[GB] 5 or 6 Person Playtest (TBD)

[Eliahad]

Thanks, Andrew. The drafting idea has crossed my mind. I'm not ready to go there just yet, but I think it's a possibility that could work. I also think those original God Power decks were flawed, and not varied enough. I think the new ways that we've discovered that we can use God Powers will make a difference in that area.

(All of that said, the God Deck for Poseidon could just be a specific set of drafted cards. If you take THESE cards, you're Poseidon. Poof.)

There will need to be a "What if a 0 HP Hero has to discard HP?" mechanic, for sure. Based off of last night, and today's thinking, here's how I would change the actions:

Shove -- This was fine to me. Keep it at 2 HP.

Grab -- A successful Grab takes away Sprint, Shove, Interceptions and Knock Down. Keep the "choose to move into the vacated hex." Keep it at 2 HP.

Knock Down -- Change it back to "The Defender chooses where the Ball lands." Keep it at 2 HP.

Defending would be 'Pay 2 HP' to stop an attack. If a Hero takes 2 Hero actions against you, it's 2 HP for each attack, and you can choose to block one or both.

Anyway, that's my gut talking here. I'm still thinking about all of these things. (Caveat: I didn't think Knock Down was as powerful as everyone else. I don't know if that was because of my own projection onto it, or for some other reason. I'll keep trying to figure out why I had such a different opinion than everyone else.)

[FlameBlade]

Oh, one thing came up: can I step on someone to throw the godball?

[Eliahad]

I would say yes! If you can legally end your turn in an unoccupied hex. (Vía God Powers and sprint and such.)

[FlameBlade]

Was thinking that if I end my turn in someone's hex, I would get moved. That's the penalty.

[Eliahad]

You know. Yes. But since you are throwing in their hex, they can intercept. (If you want to think of it as a block. Sure.)

[Mike]

Attack Effects

1. Restrict opponents options (Grab/Block) -- how MUCH we restrict can be tweaked

2. Reposition opponent (Shove) -- range and direction of repositioning can be tweaked

3. Make opponent prone (part of Knockdown)

4. Dislodge ball (part of Knockdown)

5. Steal ball (not part of any current standard action)


I personally don't think steal should be a standard action.

I think that on dislodging the ball, defender should choose direction.

I think we should separate dislodge from knockdown. 1-4 all feel like 2HP effects on their own.

I think Sprint should be solely a move action. You can move/Sprint and still Rest. Which essentially means that when you are not in the middle of attacking/defending, Sprinting becomes a zero-sum action.

I think Dodge (defense) is a straight up 2HP move, and that cost defends you against everything. So an attacker isn't going to dump the 4HP combo Shove/Knockdown on you unless she's sure you can't/won't defend.


My thoughts on this are slowly developing.

[Eliahad]

[Bluedevyl]

[Eliahad]

What if we make Knock Down solely the purview of the Gods, and replace it with "Dislodge" or "Force Fumble"?

[Eliahad]

What if we added a Defense action?

If you take no other Hero Action, you can pay 'x' number of Hero Points? Any attacker against you must pay that cost in addition to their attack action? You also do not get the refresh from the "Rest" action.

I don't think I like it, but I'm writing it down anyway.

[Mike]

[Mike]

[FlameBlade]

If anything, this defense action should be called Flexing

[Phoebe]

I think most of my comments are going to be made void once God Powers come back into the thing. Keep in mind I also played the first time the other day without the cards in the deck, so in my mind I was prepared for having options to select from the cards and weighing which one was best for the situation, and instead it turned out to be a completely different sort of game.

My complaint vis-a-vis the cards is that there's not much choice about what the heroes can do on attack, and knock down is always looking like the best option for attack. Throwing isn't particularly good because you can't throw it far enough to get it away from other people until you can have another crack at it. Throwing just means giving it up to whoever has the most points left and can get to it. I don't see why you would ever grab someone as opposed to knocking them down, unless fewer points are required to recover from knocking down than from being grabbed, on that player's next turn. The hero points also still make it a resource game as opposed to a move selection game, and while I like a little bit of the constraints of resources being depleted, the fun part of the game comes in choosing moves and not in trying to manage your move so that you don't run out of points.

The fix I would propose, before knowing anything about how God powers are going to come back in, would be to separate out additional attack options, make defense 2 points for any attack by a single player no matter how many components it involves, get rid of boost entirely, and either add more hero points at the beginning of the turn or for resting, or else make it possible to sprint and throw a little further.

The problem with knock down right now is that not only does the person go down but they lose the ball and have no control over where the ball goes. That makes the action way too powerful for the attacker. I also don't like that you know exactly what the other people can do in response to your move. You know what their full range of options is and you know exactly how many points they have left, so you can predict what the results will be. With the cards things were more chaotic because you didn't know what kind of attack you might be receiving, and you had no idea what sort of weird defense card your opponent might have. The goofy chaos and variety made it more fun in my opinion.

I also think it would be more fun if people scored more often. The biggest downside to all the tests games I've played is that you struggle for a long time and nobody scores, so that it's more like God soccer. Have you ever come up with a configuration that ended in games where people had to win by scores of 5-3-2 or something?

[Eliahad]

This is awesome, thanks, Phoebe. We took the God Powers out (for now) to figure out what Heroes could, and should, do. We also took them out to see if we could get reasonable movement and motion of the Godball without the God Powers, and I think we're getting close to that.

I hadn't seen a 6 player game yet, and it was enlightening to me.

The question I'm thinking about today is: Individual turn game play is fast, does that also mean scoring should be fast? I have an idea for a new scoring goal, that will have its own issues, but I can't see how it would actually play out.

The general idea is this: The Pillars of Heaven become actual goal posts and pairs of Heroes are headed for the same goal, but it's the one who gets it through the goal who ends up with the points. It could be awful. It might BE awful, but I would want to see how it works.

[Phoebe]

Anyone want to do that sometime this weekend?

[Eliahad]

I can maybe do that tomorrow evening, but I'm not 100 percent sure of my plans yet

[Eliahad]

If people would like to run a playtest tomorrow, that is a thing we could do!

[FlameBlade]

I'm good for after 8:30 PM EST on Sunday.

[Bluedevyl]

I think I can do that as well