24: Tabletop TF2

[dammit]

Downloading updates getting you down? Wobbly internet connections giving you a lagging complex? Tired of playing TF2 with creepy internet stalkers? Well, fear no more! Introducing the first Tabletop TF2 that can be played in the safety of the real world with real people...


The board is designed around the Capture the Flag style of play and players get to build up their teams out of the nine available classes. Best played with four players, teams race across the board to capture the flag and battle each other in a ridiculous race to win.

Sound interesting? Here's the full rule set (January Edition)

Updated Rules here (October Edition).


And here's the board, lovingly designed by our very own Kharrak:



See the next post for the deck (also designed by Kharrak, probably somewhat less lovingly because I'm a total pain to work with :P ).

[dammit]

[Basic useable copy can be downloaded here for printing :D ]

[Kharrak's beautifully designed deck :download at own cap's peril

The Deck:
The deck consists of the following cards (a total of 65 cards for each team as each team has its own deck) with the following values (values and bonuses will be printed on the deck and each card will clearly indicate to which class it belongs):
Scout
[1x]Baseball Bat [Value: 2; Bonus: Plus 5 if enemy token is in adjacent block]
[2x]Pistol [Value: 4; Bonus: Plus 2 if enemy token is one block away]
[2x]Shotgun [Value: 6; Bonus: Plus 1 if enemy token is in adjacent block]
[1x]Bonk Energy Drink [Ends combat and allows the scout token a free move]
Soldier
[1x]Spade [Value: 2; Bonus: Plus 5 if enemy token is in adjacent block]
[2x]Shotgun [Value: 4; Bonus: Plus 2 if enemy token is one block away]
[2x]Rocket Launcher [Value: 6; Bonus: Plus 1 if enemy token within 2 block range]
[1x]Critrawket [Value: Decided by a roll of the 10 sided dice]
Pyro
[1x]Axe [Value: 2 ; Bonus: Plus 5 if enemy token is in adjacent block]
[2x]Flare Gun [Value: 3; Bonus: Plus 3 if enemy token is one block away]
[2x]Flamethrower [Value: 6; Bonus: Plus 1 if enemy token in adjacent block]
[1x]Backburner [Value: Decided by a roll of the dice]
Demoman
[1x]Broken Rum Bottle [Value: 2; Bonus: Plus 5 if enemy token is in adjacent block]
[2x]Stickies [Value: 4; Bonus: Plus 2 if enemy token is one block away]
[2x]Grenade Launcher [Value: 6; Bonus: Plus 2 if enemy token is one block away]
[1x]Pro Pipes [Value: Decided by a roll of the dice]
Heavy
[1x]Fists [Value: 2; Bonus: Plus 5 if enemy token is in adjacent block]
[2x]Shotgun [Value: 4; Bonus: Plus 2 if enemy token is one block away]
[2x]Sasha [Value: 6; Bonus: Plus 1 if enemy token within 2 block range]
[1x]New Meat Sandwich [Equal value to opponent’s card; Plus 1 value to the card played in the next round]
Engineer
[1x]Wrench [Value: 2; Bonus: Plus 5 if enemy token is in adjacent block]
[2x]Pistol [Value: 4; Bonus: Plus 2 if enemy token is one block away]
[2x]Shotgun [Value: 4; Bonus: Plus 2 if enemy token is one block away]
[1x]Sentry Level 1 [Value: 3]
[1x]Sentry Level 2 [Value: 5]
[1x]Sentry Level 3 [Value: 7]
[1x]Dispenser [Played with a sentry card, increases sentry value by 1]
Medic
[2x]Bone Saw [Value: 2; Bonus: Plus 5 if enemy token is in adjacent block]
[2x]Needlegun [Value: 3; Bonus: Plus 3 if enemy token is two blocks away]
[1x]Kritz [Divides opponent’s next card value by 2]
[1x]Ubercharge [Ends combat and allows the medic token a free move]
Sniper
[1x]Kukri [Value: 2; Bonus: Plus 5 if enemy token is in adjacent block]
[2x]Submachine Gun [Value: 4 ; Bonus: Plus 2 if enemy token is one block away]
[2x]Rifle [Value: 6; Bonus: Plus 1 if enemy token has been in range for more than one round]
[1x]Razorback [Divides opponent’s next card value by 2]
Spy
[2x]Knife [Value: 4; Bonus: Plus 4 if enemy token is in adjacent block]
[2x]Ambassador [Value: 4; Bonus: Plus 2 if enemy token is one block away]
[1x]Cloak [Ends combat and allows the spy token a free move]
[1x]Dead Ringer [Equal value to opponent’s card; Plus 1 value to the card played in the next round]
All Class Cards
[1x] Higher Ground [Play this card with another card to increase its value by 1]
[1x] Nearby Medic [Play this card with another card to increase its value by 2 – requires a team-mate medic token to be within own token’s range]
[1x] Found Ammo [Play this card with another card to increase its value by 2]
[5x] Teleporter [Player may use this card to jump his or her token from spawn to the position of the engineer on the board. Card is returned to the deck after use and player’s turn ends.]

