by CommBBE

Related Item: Shadowrun: Anarchy 2.0

Can we use the core book's picture, as it sports the game's logo?

by The rwinder

Introduction

Hello, everyone. It is time, yet again, for a discussion of the games of others and how they nibble at my imagination and inspire my own creativity for how they might be adapted into my own game design. Sometimes these are aimed at things I have used or might use or even spawn a cute little rule set, [1] but this time around, I am picking an example that I intend to play around a bit with, even if I can tell from the get-go that the rules aren't going to be so simple that I can explain them all in a short blurb after the essay.

Yes, yes, consistency is not an element to expect from this "design inspiration" series whatsoever. [2]

I, Napoleon

I, Napoleon (2024, d: Ted Raicer) is a solo biographical RPG card game rogue-like... so quite a lot of ideas wrapped into a single package. The gist of the idea is to lead the infamous historical figure of Napoleon Bonaparte from being a military commander to general, first consul, and then emperor over the course of the late 18/early 19 centuries.

So many events of Napoleon's life and the events of the world around him are captured across the hundreds of cards in the game, so it must be a remarkably complex game to execute to simulate the dynamics of this life and era. Well, it's all funneled through a remarkably straightforward procedure. You have a deck of cards and you draw the top card and deal with it. Even if it's not so fair all the time...

Image added to BGG by [user=James_Blair][/user]

James_Blair wrote:

First card and first die roll of the game... Napoleon didn't even manage 1 point of glory!

That's right, the advancing through the vertebrae of the deck that serves at the spine of I, Napoleon is what I’ll be thinking about this time around.

Elegance, Simplicity, and Subtlety

There's much more to I, Napoleon than the flip/resolve nature of the main deck. In some ways, this serves only as preparation for the campaigns that regularly appear as opportunities or requirements that area handled at the end of the turn.

The deck often adds potential commanders (if you want more in your stable of minions) and modifiers to the battle or its outcomes (feels cool when you recover the Rosetta Stone, after all). It'll also throw out random increases and decreases to your glory or other tracks. It'll also try to put Nelson into play and you always should deny that if you can.

Image added to BGG by [user=srmansfield][/user]

Perhaps the most common take that's counted as a ding against I, Napoleon is that stuff just happens to you and there's no or not enough agency. That doesn't bother me, since the core way to deal with cards being chucked at you is to ask "do I want to expend my luck to deal with this?"

I like this simple choice, because it doesn't intrude on the flow of events beyond a binary choice to pull the trigger on it vs reusing it for a re-roll on a card or during the battle at the end of the turn that might or might not even happen. Essentially, this flip/resolve or flip/deny means this element of the game that reflects the events in the life that you can sometimes control and sometimes have to endure has a simple, elegant, and subtle mechanism at play. And sometimes you just get scabies and that's that....

Beyond the debate of what choices are in I, Napoleon [3], I also like the simply handled uncertainty of how many cards are yet to come and how eventful a given year will be.

Keeping all these elements straightforward lets the events convey what they should, that the world is alive and that the possibilities of what will happen this time will not be quite the same as what was seen the in the previous play.

Retelling vs Storytelling

This kind of design is remarkably well-suited for telling the story of a big life of a big personality, especially a world leader like Napoleon. There's a gradual increase in scope that makes more and more of the world relevant as you add cards to the deck and add to the bones of the deck, even if you don't know what will show up when if at all.

It's a great way to take real or nearly-real events and create these kinds of what-if scenarios informed by real history. I also think there's certain fictional settings where it would work beyond applying it to, say, Queen Elizabeth. In the "public domain" a mythic and military leader like King Arthur makes sense to me, seeing as there are so many takes on him and Arthuriana and one can see the same kind of arc here as you might for Napoleon, veering toward many possible demises but guaranteeing that he might end up impaled by Mordred if allowed to get to the natural conclusion. [4] Indeed, the Imperium Legends game offers up a very different deck-based exploration of Arthuriana that has Camlann as a potential fate hanging over your head.

The point here is that the simplicity of the random flow of cards that might happen has a lot of potential for retelling histories and stories that can play out differently. What interests me is this question:

:star: Can it be adapted to where you are telling the story yourself?

Originally, I couched this as "writing" and while, yes, writing text down on cards (or drawing on 'em) would be part of a make-as-you-play design, it doesn't have to be such fully fleshed out prose as you'd get from writing a novel or even doing a solo journaling RPG.

I think the answer is yes... but a system for making and adding cards needs to be invented to keep the burden low on the player during play. It'd be nice if it could be chunked so you create bits and pieces here and there, but perhaps there's some middle ground where cards reveal the story non-linearly and through repeated play?

There's already a level of high abstraction that comes with playing a card. Consider this example:

Image added to BGG by [user=srmansfield][/user]

There's a lot baked into what might be behind the ups-and-downs of politics and glory with respect to how Paris Society and a possible marriage to Josephine interact, even if it all comes down to a simple die roll that's easy to execute.

