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Aaron S Team Game Notes

Introduction

This page collects notes about a variety of team games that have been proposed. These games take the flavor of two or more teams working to accomplish a set of goals across one or more Magic Realm boards. First some overall rules are presented, then a set of possible victory conditions, and finally a series of options that can be added as desired. Note, some commentary is in italics.

Main Rules

Regardless of victory conditions for the teams, the game uses two MR boards, set up such that no tiles from the first set are mixed into the second set. The two teams (nations) have a shared boundary between the sets, 4 or 5 tiles wide, with predefined crossings that must be present as the two nations build the boards in secret. All of the tiles from one set are on one side and the rest are on the other. The players are divided into two numerically balanced teams, each choosing characters in a manner described later. The story: the tenuous peace between two ancient nations crumbled centuries ago. The ensuing war has reduced the armies of both sides to mere stragglers. The rivalries between the factions within the nations have begun to resurface, but now the nations are beginning to regroup for a final offensive. Note, a few variants that do not follow this story and use 2 MR boards are presented in the Victory Conditions section.

Players start via normal rules and choose victory conditions as normal. A single player is still considered a winner if they meet their conditions. In addition, a victor is declared from both sides at the end of the game and all 32 players are ranked as normal. However, because the end of the game represents the victory of one team over the other, winning the game individually will be a hollow victory if your nation is conquered.

Because of the resurfacing rivalries between factions in each nation, no native/visitor relationships are changed between natives and visitors dwelling in your nation (except as a result of normal play). However, while local natives will block you upon a "block/battle" result, natives from your team will not battle you unless actually attack them first ('Watchful Natives' optional rule is in play). Some further optional relationship rules are listed later.

Hidden Realm. One nation's realm is 'hidden' from the other. This means that while you know your map and where the boundary is, the other nation is hidden from your view (via normal hidden realm rules) until explored. Unhidden opposing characters/denizens in your hexes are visible to all members of your team, regardless of your location. Hidden opposing characters/denizens are not visible on the map you have access to and their move summaries are not listed on your team's day summary, unless they pass through a clearing (hex?) of a member of your team how has found hidden enemies. Unhidden opposing characters/denizens in their nation's hexes are visible only if you have a character/denizen in that hex. A character is not unhidden at the beginning of their turn, but may make several attempts in a row, only becoming unhidden if they all fail.

Character selection. A few mechanisms of character selection have been proposed:

  • Both sides must have the same characters. This ensures balance between the teams if less than 16 characters are used.
  • Both sides choose characters as normal, with the other team not knowing what your team has chosen.

Victory Conditions

Capture the Flag, King of the Hill and other modes of play are possible. However, regardless of the game type, a military victory is always possible if all the players of a nation are killed.

Here are a few examples of game types:

  • King of the Hill. One nation must control the five valley tiles of the opposing nation by having none of the nation's denizens in the tiles and none of the nation's characters in the tiles for one complete game day. OR one nation captures all six dwelling of the opposing nation. Capturing a dwelling entails spending a whole game day in the dwelling with no opposing denizens or characters present. Once a dwelling has been taken it can be retaken by the opposing team. Captured dwellings are indicated by being flipped.
  • Capture the Flag. Six flags are in play for each nation, one at each dwelling (including campfires). Flags are negligible weight items represented by new chits added to the cyberboard game boxes or by the six numbered red chits. They are placed on top of the dwellings and are not subject to normal looting rules (I.E., they don't have to be looted to be picked up). Only characters can carry flags. A character can only pick up an opposing nation's flag; they cannot pick up their own flag unless it has been dropped by an opposing character away from its dwelling. Picking up your team's flag instantly returns it to its original dwelling where it may be picked up again that same day. A flag is 'captured' and removed to play when it is picked up from an opposing dwelling and brought to the corresponding dwelling in the character's nation. (OR, a flag may be recaptured by looting it from a dwelling after it has arrived there.) A dwelling is flipped when its flag is not present. Game ends when all six flags of a nation are captured. No character may carry more than one flag at a time. Note, Capture the Flag and King of the Hill present opportunities for players with otherwise busy schedules to play in defensive positions. Playing D often results in long stretches of nothing to do, which is ok if you already have a busy schedule outside of the realm. While 32 characters in play at the same time would be difficult indeed to manage, perhaps the load would be lessened if half are on defense, not really doing anything to slow down the game.
  • Timed King of the Hill/Timed Capture the Flag. Game ends as outlined above or on day 28. Bonuses are awarded for each flag/dwelling captured (maybe 1 VP per flag to be given to any character on the team to try to lessen a negative score.)
  • Points game. At the end of one month the victory points from both sides (positive and negative) are summed and the nation with the most TOTAL points across all of its characters is declared the winner.
  • Good vs. Evil. This is a smaller game on one board with 8-10 players. The characters are split up into groups based on their assumed alignment (good: white knight, captain, wizard, etc.; bad: black knight, witch king, sorcerer) (part of the fun is figuring out the groups). First two weeks or more: adventuring and getting treasures (teamwork would really be helpful here), then battle between the groups for the rest of the game. There are two Inns in play, one for each group. The other Inn is where the ghosts normally go, or have an Inn in both tiles and also have ghosts, except that the ghosts start in the lowest number clearing instead of highest (that'd put a damper on day 1, but at least it'd affect both teams).
  • Good vs. Evil vs. Neutral. Same as above, but with this distribution of characters: Good: White Knight, Pilgrim, Woods Girl, Amazon, Wizard. Evil: Black Knight, Sorcerer, Witch, Witch-King, Swordsman. Neutral: Druid, Elf, Magician, Captain, Berserker, Dwarf. Possibly switch Captain and Wizard; possibly switch Swordsman and Druid. The Commerce rules already divide the natives into Good, Evil, and Neutral groups; Good are the Guard and Order, Evil are the Company, Rogues, and Bashkars, and the rest are Neutral. need to verify native group divisions
  • Capture the Treasure. Somehow tie a nation's score to the number of treasures left in treasure sites on their side of the board. (How well did you guard your nation's treasures?) So you can loot your own, but it costs your nation some points. And the more you loot from the other nation, the fewer points they score. "Note, this came from the discussion 'going into enemy territory without the aid of treasures sounds fool-hardy' vs. 'looting one's own sacred places sounds barbaric.' See the latter half of the original email thread".
  • Thin race course. Not a 2 nation game. Starting with the Crag, lay out all the tiles basically end to end to make a twisting 20 tile path (perhaps looping to go through all the clearings of High Pass and Ledges). A small team must get from one end to the other alive. OR two teams, starting at opposite ends, race to finish all 20 tiles. (Flying needs to be limited somehow). A 20 tile race could also work by entering from off-board onto a regular game set-up (flip nothing up till a character actually enters the tile), and other random effects (like mix all Warning chits together and then put 'em out face down: maybe this game the Inn is atop the Crag, maybe next game the Lost City is in one of the Valleys (need to adjust where to put the red and gold chits in such cases, of course). Or you could set up a regular 2 board game and have "check points" for the race. For example, the first team or player to visit both inns, both chapels, Crag 1, Mountain 1 and returns to their starting location is the winner.--dwfiv

