Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

that's kind of what I was thinking I was going to try and do it like some kind of voodoo curse, but I don't know enough about that stuff and don't want it to come out too corny.

Also thinking there would be som already (un) living in BWG even now, just no one knows they're a vamp... like the undertaker, Douglas Graves.

Also thinking about making Wendigos be my native vamps.. they're kind of similar, the whole cannibal thing. Might also touch on the Dusk till Dawn type of mexican/aztec vamps. I think there was a bad sequel that was all westerny at one point. Probably not going to do the religious stuff though, like they won't be scared of crosses.

Next question .. when it comes to rules included in the boxed game... what would you rather see?

1 full rulebook just for the boxed game? Meaning there'd be the core rules + skinwalkers, next boxed game would be core rules + undead .. or

1 core rulebook geared toward humans (like we have now) + 1 Skinwalker rulebook.. next boxed game would be the same core book + undead book and so on

I think, from a board game point of view, it's probably best to have one big rulebook for just what's in the box.. but I'm thinking the latter would be better since we're planning multiple boxed games, and the boxed games are meant to be both an expansion and also an intro to the game for new players.

So.. 1 book or 2?

Book, plus expansion pamphlet.. not a full on book, but maybe a 4-8 page guide?

Well it wouldn't be a pamphlet, but a smaller book.. The core rulebook would be about the same size now, both page count and dimensions .. I like the "digest size" for rulebooks unless it has to be a ginourmous GW textbook.

The Expansion Guide would have the rules for Beast Packs and list out their special abilities and what each animal form can do, plus the minions like chupacabras. Then I'd like to include a bunch of fluff and artwork and hopefully lots of pics of models. Would probably be about half as big as the rulebook.

If you're wanting people to just buy a box (as a starter) then you'll need all of the rules in there. Personally, I'd like to see a 'main rule book' that only covers the non-weird stuff. Much easier to sell it to more historically-minded folks if it's not full of werewolves and zombies.

A digest-sized book for the new rules would be good. Maybe split out the scenarios or weapon stats into an actual pamphlet so they can be kept to one side during a game and referenced without the need to flip through a bigger book.

What I was thinking is that both books would be the same size as the rulebook now, the core book would just get updated to talk about how to play the board game version, or a standard skirmish game with your own terrain and stuff. Then we'd have the separate "expansion guide" talking about all the beasts. Then the next game would be the same core rulebook with an expansion guide for the undead. 3rd would have the expansion guide for tommyknockers and goblins.

But the 3rd set will probably be a different format, instead of square board tiles I'm planning to have it be like Space Hulk or Warhammer Quest with different corridors and rooms where the heroes are going through an old mine or cavern looking for loot and critters to kill .. but it will still have the standard skirmish game rules too. So that's kind of why I was thinking it might be better to do 1 full rulebook for each boxed game, even if a lot of the core rules are just repeated in each one.. geared toward the people who will treat it as a board game and might never be interested in painting terrain let alone the figures. Then, some day in after these boxed games are all released we can do one big skirmish rulebook that has the rules for everything.

Just trying to find a good middle ground that will work good for board gamers or wargamers or some guy who wandered into a game store and just bought it because the pictures looked good and has no idea what miniatures are.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, also, I thought about doing the big rulebook first and listing out the rules for the different races all in 1 place first (beasts, undead and goblins) .. but the reality is it will take a really long time to get all of those miniatures done, like years. So I figured it would be better to do each one as a separate expansion and then do the one book to rule them all at the end. I didn't want to be like GW and put out rules for models we don't sell yet

But is it OK to use other manufacturer's figures and parts to cover the miniatures you don't manufacture yet?

Can I use 3rd party figures with your rules?

(I keeed, I keeed)

Yes, for humans if you want to make your own custom gang those rules won't change.. In the new rules though we're just going to say "use the cards that came with your characters" and the custom gang rules will be an optional PDF along with the campaign rules.

But when it comes to monsters, you can use other figures but I don't know which ones I'll have stats done up for and when.. like, I probably won't make a card for the chupacabra till it's time to make them to get everything printed up.

I'm not planning to have a "monster manual" or anything like that at this point, I didn't want to print character stats in the rulebook, I was going to have them all be on the cards so that when we add new things I don't have to worry about the books being out of date because 1 new guy isn't in there. Maybe we could do all the stats later on though in the big rulebook some day.

So yes you can use other models, but I don't know when I'll have stats ready for the new stuff


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another idea...

