Town Guard Modifications

Town Guard is evolving from the ideas I had for a Quincunx boardgame. In the earlier evolution of the game, super-powered heroes would uncover supernatural mysteries in front of the cameras of a reality TV series.

When I was developing Quincunx as an RPG, it used six elements and six types of action (where the combination of action and element determined a character's specific abilities). For the boardgame version of the game, I was going to strip the game down to 6 action types that drew on different resources at the character's disposal.

Attack
Defence
Knowledge
Skills
Allies
Powers

This way you'd get different types of attack styles based on different elements, different  skills, etc.

But for an entry level board game, the combinations are a bit complex.

So I stripped it down to 6 actions only...then stripped it further, down to 4 actions. Attack and Defence are combined into a "combat" score. Allies was removed.

But now I'm thinking of adding "Allies" back in, or at least adding something more social back into play. I'll probably combine skills and knowledges into one category.

So we'll end up with...

Combat
Skills/Knowledges (still deciding a name for this category).
Allies/Leadership (a name needed here as well)
Magic

The four categories add enough interest to take the game beyond typical board game mechanisms (where you're often lucky to get a combat/non-combat, or a combat/magic split).

Complexity is added, based on the locations were events take place in the game and a few other factors.

For those who are interested, I hope to have a playtest version of the game available shortly.

Comments

Spiralbound said…
How about Experience for skills/knowledge, (as in the experience of the guard), and Influence for allies/leadership (to represent the degree of influence each guard can exert beyond themselves using their abilities & contacts).

I would second the vote for some sort of inter-player play as well, even if it doesn't relate directly to an allies-related stat. Increasing player interaction is rarely a bad thing. :-)

Sign me up for the eventual playtest, I'll bring it to the local board games club and we'll put it through its paces for you. ;-)
Monday, 08 April, 2013
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