Optional rules

  • Mandatory Forays. A character/hired leader can read runes/loot his/her nation's treasure sites a maximum of 3 times. This will encourage movement into the opposing nation for treasure and magic (perhaps items looted locally and spells learned from local items/locations cannot be scored for VP at the end of the game). OR a character may not loot or read runes at his own nation's Treasure sites. This is simpler, and really puts a premium on mounting successful expeditions into the enemy nation. OR looting your own treasure location may trigger a curse via some random effect. Note, while these rules do negate the strategy of locking up treasures on your side to prevent the opposing side from getting them, they also help prevent a "phony" war, where nothing happens until all the treasure sites are empty. See Development (below) for other ideas.
  • Shoot on sight. Unhidden characters/hired natives/controlled monsters automatically block characters/hired natives/controlled monsters from the other nation. This prevents rapid incursions.
  • Putting aside their differences. If an opposing character or denizen enters a hex of your nation, any natives or visitors in the hex will temporarily alter their trading/hiring relationships with all characters to "Ally". Once the opposing character or denizen leaves the hex, the relationships revert to their former levels.
  • Enemies in the breach. All natives and visitors in the opposing nation are "Enemies" of all unhidden characters and denizens of your nation. Hidden characters/denizens have normal trading relationships with opposing denizens since their identity is unknown. Hidden characters may not hire opposing denizens at any time, however.
  • Flying limitations. Flying is unlimited in your own nation. However, flying into an unrevealed hex of the opposing nation forces a landing. In addition, the border between nations cannot be flown across.
  • Hovering. A flying character may choose not to land at the end their daylight move. They may then block opposing flying character/denizens that pass though the hex. Hovering fatigues **. Note, this rule intends to provide a way of blocking fast flag grabs in a capture the flag game. Commentary on this rule and on flying in general is appreciated. Perhaps the problem can be solved by ruling that flags may not be flown.
  • Character Respawn. When a character is killed, it respawns one day later in a random clearing in the tile in which it started. OR the game is limited to 8-10 characters. When a character is killed the player re-enters the game with one of the unused characters (in a random clearing in a tile containing one of the character's normal starting locations), if any are left. Once all 16 characters have entered play, anyone who gets killed is out of the game. This provides two benefits: [a] a player won't get kicked out of the game too soon due to an early death; and [b] the game will be somewhat easier to run without all 32 characters in play simultaneously... although they may all still appear, and both nations remain balanced.
  • Development. Two forms of development games have been proposed.
    • Everyone starts at level one. Normal development rules apply (one VP/chit, 3 chits/level, special abilities at levels 2 and 4). Once you reach level 3 (or 4?), you cannot loot/read runes on your own treasure sites. Game has two phases: level up quick and then attack! It is also important to leave some of your own monsters behind playing defense, so it will be important to choose which monsters to 'farm' for chits and which to leave alone to play defense.
    • Each team has 32 'points' to spend at the beginning of the game to level their characters, with 1st stage being 1 point, 2nd being 2points, 3rd being 3points and 4 being 4 points. An example spending all 32 points on 16 characters would be creating 4 level 4 characters, 4 level 2's, and 8 level 1's. Characters level 3 (or 4) can only loot/read runes from opposing sites, as above. Lower level characters can level up via the above rules. Small amounts of characters in play would correspond to lesser amounts of points to spend at the beginning of the game. This could lead to small, powerful parties invading early while the others play defense, leveling up as fast as they can. The powerful characters could even go get treasure from the opposing nation and bring it back to lesser characters, leveling them up quicker while not putting them at risk.
  • Magical Flags. Instead of six negligible weight flags, there are 5 flags, being the 5 items supplying color magic (I.E., the idol, hoof, etc.). One of the dwellings, chosen at random, does not contain a flag. When a flag is captured, it is not removed from the game. Instead its negative effect is removed and it remains in play. I.E., the hoof no longer adds +1 to die rolls, the necklace no longer attracts dragons, the chalice no longer has negative notoriety, the idol now has negligible weight, and the flowers no longer automatically put people to sleep (their healing/sleeping effect can now be "cast" on characters (including enemy characters!) as desired).
  • Quests. Unfinished). I don't know exactly how it would work, but I would like to see something like the quest variant. Figure out how to map a typical fantasy story to a double game with lots of characters. Have some geographic objectives, and some other quest type objectives, some of which are in the enemy's territory. You might end up with characters looking for goodies for a week or two, while a few other characters make forays into the enemy territory, and as the two sides power up over time more characters might take part in the war, and other characters would try to perform their quests and others would try to stop them. Choosing quests could either be by some kind of bid system, or by a menu of quests that the players choose from. "Another comment." Other players have also mentioned that they would like to see a big, elaborate Quest featuring a large number of characters cooperating together towards some common goal (recreating "The Lord of the Rings" is often mentioned!).
  • Chit changes. Hidden characters on foreign tiles only cause unflipped summoning chits to turn over if the monster roll for the day affects them. This allows for quiet invasions to not be spoiled by monsters mysteriously appearing in a tile apparently not occupied by anyone else.

Administration

Several forms of administration have been proposed. Many of the challenges of administering an (up to) 32 player game could be solved by dividing the tasks between a few key people.

  • Team leaders. Often in the course of the game, players' moves are delayed or they must drop out for a week or two. One person handling these events for all 32 players would be difficult. It would be easier if each team had a leader who would collect moves and handle substitutions, even submitting moves for a late player if the situation arises (with the previous consent of the player, of course). This is the person responsible for addressing rules questions as they surface, with final decisions being handled by the Lead GM.
  • Lead GM. With all the moves collected by team leaders, the Lead GM's principle responsibility would be running days on a regular basis. In addition, with the coordination of the web admin, the Lead GM would be responsible for maintaining day summaries and maps for the two teams.
  • Map GM (optional). Updating the maps and setup cards could fall to a separate GM. When the Lead GM would post a day's summary, the Map GM would post new maps and setup cards soon thereafter. This is an optional position, since often running a day will generate new maps anyway.
  • Web admin. Secure access would be required for each team to a website where team members can see their known maps, post messages to forums, etc. Access would be restricted to members of a nation (and observers). The web admin would write the code necessary for the website and handle user access and password issues as they arrive.

The principle challenge of a game of this manner is administering large-scale battles between several characters and denizens. Here a couple ideas on how to handle this.

  • Combat is only allowed between 4 characters and some odd hirelings per nation per clearing per day. This greatly simplifies combat, as well as adds the tactic of being forced to think of good combinations of characters. OR accomplish the same by enforcing stacking limits, such as max of 4-6 characters/denizens from one nation in a clearing at any given time.
  • Run large battles via chat rooms. 3 rooms are set up, with the GM as moderator in all 3. The first main room is for moves, everyone is invited to it. The GM only allows the next player to perform an action to speak. Players give moves one at a time. The other 2 rooms are nation specific, all the players from one nation can be in it and anyone can speak at once. These are for planning strategy.

Parting Shots

I haven't credited the original sources of many of the great ideas and comments provided by other people on the list. Well over half of this post comes from the discussions on the list. Thanks! I welcome further discussion and changes, especially as some of the rules might work against each other and slow the game down too much (like hidden realm + automatic blocking). Also, feel free to propose other variants. Add instructions on how to retrieve original email threads. -Aaron B.

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Page last modified on February 20, 2005, at 11:14 AM