Hey Guys!

This is just a post to let everyone know I havn't died, my update schedual just went out of the window in light of the holidays.

My projects for this year:

A 1000pt Necron Army painted and based. (And thus, Killteam)
Paint ALL THE 15mm
Go to Salute 2014 (THE ALL FATHER EDITION... where I take my dad)
Build an Inquisimunda Gang.
Weekly Lords of Gossamer & Shadow updates
Get to a point with Joust! where the mechanics are dealt with
Get some of my 'Made it at work' RPG stuff out of my head onto paper.
Create a Chronicle Start Addendum for the IOD/Forsaken
Finish making kit for Ars Magica (And play it)
More gaming with The Responsible One

... It might happen.
Maybe.

No more Dice-Off Reposts!

So there we are ladies and gentlemen, the end of my Dice-Off reposts.

I'm writing this from the past and by now hopefully a lot has happened and I've slipped in some other non-schedualled blog posts to do with what I've been working on during this time (Such as the Amber DRPG game I've been considering getting started as well as some stuff about the board game I've been designing.

Thanks for sticking with me guys - we're going to try and make sure we keep a fairly regular schedual for updating - my plan personally is to try and make sure I keep the 'Wynn Wednesdays' and 'Fort Fridays' going from this point on.

Joust! (Second Draft)



So in continuation...

 

We decided to try splitting the equipment cards and the attack/defence cards into two separate decks.

 

This ultimately necessitated us to pick up at least 3 joust cards at the start and depending on how many you had picked up previously you might have to pick up less. It felt a lot more like you were planning out your tactics - have more cards for the list to modify your tactics and a higher chance of picking up things like Irresistible Force OR pick up more equipment cards for the improved chance of being able to find a great piece of equipment for your knights.

 

 

Well, we had to re-hash the equipment system a little and how the joust actually worked. Later on in the day when Fantum helped me play testing (Robert is the chap in the pictures however!) It was pointed out to me that the Jousters should cycle as the game was too long and it ended up feeling like the second and third knights were already fully equipped by the time they hit the lists.

 

So we ended up deciding that each knight would joust one after the other and that at the beginning of a joust you could place two equipment cards and then you could place another one as part of your action on the lists.

I also managed to take a sharpie to some of the cards when playing with Fantum also, so when we played it the second time around we actually had a reasonable number of Double Attack cards. I also created some Double Defence cards which seemed like they were needed.

With all the cards on the table now we really, really needed to have cards with different backs and maybe some colour on them to make it much more noticeable what cards are which. Robert also pointed out we might benefit from having some sort of 'Play Mat' so that you can see where stuff is supposed to go.

And looking back at the pictures... yeah, god damn that takes up a lot of table space.

 

 

We also decided that maybe it would be an idea to have some tokens to make it easier to make a note of how much attack and defence someone has. Also, the Block/Strike system needs a rehash - maybe some sort of  'targeting card' that both players put down markers on.

 

So right at the moment, we're at a 'rebuild the play test deck' place which is slowing down the testing!

Joust! (First Draft)

So for a while I've  had a board game bouncing around in my head. I'm not really sure what caused me to come up with it - I think that I must have been looking through my papercraft miniature collection and  wandered across a knight or two.

So yes, a game built up in my head - a bit of a bidding game where two knights charged towards each other in an attempt to knock each other off of their horses.

I'm really struggling to describe it more then that at the moment - But one thing I DO have is some pictures of the stuff I've come up with so far on my first playtest with the guys:

 

The basic set-up of the game.

 

 

This was the very first draft of the game - where all the cards that could be put into your hand were in one deck. We were using one knight each just so I could explain the basic idea of the game.

Down the centre of the game table is 'The List' - the big bit of fence where two jousters lunge at each other wildly from horseback. Each joust is in three parts represented by the three face down cards on the list. On the first flip both players turn over the card closest to them which will have 'Attack', 'Defence' 'Attack x2', 'Immovable Object' or 'Irresistable Force'. These increase the attack and defence of the jousting knight. They can then take an action (equip a non jousting knight, replace an unflipped card from the list with one from the hand, discard a card from the hand and draw a new card or change your Block  and Strike targets (more on those later...)

 

 

 

Also in this first deck was a number of equipment cards which replaced the knights basic starting equipment: Helmets, Lances (Heavy and Light), Steeds and Armour.

We noticed that hands got bogged down with crap  really fucking fast and using equipment cards  as attack and defence cards was too complicated.

Just to the right of The List are the 'Block and Strike' cards. Essentially this was a bit of a way to get  around some of your opponant's equipment  and protect your own - at the beginning of each joust each player  choses  an area to strike on their opponent  and block  on  their own knight... If a knight strikes a location  and there was no corresponding block,  the piece of equipment is destroyed before calculating 'The Clash' (more later!)



And then finally the third card will be flipped and The Clash is calculated. Unlike many traditional RPG combats where initiative is a thing, everything happens to both knights regardless of what happens. All of a knight's Attack Score (from their equipment or from cards on the list) are added up and compared to the opponant's Defence Score. Scoring happens as follows:

Attack is less than half of the opponant's Defence: Miss (0 Points)

Attack is more then half of the opponant's Defence but less then equal: Hit (1 Point)

Attack is equal or more then the opponant's defence but less than double: Broken Lance (3 Points)

Attack is double or greater than an opponant's defence: Unhorsed (5 points)

 

 

And... well, that's the basic premise of the game. We noticed several glaring problems straight away:

 

1) My original plan was to use equipment cards instead of attack and defence cards on the list if you didn't have enough. This got complicated as hell and was discarded with the second draft.

2) The game requires a lot of table space. Knight cards being surrounded by equipment cards took up half the available play area.

3) Non-deck cards like the Blocks, Strikes and Knights had the same  backs as everything else did. While this is essentially just  a 'could have been better prepared but eh, it was a first  draft mock up...' whine it did make  us  get frustrated more  than once.

4) I hadn't printed enough Attack x2 cards. Which essentially meant that both players often got identical scores each round and there wasn't enough variation in points per turn.

 

From  this, the game  evolved a little more. But more on that  another time!