So, we have decided on the Heros vs Horde format. The boxed game would come with square board tiles and everything you need to play, even a mini tape measure. First we have the Skinwalkers, followed by a 2nd boxed game for undead, followed by a 3rd "adventure game" style boxed game for things-that-live-underground.

This adventure game format would be similar to games like Space Hulk, Warhammer Quest or more current things like Descent or Dwarf King's Hold, but our cowboys would be crawling through a gold mine looking for loot, instead of a dungeon.

Would you rather see something like that for all boxed games, with the full skirmish rules included? instead of a "skirmish-lite" boxed game, this way would be like 2 different games, using the same mechanics and character stats and models for both game modes. Then we could do the other races more like a campaign add-on pack instead of a whole new additional boxed game.

Then, the heroes from the adventure game could be used as hired guns in a standard gang (Or form an Infamous gang), skinwalkers would form their own beast pack as planned, current skirmish game won't change other than getting new models and races to choose from.

What do you guys think of something like that?

So, now I've come full circle. After chatting about it with the Game Salute fellas we've decided to treat the boxed game and the skirmish game as 2 separate but compatible entities, the boxed game will have the dungeon crawl feel and the skirmish game will get a small book and PDF detailing the new stuff treated as an expansion. This was the original plan from like well over a year ago, it's evolved a lot but now it's back to it's roots.

So the boxed game will include 5+ heroes & 20+ beasts (more depending upon the Kickstarter goals). Heroes will be crawling through an old abandoned mine and the different rooms and corridors will be chosen randomly so you never play the same layout twice. Like any other dungeon crawler the object is to kill the bad guys and get loot. The board tiles will be all different shapes.. large rooms, and corridors that are straight, or L, T, and + shapes.. I guess you could think of it as "Weird West Warhammer Quest"

It will take a long time to get the vast amounts of artwork done, and Game Salute has a back log of about 20 different games that need to get Kickstarted. So in the meantime we'll be developing and sharing as we go. I'll be putting together a tester PDF that will include mocked-up board tiles and cards that you can print yourself. It will take a little while to get that done since I'm going to be real busy getting the box art for the Rebels & Reinforcements done over the next couple of weeks.

The board game rules are pretty much done now though. If anyone would like to check them out, send me a PM and I'll send you a link to the plain text first draft. I only ask that you write back and tell me what you think There will also be campaign rules added on too, but for now it's "use the character cards we give you".

The Skirmish rules for beasts will be done shortly too. The adventure game rules will give you a good idea of what's coming.

 Necros wrote:
I guess you could think of it as "Weird West Warhammer Quest"

Ahh Warhammer Quest, one of the best implementations of that IP. Here's hoping this is just as awesome.

It will take a long time to get the vast amounts of artwork done, and Game Salute has a back log of about 20 different games that need to get Kickstarted.

No complaint from me. I've got a couple or three other Kickstarters I need to pay off first

Yeah, I actually never got to play Warhammer Quest .. but I know the format. Always loved the idea.. I wish GW kept it going. Almost wish I had an iPad so I could get the new warhammer quest app. Lots of other games with the same customizable board idea, space hulk, descent, dwarf king's hold, etc.

Right out of the box it will have 5 premade guys so you can crack it open and start playing right away, but there will also be campaign rules so you can start out as wimpy folks and work your way up to being legendary heroes.

So, I'm putting together the basic board tiles for the tester PDF. Kind of hit a snag, so... what would you rather see?

Should we plan to connect each room or corridor board tile with some kind of plastic connector clip or doorway/archway? or just lay the pieces down next to each other?

Warhammer quest uses clips and they look like archways, but I worry that it wouldn't work good for a random dungeon layout since you'll be knocking the board around trying to connect a new piece. In Dwarf King's Hold you just lay new pieces down next to each other, but I feel like they could slide around too easily. Could also do a puzzle piece kind of connection, but then we can't do double-sided tiles.

The basic idea is as you explore the mines, you draw an event card every time you come to a doorway, and the card tells you what piece to lay down next and also what critters jump out and eat you. I thought that would be a fun way to have a different game every time. But, we could just get rid of the random dungeon generating and the event cards would still be used for when you enter each room for encounters or other things.

I kind of like the clip idea like Warhammer Quest uses.. every tile has a black border that's about 1/4", and the clip doorway covers that up, so you don't need doors drawn onto the tiles... I think I like that method the best, but I worry that would be yet another plastic mold on top of whatever we need for the models... So what would you rather have.. clip on doorways that hold the tiles together, but no random dungeon making.. or, just lay the tiles next to each other with random dungeon making?

