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Bryce K. Nielsen
United States
Elk Ridge
Utah
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If any of you follow Doom: The Boardgame, you may have seen that I am attempting to create a custom expansion for the game that adds an "Advanced Campaign", modeling after the Advanced Campaigns that were created for Descent: Journeys in the Dark, specifically Descent: The Road to Legend. The name of the expansion was settled on "And Hell Followed..." (hence the name of this blog), and quite a bit of progress was made to fleshing out the details of the expansion, including rules, many new custom cards (the idea was to make them printable via ArtsCow), new terrain features, overland maps, and rules. I want to chronicle all the progress made so far on the game, including a summary of how the game will play, and finally list out what needs to be accomplished in order to have a bare minimum game working.
And Hell Followed...
The Advanced Campaign for DOOM: The Boardgame, dubbed "And Hell Followed..." introduces a extended gameplay to the boardgame, meant to be played over multiple sessions. The marines and Invader players start relatively weak and restricted, and they grow with gear, weapons, more powerful invaders, among other things, as the game progresses. The marines are trying to keep back the invasion of demons into their world, and ultimately descending into Hell itself to fight the invader's avatar, a demon monster of hellish proportions. The Invader is corruption the world above and directly fighting the marines, attempting to overrun the world either by direct force or through evil plots.
Gameplay
While most of the core gameplay will be the same as what you experience in DOOM: The Boardgame, the Advanced Campaign expands upon the core ruleset in two major facets: marine invader progression, and the planetary map, or the "in-between" game, that details the many installations UAC has created in our solar system.
In the Advanced Campaign, their is an planetary map that the marines and the invader's lieutenants move on.
Planetary Map Prototype
On the map, there are sectors that the marine squad can explore, expelling the invader's forces setup there. One the marines are exploring a sector, the game plays very closely to the original game, where the map is setup and marines move on the squares to fight various invaders. The invader's invasion force starts on one of these locations (depending on the avatar the invader chose), spreading out death and corruption to take over humankind. As the game progresses, eventually the marines will enter the invader's avatar location and descend into Hell to fight this avatar and rid the world of his presence.
The game is played in "game weeks". On the overland map, during a Game Week, the following turns are taken:
- The Invader grows in strength, earning 1 Frag Token for every 2 Corrupted Outposts.
- The Invader purchases one upgrade (using his Experience).
- The Invader's Lieutenants do an action (move, corrupt an outpost, fight the marine squad).
- The Marine Squad does their action (move, train, explore a Sector).
The biggest change to "normal" game play is that instead of each mission having a set number of Frags the Invader Player has to achieve to win, every time a Marine is Fragged, the Invader keeps the Frag to be spent as Experience later on different upgrades. Each mission has specific objectives the Marines must accomplish, and in doing so they earn Accommodations that they can use later, spent as Experience on training for different Marine Cards.
The Invader, His Avatar and Lieutenants
The Invader Player choose an avatar, a powerful being that represents his physical form, and is the mind behind the invasion. This being controls the monsters spawning on the marines, and he has lieutenants
The Malwrath Avatar, his lieutenant the Pain Elemental, and his Avatar Specific upgrade cards.
Whenever the Invader Frags a Marine, he can use that Frag as Experience to spend on upgrades. His upgrades will allow him to spawn additional monsters, introduce powerful Lieutenants on the board, and upgrade his avatar in preparation for the final battle. He can also advance his chosen Plot, another way for the Invader player to win.
Marines, Accommodations, and Skill Trees
The Marine Players start the game with just one Marine Card, but as they search sectors and accomplish the goals of each sector (randomly drawn for each sector), they earn Accommodations which can be spent as Experience on training to earn additional Marine Cards. These cards must be learned in a specific order, following a skill tree.
Some new Marine Cards
Many new cards are added to the game, including the concept of Weapons Access. If a Marine ever finds a weapon he has not been given access to, in between the sectors he must turn it in. Marines can also increase
their Health Tokens as well as purchase improvements to the equipment they use (for traveling between planets or sectors).
In addition to Accommodations, the marines can earn Demerits if they fail to complete objectives. These act as negative Accommodations. Whenever the marines would earn an Accommodation, if they have any Demerits, rather than earning the Accommodation, they remove one Demerit.
Encounters
When the Marine Squad moves from a sector to another sector, there is a chance they will have an Encounter. The pathways on the Planetary Map indicate the chances of an encounter (not shown on the prototype map). The marines roll the number of dice indicated, and if the proper symbol appears, an Encounter occurs. First they draw the top Encounter card to see which monster they encountered. Then they draw the top Location card, setup the map, and start in the elevator.
A sample Encounter Card back and Location Card front.
The Encounter Card indicates the Leader that the marines must kill, and it also identifies what kind of invaders can be summoned during the encounter. Monsters are not spawned like in the normal game during Encounters, rather they appear on the Summoning Circle token, once per turn, ignoring line of sight, as long as the Leader is still alive. Once the marines kill the Leader and all remaining Invaders, they earn an Accommodation. The marines can flee at any time, but they earn a Demerit if they do. Also, in an Encounter, there is no respawning. If a Marine is fragged, he is out of the encounter until either the remaining marines have killed all monsters, fled, or been fragged themselves (at which point they return to the nearest Outpost).
