Darkest Night

[Manxome]

EDIT: Updated files, June 7 2011



Not strictly RPG material, but it seemed like the sort of thing people here would be interested in.

I've been working on a cooperative fantasy board game called Darkest Night. You inhabit a kingdom that's just been defeated by a necromancer and his army of the dead. You've retreated to the hallowed ground around the monastery, but need to venture out into the kingdom, battle undead, and retrieve holy relics that will let you defeat the necromancer, all under his nose and before he builds up enough power to break into the monastery and consolidate his hold on the kingdom.

It'll probably remind you of Arkham Horror (assuming you've played it), but it's intended to be shorter and less fiddly. Playing time's about 1-2 hours in my playtests. Supports 4 players, but it's a fully cooperative game with information sharing, so you can really have any number of players control 4 heroes with responsibilities divided however you want. There's no good scaling mechanisms, however, so you really should play with exactly 4 heroes.

You can download the rules and components here. They're formatted to be printed double-sided on 11"x17" card stock (there's additional printing information in the zip file). I had to mess around with the fonts some in order to make them turn out correctly at Kinko's, but then I inadvertently deleted the revised versions, so you may need to reassign some fonts in order to make everything appear correct, depending on where you print (sorry).

If you decide to try it, let me know how it goes.

[the_taken]

Now there's a board game worth playing. Saved!

[Manxome]

So, obviously, it might take a while to print and assemble your own board game, and then some time after that to actually find an opportunity to play, but has anyone skimmed the rules or anything? All my other testers have been verbally instructed by me, so I at least need someone to tell me whether the written rules are comprehensible and stuff.

[CalibronXXX]

I had no problems understanding the rules.

[Fuzzy_logic]

It looks like fun. In a coupla weeks I'll go home for winter break and can get my famil to play...

[angelfromanotherpin]

The written rules are perfectly comprehensible, but I think they could stand to be organized a little better. For my part, I was a bit thrown that not all the win/lose condition material was in the same place.

Mm, also 'Attack' seems to refer to two entirely different things, the 'attack roll' (which represents combat) and the 'attack action' (which is the means of removing Blights). Perhaps one of those could be renamed 'fight' or 'cleanse' for clarity's sake.

Looks very clean and smooth, I'm itching to try it.

[Fuzzy_logic]

The map doesn't want to fit on one page. I don't how to make it print nicely.

[Fuzzy_logic]

Actually, the cards don't want to either. Something about the margins being wider than the printable page.

[Fuzzy_logic]

My mistake -- I was trying to use 8 by 11

[Manxome]

There should be a document in the zip file with detailed printing instructions.


@Angel, "attack" is indeed used for two slightly different things, though an attack action always results in an attack roll. It could possibly stand to be renamed, though.

What other material did you expect to be in the win/lose condition section? I think it gives a complete description of all the win/lose conditions. It doesn't specify all the steps you need to take to fulfill them (e.g. it doesn't explain how you acquire holy relics)--would it be helpful if that information was replicated in that section? It seemed like possibly the wrong place for me to put detailed game mechanics.

Any other suggestions on the organization would be welcome...

[Fuzzy_logic]

Blargh -- neither of the main campus libraries prints 11 by 17. Also, your documents appear to be formatted for 17 by 11, which necessitates switching them.

My dorm has a suitable printer, but nobody around who can tell me how to use it. Indeed, the easiest way I could find to make it work required admin privileges that I lack.

[Manxome]

Before you worry about reformatting for your campus printers, do they handle card stock?

Printing playing cards on standard printer paper doesn't work all that well; they're fairly easy to see through and hard to shuffle. If that's all you have access to, you can make it work by printing the front and back of a card adjacent on a single sheet (rather than on separate sides), then folding and taping (and then pressing them under a heavy stack of books for a while so they become flat). I did this for several games while I was in college, and the resulting cards are surprisingly durable and easy to use (for printer paper), but it takes a lot of work (and a lot of scotch tape).

If you've got card stock, but can only print 8.5"x11", reformatting shouldn't be that hard, though you'll end up with more dead space (and thus will need a bit more card stock than you would otherwise need) and will probably want to split the map across multiple pages (it's kind of small even on 11"x17"). Heck, I'll reformat them for you, if you want.

And I'm pretty sure my documents are formatted 11x17, not 17x11. The map is "landscape" orientation, but that shouldn't be a problem for printing.

[Fuzzy_logic]

Would you? I'm afraid I'm not very good with this formatting stuff.

