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I have to say I was really inspired by Bluebright's battle reports and the way his mixed objective cards change up the game and all-around make things more interesting. In essence, each player has a list of secret objectives that they must accomplish in exchange for points, which is how the game is scored. However, on a recent post of his, Stubby suggested a version of the game in which goals are placed in the open for anyone to accomplish, and the point value for completing a goal increases the longer that it remains unachieved. Thus, drawing off the general idea of these giants of brick-gaming, and filling in some of my own material, I present a poorly-drawn, hand-made draft for a card-based objective system that I'll likely be using in many future games.



In essence, there will be two kinds of cards - Missions and Quests. Each player is given one Quest at the opening of the game. This objective only known to the player who drew it, and remains secret until the end of the game. If they manage to accomplish it, it's worth 10 points.



Quest cards:

No Hard Feelings
Wipe out all native civilians on the board.
Sworn Enemy
Kill the Hero of the player to your left before anyone else does.
Hunting Season
Kill all the native wildlife on the board.
Going Green
Burn down 3 trees. Withe fyre ablaze!
Noble Cause
Defend the hero of the player to your left.
The People's Hero
Keep at least 3 natives alive.
Precious
Defend the Artifact.
Treasure Hunt
Add all the Treasure Chests to your inventory. By bringing them back to your base.

Mission Cards, on the other hand, are available throughout the entire game for anyone to accomplish. At any given time, five random mission cards are placed on the board, free for anyone to accomplish. After First Blood is drawn, (worth 1 point), each Mission card will accumulate one brick for each turn that it remains unaccomplished. When the Mission is completed, the player collects all the bricks (each one equivalent to one point) on the card, and a new one is drawn from the deck and added to the queue.



Mission cards:

Solo Act
Only one hero should be taking the stage, and that's you. Eliminate the competition.
Poor Man's Weapon
Make a kill using a Random Object.
Cast it into the Fire
There is an Artifact hidden on the board. Destroy it. Artifact Armor: 1d10
Ruination
Destroy one enemy base. Base has 2d10 armor, +1d10 with Flag. No enemy unit must be standing on the base in order to steal a flag.
Killzone 4
Kill 4 enemy units.
Killzone 8
Kill 8 enemy units.
Buddy System
Lose 4 of your units to enemy fire.
FLUFFY
Bring a wild animal back to your base alive. It'll sit there until the base is destroyed.
Change of Command
Capture an enemy vehicle and pilot it back to your base.
Headcount
Bring the heads of 3 enemies back to your base.
Capture the Flag
Take an enemy's flag back to your base. No enemy unit must be standing on the base in order to steal a flag.
Ends of the Earth
Get a unit to the corner of the board furthest from your base. Easy, right?

As per Bluebright's ruleset, the game ends when the first team is eliminated. Players participate in equal squads, which might be equivalent to one hero and five normal units, or a more varied 50CP or 100CP force. Playtesting demonstrations to come soon! Comments, feedback, and suggestions are more than welcome, and these rules are subject to change at any time based on the ideas below.

I love these cards!

It looks like you put way more effort into yours than I did with mine. I'm going to steal at least 5 of those cards for my own

bluebright wrote:I love these cards!

It looks like you put way more effort into yours than I did with mine. I'm going to steal at least 5 of those cards for my own

Awesome! I'm honored.

Sir Sporktimus wrote:However, on a recent post of his, Stubby suggested a version of the game in which goals are placed in the open for anyone to accomplish, and the point value for completing a goal increases the longer that it remains unachieved.

That may be even better than my idea. I was just thinking that everyone would do a couple rounds bidding for goals before the game began, and then the remainder would be put away. Keeping goals available to all players while the battle is underway adds a whole new layer of competition.

We did do something very similar to this everybody-competes-for-goal-cards idea when I was pitching ideas for the LEGO Board Games line back in 2004, I should see if I can track down the ruleset. It was one of the few unreleased Lego concepts I ever got clearance to share publicly.

I like this idea, good job!

Have you considered changing Noble Cause to defending the hero on your right, so there's a possibility of two quests going against each other?

Falk wrote:I like this idea, good job!

Have you considered changing Noble Cause to defending the hero on your right, so there's a possibility of two quests going against each other?

I did, actually, but wanted to see how non-conflicting would work first - given that Heroes tend to be the most emotionally involved unit for the team, (and the playing tempers of the players in my current area), I didn't want to start vendettas right off the bat. I do like the idea though, so it'll likely show up in the revised group of cards in a couple of weeks, along with any other new card ideas.

I added this to the sub reddit btw: http://www.reddit.com/r/brikwars/commen ... porktimus/

So, I made the first playtest. It was a short, half-hour affair, meant mainly to test the style rather than serve as a full-game example. As such, it remained unfinished, and the documentation was brought to a premature end. Nevertheless, I did learn a few things, and made an addition to the summary above. Primarily, the Missions acquire points too quickly. It's usually two or three turns before players are within combat distance, let alone able to accomplish an objective, and by the time the first missions are completed they're worth far more than the Secret Quests, which are even more difficult. Thus, the Quests will have a value of 10, which means that accomplishing one is a significant boost to one's points, but not impossible to overcome. This will, however, be subject to change as the ideal value is decided through further gameplay.