Thanks specifically to Chippit who helped me out loads in designing the deck.

[Kharrak]

I'm really eager to see how this plays in execution. Particularly, the chess-like movement combined by card-combat may make things very interesting!

I do think it should remain 2-4 players though, splitting it up into anything more than four players will see each player may become bored as they wait to move their small selection of units.

[dammit]

First play test was a success! Interestingly enough, KotH worked a whole lot better than attempts at capturing the intelligence, which is mainly due to the board design.

So, what will be changing (over the weekend which is when I'll next have a free moment):
- Board design
- Move distances as well as bonus rolls
- Number of decks to increase to 2 (ie: one per team)
- Players no longer roll to select which token to move, it's simply the player's choice.

And a few other minor adjustments to rules.

[Fengol]

Don't forget to add images of the different movements in the rules doc :) Organised a group for this weekend to try it out

[dammit]

:o Awesome! New rules (as detailed as I can make them) will be up by the end of friday with new board too :D

[Fengol]

About the new movement and cards. I would like to suggest a couple of things.

1. At the start of your turn pick up a card and add it to your hand
2. Instead of rolling a die for double movement (which isn't in the real game) a player can play a class appropriate card to obtain double movement for their turn (simulating the soldier's rocket joke and demo's sticky jump)
3. If in another player's turn their character moves through your character's range you can play a class appropriate card to force them to engage in combat.
4. At the end of their turn the player must discard cards in their hand if they are over a certain limit.

All this gives your cards a lot more meaning outside of combat and also keeps them cycling through the deck. Of course there's a risk in using cards for extra movement in that you might not have enough for combat but at the same time extra movement is not abused if the other players have managed to keep enough cards to ambush you.

[dammit]

Sounds good, I'll give it all a good look over tomorrow. Thanks.

[dammit]

I've updated the first post with the new board design. It's quite a bit smaller than my first attempt. The changes were made mainly because getting into the opponents intel room was far too easy while getting to your own took forever. It was also too easy to avoid opponent tokens and thus combat. This should reduce these issues, though (like in everything) it needs testing!

[dammit]

New rule set now available (link in first post)! Game play should improve immensely though I might not have time to test it myself before the day we celebrate free stuff! Keep the ideas coming, though, and if you have time to try it lemme know how it goes!

Edit: Any suggestions on how I can make tokens? I'm thinking of simply a cardboard cut out image of the class with a little extra piece of cardboard at the bottom folded to make him stand. Anyone have any better ideas?

[Nandrew]

I prefer "coin-based" tokens, myself. They're less likely to get knocked over and crushed by a cat and/or sore loser.

[dammit]

hmm, fair point!

[AlgoRemtuti]

I think maybe Valve might sue you though, so perhaps change the name or something.

[dislekcia]

I think maybe Valve might sue you though, so perhaps change the name or something.

Please ignore this outburst of uselessness. If something does happen, it will always begin with letters, which you can then respond to instead of wasting time now that would be better spent elsewhere.

[dammit]

Small update: Minor adjustments made to the Spy Cards in the deck and I've uploaded the first decent drafts of the deck itself for printing purposes (if anyone feels so inspired) which can be found in the second post.

Still working on tokens and other issues.

[dammit]

Been play testing for the last hour (one game of capture the flag and we're both now sitting with 2 each) and thought I'd share some of the photos :)

The Setup


A Battle


In progress


EDIT: I'd be really keen to see how this works with 4 players. Who wants to volunteer?

[mgunit]

hey that looks fun, I'ma gna play it

[Nandrew]

Good point dammit, wasn't there originally an idea to get quite the crew together in Durbs? What happened to that? :P

I'll see what I can do about playing it while in Durban (jury's out on that, though: hell has broken loose in the past 48 hours and I'm suddenly sitting in a rather strained position).

Failing that, I'm sure that there will be volunteers if I manage to get to Cape Town halfway through the month. )

[dammit]

Christmas and New years holidays is what happened to the meet. Skink is also back home and not at res, so he's a bit further out for a meet right now. We'll definitely organise something though. Most probably next weekend. Hopefully I can get insomniac in too.

If you're going to CT, perhaps I can send a version of the game with you? Will save me paying for postage :P

[Nandrew]

Haha, yeah. I'll see when I'm going and maybe I can be the courier .:P