When I get home, I'll do a 11 by 17 cardstock one, but for now the small paper ones will do. I have plenty of tape and volunteer labor.

[Manxome]

OK, so 8.5"x11", printing single-sided to fold?

What are your printer's minimum printing margins? Is a half-inch on all sides sufficient?

[Fuzzy_logic]

yes

ETA: It turns out the reason I can't print an 11 X 17 document is that this feature of our printer was deliberately disabled. However, I CAN make an 11 by 17 COPY of an 8.5 by 11 document, once you reformat it.

[Manxome]

If you intend to copy things only 11x17 (presumably with zoom), then you don't want the pages formatted for 8.5x11--you want to print the 11x17 pages onto 8.5x11 paper using the "scale to paper size" option in the print dialog to shrink them down. You'll lose some resolution by shrinking and then stretching them (which actually may be problematic; not entirely sure), but you'll end up with the original size.

Anyway, [counturl=120]here[/counturl] are all the printable game components, reformatted to print on 8.5x11 with the fold-and-tape technique.

I had to split the map across multiple pages, so be careful to connect things correctly; if it isn't clear, the village (in the middle) is connected to all other locations, which are connected in a circle around it.

The character cards (Heroes.doc) are single-sided, so you just need to cut them out. They happen to be 3"x5" (except the necromancer, which is 3"x10"), so you may want to tape them onto index cards for ease of use.

Everything else has the back printed next to the front; I think it should be pretty clear what matches to what. The tokens are at the end of Search.doc. I included two versions of the character tokens (one small, one large); use whichever you prefer.

[Orion]

Fuzzy Logic here (the boards crewed my account)

My little brother and I tried this out today. We didn't finish, got to turn 8 (darkness 10)

He played Knight and Rogue, I played Prince and Scholar. It was a lot fo fun, though we only had one key. At least we had picked up a couple of powers.

Bythe way, what happens when the necromancer attacks you? The rules say he can be fought or eluded, but his awareness is unlisted. Pretty much we had him just automatically knock out 1 grace every turn. This made him pretty scary.

Also, once the necromancer catches you, do you have any choice but to run for the monastery? It seems like you move, gaining one secrecy, but he takes it away again immediately, and you're always the closest guy, so it's practically impossible for anyon else to distract him. You're forced to run for the monastery, which of course leads him right to your doorstep...

More observations to come...

[Orion]

It turned out that our first half-game was flawed -- we were convinced that searching cost 1 secrecy, which made the game way harder. That misunderstanding corrected, we played again.

It's a fun game and rather intellectualy challenging.

GAME REPORT

Turns: ~35

Darkness: 30

The Team:

Knight -- Charge (killed stuff), Sprint (kept me alive), Hard Ride (see endgame), Oath of Defense (see endgame)

Wizard -- Lightning , Invisibility, Rune of Nullification, Fiendfire (the Rune was fantastic. The spells merely okay. Incidentally, I haven't drawn any of the other runes yet, but Nullification seems like the best -- I nullified Curses at first --there were 3 early, and it made eit easier to kill them-- but soon switched to Desecrated Ground, as the swamp was desecrated and tough to reach)

Scholar -- Thoroughness, Preparation , Foresight, Research Materials, Ancient Charm, Counterspell (The counterspell came too late in the game to matter, while the Charm helped considerably. Research Materials, particularly combined with Thoroughness, was fantastic -- without finding that early, the game would have gone much, much worse)

Priest -- Benediction, Sanctuary, Blessing of [the starting one], Censure (Censure was fantastic once I got it, making it easy for him to defend the monastery and survive searching nearby. Benediction really didn't help at all. I put the +1 prayer on the Knight to help him heal up faster)

Early game: Kngith ran around all over the place, snuffing blights and then distracting the necro, making some lucky escapes. Wizard Nullified, then nuked a couple blights. Priest repeatedly failed to search, then finally got beat up by the necro. Scholar got research materials, ancient charm from forest.

Mid Game: Priest repeatedly failed to pray. Scholar thorouhgly looted forest, retriving 4 keys andthen the relic. Wizard messed around with Confusion and other blights. Kngiht rested, fought more. Ended up in the castle with the necro in the swamp. Found Oath of Defense. Eventually, we all retreat to monastery. Necrohas about 3 blights everywhere.

Late Game: Kngiht makes Oath of Defense in Village and can't be killed. Priest and Wizard kil blights in the monastery. Scholar digs up keys in mountains, castle, runs home. Knights is also forced to run home. Knight heals up, takes keys, ard rides to swamp, picks up relic, and hard rides back. Heroes win.

