I have two playable "board" games, a token/tile game, and a sport developed for my world thus far. "King's Field" (a Chess-like game of strategy), "Pebbles and Pits" (a hybrid of Mancala and Aablone), "Tokens" (a gambling game using strategy and chance), and the mob sport "Cat in the Basket" (a kind of Rugby played around a central goal ring.) Such windows into a culture are fascinating, and one can always develop regional variants, or similar games using the same game pieces.
My world has a mixture of Settlers of Catan, Chess and Warhammer. While there are "easy" rules that are enjoyed by mere officers and merchants, there are tournaments using the full ruleset to establish the heir of a throne, proving economic, strategic and deception skills. It uses a 15x15 hexgrid game board with each hex field representing a "terrain type" (randomly set by blindly drawing the tiles from a bag and placing in order). There are several chess pieces - Troops - with different abilities and functions. At the end of each turn, each tile "controlled" earns a number of beads. Beads can be used to add more Troops to the board. Whoever has the most beads or the most controlled tiles after 32 turns wins the match. A game is 3 matches (or 5 matches for succession tournaments).
The big game in my world is Dragon Chess. It takes place on three boards: a surface board (which looks much like mundane chess), a subteranean board (which can be transformed by some of the pieces, and a sky board. It tends to be a game favored by the wealthy, as it's fairly complicated and takes dedication to just learn the complex rules. Stones is a game played by everyone who can get their hands on a web-like circular grid and some rocks. Like chess, it's a game of capturing terrain and pieces. The upper classes consider it to be too simple, but certain artisanal classes have taken to it strongly. The Wheel is a card games played across social classes, but is favored by soldiers. It's a card game of bluffing and trick-taking where temprorary alliances are common, as is betraying those alliances. It's played with a deck of 56 cards divided into four suits of 14 cards each (thing a Tarot deck but with the Major Arcana removed). Some feel that a player's future can be divined by the cards that show up in the game. Four Pots Challenge is a game played in harems, pleasure houses, and especially high-class brothels. It involves snatching tokens from a pot surrounded by three potted hedonia plants. The venom of the hedonia's thorns is a potent aphrodisiac. Whenever you grab another player's tokens from the pot, they owe you a forfeit which can range from answering a question honestly to sexual services. Coins is a game of dexterity that requires you to flip coins into a circle and have them land a certain way. You capture other player's coins by surrounding them with three coins that all are showing your "side" (like pool, the first few moves dictate if you're a heads or tails). The game is very popular among thieves, pirates, and the like.
Dragon Chess definitely would be a game too high for my pecking order. Stones sounds fun, so does the Wheel. I won't comment on the Four Pots Challenge because Mother UA-cam will definitely dislike me doing it I guess, but I really like the context of it. Coins sounds annoying though. I'd probably hate playing it. But that's no qualms about the worldbuild around it.
@@StarlasAiko, thanks! Dragon Chess is loosely based on a game published in DRAGON magazine #100. And I don’t think Steam would let me publish a 4 pots game. ;)
Fencing is a good game/sport for Festivals and similar occasions, where Player Characters can test their Skill and Potentially win prizes and respect. That way you can have exitement without a life or death situation, flesh out the world and provide the players with opportunities to win things as well associalize for rumors, questhooks and connections.
Pulling this out my head. This is going to be like among us. Played with a few strips of cloth, a few scrolls, and a knife. All players get a strip of cloth, which starts out wrapped up. Inside all but one of those cloths contains a scroll which has a random list of tasks. (Civilian) with the last piece of cloth containing the knife. (Thief) Once everyone has their things, they tie that strip of cloth to their belt. The thief will try to collect these strips using his knife. The Civilians will try to complete their tasks while avoiding the thief. Such a game may have it's roots in a city. Developing awareness of potential cutpurses, or to train such cutpurses.
In my story one group is conquering another very primitive people and they try to culture them by introducing jousting, archery contests, poetry readings, one on one combat, three on three combat, and a ten person free for all.
Being one of the "freaks" who actually enjoyed playing Blitzball in FFX, I quickly found myself trying to develop at least one original sport for the world I've been building - or at least as close to original as I can get. Ideally, I am trying to go for one individual sport and one team sport. It is certainly tough to do, given that for my whole life, I have been a nerd who started out hating sports (now, I am just mostly indifferent). I currently have a couple of _very_ rough and barebone outlines, but they're probably going to be one of the last things, if not THE last thing, I sufficiently flesh out.
I mean you don't have to flesh out the entire sport if you don't want to. It's not easy to create a sport that's actually fun all of a sudden. And yes Blitzball's concept was fun, I just didn't like playing Blitzball as a mini game. Like so many.
@@worldbuildingsage Obviously, there is no way I am going to write out the rulebook(s) - I am not _that_ insane - but I am trying to get the broad strokes down with enough minutiae to allow for tension and drama in any specific game/round/match/etc I decide to dedicate a chapter or two to. At this point, all I've got can be summarized as, "What if the game Hydro Thunder was a real competition with real tracks." Not the most original, I know, but I had found myself wanting to hear the game's main menu voice announcing each race and giving commentary as each one goes.
People play American football in yards and fields all the time You just either play tackle with no pads, two hand touch or flag. All you need to know are basic things like where the sidelines are and the endzone. Plus if there are downs/distances.
I have two playable "board" games, a token/tile game, and a sport developed for my world thus far. "King's Field" (a Chess-like game of strategy), "Pebbles and Pits" (a hybrid of Mancala and Aablone), "Tokens" (a gambling game using strategy and chance), and the mob sport "Cat in the Basket" (a kind of Rugby played around a central goal ring.)