Suggestion: Look into seeing if you can't get some of the "I" shaped terraclips (or something like that). You could do your tiles in either 3x3, 1.5x3, 1.5x1.5, etc... and these smokey clips would clip together in "divots" in the tiles. This would allow you to do double sided, create different configurations, and give you some stability while playing. And as long as you're not trying to get as complicated as the image below, I think you'd have quick setup and teardown:

Yeah I like the Terraclips stuff. I actually contacted them about designing our boards a while back and never got a response :(

But that's always an option too, it's easy enough to make our own plastic clips it's just if we do any kind of clip I think we're going to have to drop the random build-as-you-play dungeon idea. I know it would annoy the carp out of me after a while if the figures bumped around every time I added on a new piece. But we could get away with random stuff if you're just laying a piece down next to the old one with no clipping involved.

I liked the warhammer quest idea though, since you can basically add a door anywhere, it could be at the end of a corridor but you could also have one right in the middle of any wall. We wouldn't have to make them be a full doorway, it could still be like the clips, maybe with a rocky pattern on top so you can paint em up to match the floors.

 Necros wrote:
So, I'm putting together the basic board tiles for the tester PDF. Kind of hit a snag, so... what would you rather see?

Should we plan to connect each room or corridor board tile with some kind of plastic connector clip or doorway/archway? or just lay the pieces down next to each other?

Warhammer quest uses clips and they look like archways, but I worry that it wouldn't work good for a random dungeon layout since you'll be knocking the board around trying to connect a new piece. In Dwarf King's Hold you just lay new pieces down next to each other, but I feel like they could slide around too easily. Could also do a puzzle piece kind of connection, but then we can't do double-sided tiles.

The basic idea is as you explore the mines, you draw an event card every time you come to a doorway, and the card tells you what piece to lay down next and also what critters jump out and eat you. I thought that would be a fun way to have a different game every time. But, we could just get rid of the random dungeon generating and the event cards would still be used for when you enter each room for encounters or other things.

I kind of like the clip idea like Warhammer Quest uses.. every tile has a black border that's about 1/4", and the clip doorway covers that up, so you don't need doors drawn onto the tiles... I think I like that method the best, but I worry that would be yet another plastic mold on top of whatever we need for the models... So what would you rather have.. clip on doorways that hold the tiles together, but no random dungeon making.. or, just lay the tiles next to each other with random dungeon making?

When you mention "puzzle piece kind of connections" do you mean something like this?



From the D&D Adventure System Board Games
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/9547/dungeons-and-dragons-adventure-system-board-games

The game is so so, but the locking tiles work well and it creates interesting random dungeons, and there is little shaking and moving as you lock new ones in. However unless there is a reason to go back to the other tiles... in your game you could just forget about the need to map out a huge area, and just have the few tiles in play that are active and just create an endless "conveyor belt" type mine. As you move into a new location place it, then remove the older ones... the mine then is as large as the objective needs to be with out running out of tiles.

Yep that's kind of what I was thinking for puzzle pieces.. That could work. But, I wanted to have double sided tiles and was afraid the puzzle pieces wouldn't work if you flip the tile over. I like the conveyor belt idea, that could be fun.

What I was just thinking of now though is instead of puzzles or slide-in clips, we could have little holes drilled into the corners of each board space on the tiles, like peg-board. And then we would have plastic room connectors and doorways that have 4 little pegs sticking down on the bottoms and they snap into the little holes and lock the 2 tiles together. We could also do other kinds of things like rocky obstacle pieces or crypt things or treasure chests or other objectives that also snap into the holes. The board tiles would be thick cardstock too, like the Space hulk board tiles.. so they would hold up to a lot of pegging and unpegging.

Or would it be weird to have 50 little holes all over the tiles? They would be in the corners of each space though not random all over the place

That sounds like something that would wear rather quickly (cardboard isn't all that durable)... I'd really prefer the terraclips style stuff.

Yeah I think I've since decided against the pegboard idea. I think it could be cool but I don't want people's board pieces to get messed up. I want to do a high quality extra thick board though, like Descent

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61d-zaLkhUL.jpg

Trying to avoid having to get extra plastic pieces made since molds are so expensive.. but we'll see. Right now I'm thinking maybe something like all square panels with corridors printed on them would work better, and they'd have a puzzle connection. You could make rooms by placing full floor pieces together, could also get away with rounded rooms and the like too .. here's a quick n dirty pic of how a T corridor piece would look...



