I posted this over on BGG, but figured I should post here as well.

For those who don't know, I'm working with Gallagen on creating an Advanced Campaign for Doom (similar to Descent's Road To Legend expansion) and I think I've settled on how the 'overland' map will work. After discussing at length the pros and cons of doing a Galaxy Map or a Mars Map, I've come up with a hybrid of sorts (thanks Ted Conn over at BGG) that I'm dubbing the Solar System Map. This allows an expansive feel that accommodates time passage that you don't get with a Mars-only map, but stays close enough to the theme you don't get with a Galaxy map.

It is basically a map with 5 sections: Mars, Phobos, Deimos, Io, and Titan. Similar to the overland map in RtL, each section will have one or two Outposts (cities) and 5 to 10 Locations (dungeons). The Outposts and Locations will be interconnected within a section but not connected to other section's Outposts or Cities (i.e. Mars City will be connected to Alpha Labs, Delta Labs, etc, but not to Io's Military Complex). Travel between sections (for example, from Mars to Phobos) will require a Portal jump. Each Outpost will have a Portal that you can use to jump from section to section.

Travelling between locations within a section there is a chance of a random encounter. These encounters will be similar to RtL's, in that you will draw a card for the encounter's "boss" and supporting creatures. You will also draw a card for the map. Traveling between sections using the portal has a chance of a random encounter in Hell. In these maps, it's more a race from one side to another. A 'portal' will placed on each side of the map,the Marines on one side, and they can either go back to the Outpost they jumped from, or race to the other side to get to the Outpost they were going to.

Here are the Sections, Outposts and Locations:
Mars
- Mars City
- Alpha Labs
- Communications
- Recycling Plant
- Monorail Station
- Administration
- EnPro Plant
- Delta Labs
- Central Processing
- Excavation Site

Phobos
- Military Base
- Hanger
- Refinery
- Contaiment
- Control

Deimos
- Outpost Omega
- Engineering
- Holding Area
- Tech Center
- Alpha Quadrant

Io
- Systems Control
- Hangar
- Prison
- Storage Facility
- Military Complex
- Nukage Processing
- Steel Works
- Mill
- Habitat

Titan
- Communications Tower
- Power Control
- Terraformer Station
- Admin Center
- Medical Research Center
- Storage Facility
- Operation Room
- Gardens
- Crater

So, thoughts on the Sections, Outposts, Locations? And on the various names? I tried to use previous Doom game level names when coming up with these. Marine advanced training and restocking happen in each Outpost, so I'll be making special notes as to what can happen where next.

If anyone wants to help, please do

-shnar

Just a question, did you post in the Doom or Doom Expansion on BGG?

Ok I have to admit, this is like the coolest project I've ever hear of about Doom the Boardgame. I hope you can make it happen!

I still play the game a lot with my friends and this will add a lot of fun! If I can help in any way just let me know

I'm posting in the Doom section, under the Variants forum, and things are slowly but surely progressing along.

I'm currently working on the rulebook, and then will move on to creating the specific items (i.e. cards). Right now, I'm figuring out the details of the Encounters, plus create the special Hell encounters. I think I've worked out the overland map and how frags/accommodations work. I'll keep everyone updated as things progress

-shnar

Very cool project. Do keep us posted.

Will you be creating new tiles for random overland encounters and Hell? I guess for outside encounters you could use some of the airless terrain pieces.

I was thinking the overland encounters, but they aren't very convenient. Each one assumes you are connecting them to an inside piece, so you can't get very large overland sites.

Hell counter tiles would be *awesome*, but I want the game to be playable as much as possible with the base game. So far, I'm planning on having cards and extra tokens for the maps, but that's it. Those aren't too hard to print-n-play, just on cardstock and cut out, though I guess we /could/ do the same for Hell tiles. I'll have to think about it, but for the first iteration, it will be base+expansion tiles (and even then, I think I'm going to segregate the two, similar to how RtL put the icons on the card, i.e. this location requires the expansion to use, so you could play the Advanced Campaign with just the base game).

-shnar

Yeah making new tiles and stuff is a lot of extra work. but still... Maybe for a later expansion? will you be making new weapons? Marine characters to play (like in Descent, for example varikas and Landrec)?

No. My goal is to use the base game with as little changes as possible. I don't want to make this a Doom-becomes-Descent mod. I want to be able to play Doom but over many, connected sessions. Similar to what RtL did for Descent (it didn't change the basic rules that much).

So, Marines will start with 1 skill and through their Accommodations (they earn one for each Sector level they progress through (similar to how Heroes earn CP for each Dungeon level they go through)) they will be able to purchase upgrades for themselves and their squad:
- Additional skills
- Additional Permanent Health
- Access to Restricted Weapons (at start, you can only use Fist, Pistol and Shotgun. If you find another weapon in a Sector, at the end you have to turn it in since you don't have access to use that weapon)
- Additional Permanent Armor
- Additional Speed (slightly new concept to Doom)
- Squad Upgrades (Perma-fix Flashlights, Communications Booster, etc)

The unique thing with Doom in the Advanced Training is that you can't just purchase skills willy-nilly, there will be a skill tree. These different upgrades will only be available on the appropriate skill trees. For example, the extra armor is only available on the Grunt skill tree. A marine will have to choose how to specialize. Certain top-level skills are only available if you've trained in the bottom 3 categories, etc.

