geoff-maddock / secret-lodge Goto Github PK

Prepare for the initial play test. This will be done with dry erase boards/cards.

• Create cards
• Collect parts
• Design boards
• Share full rules with setup beforehand
• Create "cheat sheet" rules to help play
• Create a questionaire about what works, doesn't, questions, suggestions

In person or on tabletopia?

This is the main game board that represents the area that all players play and interact.

It represents a faux Victorian city - a heightened reality "London", similar to the more fantastical Sherlock Holmes or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

The physical board (demo) is 24" x 24" and based on a dry-erase hex board.

The board is divided into these areas:

• The main play area - the city - is split into four (4) districts each with four (4) boroughs and seven (7) spaces/lots each.
• The factory spaces - one for each of the eight guilds with tracks for lodge guild influence and worker placement
• The power track - where the relative power of each lodge (player) is tracked.
• The cadre - a place that face up cards from the deck can be drawn.
• The season track - a track indicating the current season (and current phase?)
• The marketplace - shows the going rate for exchanging resources for coins, superseded by laws.

Optional areas:

• Astral track - the area of the board showing what astrological signs are currently favored, adding power and favor dice.
• District laws - each district can have a law enacted during an election phase.

Create images for cheat sheets.

• Create a minimal text version

• Create an icon based version

• See the smallest form factor I can get all the necessary information into

• Include rules for all actions

• Include summary of how to score

Action Items

Take Aways

• Didn't play through, but set up two player game
• All pieces generally seemed there, but need to have a clear key for pieces
• Player boards were not sized right
• Felt low energy for game - was hard to push through the play. Number of factors from unclear rules to unclear goals to being tired.

Brainstorm Notes:

• There was too much to do, hard to understand

• The mechanisms of how to play were not clear. Need to simplify

• Need a clearly written set of game objectives and how to achieve them.

• Clarify how the market works - add a default market card that specifies exchange

• Clarify player initial

• Simplify the factories - maybe just re-design card.

• Make sure the factories are on the board

• Clarify the rules around building

  • building occurs in first phase
  • there's a set of rules - based on location on board and relative location to other players and other buildings

• Clarify how to score points and what actors are for

• Remove elections / make optional? Remove laws / make optional? Play with just a market, and re-add this later

• Revamp actor abilities - need to make them all useful, and have both an instant ability and tap ability or persistent ability [IN] [TAP] [PER]

• Clarify what secrets are for - end of game scoring / "hit points" of lodge

• Move the occult track to a different location on your board? Clarify how it works? Tap an actor to advance an occultist?

• Revamp how pawns work - needs to be more motivation to use them.

• workers - work in factory

• play on cards

• hold spaces for building

• building - control districts

Resolution

• Score points for control of the city

• Score points for actors in lodge

• Score points for strength of grandmaster

• Score points for occult?

• Revamp the "Quick guide"

Other notes

• Starting resources may not have been enough
• Actor abilities may need changed

You win by scoring the most points of any player.
You score points by:

• Expanding your lodge by building buildings and maintaining the largest presence in the most districts
  • VP / building built
  • VP / season where you are the dominant lodge in a district
• Gaining power for your lodge grand master
  • VP / level of mastery your grand master gains
  • VP / aldarman election won by your grand master
• Mastering the astral sphere with your occultists
  • VP for each occultist based on their mastery of an astral sigil
• Taking out members of other lodges
  • VP for each actor eliminated by toughs, investigators or occultists
• Following the scoring rules of your secret lodge
  • Score points at the end of the game based on your secret lodge card rules, mostly via secrets and actors in your lodge
• Enacting your secret plot
  • Score points at the end of the game based on your secret plot card rules, based on your resources and state of the city

This board shows the astral state of the universe, as well as how powerful each lodge is in each elemental/sigil.

This is the individual board for each player's lodge and holds most of their resources, potential, grand master and secrets.

The player board tracks various aspects of our lodge:

• The grandmaster. This is the leader of your lodge and increases with power over time. Protect them against assasinations.
• The secrets. These are secrets that your lodge holds over other players and can be leveraged for power or protection.
• Influence track. This is the influence your lodge has that can be spent to manipulate other lodges, characters or pawns
• Power track. This is the overall power that your grandmaster holds, and is scored each season.
• Resource pool. These are the resources your pawns bring into your lodge. Resources can be spent on cards, plots, buildings, pawns.
• Building pool. These are the constructions you have available to your lodge. Buildings increase your lodge's power.

