Yore
After the first playtest session Patrick went back to the drawing board for the combat system and also discussed adding in more player choice for his current iteration. I really like the concept of Yore and had fun the first time we played it. Unfortunately, in the newest version I felt that I had no strategy and no control over circumstances. After thinking about Yore for a few days, I have come up with some ideas that could possibly be explored.
Currently in Yore, players explore a grid system composed of separate 3x3 tiles. You explore a tile by flipping a new one over and orienting it in any way you choose. The tiles may be blank, have a monster encounter, a treasure encounter, or both. I feel that that alone is not enough choice. There is no objective in the game other than to reach the exit (a filled in middle square on one of the 3x3 tiles). Reach the exit too soon, and you will lose from having not enough treasure points. Until the 3x3 tile is flipped over with the exit on it, there is no real strategy other than wandering and hoping for encounters that give you victory points. My first proposal is adding mini objectives on some of the tiles. Possible hoard rooms or even mini-bosses that give unique treasure.
Quick Sketch:
Thoughts on this:
1) Creates more player choice by giving objectives throughout the game instead of just at the end.
2) Causes players to come together and possibly interact (in our playtest every player went in a separate direction).
3) You could add directional arrows on the 3x3 tile that must always be placed in X direction to keep a player from orienting the 3x3 tile in their favor.
4) Mini bosses could be a deck of cards with monster stats and information on the top and a treasure on the bottom - possibly victory points or even an ability. Player would keep the monster card after defeating it.
5) Single square tiles could have treasure removed from them entirely so this is the only place treasure is obtained.
My second proposal is a change in abilities. Abilities are currently physical cards the player can purchase with experience points. Abilities are only used in combat and are generally a conversion of one fight type to another. My proposal is that different types of abilities are added that can be used in regular game play. Cool abilities would be being able to reorient a tile already place or possibly a Mystical Elevator sort of situation where an entire 3x3 tile is moved to another part of the board. To keep abilities from being too powerful, one-time or multi-time use abilities could be introduced.
The next issue I had with Yore was the difficulty. Straight away the player could defeat the strongest monster. You'd be hurt, but it wasn't a big deal. I'm not sure how to completely fix that, but since Patrick eats probability for breakfast, I'm sure he has a few ideas up his sleeve. One simple change I thought of was to change the item Potion. A potion can currently be used at any time and restores a player to full health. If Potions only restored a single heart at a time, I think that would help balance the difficulty.
The last thing I noticed was the pace of the game. I felt a lot of stuff could not get done in a single turn. The rules currently state a player can move 3 squares, but only explore a single square. That means most turns you are only moving one square. One idea is to add blank halls and passageways to the 3x3 tiles. Somewhat like my idea for treasure rooms/mini bosses, except just a way for the player to expedite movement. This would cause the amount of 3x3 tiles to be explored faster, and would also cause the player to place single tiles carefully so hallways could be used and not blocked.
I think with just a few changes, Patrick could add more player choice and a little bit more fun to Yore. I love the idea of a randomly generated dungeon crawl through the flipping of tiles and I am very excited to see where Patrick takes Yore next.
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