I was playing a bunch of different Roguelikes a few days ago and I thought "What if I could make a tabletop game that felt like a Roguelike game? Basically, a D&D-like game where the chance of death is high, the rewards for victory are great, the core rules are simplistic, and creating a new character is relatively quick.
I started with a board. More specifically, its a grid that can be subdivided into any number of rooms and corridors or even just one big room with multiple obstacles strewn throughout it. I was thinking of making the board a 32x32 grid. Should this be bigger?
Next, I thought of a theme. The players (I'm thinking 4-5 players, including the DM) each control one character and their goal is to explore a series of ancient crypts and ruins looking for treasures. These treasures usually come in the form of ancient text, artifacts, and other pieces of ancient cultures. Players would collect these old world discoveries and take them back to the surface either to sell them to the highest bidder or offer them to museums and other scientific institutions. Basically, the players are archaeologists and each Adventure/Quest will be very "Indiana Jones-esque".
Now, I've worked out the character archetypes and associated Statistics:
+All characters are defined by their Basic Qualities: Danger, Clever, Crafty, and Tough
-Characters with a developed "Danger" quality are basically your warriors. These are the diggers and bodyguards of the group who specialize in both attacking enemies and, more importantly, directly defending their squishier teammates.
-the Danger attribute itself defines how well a character performs in combat in terms of both attack and defense. Also, characters with high amounts of "Danger" also gain Instincts, which are basically Feats/Perks. For example, the Instinct: Dangersense, would make a character better at avoiding damage and being surprised, I suppose.
-Characters with a developed "Clever" quality are your mage/priests. These are the archaeologists and scholars of the group. They are vital to the expedition since "Clever" characters are the only ones able to translate ancient text and identify the worth of artifacts. Without them, the group would not be able to distinguish what was valuable, dangerous, or worthless from the piles of randomly-generated discoveries. The "Clever" characters can specialize either as Doctors (Healers) using standard or "occult" medical equipment or Historians (Mages) by harnessing some of the more supernatural artifacts the group comes across.
-the Clever attribute mostly determines whether or not a character can recognize and understand ancient languages and tools. This can come in handy as being able to read warnings in the ruins could mean the difference between life and death. Also, being able to speak an ancient language could be useful if one were to run into something sentient within an ancient crypt. "Clever" also grants access to Disciplines, which can make artifacts more useful, cause healing to be more effective and even grant a very Clever character some limited Supernatural power.
-Characters with a developed "Crafty" quality are thieves/rogues. These are the engineers, mechanics, and career thieves of the group. "Crafty" characters are specifically designed to deal with traps, locks, and automatons of all kinds. Yes, there will be automatons in the ruins and they cannot be destroyed by normal means. "Crafty" characters can also build and maintain a variety of specialized machines to help the group. These machines can range from oxygen pumps (for dealing with noxious fumes) to mounted machine guns (for dealing with massive groups of obnoxious enemies). However, while a Crafty character can cobble all of these machines together, a Danger character (or a Crafty character with a developed Danger quality) would be required to operate any death-dealing machine to ensure maximum efficiency.
-The Crafty attribute controls a character's ability to perceive, disarm, and even re-arm traps as well as break locks. High amounts of "Crafty" unlock mechanical Skills such as the ever-useful Disable, which gives the character a chance to completely destroy an automaton. Skills also grant access to many wonders of technology for the Crafty character to create.
-Tough is the least interesting of the Qualities but is just as important. "Tough" is a sliding scale sort of Quality. The more "Tough" a character has, the more wounds he can take before being risk of dying. However, the less "Tough" a character has, the more actions he can take within a single turn, actions that include attacking and retreating. In short, its a choice between varying degrees of toughness or agility.
...and that's about all I have worked out so far.
I need opinions, ideas, and possible reference material so I can work out the mechanics of this game-to-be. I actually have very little experience with tabletop games beyond the basic rules for Warhammer 40k and what I've gleaned from playing a lot of D&D inspired games.
So... any thoughts?
I started with a board. More specifically, its a grid that can be subdivided into any number of rooms and corridors or even just one big room with multiple obstacles strewn throughout it. I was thinking of making the board a 32x32 grid. Should this be bigger?
Next, I thought of a theme. The players (I'm thinking 4-5 players, including the DM) each control one character and their goal is to explore a series of ancient crypts and ruins looking for treasures. These treasures usually come in the form of ancient text, artifacts, and other pieces of ancient cultures. Players would collect these old world discoveries and take them back to the surface either to sell them to the highest bidder or offer them to museums and other scientific institutions. Basically, the players are archaeologists and each Adventure/Quest will be very "Indiana Jones-esque".
Now, I've worked out the character archetypes and associated Statistics:
+All characters are defined by their Basic Qualities: Danger, Clever, Crafty, and Tough
-Characters with a developed "Danger" quality are basically your warriors. These are the diggers and bodyguards of the group who specialize in both attacking enemies and, more importantly, directly defending their squishier teammates.
-the Danger attribute itself defines how well a character performs in combat in terms of both attack and defense. Also, characters with high amounts of "Danger" also gain Instincts, which are basically Feats/Perks. For example, the Instinct: Dangersense, would make a character better at avoiding damage and being surprised, I suppose.
-Characters with a developed "Clever" quality are your mage/priests. These are the archaeologists and scholars of the group. They are vital to the expedition since "Clever" characters are the only ones able to translate ancient text and identify the worth of artifacts. Without them, the group would not be able to distinguish what was valuable, dangerous, or worthless from the piles of randomly-generated discoveries. The "Clever" characters can specialize either as Doctors (Healers) using standard or "occult" medical equipment or Historians (Mages) by harnessing some of the more supernatural artifacts the group comes across.
-the Clever attribute mostly determines whether or not a character can recognize and understand ancient languages and tools. This can come in handy as being able to read warnings in the ruins could mean the difference between life and death. Also, being able to speak an ancient language could be useful if one were to run into something sentient within an ancient crypt. "Clever" also grants access to Disciplines, which can make artifacts more useful, cause healing to be more effective and even grant a very Clever character some limited Supernatural power.
-Characters with a developed "Crafty" quality are thieves/rogues. These are the engineers, mechanics, and career thieves of the group. "Crafty" characters are specifically designed to deal with traps, locks, and automatons of all kinds. Yes, there will be automatons in the ruins and they cannot be destroyed by normal means. "Crafty" characters can also build and maintain a variety of specialized machines to help the group. These machines can range from oxygen pumps (for dealing with noxious fumes) to mounted machine guns (for dealing with massive groups of obnoxious enemies). However, while a Crafty character can cobble all of these machines together, a Danger character (or a Crafty character with a developed Danger quality) would be required to operate any death-dealing machine to ensure maximum efficiency.
-The Crafty attribute controls a character's ability to perceive, disarm, and even re-arm traps as well as break locks. High amounts of "Crafty" unlock mechanical Skills such as the ever-useful Disable, which gives the character a chance to completely destroy an automaton. Skills also grant access to many wonders of technology for the Crafty character to create.
-Tough is the least interesting of the Qualities but is just as important. "Tough" is a sliding scale sort of Quality. The more "Tough" a character has, the more wounds he can take before being risk of dying. However, the less "Tough" a character has, the more actions he can take within a single turn, actions that include attacking and retreating. In short, its a choice between varying degrees of toughness or agility.
...and that's about all I have worked out so far.
I need opinions, ideas, and possible reference material so I can work out the mechanics of this game-to-be. I actually have very little experience with tabletop games beyond the basic rules for Warhammer 40k and what I've gleaned from playing a lot of D&D inspired games.
So... any thoughts?
