Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Ruleset Design: Turn system (1.5)

So this is pretty much a short musing on some of the replies posted by Ian and Corvus and also of some people I've spoken to about this turn system. The thought that comes up quite frequently is that people are affraid they will be waiting too much if they are unlucky with the tokens being drawn.  (for example player A gets three moves in a row due to his tokens being taken out of the back after each other)

What might would solve this is to get just one set of tokens with the approapriate markings of each fighter being put in the bag instead of each player having its own colour. The game would become a bit more '' I go, you go'' but still retains a bit of its unpredictable nature. Note it would be still possible to have a player having more then one turn in a row due to some special tokens available in the game but more on that later!

The case about one player geting more turns then the other because he has more fighters in his force is one a bit harder to solve. If solvable at all. I mentioned in my replies that this is the case in most skirmish and mass combat wargames. Once fighters/units/squads start to die or become removed from play for some other reason it can always happen that one player has more 'to do' then the other one. This is also the case if you are facing a 'horde' like force with your specialized one. One player will be playing his fighters more timewise because he simply has more of them. You might notice it a bit less maybe in some cases if you are playing the ''I go, you go'' style as you move/shoot/fight with your entire force in one go and then your oppent does the same with his.

I guess this is also a matter of balancing your force. I always liked to go for a varied force with only a few leaders and specialists and mostly footsoldiers. If you only take a few hard hitting characters and maybe some monsters and just a few lower fighters then you will always be outnumbered. Sure your opponent has more to do but your fighters are likely to survive just a bit longer due to better stats and abilities.

What do you want to get out of your games?! For me it's all about fun and not a competition of how to make the hardest hitting force out there to smack your opponents silly with and in as little time as possible. Sure, if that is your thing go right ahead. I respect that but I'd likely wouldn't play against you in the future again as it wouldn't be much fun for me to be honest. Nor would it be for you either right?

I am not saying this turn system is perfect, yet! Far from it but I like where it's going and with your help I hope it will be polished some more untill it's good to go!

Next update will likely be tomorrow or towards the end of this week and will be about the sorts of tokens I have in mind including the 'special ones' I mentioned earlier!

Cheers,

Gibbergeist!

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