Hey guys,

James here - I'm a relative newcomer to the world of games design, but I worked on DreadBall as supporting developer alongside Jake Thornton, so I know a thing or two about the game! The guys at the Mantic bunker have asked me to get over here to see if there's anything I can answer.

So what do you want to know? I'm not going to post up each and every rule, and I don't think I can sum it all up in a single post, but I'll happily respond to any questions you've got.

From what's been said so far:

Rob: You're right about the time it takes - most games have ended up between 45 and 75 minutes, with the occasional bloodbath going on a bit longer! See, the game works on a "differential scoring" system - it starts at 0, and moves towards the scoring team whenever a Strike happens. So, for instance, if the score is one point in my favour, and you score three, the the score will be two points in your favour. Get it? After 14 turns, if the score is 0, Sudden Death starts, and things get interesting. The gates slam shut (so no Reserves can enter play), and the first team to score a point - or the last team standing - is declared the winner!

Jay: We've gone all-out to make this an interesting game in its own right - hopefully the rules and the background will stand out as fresh even in places where they might seem familiar. A lot of playtesters have commented on the speed and flow of the game (the word "hyperkinetic" kept coming up) and the depth of the tactics. Being a good player takes strategic thought and forward thinking, but luck plays a part (as ever!) and risky strategies can pay off massively. I've not seen a dull game yet, and I've played it a lot!


Hope that's a bit of a help - keep the questions coming!

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The cards are multi-use - they each contain four different pieces of information:

- They've got an in-game effect
- They've got a list of numbers that's used for random player selection
- They generate a random number for Ref movement
- They've got a "Cheer" rating, used in Fan Checks.

In-game effects are the main part of each card. These are Actions or Events. Actions cards can be used to supplement your five action tokens for a turn, letting your team do that little bit more, or pull off a complex play even when the dice don't behave themselves. Event cards are generally remains-in-play effects, lasting until another Event is played or drawn. They change the game in small ways - maybe the ball bounces more randomly, maybe one of the players was partying too much last night, or maybe the Ref is feeling particularly short-sighted.

You can spend an action in-game to buy a card and keep it in your hand, ready to be played later, meaning you can lose an action in the short term to gain something useful in the long term. Most teams also start with a number of cards in-hand.

Sometimes, cards are drawn randomly - for example, when the Ref has to move, when a random player needs to be selected, or when a Fan Check is made due to a player scoring a high number of points or landing a real bone-crunching hit. When this happens, and the random card is an Event, it comes into play immediately - this can cause sudden, subtle changes in the flow of the game at key moments.


You also asked about ball movement. The ball is carried by players, but it can be lost fairly easily, so it's best to keep a ball carrier away from enemy players. The ball can be thrown, but the throw distance isn't massive, so tactical movement is encouraged. The game features a core "facing" mechanic (i.e. the way your models are facing matters!), and this comes into play with passing - it's a heck of a lot easier to pass to a player who's looking in the right direction...

Of course, if the ball's dropped, it starts rolling around the pitch. Deviation / random direction of travel is determined with a dice roll - the hex system is very handy for this - and loose balls travel a number of hexes equal to a dice roll. This can take it quite a long way, and if it hits a wall, it bounces off.

Another key mechanic that comes up is the "free action" system. When a player does particularly well at certain skill tests, he gets to take a free action - for example, when catching, a test that scores two or more successes lets the catching player immediately take a Run or Throw action. If the catching player is a Striker, he can do both. These free actions can link up as much as you like, forming a potentially unbroken chain of actions. However, if you lose the ball - either unintentionally (by falling over!) or intentionally (by throwing and missing) - your turn is over. It's not uncommon to see a skilled player take advantage of these free actions and, by taking several risks and pushing his luck, score a high-point Strike in the first turn of the game. Scoring is a lot more common than it is in some other sports games, with most games involving a tug-of-war between the two teams as Strikes are scored.

Speaking of Strikes - did I mention that a Strike doesn't stop play? Nothing does, in fact. Once the game starts, it's one long drive until the winner is declared. Whenever a Strike is successfully made, the scoring player's turn ends, and his opponent's turn starts with the ball being fired table-football-style from one end of the centre line.


Phew! I think I've answered that one. Hope it's some food for thought, and it's whet your appetite for some futuristic sports action!

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Hi Rob!

