Massive game idea

[stubobj]

Each year at Gencon FFP runs a massive game that usually takes up a 6ft table. They allow pretty much anyone to join in and each year theyve had some of the actors playing as well. Michelle is usually there playing as Sally and this last Gencon they brought in a character from FanG to help the heroes out. The scenario is basically a kill em all that will usually highlight something new. For instance this last year they had the new zombies from Blood in the Forest along with some of its new boards. They also give out prizes for zombie kills. Typically everyone who plays will walk away with $10 to spend in their booth. With such a big board we usually saw 3-4 groups of heroes working together instead of all of us trying to work together. Its always something I look forward to at Gencon. For a gaming group maybe you could work out some kind of points system and have the heroes compete to see who can kill the most zombies.

[JLC247633]

I've actually designed two "massive games" as you described them. For one I came up with a 9 player, Hero-vs-Hero-vs-Zombie scenario in which two of the Heroes were secretly informed before the game that they were traitors with their own mission to accomplish and played through the first 9 turns of the game before the traitors were revealed. Lots of details are being left out of course, but there were a few mechanics I threw in to make it work for that scenario only. This scenario used the grass center board from the base game and 8 L-shaped pieces from the base game and GH.

The second Massive Game I've designed will be played by my friends and I for the first time this Saturday and it is a nearly 6 foot long board including pieces from the base game as well as all of the boxed expansions so far. Heroes will start in Woodinvale with the knowledge that the town is actually the source of the Zombie infestation in the region so they will need to plant explosives (dynamite) in one building of each quadrant of the town map and then make their way through the extended forest (all the forest-side-up boards including the smaller rectangles from BitF) into Timber Point only to find that the power is out in the town and it is overrun by zombies so they will have to fight their way into the Power Station to restore power and then use the Radio Station from the center board of TP to detonate the explosives using a radio signal. Unbeknownst to the players, the Radio Tower in the forest has been damaged and will need to be repaired before the explosives can be detonated remotely. Obviously this game will take a lot of turns and again I've thrown in some different game mechanics to make it playable but so far in play-tests it has been down to the wire almost every time.

[Old Dwarf]

Interesting JLC, please keep us posted on how the Game turns out. Pics please.

OD

[Cinatus]

This is all very intriguing I. Like how your keeping the heroes on edge so that they don't know what there objectives are. Your games will be very helpfull.

[Jeffx2]

That sounds great, JLC. I love the linked objectives. How many heroes will be playing?

[JLC247633]

I'll have myself running Zombies alone and then 6 players with 1 Hero each. I considered having more Heroes but the game really got bogged down and turns took too long so I nerfed the zombies a little by restricting where each color of Zombie can spawn (original orange and green can only spawn in Woodinvale, red zombies from GH can only spawn in forest between towns, brown and dark green from TP can only spawn in Timber Point) All of the zombies will continue to spawn throughout the game but will have to start in their assigned zones and make their way to the Heroes from there. (Once Heroes leave Woodinvale the Zombies will no longer be required to spawn evenly among all the spawning points in the town, they will just spawn from one of the two SP's on the edge of the town near the forest)

I'll take some pictures once the game is assembled but here are some of the adjustments I've made to give the Heroes a fighting chance and help the flow of the scenario:

-All Heroes start with the non-boosted bonus of the "Run N' Gun" Hero Upgrade. (I've actually been doing this since before the XP system even came out, never made sense to me that you had to complete your move action before firing weapons...what ever happened to shooting your weapon to blast a path for yourself?)

-Heroes will have three options for searching:
1) regular search as outlined in game rules, includes survival decks when criteria are met.
2) salvage tokens, same as 'free search' tokens from earlier editions but updated to include upgraded zombie juggernaut.
3) "Hastened Search", this is a search mechanic I came up with a while back to help prevent the hum-drum of sitting put in a building for turns on end while zombies close around to devour you because you can't seem to draw a weapon card. Basically Heroes have a choice to subtract 2 from their movement in order to draw the top card from the Hero Deck. Heroes must start or end their turn in a building and cannot have any more than two items in their hands after the search (the idea being that they are grabbing whatever they can get their hands on while sprinting through a building and therefore do not have time to secure whatever tertiary items they might have) Survival Decks are off limits for Hastened Search.

