House rules sideboard: feedback?

[BaronVasDeferens]

Hi, everyone! I've been dreaming up some "house rules" for "Last Night" and brewed up some prototype cards for you to check out.

A few words, beforehand. We don't own, nor have we seen or played any of the expansions except "Growing Hunger." Our concepts might very well approximate or even duplicate cards/rules featured in the expansions or in other folks' home-brew rules. I'm not making any claim to novelty of concept here, but I am proud of our presentation.

Two or three of these cards are to be drawn and placed on the table for all to see at the beginning of the game. They are intended to add a minor bit of "seasoning" and to encourage some new approaches. A huge part of my effort here was to create clean, clear rules with no additional bookkeeping or tokens which never the less open some interesting new possibilities.

OK, weird rant over. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! Please enjoy!

SOME OF THESE CARDS CONTAIN PROFANITY OMG!

[friskers96]

Wow.... I really like these.. Do you have a printable copy of these, or if not do you mind if I generate some of these for our games? The graphics are great, I'd really like to know where found those graphics, those are really nice clean stills.. Really impressed and REALLY want to use em!

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Also, "No More Room in Hell" has kinda been negated. Timber Peak Expansion has kinda threw in a "blanket" rule of always zombie heroes. So it doesn't matter where the sun tracker is your dead hero always rises to fight for the zeds, unless they are blown up.

[BaronVasDeferens]

@Friskers96, THANK YOU! All but one of the pictures are stills from "The Walking Dead." I just Googled up "walking dead zombies" and got TONS of results. And OF COURSE you are welcome to use these however you please. I''d be delighted to furnish you with printable versions. I take a master file to FedEx/Kinkos and pump out 11x17 sheets. If you prefer a different size (or just individual files), just let me know and I'll arrange to get it to you. Thanks again!

[friskers96]

That size is fine, I take my stuff ti kinko and office max.. I go mainly to office max now, I tend to get a cleaner and crisper image from them, they're also cheaper. If you do custom scenarios and characters, I have a thread around in the LNOE Variant section on how I do my cards, they look almost like originals. (I'm still experimenting on the hero and zombie deck cards, they're trickier)

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I recognized most of them, I just never seem to find real clean pictures. I always find the tiny, horrible resolution pics.

[deepfreeze]

Thank you for sharing. I really like these! You should assign them dot values so they are easy to match up and balance (even if it is only with each other).

Extreme decomposition and resilience seem to balance each other perfectly.

For devour the flesh, I think that your idea is great. I am a little confused about the card draw after. Is that just to balance the zombie player back out by giving him extra cards for the loss of movement?
I feel like this one might be better to leave out the card draw, even if it does tilt the advantage for the heroes slightly. Just keeps it simpler and you could balance it with another card.

Unholy abominations - I just wanted to warn you that extra zombie cards make a huge difference (I learned when I played 2 player zombies incorrectly one time. Just make sure to balance this out somehow with another card. Maybe even let heroes undo this extra card by using a faith card?

I'll echo what friskers said for no more room in hell. We just always play with zombie heroes and heroes replenish because it is more fun and does not change balance. (I don't even own timber peak).

Attracted to noise I really like, I actually suggested this exact rule a few threads back haha.

Everything I didn't mention in particular I really liked. Props for presentation also!

[friskers96]

Yeah I'm down with the dots, I was already looking at what to assign them. Easier method would be tosort them out and bind them in pairs to balance.

I think devour the the flesh is fine since it reverts back to original hand size next turn. Unholy abomination worries me as it seems to be a permanent effect.

OOPS!! I just said what you said, I got mixed up sorry... Even though unholy abomination is kinda powerful I can't see that happening more than once in a game.

The noise rule I love, I'm sure you guys have play tested that. Range has always seemed to be the rule everyone debated. The one worry I have is which takes precedence, zombie hunger or attracted to noise. I'm assuming zombie hunger still trumphs when a zed is in hunger range of one hero but still within range of a firearm. Bouncing a zombie, or even a group would be too easy if you could draw with hunger and then pull with a pistol. That I feel needs to be clearly stated to avoid any bickering at the table.

http://www.flyingfrog.net/lastnightonear...ntent.html

If you don't already know, this is a link to FFP website, they have a pdf version of the Timber Peak rulebook. Might want to check it out and see what they have changed and added.

[BaronVasDeferens]

Thank you guys for the GREAT feedback. It's back to the drawing board for a few of these cards, but that's how it goes.

Like I said, what I was mostly shooting for was an extra bit of depth of Zombie strategy without tipping the balance in either direction *too* far. I personally like a pervasive sense of hopelessness and desperation while playing as the Heroes, and don't mind a little additional bleakness that comes with slightly unbalanced rules. Coincidentally, I am a big fan of "Space Hulk," which metes out serious punishment for tactical error, but I nevertheless find it quite it enjoyable.

With that said, I LOVE the idea of pairing these cards for balance. That idea alone hauls every last card in for re-evaluation. I'm feelin' it. Any further suggestions?

Also, here is the file of the 11x17 master sheet for the cards as of right now. It's a 20MB Photoshop CS2 file. Yikes.
http://web.pdx.edu/~scowest/LNOE/bvd10cards.psd

[friskers96]

If you don't mind me fooling with them once we see what you change (and ill probably fool around with the current ones as well), we'll see how pairing goes and maybe do a larger format with both on the same card. See what happens, I like to tinker, and I got time.. Like you said they add another element of depth and some are pretty theme and mood boosters.