So you just snap your dungeon together with whatever pieces you want.. you could put every piece together like a puzzle or still have them trailing off into long corridors too if you like


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Duh .. I just scrolled up .. forgot about those d&d tiles already And here I thought I had a novel new idea :p

So yeah, I guess we'll see about doing something like that. But the squares won't really be like stone tiles in a floor, will be more like one big stone or mineshaft floor pattern, and then the lines for the squares would be drawn over it like the Descent tiles.

Using the same square pattern for every piece will cut costs a bunch, since there will just need to be 1 die cut done and we can use the same one for each sheet.. so we can probably have a lot more variety with different kinds tunnels and rooms.

We wouldn't be able to flip them over and have the back and front sides match, so we would probably do it where one side is more like a mine with cart tracks and stuff like that, and the other side would look more like a deep cavern.

So.. next on the list...

The way the board game will play basically is.. the heroes all move, then draw a story card. The card tells you what happens in a story telling kind of way with a picture and something like "I heard someone yell 'Ambush!' and I turned just in time to miss the arrow that sailed past me, mere inches from my head. I saw glowing eyes in the darkness ahead, and quickly drew sixguns." Then it will say what enemies "spawn" in the next room and you all start fighting. Not all story cards are encounters though, some might be traps or treasure chests, or puzzles.

Anyway.. for the encounters.. would you rather it was worded like "Spawn 3 Jackalopes" or "Spawn 3 Minions" meaning the GM/Beast player can choose whatever minion level critters he wants? I like giving the beast player the option to use whatever he wants, but at the same time it might be better to be more specific and we could include new story cards with models that are sold separately. They'll be bigger tarot sized cards hopefully, so I'd probably have room to list their stats on the story card too for quick reference, so you don't have to search for the right character cards before every battle and slow the game down.

And then ... after you kill something you get a loot card. 1 card for a minion, 2 cards for a fiend/skinwalker and 3 cards for a monster/alpha. Anyone have any ideas for loot you would like to see?

There will be junk and chunks of gold and things that are just worth money, but I'd like to have weapons and magical things too without it becoming too fantasy-gamey. So it would be supernatural or cursed objects but sometimes the curse could be beneficial. There'd be other things like silver arrowheads that would hurt a skinwalker more and other "magic" weapons like that.

if anyone has any ideas for stuff you'd like to see, feel free to share em

Not sure about the quantities for loot cards. If you are playing stand-alone games, there should be lots of loot. If you intend it to be like Warhammer Quest, a sort of lite RPG where gear is carried over between missions, it might be better to limit the number of loot cards in each game.

Anyhoo, I had a lot of free time today so I brainstormed a bunch of ideas:



Silver bowie knife
Silver hatchet
Magic rose (healing)
Avenger's Mask (like the Lone Ranger)
Ranger Badge
Ghost Dance Shirt (protects against ranged attacks)
Wovoka's Paint (armor)
Ike's Revolver (cursed)
Runic Volcanic (like the Merkabah Rider)
Silver Bullets
Avenger's Revolver (disarms opponent)
Smilidon Tooth (bonus against werebull)
Velociraptor Feather (speed boost)
Obsidian Sword
Conquistador's Sword
The Lassiter (master crafted pistol)
Cody's Buffalo Gun
Bandit's Mask
Lucky Jackalope's Foot
Brown Coat (worn only by big damn heroes)
Rattlesnake (bites a player)
Mammoth Ivory
Crow Headdress
Dog Soldier Cane
Maxim Gun
Dead Man's Hand (more vulnerable to attacks from behind)
Brothel Token
Silver Shotshell
Sasquatch Skull (cursed)
Holy Hand Grenade (Kills Jackalopes)
Unlucky Jackalope's Horn
Paul Bunyan's Axe
Custer's Sabre (Unlucky)
Bone Breastplate
Santa Anna's Leg
Katana
Sode Armor
Wuxia Sword
Monk's Staff
Firework
Herbal Remedy
Butterfly Knives
Shaolin Sash
Tiger Scroll (unarmed bonus)
Moonshine
Aztec Gold
Conquistador's Breastplate
John Henry's Hammer
Pecos Bill's Lasso
Cowboy's Sash (cursed)
Silver Arrowheads
Bait (attracts monsters)
The Delorean (out of gas)
Dead Man's Boots (cursed)
The Elder Sign (monsters flee)
Guycot Chain Rifle (dakka)
Gatling Gun
Blondie's Serape
Tuco's Revolver (unloaded)
Mare's Leg (high damage, one hand)
Gunslinger's Belt (initiative bonus)
El Zorro's Sword
Snake Oil
Rebel Khepi (less loot)
Dragon Scroll (melee bonus)
Dog Soldier Regalia (armor)
1887 Winchester (one handed shotgun)
Improvised Armor (stove door plate)
Wrist Derringer (bonus attack)
Berdan's Khepi (to hit bonus)
Nauvoo Legionnaire's Hat
Wolf's Dream Axe (cuts off hands)
Gold Spurs
Gambler's Vest
Marshal's Eye Patch
Aztec Armor
Apache Headband
Cavalry Stetson (morale boost for nearby allies)

