I've been designing Magic forever now. (As an amateur, obviously.) It's a designer's dream: an incredibly complex game with individual components that can be altered in a million ways. And all that complexity has already been accepted by the massive player-base, which gives you free-range to continue with it. These days, I'm more interested in designing original content. That's where y'all come in. We're gonna design a tabletop game. Through a series of polls. A long series, I imagine. Let's call this game... No Goblins Allowed!

I'll continually update this poll with the results, what that means for the game, and where we're moving from there. I imagine there will come times when things need to be decided in ways other than polling, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Feel free to comment on this project's progress, poll questions, and anything else that comes to mind.



Step 11: Yet Another Vote!

1. Dice that represent character statistics

2. Dice that can be combined to form different moves

3. Dice that represent actions. Then you could combine them with other dice (maybe using some kind of poker hand mechanics) to do combo actions.

4. Drafting of asymmetrical dice.

5. Limited availability of expendable asymmetrical dice. (Use them wisely.)

6. How about customizable dice face on the fly?

Each player with have a board listing what his die do:

-1: Deal 1 damage.
-2: Something else.
-3: Deal 1 damage again.
-4:
-5:
-6:

Over the course of the game you can replace the effect.

Step 1: Party game or strategy game?

Party games may involve strategy elements, but are focused on fun, boisterous, and knowledge-based interactions, among other qualities. Some examples of party games include Apples to Apples, Taboo, Scattegories, Scene It, and Pictionary.

Strategy games may involve party elements, but are focused on resource management, tactical planning, and rules knowledge, among other qualities. (Funny enough, luck is likely way more involved here than in party games.) Some examples of strategy games are Chess, Dominion, Settlers of Catan, Carcasonne, and Cones of Dunshire.

I'm using these as broad starting points. If you have a game in mind that you'd like to model after, place your vote where you feel it's best served. Trivial Pursuit is more of a party game. (Though I really don't wanna scour the internet cataloging facts.) Twister is a party game. Pandemic is a strategy game. If you know of a good way to mix the two, tell me! If a life-long dream of mine to make a good strategic party game.

I'm of the opinion that a party game needs a good idea, while a strategy game just needs good development. I don't trust our capability to come up with a good idea, so strategy +1.

Nominating Hanabi for strategy-party game.

Party! Party! Party!

Although mixing the two would be much more fun. I feel like combining Hero Quest with the something like the goofiness of the Discworld setting could be a fun hybrid of party and strategy.

Throwing my hat in with the strategy crowd.

By the way, I think it would be great if this game was as PbP friendly as possible.

Please elaborate.

I actually like resource management games. Especially if they're meant to be played with a group (although typical examples involving groups have the individuals against each other, as opposed to working together). So I've voted for strategy.

Are we commit to making a board game, or can we do something different, like a story-telling game?

I think we should design a game that lends itself to being played on forums. So no decks of cards or complex tactical positioning, no responding on other players' turns, and so on.

I'm not the world's biggest fan of co-ops, but I definitely don't hate them and would enjoy building one. I've only really played Pandemic, Forbidden Island, and Marvel: Legendary in that department, so I imagine there's plenty of room to expand.


I was committed to making a table-top game, but using that as a genre is rather vast. Jenga, Magic, Chinese Checkers, Spin the Bottle, Telephone... for the purposes of this exercise, they each count as table-top games.


I don't know why, but I thought you meant something completely different by PbP. That's a pretty awesome idea. I didn't go into this with that in mind, and I'm not completely sure it's the direction I want to go, but it's very interesting and possibly great. If others chime in agreeing, I see no reason why we can't go that route.

What if we make a game about party strategies? Like, finding people you know, making jokes, flirting, drinking enough to be fun but not enough to make an ass of yourself.

I can get the first 4, but the last one doesn't even require a physical object. Are we just talking about any game that requires less than lots of pieces?


That is a neat idea.

Okay, Telephone might not technically be a table-top game. The general idea is that it's a game you sit down at the dining room table to partake in, but even that doesn't encompass things like Twister that feel like they fit otherwise. What I'm mostly getting at with "table-top" is that this isn't going to be a video game or a sport or a playground activity.

This. 100 times this.

Also, while party games are easier to learn and more fun out of the box, strategy games have more replay value.

Do we get paid?

I'd be more for a party game. One of my all time fav is Quelf. The random card draw and casting dice is what makes the unpredictable game so much fun; you never know what will happen. Strategy games tend to be a bit more serious but they are fun as well, just rarely as festive as a party game.

I've seen some suggest a party/strategy hybrid, and I think it could be a good compromise. Either way, I'd be down to try this out.


V.

Quelf is the perfect example of a game that fails to work without the right people. Every time I play Quelf, there's at least one person who doesn't get it or doesn't like the method of playing. Also, it really needs to be rewritten. There's a lot of general confusion about how cards work.

Still, it's fun.



Everyone who participates will get a free copy of the game upon (a) its publishing and after (b) the first 100 copies are sold. Though it's probably better if I just don't promise anything at all.

My favorite sort of games are ones that make players think creatively. Epistemology is probably the best example, but one time I ran a roleplaying game with maraxas and rubik and someone else over mumble where I had the players secretly trying to kill each other.

I'd rather get a penny for each copy sold.