The Story of Heroic

Forum for discussing the Heroic tabletop game
User avatar
Groovy
Golem
Golem
Posts: 626
Joined: 03 Sep 2011

The Story of Heroic

Unread postby Groovy » 27 Apr 2014, 20:50

Heroic is the name of a HoMM-inspired PC game design that I’ve been working on sporadically over the past few years. An early version of it can be found in the Heroic threads that I started in the Heroes 6 forum on Celestial Heavens three years ago.

The purpose of the tabletop game is to showcase the PC design. My goal is not to create a traditional tabletop fantasy strategy game, but exhibit what is new and fresh about the Heroic design that sets it apart from existing games from the genre.

User avatar
Groovy
Golem
Golem
Posts: 626
Joined: 03 Sep 2011

Design Approach

Unread postby Groovy » 27 Apr 2014, 20:53

In the past, I have tried to convert the PC design into a tabletop version by taking the PC design as the starting point and removing content from it until I was left with something that was small enough to be manageable in the tabletop setting. Unfortunately, the resulting design felt disjointed. Some of the features were there because I didn’t really need to remove them, rather than because they genuinely improved gameplay.

The design approach that I would like to follow here is one of starting with a bare-bones design and adding features to it until it is sufficiently rich to not need to be grown further. The role of the PC design will be to provide guidance for which features could be added and how they should work. I will share parts of the PC design for this purpose as the need arises.

User avatar
Groovy
Golem
Golem
Posts: 626
Joined: 03 Sep 2011

The Big Picture

Unread postby Groovy » 27 Apr 2014, 20:54

The PC design is very ambitious. Its purpose is to supply features for a major game and all its expansions/DLCs, so that each subsequent release can build on the game mechanics of its predecessors instead of merely refining them. The end goal is a strategy game that is significantly more complex and involved than what is currently available on the market.

The size of the PC design makes it impractical to convert all of it into a single tabletop game. It would be more manageable to create distinct tabletop games for different parts of the PC design. I have identified three that I would like to make, one for each type of map from the PC design – world map, adventure map and combat map. There may be others as well – to showcase the magic model, artefact model, etc.

For now, I would like to focus on the tabletop game that corresponds to the combat map. I think this is a good place to start because the action on the combat map is self-contained – it doesn’t spill over onto other maps in order to be resolved. This is unlike world and adventure maps, whose action can spill over onto adventure and combat maps.

User avatar
Groovy
Golem
Golem
Posts: 626
Joined: 03 Sep 2011

Unread postby Groovy » 04 Feb 2015, 14:20

Now that I’ve been working on this game intensely (in my spare time) for almost a year, I have a much better idea of how I’d like to position it. And it is not as a precursor to anything else.

For a number of years, I’ve been looking for ways to influence the mythology of our culture. Mythologically rich novels are an obvious way, but many people have written them, to the point that it’s really become quite difficult to stand out from the crowd, even if one’s mythology is fresh and original. A game, I think, offers a better alternative, for two main reasons:
• The field is less saturated, giving one’s work a greater opportunity to be noticed
• Games are interactive, which enables them to make the mythology come alive in a way that books cannot

With this in mind, I’m looking to create a game that conveys the new mythology to the players through its structure and rules as well as lore. In other words, the game should play in a way that makes the new mythology tangible to the players. This can then be supported with lore, a standalone novel, and so on.

User avatar
Panda Tar
Forum Mascot
Forum Mascot
Posts: 6709
Joined: 21 Feb 2006
Location: Florianópolis - Brasil

Unread postby Panda Tar » 04 Feb 2015, 16:32

Many people do love reading additional content, as we would consider lore and appendix etc.

An example I could see clearly was while playing Mass Effect. Whenever you encountered something new, or heard or visited a place - anything new would then be available in your Codex, where you could check upon races, planets, weapons, technologies, bestiary.

These days, I saw a friend of mine playing Destiny. He told me you gathered cards named Grimoire Cards. These cards have additional info, sometimes describing monsters, or people, or equipment.

For Heroic, you can also think on doing things this way. Deliver enough information during gaming, then people can fetch or learn more by researching other places. A novel is an elegant approach, no doubt. ;)
"There’s nothing to fear but fear itself and maybe some mild to moderate jellification of bones." Cave Johnson, Portal 2. :panda:

User avatar
Groovy
Golem
Golem
Posts: 626
Joined: 03 Sep 2011

Unread postby Groovy » 04 Feb 2015, 16:50

Thanks!

I'm planning to weave lore into the game in a manner similar to Magic the Gathering card game - by putting flavour text on each card. I'll just have more space to do it in since the back of the cards will be dedicated to this purpose. Some of it will probably come from the novel, but the majority I'll have to write specifically for the cards.

User avatar
Groovy
Golem
Golem
Posts: 626
Joined: 03 Sep 2011

Unread postby Groovy » 04 Feb 2015, 16:52

I just thought I'd mention that the purpose of the novel from the point of view of the game is to explain how the game world came to be the way it is, since it differs markedly from the worlds used in games like HoMM. It will start with a HoMM-like world and describe how it became a Heroic-like world.


Return to “Tabletop Forum”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest