Another good reason to subscribe to the podcast feed: if you had, you would have heard this show yesterday. Whereas my dumb ass is just now getting around to posting it here. Anyway, this time we talk about the Diana Jones shortlist, that Star Wars starship game announcement, make wild proclamations, unbalanced assertions and bad jokes. More to come soon.
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Well… if Blizzard isn’t going to give me StarCraft: Ghost, I guess I’ll have to be content with the FFG StarCraft game. I’m personally hoping that its a bit of a “lighter” game and nothing along the lines of Twilight Imperium in which you’d pretty much set aside six to eight hours to play a game of.
I am certainly hoping for at least two hours, which is about the size and shape of WarCraft. If there were something out there in the starship vein that were more combatty than, say, Starfarers of Catan, but took about the same time, I would think it’d do well.
Is “combatty” a word? And are nocturnal creatures involved? 🙂
Man, I haven’t been able to set aside time for a boardgame longer than four hours in a long time, let alone get players to join me for such. Seems like designing Starcraft to be much longer than two hours per session would be a big mistake. Could use mission scenarios to offer various lengths, I suppose.
It always amazes me at how many board games come out at 2+ hours…
Its not that suprising. They’re really no different than RPGs, CCGs, CMGs, etc. The more complex they are, the longer they take to play. This is a direct example of what is talked about on the Audio Report frequently – some people want a game that can be picked up and played within fifteen minutes and others want to read the gargantuan rulebook and memorize everything out of it. Fortunately, there is a board game for almost any taste in complexity and time involvement. For example, some people like a game like Tsuro than can be over within five minutes while others want a weekend long game of Diplomacy.
About PH 2 – I think it goes to show that designers’ understanding of D&D and d20 is still evolving. The way I design d20 stuff is utterly different than even a year ago. I think that there’s a clearer and clearer understanding of how to identify what the game needs, how to fill that need, and how best to build books that flow from that understanding.
To give an example, the PH 2 feats chapter was specifically built to fill gaps in the current game, extend “trees” of feats in the game that were already popular, and enable types of characters that feats didn’t yet support. I’m particularly proud of a few feats in the book make the smooth talking bard a very interesting character and a deadly opponent. That simply wasn’t possible before PH 2 came out.
The fact remains that there are no formal training programs in RPG design, boardgame design, or even computer game design. With the advent of CCGs and the rise of German boardgames, we’re finally seeing game design approached as a sort of science in the industry. You can look at Magic, Settlers, and Puerto Rico and see that someone *designed* this game to work as well as it does. That thought has spread into RPGs, starting with the Gamingoutpost fora, then the Forge, and slowly branching out to “mainstream” design.
Re: PHB2 selling better than the DMG2.
It also makes more sense to have player-oriented game supplements than GM-oriented game supplements. Assuming you’ve got a group of five players and one GM, you’ll move more product selling the Spell Compedium or PHB2 than you would selling the DMG2 or Monster Manual Number Whatever They’re Up To Now.
“Monster Manual Number Whatever They’re Up To Now.”
Number 4 this summer 😉