Naturally, there's playbook entries for all these cards that come with the game (which I like a lot, thanks Ted & GMT!) and while writing alongside might be part of the activities of a make-as-you-play game springboarding from the storytelling card-based RPG rogue-like, I would rather not make it necessary. I would not even want you to necessarily have to tell the full story for every card in even a quasi-rough chronological order. But the independent nature of cards allows for that. The real question is can they be bound together in a way that creates the emergent evolution of I, Napoleon while still expecting the player to make all the stuff ... and maybe also keep a little bit of restraint on the "if-then" nature of adding cards. What I'd rather avoid is the situation of "OK, it's 1794... remove all this stuff from your deck, dangit!"

Parallel Inspirations

Indeed, while what I earlier termed "the spine" of I, Napoleon is the jumping off point for the idea, I think the rest of the game can't quite translate generally. The second half of most turns deals with the resolution of campaigns and the maintenance of diplomacy later on. That might not translate so easily to an alternative theme like woodland animal land where the main character is trying to plan a birthday party for a tertiary character who doesn't show up until the very end... not that I want to tell that specific story (certainly not without some campaigns to break up the tedium).

I think some other games might hold the keys to making the idea move from "storytelling deck of cards that mostly involves flip/resolve where also you make all the cards as you go" to a playable prototype.

Three of the big (but not the only) issues to figure out are:
1) How to constrain deck bloat, ideally keeping it to a max limit of cards?
2) What else are is the player tracking besides the cards themselves, if anything?
and most importantly
3) How do new cards get added to the deck?

That third one I think might take some inspiration from a much different game: Arkham Horror 3E, which has a tree-structure codex of cards that describe when "in play" the conditions ongoing in a certain scenario. I think maintaining an index of cards that can be added by ## from a separate library might be the best way to handle it, and it means that any given card can fork into one or more other cards that add themselves to the deck. This means the deck will gradually grow and depending on what cards get revealed in a given turn, different paths down that branch will be explored.

Or (as an alternative) the way the Star Trek: Captain's Chair game (or any of Imperium: Classics/Legends/Horizons) plays out with a base deck and then random additions from a reserve and maybe a separate set of opportunities to add "developments" by choice might be a natural way to grow the deck with some control and some chaos. I think this is a little less likely as I imagine cards having more dependency in this game than they do in the Imperium family. I also think those games really benefit from mechanically rich cards (especially the super-dense ST:CC!) and deck-building and resource management... and to be honest, I am probably going to aim more for "die roll = you died / you continue to cards A/B/C" as a pattern to keep it all really really easy to prototype and see if it's worth my while.

But either of these approaches means we have a creative game that is potentially replayable as opposed to the way the more creative-focused RPGs usually play out which is almost always with a forward momentum. The game itself might unfold with a forward momentum (unlike Microscope which bounces around a timeline with different resolutions examined) but the game is all about replaying and realizing different possible forking realities? [5]

And So... on to Playing on the Edge

So, that's where I am with ideas so far. I can tell already that "the rules" for the core of the game will be pretty different depending on the story I want to tell. Adventure in fantasy land is going to require very different card generation and unlocking than cosmic horror is coming or cozy investigation as a genre. Maybe some ideas would or wouldn't work for this frame. Maybe they all are doomed from the start? I don't know! But if I get the gumption to try out going from "I could see myself doing this..." to "Let's try it out..." I'll likely play around with a deck of 100 index cards and some rules of thumb for this card-driven RPG on my other blog: Playing on the Edge.

As an aside, I am also aiming for a game I can play on my couch as folks are talking about here: Which solo games do you play on the couch? [6]

At the moment I am considering using other RPGs as a source for material or inspiration. That'll remove some of the pressure to think of all the creative elements and let me focus on getting workable mechanisms around the I, Napoleon-esque spine. One possible candidate is Ironsworn, which has a decent amount of "make up something" spawning tables and a fairly straightforward environment to work with.

Then again, I just got ahold of Mythic Bastionland (because I of course love to buy and read and never play RPGs) and given I already proposed we have an I, Arthur game up above, this sidelong Arthuriana RPG might be a pretty good jumping off point for such an encounter based card game. I know enough about the guts of how myths unfold in the game that I suspect the notions Chris McDowall was working with in that game might be translatable to a totally different style of game.

I guess I'll find out, and if I can make it halfway work, you may too. Until next time...

End Notes

[1] Such as when I came up with my Deck Legends idea based on some thematic choices in Star Trek: Captain's Chair.

[2] And as always, here's the poll where you can sway (um...maybe) what I might discuss in forthcoming blog entries:

[poll=2081887]

[3] OK, so while we have an aside about choices in I, Napoleon, while expending luck is the most obvious dilemma, there's others too. Do you add commanders to the pool or throw them away, diluting both good/bad events in the deck? Do you lunge into First Consul or later Emperor, fattening the deck? And I'm sure there's other individual cards I haven't even encountered yet.

[4] Or maybe he could get stomach cancer if he survives that?

[5] OK, to be honest, I had another version of this "alternate realities replayed" in mind that was much more like Hark! Vengeance or Deep Fortress but I think this I, Napoleon-esque mechanism of flip/resolve/add cards will work better for creating alternate realities that can be revisited and experienced anew. But will it work? Uh...

