Simplified Wesnoth Board Game

[Argothair]

Hello, I've taken another stab at developing some rules for a Wesnoth Board Game, i.e., for a game that you play in person over a tabletop instead of online with a computer. I've borrowed some ideas from the versions presented in the 2012 thread (viewtopic.php?f=36&t=35808), but I've also tried to keep this game much simpler compared to those versions. This new version has no multiplication, no percentages, and very small numbers -- for example, Level 1 Units typically have between 2 and 5 hit points. I've tried to condense all of the features of Wesnoth down to the bare minimum needed to keep the game interesting, so that gameplay will be quick and painless even without a computer.

Please take a look and tell me what you think! I'm very interested in opinions about unit balance, game length, elegance/clarity of rules, and general feedback. Even if all you have to say is that you think the game is cool, please share! The more people I hear from, the more I'll be encouraged to do the work of porting the artwork into a board game format so we can publish this as a print-and-play.

[Maiklas3000]

I personally would not introduce any new features compared to Wesnoth, if I could help it. I question whether mana and 0-range attacks (grappling) add anything.

For leveling up, it seems a bit of a burden to have to track XP for each unit. Why not just do a dieroll when a unit kills another, and if you make your dieroll then your unit levels up? You could have a symbol on the counters to denote a higher or lower chance of making this dieroll, like a lightbulb for intelligent and a duncecap for dim. (For example, if you roll a 6-sided die and get a 5+ you level up a normal unit, 4+ for intelligent and 6 for dim.) I'm thinking of intelligent/dim being the same for all units of a given type, though you could consider making the traits individual.

For hitpoints, I again would simplify. A unit could have just two states: healthy or wounded. When wounded, invert the counter, showing a picture of the wounded unit. Weak units, like Bowmen, would not have an inverted picture and would die with just one hit. Attacks would be only 1 or 2 strength. To represent the higher hitpoints of L2 and L3 units, I would have a unit degrade a level once "killed". (For example, a Longbowman would degrade to a Bowman.) That would be a new feature, but it would help keep it simple.

[pauxlo]

originally designed as a video game for the Macintosh

Are you sure that the Mac version was the original one? I thought it would be either Linux or Windows, though I didn't research – I'm sure it was available for all three OSes for a long time. Maybe simply write something like "for desktop computers"?

[fabi]

originally designed as a video game for the Macintosh

Are you sure that the Mac version was the original one? I thought it would be either Linux or Windows, though I didn't research – I'm sure it was available for all three OSes for a long time. Maybe simply write something like "for desktop computers"?

Wesnoth is designed as a multi-platform game from the beginning.
So even the "for desktop computers" is somehow wrong.

[Argothair]

Maiklas, thanks for your interesting ideas on how to further simply attacks, HP, and XP. I like the idea of having a counter that can flip over to show whether the unit is healthy or wounded. My concern is that this means that Level 1 units can have at most 2 hit points. That leaves us with two choices: either reduce the average damage-per-turn of a Level 1 unit down to about 1.0, or accept that Level 1 units will almost always die during their first combat. I don't really like either of those options. I worry that with the numbers being that small, most of the units would have nearly identical stats, because letting a unit have even one more strike or deal one more damage would give it a 150% or 200% power boost, making it broken and overpowered. I also worry that if characters die in combat, say, 66% of the time they fight, and they only level up 33% of the time they fight, then 8 out of 9 characters will die before they level up, which is not much fun -- especially since you suggest letting higher-level characters slide back down to a lower level as soon as they take 2 points of damage. Let me know if you have any thoughts on how to get around some of these problems.

Fabi, Pauxlo, yes, of course, Wesnoth has been a multi-operating-system game for many years. My opening blurb in the rules was incorrect on that point, and I'll change the wording in the next edition. I know this is the Internet, and that people post about what interests them, but I can't help feeling a little disappointed that in the ten-page document, this one little factoid was the one item you both wanted to correct. I was hoping to get some feedback on the terrain types, or on the initial setup, or the unit balance, or on how to make the rules more clear.

[UK1]

Would this not essentially just be a miniatures game?

[Velensk]

Depends on what you mean by 'miniatures' game. If it has a hex grid board then it's not in the traditional form for a steryotypical 'Tabletop Miniature Wargame'.

