NotLiamRoss

Oh my goodness! It's so exciting to come back after a weekend of holiday family fun to see so much activity on this thread!! I hoped there were other boardgame nerds like me in the fandom who would want to discuss this stuff, but I didn't think this post would get so much traction! I'll respond with my thoughts going through topic by topic Terrain I would imagine that before troop deployment begins, there is some terrain construction phase. Either just at the start of the first round if terrain is constant across a match, or at the beginning of each round if not. Absolutely this phase can be skipped and certain templates can be just put on the board to start (you can imagine a setup called the Shattered Plains with all Chasms in play and no mountains or high ground, training scenarios, layouts mimicking battles from history etc.), but I think in general this would be a phase of gameplay to play out the terrain with each player placing a card. I'm of two minds about how to incorporate terrain cards into decks. If we're playing where terrain is built up new inbetween each round, then I think we could almost have terrain just be randomly shuffled into each player's deck and drawn at the start of each round with their starting hand (I've got some ideas about hands and decks that I'll lay out after this post). Any terrain cards in your hand at the start of each round would get played at the start of the round before troops are deployed, then you would move to troop deployment and so on. This has an interesting balancing effect where the player who gets to play more terrain cards (and as such construct the most advantageous terrain for themselves) has fewer actual troops to deploy, but on the flip side, assuming 10 card starting hands (because of course hands are 10 cards) you could wind up having all 6 terrain cards and then only having 4 troops plus your Shardbearer/King to play with which might be unfun. The other way I could see terrain playing out is as you said, putting all terrain cards in a separate deck (12 cards) and then having each player reveal and play some number of them at the start of round (or start of game). This has some nice features balance-wise such as each player having the same amount of terrain pulls each round/game and I'm maybe more leaning towards this right now. It also helps with clutter as it means we can limit the number of pulls per side (say 3 per side to start). I'm open to either of these approaches, and of course both could also exist as variants (I have a feeling we're going to say this a lot in this thread :P) Troop Death I think tracking which troops are wounded and which are full health is maybe a little bit too much overhead, especially if there can be up to 10 troops plus a shardbearer deployed at a time. The text refers to capturing and defeating troops but nothing about wounding them, so I think for now we say this is like chess, either a piece is in play (full health) or captured (dead). Adolin does explicitly state in the text that dead troops don't come back between rounds, which is what adds in the minigame of deciding when to retreat and save troops to fight another day. This leads nicely into some thoughts I have about the role of retreating as a strategy. In my head, at the end of a round any troops which are left on the battlefield are simply shuffled into the deck and can be redrawn later, but any troops which remain in HAND at the end of a round (either because you retreated them, or never deployed them in the first place) should stay in hand, giving you a card advantage on the other player for future rounds. Any thoughts on this? Maybe it's abusable and unfun somehow but I think it could lead to a fun interplay of deciding what troops to deploy and when to retreat vs. pushing for a round win and getting closer to winning the match. Winning Rounds and the Game Overall I have thought about this as well. I think there are only three ways that a round can end (and a bonus 4th). Either: Both players agree to a draw. I think that having this as a release valve for when the game has obviously ground to a halt is a good thing for the game (it's definitely a good thing in chess). All troops which are in play when a draw is declared get shuffled into the deck and need to be redrawn to be played later, so this adds some interest into deciding whether to agree to a draw or to break ranks as a rout and try to run all of your troops back to your hand, exposing your flanks to your opponent. Only one player has troops left on the field. This is what constitutes "winning" a round. This makes the most natural sense to me because we can either get to this point because one person has retreated all of their forces deciding to fight another day, or they have been absolutely and definitively defeated. This can lead to some fun moments where a player knows they're losing the round, but they keep, say some Artillery out on high ground to try and pick off enemy troops while the rest retreat, or deciding to sacrifice some Cavalry in one brave last stand to create space for their infantry to get out of there, knowing the Cavalry will be lost, but expecting to take more of the enemy out on their way out. Could be fun. The Shardbearer/King is captured. As stated in an earlier post this wouldn't end just the round, but also the match I think. This is supported by the text and I think makes the most from a game design perspective A player forfeits. This is always an option in any board/card game. Somebody rolls up their mat and goes home. I expect this is probably the way that most final rounds would end in high level where a player knows they're in a losing position but doesn't want to be forced to play it out. This is also good for the game to have as an option. Also to answer your question about the overall match victor, it's stated in the text (I don't have the quote but someone can grab it I'm sure) that it's best of three I'm pretty sure. So first to two round wins, or the match is an overall draw if there is one draw and a win a piece. Two draws and a win would go the way of the single round victor. We could have some provision for tie breaks that if the last round is decided to be a draw, it goes to the player with more troops deployed, but I think again we're getting a little weeds-y in making decisions like that. Again there can always be variants, but I think for now the game should be designed around being Bo3. The Game Board One thing that stood out to me about the game in text is that a board is never discussed (again they play it in a bunker with just a deck which May draws on regular paper) so I was thinking of designing the game with no board whatsoever, where the relative size of the cards to the play surface is what determines the scale of the battle and the edges of the play surface are the absolute edges of the battlefield. Some other boardgames work well with this restriction (I'm thinking of games like Warhammer and Carcassone) so I think it could work here. That also resolves the issues of needing to match card sizes to board squares, but it makes movement and attacking rules a little more finicky (what constitutes being "adjacent" to other pieces? when we say "in a straight line" is that in any direction? or just orthogonal to the cards orientation, etc.) Either way my initial view for the game was that it can be played with exclusively a deck of playing cards (making it very portable!) so I'm leaning towards no board right now. I'll for sure listen to the arguments to have a board instead though if people have good ideas for how it improves the game or solves other issues. This is something that I've been thinking about as well. I had the thought that when a Mountain/Chasm is played maybe two more cards are drawn face down from either the terrain deck or the players deck and placed face down adjacent to the Mountain/Chasm card to make the feature slightly larger on the board. High Ground I think should just be a single card though as the current design I laid out for it makes it pretty strong, so I think only a single card should be able to occupy it. It makes for an interesting interplay between occupying it with Artillery to gain the offensive advantage, or with Infantry to shore up flanks and make lines easier to hold. Overall this is awesome discussion! Lets keep the thread going!! I look forward to what people have to say. I also have ideas about how turns would actually play out, but I'm going to write them up separately to make sure my thoughts are all cohesive before laying them out. Let me know what you think of what I have posted here and lets keep brainstorming!!!

