:strip_icc()/pic2495821.jpg)
/pic2496558.jpg)
SPOILER WARNING: I'm going to talk about the structure of the Temple of Elemental Evil board game's story, which may be considered spoilers. For those of you that want to experience the story first, I would suggest waiting to read this till after you’ve played through the campaign.
Reinforcing Narrative through Design
As Peter mentioned in his designer diary, there are several narrative themes we wanted to convey in the Temple of Elemental Evil board game: isolation, hidden evil, trust, and empowerment. These elements are enforced throughout the encounter deck, monster deck, and even the tiles themselves.
:strip_icc()/pic2495860.jpg)
:strip_icc()/pic2496362.jpg)
Dark Gift: This was one of the first cards I designed for the game and the one I'm proudest of. It captures all the themes and creates different tension depending on when you draw it. Early in an adventure, it seems like a no-brainer: "I'll just give the character with the most health two damage and draw treasure. Maybe make a fun little jab while I'm at it." However, when it's late in an adventure and the party is worn down, it becomes a much heavier risk/reward scenario that can tip the scales.
Rage of Imix: There are several encounter cards that encourage the players to keep a healthy distance from each other, but Rage of Imix is the first one we designed. The fire cult didn't have a huge big bad, so I wanted to tie it to the evil elemental prince of fire. While it seems like a small amount of damage at first if only one player is on the tile, subsequent draws increase the damage around the map making them high priority to be canceled with XP.
:strip_icc()/pic2495236.jpg)
Doppelgänger: I saw doppelgänger on the miniatures list and immediately wanted to mimic its iconic affinity for subterfuge. Originally, it copied the A.I. and attacks of another monster, but that broke when they were alone. We played with ideas involving other monsters and players. Eventually, we settled on the final design in which the doppelgänger reveals itself to have replaced one of the party members and attacks. Narratively, it doesn't make a lot of sense in a single-player session, but I'm happy with its use in a multi-player game.
:strip_icc()/pic2495199.jpg)
Traps: Peter wanted to make traps simplified and more important. He designed the traps to be tiles that appear face-down on the map (on each red X in the image above). Once a player walks over it, it activates, and the damage can be high or nothing at all. What we saw during playtest were players treating the traps as hard walls and trying to explore around them. This lead to several design changes that reduced the stress from seeing traps, including the disarm trap action, the rogue's reliable talent card, and the winged boots. We also placed traps on the starting tile so that players quickly learned the methods to deal with them. This helped make traps something to be nervous around, but not overtly hate.
:strip_icc()/pic2495200.jpg)
Campaign System: Persistent Play in the Adventure System
One of the design goals for Temple of Elemental Evil was to add investment to the game. We wanted players to have a sense of anticipation from play session to play session, and create a "just one more game" episodic feel. We designed the campaign system to give players a persistent character across all thirteen adventures, each of which adds different cards depending on the outcome of the adventure. In between the adventures, players can spend the gold they collected to advance their character.
The idea started with Peter who looked at how to add permanence to a board game. There was a lot of brainstorming that brewed ideas like stickers and multiple cards for multiple levels. In the end, we found the token system to be the cleanest implementation: It gives players ownership of their character through customization while using the least amount of additional components, thereby allowing for infinite replayability.
A lot of testing was done over the course of development, going through the campaign system multiple times. Having a permanent level 2 for your character feels awesome and so does getting a +1 damage token, but we didn't want to trivialize the game. The campaign needed to grow with the players, and that's where the advanced cards came in. Previously, in The Legend of Drizzt, the advanced cards were more of a built-in expansion pack, i.e., once you were familiar with the game you could add them for a deeper pool of cards and complexity. In Temple of Elemental Evil, these cards are used to keep track of your progress through the campaign system. Completing adventures with full healing surges meant you received unique treasure, but it also meant the cultists would push back that much harder. Keeping balance was a fine line we worked hard to keep, but I feel like we accomplished it while giving players a unique experience in progression that will encourage multiple playthroughs.
:strip_icc()/pic2495206.png)
Humor
A major understated element of D&D is humor. From weird bickering cultists and flumphs in an adventure module to Minsc & Boo in Baldur's Gate, humor breaks monotony and shines like a beacon in the bleakest stories. Flavor text is a great space to add humor to a board or card game, and I hope you get a laugh out of them, but we also leveraged other spaces for D&D fans. Ettin's are two-headed giants whose individual heads have a separate name that combines into one goofy name, hence the birth of Swerglemergle. (Fun fact: I did several searches because I was worried about unknowingly using a euphemism.)
Adventure Design
A big change in this game is the introduction of the town of Red Larch. It served a lot for us: a change of pace, a change of scenery, and an anchor to the story. Repeated trips back into town where a different crisis arose made it feel more like there was something at stake beyond just the player's well-being. The town adventures served as a way to bridge the acts, but it also served as a new ground for adventure design, leading to one of my favorite ones: "Rotten in Red Larch", a mix-and-match game within a traditional adventure in which players are trying to find doppelgängers hidden within town.
Overall, I'm really happy to have worked on this game and how it turned out. Between the campaign system and the overall tone of the game, it feels like its own beast, while still being compatible with the other Adventure System games. I look forward to seeing what players make of it!
Ben Petrisor
/pic2489670.png)
:strip_icc()/pic2496399.jpg)
/pic2495860.jpg)
/pic2031465.jpg)
