FE-like board game concept

[Murdok Dracul]

First of all, I don't know if this belongs in 'other games', 'creative', or 'general', but whatever.

At work yesterday I was pretty bored and I came up with some ideas for a board game inspired by Fire Emblem. I then continued thinking about it today while I was even more bored, and jotted some notes down. I'll show you what I've got so far, and if you've got any constructive criticism or a good idea that'd help it out, go ahead. ^_^

(Please note: I don't play board games or tabletop RPGs. I don't know if this is in any way similar to Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer, etc. because I don't know how they work. If it is, then that's a coincidence and...I don't know whether that's a good thing or a sign that this idea is pointless. That said, it's not like much is going to come of this, so...rambling.)

Two boards: one like a chess/FE field (the Battlefield), and one laid out like a Monopoly board (the Character Creator (CC))

Each player has a party of units marked by little figures (like the Warhammer ones) that they'll pit against each other on the Battlefield. Each character can be given a name by the player, statistics like HP, strength, defence, magic, mag def, speed (a note: I'm thinking speed will influence your character's chance of avoiding an attack, which will also be influenced by a dice roll), and one of a set of pre-made classes that have different stats and sometimes abilities. Each unit starts off with a certain number of skill points which the player can use at the end of CC to give the unit additional stats.

So, the way the CC board works is everyone starts with...let's say X number of units. You start off with one unit each on the board, and you decide that unit's class at the very beginning of CC. You roll the dice to move your unit around the board. Each tile that you land on will give you a certain instruction: draw one of a few different types of card, or add one skill point to your the unit you're currently creating. When you make a lap around it, your unit is sent to the Battlefield where you can place it anywhere within your personal...er...placement range. Then you start CC with your next character in line.

Card types (names are tentative, but then so is everything in this post):

Spells: Spells consist of various magical effects that can be used once by this unit while it's on the battlefield. The effects of spells are generally based on the unit's magic stat but the effects and variables really just depend on what the card says.

Tools: Tools will force upon your unit a permanent enhancement to a specific stat, so the tool cards that you draw might influence your decision on how to spend your unit's skill points.

Fortunes: Fortune cards can bring either good or bad 'fortune' to the unit. They might apply effects to the unit that activate when it enters the Battlefield to either its detriment or advantage, or they might affect the unit's progress across the CC board, for example, making it skip forward or backward a few spaces - skipping you forward would reduce your changes of receiving further benefits for your unit, but speeding up your CC progress will allow your unit to hurry up and help its allies who might be struggling on the Battlefield.

+1 Skill Point: Every unit starts with the same number of Skill Points. These can be added to if the unit lands on one of these tiles. After the unit finishes its lap around the CC board, the player spends its skill points on the assignment of additional stats (the unit's Class, and therefore its base stats, are decided by the player before the CC lap, so you can't assign skill points until after you know your class).

I want to strike a likeable balance between luck and strategy, like Fire Emblem, Pokémon video/card games and other games do. The lap around the CC board is luck-based, but what you do with the benefits it gives you is where your strategy comes in.

From then on, on each of your turns, you'll make a move on the CC board until you have your X starting units, and you'll also be able to move your units around the Battlefield to fight your opponents. Just in case your CC goes horribly, you'll also have the option to draw one card from your deck during your turn, like in Pokémon, only it's not forced on you. If you run out of cards in your deck, that's that. You can't use any more deck cards, but you don't insta-lose like in Poké. Deck cards might just contain additional Spells and Tools, but I don't know... As I type this, I'm wondering whether I should just give every player a random 'hand' from a shared deck, but, again, I don't know. I like the idea of players collecting cards to add to their own custom decks, so it'd make it a cross between trading cards and tabletop RPG, but that could prove easily abusable in a game like this and it would take too much thinking to avoid said kind of abuse.

The Battlefield spaces are hexagonal to allow movement in any of six directions. You can move all of your units during your turn, though (unless influenced by a fortune or deck card) each unit can only move by 1 space, and you can attack opposing units if they're in your range. I don't think they'll counter-attack like in Fire Emblem, but I'm not sure. Attack range will be like Fire Emblem, I guess: single-tile range, unless you're an archer...or maybe a mage, but, once again, I don't know about that.