Thanks for looking up the quotes! Lots of interesting stuff there Funny that this almost exactly matches the rules that I came up with off the top of my head for Shardbearers haha. If we assume this IS Towers then I think it makes sense to have a way to lose the entire match which is getting your Shardbearer/King captured. In terms of gameplay, I think it would be fairly unfun to be stuck in the losing position without your Shardbearer and staring down an opponent who still has theirs and still be forced to play out the rest of the match. Overall I think a good addition. As for Knights, Squires, and Soulcasters, I think Soulcasters maybe would add a little too much complexity at this early stage of development, but it would be a good idea to add them in, especially since they are referenced in the text. I'll give a little think on them. I also think it would be easy to split out Infantry into Squires and Knights if we need to, but it seems a little fiddly if for now, we're trying to keep things grounded and simple. Alternatively for now we can just re-label Infantry as Squires and Cavalry as Knights to better match the text. I'm glad you caught that! I definitely was thinking of a Rosharan deck so having 10 ranks of troops was maybe a fun little easter egg. Ranks 2-6 being dedicated to Infantry means each player's deck has 10 total infantry as well (5 different ranks*2 suits per color). The other troops you'd have 4 of (a noted number of power by Honor) except I think it makes sense to only have a single Shardbearer (but 1 is also a number of power and significance as per Honor) I don't think it's mentioned, but thinking it through I think they must have. I'd expect Towers decks are as common as decks of playing cards are in our world, so they probably easily just rustled up another deck which May took half of for her to be able to join in. Also open question, in your heads would Terrain be the same across all three rounds in a match? Or would the board fully reset between rounds allowing for a new battlefield each round?

Artillery here would mean archers, you can imagine that everywhere that I've said artillery the word archer is in there instead Since Chasms are also a card, I'd imagine the biggest they could get is a single card/space wide, maybe there would be some consideration for putting a limit, but I'd like to keep the rules as simple as possible to start Again yeah with infinite playing space and number of cards, I think these could all be added yes (perhaps as one of the variants discussed in W&T) but I'm imagining just the base game right now which I'm hoping to keep as simple as possible.

Here's a first pass at what each of the various cards in the deck would do in-game. Anyone have any thoughts on these? Anything obvious that I'm missing? I also think that while each player would play with half the deck, each player would only have a single Ace (1 shardbearer) to keep things balanced because that troop is pretty OP. I'll do a little write up of the rules in a bit here, but I think I've got a solid core of what it might look like just need some time to actually type it out and beautify it.

Before W&T my headcanon was that they were Change, Survive, Obey, and Feel (or Experience, as logicless said). It seems like Exist nicely slots in over Survive, making the list Change, Exist, Obey, Feel. This comes from the idea that the Dawnshards kind of acted like a prism to split Adonalsium's pure white light into the various colours and Intents of the Shards. For Obey, It seems like several shards have Intents related to imposing rules and following them (Honor, Dominion, now Reason) and this also matches how the cosmere has rules it needs to follow as well (the 10 surges for example). This could I guess also be Bind, as some other people on the board seem to think, I'm partial to Obey though. Feel/Experience seems to be the driving force that pushes the cosmere towards sapience (enough investiture left alone does become sapient after all). This also aligns with some of the Intents of other shards as well (notably Odium and Devotion). I'm sure we'll get more info in the future but dang if we've seen what the Exist Torment does to Hoid and Sig, I'd hate to see what the Feel Torment would do to someone. That'd be a sight.

