New NESes, ideas, development, etc

Popping my head in to say I really like the premise behind Circuit's NES idea.
 
Thanks for the support, guys! Most of the work for this NES is completed. I've decided I'll post the start-up thread tomorrow. Hopefully by the end of the day I'll have some spread sheets for stats and battle outcomes, but regardless of whether I do or not, the start up thread should be up tomorrow. For now, I'm setting a cap at eight players, first come first serve. Make your faction claims when the thread is up.
 
Oh yeah, that too, I didn't really read the premise (just the rules) until now.
Love the various graphics too and hex system. It shows a lot of love from your present prep-work and in the earlier foundations you're borrowing.

The only advice I have is to not make things too complicated by making them clearcut, one of the advantages of most boardgames. That'll help you to make your updates sustainable and regular and allow you to focus more on storytelling and reduce the amount of questions and whines/complaints from players.

(I hope I make the post-up in time, but I'll definitely lurk on this one. :'))
 
I like the premise, but for some reason am not feeling boardgame style.
 
Farow: I really like the look of your ruleset, it makes a few typical fluff rules seem a lot more meaningful- I'd wonder if there are a few too few levels in the culture score though, it seems odd that there's nothing between smooth sailing and a decadent, collapsing culture- I think 5 levels should be a minimum for that kind of thing. More is unnecessary, less is a bit too barebones.
 
Farow: I really like the look of your ruleset, it makes a few typical fluff rules seem a lot more meaningful- I'd wonder if there are a few too few levels in the culture score though, it seems odd that there's nothing between smooth sailing and a decadent, collapsing culture- I think 5 levels should be a minimum for that kind of thing. More is unnecessary, less is a bit too barebones.

Thanks for the input. I was thinking of having a way to replicate a "golden age" type of idea. Then I thought that a decedant culture should have the same impact on your nation just in the other direction. All other nations are not negatively or positively impacted by culture. Having more levels is a good idea though. I may play around with that a little more.
 
Would be the best Christmas Present EVER if you revived that NES!

Won't be ready by Christmas but look for it sometime soon. Thanks for the enthusiasm it helps a lot when it comes to motivating me. I am looking at releasing it on the first of the new year.

Now where is my Christmas present?
 
What do you desire?
 
I might not personally, but I am very good at getting what I want..
 
I was thinking of starting up a World War Two "Commandos" NES, stylized after Dreadnought's DOOM Project. I'm still on the boat on whether the players should be part of the historical British commandos, a nonhistorical "Allied Special Operations Force", or possibly even a German special forces unit, like the Brandenburgers.

The missions would probably deviate from history, with situations ranging from crippling vital airfields/U-boat bases to assassinations of groups of officers to the destruction of prototype weaponry.

If you would like this idea to go through, I would like some feedback as to what side you would prefer to fight on and what types of missions (sabotage, stealthy information gathering, assassination, defending strategic areas, etc.) you would like to see.
 
a mixture of missions, i don't care what side we are on.. what will be needed is your ability to paint a vivid picture, and to have planed a storyline ahead of us..
 
Ugh, so I've spent the past hour or so searching for an idea that someone posted a while back, but I still cannot find it! The gist of the NES was a kind of MoM-style NES with players taking up the roles of wizards of various nations and controlling solely those characters. Does anyone have any idea what I am talking about? Does the idea's creator still troll this glorious board?
 
So, while scouring this thread I found a post by a Dance.Down who pitched the following idea:


So while terribly sick I had another idea for an NES that I'll probably not get into with much detail because my next NES will be a return to my first one (or a modification of it).

The idea behind the NES is that the players are all knights from various orders, backgrounds, etc., but all from the same kingdom. Their goal is simple: find some holy artifact for some reason or another. Getting to that artifact will be the hard part!

I would have the players trasverse across a great map, fighting various random enemies such as golems, trolls, witches, etc. etc., but the real tests would come from (mostly) non-violent tests like deciding whether to postpone their journey in order to help a village fend off another village's attack. Moral grays would be the calling card of this NES and no choice would be entirely right and the right answer may not even be 'good'. Why would these choices matter? Well because to find the holy thing you'd have to conduct yourself in the way that is 'truly knightly', but what that means is very much left up to the players to decide (of course I provide a sparse code for them to interpret).

What do you guys think?

