It’s a smaller update than I’d hoped, though it does cover all the zombie questions plus (after much fiddling with new use cases) an important change of ruling on the energy shield. I’ve also remembered to colour code the changes. At least, I think I’ve got them all. Might have missed some of the early ones.
Next time I think I’ll split it into 2 versions: with and without the discussion. That might make it rather smaller 😉
DZ FAQ is here.
The latest update announced a rather exciting upgrade to the Advanced rules if we get to $600k: build your own Heroes. This is a big expansion and one that I’m really excited about. It’s certainly something I’ve been itching to get included, and I’m very happy to see it on the near horizon, fast approaching.
Obviously this means you can pick from a wide variety of races, professions, stats, feats and so on. That’s not where it stops. It also means being able to choose what kind of Dwarf fighter you have – there’s more than one. The whole process can also be merged nicely into the progression tracks and options for the Heroes so that they advance logically along the path you set out of them at their “birth”.
Naturally, balancing this will be a challenge. However, the wider array of abilities and specialisms I can get into the rules the less it’s about being a direct comparison between one Hero and another, and more about how to assemble a group of Heroes whose unique abilities complement each other best. Adventuring parties won’t want several duplicates, they’ll want a group of highly skilled individuals.
And yes, all these rules apply to both evil Heroes and Monstrous Heroes too. No reason they should miss out on all the fun, and no reason to stick to “good” Heroes and “bad” Monsters 🙂
So what sort of options do you want to see when you generate your Heroes?
I’ve done some work on the DZ FAQ today and would like to do some more on it tomorrow. Rather than putting up two updates within 24 hours of each other (and confusing everyone) I’m going to do a slightly larger one tomorrow.
I know I said I’d put it up today, but I think this makes more sense.
Thanks for your patience.
I’ve had a few questions about this, mostly focussing on whether the different factions in the expansion packs will have different AI behaviour or not.
The answer is simple: yes, they will.
Don’t worry about that. Goblins will be sneaky and cowardly, zombies will be dumb, the guy at the top of the page will be burny. It would be strange if they weren’t.
I’m not entirely sure how this will work in detail, so I can’t tell you for sure yet. However, I can say that I won’t be happy with AI being the same for everything. Getting the character of the different races in there is important. Essential, in fact. For me, being able to add more character into the faction is the main benefit of an AI deck. Might as well turn that one up to 11 😉
Now there are a number of approaches I can try for this. Some involve more stats, most involve being clever with cards. (Well, the latter could be replaced with tables in the book, though I think that’s a second best option.)
At the core is likely to be a deck of cards to turn one/some of when it is the AI’s go. This will define its reaction(s). At least, this will be the core piece of working out its reaction(s). The clever bit is in how the different types of model interact with the different cards, and this is where the important design choices come in. It’s tempting to get complex with this, and so I’ll be resisting that urge and searching for a more elegant way to get varied behaviours into a simple process. Having just done zombie and Martian AIs for Deadzone and Mars Attacks I have an idea of what I want to do here. The DS AI is rather more complex than either of those systems in what it needs to simulate as they were both monocultural systems. Still, they were useful practice.
In order to decide which if the options fits best I’ll try several on the table. There’s no substitute for playing these things through. And, being AI, I can always be sure of an opponent when I need to test something 😉
Ben dug out an interesting report on the value of gaming as a whole (in the US). It’s interesting stuff.
For me, the most troubling thought is not that CCGs are worth almost twice the total of other types of gaming put together (though that does trouble me). No, for me the most sobering notion comes when you compare those numbers to this report.
Can you say “niche”?
I’ve been a bit overrun with various craziness for the last week, so haven’t posted as much as I’d like. The following is a sort of roundup of answers to common questions. There’s so much discussion and suggestions on the FAQ page (thank you everyone!) that my answers are getting lost. This should make things easier to find.
In addition to this I need to update the Hero cards as I’ve been improving them. That will be in a later post.
There have also been a lot of more general comments about adding detail in various ways. I’ll just point you at my previous answer to this.
It may be my imagination, but it seems to me that the backers of the Dungeon Sagas Kickstarter are a chattier bunch than normal. Or, if not chattier, perhaps more wordy. Now I’m the last person to suggest that this is a bad thing: my posts are routinely long blocks of text. However, it’s interesting to see the difference in you guys.
In theory, I would expect there to be differences in the audience for, say, Deadzone and Kings of War, so it’s not surprising. However, I’d have been hard pressed to guess how that difference might have manifested itself in terms of comments. This morning though, I’ve been going through the last couple of week’s posts , trying to catch up on answering all the comments (I’ll be doing that for a little while longer too). The amount of people who have written long and well-considered suggestions and thoughts just seemed pleasingly and unusually high 🙂
Like I said, maybe it’s all in my imagination. Maybe I’ve just been staring at a screen too long and I’m hallucinating. What does anyone else think? Different crowd? Different tone?
From 6.30pm UK time (7.30pm CET) tonight I’ll be doing another one of those Google hangouts thingamajigs live on Youtube. If you’re in a different timezone then there’s a handy countdown timer on there so you can see how long you have to wait.
If you can make it during the interview then I’ll be happy to answer questions. Just post them in the comments under the video or here. I expect that if you can’t make it during the live broadcast it will be etherically immortalised so you can listen to us natter at your leisure.
The interview will be with the crazy Spanish gamers at Forja y Desván who seem to spend their lives interviewing some gamer or other. You can check out their Facebook page or YouTube channel for more.
See you then 🙂
With the $300K stretch goal smashed on the Kickstarter, we’ve now added not one, but two AI decks to the game. Adding this to the already flexible design means that there are now more different ways of playing than I can count on both hands…
But that’s only 5, I hear you cry. Yes, and then you double it because each of those 5 can be played as either the Core game or the Advanced game, and they are quite different. But even that’s not all.
You can also choose to play pre-written campaign scenarios or have the Necromancer player (if there is one) devise a dungeon for you. Again, this changes the style of play as building a dungeon, laying the traps and ambushes yourself makes you play quite differently. It also means that the Heroes are in for a genuine surprise when they first try out the Necromancer’s new dungeon. They really have no idea what is lurking behind that door…
Anyway, I just thought I’d get this down in writing as it’s starting to get quite a long list. Replay value? Oh yes… 🙂
I’ll get a FAQ for the DS Alpha done tomorrow. In the meantime, a couple of points about piles of bones.
The Necromancer has a limit of 4 Skeleton Warriors on the board at once in each Scenario. This makes choosing when you raise things from piles of bones far more tactical.
Also, when you raise a model from a pile of bones it always come back as a Skeleton Warrior regardless of what it may have been originally. Think of the dungeon as being strewn with bits of shattered and ancient bodies. Also consider that being repeatedly smashed may not be good for the “bone memory” (the hardcore version of muscle memory). I always think that more skilled and “fancy” undead require more long-winded and complex rituals to create. Animating any old combination of bones as a crude fighter is relatively easy, but only the bottom rung of the necromantic ladder. Of course, as Mortibris gains experience he will also get new spells…
🙂
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