Alternately, goal cards don't start accruing points until First Blood.

If you want to get REALLY tricky (probably more trouble than it's worth), goal cards don't accrue points until a player achieves them. From that point forward, a player puts one point on every one of his achieved goals every time he kills an enemy minifig.

stubby wrote:Alternately, goal cards don't start accruing points until First Blood.

If you want to get REALLY tricky (probably more trouble than it's worth), goal cards don't accrue points until a player achieves them. From that point forward, a player puts one point on every one of his achieved goals every time he kills an enemy minifig.

Hrm. I like both of those ideas, in particular the First Blood one. So let it be written, so let it be done.

stubby wrote:We did do something very similar to this everybody-competes-for-goal-cards idea when I was pitching ideas for the LEGO Board Games line back in 2004, I should see if I can track down the ruleset. It was one of the few unreleased Lego concepts I ever got clearance to share publicly.

Good news! It was buried deep in the archives, but I was able to find it. The game was called King of Fire Island:

King of Fire Island

Looks like in the pitch draft we submitted, the players were keeping their goal cards secret until they were able to play them, but there were earlier versions of the game (before we added the Event cards) where there were always five goals out on the table and we were racing to claim them.

The art on these is all really great! like wow, those are practically professional quality.

Personally though I prefer objectives where all of the players are competing amongst one-another to achieve them; as this results in ensuring that there's reason for fighting to be happening, and for it to be happening in a certain way. Which means players can use strategy and tactics to better effect, which in my opinion is the fun part about wargames in general.

For example; in the WW2 miniature wargames my grandpa puts on, the objectives are represented by red poker chips which are spread throughout the battlefield at strategic locations, such as a bridge where a river can be crossed, an oasis in the desert where there's water, a town with buildings where troops can take cover, and etc. The game goes on, each side trying to take control of as many of these strategic locations as possible until the set end-time for the game comes up. (usually midnight), then, whichever team holds the most points at the end of the game (having units within a 3 inch radius of the poker chip) wins. Any points which are contested you just calculate the effective CP value of the troops for each team, and whoever has more points within three inches at the end of the game gets control of that point.

Unfortunately, Brikwars games use a larger scale which means that the battles we play are typically much smaller scale. So a lot of the times; this game model does not work for brikwars; because at the end of brikwars games, at least one team is almost always completely eliminated; meaning that the surviving team has control of all victory points de facto. So maybe it isn't that great of a solution or otherwise needs to be scaled down.

In any case, I feel like a lot of the objectives you have listed here work better as things that allow you to get instant bennies instead of being game-objectives.

piltogg wrote:The art on these is all really great! like wow, those are practically professional quality.

Personally though I prefer objectives where all of the players are competing amongst one-another to achieve them; as this results in ensuring that there's reason for fighting to be happening, and for it to be happening in a certain way. Which means players can use strategy and tactics to better effect, which in my opinion is the fun part about wargames in general.

For example; in the WW2 miniature wargames my grandpa puts on, the objectives are represented by red poker chips which are spread throughout the battlefield at strategic locations, such as a bridge where a river can be crossed, an oasis in the desert where there's water, a town with buildings where troops can take cover, and etc. The game goes on, each side trying to take control of as many of these strategic locations as possible until the set end-time for the game comes up. (usually midnight), then, whichever team holds the most points at the end of the game (having units within a 3 inch radius of the poker chip) wins. Any points which are contested you just calculate the effective CP value of the troops for each team, and whoever has more points within three inches at the end of the game gets control of that point.

Unfortunately, Brikwars games use a larger scale which means that the battles we play are typically much smaller scale. So a lot of the times; this game model does not work for brikwars; because at the end of brikwars games, at least one team is almost always completely eliminated; meaning that the surviving team has control of all victory points de facto. So maybe it isn't that great of a solution or otherwise needs to be scaled down.

In any case, I feel like a lot of the objectives you have listed here work better as things that allow you to get instant bennies instead of being game-objectives.

True. Actually, seizing control of objective points is a good idea for goals as well.. And yep, a lot of the objectives here are smaller things that aren't necessarily great as goals. However, it does make things more interesting, and having several separate missions going at once can be a choice between scoring your own points and preventing the enemy from doing so. It just varies from game table to game table, I suppose.. but I'd say an objective point is a lot more motivating to players than an Instant Benny, those though could be incorporated as well.

Sir Sporktimus wrote:...several separate missions going at once can be a choice between scoring your own points and preventing the enemy from doing so...

This is why we switched to this mode exclusively. Brikwars gets boring part way through, those who are losing lose interest quickly. At least this way everyone has a chance right up until the game finishes. We've chosen to make the game end when the first team gets wiped out.

bluebright wrote:

Sir Sporktimus wrote:...several separate missions going at once can be a choice between scoring your own points and preventing the enemy from doing so...

This is why we switched to this mode exclusively. Brikwars gets boring part way through, those who are losing lose interest quickly. At least this way everyone has a chance right up until the game finishes. We've chosen to make the game end when the first team gets wiped out.

Indeed, especially when scarce participants means players aren't all of an older age group. I quite like how even the destroyed team has the opportunity to win the game, particularly if they met their end sacrificing units for the sake of completing objectives.