Now I think this is a marvelous idea. It could be a simple NES, so simple in fact that I quickly drafted up a template for player stats (though rules still elude me).


Spoiler KnightNES stats :

Name: The character's name, of course

Knightly Style: Drawn from a list I would provide. These are basically general backgrounds for what kind of knight the player is supposed to be. My current ideas are: Legionnaire (A more martial knight, used to hard combat and hard living); Gallant (The courtly knight, one who can charm his way into any court); Chevalier (The mounted martial knight, more obstinate than most and begins with an equally tenacious mount); Paladin (Though you all are 'paladins' in the sense that you all are holy warriors, the Paladin is holier than most and relies more on his knowledge of the divine than his strength to overcome the world's evils) Sentinel (Champion of the lesser folks, the sentinel is distinct from the other knights due to his focus upon defense. He is not the type to strike out, but to bear the strikes of his enemies till they tire themselves out.) And more! Suggest any that pop into mind.

Patronage: Who sponsors this character's quest? Is it a noble? A god/god-like figure? A king? Or is he self sponsored? I have not yet determined it, but patronage would have some effect on the character's stats/how certain elements of the world would react to them.

Order: What order does the knight belong to? I was going to go with the Christian virtues as espoused by the good poet Edmund Spenser. Chastity, Temperance, Holiness, Courtesy, Justice, Piety. Each order would confer some bonus to the player's stats as well as effect how the world would regard them/what challenges they may excel at or flounder at (as well as alter what challenges I would throw at them!) The orders have certain tenants that the players are supposed to follow, but they would be vague enough so that individual interpretation may flourish/flounder ;).

Squire: What is a knight without his squire? At the beginning of their quests I do not think I will let the players have access to a squire (unless their patronage would deem it so) and the squire would confer some extra bonus. I'm not sure if the bonus would be through stats or 'action points' as I have yet to determine if 'action points' will be used in this game.

Cohorts: Cohorts are NPC equals to the players who, for some reason, are currently journeying with the player. They will act on their own, but often for the benefit of the player. However the world is full of evil and the paramount thing to remember about this setting is that nothing is as it seems.

Relics: Relics are various items that the players collect as they play. They range from magical mirrors to mighty swords and range just as much in their uses/usefulness. Not all relics are made to be used by human hands and not all relics are made to help.

Stats
There are five stats that are valued from 1 to 10, 1 being "feeble" and 10 being "deity-like". Stats are used to determine how a knight might come up against a certain task and contribute directly to Difficulty Challenge (DC) rolls.
Might: A knight's physical strength.
Mind: A knight's intelligence.
Mastery: A knight's ability to preform complex physical actions outside the sphere of just bashing it.
Magnetism: A knight's charm.
Moxie: A knight's mental wherewithal.


The goal of this NES would be to provide a low-commitment setting for the players where they can send orders as simple and as complex as they might (though I would not frown upon complex orders). Stories would not be required at all, as I want to take over much of the story telling by presenting various scenarios to the players and allowing them to make simple decisions and I relate the results via updates. I just need to come up with some rules!

So what do you all think?
 
You should look at the Mutant Game that's going on now, although set in a more modern time it's similar in the way it adapts the NES to characters within a nation, it's also clearly not as goal oriented (it just sets up people who are fighting for mutant rights on the one side and the federal police and other racist humans on the other), but I think that you should take a peek at how it's being executed just as a character driven game.
 
Mmm, I am looking at that NES as I type this! I want KnightNES to have a clear goal, though: find [insert holy artifact name here] and bring it back to Gloriana. Along the way I would give hints at to where it might be and such, though the players will go through a lot of other quests to get there in the first place.

The idea I have for KnightNES's setting is a kind of Faerie Queene-esque world. It will be a bit more concrete than what Edmund Spenser provided in his epic, but just as full of strange tests and such. I am thinking of having Gloriana's kingdom be on the edge of the known human world and her realm acting as the border guard between the civilized world and the nightmarish land on the other side. The players would have been summoned to Gloriana's court for their past chivalric brilliance and set upon this quest that is meant to save mankind from destruction.

edit:

And unlike the MutantNES I want there to be clear-cut rules to provide some structure to the NES. I like the whole amorphous, community driven experiments, but I want this to be an adventure with enough structure to facilitate a long-lasting NES.
 
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