Your available pawns are determined by your buildings, plus and extras hired during your turn. They can be placed next to your player board.
Your conspiracy consists of the cards you have played from your hand into an area below your player board, and amount to an extension of your lodge.

Write up game description, with different versions for different audiences or settings:

• Prose-ful detailed description of the setting and theme of the game and how it will play out
• More concise version that still contains all of the necessary information about the theme and play.
• One sentence version for sharing the gist of the game with people.

The game play loop is the sequence of actions that take you through a whole play of the game.

Game Setup

• Open the board and place in the middle of the table.
• Place each factory board around the city board.
• Place the factory tiles by the board in the general suppyl
• Place coin tokens by board in the general supply
• Seperate the card decks:
  • Shuffle the main deck and place next to the board, leaving a space for discards
  • Shuffle the secret lodge cards and place next to the board
  • Shuffle the secret plot cards and place next to the board
  • Optional: Place the law card deck near the board

Player Setup

• Randomly determine who the starting player will be
• Give each player a lodge board
• Give each player a set of pieces in their color - these are their supply, and are not yet available.
  • Six (6) lodges
  • Three (3) halls
  • Three (3) towers
  • Three (3) salons
  • Eight (8) workers
  • Three (3) toughs
• Deal each player five (5) cards or use draft method
• Optional: Draft method:
  • Deal three times the number of players worth of cards face up.
  • Deal two random cards to each player.
  • Starting with the "last" player, draft up to a hand of five (5) cards out of the face up cards
• Give each player starting resources as per the lodge board, or the default of:
  • One (1) lodge - Take token from personal supply to lodge area
  • Two (2) coins - Take token from general supply to lodge area
  • Four (4) bread - Move tracker to "4" space

Pre-First Turn

• Before your first turn, you'll place, in reverse player order, your first lodge onto the city map.
  The same building rules as the main game apply. [If you build closer to the market, you'll have to pay a coin.]

Seasons [1..6+]

• Repeat the three phases of each season in order.
• At the end of the 6th season, and any further season, check the end condition.

Phases [1, 2, 3]

1. Consolidation
   Gain pawns and resources based on state of lodge board and game board.
   Player Actions: Simultaneous

2. Machinations
   Primary game loop. Players take actions to control the city, gain resources and improve their lodges power.
   Player Actions: In clockwise order from first player

3. Resolution
   Resolve any plots and conflicts.
   Player Actions: In clockwise order from first player to pass phase 2

End Condition

• If any player has unleashed their secret plot, follow through with end game scoring.

End-Game Scoring

• After a player unleashes their plot, each other player gets one more turn, and if they can unleash their own plot, they are queued.
• Follow through the rules and scoring of each secret plot in order.
• Follow through the scoring on each player's secret lodge card.
• The player with the most power is the winner.

Optional Setup

• Set up the occult board
• Set up elections board

Write up detailed game rules. This is in the GAME RULES file here, written using markdown. This is the comprehensive rules which will be used for play testing and from which more concise rules will eventually be written.

• Catalog of all parts, boards, cards, documents
• Description of play
• Setup of the game
• What the win conditions are
• Rules for each part of the game
  • Boards
  • Cards
  • Pawns
  • Turns of play
• Solutions to specific scenarios as they come up

Flesh out the details that will be used to create the game cards.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FbHg03Pj0tRJIfP-dGqlwPflYK61CEHONHpxBpzfkQk/edit#gid=0

Main deck:
Actor
Artifact
Gambit
Boon
Location

Additional decks:
Lodges
Secret Plot

Card notes:
The main deck or the cadre is where cards are drawn from.
The cadre is a set of four cards placed at the top of the board and renewed each season.
There are no duplicate cards in the deck.
The main deck contains 64 cards.
If the main deck runs out of cards, reshuffle the discard pile and create a new main deck.
There may be some additional expansion sets that can change the flavor and contents of the deck.