Next Playtest (TBD)

[FlameBlade]

Oooh! What if two Gods flip down reactions based on moving the dropped ball at the same time? Outcome? Cancels out? Ball move based on ordering from the laurel holder?

[Eliahad]

I love the idea of this pitch:

"Godball is a subtle resource management game where you play as both God and Champion trying to claim the Godball from its altar and bring it to your own shrine."

And then they sit down to play and it's actually Sportsball.

I agree the Pillars of Heaven need to be equivalent to the edge of the board when it comes to moving objects. Each God has one card that can shift the location of a Pillar of Heaven...but other than that, each one is a big hole in the board. Er...mountain in the sky?

I agree moving Terrain should scrub other terrain, and I think there are some God Powers that state that. But it should be a more strict rule (at least on the designer's end.)

Reaction cards to change directionality of barriers/terrain. I like this idea. My gut is saying this might be a future thing. Like, there's an expansion that is literally just new cards for each God that can be incorporated into the game. What I mean is that it will be hard to get all of the awesome cards into a game set of 30. (Unless Gods have to draft their decks before play starts.......which is a wonderful idea. I'll but this lower down on the list of things to think about.)

Barriers and Terrain moving into a Hero. Maybe the rules for such are part of the card? Terrain seems more likely to knockdown than a barrier. Well, not that a Barrier wouldn't knock you down....just that it would be easier to avoid.

I absolutely have to get a physical version of this game finished so I can play with some people in person. I think it will give a lot of information about how fast the game actually is.

[Eliahad]

Things to consider/add:

When do tokens and moving objects...you know...move? (I like the idea of using the turn marker for this.)
In what order do reaction cards get resolved?
What happens if a Hero Action is downgraded to a level where the conditions of that level cannot be met? (Can a Hero intentionally downgrade further?)

[Phoebe]

Just for my 2 brief play test experiences I think you do need some resolution to the question of when actions can be taken and in what order they're resolved. There's a little uncertainty about when you should throw down your reaction card... and what if two people want to but the effects differ... or whether there should be a regular sequence for these?

Personally I don't think it's a good idea to move the pillars and that has the advantage that they can be built into the physical structure of the game board. Terrain barriers Heroes ball... None of these can touch or move a pillar because that's something that structures the whole universe, right? But the other kinds of terrain and barriers are subject to movement and destruction.

To create some different variety of cards it might be nice if some of them address the resources themselves. Maybe there's a card that doesn't do much on the board but it boosts your hero points back up,

What you've done to simplify the hero points category is really great. Likewise with coming up with clear divisions among the kinds of cards and the types of actions that they control. It helps you think about your options... Like this is a movement card and I have two of those so I can burn one now... this is a barrier card... this is going to help me f*** with some other hero, save it for crisis! This reminds me a lot of Touring or Mille Bornes... whatever you know it as. And I just love that game! The spirit and action of this game is very similar, but with the awesomeness of Heroes and the fun of the chaotic fighting thrown in.

[Phoebe]

I wanted to mention that now that I've played it twice I really want to play at a couple more times and get the feel of it. Now that I know what's going on I feel like it could start going faster and faster and we get a better sense of what it would be like physically. It's the same with the role playing games on roll20... The pace is so radically different from what it's like to play an RPG in person. The side conversation that I can't resist making becomes distracting due to the need to watch that one space for game specific comments. So knowing all this in advance, I would like to try again where we concentrate on playing quickly, and get a sense of how a full game will develop and how hard it is to score. I don't know if you're up for that but I would be interested, especially during this time when Ron has a trial and thus completely busy. It may become too chaotic with microphones on, but I think it would help if we just turned on the microphones and had three or four people play and really focus on efficiency. That way we wouldn't have to type in everything... we would just be moving with our mouse while explaining verbally what we're doing, and we could pause to have questions answered in the immediate moment. I don't know if this would work for anyone else but I think that would help. It doesn't really work for runelords, when you've got such a big group of people and one of us constantly jibber jabbers but I think it would help for this.

[Mike]

Three or four people with microphones is doable. More than that and my machine can't keep up.

[Eliahad]

Yeah, there were some challenges with having to type in chat. It does help Flame out, since microphones won't work for him. He's also playing on an itty-bitty screen, or so he says BUT! I wouldn't mind trying exactly what Phoebe is suggesting. I think that would change the experience considerably. (As would making the cards easier to read in the roll20 setting.

I could probably do something Monday or Tuesday evening in that regard.

[Eliahad]

I want to play a longer game so badly! Just to see what happens a couple of Rounds in!

[Phoebe]

If mic not good for everyone then forget that part - we don't need it. Maybe regardless of what you decide for the long term, we could just specify some provision for an order of playing reaction cards. You Eli serve as needed to explain the card so everyone knows what the effect is, and then we just try to go through a game as quickly as possible to get in as many rounds as possible and see what happens?

[Eliahad]

How do people feel about another test on Tuesday evening? (This might not be definite, but I'll know more tomorrow.)

[Phoebe]

That might work for me - I hope so! See how work goes over the next few days.

[FlameBlade]

.5 at this point.

[Eliahad]

I'm still 50/50, too...

[Eliahad]

I am free for a test tonight!

[Mike]

I wish.

[Eliahad]

Trying to make a patch list of all the edits. It will take a while to fix all of these on Roll20, but it will make /some/ things easier for the online version. (Eventually, when they finally all get imported.)

[FlameBlade]

Next playtest imminent at chez Flame residence. Since y'all are wayyyyy west of me or stuff, we will have to let y'all how that goes with physical tokens

[FlameBlade]

We got much further than before, about 3 rounds in.

A lot of things to like about it so far. But best bit had to be Eli figuring out how to steal a ball from me across a wall of heroes between him and me. Basically, I lost godball, and behind wall of fallen heroes flanked by pillar of heaven on both sides.

Ouch. And after all the work where I managed to move godball in favorable direction three times through creative combos.