance sense. You'd need to change several core mechanics in order to add them without causing issues. Likewise, it either requires us to slow down and go through a process (not ideal) or make these cards super-simple, which is not the goal of TPI.
Swapping out cards could be done as part of a storytelling conceit, but then you've got to question why you're playing such a game in the first place.
Formatting the cards is another issue. Poker cards are too small for most people to do by hand and have it work well. Fortunately, they're not a pain to do printing on (at least in terms of legible results). Originally my plan was to have a 52-card deck and be able to play with poker cards, but as I've watched the design evolve I don't think it'll work out smoothly.
My plan right now is to include the source files for the card templates so players can still add/remove cards from printings as they wish, and have an opportunity to print their own. Because none of the card creation will be during play, this gives people an opportunity to do this via computer, then print.
The biggest pain with 3x5 is that they don't print well. You get five cards to a page if you're going for efficiency, and since we're shaping up to have somewhere around a 60-70 card deck (this is an early estimate, and may not reflect the finished product), that would be a lot of printing. You can get 11 bridge-sized poker cards to a sheet of paper or 9 full-sized poker cards. I'm leaning a little toward the full-size poker cards, especially because they make everything just a little less crowded.
I'm probably going to wind up making templates for both down the road, but not immediately on release.
Sounds like it could be good. The location and plunder piles seem a lot like a munchkin mechanic..
So I just did this
It’s not much but I hope it helps you continue your journey of making a living doing game design.
Thanks a lot! Every bit helps.
Also, regarding the location and plunder thing, it's loosely inspired by Munchkin (I was wondering if anyone would draw that comparison; the actual drafted mechanics look pretty different from Munchkin), but one of the ideas in TPI is to have a sort of object/location permanence.
The way it works is that you basically uncover a deck full of places as you play, moving between them. Each has its own little fluff, and its own challenge to overcome. You always have three places these cards can be; the upcoming deck, the "hand", and the completed place pile.
Players can return to a place that they looted in a previous day to loot it again, which is risk-free but uses up time, which is typically the most valuable resource (basically, you want to try and get through as much of the deck as possible).
However, the central conceit of the game is that you need to find resources while exploring. Since that's a relatively simple concept, we've built up RPG systems around it while having the GM be abstracted out; the actual functional storytelling experience is more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book than Betrayal at the House on the Hill, with a lot of player input "I manage to find my way past the obstacle because..."
One potential expansion could be to have an option to add new card types to the game to make it a little more complicated; maybe I'll do this by the time the game's in a semi-final state.
I didn’t mean to imply you it was wrong to get inspiration from another game (I.e. munchkin)
I just wasn’t sure if that is what you wanted as a lot of people play it.
All though there are advantages to that also.
Nah, it's fine. The thought occurred to me too, so it's evidently not that far off.