Dragon's Lair, a game I'm working on...

[Asmor]

About a year ago, I started working on a game, and then more or less let it sit idle...

...until now. I've had a sudden urge to continue work on it, and am trying to get it out for people to test it.

The premise of the game is that you're all dragons trying to lure adventurers into your lairs so that you can kill them and steal their loot. The game plays out in three ways; you build your lair by placing cards in a stack, with sort of a "programming" aspect because the order is important.

Then there's an auction in which you all compete to attract the adventurers, either by filling your dungeon with valuables or by wreaking havoc on the countryside and building up your infamy.

Finally, when the heroes assault your lair, they basically go through card by card and follow the rules to figure out what happens...

The 90 card deck prints on 10 pages, and the cards should be slightly smaller than Magic cards. I recommend cutting them out and slipping them in a sleeve with a magic card to provide a good backing.

You can see some more discussion about the game in this thread on Board Game Geek.

Deck
Rulebook (Beta 1)

I should mention that if you've downloaded the deck before, either because you saw it on BGG or from my tweet about it the other day, you should re-download as I've added art for all the cards.

 

[Alex319]

This seems like a very interesting game, although there are parts of the rules that are unclear:

1. What's to stop the player who is winning during the bidding phase from trivially ending the game by wreaking havoc to put all the hero cards in the stack on the field? Probably you would want to change it to say that each time you wreak havoc it only puts out one more hero card.

2. How do players get more lair cards? It seems like you start with 5 lair cards, then some get destroyed, and the only way to get more is to discard an equal number. So the number of lair cards players have would always be going down.

3. Do you generate a new party of three adventurers at the start of each round? What happens if some adventurers survive the previous round?

4. The False Exit seems to offer the opportunity for a degenerate strategy similar to (1) - put the False Exit at the front of your lair, then wreak havoc any time anyone else bids, thus guaranteeing yourself the "high bid". Then you save yourself with the False Exit every time, preventing anyone else from scoring points for the rest of the game with no risk to yourself - the False Exit is a reveal effect, so it can't be prevented by heroes.

5. When does the Mage's "Setup" effect happen? The only "Setup" phase mentioned in the game is the initial setup at the beginning of the game.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

A minor point...

You might want to change the name of the game to avoid confusion. I had assumed you were making a game based on the videogame Dragon's Lair until I read your synopsis.

DS

 

[Asmor]

This seems like a very interesting game, although there are parts of the rules that are unclear:

1. What's to stop the player who is winning during the bidding phase from trivially ending the game by wreaking havoc to put all the hero cards in the stack on the field? Probably you would want to change it to say that each time you wreak havoc it only puts out one more hero card.

If they're biting off more than they can chew, most of their lair would be destroyed and they'd lose a life point. Any heroes they didn't kill would be shuffled back into the hero deck.

2. How do players get more lair cards? It seems like you start with 5 lair cards, then some get destroyed, and the only way to get more is to discard an equal number. So the number of lair cards players have would always be going down.

First bullet point under Preparation Phase: "You may play a card on into your lair. Take a lair card from your hand and place it face down on top of your lair stack. Then draw a card to bring your hand back up to 5 cards."

3. Do you generate a new party of three adventurers at the start of each round? What happens if some adventurers survive the previous round?

Yes. Surviving adventurers are shuffled back into the hero deck. This needs to be added to rulebook.

4. The False Exit seems to offer the opportunity for a degenerate strategy similar to (1) - put the False Exit at the front of your lair, then wreak havoc any time anyone else bids, thus guaranteeing yourself the "high bid". Then you save yourself with the False Exit every time, preventing anyone else from scoring points for the rest of the game with no risk to yourself - the False Exit is a reveal effect, so it can't be prevented by heroes.

You are correct, I hadn't thought of that. One fix would be to require a payment of 1 gold to activate it, in addition to the gold you must forfeit.

5. When does the Mage's "Setup" effect happen? The only "Setup" phase mentioned in the game is the initial setup at the beginning of the game.

Second paragraph under Lair phase: "Next, if any heroes have setup effects, resolve the setup effects starting from the front of the line."

Also, from the glossary: "Setup: Setup effects on heroes occur at the beginning of the lair phase, after any face-down heroes are turned face up and put into position but before any lair cards are revealed."

A minor point...

You might want to change the name of the game to avoid confusion. I had assumed you were making a game based on the videogame Dragon's Lair until I read your synopsis.

DS

You're actually not the first to point this out, and I am well aware of the arcade game. I'm not particularly attached to this name, and indeed I think it sounds a little awkward, but I haven't come up with something better. I doubt the final name will still be dragon's lair.

 

[MerricB]

Spam post reported.

 

[Asmor]

Err... I'm assuming there must have been a spammy reply here which I didn't see... I can't see how you'd confuse my post with spam. o_0

 

[MerricB]

Err... I'm assuming there must have been a spammy reply here which I didn't see... I can't see how you'd confuse my post with spam. o_0

You can assume correctly. Mind you...

Cheers!