Planescape Board Game?

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Fortress's picture
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Planescape Board Game?

Hey all, first post here... hope I'm on the right board.

I was wondering if anyone here has tried to make a Planescape-themed board game. I tried a search for it but "board" and "game" come up in enough posts that it wasn't easy to sift through it all :-/

If so, I'm wondering what people had come up with, and otherwise I guess I'd be wondering if there would be any interest in trying to create one. I guess it looks like Planewalker might be able to get away with that as the official Planescape fan site?

Anyway, just curious as I think it'd be pretty fun, and it'd be an interesting way to get new players introduced to the setting.

sciborg2's picture
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Re: Planescape Board Game?

I'd be interested, but not sure how useful I'd be.

Out of curiosity, have you checked out Kobold Quarterly's Guide to Board Game Design:

http://www.koboldquarterly.com/k/front-page10553.php

I'm still going through it and don't have a review yet, but figured you might be interested.

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VikingLegion's picture
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Re: Planescape Board Game?

Planescape Monopoly!!

Factols as playing pieces, Getting Mazed takes the place of Go To Jail, and the Chance Cards and Community Chest are replaced by Wheels of Mechanus/ Whims of Limbo.

OK, that was pretty lame... sorry

sciborg2's picture
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Re: Planescape Board Game?

Well, you highlight one of the challenges in that a lot of PS seems to be about belief and roleplaying.

So what aspects of the game can we take into a board game. I think the Good/Evil, Law/Chaos, and Elemental Struggles might work well. The factions might have competing powers, not sure how.

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Wicke's picture
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Re: Planescape Board Game?

Make it focused on the Kriegstanz and base it in Sigil. Each player chooses a faction to play and they each take turns either gathering up more followers/believers, making plays for city locations and doing what they can to disrupt the other factions. The winner is the person who manages to either capture all of the city locations for their faction, or have enough believers in the city to overwhelm the other factions.

You could also have a counter that represents how fed up the LoP is with the Kriegstanz. When it reaches a certain point, all the factions are expelled from the city and the game is over, making it a lose condition for everybody. Cooperation between factions could bring the counter down at the cost of sacrificing any gains a given faction may have made.

Fortress's picture
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Re: Planescape Board Game?

I do think the philosophical aspects of PS are probably a little bit tougher to fit into a board game. While they play a crucial role, my personal favorite thing about PS are the brilliant locations and characters. Arkham Horror has great location-based events that can happen to the players, and I think that if something like that fits it'd be a great addition (for those you haven't played it, basically you have decks of cards unique to each location on the board -- so if you were in Mechanus, you would draw cards with different effects than those in the Lady's Ward, complete of course with story flavor).

I really like a competing factions basis. The thing that scares me is that I wouldn't want the factions to all play the same, since they really are wholly different. It'd be cool for them to either have different powers or different win conditions, but then if the game is competitive, those types of things are incredibly tough to balance. That said Wicke, I love the idea of the LoP getting fed up being a losing condition for all -- absolutely brilliant.

If the outer planes were included, I think some changing portal mechanic would be a must. I worry that needing keys to go through them might be overly complex, but I guess that depends on the rest of the game mechanics. Players trading keys to get through the portals they need would be really interesting, though.

Wicke's picture
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Re: Planescape Board Game?

For the Kriegstanz-styled game, you could take a cue from the Illuminati card/board game and give each faction its own particular win conditions and different abilities for achieving those ends.

I'd be wary about trying to incorporate too many aspects of the setting into one game. I'd suggest picking a single aspect to focus on and expand it.

For instance, you could make an interesting game based around the Great Modron March. Sixteen different planes to pass through, and for each one there would be a conflict that the players would have to successfully navigate. The early planes would be easy to get through and the difficulty would ramp up as they progressed. Success for the game would be getting to back to Mechanus with a certain number of Modron left in the march (or maybe even just one).

Another, more obvious game, would be to base it on the Blood War. But, if you're wanting something different than that, you could base a game on the different elemental factions on the Inner Planes. Or maybe make it Efreet vs. Djinn vs. Dao vs. Marid.

Or, rather than a game based on head-to-head conflict between the players, you could make it a cooperative game. Save Curst from sliding to Carceri! The players have to move about the board and perform different actions to ensure the city doesn't slip across the planar boundary.

Just tossing ideas out right now. Hopefully something will catch your eye.

Zimrazim's picture
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Re: Planescape Board Game?

"Go to Carceri. Go directly to Carceri, do not pass Go, do not collect 200 jinx."

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Quickleaf's picture
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Re: Planescape Board Game?

Well, a bit of thread necromancy but... I am working on a * card * game called "Sigil Chase." Not particularly sexy I know, and a bit more crass than the kriegstanz, but it is something.

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