Stormlight Board Game Poll

[Pagerunner]

On Brandon's website, he's looking for feedback for what kind of board game his team should investigate potentially designing for a Stormlight tie-in. The five options are: Rules-Light, Rules-Medium, Rules-Heavy, Legacy, or RPG. (There is no sixth option. I'm sure the poll will bear that out, and we will see 100% as the total for those five options.)

https://www.brandonsanderson.com/wax-wayne-update-stormlight-archive-game-question/

Some of my favorite board games are rules-light board games. But I don't think any of those would make a good tie-in; the ones I like are things like Resistance, where there's a simple rules framework that relies upon social interaction for the nuance. There's really nowhere in rules that simple to fit a Stormlight theme; might as well just make Stormlight Monopoly or a Roshar Ticket to Ride map. (Although, honestly, the latter wouldn't be all that bad.) There has been a glut recently of what I would call rules-light card games, like Unstable Unicorns or Exploding Kittens, that I don't really enjoy all that much. They're focused on having some sort of theme, but there's not enough meat to the game; draw off the top, make the obvious moves, and hope nobody else draws something good. Uno with a gimmick.

Some of my favorite board games are rules-medium board games. In fact, my favorite two games, Dominion and Small World, would be in this category. What makes them so good is the expansions for them; the base game has a lot of room for design space, and an extended production lifetime for the game lets the designers explore every possible cranny of what that game could do. But most of the licensed games I've seen and enjoyed (including House War) get maybe one expansion, maybe none, which really limits the replayability and potential of rules-medium games. I'd be a huge fan of Stormlight expansions to some already-existing games, like Stormlight Call To Adventure. (Small World may be reaching the end of its lifecycle, but it's already had some licensed tie-ins.)

Some of my favorite board games are rules-heavy board games. Cosmere Space Age Twilight Imperium would be where it's at, man. But here's where I think a Stormlight game would have the most room to maximize its potential, both in rules and flavor. (And this was what I voted for.) Several Shattered Plains board games have been rolling around behind the scenes, but none of them have apparently panned out. That really seems like the most viable option, either something homegrown, or something that draws heavily from another game (like Star Wars: Rebellion draws from Twilight Imperium). These are the games where you see things like victory condition cards, which could fit in book events (ones that did happen, and ones that were averted) in a similar style to Call to Adventure, if you wanted a full-Roshar war game.

I haven't actually played any legacy games. But you want to have a real game first, and then tweak it into a legacy version. So don't start there.

And RPG, it's always a good bet, and I think that Crafty could fit decent Stormlight rules into there. The thing I like least about their system is the micromanaging of metal reserves; but I think the rest of the system is pretty neat, and I've toyed with making Star Wars rules out of it. (Since my RPG group only plays Star Wars systems.) Not to get too nitty-gritty into the details, but I think there's room to treat Powers like Resources, which I think would fit pretty well with Stormlight. Instead of having to actually track your character's Stormlight reserves, you'd just get temporarily worse at using yours powers after doing impressive feats with them. So I'd be down to see Crafty come out with a Stormlight core rulebook. (Although I have found their expansion books to be very fluffy, almost no new rules in them.)

What do the rest of you think?

[Orlion Blight]

Stormlight Collectible Card Game.

[Szeth_Pancakes]

5 minutes ago, Orlionra said:

Stormlight Collectible Card Game.

Well, there would be enough characters.../s

[Bejarden]

If a SA game is anything in the same realm of dominion (the deck building one I hope) I will 100% get that

[Szeth_Pancakes]

7 minutes ago, Bejardin1250 said:

If a SA game is anything in the same realm of dominion (the deck building one I hope) I will 100% get that

I could totally imagine an SA-themed game similar to Dominion.

hey hey wait

THERE’S A SHARD NAMED DOMINION

asdfghjkwlksndjdj

/s

[+Doomstick]

4 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

Some of my favorite board games are rules-light board games. But I don't think any of those would make a good tie-in; the ones I like are things like Resistance, where there's a simple rules framework that relies upon social interaction for the nuance. There's really nowhere in rules that simple to fit a Stormlight theme; might as well just make Stormlight Monopoly or a Roshar Ticket to Ride map. (Although, honestly, the latter wouldn't be all that bad.) There has been a glut recently of what I would call rules-light card games, like Unstable Unicorns or Exploding Kittens, that I don't really enjoy all that much. They're focused on having some sort of theme, but there's not enough meat to the game; draw off the top, make the obvious moves, and hope nobody else draws something good. Uno with a gimmick.

I think that that one guessing game that Shallan's squires play in Urithiru would make a good game.

[Ghanderflaffle]

15 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

Unstable Unicorns

Ouch, this game is fun. Yes, it can go on for way too long. I played it for a good three hours last time. But the expansion packs really add something in my opinion. Exploding Kittens I can see where you’re coming from though.

[Spectromixer]

I loved Medium in the poll but I would be interested in anything!

[Pagerunner]

Brandon talked about the poll results today. Medium was the winner, around 30%; Legacy and RPG were both around 20%; and Light and Heavy filled out the bottom. Next step, they'll look at both a Medium game and an RPG (so as not to saturate the market).

If an RPG comes out before Book Five, I wonder how it'll deal with Tension...