Good ideals, I'll snipe some

The way the loot works is a Minion gives 1 card if you kill it, Fiends give 2 cards and Monsters give 3 cards. There's also some Story cards that will give loot cards.. like I have a bunch of different key holes and if you find the loot card for that key, you can go back and open it up and you'll find D6 loot cards inside.

If you find an equipable item, you can hold onto the card for the game and at the end you give the cards back so you can use them for the next game.

but in a campaign game, you can sell your loot afterwards or decide to keep items you find.. then you just write down the item you found on your character card or sheet and return it to the pile for the next adventure. I figured that would be easier than telling people to keep the card forever, then things start getting lost and GMs get pissed and make nukes go off next to unruly thieving heroes.

Too early to see how we'll do it yet, but what I'd really like to do is each beast model or box of figures sold separately will come with a Story card for their encounter and also a bunch of loot cards, at least enough for what's in the box. Not sure if we want to do unique loot cards with different models or pull from all the same pool of cards. I don't want people be like "so now I gotta buy this model I didn't want just so I can get all the loot cards..." .. but I was thinking it would be related to what's in the box, so if you buy a box of jackalopes, there might be a loot card for the Lucky Jackalopes Foot Totem that gives the player 1 lucky D6 to use like a gambler or gang leader.

So .. I have some "miniquests" going between the story cards and loot cards. Basically, there's going to be 100 or so loot cards (hopefully) and there will be special unique keys in there that you can find. Some story cards will say that you find the "Air chest" or "Fire chest" and you'll need the Air Key or Fire Key to open them. So you'll kill monsters, and if one of them drops they key as loot, you can go back to where the chest was and open it and get more loot.

Would you like to see others? I was thinking of something like some video games might do, where an NPC says "Go kill 5 of these things and come back to me for an item you'll never use" but I'm thinking for these miniquests, if you complete them the reward will just be every hero gets to draw a loot card, so there's a good chance to get a good reward. I also thought about doing an escort mission, you find a lost miner and have to guide him out of the mines. Or others like, if you get "bob the miner's lucky mining pick" for loot, and happen to draw Bob the miner's story card, you can give him his pick for a reward.

But, is that too much? Would you rather walk around and kill stuff? or have little quests like that?

My original plan was there will be 24 floor tiles in the set, and 24 story cards +1 for the final battle. About half of those cards will be monster encounters where it's like you fight a new skirmish battle each time. You draw a story card after all heroes move their full movement.. so would you run out of story cards too quick? or, would too many encounters drag the game out and make it take too long? If you're half way through the mine, and have to walk an injured miner out to the entrance, then go back in.. you'll use up those story cards pretty quick.

Guess I'm just wondering, would you prefer to have a whole lot of story cards where the game can be totally random every time? or less cards where it's more straight forward and predictable? Possibly adding different "story decks" that will be sold separately, for the folks that want to have a lot?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh .. and another idea.. instead of mixing up the different story/event cards how about doing a separate Quest Deck, each player draws one quest/mission card before the game starts and there's extra objectives you can try to meet. Like the guy at the leather shop in town wants you to kill 5 Jackalopes and bring him the pelts? Or an old native guy lost his great spirit totem and wants it back?

instead of just having the 1 final battle card for Croatan's encounter, he would just be another quest card, so the object of the game will be to finish all of the quests you have. After you pick your quest card, you mix them in with the story cards so they can happen at any time.

Already decided against the quest cards So for now I'll just leave it as is, but include more story cards in the game so it will be more random, and also for if a GM wants to tailor the game to have a set storyline. The default will be 1 story card for each board tile used and there will probably be 24 tiles, but you can have more cards if you want a longer game.

Next thing I'm adding is game modes. The default is "adventure mode" which is crawling through the mines, drawing story cards for random events that happen as your heroes explore.

