How Does the Game Play?

[Odie]

Partial game play example from the SOBS Kickstarter page, duplicated here because a lot of people checking out the Kickstarter page have had a tendency to not scroll down to this info.

More information on Fights, Enemies, and the Campaign system is supposedly coming, but you can get a good sense of how those elements play out by looking at some of the other game play threads here on TZG.


From the Kickstarter page:

How Does the Game Play?

Shadows of Brimstone is a fully-cooperative, Dungeon Crawl adventure game! That means that all of the players form a posse and are working together against the game itself, venturing down into the deadly mine shafts on different missions. You may be searching for a local farmer’s lost son, carried off in the night by demons, or you might be desperately trying to find a way to seal a portal to another world that creatures are pouring out of!

1-4 Players (or up to 6 Players if combining both Core Box Sets) create their Heroes by selecting a Hero Class to play, such as the Gunslinger or Saloon Girl. That Hero Class defines your basic character stats - how much Health and Sanity you have, how good you are at hitting enemies with your six shooter (or with a right hook), how good you are at solving puzzles or dodging falling boulders, etc. It also defines your basic starting Gear - do you start with a Six Shooter, a Satchel of Dynamite, a Shotgun and Sheriff’s Badge? Also, any abilities that all characters of your Hero Class share (a Saloon Girl’s Comforting Presence for example). Each Hero also starts with a Random Personal Item that gives them a bit more ‘character’, and they get to choose one of three Special Upgrade Abilities unique to their Hero Class. This gives players a chance to start guiding their Hero’s development right from the outset!

Once your posse is ready to go, the players roll (or decide) what Mission they have taken on and the game begins! Each Hero is represented by a figure on the game board and all of the figures are placed on the Mine Entrance Map Tile to start the game. All of the Card Decks are shuffled, each Hero gets 1 Grit Token, and the Depth Track is setup with the Hero Party’s marker on the entrance and the Darkness marker deep in the mines (at the opposite end of the track).

At the start of each turn, the Hero with the Old Lantern rolls 2 dice to Hold Back the Darkness! This roll needs to be equal to or greater than the number listed on the current stage of the Depth Track. If the roll is passed, the Heroes carry on without delay. If the roll is failed, the Darkness moves one step up the track toward escaping the Mines! But beware, if the Darkness marker ever reaches the entrance space on the Depth Track, it has escaped and the Heroes must flee, failing that mission. As an added element of danger, if the Hold Back the Darkness roll is ever doubles (1-1, 3-3, etc), this instead triggers a random event from the Depth Event Chart equal to that number!

Heroes now take their turn in order of Initiative, with the highest going first. During a Hero’s Activation, they roll a die and may move up to the amount rolled. If a 1 is rolled, the Hero also recovers an extra Grit Token. Grit Tokens are used for a number of things in game. A Grit Token may be discarded to Re-roll any number of your dice just rolled (though no die may be Re-rolled more than once), or a Grit Token may be discarded to move an extra die roll worth of spaces during your Movement. A Grit Token may also be used to activate certain powerful character abilities.

After moving, the Hero may attack if there are any enemies on the board, or if they have ended their move in a space adjacent to a doorway (an open exit from the map tile you are on), you may look down the hall and draw a random Map Card to place the next Map Tile, connecting it to the doorway you are looking through. Each time a new Map Tile is placed, you must also move the Hero Party’s marker one step forward on the Depth Track, as the Hero Posse delves deeper into the Mines. This is important because as the Heroes go deeper underground, it becomes harder and harder to Hold Back the Darkness (the number required to roll gets higher, the deeper the Hero Party has gone).

Newly placed Map Tiles are always either a Room or a Passage. Passage Tiles have open doorways on all ends and can often split the path in front of the Heroes. They do not, however, contain Encounters for the Heroes to deal with. Room Tiles, on the other hand, always come into play with an Exploration Token on them. As long as there is an unrevealed Exploration Token on a Map Tile, Heroes may not look through Doorways on that Map Tile (you can’t explore further than that room with the unrevealed token). At the end of a full Hero Turn (after all Heroes have been Activated), if there are one or more Heroes in a Room with an Exploration Token, that token is revealed!

When revealed, an Exploration Token tells whether the Heroes have been attacked or if they have come across one or more Encounters (needing to draw an Encounter card). The token also has information for how many exits there are in the room and if any of those exits are actually open gateways to another world! Exploration Tokens also sometimes have information on them related to finding clues toward completing your mission.

Encounter cards will usually require one or more Heroes to take a Test using their Skills (such as Agility, Luck, Lore, etc) and will describe a situation that the Heroes have found themselves in. Perhaps they have found the sight of a Massacre and must carefully pick their way through the gore, or they may have come across a lost prospector wandering the mines; will he help them, or does he hold dark secrets of his own?!

When an Attack occurs, the Heroes must draw an Enemy card to see what they will face! There are three Enemy Decks of increasing Threat Level (Green, Yellow, and Red). The Hero Party generally draws a card from the Threat Level based on the number of Heroes in the Party (1-2 Heroes=Green, 3-4 Heroes=Yellow, and 5-6 Heroes=Red), though occasionally this will change based on what caused the attack or if you have found your Mission Objective!

At the start of an Attack, Enemies are placed on the board and will move and fight based on a simple set of guidelines. Fights are handled in Initiative order, from highest to lowest, and Enemies always go first where Initiatives are tied.

Once all of the Enemies are defeated by the Heroes, each Hero is allowed to draw a Loot card for each Enemy Threat card that took part in the fight. These Loot cards will give the Hero Money, shards of rare Dark Stone, or even let them draw a piece of useful Gear or a powerful Artifact. Heroes also gain Experience for every Enemy they defeated (or for Wounds that they caused to larger Enemies) and the Heroes are allowed to Catch Their Breath, recovering a small amount of Health and/or Sanity.

Any Heroes that are Knocked Out during the Fight, are not generally killed, but rather at the end of the Fight must roll on the Injury Chart (if Health 0) or on the Insanity Chart (if Sanity 0). This usually recovers some amount of Health/Sanity for them, but they may have a longer lasting penalty for their injuries. It also moves the Darkness marker up the Depth Track a bit. If all of the Heroes are ever Knocked Out at the same time, the Mission is automatically failed!

The Mission the Heroes are currently on details what they need to do to complete their objective! Often times, this simply requires the Heroes to find enough clues (through Exploration Tokens) to find the Objective Room and defeat a small horde of Enemies, rescue someone, or recover an occult artifact!