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.

I've been brainstorming a game today, and I have come up with a system where the board is fixed, but only parts of it are revealed at a time. As such, players will have to try to remember where they have been to make it back successfully.

I've played a few games which feature maps, such as Betrayal at the House on the Hill, Shadows of Brimstone, Space Hulk, Fallout - and one thing which I've just now noticed is that there is no allowance for taking wrong turns - the map is laid, and then it stays there for you to consult when you are trying to navigate or escape. there is little scope for wrong turns or the panic of getting lost or split up.

Has anyone ever played a game where getting lost is a possibility? I feel that it will add to any horror element of a game, and add a challenge which I've not seen before.

I was working on a similar problem just yesterday. I wanted to simulate a team exploring underground tunnels and have a system of randomly generating the next tunnel section.

A problem I ran up again was that the random generation system rapidly caused me to run out of table. Even with fudging of the orientation of each new piece, it quickly grew out of control.

In your case, though, there's only a few "active" pieces - i.e. the pieces the heroes are occupying. If they split up, you could then remove any pieces they aren't currently occupying. If they try to re-trace their steps and fail a memory check, you simply swap the piece they were trying to remember for a piece chosen at random.

This solution could also work for my problem - so thanks for the inspiration!

West End Games star wars had a scenario like that, it divided a "jungle" board in squares and it was unknown to the players by exiting a tile at what tile they would appear to.

So players needed to keep track or remember what section leads to what section.

Strange that I was also thinking of something similar.

I was toying with the idea of a huge labyrinth map in Roll20, and finding a way of re-hiding areas under the fog of war as they moved around. Make them start either mapping or leaving a trail... so that I can mess with them even more one day by messing up the trail! Bwahahahaha. Or even moving the map around so that their trail leads into a wall.

 precinctomega wrote:
I was working on a similar problem just yesterday. I wanted to simulate a team exploring underground tunnels and have a system of randomly generating the next tunnel section.

A problem I ran up again was that the random generation system rapidly caused me to run out of table. Even with fudging of the orientation of each new piece, it quickly grew out of control.

In your case, though, there's only a few "active" pieces - i.e. the pieces the heroes are occupying. If they split up, you could then remove any pieces they aren't currently occupying. If they try to re-trace their steps and fail a memory check, you simply swap the piece they were trying to remember for a piece chosen at random.

This solution could also work for my problem - so thanks for the inspiration!

Glad I could help! I too struggle with space on the table, which is why I was thinking about this! I have had many games where we have had to effectively cheat by putting the randomly selected tile back and picking a smaller one or a bend to keep it on the table!
It also allows for a memory statistic for characters, which could help as a balancing stat for overpowered choices!

In the original Warhammer Quest you had a deck of dungeon cards, corresponding to the available tiles. As you explored new tiles in the dungeon you drew cards. Tiles with more than one door required you to divide the deck between the two, and you'd frequently need to back-track. Of course, once you made the objective room it was assumed that you'd make it back out of the dungeon and back to town without any hassle.

I am glad you brought this topic up, as I was thinking about how to use "light management" in a Horror style wargame. In this case, it would mostly just reduce the Line of Site for shooting purposes, and make fighting "up close" more common. This thread reminded me that there was a lot more potential to the "light management" idea.

In a tunnel fighting game I was experimenting with a long time ago (maybe when the original Cityfight Codex came out?) I had a mechanic where units that could not draw LOS to a fellow unit had to make a LD test. Failure meant they had become lost and were unable to activate that turn. Once LOS to a friendly was re-established then they could return to normal and were no longer lost.

Never really tried it out though.

Shadows of Brimstone has a mechanic for light, which basically discourages players from splitting up - one player carries the ancient lantern, and any players not on the same tile or an adjacent tile starts to suffer psychological damage from the darkness.

I like the idea of units getting lost if they lose contact with their comrades.

I think getting lost is always going to be difficult in a tabletop game. You have a finite space, though I fully encourage the "build as you go" and "remove as you go" idea. It can be an issue if you're using heavier terrain or actual built-up tables, such as Dwarven Forge, but is far easier if you're using simple plates/tiles/board pieces.

There are some mechanics I do enjoy though:

1) The idea of the lantern is a pretty common one. Players who go outside of the light (say the room with the lantern + 1 zone are lit...everything else becomes darkness). This was done simply in the original Warhammer Quest.

2) Using room or chamber cards. My dungeon crawl features a system similar to the old Warhammer Quest where you shuffle the objective room into the bottom X number of room cards, and deal Y number of room cards on top, etc. This means the objectve room may be Room 7-10 out of a 10 room dungeon. Warhammer Quest took this one step further with their 'build as you go" method and every T junction, you split the card deck, shuffling from the bottom. My dungeon crawl encourages sprawling dungeons so players need to plan ahead how to clear it in the most efficient method possible, so they're not backtracking, risking random encounters later in the game.

3) Something that I don't use, but could be helpful is a simple method of managing bravery/courage/hope within the player characters. Maybe each turn you're alone in the dungeon you lose hope/bravery, or take a test to lose a point or a value. Perhaps one player quirk would be ignoring this rule because you're so stoutly brave, etc. Perhaps you have a timer involved with a randomly shuffled/designed dungeon. After say five rooms, your group suffers a -1 for each room after which is NOT the objective room, or something. Perhaps the group loses hope as they stumble through the dungeon, unable to find the objective room, etc.

4) In my dungeon crawl, players roll action dice for their heroes. If everyone rolls one or more '1's on their dice - a random encounter is generated. This includes everyone in the hero party....but once you're not within an adjacent room to a fellow adventurer...you become your own hero party, meaning any time you roll a '1', you have a random encounter ---- something most singular heroes cannot handle alone. This naturally keeps my groups together and makes it more hectic when the sole survivor of a hero party is fleeing a dungeon...everyone crowds around watching their action dice rolls to see if they can make it out alive.