Geas: Broken Gods

[sorcerersapprentice]

GEAS is the official name of 'project cthonic' started two years ago and now moving along toward a releasable demo. Still in development much of it is under wraps. In a nutshell the game is five times the size of heroquest and stuffs as much complexity into simplicity as it can enabling a more robust range of actions, challenges, strategies and tactics. Set in a sentient world, where religion is banned and using high magic results in instant death from hungry gods. Geas is an entirely new world with its own laws, lore, history and weapons, armour and sourcery. 1-8 players it is a culmination of the simplicity and feel of Heroquest but not quite the infinite potential of D&D.

To help illustrate some of the difference here is a scenario that uses GEAS's Monster AI enabling encounters to be as unpredictable as the players with over 60 possible reactions: Combat is done with 4d6 + 1d20 dice, tokens, consultation chart and cards. no writing necessary. (the notes are just for my reference).

FIGHT #3: Epic Showdown between Sourcerer, Orcish King and Orcish Soldier. In Geas, Sourcerers are different to wizards in HQ: because of the fundamental application and essence of what magic is in Geas: they don't spend time acquiring knowledge through tomes and become pale and weedy: they acquire it through sensitivity to the forms and forces of the world around them, studying and observing and replicating them: in the hard harsh world of Geas: only the strong or the group that works well together survive and their mastery of forms is what allows them to be formidable fighters. Sourcerers can use 24 of the available 54 weapons.

0. Sourcerer opens the door to a room and as the contents are laid out - its apparent - is confronted by monsters. To see who reacts first, they roll for first blood.

1. Orcs win First Blood and go first.
Orc King changes tactic and switches from Battleaxe (very good) to Cleaver (poor) perhaps out of a sense of over-confidence.

2. Orc King move and hits Sourcerer for 2 points: in addition the die indicate an extra factor so 1 more point of damage is taken.

3. Sourcerer retaliates and does 2 dmg.

4. Orc Soldier rolls tactic, goes berzerk, moves into combat, with double dmg for one round. attacks but miraculously misses.

5. Sourcerer eats healing herbs, restores 2 vigor. attacks Orc King hits for 2 dmg
(players can perform some actions in combat)

6. Orc King rolls tactic - attempts Joint Attack with Orc Soldier on Sourcerer. It fails but he lands own blow on Sourcerer for 2 dmg.

7. Sourcerer attacks Orc Soldier for 2 dmg but suffers negative mishap and cuts own self for 2 dmg.

(Sourcerer now on 3 life points)

8. Orc Soldier retaliates, rolls tie, both miss.

9. Sourcerer uses healing salve to restore 4 life points. Then attacks Orc King and misses. Sourcerer also suffers another minor misfortune and loses an item - his last healing salve.

10. Orc King attacks, misses and strains muscle doing 1 dmg to himeslf.

11. Sourcerer attacks Orc King, King dodges and counters doing 2 dmg to sourcerer.

12. Orc Solider rolls tactic, attempts to use an item to heal self and is successful.

13. Orc Solider attack sourcerer and hits for 2 dmg leaving sourcer at 3 life points again.

14. Sourcerer realizing she's in a bad situation attempts to leg it/flee, manages to break combat, but takes 2 dmg (1 from each enemy) in process leaving her on 1 life point. Sourcerer moves out of room and attempts to lock door.

15. Manages to do so and escapes down the corridor to heal.

16. Orcs roll tactic and decide not to follow.

A lot can happen in a single fight, a huge range of variables are possible even though players and monsters only roll the 2d6 once per round.

[knightkrawler]

I'd have to see it played to judge better, but reading it feels too long and complicated with a lot of looking up. I get that after a few sessions, each player will know their possible actions, but this still feels like an RPG played on a board that is too big (as presented in another thread) from the get go.
Don't get me wrong, it's interesting to read through the rules and then take some of it, but what you have presented us is just not for me or my players who are quite hard pressed for time.

[Anderas]

I was following your project until i saw that you have a rule book of 212 pages - well, that doesn't add up for a board game.
When i saw that you also have more or less hundreds of tiles instead of a few selected, i knew: This would either eat all my time and all my cupboard space; or nothing at all.

I chose the second.

That's not to say that your work is bad: A hard core role play gamer will love your work for sure. I was one of them, before. I loved all the options that were available for RPG characters.

Nevertheless I stopped RPG gaming long ago; for three reasons:
I found out that for me it kills the fun to search a particular text in the rulebook reapeatingly;
I have an absolut, vigurous, heavy hate for look up tables in combination with dice.
And I and my friends don't have that amounts of time for deep diving in yet the next universe (well, one of them actually collects RPG's - he really would deep dive yet another time)

For your game, i would advise that you develop an small & simple GEAS app that the players use together with the boardgame. The GEAS app can (for example) choose and present the KI actions.
Like that you avoid that the players have to roll on those tables all the time, the KI actions can be much more elaborate and monster-specific; plus it can a be a preplanned branching chain of actions for certain character monsters that get revealed one by one.

[sorcerersapprentice]

42 degrees here so ill be brief.

The 200+ core book draft it should be pointed out is for the DM that wants to understand Geas, the history, the lore, the reason for various elements and to devise new additions - but that is not for everyone - the gamer needs a guide that condenses that into 2-3 pages. I understand that - and I am working toward that, so the game will have both an in-depth treatment and a quick-start. It is all still in its very early development so what it is now will likely change and drastically as it comes together.

[knightkrawler]

my system now has 30 pages A5 with diagrams and people still complain. i try to pack background where it belongs: in the quest books.
i see it like you: only Morcar has to know the rules by heart. he is the one who should be able explain rules after the heroes have read them once.

[sorcerersapprentice]

@knightkrawler that is the one thing you can predict about people. Make the game that suits you.

[mitchiemasha]

Rather than rolling on a table, the player could draw a tactics card for the monsters. Now we're not looking at tables. Or even better... Pull a token from a hat.

[sorcerersapprentice]

I will be attempting to do the art for Geas on my own - here are some preliminary samples - ive been doing digital art non-stop for 2 years so the transition to drawing will take some time...

[j_dean80]

Wish I could draw. Looking good.

[sorcerersapprentice]

Thank you - does it look Oldhammer enough?

Also - It's never to late to learn man. I've been drawing for decades and I still feel like a relative amateur. But honestly, seriously, human beings Can learn to draw if they practice and don't get disheartened. My sketches look like utter *lemony goodness* the first time I put pen to paper because I try to work out the basic composition of where everything is - but then I go over them again with pencil and rubber to get a better approximate and finally (nervously) refine the shapes and details with blank pen. The new part is scanning it and painting it digitally - its a lot of fun but years of practice using/learning GIMP so that I can do what took me hours in seconds - and same goes with drawing, it get easier the more you do - the absolute key is to understand that like anything your brain needs to learn new skills and to adapt: so be KIND to yourself and understand that even *lemony goodness* drawings are part of the development: da vinci started out great, thats about it.

But combining my digital skills with hand sketched drawings is new territory for me... I think many companies have a separate artist for those stages, but I'm on my own for everything atm. I actually went over this caravan, changed the wheels to round (that was hard to do but had to be done) and added in shadows and lights to make it more 3d and less flat like in the sample shown.