Yep - one long drive, 14 "Rushes", seven per side - unless Sudden Death happens, as I mentioned earlier, in which case it can go on a bit longer. And yes, you assumed correctly; your Rush ends when you run out of actions, run out of players (you get a maximum of 2 actions per player per turn under normal circumstances), or you lose the ball. Those are pretty much the only situations under which your turn ends.

Deaths happen in almost every game; however, with the advanced medical technology held by the DGB (The DreadBall Governing Body, a.k.a "Digby"), it's not as much of an inconvenience as you might expect! If a player is killed in the arena, the team's coach has the option of paying a fairly hefty medical bill to have him revived, or recycling his vitals through approved DonorVend sites, making a bit of money back in the process.

As for skills, players gain experience during games by doing the sort of thing the fans love - scoring lots of points, really hurting enemy players, or just being generally useful. When players level up, they can gain a random skill or stat advance from a list depending on their player type. Players advance fairly quickly at the start of a season, but this levels out as they become more grizzled.

Hope that's a decent enough answer!

Right, I'm off to the pub. (It's thirsty work, this games design lark.) Keep the questions coming in, folks - I'll get back to you as soon as I can!

James

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The cards are all in one common deck - nothing team-specific as yet. However, that's a very cool idea, and we might have a look at trying to bring it in at a later date. You never know!

Player movement comes in two types - Running (standard movement) and Sprinting (faster, but less flexible). As I mentioned before, facings are used in the game. When a player takes a Run action, he can move a number of hexes up to his Move rating, changing facing as he likes for no cost. A Sprint action doubles your Move rating, but you can only move into the hex directly in front of you; if you want to turn, each facing change costs 1 point of movement. This means that a Sprinting player can go flat-out quite a long way, but can't do much fancy footwork - also, it's harder to pick up a ball if you're Sprinting.

Speaking of facings, each player has a "threat zone". This is the hex directly in front of it, and the hexes either side of that one that are adjacent to the player. (That might sound confusing, but there are lovely shiny diagrams in the rulebook that make more sense!) If you're moving in an opponent's threat zone, you'll get tackled and end up on the floor unless you can succeed at an Evade check; the more Evade checks you take in a single action, the harder they are to succeed at.

As for Seasons, there's nothing fixed for different ones yet a "Season" is just another name for "League", or "Campaign", or "series of linked games". It just sounds extra sportsy

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Sorry to hear you don't like the scoring system. However, you can easily keep track of how many Strikes each player in your team scores, and how many points each is worth - I did this during playtesting, when we were trying to work out how often Strikes were happening, which teams were the best at scoring lots of points, whether people were scoring multiple low-cost Strikes or saving up for big ones, et cetera. If people are interested, I might have a chat with the guys in the bunker and see if we can't get some kind of "League stat tracker" up on the site somewhere. (Or added to a KS bundle, maybe?)

As for your other questions, I can answer 1 and 2 in the same paragraph, I reckon!

The game's a lot less footbally than some other games out there. As such, scoring's a bit more abstract, with three different places to score. Those coloured zones (red or white, by default) are the Strike Zones, with the solid red or white hex as the Strike Hex (the target). In the game world, when a player carrying the ball puts foot into a Strike Zone, the Strike Target becomes valid, and if he can throw the ball on-target, he scores! In more advanced arenas, this could mean a holographic target shimmers into existence, or a teleportal activates; in smaller leagues, Refs might have to watch footwork carefully and disallow Strikes made by players not standing in a Strike zone. In game terms, this means that once you're in the Strike Zone, you can make a Strike attempt by throwing the ball. The Strike Zone furthest from the enemy start zone is worth three points, while the other two are worth one each. Strikes made while standing in the furthest hex from the Strike Hex are worth an additional point.

Hope that makes some sense!

The other areas of note on the board are the yellow hexes (the Gates, where reserves can come on from the subs bench whenever there's an opportunity) and the chequered hex (where the Ref starts).

As for Speedball 2 effects on the ball... not yet. "Yet" being the very operative word. We've got plans for expansions, which (you never know) might even come a bit sooner if stretch goals get hit. (To be honest, I don't know much more than you guys - I should mention that before people get too excited!)

You're very welcome, though. Thanks for taking the time to think up some questions, and I hope the answers I've given have been up to scratch!

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During playtesting, we actually used square bases - it just seemed more sensible! We were holding out hope for hex bases to be included in the game, because naturally they'd make the game easier to play, but I think (and I hope it's okay for me to say this) they proved to be a bit out of budget. That said, that's what's this Kickstarter's all about - so you never know your luck, we might just get our dream after all!