Such windows into a culture are fascinating, and one can always develop regional variants, or similar games using the same game pieces.
My world has a mixture of Settlers of Catan, Chess and Warhammer. While there are "easy" rules that are enjoyed by mere officers and merchants, there are tournaments using the full ruleset to establish the heir of a throne, proving economic, strategic and deception skills.
It uses a 15x15 hexgrid game board with each hex field representing a "terrain type" (randomly set by blindly drawing the tiles from a bag and placing in order). There are several chess pieces - Troops - with different abilities and functions. At the end of each turn, each tile "controlled" earns a number of beads. Beads can be used to add more Troops to the board. Whoever has the most beads or the most controlled tiles after 32 turns wins the match. A game is 3 matches (or 5 matches for succession tournaments).
The big game in my world is Dragon Chess. It takes place on three boards: a surface board (which looks much like mundane chess), a subteranean board (which can be transformed by some of the pieces, and a sky board. It tends to be a game favored by the wealthy, as it's fairly complicated and takes dedication to just learn the complex rules.
Stones is a game played by everyone who can get their hands on a web-like circular grid and some rocks. Like chess, it's a game of capturing terrain and pieces. The upper classes consider it to be too simple, but certain artisanal classes have taken to it strongly.
The Wheel is a card games played across social classes, but is favored by soldiers. It's a card game of bluffing and trick-taking where temprorary alliances are common, as is betraying those alliances. It's played with a deck of 56 cards divided into four suits of 14 cards each (thing a Tarot deck but with the Major Arcana removed). Some feel that a player's future can be divined by the cards that show up in the game.
Four Pots Challenge is a game played in harems, pleasure houses, and especially high-class brothels. It involves snatching tokens from a pot surrounded by three potted hedonia plants. The venom of the hedonia's thorns is a potent aphrodisiac. Whenever you grab another player's tokens from the pot, they owe you a forfeit which can range from answering a question honestly to sexual services.
Coins is a game of dexterity that requires you to flip coins into a circle and have them land a certain way. You capture other player's coins by surrounding them with three coins that all are showing your "side" (like pool, the first few moves dictate if you're a heads or tails). The game is very popular among thieves, pirates, and the like.
Dragon Chess definitely would be a game too high for my pecking order. Stones sounds fun, so does the Wheel. I won't comment on the Four Pots Challenge because Mother UA-cam will definitely dislike me doing it I guess, but I really like the context of it. Coins sounds annoying though. I'd probably hate playing it. But that's no qualms about the worldbuild around it.
@@worldbuildingsage , yeah, if you want the details on Four Pots, need to find a venue more agreeable to that sort of thing, like Fet. ;p
Stealing these for my world...YOINK...mine now. Great games, would not mind seeing some of them in game shops or as virtual tabletop games on Steam.
@@StarlasAiko, thanks! Dragon Chess is loosely based on a game published in DRAGON magazine #100. And I don’t think Steam would let me publish a 4 pots game. ;)
Fencing is a good game/sport for Festivals and similar occasions, where Player Characters can test their Skill and Potentially win prizes and respect.
That way you can have exitement without a life or death situation, flesh out the world and provide the players with opportunities to win things as well associalize for rumors, questhooks and connections.
Pulling this out my head. This is going to be like among us.
Played with a few strips of cloth, a few scrolls, and a knife.
All players get a strip of cloth, which starts out wrapped up. Inside all but one of those cloths contains a scroll which has a random list of tasks. (Civilian) with the last piece of cloth containing the knife. (Thief)
Once everyone has their things, they tie that strip of cloth to their belt. The thief will try to collect these strips using his knife. The Civilians will try to complete their tasks while avoiding the thief.
Such a game may have it's roots in a city. Developing awareness of potential cutpurses, or to train such cutpurses.
In my story one group is conquering another very primitive people and they try to culture them by introducing jousting, archery contests, poetry readings, one on one combat, three on three combat, and a ten person free for all.
Doing it the Roman way through culture.
Being one of the "freaks" who actually enjoyed playing Blitzball in FFX, I quickly found myself trying to develop at least one original sport for the world I've been building - or at least as close to original as I can get. Ideally, I am trying to go for one individual sport and one team sport.
It is certainly tough to do, given that for my whole life, I have been a nerd who started out hating sports (now, I am just mostly indifferent). I currently have a couple of _very_ rough and barebone outlines, but they're probably going to be one of the last things, if not THE last thing, I sufficiently flesh out.
I mean you don't have to flesh out the entire sport if you don't want to. It's not easy to create a sport that's actually fun all of a sudden.
And yes Blitzball's concept was fun, I just didn't like playing Blitzball as a mini game. Like so many.
@@worldbuildingsage Obviously, there is no way I am going to write out the rulebook(s) - I am not _that_ insane - but I am trying to get the broad strokes down with enough minutiae to allow for tension and drama in any specific game/round/match/etc I decide to dedicate a chapter or two to.
At this point, all I've got can be summarized as, "What if the game Hydro Thunder was a real competition with real tracks." Not the most original, I know, but I had found myself wanting to hear the game's main menu voice announcing each race and giving commentary as each one goes.
Imagining how stuff works out in a way that will probably never see the light of day in fiction is what worldbuilding is all about in the end.
People play American football in yards and fields all the time
You just either play tackle with no pads, two hand touch or flag.
All you need to know are basic things like where the sidelines are and the endzone. Plus if there are downs/distances.