Suggestions for a homemade boardgame

[Brandigan]

Basically I have armies of miniatures, miles of Mastermaze and a group of short attention span WoW junkies. I know they won't want to invest in a traditional D&D campaign. I'd also like to include my wife who is totally new to gaming. I don't want to buy something new only to have it join the rest of the stuff collecting dust in the basement.

My question is what would be a good rules set that I can use that will make a fun and fast paced experience for these little fiends? I've played and DM'd back in the day everything from OD&D to Star Frontiers but never dabbled in board/card game formats. Any tips would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[Asmor]

Your title says homemade, but from your post it sounds like you're looking for stuff that's already out there...

Anyways, I'd recommend Descent. Might seem a bit pricey, but you do get a lot in that huge box.

Descent is basically D&D as a boardgame. One player controls all the monsters, and each other player has their own hero. Heroes level up, acquire equipment, etc. It's not cooperative, though; it's the "overlord" (I think that's what he's called... been a while) vs. the PCs.

There's also a few expansions, including one called Road to Legend which introduces ongoing campaign rules.

I'm sure someone else here can give you a better description. Personally, I don't care for it, but I think it would serve your purposes well.

[Stormtalon]

I'd actually suggest doing some rummaging and seeing if you can't get a cheap copy of the old "Dungeon" boardgame, then use your mastermaze set + miniatures to replace the game board.

[scitadel]

Hmmm, go buy Frontiers. They have a really elegant rule set for play and you can replace all their tokens with your miniatures. The game itself plays fast and is basically a stripped down miniature game.

If you want to take the time, you can then adapt the rules they use to your particular brand of miniatures (if modern / futuristic day). Not as easy for medieval - I think Okko has a better set of rules for medieval warfare miniature play.

Otherwise, Descent is a whole different ballgame that gives you all the tile pieces, rules, tokens and miniatures that you could want. You could even add your own monsters to the mix later on, once you get comfortable. Basically, in Descent, one player plays the Overlord who gets 'threat' that allows him to play cards from his hand. Those cards range from traps to spells to monster summonings. The heroes attempt to raid the dungeon and can die as often as they like (and rez back in town) but each time they die, they Conquest tokens. If they lose them all (as specified by the quest and gained by specific goals during the quest), they lose and the Overlord wins. Quite fun.

[Brandigan]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I went to Descent's website and checked out the .pdf of the rulebook. I got a lot of ideas plus I can whip out some cards in photoshop then print them out on cardstock. I came up with a basic format for characters and monsters. The cards i made give individual characters a special ability or spell and those can be randomly looted from treasure chests and monsters. Once they are used they go back in the deck and can be drawn again. I just want to keep it really simple and fast paced.

Thanks again