[Manxome]

Glad you had fun. Sounds like your game went pretty much as intended; build up power and eliminate key blights in early game, gradually shift resources to keeping the necromancer in check as blights multiply and the darkness increases, and finally a last stand of most or all the heroes to try to kill the necromancer and/or buy the last bit of time you need to collect the relics.

You are correct that searching normally has no cost, except that it takes up your action. The rogue has a power that allows him to spend 1 secrecy to get an extra die while searching, which may have been what threw you off.

It may be helpful to know that the locations with higher search difficulties tend to have more keys. Card-counting shouldn't be necessary to win, but as with most board games, it does help.

1197230224[/unixtime]]Bythe way, what happens when the necromancer attacks you? The rules say he can be fought or eluded, but his awareness is unlisted. Pretty much we had him just automatically knock out 1 grace every turn. This made him pretty scary.

Also, once the necromancer catches you, do you have any choice but to run for the monastery? It seems like you move, gaining one secrecy, but he takes it away again immediately, and you're always the closest guy, so it's practically impossible for anyon else to distract him. You're forced to run for the monastery, which of course leads him right to your doorstep...

The necromancer has an awareness of 6, which should be printed on his character card (above the darkness track). Only marginally less scary than you made him.

If your secrecy falls to zero, then it's very difficult to get away from the necromancer without retreating to the monastery, but there are a few powers that make it possible to gain more than one secrecy in a turn under certain conditions (Contacts [Rogue], Vanish [Rogue], Safe House [Prince], Secret Passage [Prince]), and some that allow movement farther than one space (Hard Ride [Knight], Teleport [Wizard]). Also, if there are multiple heroes with zero secrecy, the necromancer can't follow them both.

However, if the necromancer lands on top of you but you still have some secrecy left, then there's no guarantee the necromancer will chase you if you flee (or even if you stay where you are)--he has to roll higher than your secrecy to track you.

It's somtimes tempting to decide that your secrecy is "good enough for now" and spend your actions on other things, but there are definite benefits to keeping your secrecy high when you don't want to be caught.

On the other hand, sometimes you want your secrecy to be zero in the endgame, so that the necromancer doesn't run away, and so you get an extra chance to attack him each turn.

[Orion]

We played again with Knight, Rogue, Prince, and Priest-- still using the ineluctable necromancer

This time, we didn't ven bother destroying blights early except the ones that really bothered us, we mostly just searched and searched and searched. We had overhwlemingly good die rolls on the search, so we rapidly accumulated powers.

The Prince attracted a lot of attention, but with loyalty and strategy, took care of himself prety well. He got the +prayer blessing at the beginning, and subsequently the +attack blessing. We later moved the +prayer to the knight, because while the prince prayed more often, he usually needed time to refill secrecy anyway.

The Rogue Eavesdropped like crazy, going down to 0 secrecy frequently. Usually, the prince or the knight would already be out of secrecy, so the rogue would be safe.

The Priest also searched a lot, counting on his huge grace and secrecy to protect him. That and making blessings.

The game went pretty smoothlyexcept for an ugly patch in the middle-late game where we realized that neither the priest nor the rogue had a good attack. That made dfending the monastery tough. Luckily, we acquired Chastise (or whatever the priest's attack is called) rebellion and ambush in quick succession.

Observations: Scouts is not a very good power. It costs 2 secrecy, which, in the midgame, can be very difficult to pull off. Plus, by then, we've often searched the spaces near the monastery pretty thoroughly anyway. I imagine other 2 secrecy powers are similarly weak.

Hard Ride for the win, again.

Questions:

True or False: If I attack a blight in the monastery, my net secrecy for the turn is zero?

True or False: a relic can be "dropped off" in the monastery. (I assumed this to be true, but it says this nowhere in the rules. As written, they imply that three heroes, actively carrying relics, must converge on the monastery.)

Clarification/Suggested Addition: If relics can be stored in the monsatery, how about other items?

Flavor: The holy relic cards are 2-sided. While flipping them indicates "claimed" status, it's kinda funny because there's no hidden information. Why not give each relic a name, just for fun?

Random note: I started making up little stories to go along with every play of the game -- justification for new powers, descriptions of successful encounters, etc. This annoys my brother.

[the_taken]

I'll be having this board game played this weekend instead of the regular D&D session. Are you planning to package this?