Any thoughts? Would you play this if it existed? Do you have any suggestions to make it better? Thanks for reading, if you did. I might try and create some sort of prototype at some point.

[Tables]

I think you should play some proper board games first, to get an idea of what they're actually like. Trying to get your foot into the door in a market you don't know is a recipe for disaster - imagine if I wanted to make a new FPS, and the last FPS I played was Doom? What you've described sounds vaguely similar to Summoner Wars, so maybe have a look at that to get a feel for how that does things. But really, I think if you play some modern designer games you'll get a much better feel for how they've developed in modern times.

As for this design itself... it's probably not fun. Too much randomness, and lots of dice rolling. Every turn where what you do is primarily or entirely decided by dice isn't fun, it's just bureaucratic. Ideally you want lots of decisions with strategic implications. A great way might be having a lot of control over each character you create, for example you can choose whether to rush lots of units onto the battlefield, taking them quickly through only a few CC upgrades, or instead spend more time there, focusing more upgrades on each character. And you can choose how to tool up the characters - give them overwhelming stats, or extra tricks and traps to spring. For the battles themselves, I dunno, that needs work... you mention a deck of cards like in Pokemon - would that mean this is something like a Collectible Card game, or what? I don't think that'd be a good direction to take things. Perhaps you could do something like Dominion where each game has just a small subset of possible cards and upgrades available, and half of the game is about players working out which combos of abilities on characters will work best - while also working out how to counter those combos they see opponents developing.

[NinjaMonkey]

imagine if I wanted to make a new FPS, and the last FPS I played was Doom?

Actually that wouldn't all that bad, since Doom doesn't have a two-weapon limit or regenerating heath - two things that plague the modern FPS.

[Murdok Dracul]

I think you should play some proper board games first, to get an idea of what they're actually like. Trying to get your foot into the door in a market you don't know is a recipe for disaster - imagine if I wanted to make a new FPS, and the last FPS I played was Doom? What you've described sounds vaguely similar to Summoner Wars, so maybe have a look at that to get a feel for how that does things. But really, I think if you play some modern designer games you'll get a much better feel for how they've developed in modern times.

As for this design itself... it's probably not fun. Too much randomness, and lots of dice rolling. Every turn where what you do is primarily or entirely decided by dice isn't fun, it's just bureaucratic. Ideally you want lots of decisions with strategic implications. A great way might be having a lot of control over each character you create, for example you can choose whether to rush lots of units onto the battlefield, taking them quickly through only a few CC upgrades, or instead spend more time there, focusing more upgrades on each character. And you can choose how to tool up the characters - give them overwhelming stats, or extra tricks and traps to spring. For the battles themselves, I dunno, that needs work... you mention a deck of cards like in Pokemon - would that mean this is something like a Collectible Card game, or what? I don't think that'd be a good direction to take things. Perhaps you could do something like Dominion where each game has just a small subset of possible cards and upgrades available, and half of the game is about players working out which combos of abilities on characters will work best - while also working out how to counter those combos they see opponents developing.

I can't remember if I did before, but I should mention that I don't plan on publishing or selling this. At most, it's just a little experimental curiosity. But anyway, you've given me some good stuff to think about, so thanks. I of course respect the opinion of someone who's played a few of these games much more than I value my own rushed ideas.

Actually that wouldn't all that bad, since Doom doesn't have a two-weapon limit or regenerating heath - two things that plague the modern FPS.

Hey, regenerating health is the only thing that saves me in modern shooting games :P

I don't actually play them much, though, so...

[Tables]

I can't remember if I did before, but I should mention that I don't plan on publishing or selling this. At most, it's just a little experimental curiosity. But anyway, you've given me some good stuff to think about, so thanks. I of course respect the opinion of someone who's played a few of these games much more than I value my own rushed ideas.

Well, that's good. To be blunt: Even very well thought out, playtested ideas which people have enjoyed, are often turned down by games publishers. Being a Games Designer is a tough and unreliable business.

I think there's some potentially interesting ideas here, but they're very unrefined. Making a prototype which sucks is the first step to making a prototype which is fun.