I have some inspiration on how to design a Diablo board game. In fact, I have contacted FFG on this; their reply was that they no longer have Blizzard's licensing rights to make their games. The following are my ideas. If you have any of your own ideas or even criticisms, feel free to fire them my way.
Let's talk about the components. First there must be a world map, then exploratory dungeon tiles. The dungeon maps must be made of diamond-shaped hexes. Every player chooses their hero character (and they come in either male or female sculpts), and they each receive a Character Sheet, like StarCraft the Board Game. On the Sheet there is a Life globe depicted and a Resource globe depicted, depending on what character you are. In addition, there are stats on the Sheets, and a Character and Inventory Window, where we will be able to equip our hero.
The enemy will be controlled by an A.I. system, like Gears of War, although significantly much more different. The loot dropped by monsters scale with difficulty, depending on factors like the number of heroes, and the Act, level and stage.
In addition there is a Skill Deck and Skill Tree Sheet, to keep track of your experience level. To get new Skills, you will have to spend your experience points gained from killing spawns. There is a level track along the side of the world map, to record the levels of the characters.
There is a reference sheet for enemy spawns, listing their statistics and how they scale with the number of players, thus influencing the difficulty of the game.
That's all I will reveal now. I have yet to reveal the battle mechanic!
About loot, at the back of the enemy's wound token is a number with a plus sign, which determines the number you must roll equal or more on a D6, to get a loot. For attacks that do area damage, or target an area, templates like those from Warhammer 40,000 are used, except they are modified for the diamond-shaped hexes in Diablo the Board Game.
Why, I thought there will be more people interested. No one wants to contribute ideas or offer criticisms for my ideas? I have already developed rules that suit D3 combat mechanics, when ported over to the board game. Not revealing it until I get more response.
I personally prefer board games that have a style more like Talisman or even Monopoly and not those who are more exploration and minatures oriented. Imagine a board where you toss the dice for movement everytime and land on different squares with different events like fights, treassure, vendors, etc... Again, a bit like Talisman where you need to collect enough power to be able to progres to the next tier. This translates very nicely into Diablo concepts of gathering loot and leveling up. Eventually you will have to beat a series of hard trials in order to be able to defeat Diablo or whoever the final boss will be. Could be cool...
I personally enjoy playing a few board games like D&D series (wrath of ashardalon, the legend of drizzt), original MB Hero's Quest, and other strategy games like Carcasonne, Settlers of Catan, etc.
What I find interesting is the combat mechanics and also the pace of the game. If I find a game that require a lot of dice rolls, I find the pace too slow and I lose interest. I believe a good board game should be able to finish a game within reasonable amount of time ~60 mins per game (or quest) based on 3-4 players.
For a board game like Diablo, the audience will be different than those who love the ARPG. Board game is slower pace and will focus more on strategy and planning. In addition, the story element might or might not be important but I leave that to you. Personally, the main attraction for a game like Diablo would be the combat system and the loot/reward system. The skill progression can be something that is a choice by the player of which he wish to excel in like Diablo 1/2 or you can go with a fixed system based on level like Diablo 3.
I like the idea that monster scales with the level of the players and number of players (much like Diablo 3 game) and the loot should be as well.
However, how you wish to design the loot will need to have a lot of good thoughts behind it as a scalable loot based on char level is not easy to design imho.
I think you are off to a good start so will be interested to hear more about it.
How the loot system works will astound your pants off. When an enemy is wounded and killed, it drops a loot token, that has a value on it. Rolling equal to or above the value gains you a loot. To scale up this way, depending on Act, player lvl, and difficulty of creeps, each condition adds +1 to the dice you have to roll equal to or above. In other words, a cheap loot that is easily gotten, maybe gotten with a roll of 2+, but as it scales up, the truly legendary items require a roll of 6+. How's that?
How the loot system works will astound your pants off. When an enemy is wounded and killed, it drops a loot token, that has a value on it. Rolling equal to or above the value gains you a loot. To scale up this way, depending on Act, player lvl, and difficulty of creeps, each condition adds -1 to the dice you have to roll equal to or above. In other words, a cheap loot that is easily gotten, maybe gotten with a roll of 2+, but as it scales up, the truly legendary items require a roll of 6+. How's that?