Either way, though, we generally found that there weren't any facing issues in testing - the game moves so quickly that you can generally remember which way everyone's facing, even if the board gets knocked. In most cases at least! (My legendary clumsiness notwithstanding...)

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Thanks for the compliments, Tristan - we made a huge effort to make the game original and interesting, so I'm really happy that it comes across as different from games that have gone before!

The Corporation team is the most generic all-rounder, although it does fare slightly better when going for passing / Striking plays that it tries brute force - especially when playing against the heavier teams! The starting composition is three Strikers, two Guards and three Jacks. The best tactics I've seen involving Corporation teams feature lots of free actions, chaining up passes between Strikers to move the ball past the defence and into a position to make a three or four point Strike.

Marauders, on the other hand, are just plain brutal! Orx are the hardest hitters in the game. They've got a statline that's all about dishing out violence, and as Guards they get bonuses to dice tests for Slams and Armour Checks. Goblins, on the other hand, are fairly good at dodging, and average at picking up the ball, but not great at hitting opposing players! It's a team of two halves (staring line up is 3 Orc Guards and 5 Goblin Jacks) and you need to play it as such. Success generally means taking opposing Strikers (and other threatening players) out of play as early and as frequently as possible, giving the Goblins a chance to score Strikes where they can.

Forgefathers might seem a bit like a short, bearded Corporation team at first - they're the only other team (so far!) to have all three playing positions. However, the way they use them is quite different! Forgefather teams aren't very fast, but they make up for that by being characteristically fierce and uncompromising! Their Jacks can hit almost as hard as an Orc, and their Guards are terrifying brutes who simply refuse to be knocked down. The presence of Strikers on the team makes a passing play viable, which some playtesters were surprised (and delighted!) by. Starting line-up is three Guards, two Strikers and three Jacks. The team adapts well to different tactics, but is particularly good at making its way up the arena, bowling enemy players aside, and letting a Striker make a high-scoring Strike.

Veermyn are, in my mind, the oddball team. They're the one that's got amazing potential, but is most challenging for a new player to use. They've also got the strangest line-up. See, Veermyn don't make natural DreadBall players - so they have to compensate! As a result, every player who isn't massive enough to be a Guard is trained as a Striker. This, when added to their natural speed and agility, makes the team a frightening prospect in the hands of a skilled coach, even if their lack of immediate flexibility makes them a challenge straight off the bat. They can dash around defenders like they're not there, they can Sprint from one end of the arena to the other in the space of a turn, and it's near impossible to knock them down and make sure they stay down. Unfortunately, their achilles heel is their low level of ball skill - you can't guarantee they'll always pick it up, let alone be able to score! The starting lineup is 2 Guards and 6 Strikers. Tactically, it's best to aim for multiple low-point Strikes - you're after quality, not quantity! Also, use spare Strikers to help your Guards when it comes to Slamming enemy players - as you've only got two players who can dish out damage, you want to make sure they've got the best chance possible of doing something!


You also asked about profiles - yes, each race has its own profile, meaning they all feel different, with their own strengths and weaknesses. Each player is ranked in Movement (how far they can move, funnily enough!), Strength (how good they are at hitting people), Speed (reflexes, agility, etc.), Skill (with the ball), and Armour (i.e. how much of it they're wearing!). Armour is dependent on player class rather than race, with Strikers getting the least protection and Guards getting the most.

To really understand the profile, though, you'll want to know about how dice are used in the game... ooh, that's an exciting one. And simply because of that, I'm going to leave you all hanging while I have a late breakfast!
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Lee - as the game's set in the Warpath universe, which already has a following and a fanbase, we'd have been crazy not to have started out with teams that are recognisable from that system. However, that game focuses on races that have large military forces - with DreadBall we've got a chance to look at things that might otherwise fall between the cracks! Also, as you've noticed, not all Corporation teams have to be the same. Watch this space (and the Kickstarter page!) for more info!

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Right! Where were we? Oh, yes - dice. Lovely little things, aren't they?

Understandably, dice play a massive part in DreadBall. All dice in the game are six sided, although they do come in a few different colours... more on that later. The main way they're used (aside from the odd bit of randomisation, such as when a ball gets dropped) is for stat-based tests, which you take whenever you need to do something useful with one of your players.

The core mechanic for a dice test is as follows (with the example of a floored Corporation Jack taking a Stand Up action).