-"Serious Injuries" is a mechanic that I came up with for a campaign-style series of games I'll be playing in a couple of months but I'm going to use it for this as well. Any time a Hero is wounded more than once in a single turn they have to roll 1d6. On a roll of 1 or 2 the Hero sustains a "serious injury" that cannot be healed and lasts through the remainder of the game. The zombie player will roll 1d6 to determine which serious injury the Hero sustains:
1. Sprained ankle, Hero takes a -1 to movement for the rest of the game
2. Fractured/Broken arm, Hero may no longer use two handed weapons or rifles
3. Internal bleeding, any time Hero rolls 6 for movement roll another 1d6 and on 1 or 2 take a wound (over-exertion)
4. P.T.S.D., any time the Hero starts his/her turn in a space where he/she is outnumbered by Zombies the Hero must roll 4+ or lose his/her turn (nervous breakdown, Hero does not have to fight Zombies during the Hero turn if he/she loses a turn)
5. Bruised ribs, Hero is now limited to carrying only 2 items instead of 4 and cannot use 'Shoulder Holster' upgrade (discard or give to another Hero in the same space if already purchased, discard and re-draw if purchased after sustaining bruised ribs)
6. Gaping wounds, any time Hero is wounded by a zombie he/she becomes 'infected' on roll of 1, 2 or 3 (this is the only 'serious injury' that can be healed, must use event or item that 'fully heals' the Hero)

-Scenario Search Items: Dynamite (Heroes will need all 4 dynamite cards to plant explosives in Woodinvale)

-Scenario Turn Limit: 37 (this has been hard to get right, at first I had it at 32 but the Heroes simply couldn't get all objectives complete in time. When I had it at 40 it seemed like they were completing them with turns to spare each time. Obviously in any case I'm using the turn trackers from both the base game and TP combined)

-Building specific Hero Decks: Each building in Woodinvale will have a deck of 5 cards to draw from when searching in that building. Once those cards have been depleted Heroes can no longer search in that building (before the game I'll go through the Hero deck and pull out the 4 dynamite cards and then the top 46 Hero cards, shuffle the dynamite in to make a deck of 50 and then divide that into 10 piles of 5 to act as the building decks and to make sure that it is possible for the Heroes to find the dynamite. I've left the 'Crate of Dynamite' card alone, it may end up in the top 50 or not but it does not count as a Scenario Search Item so if the Heroes get lucky and find it then they have a strong advantage but otherwise they will have to find the individual Dynamite cards)

-Heroes start with one card (plus the extra card if their starting spot isn't on the board), Zombies hand limit increased to 6 (I know that sounds like a huge advantage but aside from the occasional 'just right combination' I've found that 6 Heroes really quickly out-class the Zombies and it becomes a slaughter-fest where Heroes just rack up xp and upgrades before continuing the mission.

As mentioned before I'll follow up this post with some pictures of the board assembled as well as a few more details about how the game goes since we're running it for the first time in two days =) Have a great weekend, everyone!

[soundguy]

thanks for posting!

[ATOEtalGeek]

(12-23-2013 11:12 PM)stubobj Wrote:  Each year at Gencon FFP runs a massive game that usually takes up a 6ft table. They allow pretty much anyone to join in and each year theyve had some of the actors playing as well.

What day do they usually do this? I've been the past 4 years and was not aware of this even though I visit their booth often.

[soundguy]

same here.. never saw it!

[stubobj]

(02-06-2014 07:56 PM)ATOEtalGeek Wrote:  

(12-23-2013 11:12 PM)stubobj Wrote:  Each year at Gencon FFP runs a massive game that usually takes up a 6ft table. They allow pretty much anyone to join in and each year theyve had some of the actors playing as well.

What day do they usually do this? I've been the past 4 years and was not aware of this even though I visit their booth often.

I'm pretty sure it's been Saturday each year. I don't recall if they had a sign promoting it last year but they did the year before. I unfortunately lost most of my Gencon pics from last year but here's one I shared on BGG from 2012 http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/13972...ombie-game