Custom Scenario - Rise of the Nightbringer

By Havelock Victus, in Relic

Posted at
Greetings! I've been playing the core Relic game for a few months, so i feel now comfortable enough to create some content and house rules.
I'd like to include a scenario that involves a shard of the Nightbringer lying on a Tomb World on the center of the Wap Rift. Due to the conflict on the Antian Sector, he is now slowly awakening and the Imperial Players must work together to counter this terrible threat.
This scenario is mainly cooperative (players will either win or lose together) so i added the "Shoulder to Shoulder" rule from Nemesis in order to give the Imperials some help.
The game is based on a well known concept called "Doom Track" (here called "Necron Rising Track", or NRT from now on). This track can be a crafted dial (like the Nemesis Dial), using pen & paper, dice etc
If the players do not resolve the threat before the NRT reaches it's end, then they all lose the game. The NRT limit is based on the initial amount of players on the setup. Note that i tested this with 2, 3 and 4 players and the core rules...i have no idea how it would fare with 5-6 and the Nemesis Expansion.
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Rise of the Nightbringer
Special Game Rules - Whenever the active player draws a Threat Card with an Omen Icon, he must advance the "Necron Rising Track" by one point. If the track reaches the endgame value (see Necron Raising Track below), then the Nightbringer rises on his full might and all players lose the game!
At the start of the engagement phase, if a player is on the Blackstone Fortress space, he may instead discard one 5+ Power Card to decrease the Necron Rising Track by one step. .
At the end of your movement phase you may trade any amount of Power Cards, Trophies, Assets and Influence with any player sharing your space.
Confrontation: Initiate a Battle against the Nightbringer. During the Determine Battle Form Step, select the battle form of your choice. The Nightbringer battle bonus for all attributes is equal 6 + NRT.
Any amount of players on this sheet may assist you by adding their attribute score (the one matching your Battle Form) to your Battle Score.
If you win the Battle, place one charge token on this sheet and reduce the "Necron Rising Track" by one and one extra step for each player that assisted you.
If you lose the Battle, you and any assisting players lose one life (as normal) and each must discard one asset of Power card. For each discard refusal, or unavailability to do so, the Necron Rising Track is increased by one step.
If any player is Vanquished by the Nightbringer, that player is eliminated from the game instead.
If there are four charge tokens on this sheet, all players win the game!
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Necron Rising Track
At the beginning of the game, NRT starts at 0. Every time the current player draws a threat card with an omen symbol, increase the track by one. Each time the NRT reaches a Necron symbol (every 4 steps), the active player rolls a die and applies the result for all players. Once a Necron Symbol has been resolved, it cannot be resolved again on this game (you may mark it somehow to better remember).
The endgame values are related for the amount of players that started the game and are not affected if a player is eliminated. Whenever the NRT reaches it's proper endgame value all players automatically lose the game.

Necron Rising Track

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
X X X X X X

13 (endgame for game with 2 players)

19 (endgame for game with 3 players)
25 (endgame for game with 4 players)
X = Roll 1D6 and apply the result for all players.
1-3 - Lose one life
4 - Discard an Asset or Power Card
5 - Draw a Corruption Card
6 - Nothing happens.
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There might be a problem with the Nightbringer itself: With the current rules, it is quite difficult for one player to beat the Nightbringer alone (as intented), so he should have assistance from at least one player. But that would mean that those players must enter the Warp Rift basically at the same time: otherwise, they will be hit by the Nightbringer a few times until the other reaches the center (which is bad, since losing a battle risks advance of the NRT and possibly being eliminated from the game).
I've got a few ideas for this:
1) The last tile of the inner tier (Maze of Tzeentch) could be replaced by something like this:
Necron Inner Chamber: Test an attribute of your choice at 10. If you fail, lose one life. You may stand on this space instead of advancing next turn. If you do so, place a character token and increase the next skill test difficult by one for each of your character tokens on this place. If you advance, remove all of your character tokens from this place.
I'm sure the text can be refined, so it can fit the tile space, but that's the general idea.
2) Whenever a player activates the Warp Rift for the first time, all players are immediately moved to that space, no matter where they currently are in the game. If a player does not have a relic at that time, he is removed from the game. Then, starting by the active player, resolve the Warp Rift textbox for each player. Aftwewards (and starting by the active player again) every player will advance on the Inner Tier as normal.
Got this idea thanks from a post on this Forum or in BGG. Of course, if not all the players spend the exact amount of influence, trophies or are level 8, they will no reach the center at the exact moment...but at least they will be reasonably close to each other. Perhaps advancing conditions could be required only once for all players? For example, players could pool their resources to have X influence, X trophies and X level to advance together?
3) Create a custom inner tier that resembles the whole tomb world, with it's own mechanics and perhaps related to the NRT score.
This is my main goal, but it will take time, effort and suggestions on how to implement it.
I'll let you know how does the game fare with options 1, 2 and 3. Please let me know of any suggestions whatsoever!

Regards
Edited by Havelock Victus
Posted at

I like the concept, but it has some gameplay issues in its current form. You've got a big, ambitious concept - you just need to focus on your design. You seem to be very interested in the flavor of the Necron race, but I don't see it much in this scenario. Instead you've got a doom track that rather simply ticks onward and occasionally does a random bad thing to the players. It's very standard. There's nothing wrong with standard if you're going for a streamlined co-op experience - but it doesn't really capture the concept you're talking about.

Simultaneously, the rules for the confrontation are rather complex and the confrontation itself is, as you've flagged, going to be a problem for players arriving at different times. Complexity can be endured, especially for homebrew scenarios, for the sake of great concepts but the way it works also is leading to poor gameplay as you've highlighted.

You should focus on one goal or another. Do you want to craft a simple, smooth and elegant co-op scenario? If so, make sure the rules are simple and intuitive as possible and focus on making the gameplay feel great. Or would you rather bring this big concept of going against the Necrons to life? If so, focus on what the necrons should make the players feel and figure out how to bring that feeling to life. In that case, you can make the mechanics complex if need be, it's a homebrew scenario that you can take your time explaining.

Currently, the scenario doesn't deliver on its theme in the quest to keep gameplay rather simple - but the gameplay isn't simple or satisfying enough to stand on its own. I believe that you've likely had a LOT of fun playing this scenario, but I have a hunch that's because co-op scenarios in Relic are *awesome* and go a long way to minimizing a lot of the frustration that the game otherwise has.