- Create your dice pool. This is normally 3 dice, but certain things - the presence of enemy players breathing down your neck, the distance you're trying to throw the ball, whether your player has had special training in the type of thing he's trying to do - can modify that number. In our example, there are no modifiers.
- Check the number you need to score for a die to be counted as a success. This is determined by the stat that you're testing against. For example, a Stand Up test is based on your Speed stat. A Corporation Jack has Speed 4+, so each dice that scores a 4+ is a success.
- Check your target number of successes. For a Stand Up test, this is 1.
- Roll the dice! Each successful die is counted. Each die that scores a 6 counts as a success and lets you immediately roll another die and add it to the check - this is cumulative, and keeps happening as long as you roll sixes.
- If you equal or beat the target number, you succeed! In most cases, if you double the target number, you get a bonus. For example, with a Stand Up check, one success lets you stand up, but two or more successes let you stand up and immediately take a free action (with the exception that you can't Sprint).

That's the basic mechanic for dice. Then you have opposed tests, where you're looking to beat the number of successes your opponent rolls, and cumulative tests, in which the target number increases each time you take the test during an action.

This bleeds into your next question, about how you hit people, pick up the ball, etc. All of these are Actions that you can take. You get 5 Action tokens per turn that you can spend on your team; each one lets you take an action:
You hit people with a Slam action, which might lead to an armour check and subsequent injury, putting the target out of play for 1-3 Rushes, or maybe even killing him!
You throw the ball with a Throw action - if you're throwing to a team mate, their starting dice pool to Catch the ball is equal to the number of successes you rolled on the throw. (If they double their Catch, they get a free Run or Throw action - Strikers get to Run as part of a Throw action, so they can get some serious free action chains going!
You pick up the ball with a Pick Up free action, which you get whenever you move into a hex containing the ball (as long as you're not a Guard). If you succeed, you pick it up; if you double, you get a free Run or Throw action, just like when you catch the ball.


There you go!

I hope this is starting to build a picture in people's minds of what sort of game this is. It's fast-paced, with one core mechanic that you can learn really easily. There's very little need to look things up in the rulebook, even by the end of your first game - the repetition of the mechanic throughout means you should pick everything up nice and quickly. We went all-out on making the rules intuitive and clear, and from what we saw during playtesting, it more or less worked! Even after one or two games, people were starting to discuss deep tactics and really think about upping their gameplay. Is it obvious that I'm pretty proud of this game?

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As it stands, as far as I'm aware, there's no plan to release Veermyn Jacks - it's a characteristic of the team that they don't get them, and something that makes them stand out. In fact, the option of having Jacks would massively overpower the team, as it would greatly add to their flexibility. Similarly, don't expect to see any Orx who aren't guards, or Goblins who aren't Jacks - with one notable, moustache-twirling exception - for the same reason.

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The player positions are massively integral to the game, so shame on me for not going into detail sooner!

Strikers and Guards are opposite ends of the DreadBall spectrum. Strikers get bonus dice for tests involving handling the ball and being agile, but they have weak armour and don't have the ability to make attack actions (or reactions). They also get the bonus ability that whenever they take a Throw action, they get a free Run action (normally, a Throw action lets you make a one-hex move before throwing).

Guards are just the opposite - they have bonus dice on armour checks and Slams (your main offensive action), and they get a free Run action as part of a Slam (again, a Slam normally involves only one hex of movement). However, as Guard armour doesn't feature a DreadBall Glove (the attachment that lets players handle the ball without getting their arm ripped off!), they don't have the ability to pick up or handle the ball in any way.

Jacks - short for "Jack of all trades" - are the middle ground. They have access to all actions (including Throws, so yes, they can score too!) but they don't get any particular bonuses. Ask any Jack, and he'll tell you that he's the most useful person in the arena, and also the most underrated! Jacks are cherished for their flexibility and the fact that they can step up to any task - with a bit of luck, there's nothing they can't do!

There's also a secret fourth player position - the Keeper! Starting teams don't get Keepers, as it's an experienced-based upgrade for a Guard. Keepers get even heavier armour (a Keeper's armour stat is 3+ rather than 4+, and he still gets a bonus dice as he's a Guard) and a DreadBall glove - meaning he has a limited ability to handle the ball! He can't make a normal Throw action, but he can Punt it by placing it anywhere in the arena and scattering it twice. This means Keepers make great defensive players - they can batter incoming ball carriers, grab the ball, then fling it up the pitch. Okay, a Punt ends your rush (because you lost the ball), but it's better than having it sitting right next to one of your Strike zones!

