RPG Card Face Improvement

On the left is the classic Demonic Adder from the Tomb of the Lich Lord set, on the right is the RPG version. Making revisions is always hard, in particular something as important as an established interface design. But the classic card face design has been needing an overhaul for some time.

When I first designed the card face my main concern was showing art much larger than your typical fantasy card game had. In this end I bled the art behind the text. While I thought I was being clever, it made creating the art extremely challenging. Every composition had to have an enormous "dead space" that didn't compete with the text. In addition that space had to be dark, since the text was always white. This has hung on my neck like an albatross through the various sets.

Since the RPG is such a radical departure, I wanted to make the cards distinctive as well. This is an RPG that uses cards - not just another Dungeoneer XCG set. So I took the opportunity to redesign the face. I've posted earlier versions of this design, but this has been polished even more. The mechanical information is all grouped together now and there is more detail. This time I show it side by side with it's XCG counterpart so that you can see the RPG is 100% compatible.

I'm not saying this is the final design - I may play with the art to text ratio a bit more, there probably is room for larger art, the text hear is still a bit large. But I like the legibility.

One improvement you may notice is the text stating "inflicts 1 wound" is gone. It has been replaced with a little "hit" symbol next to the stat. This cleans up the card as well as providing better information. The other thing you may notice is that I've been enhancing the melee/magic/speed symbols. These are still being worked on, but I feel these are more contemporary in their quality.

Here is another classic card, Spell Focus:


In this one you may notice the border is green instead of blue. This is because we found that generally the Boon/Bane/Encounter/Treasure identification was clear enough by the symbol placed next to the playtime - duration - category text, and that the Peril/Glory identification was critical on first glance.

What is a roleplaying game?

Just about every RPG ever written has tried to answer this question. Usually devolving into discussions of childhood cops & robbers games. I don't know that anyone has written the perfect answer. I'm working on that section of the Dungeoneer RPG, and I've borrowed from various sources to come up with this:

A Roleplaying Game is a game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters and are rewarded for making choices that are consistent with the character's motivations or further the plot of the story. Participants collaboratively create stories by determining the actions of their characters, and these actions succeed or fail according to the rules and guidelines. Within the rules, players can improvise freely; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the game.

I don't know if I've succeeded, in fact posting it here has made me aware of how esoteric this sounds. Your thoughts?

Reprints

Dungeoneer fan Tyler Dion asks when Tomb of the Lich Lord will be reprinted? Good question Tyler!

Currently there are 3 sets out of print:
Tomb of the Lich Lord
Haunted Woods of Malthorin
Den of the Wererats

We prepped the art for the press (there was minor errata on a couple cards) and were ready to go, when we discovered a sudden, and HUGE, spike in the printing costs. We didn't want to raise the retail price, but we couldn't print them at a loss either.

To put the problem in context, the larger your print run, the lower your costs can be. Large games like Magic: the Gathering can absorb the printing cost increase, but our print runs are closer to 5-10 thousand. And a reprint just doesn't sell as much as a new game, generally.

The options left are to wait until there are enough pre-orders and to hope the cost spike is only a bubble that will come back down. Or, raise the retail price. We're still deliberating.

In the meantime I've made copies I own available for sale on eBay. To make it worth the time and effort, I've had to add incentives: an original sketch and signed print.

Also, the Dungeoneer RPG will have some of the cards from those sets, when it is completed and hopefully printed later this year.

Dungeoneer Rules Numbered

I've been told time and again how great and fun Dungeoneer is and how not-so-great the rules are...the rules have been rewritten a few times, and improved upon, and expanded as the game has grown, but it has always been tough to write the perfect rules set.

Boardgamegeek.com user Dane Barrett has posted his version of the Dungeoneer rules, where he divided up all the rules, reorganized them a bit, and numbered them. The result is an incredibly handy version of the rules where every rule can be quickly found and more easily understood!

Is Boardgamegeek.com the best site on the interwebs? Quite possibly.

Play Dungeoneer Online!

Studio Denmark and Vassal Factory are proud to announce the English version of the Dungeoneer module for the VASSAL engine.

The VASSAL Engine is a set of general-purpose Java libraries for creating online versions of traditional board and card games. It provides support for game piece rendering and interaction, and supports play by email or over a live connection.

Currently in development, the entire Tomb of the Lich Lord set is being converted to work with Vassal Factory's virtual tabletop gaming technology.