I like the idea and it sounds like a good way in order to get the higher level things. However, if the mobs are anything like Diablo PC game, rolling a die for each loot token is still a lot of rolling. It might take away the time to actually play the game. Perhaps there might be a easier way to determine if the loot drop is successful based on the rarity of the item?
We can have an Item Deck with legendary items mixed together with normal ones. Every time we kill one creep, we pick up a card randomly...saying this already shows how it will not work. My variant is better if you ask me. Perhaps we can have the loot drop rate be equivalent to the level of the creep?
(Edit:) The mobs won't be the same as the PC game, if what I think you are asking is if there are a lot of monsters in one single mob. As this is a board game, it will be unfeasible in the first place if there are like 20 miniatures to represent a horde of Imps or Skeleton Warriors. Perhaps, one loot drop for one mob, in other words you will have to destroy the entire mob first for one loot to drop.
I don't want people to copy, so I will just say it is a combination of StarCraft the Board Game's combat card mechanic, with simple dice mechanics. Each Action requires the expenditure of a single die, which is limited by a Stamina Dice Pool, that is formed by the addition of your hero's Strength and Agility Statistical Points. Dice taken from Strength can only be used for Defensive Actions, while those taken from Agility can only be used for Offensive Actions.
Quote from TheCupKnight How the loot system works will astound your pants off. When an enemy is wounded and killed, it drops a loot token, that has a value on it. Rolling equal to or above the value gains you a loot. To scale up this way, depending on Act, player lvl, and difficulty of creeps, each condition adds +1 to the dice you have to roll equal to or above. In other words, a cheap loot that is easily gotten, maybe gotten with a roll of 2+, but as it scales up, the truly legendary items require a roll of 6+. How's that?
Seems good but convoluted and time consuming, especially if this going to be done every time a monster is killed.
Monsters come from a monster deck, on the card is associated info. One of which is a copper, silver, or gold coin. You get a token of that when the monster is killed. Common, Uncommon, Rare/Legendary item decks. 1 copper is a common draw, silver is uncommon draw, Gold is Rare/Leg Draw. Can exchange 3 copper for a silver token, 3 silver for a gold token. Items can be sold for the next currency down, IE a Rare item sold for a silver token, and uncommon for a copper token. Shopping or whatever can be done at the end of a turn or if on a valid "shopping space."
Some monsters will have a specific "draw an item from X loot deck when this monster is slain." on top of whatever token they may also give.
Less dice rolls, still random, not obligatory every turn.
I think a diablo themed gamed would be better suited to a deckbuilder like Ascension, but thats just me.
Quote from TheCupKnight
How the loot system works will astound your pants off. When an enemy is wounded and killed, it drops a loot token, that has a value on it. Rolling equal to or above the value gains you a loot. To scale up this way, depending on Act, player lvl, and difficulty of creeps, each condition adds +1 to the dice you have to roll equal to or above. In other words, a cheap loot that is easily gotten, maybe gotten with a roll of 2+, but as it scales up, the truly legendary items require a roll of 6+. How's that?
Seems good but convoluted and time consuming, especially if this going to be done every time a monster is killed.
Monsters come from a monster deck, on the card is associated info. One of which is a copper, silver, or gold coin. You get a token of that when the monster is killed. Common, Uncommon, Rare/Legendary item decks. 1 copper is a common draw, silver is uncommon draw, Gold is Rare/Leg Draw. Can exchange 3 copper for a silver token, 3 silver for a gold token. Items can be sold for the next currency down, IE a Rare item sold for a silver token, and uncommon for a copper token. Shopping or whatever can be done at the end of a turn or if on a valid "shopping space."
Some monsters will have a specific "draw an item from X loot deck when this monster is slain." on top of whatever token they may also give.
Less dice rolls, still random, not obligatory every turn.
I think a diablo themed gamed would be better suited to a deckbuilder like Ascension, but thats just me.
I like this idea for the loot drop better. It's more intuitive and we can give all the bosses the additional draw from the item deck. Trading coins might need to be tuned so it doesn't take a lot of time. What I dislike about monopoly is the time it takes to deal with the banker in exchange of things etc. which can take up a few minutes depending on how much resources to trade in or buy/sell. It would be better if there is an easier way to trade like res for items (instead of trade up res for next higher copper->silver->gold) i.e. catan.
I agree that the less die roll, the better. Perhaps we can introduce a random die generator. I can't remember what game but some of them have a die inside a device and u just press the item and number comes up rather than to challenge agility/logistics of people fumbling for actual die roll.
