SFR, Inc.

[chuckpint]

I've updated the demo rules. At least the first one. I've posted the Coral Elf / Lava Elf starter demo rules. Please look that one over. I'll edit the other three up after I get some feedback on the first one. You can get it from here.
_________________
You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[piMaster]

It doesn't really look any different from what I saw at GenCon (other than the lack of mention of the other races).

After being "drafted" into running demos and novice events, I must say that running them was rather clunky. The biggest problem was monsters. I know you want to showcase the dice they would get in a starter (and I know there a very good reasons for that), but I think they would run better if monsters were taken out.

For example, you list the Illusion SAI as a magic and missile icon in the demo rules, while in reality it is neither of those. If a person who demoed with a Rakshasa bought a starter and got a Rakshasa, they will probably use it as magic and missile results instead of looking up what it does because they think they know how it works.

In addition, the fact that the faces on the monsters are treated different from the rest of the dice is confusing to a new player. On all of the six sided dice, the number of icons on a face is how many results it generates. For monsters, a single icon generates four results. It's just that much more they have to keep track of and it can get a little confusing.

So, my advice would be to drop monsters from the demo armies and fill that space with other units. For the novice tournaments, maybe increase the health size to 24.

Another suggestion would be to have battlemats for the games so that there is less guesswork as to what goes where. Right now it was just dice on a table, and people had a hard time grasping the concepts of sending units to reserve (because there was no reserve area, just a blank table). Dead units could easily be mixed up with units from an army. Since the demos don't have alot of dice, it should be easy to make up something that would give them a sense of how things fit together (maybe I'll whip up something and bring it with me to the next meeting).

[Deeghter]

[chuckpint]

I could make up a battle-mat that could be printed on a single 11" x 17" or two 8.5" x 11" sheets. But before that, we need the rules we want to use. Before that, we need to decide what is it that we want to demo about the game. So here's my list (in no particular order at this point):

• Unit health
• Army setup
• How to conduct melee
• How to conduct missile
• How to conduct magic
• How do dragons work
• How to maneuver a terrain
• How to start the game
• Amount of health
• How are monsters different from 6-siders
• What do the terrain faces mean
• What to do with the SAIs
• How the turn sequence goes
• How to make a save roll
• How an eighth face works

_________________
You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[piMaster]

[ddicerc]

I just use a miniaturized set of army cards when I run demos to keep track of armies. I also print a single page with all the demo spells on it.

If you aren't getting 8th faces captured, you obviously haven't rigged your demos right. My demo armies are carefully constructed so that, without sandbagging by the demo-er, the new player will almost always capture an 8th face very quickly. If you play to one capture, that makes a very quick demo. You can always keep going, and with my armies I almost always lose in a fairly expedient manner, one way or the other. (GenCon '06 demo record: 1-18. I just couldn't roll bad in that one game. At Dreamation and DexCon, I don't recall winning a single demo, although I probably did at some point. And no, I don't play blatantly badly, although sometimes I do make a move that's more like a newbie than a veteran if it teaches something important about the game.)

I also choose my monsters to be the more common and less "jury-rigged" demo units.

I wouldn't mind a battlemat, but at the cons I attend the tables are so narrow it probably wouldn't fit anyway.

Chuck, I like the demo rules layout. I haven't nitpicked them, but then that's Brad's job anyway.

And, as the sales director, I most definitely want the demo players to see what they will get if they buy a starter set. Yes, a 24h no-monster army plays easier, but it's not what they'll get in their box. And a post-demo discussion of SAIs, magic doubling, dragons, terrain effects, etc. can be done quickly to let them know what more they can expect.
_________________
Steve "DDice" Braun
The Diceman's Gaming Pages: http://ddicerc.weebly.com
2014-2015 U.S. National Champion
(Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...)

[piMaster]

In my defense Steve, I wasn't supposed to be running demos or novice tournaments, and I only ran 3-4 games. People tended to get wiped out before they had a chance to get the terrain up to the 8th face.

[piMaster]

[chuckpint]

Don't know why you are nitpicking the demo rules if we are completely rewriting them. Let's decide what the rules should be about, then we can write something for you to nitpick.
_________________
You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[piMaster]

Steve pressured me to do it . . . . however, my point about Lightning Strike still stands.

So I guess my first question is: Are we going to differentiate between booth demos (where we have about 10 minutes or so) and novice tournaments (where we have 2 hours)?

[chuckpint]

That is indeed the first question. While I don't want to have too many different rules, I guess we will have to have different rules for the demo and for the novice. Before we decide on what those will be, we need to decide on what dice to use. For the novice events, I think Steve and I are in total agreement that we want to use the starters (or bags of dice like what you get with the starters). For the demo, I understand Brad's concerns about the monsters, and I agree let's leave out the monsters. Right now, I want to shelve the discussion on novice rules. Our higher priority is the demo rules, so we have a consistent way we are demoing the game.

So my proposal for the dice for a demo, is exactly the same as a starter, but substitute another rare for the monster. That gives you three armies: 5 commons, 3 uncommons, and 2 rares, which means each army is 5 or 6 health. We could add one more 1 common and make it exactly 6 health of each size. Since we want demos to be short, I'd say the smaller the armies help make it a short game. Adding more dice makes the demo take longer.

