Thoughts on Board Games for NaGaDeMon

Well, my frenetic-as-usual mind is consumed with the idea of doing a NaGaDeMon game. I’ve got about twenty games flittering around my mind in various states of “is it soup yet?”. But for the November challenge I’ve settled on one of two likely candidates.

First is Merchants of Dornia, which is a board game where up to five or six players compete to earn the most gold by moving trade goods from one place to another, manipulating the prices by making some goods more abundant (and thus depressing prices) or more scarce (and raising prices). Add bandits and mercenaries to protect caravans against them, and I see the game playing out in my imagination. It would eventually be Eurogame-ish, have a big board and tokens or pawns/meeples/figures/whatever, but obviously nothing fancy in the next 30 days.

Second is The Torian War, which is a hex-and-counter wargame where two sides play out the invasion of one mythical country by another. It would be deliberately asymmetrical; the invaders need to conquer enough territory and strongholds to crush the will of the defenders, and the defenders need to stall them long enough to recruit enough peasants for their own guerrilla war to drive out the invaders, with the added complication of magic (compatible with ADD-compatible magic systems). Again, this is one I can visualize in my mind’s eye. It would be a wargame with simple enough mechanics to be a gateway game for RPGers to get into it as a possible way to resolve “domain” conflicts.

The question is, loyal readers, which sounds interesting to you (if any do)? A month’s not a lot of time, so I can’t do both. What do you think? Which deserves the attention it will take to get it over the finish line by November 30?

Written by 

Wargamer and RPG'er since the 1970's, author of Adventures Dark and Deep, Castle of the Mad Archmage, and other things, and proprietor of the Greyhawk Grognard blog.

3 thoughts on “Thoughts on Board Games for NaGaDeMon

  1. I like the Torian War concept. It reminds me of Axis & Allies where the Germans start strong, but will be overwhelmed by the Allies if they don't seize their advantage.

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