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There are 14 skills (called abilities in DB) in the initial set. This might not sound like a lot, but remember that each of the 3 player roles (Striker, Jack, Guard - explained earlier by James) can already do different things, so the abilities build on three varying starting points. In addition, because each player type starts from a different place and does something different in play, the extra abilities vary in utility from role to role (and race to race).

Some abilities are limited by player role. In DreadBall nothing is limited by race, always by role. So, if a human Striker can do something then a Veer-myn can try his paw at the same thing. Of course, as they have different racial stats then their chances of success will probably be different too. Having said that, not all races have access to all roles, so in that way there is a racial limitation. I haven't checked to see whether that means that a specific ability is unavailable to a given team.

Coaching staff upgrades are slated for Season 2.

The equivalent to Team Re-rolls in DB is Coaching Dice, which have a broadly similar effect. However, in DB you can earn them during the match as well as spending those you start with.

A player turn in DB is called a Rush. Rushes don't end when you fail unless you drop the ball, so you can go in, fluff something completely and then still carry on, as long as you didn't drop the ball. Of course, you can end your own turn voluntarily if you choose and you could have so few models left standing that you ran out of people to act with before you ran out of actions, but these are both very rare events and are included mainly for completeness. In most Rushes a Coach will get to use all of his team actions.

Well the Orc Guards are pretty big fellows! Much bigger than them and you're into multi-hex creatures as the models won't fit, which we have discussed but which have no rules yet. Multi-hex models always cause a real headache in design terms as they break so many of the existing rules, so whilst they may well come along in a future expansion they won't be available on release.

No, we don't have injuries. Although it can be characterful, it is something that many people don't like in BB (though others think it's great). DreadBall was intended to be slightly more streamlined than BB and this was one of the details I deliberately left out - no point in replicating something that people moan about, is there? Of course, you can get dead, which does affect you quite severely in future games

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I think you've hit the nail on the head there! A lot of games follow similar themes. Controlling areas on a map. Rolling dice to determine how far you move. Managing a hand of cards. Exploring dungeons and killing zombies. They're just tropes that are inherent to the medium, and the same thing extends beyond the realm of board games.

"Fantasy* Ball ports Board Game" is just another trope that's becoming more popular. Obviously, Blood Bowl has always been one of the more well-known ones, but that doesn't make every other sports game a Blood Bowl clone any more than the classic PC game Half Life was a Doom clone. That was something that a lot of video game journalists said at the time, drawing similarities because the two games featured a lone protagonist killing alien monsters from a first-person perspective, with weapons that increased in power as the game went on. Of course, it turned out that Half Life was just a stand-out game that marked the widening of a genre, to the point where several games have since become known as Half Life clones.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with drawing superficial comparisons; DB and BB both feature a board on which two teams of players try to move a ball from A to B to score points. Dice are used to determine the outcome of actions in-game. But look beyond that, and you'll see that there aren't many similarities at all! Hopefully that's become fairly apparent from what you guys have seen in this thread and on the kickstarter page.

All of this is a rambly way of saying that, of course, there are going to be people who say that DreadBall looks like Blood Bowl. They'll say they already play BB, so why should they switch to anything else? That argument's no more sensible than saying "Well, I've seen Die Hard, so what's the point in watching any other action movies?"

Of course I'm biased, and of course I'm interested in this game doing well, but I trust my own sense of humility enough to know that when I talk about this game, it's not empty encouragement I'm spouting. I honestly do love this game, and I'm proud to be a part of the creative force behind it! I'd recommend any naysayers to at least give it a chance before being too negative.

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There are various fouls in the game, and your opponent has to call them. However, just because the Coach has spotted them doesn't mean the ref has.

There are actually two referees in the arena - one is a floating "Eye in the Sky" that hovers over the pitch and can potentially see anything. This is not a model.

The Referee you get a model for is the on-pitch ref. She moves about the pitch, controlled by both players in turn.

When a foul is called by a Coach, you roll to see whether the perpetrator has been spotted by the ref(s) and if so how long they are sent off for. You always roll one dice for the "Eye", but you only roll a dice for the on-pitch referee if she is close enough to the perp when he makes the foul.

So, moving the ref is tactical. You can use them to get in your opponent's way by blocking a hex, to get out of the way of your own players as they commit fouls, or move them up to try and spot likely fouls by your opponent.

Moving a ref is a free action in addition to your Team Actions.

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