This is the second blog post discussing the recent changes to Farrago Tavern ruleset (ok.. It’s a little late). In this post we wanted to share how we addressed overall game length and a broken point system.
Read MoreIf you have taken a look at the new ruleset that we have recently announced, you will have noticed some pretty significant changes to the way the rules are structured compared to the last release of the Print&Play pdf. Over the next few blog posts, we would like to explain our reasoning behind those changes and how we came about them. In this post, we discuss the problem of front-loading players with information at the start of the turn and how it can create downtime and stall the progress of the game’s story.
This was the biggest issue that came up routinely during playtesting. It was also our biggest blind spot. When you’ve been playing a game for close to a year, sometimes prominent problems become very easy flaws to ignore, and you need outside eyes to point them out.
The core issue revolves around front loading a large amount of storytelling work on the player before they ever get to the point of telling a story. Previously, at the start of every turn, players would have to choose 3 of 5 possible storyboard cards they would have to use in their story. This would lead to downtime while the player thought of every card combination, their character card, their location card, and their conclusion card. That’s 6 cards you would have to think through before you can even start talking.
The new ruleset eliminates several of these speed bumps: now, instead of selecting cards at the start of your turn, only one card starts on the storyboard. This card will always be the conclusion from the previous turn/story. This approach streamlines the game so players don’t have to consider all of the possible pathways there story can take. Now players can say ‘I know who I am, where I am, the one storyboard card, and where my story ends’ and can immediately jump into storytelling from there. This approach has an additional benefit in that it eliminates ‘zombie’ cards by removing other cards from play after each turn.
The ‘Zombie Card’ problem a problem in which cards would be used by multiple storytellers in a row because they were either easy to implement or build upon. And while we aim to encourage players building upon each other's stories, players would tend to ignore all other story possibilities in favor of those familiar. This typically happened with cards that were very easy to use, like ‘The Earth’ in the space deck. This caused a few issues, the most obvious being that you would hear the same bet in multiple story lines. This resulted in recycling the same story beets used earlier in the game. Additionally it would cause stories to collide in ways that were awkward and generally unfavorable to players going later in the round. However, the old rule set could also create the opposite effect, where players’ story would have very little overlap, if any. The way that stories interact and collide with each other in Farrago Tavern is something we seek to encourage. So the question we faced was “How do we encourage players to build upon story elements from previous stories, but not be reliant on them throughout the entire game?”
The solution we implemented is a two step process that turns the conclusion cards throughout game into tentpoles for the each player’s story to build upon. When a player finishes their turn, the first storyboard card from their story gets moved over into a new legacy position, and their conclusion takes it’s place on the storyboard. All other cards added via the ‘buy a drink’ mechanic are discarded. So at the start of the next player's turn, there is one storyboard card and one Legacy Card. The Legacy Card becomes a bridge to build upon past stories that players may choose to ignore or incorporate for a bonus point. The result is stories that are tied together by snippets and pieces that come and go at a regular rate, but the major story elements are divergent. This allows the story progress and add new story elements while granting a predictable amount of overlap between each story.
We hope you enjoyed this brief view into our thought processes during the development of Farrago Tavern. Stay tuned for more posts discussing the recent changes to the Farrago Tavern ruleset.
-The Farrago Team
Hello Everyone!
We know it has been a while since we last posted, but we have been hard at work in the meantime. And we have some pretty awesome stuff to share with you. :)
After receiving feedback from beta testers, friends, and the website, we have made some changes to the rule set for Farrago Tavern. We believe the new rule set is easier to read and understand while still facilitating those chaotic and interweaving stories our players seem to love. The new rule set will replace the current Print&Play version of the game when this post goes live, so you can try out the brand new Farrago Tavern Rules RIGHT NOW! We would love to go into detail about the motivation for the changes, but that would be far too much for this post and a perfect segway for...
A Development Blog! We are starting a development blog for Farrago Tavern that will chronicle our experience in creating the game. While we have both been avid gamers for most of our lives, neither of us work in the game industry; so we would love to record the journey from enthusiasts to developer and share it with you all. There are many lessons we have learned about game play and design; we would love a channel to discuss those lessons and explain the reasoning and processes behind Farrago Tavern. The Development Blog will be available off of the website’s homepage.
We are also starting work on a 72 card “Core” deck for Farrago Tavern. This deck will include elements and prompts from everyday life such as “The Office”, “The Airport”, and “The Hipster”. Farrago Tavern has always been developed with the idea of mish-mashing different genres together, but we wanted to make a deck that would be more relatable and more accessible to new players. Once Farrago Tavern is kickstarted, the Core Deck will be available alongside the other Genre Decks. However, you will be able to play with the Core Deck much sooner than that, as we will be adding 36 cards from the Core Deck to the Print&Play game as soon as they are ready. Our hope is to continue the Core series after the initial deck along with the Genre Sets, so that those not particularly interested in the genre mashing aspect of the game will always have new content to look forward to.
Things are starting to ramp up, and we cannot wait to hear what you think of the new and improved Farrago Tavern. Hopefully our next post will come soon, but in the meantime, check out the Development blog. Our first post discusses the reasoning behind the aforementioned changes to the rule set.
Keep those drinks coming and those stories rambling.
-The Farrago Team