1197600883[/unixtime]]Random note: I started making up little stories to go along with every play of the game -- justification for new powers, descriptions of successful encounters, etc. This annoys my brother.

Awesome.

[Manxome]

So did you win? And if so, by relics or by combat?

1197600883[/unixtime]]We later moved the +prayer to the knight, because while the prince prayed more often, he usually needed time to refill secrecy anyway.

Remember that the bonus secrecy from the monastery can only raise you up to your default value, which for the Prince is 3.

1197600883[/unixtime]]Observations: Scouts is not a very good power. It costs 2 secrecy, which, in the midgame, can be very difficult to pull off. Plus, by then, we've often searched the spaces near the monastery pretty thoroughly anyway. I imagine other 2 secrecy powers are similarly weak.

You know, I don't think we managed to draw Scouts in any of my test games. You could certainly houserule the cost down to 1 if you think it's necessary, though you could also try searching the areas farther from the Monastery earlier in the game. In particular, the Castle should be a good place to search early, because of the low search difficulty and the higher density of powers.

If not for its cost, Scouts should easily be the best search-related power in the game, because everyone can benefit from it. You need to plan it's use fairly carefully, though.

I believe the only other power that costs 2 secrecy is Safe House, which allows you to immediately recover one of the secrecy you spent and has proven to be very powerful in games where it's come up.

1197600883[/unixtime]]True or False: If I attack a blight in the monastery, my net secrecy for the turn is zero?

Usually, yes. The secrecy from the Monastery can't raise you above your default secrecy (the circled number), so if your secrecy was higher than that at the start of the turn, you'll have a net decrease of one. Also, other things can further alter your secrecy, of course (spies, safe house, holy relic).

1197600883[/unixtime]]True or False: a relic can be "dropped off" in the monastery. (I assumed this to be true, but it says this nowhere in the rules. As written, they imply that three heroes, actively carrying relics, must converge on the monastery.)

Heroes are intended to be able to drop relics in the monastery, though you probably won't usually want to do this. I'll look over the rules and make sure that's included in the next publication.

1197600883[/unixtime]]Clarification/Suggested Addition: If relics can be stored in the monsatery, how about other items?

There's currently no rule to that effect, but I don't see a problem with it.

1197600883[/unixtime]]Flavor: The holy relic cards are 2-sided. While flipping them indicates "claimed" status, it's kinda funny because there's no hidden information. Why not give each relic a name, just for fun?

Certainly a possibility. One playtester actually suggested giving each relic a different special power (rather than all of them being +1 to highest attack die), but that +1 is rather important to the strategy, and I haven't thought of any other effects that would be similar in power.

1197605345[/unixtime]]I'll be having this board game played this weekend instead of the regular D&D session. Are you planning to package this?

Not presently. I wouldn't even know where to begin.

[Orion]

We won, via relics. We got the forest, the mountain, and then the ruins, thanks to the knight hard riding out and back.

I like storing keys in the monastry until needed. If each character drops their keys when they go back eventually someone can gab 3 on their way out the door.

I'm aware that the prince's secrecy is 3. Since heusully has 0 secrecy when he goes back, that's 3 full turns of prayer which is gnerally enough to refill grace, unless -- aha! I'm an idiot! I could be using a turn to cast Inspire and gaining a screcy for it.

[the_taken]

OK. My gaming group all canceled... and requested a Santa Clause inspired game for next week. Very unusual...

Let's see if I can convince my relatives to play.

[Orion]

We played again -- starting a priest, rogue, prince, and scholar.

Early on, the Scholar holed up in the castle, quickly establishing a Forgotten Sanctuary and then collecting no fewer than 5 treasures befor the necromancer kicked him out.

The priest searched ineffectively over and over, while the rogue had only slightly moreluck. The Prince ran around causing trouble and blowing up blights.

eventually, we had a whole bunch of powers, one and a half relics, and decided we were going to kill the necromancer. We set up an Ancient Defense, Counterspell and Resistance in the mountains. The Prince nad Scholar went out, Prince using Strategy, Scholar using find weakness and ancient sword. Meanwhile, the Priest, armed with Blessing of Strength and Miracle, guarded the monastery. The Rogue went out, got pummeled, and rested. Anyway, it was hard to keep up with the Necromancer's 3 blights per turn, but the other players egged me on. After the Scholar died, I re-started as a knight, everyone guarded the monastery but the rogue, and when we found enough keys we repeated our hard ride stunt.