That said, if I were to approach making Wesnoth boardgame, I would actually use a modified version of a mechanic I saw from a TTMWG (as a note I havn't read your write up so I'm not sure how useful this would be to you). You would have a deck of cards for the faction and the deck would have several copies of the most common unit types [think a dozen spearmen, six cavalry, four mages being the scale] and a corrasponding miniature [or counter] to each card. If you're using a counter you'd just label the counter Spearman8 and have the card match. You can then put damage and/or experience markers on the card to keep track of the units status. As long as each side has <15ish units it'd be fairly manageable. This would also allow you to use traits if you wish by making the cards for different units of the same type different (though this is when keeping track of it in your head would start to become heavy).

[UK1]

Depends on what you mean by 'miniatures' game. If it has a hex grid board then it's not in the traditional form for a steryotypical 'Tabletop Miniature Wargame'.

Miniatures games on the lighter end of the spectrum tend to use hexes. Exemplis gratis; Heroclix. And he did say that this would be simplified.

That said, if I were to approach making Wesnoth boardgame, I would actually use a modified version of a mechanic I saw from a TTMWG (as a note I havn't read your write up so I'm not sure how useful this would be to you). You would have a deck of cards for the faction and the deck would have several copies of the most common unit types [think a dozen spearmen, six cavalry, four mages being the scale] and a corrasponding miniature [or counter] to each card. If you're using a counter you'd just label the counter Spearman8 and have the card match. You can then put damage and/or experience markers on the card to keep track of the units status. As long as each side has <15ish units it'd be fairly manageable. This would also allow you to use traits if you wish by making the cards for different units of the same type different (though this is when keeping track of it in your head would start to become heavy).

A large part of the draw of miniatures games is that your army is fully customize-able. There might be some people who would want to recruit horsemen whereas I have never recruited a horseman in Multiplayer in my entire life and probably never will. My loyalist recruit tends to go something like "Cav, cav, cav, cav, spearman... Mage? No, cav, cav, cav." As for traits, I should think they would just make them purchasable with your initial points, roll a die for them, or do away with them entirely.

[Velensk]

If I were to do wesnoth as a board game I wouldn't use a point buy system. The cards are so that you can keep track of multiple units of the same type.

[UK1]

If I were to do wesnoth as a board game I wouldn't use a point buy system. The cards are so that you can keep track of multiple units of the same type.

Ah, I see... I thought it was some sort of recruitment mechanic. I feel that Wesnoth is much closer to a miniatures game and, for that reason, it would transition far better into a miniatures game than a board game. Because you'd have adjustable units (each unit's stand has its own tracker). Also, what system would you use if not a point buy system? Noting that that is essentially the system Wesnoth uses.

[Velensk]

Wesnoth has always reminded me of many of the old hex wargames I've played so that's what I've always associated it with.

I can see what you're thinking of and all I can say is that what's in my mind is just completely different. I have never liked the bases that keep track of hitpoints and I would want to play on a much smaller board with smaller hexes which would make them unreadable in a close melee anyway. Maybe if it were done differently than I've seen it could work better still using the same display method but the production cost of the pieces would become much greater. Counters are nice and cheap but don't provide as easy a way to immediately connect the units status with it's position on the board. I suppose if you were doing it with counters a way to show the amount of hitpoints left might be to stack chips representing remaining health under the counters. This would also do away with most of the need for extra book-keeping unless you also want to keep track of experience or include traits (both of which I'd consider of lesser importance than quick readability in gameplay.

I'm not so much against a point buy system as I am against the idea of using the miniature set-up of 'I get X points, I build my army, and then I play a game with my army.' method. Doing reinforcements the way Wesnoth does would work. If that were so though, you wouldn't be spending extra points for traits, you'd say 'I want a cavalry' and draw the top cavalry card you have and you'd get whatever cavalry was working there. You could also do a more traditional wargame style with scenarios, though I do think that if you were to do it this way it might be best to change the game away from the way Wesnoth is currently set-up in a few ways. I'd probably want to do it that way because there's really very little point to me in recreating Wesnoth as a board game entirely when I have it as a computer game which is much more convienient and there are other games which I'd want to play in a face-to-face environment which I don't get to play as often and which wouldn't transfer as gracefully to a machine interface.

[UK1]

Okay, that actually really struck a chord with me as someone who plays board games at a game shop every Saturday and Tuesday night. I get that. You'd rather play Wesnoth online than other board games and you'd rather play other games in person than Wesnoth. I see; fair enough.