But my overriding goal is to make is so that the basic game still plays like Doom with very few changes.

-shnar

Sounds cool, but the skill tree thing is quite a change I think.

For my games I use 8 marine characters based on the movie with each character a certain class with only certain skills from te deck available to him. Something similar. I'll use your system if it is better

It's a similar concept. I wanted to create groupings of skills that make sense for a certain type of character. The list I have so far is:
* Recon (emphasis speed)
* Grunt (emphasis armor)
* Sniper (emphasis range)
* Sargeant (emphasis leadership skills)
* Medic (emphasis healing abilities)
* Demolitions (emphasis AOE damage)
* Engineer (emphasis tech stuff)

So splitting off skills, as well as other special abilities (like +Health, +Speed, Weapons Access, +Armor, etc) into specific categories will force the players to effectively choose which type of character they want to play/specialize in. It also helps with the get-more-powerful concept (the better skills will be higher up the tree, taking longer in the campaign to achieve).

I haven't gotten very far on the skill tree system though, just the concept. I'll post back when I have concreted this more.

-shnar

This sounds like a great project and I recently started playing my board game again, as I finally found some more people to play with. So I wish you the best of luck and ask that you keep working at it, as it sounds great!

I personally tried to develop a sort of class/skill system with the cards, each one focusing on different specialities, so I'm very interested to see how your skill list comes out. I think it'll be very interesting to look over. Keep at it and if you have a copy, I'd love to see what you have already laid out for 'Class Skills'!

Thanks, I have to admit, this has been pretty fun in creating. I actually haven't gotten far in creating the Skill Tree yet, so if you have any input you want to throw my way, I'd love to have it

Right now, I'm working on the Rulebook, modelling it very closely to the RtL rulebook. Once that's done, then I was going to dive into the details, i.e. Sector Levels, Skill Trees, Outpost Levels, Encounters, Hell Encounters, etc. Yes, a lot of work left to do, but fun while I'm making it

-shnar

I have been following your Advanced Campaign posts as well. I was recently in a bind over which game to purchase (Doom vs. Descent)...Hearing Doom and Descent were based on the same "system", I only wanted to try one. After heavy deliberation, I decided to go with Doom. I hadn't thought (or realized) it was discontinued at the time of purchase, but that doesn't phase me.

I'm looking forward to the final result of this project.

Hmmm...Doom is at my doorstep as I type. Time to take off work early!!!

Oh, I should have read that more carefully. You're actually trying to develop SKILL TREES! I just simply gave each 'marine career' 3 different abilities which seemed to have good synergy and play-tested them to see how they worked out, whilst also limiting certain 'larger' weapons to certain careers. I'm actually pretty happy with the results... but I wonder why *I* never thought of a skill-tree system? That is pretty interesting concept...

Hmmm... I've been giving it a little thought and I think I could adapt something for that purpose. Do you have a basic layout of maybe what you were thinking that I could take a gander at? I'd be interested to see what basic concept you have for doing the Skill Trees. If not, maybe a brief description of what you had in mind? If I think of any ideas, I'll gladly post them here for you to review and see if you like.

Man... making up the classes for my Doom: TBG mod was one of the most fun things I've ever done... glad I can do something similar all over again! (:

I've been jotting most of my ideas down over at BGG (check out the Doom Variants board at http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/69/thing/10640 ) but my first post that really started exploring different ways to do a Doom Advanced Campaign is at http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/394481 . Scroll down to where I talk about Accommodations. Following how Descent's AC works, the marines need some kind of progression. I was thinking we'd start them all off with just one skill, and after clearing out a few Sectors, they would earn Accommodations. After so many Accommodations (at first I was thinking 10, but I might alter that to 5, since I have a lot of skills/things to buy in the skill trees) they can receive Advanced Training.

One of the things I never liked about Descent's training was that every skill is available to any player, you just have to A) travel to that city and B) that skill could not have been taken by another player already. So, it became easy to uber-boost a character out. In Doom, I wanted to try to balance that out by putting some of the more powerful skills at the top of a specialized skill tree, so a Marine would have to earn 2 or 3 skills/abilities before having access to one of the uber ones. I also was adding non-skill abilities into this tree (extra health, extra armor, weapons access, and extra speed).

I also wanted to organize these trees into themes that made sense in a military aspect. Here's a short list of what I was going to use to organize:

Some of the skills/abilities would be available in more than one of the trees, and would probably just be a first-come, first-serve. A marine would not be forced to pick a theme and stick with it, it's just the cooler skills are deep enough into the tree that they would probably want to.

Now, the real tricky part, creating the skill tree. I was going to complete the rulebook before diving into that, so if you want to have a wack at it, go nuts

-shnar

Great ideas! Can't wait to see it!

It's been a while. I hope it's still alive. Doom is a wonderful game in great need of an extended campaign option.

I started working on the manual, basing it on the RtL one, and got about half way through before RL too a big bite out of my time

I'm not giving up on this idea of an Advanced Campaign, it's just not high priority atm. Now that school has started again, kids back in school, I should have some time that I can put in the evenings to completing the manual. My goal is to complete the manual, then the skill-tree and location skills/abilities, then start designing Sector Levels, which could take a while...

-shnar

If you need help or ideas/suggestions (even stupid ones), just ask. Many of us are thrilled about this!

GO, SHNAR!!!