Interactive terrain? Yes please!

[Grumpy Gnome]

As per this interview with Joe…



I am really looking forward to interactive terrain first for Frostgrave then hopefully for the other games that Joe has written.

What kind of interactive terrain do you think would be cool?

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Interesting.  Making "generic" interactive terrain will be harder to balance than the scenario-specific stuff we've seen so far, and it opens the possibility of being at a severe disadvantage if your opponent gets to dictate who sets up where.

Seeing all those folks at a con without masks makes me cringe.  I'm a caregiver for my parents at this point, both of whom are pushing 80 and in the very high risk group for COVID.  Wouldn't dare take that kind of risk with their health.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Fair points both Rich.

I have no idea how interactive terrain might be balanced but I am less concerned about balanced pvp than immersive, narrative gameplay.

As for masks, much as I dislike wearing one, it made sense to me for us to wear masks at Spiel in Essen recently. With numbers increasing again here in Germany and Austria I am well aware of the risks associated with relaxing too early

[Chief Lackey Rich]

I have no idea how interactive terrain might be balanced but I am less concerned about balanced pvp than immersive, narrative gameplay.

Minor imbalances aren't a concern for me, but I was brainstorming some ideas last night before posting and it dawned on me how easy it would be to make a single terrain piece that might decide the game if you're not very cautious.  If that's one that only one player can realistically interact with due to positioning it'd probably be a bad game experience for everyone involved.  The scenario-based stuff we've seen have been very careful not to let that happen - so maybe the solution is to force "generic" interactive stuff to be symmetrically placed, or stuck smack in the center of the table or something?

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Okay, here's a blog post with a couple of not particularly inspired ideas for use in the "standard scenario" from the FG core book.  Not confident on making something that could plug into all the other scenarios as yet, although I suppose these could work for ones that don't already replace/remove/modify the central treasure token.

https://sanctumreconditesage.blogspot.com/2021/12/frostgrave-sinister-sarcophagus.html

[snitcythedog]

Personally if the interactive piece of terrain is in the center of the board in place of the central treasure token then it should work.  One piece that is already in a scenario is the bone wheel.  If you have not played it the game becomes a meat grinder as everyone is rushing the center.  The moving treasure tokens also take some effort on the players part to acquire.  It makes for a fun if not expensive game in a campaign setting.  Played with ulterior motives gives the scenario a bit more balance. 

[Grumpy Gnome]

Okay, here's a blog post with a couple of not particularly inspired ideas for use in the "standard scenario" from the FG core book.  Not confident on making something that could plug into all the other scenarios as yet, although I suppose these could work for ones that don't already replace/remove/modify the central treasure token.

https://sanctumreconditesage.blogspot.com/2021/12/frostgrave-sinister-sarcophagus.html

Rich, I quite like your suggested terrain pieces in that blog post mate.

Snitcythedog, fair point.

[LiamFrostfang]

  good stuff rich!!!

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Personally if the interactive piece of terrain is in the center of the board in place of the central treasure token then it should work.  One piece that is already in a scenario is the bone wheel.

Yep, one of several scenarios with something funky going on with the center of the table.  Like you said, that spot's the safest choice to to add something new without accidentally giving one side a big advantage.  The problem (if it even is one) is that any scenario that already uses the spot has more difficulty taking a homebrew creation sitting there instead.  Really "generic" interactive terrain would be ideally something that both players can place on the table where they like (within some restrictions) and that would fit into almost any scenario - and that's a bigger ask than the "here's something new as a centerpiece" ideas I've posted on the blog.

I've got some ideas that might work but they haven't gelled sufficiently to put out in public yet.  Even the "safe" ones had to be edited after publication to explicitly keep Animals from interacting with them and to prevent spells from moving the treasure token off the altar to avoid the whole risk factor involved.

[SotF]

There was an older Necromunda board that I remember seeing which had a very interesting design for interactivity.

The basic design of the board was a lot of vertical movement with layers and a theming of some sort of pumping station. Each of the corners had a tower that could rotate and different bridges that would connect to it from the other parts in different places on different levels. Different control stations controlled different towers and would let you rotate them while in play so that you had to plan for the towers moving on you.

There was also a large, central "freight" elevator that could be moved between floors that had parts which could alter the line of sight and combat areas.

On top of that, there was a lot of other stuff worked into it which allowed different things such as gondola type platforms that would move along set lines.

The guy who made it had automated everything with lights and more so that it would be a display when not in use for games.

Rotating buildings would fit Frostgrave as something there for it both to help you and hinder opponents as you try to keep moving or maintain cover/line of sight. There are other things like that which would be fun to have in game

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Think I recall that table - got its own White Dwarf feature article  back in the 90s, right?  Had a lot of very applicable ideas that could be reflavored for fantasy use - and of course it's perfect as-is for Stargrave.

[snitcythedog]

Having the equivalent of Chief Lackey's sarcophagus or alter for each individual treasure could work too.  That way each warband would have to put some effort into collection past grabbing and running.  I suppose it could also work like the Stargrave loot markers.  Each player gets an easy treasure and a piece of interactive terrain with the central treasure rolled to determine what type it is.    The biggest problem will always be to balance everything so it does not detract from play. 

I suspect that making larger pieces of interactive or movable terrain that are not a direct part of the scenario will break the balance between interest and playability. 

[Cat]

There was an older Necromunda board that I remember seeing which had a very interesting design for interactivity.

Hmm, add some moving conveyor belts to that and the robots could be holding their own rally and firing away with lasers at anything that happens to cross their line of fire...

[ced1106]

Almost a year late with a reply (: but interactive terrain would be great for solo play.

Frex, with searching, you can use a random RPG item generator on the internet. If the item isn't appropriate, then you didn't find anything, or you found the item unusable.
https://www.herebetaverns.com/mundane-item-generator
https://randomtablesrpg.com/

There are also paid digital and physical books of random items, results, etc. when interacting with terrain.

For balanced game effects, you could steal a Eurogame idea and increase the likelihood of something beneficial the worse off your party is.

While gold is a trope, for one-shots, it's not very valuable since you can't use it -- unless you make it an objective for the scenario.