Make sure your game has no snowballing mechanics and has a comeback mechanic. Also, minimal RNG. Most games with these anti-features, regardless of medium, are more frustrating than fun (Catan, DotA, etc).
Let's talk about the components. First there must be a world map, then exploratory dungeon tiles. The dungeon maps must be made of diamond-shaped hexes. Every player chooses their hero character (and they come in either male or female sculpts), and they each receive a Character Sheet, like StarCraft the Board Game. On the Sheet there is a Life globe depicted and a Resource globe depicted, depending on what character you are. In addition, there are stats on the Sheets, and a Character and Inventory Window, where we will be able to equip our hero.
The enemy will be controlled by an A.I. system, like Gears of War, although significantly much more different. The loot dropped by monsters scale with difficulty, depending on factors like the number of heroes, and the Act, level and stage.
In addition there is a Skill Deck and Skill Tree Sheet, to keep track of your experience level. To get new Skills, you will have to spend your experience points gained from killing spawns. There is a level track along the side of the world map, to record the levels of the characters.
There is a reference sheet for enemy spawns, listing their statistics and how they scale with the number of players, thus influencing the difficulty of the game.
That's all I will reveal now. I have yet to reveal the battle mechanic!
About loot, at the back of the enemy's wound token is a number with a plus sign, which determines the number you must roll equal or more on a D6, to get a loot. For attacks that do area damage, or target an area, templates like those from Warhammer 40,000 are used, except they are modified for the diamond-shaped hexes in Diablo the Board Game.
What I find interesting is the combat mechanics and also the pace of the game. If I find a game that require a lot of dice rolls, I find the pace too slow and I lose interest. I believe a good board game should be able to finish a game within reasonable amount of time ~60 mins per game (or quest) based on 3-4 players.
For a board game like Diablo, the audience will be different than those who love the ARPG. Board game is slower pace and will focus more on strategy and planning. In addition, the story element might or might not be important but I leave that to you. Personally, the main attraction for a game like Diablo would be the combat system and the loot/reward system. The skill progression can be something that is a choice by the player of which he wish to excel in like Diablo 1/2 or you can go with a fixed system based on level like Diablo 3.
I like the idea that monster scales with the level of the players and number of players (much like Diablo 3 game) and the loot should be as well.
However, how you wish to design the loot will need to have a lot of good thoughts behind it as a scalable loot based on char level is not easy to design imho.
I think you are off to a good start so will be interested to hear more about it.
(Edit:) The mobs won't be the same as the PC game, if what I think you are asking is if there are a lot of monsters in one single mob. As this is a board game, it will be unfeasible in the first place if there are like 20 miniatures to represent a horde of Imps or Skeleton Warriors. Perhaps, one loot drop for one mob, in other words you will have to destroy the entire mob first for one loot to drop.
Quote from TheCupKnight
How the loot system works will astound your pants off. When an enemy is wounded and killed, it drops a loot token, that has a value on it. Rolling equal to or above the value gains you a loot. To scale up this way, depending on Act, player lvl, and difficulty of creeps, each condition adds +1 to the dice you have to roll equal to or above. In other words, a cheap loot that is easily gotten, maybe gotten with a roll of 2+, but as it scales up, the truly legendary items require a roll of 6+. How's that?
Seems good but convoluted and time consuming, especially if this going to be done every time a monster is killed.
Monsters come from a monster deck, on the card is associated info. One of which is a copper, silver, or gold coin. You get a token of that when the monster is killed. Common, Uncommon, Rare/Legendary item decks. 1 copper is a common draw, silver is uncommon draw, Gold is Rare/Leg Draw. Can exchange 3 copper for a silver token, 3 silver for a gold token. Items can be sold for the next currency down, IE a Rare item sold for a silver token, and uncommon for a copper token. Shopping or whatever can be done at the end of a turn or if on a valid "shopping space."
Some monsters will have a specific "draw an item from X loot deck when this monster is slain." on top of whatever token they may also give.
Less dice rolls, still random, not obligatory every turn.
I think a diablo themed gamed would be better suited to a deckbuilder like Ascension, but thats just me.
I agree that the less die roll, the better. Perhaps we can introduce a random die generator. I can't remember what game but some of them have a die inside a device and u just press the item and number comes up rather than to challenge agility/logistics of people fumbling for actual die roll.