Next is Skirmish mode, where you set up the board and then the beast player will place every beast somewhere in the mines in small groups of beasts.. you'll have 1 monster or fiend plus 2+ minions in each group. Then you just play it out like a normal skirmish game.

The difference being in adventure mode, the heroes are just walking around and starting a new mini-skirmish game each time an Encounter card is drawn, and skirmish mode is like one big battle with no story cards at all, but you still get loot cards for killing stuff.

And then there is also campaign games, where you're creating brand new custom heroes from scratch, starting off with 25XP each. You can play campaigns in Adventure or Skirmish modes, and you gain XP after each encounter based on what you killed. Minions & henchmen = 1 XP, Fiends = 2 XP and Monsters = 3 XP. There will also be some story cards that will have XP awards on them for meeting certain objectives.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oops .. 1 more. Multiplayer mode.

The default game is 2 players, 1 player controls all the beasts, the other controls all of the heroes. For multiplayer, we still have 1 person as the beast player, but 1 person each per hero or a pair of heroes.. as long as there are at least 5 heroes.

So you could combine adventure games, campaigns and multiplayer to get a more RPG kind of experience, or just stick with a straight up skirmish game.

A question: Are you planning to release smaller supplements to COTS? Say, halfway between the release of COTS and the Undead expansion, you put out a small release with one new character profession, a few monsters, and a set of supplementary floor tiles and loot cards?

Not sure how we'll do it yet. What I was thinking of doing is instead of selling the adventure game minis as a gang or solo figure like now, we would do a box set with 1 new hero, 1 new monster, 1 fiend and 2 minons. Then also include a couple of new board tiles, story and loot cards. So Curse of the Skinwalker and the undead one would both be full boxed games, everything else would be a little expansion pack.

Then we'd still do new gangs for the skirmish game too, this would just be for the supernatural stuff

Another question: what price are you aiming at for a COTS box set and how many metal models will said set contain?

Don't know yet honestly. Everything in the boxed game will be plastic, But I think the other stuff like models that aren't in the main set will probably be metal. But no idea what price will be like for the boxed game, but I have a feeling it's going to be expensive. High quality pieces and 50 or so models probably around $100 retail price, like other big boxed games. I'm hoping fo more like $75 or so... going to try and keep it as cheap as possible for what we want to do.

I'm also hoping we can sell the figures in the boxed game separately, and then just have an expansion book for the skirmish game. Still too early to tell though..

Been thinking about the quest cards idea again.. starting to think maybe they might be good to keep in after all.. but more like objective cards? The story cards would basically be for random events to happen as you explore. Every time you enter a new map tile, you draw a story card and it says what happens, usually this will be a battle. The objective cards will look the same as the story cards, and get shuffled into the deck, so you can draw one at any time. They could be a special boss battle, or you'll find the lost miner that you had to rescue. So the game doesn't always have to be "go in there and kill croatoan and then you win" .. he would just be one of several objectives and you can play as many or as few objectives as you want. If you just want a short game you could just play with 1 or 2 objectives, or a long dungeon crawl would be 5 or 6 or more. Whenever you complete an objective all of the characters gain extra loot, and XP in campaign games.

Just thinking about how games like Descent has a campaign book that has a bunch of different quests, this would be the same idea but it would be random objectives on cards and you can use the objectives to tailor your own story.

I like the sound of objective cards shuffled in with the rest of the deck. It might be an idea to look at splitting the objective deck into a number of piles, then shuffle one or more of the cards into each pile. That should break up their appearance a little, and allow you to keep 'boss fights' to the end of the game.

Yeah that's how I have it now. I think it will work pretty good. Right now I have 20 events and 4 objectives. You need at least 10 events and 1 objective to play, so that would be good for a quicker game, or you can use them all for a longer game. A lot of the events are kind of repetitive, but mixed into a deck it will be more random. There's a few nothing happens cards, a few traps, a hidden stream with healing waters, a room that's caved in so the sun shines in and lets you make long range attacks and some other things, but most are encounters for monster battles. There's small battles with 1D3 minions, 1D6 minions, 1 skinwalker and some minions, and 1 monster and some minions.

Right now for the fights I have it all up to the beast player to decide what creatures they fight, the card just says "spawn 1D6 minions" so it could be all jackalopes, or a mix of jackalopes, chupacabras and cactus cats. still trying to decide if I want the encounters to list specific monsters, I thought keeping it open would give players more freedom. But, I would like to include event and loot cards with packs of models later on and I think that would work best if it listed the specific models in the set you're buying.