Next thing we need to decide, is how many and which races. Doing all 8 starter races on one page is too much. Should we stay with the current demo races? Those are the old starter races, i.e. Coral Elf, Dwarf, Lava Elf, and Goblin.
_________________
You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[piMaster]

I think keeping it at 18 health would be good. We don't want the games to be too short either.

Coral Elf: Lacking saves
Dwarf: Fine for demo
Goblin: Fine for demo
Lava Elf: Fine for demo
Amazon: Fine for demo
Firewalker: Fine for demo
Undead: Too specialized
Feral: Fine for demo
Swamp Stalker: Fine for demo
Frostwing: Too many SAIs (for a demo)
Scalder: Fine for demo
Treefolk: Fine for demo

Of those, Dwarf, Goblin, Amazon, and Feral would probably be my choices.

[chuckpint]

Hmm... Only problem with that last list is the Amazons. We talk about 2 elements, and then throw out one of the few exceptions. I'd think Swamp Stalkers or Lava Elves would be a better choice. However, Lava Elves are about the same as Coral Elves as far as saves go.

Heck, throw out a bit of Nature vs. Death out there, and you could demo with one Nature and one Death race. Some people are more hooked with some back story as opposed to simply raw gaming.
_________________
You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[ddicerc]

I think going with the original four races is best. While we don't use racial abilities in a demo, those four races have the easiest racial abilities to explain in the post-demo talk. Plus, no matter what starter assortments we end up with, we're pretty much committed to always having those four races as any part of a starter mix.

If we're not going to use monsters in the booth demos, there had better be monsters there to show after the fact so players know what they are when they buy and open a starter. I'd still rather play with the mix in a starter for that reason, even though it is a little tougher to explain.

I also think whatever dice are used should be a matched starter pair. I generally use dwarf/goblin, but an all-elf battle would do. And that will always provide a Nature vs. Death theme.
_________________
Steve "DDice" Braun
The Diceman's Gaming Pages: http://ddicerc.weebly.com
2014-2015 U.S. National Champion
(Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...)

[DEEPBLUEB2]

I'm not trying to cause any disruption....
but by using Monsters....
When you are first introduced to Dragon Dice,
the Geometrics are Quite intriguing,
rather than Square cubes,
the monster dice having the same coloring as the six sided units but have a different shape,
to a new player it sparks interest.

[piMaster]

If we do put monsters in, then we should put in the ones with the least complicated SAIs.

Coral Giant, Gryphon, Sprite Swarm
Androsphinx, Roc
Death Naga, Shambler, Troll
Hell Hound

If we pick one monster from each, I'd say Gryphon (saves well), Androsphinx, Shambler, and Hell Hound.

As long as the rares and monsters have simple SAIs, we can use the full SAI rules in the demos. SAIs give alot to the flavor of the game, and it might be good to show them that.

[chuckpint]

Ok, If we pick the dice for the demo, how about the following:

One of each common (5 health)
Missile, Heavy, Magic units for Uncommons. (6 health)
Heavy (Smite) unit for the rare (3 health)
The following monsters: (4 health)
Sprite Swarm (Fly, Group ID)
Androsphinx (Roar, Rend)
Shambler (Smother, Smite)
Drider (Web)

SAIs: Smite, Fly, Roar, Rend, Smother, Web.

Spells:

Coral Elf:
Watery Double
Breath of Life
Wind Walk

Dwarves:
Stoneskin
Spark of Life
Path

Goblins:
Stoneskin
Reanimate Dead
Palsy

Lava Elf:
Palsy
Reanimate Dead
Finger of Death

All:
Summon Dragon
_________________
You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[piMaster]

Instead of the rare heavy units, how about the cavalry or light units? Monsters are already melee machines, and you have the common and uncommon heavy units already. Plus, that would give the Coral Elves and Lava Elves more saves with their cavalry units, and the Dwarves and Goblins would get more saves from the light units.

I avoided the Drider because the Web SAI has a duration. It it easier to use SAIs that either produce normal results or special results w/o a duration.

The Sprite Swarm Group Monster ID will be a little much I think. We could either "forget" about that for the demo, or use the Gryphon. Otherwise,
the Sprite Swarm is fine for demos.

For Lava Elves, how about the Spark of Life spell instead of the Reanimate Dead spell? Then they would have a mixture of red and black spells.

We should have spell cards available in the demo for spells like Watery Double, Stoneskin, etc.

[chuckpint]

Ok, I could to with the Light units. The Cavalry units all have different SAIs, I wanted to have all the same SAI on the rares. Smite just seemed to be the simplest SAI, but Counter is not bad. I want to avoid Cantrip, in many ways, it's the most complicated SAI we have.

I went with the Drider because I didn't like the "kill and bury" of the Hell Hound's Flame SAI. The Rakshasa has the same problem as the Drider with the Illusion SAI. No way I want to go with the SAI-heavy Beholder. So the Lava Elf choice is tough.....

Good idea on Spark of Life, I'll change that. Spell cards would be easy as well.
_________________
You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[piMaster]

If we have spell cards, then we could have an SAI card for Web.

As far as cavalry vs light rares, it might depend on the race mixes. For example, the Eagle Knight and the Wyvern Rider both have Fly, so if those two are demoed together, then that's fine (especially since the Coral Elf monster will have Fly on it). For a Dwarf/Goblin demo, the light units would be good.