Board gaming HERO

[bpmasher]

This is sort of a continuation to my wargaming Hero hack, where players trek along a hexcrawling map, with tactical combat taking place on hex sheets with dungeons/battlegrounds drawn on them.

 

Nothing new under the sun, but having miniatures made me come up with all sorts of uses for them. Characters are made with Body becoming Hits (if converting), and weapon damages are transformed into damage points, where each die becomes equal to one Hit. Abilities like deadly blow will be gated behind character points and progression, or not allowed in the game at all, depending on genre and the thematic effect the game is going for. Magic and magic items can be more deadly/useful, but are usually not allowed for beginning characters.

 

Skills are replaced with a Profession -skill, which includes everything the character knows, without using extensive skill lists. This might take a bit of work on the setting (background)  so everybody can be on the same page about the skills that are included in a profession.

 

You could tie all sorts of special items and effects to professions, like a cook creating such exquisite meals that the characters gain more character points per encounter/adventure, or a blacksmith being able to create weapons for the whole party. 

 

Resource management should be a concern for characters, and encumbrance/long-term fatigue can be factored in as resources.

 

Story elements like characters motivations and the big baddies can be random, or created bespoke (in adventure briefing) so there is a sense of ongoing accomplishment for players after tackling a personal challenge.

[bpmasher]

For genre/theme it's either Dark Champions (modern-day city soldiering, like the Division video games) or straight up fantasy, using pawns from Pathfinder for a variety of monsters and character options on the table.

 

To make it more gamey, all sorts of bennies/tokens can be used to track character hits, endurance (simplified) and index cards for new items that have some sorts of power imbued in them (magic stuff). Drawing on index cards might seem excessive but handouts will make the game more engaging.

 

Simplicity for the inital design is key, so it can be modified later with more options.