[6] Actually several of my games were made so I could play them on the couch or in a chair. Last Haiku and Hark! Vengeance work well.

by Playful_Chipmunk

Au secours! Dans Ubongo, je suis coincée au niveau 58. Je n'arrive absolument pas à entrer toutes les tuiles dans la grille. On peut les tourner et miroiter. Vous pouvez m'aider?

by Biotech66

Originally posted at www.throatpunchgames.com, a new idea every day!

Product- Adventuring Family: A Family Therapy Role Playing Game
System- Adventuring Family
Producer- Adventuring Family Books
Price- $29.99 here https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DWMLDX1V
TL; DR-A solid experience to help people communicate 98%

Basics- Hey, kids, are you ready for an adventure?! Adventuring Family is a simple role playing game to help a family talk. Let’s look at the system.

Basics- This is a d6 system. Want to do a thing? Roll a d6 and add your attributes. Hit the number? Success! Don’t? Failure. This is everything from magic, to combat, to asking for a discount at the bar.

Combat- Combat is simple too. Every turn you can move and do an action. Actions include things from spells to swinging a sword. Again, it's all d6 plus an attribute. If you hit the target’s AC, damage! The weapons do different amounts of damage, but the creature being hit reduces damage by their armor class.

And, that's it…. This isn’t the world's most complicated game, but that may not be the point…

Mechanics or Crunch- This game is simple in the best way. If you wanted the next RPG to sweep the world, then this won’t be it. The mechanics will be too simple for most adults if they spend hours each week reading RPG books. But the mechanics are solid enough to allow a pre-teen to hop in and explore the world and have fun. It’s streamlined and effective. Characters have classes and levels that, again, are too simple for a 60 year old who played DnD before it was hard cover, but it would be the way for that 60 year old to get a grandkid into the hobby and to open up. And that right there makes the mechanics solid. 4.5/5

Theme or Fluff- Theme and approach are where this game will shine. This is very important-this is a way to get serious topics into a conversation. It’s like a movie where something crazy happens and then kids can talk to adults during or after. It opens doors. Now, just like the crunch, if you expect George RR Martin levels of intrigue, don’t get this one. The plot is very simple with a built-in campaign built around exploring different mental health issues like chemical dependence and eating disorders. Yes, some morals are baked in because the goal is to help kids talk. Also, the book spends time discussing common mental health issues in children and how to address them at the table and to get them involved. The goal isn’t to be the one book you buy to help you work with your own kid with ADHD, but this is a way that you can hang out with them and be a team. Solid! I am not knocking the writing; the simple nature of the game and the basic world and ideas make this approachable. This isn’t the Tomb of Horrors, but it's a way to get people to open up and bring them together. 5/5

Execution- This is a solid book, but has a few minor errors. Something I really hate is when books don’t have pregenerated characters. This isn’t a killer, as the process is to choose a background, choose a class, and maybe choose a subclass. But, I’d like ready-made characters, so I or the kids I'm watching don’t have to think too much before jumping in. Next, I feel the book is a bit too simplistic on the description of a few of the skills and abilities. I would compare this to a hybrid of DnD 5e and Dungeon Crawl Classics. DnD has built-in background, and DCC has simplicity. The book just goes a bit too simple and doesn’t completely explain what skills go with what attribute and a few minor things. This is not a killer, but it’s something the more hyperfocused might be mad about. Also, the book is solid, but the monsters are not as fleshed out as I’d like. The bad guys you can fight are Melee Bad Guy, Ranged Bad Guy, and the literal EVIL GODS OF THE WORLD! It reminds me of the standard JRPG plot of Level One, Mission One: kill rats in your uncle's bar’s basement; Level 50: fight GOD! Again, not horrible as the bad guys have a sliding scale for their difficulty. The book reads easily, is fun, and has good pictures to help the littles among us get into the hobby a parent or guardian loves too much. 4.5/5

Summary- This game is a fun one. If this was just a simple RPG, it’s just that, a simple RPG. It doesn’t push any envelopes or revamp the entire industry. But, it does help people talk. I’d honestly compare this game to a beer. You can absolutely drink beer all by yourself at a bar with no friends. That’s ok, but the rest of us wonder if you’re ok. A beer is best shared with friends. A beer with the buds after work is there to let you socialize. A way to get everyone together and talk. That is exactly what this game does. It helps kids find shared experiences with an adult and a way to open up and talk about it. It’s also got digestible sections for adults to read through to help those adults understand a bit more about those kids. Again, this can’t be the only book or source you get all the information regarding mental health from, but if this is the first place you start, that's not bad! If you have little ones and want a way to connect or build a connection into a few difficult topics, you need to check out Adventuring Family. 97%

by BigIV

<div>Faraway Sea Cover and related minis</div>

by BigIV

<div>Cover and map</div>

by BigIV

<div>Book cover and related mini sets</div>

by Bahasa

<div>cover</div>

by Bahasa

<div>Cover</div>

by Bahasa

<div>Cover</div>

by killerkatanas

<div>Rules description 3</div>

by killerkatanas

<div>Rules description 2</div>