Yes! I remember that being mentioned. In my head terrain would be a type of card that maybe is immovable and is deployed before troops can be deployed at the start of the round This is a good resource as well! Anyone have their RoW handy? This is definitely a possibility, but given that Adolin and Yawnagawn seem to be able to play anywhere and only mention a deck of cards (May even creates a deck by drawing on sheets of paper while they're in the bunker) I think it should be at least possible to play without a specialized board. Maybe playing with a board with static terrain could be a variant?

Hey all, This is my first post so feel free to punt this to another board if this is the wrong place for it, but I asked in my intro post where to go with this and was told here would be a good place to start. I was wondering if anyone wanted to collaborate coming up with a way to play Towers using a real deck of cards. It would be fun if we could come up with a full set of Fan rules that hopefully we can share and play with each other and friends (hence the need for it to be played with a standard deck or some subset). I don't have my book in front of me (I'm at work) but I figured I would start by listing everything I can remember from my first read (which I finished last night): Towers is played with Cards, each player having some in hand (which count as reserves) and some on the play surface (the field into which they are deployed) Troops (played cards) can battle each other and it is possible for them to be defeated and removed from the game Troops can also be retreated back to hand after being played, and redeployed later to a different spot on the board Relative positioning of troops matters, as well as numbers. It is possible for troops to be surrounded and cut off from retreat. Towers can be played with any number of players, but is typically played with 2 Towers is played in three rounds, and any troops that are defeated cannot be used in future rounds. The winner is the one who takes two rounds There are several variants to the game, and it seems easy to tweak by changing what the glyphs on the cards mean Towers is taught to noble children as a way to train them for war and it creates a common language for generals to use when discussing tactics If anyone has anything else they remember feel free to add it to the post. Quotes from the book are definitely encouraged! Some ideas I've had thinking about this It might be nice for the game to be played with half a deck of cards each, one player with the black suits, and one the red suits Perhaps each numeral (A,2,3,...,J,Q,K) should be a different kind of troop with a different ability, maybe different movement or attacking rules as in chess. If 13 is too finicky of a piece count to have, then maybe a subset of the deck can be used instead I think one move per turn, meaning deploying, retreating with, moving, or attacking with a single card makes sense as a starting point,also making it like chess This is just me spitballing and I have to run off to a meeting at work now so I'll leave it at that for now, but I look forward to hearing what other people think of this and any ideas all of you might have! Happy Brainstorming ----- EDIT ----- As brainstorming has continued we have started a living rules document on Google Docs located here. Feel free to read over the rules as they stand, playtest, and give feedback! We get closer to an actual playable game every time someone comments so all thoughts are appreciated and there are no stupid questions. Cheers, and enjoy the game!

Urban Fantasy

Hi, and thanks for the welcome! Stoneward! TALN! NEVER!! BROKE!!!

I think as cool as Allomancy is, and as neat as Hemalurgy is Cosmere-ologically, it's hard to beat the simplicity and flexibility of Feruchemy. Store something up to be able to boost it later is just such a fun idea that has so much inbuilt drama and is ripe for theorizing with. It's also the power I'd most like to have as a normal human here on earth (because at the end of the day, it allows me to just be a normal human if I want!) so that contributes as well

Hi, thanks for the welcome! I think it's hard to beat gloryspren. They both look incredibly cool in both realms, and are present in the coolest moments across the series! Oh man there's a lot of places to choose from. If I also get to pick the timeframe I'm living there I'd have to say Kharbranth pre-WoK. Working in the Palaneum would be a dream and I love the hustle and bustle of a port city, along with the smell of the sea breeze. Seems like Taravangian is a fairly progressive king as well, at least as far as Cosmere monarchs go... on his good days anyways Thanks for the welcome! Sounds like I better wait until I finish W&T then, wouldn't want to wade into that board before I'm ready. Should get there in the next few days. Thanks!

Hi everyone! I've been a long-time WoB/Coppermind reader, and frequenter of the various Sanderson subreddits, but in an effort to reduce the amount of my time that is hoovered up mindlessly scrolling reddit, I've gotten rid of my account there. This has been a net improvement in my life in most aspects, but it's left me with woefully few avenues to read fan theories and participate in discussions about Sanderson! That's what's led me to the forum and I'm excited to start participating in discussions here! I'm currently in the middle of day 8 of Wind and Truth, and I've read all of the rest of the Cosmere excluding White Sand (eagerly awaiting the novelization of that one) and I've had an idea I'd love to make a post about. I know this board in particular is spoiler-free so I hope this isn't breaking any rules, but I'd love to collaborate with others on designing some fan-rules to be able to play Towers with a regular 52-card deck of cards (or some subset). Which forum should I make a post on if that's my goal? Is there a discussion already ongoing about this? If so how do I find it? Thanks and I am seriously looking forward to participating in the discussions here! Can't wait to finish W&T and get into the crazy spoilery discussions too! Cheers, Liam