Epic - notes for a game in progress

Epic - notes for a game in progress

JensAlfke 1227404175|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I've started writing down some concrete ideas and mechanisms for a game I've been vaguely thinking of for a while. The intent is to focus on the names and interpretations of the cards, so that they'll make a story.

So far I've worked out a way to generate a timeline of the story, with the location of each scene, and choose the characters to play. Epic isn't a complete game yet by any means, but I've got some more ideas that I need to bring into focus.

Re: Epic - notes for a game in progress

maka 1227410086|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I read the rules to creating the timeline and liked them. A thought ocurred as I read them: would the game work with a branching timeline? As the number of cards is the same, the story may be shorter, especially if the timeline branches a lot, but it could be interesting…

A storyteling game I do like is Universalis, where players create the story by paying coins and then can gain new coins by winning conflicts. A conflict is created when two players want to tell the current events differently, and is solved with dice. Each side gathers a dice for each element already present in the story that could help that event (these may be objects, characters that help, special abilities, etc…). Winning roll gets to tell what happens and gets a number of coins that can be spent in future turns. It creates a nice economy so players have a limit to what they can add to the story but also there's a nice way of recovering them, so conflicts are encouraged…

last edited on 1227410112|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by maka + show more

Re: Epic - notes for a game in progress

JensAlfke 1227462853|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I ruled out a branching timeline for the same reason you gave.
But I just had an idea, of making the timeline modular — then you could gather up the past cards and shuffle them to lay out a continuation. That might add enough room to support some branching.

I've had a copy of the Universalis rulebook for years but have never played it! It sounds like a great game, though. By coincidence, I just pulled it out again last week and am re-reading the rules. Have you played it much?

Re: Epic - notes for a game in progress

maka 1227472212|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I haven't played it much… just some 2-player sessions. I like the game but find it hard to start to play as it does take some work…

Re: Epic - notes for a game in progress

pmagnus 1227418204|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I am interested to see how this turns out. Perhaps it is too early to fret about the details, but here are two thoughts:

• You suggest that Aces will help some cards and hinder others. Here's an idea: For each suit, there is another suit that does not appear with it on any of the basic deck cards. You could have Aces help cards that match their suit, but hinder cards that match that other suit that never appears together with it. This would avoid any situation in which a card was helped and hindered at the same time. (For example, Moons never appear with Wyrms. So the Ace of Moons would help Moon cards and hinder Wyrm cards.)

• The rules for complication markers say "This goes for both the left and right sides, so you might get two markers." If I understand the rules correctly, however, complication markers effectively go on the boundary between cards. When a new card is inserted between two cards, either that boundary has a complication or it doesn't. I don't see how it can have two.

Re: Epic - notes for a game in progress

JensAlfke 1227462934|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Thanks for the insight into "opposite" suits! I had a vague idea of a circle of suits but hadn't realized that the cards themselves had a notion of opposites.

You're right about the markers. Fixed that, thanks.

Re: Epic - notes for a game in progress

JensAlfke 1227463238|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

There's a comments section on the game page itself; would it be better to discuss it over there? How do we get notifications of new comments on a page?

Re: Epic - notes for a game in progress

maka 1227470846|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I wouldn't worry much about where to discuss the game…. The comments section is part of the general forums, so all the comments for all the games go to the Recent Forum Posts RSS feed.

The Comments forum is initially hidden from the Categories page, but you can click on "show hidden" and see the "Per Page Discussion" forum. There you can get a feed for all the games, or click on individual games to subscribe to individual discussions.

Anyway, as the volume of new content is low right now, I think the best is to just subscribe to the whole feeds (the ones on the sidebar)