Encounters In Hell
Traveling between the planets occurs at the different Outposts on the planets, and utilize an advanced Teleportation device. Ever since the rift from Hell has opened though, these devices have become risky. When the marines wish to travel from one Outpost to another, they check the Teleportation Rating of that outpost and roll that number of dice. If the right symbols appear, then the Teleportation device malfunctioned and the Marines have an Encounter In Hell!
Encounter In Hell card back
The Encounter In Hell card is similar to the Encounter and Location cards combined. The maps will have a starting point and an ending point, and the marines have two options: they can either flee, returning to the Outpost they were teleporting from, ending their game-week turn, or they can run to the other side of the map and exit that way, ending up at the Outpost they were attempting to teleport to.
Sector Levels
The marines have been commanded to explore all the sectors of the different installations through out the solar system. Whenever the marines move to a sector that they have not yet been to, they receive an Accommodation. They can then explore that sector. There are always 3 levels in a sector to explore. When exploring a new sector level, the marines draw a Sector Level card, which indicates which level they are exploring.
The Sector Level cards, back and a few sample fronts.
The card details the objectives of this specific level, any special features of this level, and which level number this is. Look up the level in the manual to see how to setup the map:
Sample Sector Levels
After setting up the map, the Marines start on the Elevator marker and the game plays similar to an original DOOM: The Boardgame game. After completing the objectives of the level, the marines return to the elevator and drop to the next level. If this is the 3rd level, the elevator returns the marines to the Planetary Map. The marines can flee a level at any time, but must suffer the consequences of doing so, usually failed objectives are either additional Frags for the Invader, and/or Demerits for the Marines.
End Game
Once the combined amount of Frags and Demerits reaches 100, the Eng Game commences. The Marines must first travel to the location where the rift began (specific to the invader's chosen Avatar) and find the rift into Hell. This is a specific map with its own specific objectives. Then, in hell, the marines must each battle any surviving Lieutenants, each having their own maps to work through. Finally, after all Lieutenants have been killed, the marines fight the Avatar himself in his Lair, a specific map for the chosen Avatar. During this last battle, if a Marine is fragged, he has been killed permanently. The game ends when either the Marines have all been fragged or the Avatar has been killed.
Other Aspects
Not mentioned above are the aspects of Lieutenants corrupting Outposts. If a Lieutenant spends a game week at an Outpost, he adds a corruption token. Once there are the same number of corruption tokens as the Outpost's sanity rating, the invader can roll to see if the outpost is corrupted. When an Outpost is corrupted, none of the skills or special abilities are available for the marines to train or use. If 5 Outposts are ever corrupted, the Invader immediately wins. The marines can attempt to remove the corruption of an Outpost by entering the Outpost and exploring its specific map. If they succeed, that outpost returns to normal usage.
Avatar Plots are another way the Avatar can win. In addition to corrupting outposts and harrassing the Marines, the Avatar chooses a specific plot at the beginning of the game, and is trying to accomplish this Plot's specific goals. If he does, he wins even before the Marines can enter Hell to kill him.
There are many new markers added to this game, from "NPCs" to Health Stations, Storage Lockers to Desks, Tables and Beds to Barricades. Here's a small sampling of what some of these new markers look like:
Remaining Tasks
This game has taken a lot to create, even at this stage. It's probably only about 50% complete right now, and there still a lot to work on, even if it's just to get a "beta" version out (i.e. enough of the game to be able to play with at least one Avatar).
The following items remain for me to complete:
- Sector Levels (I need to create about 20 more)
- Encounter Cards (I haven't even started those)
- Location Cards (I only have the one prototype above)
- Marine Skill Tree (I have a rough plan laid out, need to finalize it)
- Encounter In Hell cards/maps (haven't even started those)
- "Generic" Lieutenants (the three Hunter guys)
- Outpost Maps (for uncorrupting outposts)
- Avatar Sector Maps (the 1st map of the endgame)
- Lieutenant Lair Maps (the "middle" maps of the endgame)
- Avatar Lair Maps (the last map of the endgame)
- Plots (haven't done any of those)
- Details on the Planetary Map (more than just circles and lines)
Once I have most of the above list done, I can create a ZIP file that would be enough to Print-n-Play this variant. I intend to upload to ArtsCow a beta deck or two of cards for players to use, as well as have all the new tokens/markers available to print.
This has taken a LOT longer time than I originally anticipated, partly due to RL, partly due to other games grabbing my interest, and partly due to a fading desire. I still want to finish this but interest has waned enough that I rarely come back to working on it. I would like to thank everyone who has helped with the project (I've received many contributions for the Sector Level maps) as well as all the encouragement I've received over the (literally) years I've taken in getting this far. I will get this done, at some point...
-shnar
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